30 June 2012

Psalm 107:33-43, 108; Num. 20:14-29; Rom. 6:1-11; Matt. 21:1-11 

The Edomites, remember, are the descendants of Esau, Jacob’s brother.   He was the one whose birthright and blessing were stolen.  The Lord, however, was the one who had given these to Jacob.  This old rivalry seems to have festered for generations.  They refuse to allow the descendants of Jacob, the Israelites, to pass through their territory and come out with armies against them.  After this, Aaron too dies, Moses now remains the only member of his family still living, now alone as leader of the people.  It is interesting that Aaron’s punishment, not being allowed to enter the Land, is based on that same day at Meribah as Moses rather than for the episode of the golden calf.   

As Jesus comes into the city it is clear that the people are waiting this arrival.  All the disciple has to say is that the Lord needs the donkey and its colt and it will be given.  The people’s proclamation is Hosanna, Lord save us, and the name Jesus means the Lord saves.  The time has surely come for that salvation, for Jesus to take the throne of His father David, but, lurking in the background are the Pharisees, the religious elite, who don’t want saving and who ask who this is.  Surely they knew who it was.  Jesus’ entry is fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah and coming into town on a donkey was a declaration that He came in peace not war.  Would they receive Him in peace?   

While the law may have caused sin to abound and therefore grace, forgiveness through the sacrificial system of the law, abounded as well, that isn’t the point.  We know that indeed grace abounds but that is not license to sin in order to see more of grace.  Baptism is to be a burial of that sinful self to rise in new life in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are to be a new creation in Christ, living now in the kingdom.  The Spirit is given to lead us to righteousness.  We are to be dead to sin and alive to Christ.  We have already entered the Promised Land if we are in Jesus, let our lives now reveal the contours of life in the kingdom of God, seeking first the kingdom and His righteousness in thanksgiving for the grace we have received, allowing His perfect love to cast out fear and living in freedom.

29 June 2012

Psalm 102; Num. 20:1-13; Rom. 5:12-21; Matt. 20:29-34 

Miriam dies and now there is a problem of water again.  The people assemble against those whom God has chosen as their leaders and grumble once more.  Why do they not simply come and ask Moses to speak to the Lord about this matter?  Why do they always blame Moses rather than themselves?  Surely they could have some humility and take some responsibility for being in the wilderness this time.  It was their sin of unbelief, not Moses’ that had put them back in this place.  Now, however, Moses is told to speak to the rock and tell it to bring forth water and instead he says something like, here’s another sign for you, “we” will bring forth water from the rock and then strikes the rock twice.  He takes credit and then does magic that makes it appear that he has done this work, failing to mention the Lord.  His disobedience and presumption costs him the opportunity to lead the people into the promised Land.  His vaunted humility failed this time. 

Even as He goes up to Jerusalem to what He knows will be His suffering and death, Jesus is available to those who seek Him.  These two blind men recognize Him as “Lord” and “Son of David.”  Both these titles are Messianic.  They have given Him high praise and yet they are told to shut up by the crowd, just as the Pharisees will encourage Jesus to tell the crowds to be silent on Palm Sunday.  Instead, Jesus hears their pleas and asks what they want Him to do for them.  It seems an obvious thing, to heal their blindness, but they could also have been begging for money.  It is important that they make their request known specifically to Him.  The mercy they seek is the mercy they receive.  The crowd has ever more reason to acclaim Him and to believe they are on the cusp of something important as they accompany Him to Jerusalem for Passover.  You can bet the word of this spread ahead of His entry into the city. 

Often people believe it horribly unfair of the Lord to forbid Moses to lead the people into the land because of what he did at Meribah but the truth is that sin is sin.  Sin has consequences and we forfeit something when we sin.  Moses lost his ability to be God’s leader when he failed to lead as God told him to lead.  Jesus persevered in obedience to the end and so never sinned, He alone then is uniquely qualified to lead us into the true Promised Land.  The consequences of sin are no longer eternal, they are only temporal.  Adam’s sin brought death to the world  but only in the sense that it was now in our DNA, we are guilty of our own sin.  Jesus’ righteousness is imputed to us who have no righteousness.  He has indeed had mercy on us as He did the blind men, even though we would never have been presumptuous enough to ask for such a gift.

28 June 2012

Psalm 105:1-22; Num. 17:1-11; Rom. 5:1-11; Matt. 20:17-28 

What an incredible sign!  The staff belonging to Aaron, the stick for walking, not only buds, but flowers and brings forth ripe almonds overnight.  It has no root, no connection to nourishment at all, it isn’t possible, and yet it happens.  This is to be the once and for all sign that the Lord has chosen Aaron as the spiritual leader of the nation.  His line will be the one to provide the high priests for the nation in perpetuity.  Surely now this will put an end to the grumblings and jealousies that have beset Moses’ leadership over the past few lessons.  Odd that these particular rebellions began after two things: the naming of the other elders to help Moses and the sending of the spies isn’t it? 

Everyone wants position.  As Jesus tells them what will happen when they go to Jerusalem, the mother of James and John comes with her sons in tow and asks that they be at his right and left hand when Jesus takes the throne.  This would indicate that they were His most trusted advisors and it seems that at the last supper John was at Jesus’ side as He tipped that the one who dips in the cup with Jesus is the betrayer.  The truth is, as we see in Revelation 5 and in the Transfiguration, no one is fit to be at the right and left of Jesus, He is unique in all of heaven and earth.  Once again, Jesus is forced to explain what it means to be a leader in His kingdom, one who serves.  We continue to seek out positions for ourselves that exalt us in spite of the repeated admonition of Jesus.  It is always a temptation to be like the world. 

We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, no one else. Through Him we have obtained access to grace.  He died for the ungodly, while we were yet sinners.  We are justified by His blood, and will be saved by Him from God’s wrath.  His death reconciled us with God and His life is what saves us.  He is also the source of our rejoicing.  What position is left for us?  If the sign of Aaron’s staff was remarkable, how much more so the resurrection of Jesus?  Our place in the kingdom is worshipper and servant.  Let us carry out those two things without worrying about place and position in the church or the kingdom.

27 June 2012

Psalm 101, 109; Num. 16:36-50; Rom. 4:13-25; Matt. 20:1-16

Can you believe it?  The people came out and accused Moses and Aaron the very next day.  They are accused of killing the people of the Lord, the three who led the revolt and those who had offered incense.  Just as Moses was hearing from the Lord concerning the censers of those killed the day before, they come and make their complaint known.  It is incredible that such could happen, particularly so soon after they had seen for themselves that the Lord was with Moses.  Amazingly, Moses and Aaron immediately drop to their faces in intercession for their accusers but the wrath of the Lord is already breaking out.  Moses tells Aaron to intercede for the people, the very ones who have come against him, just as Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” and just as Stephen prayed for those who were stoning him.  We are to emulate these. 

Jesus continues the message of the last will be first and the first will be last.  Those hired earlier in the day have developed a sense of entitlement and superiority to those chosen later in the day, they believe themselves to be more special than these others as they have labored longer for the owner.  We easily develop this same sense of entitlement and superiority the longer we serve, we forget that it was grace in the beginning, grace in the middle and grace in the end.  We forget we were chosen for no reason other than God chose us and it is grace that kept us safe thus far and grace ‘twill lead us home.  We have added nothing to the equation no matter how long we have served, God does as He wills and if He chooses to reward those chosen last with the same reward as those who have long served, it is His prerogative, let us always celebrate the grace we have received. 

It is interesting that Paul can say that Abraham’s faith did not waver when he considered his age and the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.  Certainly he and Sarah laughed when they heard the promise that in a year she would conceive and bring forth a son, whom they called Isaac, laughter.  Wavering faith and failed faith are different things, they did consider that, however unlikely, nothing was impossible for God, and they saw the fruit of the promise in the birth of the child.  It was grace alone which brought forth this child, he was a child of promise, received by faith with joy.  Dare we have faith in what God has promised to us, even if, for all the world, it looks as though it is impossible?  Let us walk humbly in our faith in all things.

26 June 2012

Psalm 97, 99; Num. 16:20-35; Rom. 4:1-12; Matt. 19:23-30

Surely now everyone will understand that Moses is God’s chosen leader of the people and the rest will stand down.  It is amazing to me that there were continual challenges to Moses after all the Lord had done through Him and all the signs that had been given.  Where were Korah, Dathan and Abiram when the Lord called Moses on the mountain and gave him the tables of the Law?  The presumption of these men is remarkable and yet it is a constant problem in the church.  We see it in our movement today and in every move of the Spirit that I know of we see this same pattern.  Leadership of God’s people requires humility, it is not a path to greatness.  The Lord is the true leader and chooses whom He will to be His representative as leader. 

Had the disciples left everything to follow Jesus in the hopes of receiving worldly treasure and thrones?  It would actually seem that this was the case, their motives were not to seek the heavenly reward.  They understood that if a man had much, a Jewish man, it was due to the blessing of God in his life and they are scandalized when Jesus says it is actually nigh on to impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom.  If the rich, who have God’s blessing, cannot enter, how can anyone then get in?  That same mentality prevails in the church today in many cases, wealth is taken to be a sign of God’s blessing.  This passage would certainly seem to indicate that there is no definite correlation between the two.  If we have followed Jesus in order to escape suffering in this world we have followed the wrong man. 

What was the blessing Abraham received?  It was not the Land nor was it the fulfillment of many children, it was a cave in the Land in which Sarah was buried and one child yet Abraham believed God would do as He promised, even before he left to go to the land and even before Isaac was born.  These all were received by faith, not by sight.  Abraham’s faith was tested over those long years of waiting for the birth of a son and that faith wavered in first offering Eleazar as heir and then in the plot to bring forth a son with Hagar, but the Lord had already justified Abraham that day when he first believed.  Once justified, Abraham didn’t lose that justification when faith wavered, it was sealed in circumcision.  The blessing of Abraham was the certain knowledge he possessed that God would do according to His promise whether Abraham saw it in his eyes or not.  Our blessings are stored up in heaven, we know they will be ours because of our faith in Jesus’ sacrifice and in His resurrection.

25 June 2012

Psalm 89:1-18; Num. 16:1-19; Rom. 3:21-31; Matt. 19:13-22

What in the world is going on?  Why would these men, these Levites, suddenly challenge Moses and Aaron after all the time they have spent leading them, after all the signs given through them?  They are angry that Moses has told them that the Lord is not bringing them into the Land.  The people rebel against Moses’ leadership and His chosenness.  It is relatively common in the church today to see the same things happen and it is heartbreaking.  Had Moses lorded his position over anyone?  We have already been told of his great humility and we also know that in all things they were following the pillars of cloud and fire, there should have been no doubt Moses was simply following the Lord.  The Levites decide there is glory to be had in the priesthood when in fact it is nothing more than a specific type of service rendered to the Lord on behalf of the congregation.  The rest of the tribes are to be about their business while these others are set apart for the work of the Lord, they are called to be those to whom He speaks to the assembly.  If we fail to understand the leaders as servants we will always have a problem with seeking it as a place of honor.  The disciples had the same idea about leadership as these, who will be greatest, where will we sit in relation to the kingly throne. 

The disciples rebuked the people for bringing the children to Jesus and yet Jesus wanted them to come to Him.   This passage is part of the rationale for baptizing children in our tradition.  The reality is that He says to such belongs the kingdom, so we don’t hinder children from receiving baptism.  Does that mean all who receive it are saved and regenerate?  Not at all, just as Jesus says that some will come claiming to have done great things in His Name and He will say, “I never knew you.”  Children can receive the kingdom and so we do not hinder any child of believing parents who covenant to bring the child up in the Christian faith and life from receiving baptism.  The rich young man wants to know what he can do to receive the kingdom, Jesus rightly says there is none good but the Father, we don’t know good apart from Him.  The good deed to which Jesus calls the man, selling everything and following Him as a disciple, is too great a sacrifice, it is too good, the things of earth look too good to give away in exchange for this offer.  He won’t give up the good for the best. 

Grace is the gift, faith is the means of receiving it.  Grace, unmerited favor, sets apart Christianity from other religions, makes no sense to the world.  We want to ask, what’s the catch, what do I need to do to deserve it.  Faith, believing that Jesus was righteous, His sacrifice was acceptable to the Father, that His death atones for our sin and that His resurrection means we will live with Him eternally, is required to receive the gift.  Faith, however, is not a work but is itself a gift.  God does all the work, we don’t, but we have to believe to receive.  The gift may be free to us but it cost Jesus everything and reception calls us to do what the rich young man could not, to be truly cut free from anything and everything in this life to follow Jesus, take up our cross and follow. 

24 June 2012

Psalm 66, 67; Num. 14:26-45; Acts 15:1-12; Luke 12:49-56

The Lord swears that this generation will not enter the Land but their children will indeed possess the Land.  The men who brought the report that caused the people to fear and rebel against the Lord die by plague.  The people lacked faith, even after the signs in Egypt, the Red Sea, the provision and protection of the Lord in the wilderness, the revelation at Sinai, and the other signs they were given.  Are they really that different from us?  The problem with grumbling or murmuring is that they should have directed their words to the Lord rather than talking “behind His back” to one another.  We are called to trust no matter what the situation looks like to our eyes, we cannot properly judge things, we think we know “good” but our judgment is lacking, it is fallen and it is incomplete because we only see what is before us, He sees those things we speak of in the creed as either invisible or unseen.  We must rely on Him if we are to make right judgments. 

How do we interpret the times?  Jesus says we lack true judgment, that we can know the weather based on the signs but these cannot know the times because they don’t understand the signs He has given them.  They believe that Messiah will usher in an era of peace but in fact He has come to bring division and indeed He did and does cause division in families.  From the beginning of His ministry there was a division of opinion about Him, some thought He was Messiah while others accused Him of being a demonic presence.  There will always be division over Jesus until the end of times when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord.  Until that time we are told to expect opposition and misunderstanding about Him and therefore about those who confess Him as Savior and Lord.  No one claims He was a bad man but our confession of Him is as God and man, the only Name given under heaven by which we might be saved and all who do not put their trust in Him will not have eternal life in and with Him.  That confession causes division. 

The Gospel that Paul has preached has caused division and it seems that some in the church who were of the Pharisees’ party still weren’t getting the message.  They believed that salvation was Jesus plus circumcision plus the law of Moses.  Paul’s preaching was Christ alone, faith alone, grace alone.  There was nothing added to Jesus’ work, He had already fulfilled the Law on our behalf if we have faith in Him.  His righteousness is credited to us by God’s grace and made operative in our lives by faith.  That transaction is sealed by the giving of the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth and to righteous living.  The promise made through Jeremiah of writing the Law on the hearts of His people was complete, so if we have circumcised hearts why do we need any other type of circumcision?  Right judgment requires the Holy Spirit.

23 June 2012

Psalm 87, 90; Num. 13:31-14:25; Rom. 3:9-20; Matt. 19:1-12 

It has been a long time since anyone mentioned the Nephilim, those giants of old.  The spies clearly exaggerate the dangers that the people represent, once the conquest of the land is begun these Nephilim never appear again.  Not only that, but the spies know how they appear in the eyes of these giants.  Because of Moses’ prayer, in keeping with the Lord’s own self-revelation on Sinai, the people are forgiven their unbelief but sin has a price.  From the start that has been the pattern, forgiveness but there is a penalty.  Here it is that they have reached the edge of the land and now are forced to turn back to the Red Sea, where He delivered them from Pharaoh.  They go back towards Egypt but while this generation lives they will live within certain fixed boundaries, the place of remembering the goodness of the Lord and His power to deliver them on one side and the Land of Promise that was their unfaithfulness and failure to trust Him on the other. 

Who does Jesus say allowed divorce because of hardness of heart?  Moses.  He appeals not to Moses but to Genesis 2, to God’s attitude towards marriage.  God’s intention and plan have never changed with respect to marriage, even if the church’s attitude has.  Jesus does allow for divorce on the basis of adultery, or sexual immorality, but He does not accept the idea of “for cause” proposed here.  Moses accommodated the reality of a sinful world but God’s standards haven’t changed simply because of the reality of sin, righteousness doesn’t change because people’s standards change.  The boundaries are fixed from the beginning, not as we go along.  Process theology says that God changes as time moves on and mores change, this passage clearly contradicts that idea. 

Are the Jews righteous simply by virtue of being Jews?  Paul goes to the prophets to refute that suggestion.  The Lord has spoken that no one is righteous and that no one seeks Him.  No one, Paul says, is justified by the law, it serves the opposite purpose, it reveals sin not righteousness of mankind.  Seeking Him matters because it is in seeking Him that we find real, true righteousness.  Jesus revealed true righteousness and we crucified Him in the belief that He was a blasphemer, an unrighteous man.  We proved what we think of the God, as He said in that first passage, we detest Him.  Without the Holy Spirit, we indeed do detest our creator but with the Holy Spirit we are brought under conviction and we can indeed love both Him and His righteousness.  We can then come into agreement with the Psalmist, “Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure.  The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”

22 June 2012

Psalm 88; Num. 13:1-3,21-30; Rom. 2:25-3:8; Matt. 18:21-35 

(The omitted portion of the Old Testament lesson is the list of the names of the spies.)

The Lord  commands Moses to send spies into the land and they come back with a mixed report.  On the one hand, the land is indeed flowing with milk and honey.  On the other, the people groups who live there are large and they have fortified cities, they won’t be conquered easily.  The people want no part of battle, they have been slaves, not soldiers.  Caleb does his best to quiet the people’s fears and doubts.  The mission God gives is never something we can do ourselves or in our own strength, if we undertake what we are able to do in our own power we will never have the joy of seeing God do His work.  He knew how this would turn out, they weren’t prepared to walk in faith at this level.  It was still too easy to go back to Egypt. 

Forgiveness is to be our way of life.  We are to live as Jesus died, arms wide open to embrace those who have sinned against us, praying for the Father to forgive them, ready to reconcile.  That usually isn’t my first response, or my second.  It takes time when someone has hurt us to be prepared to reconcile.  Unfortunately, rarely does anyone take responsibility for their sin.  In my experience it is uncommon.  The servant has no choice but to affirm this massive debt to his master, it is an inconceivable amount to owe anyone.  The forgiveness he receives on this debt is, likewise, unimaginable.  It is important for us to recognize the vast debt we owe to the Lord that has been forgiven in order to become a people who are able and willing to extend forgiveness.  It takes faith to forgive, the faith that our own sins have been wiped out. 

Is righteousness simply acknowledging Jesus as Messiah?  It would certainly seem to be a corollary to Paul’s argument that if circumcision on its own means nothing without living according to the law then baptism without righteous living is meaningless.  Life means something.  I am reading NT Wright’s book, “When God  Became King” just now and his central thesis is that we as Christians too often overlook the life of Jesus, we care about the virgin birth, the atoning death on the cross, and the resurrection but we don’t pay much attention to His life.  His life, however, reveals to us the contours of righteousness and the contours of our own lives, He has shown us how to live in faith and righteousness.  We need that example in order to not make the mistakes God’s people have always made, we need to know how life is supposed to be lived in a sinful world.  We need to learn to live beyond our fears and doubts.

21 June 2012

Psalm 34; Num. 12:1-16; Rom. 2:12-24; Matt. 18:10-20 

Moses has married a Cushite woman?  Because of this he is vulnerable to Miriam and Aaron’s reproof.  The choosing of the elders to receive the Spirit is also likely at work here as these others now have new standing in the leadership of the community while Miriam and Aaron have other roles.  They now come claiming their own rightful places in leadership.  As the Lord makes abundantly clear to all, however, Moses’ relationship with Him is different.  Moses doesn’t fight the battle, he is too humble (not meek) to make such claims for himself, but the Lord says that others might get dreams and visions but Moses hears directly, conversing as a friend.  In spite of Moses’ plea for Miriam’s healing, the Lord is doing something here and that means she needs, with Aaron, to be humbled to be restored properly. 

Jesus gives us instructions for how to deal with interpersonal sin in the church.  The goal is reconciliation but that is also based in truth.  We are to keep personal matters personal in an attempt to reconcile without the community forming an opinion.  If this fails, we are to take a couple of others to hear the matter and help with the issue.  If there is no repentance at that level we take it to the church.  If there is no repentance there, we put the person outside the body.  All sins aren’t dealt with this way.  We have to be careful to define what constitutes such sin and we have to always have reconciliation as the ultimate goal.  The person needs to know that this isn’t a witch hunt but a true desire to forgive based on truth.  Remember that this is how we deal with sin among believers, we don’t turn the other cheek and allow it, we deal with it in the hopes that change will happen in the person’s life and actions. 

We must be careful in judging others.  That isn’t to say we shouldn’t do it, but we should always do so with great humility, recognizing ourselves to be sinners in need of grace.  Paul says that some of the law is easy to see in the created order and when Gentiles see and do that which fits with that order, they acknowledge the law and its righteousness.  Paul never condemns the law, he has simply become a realist rather than believing it is possible to be righteous under the law.  Humility is the great virtue of Christians, it keeps us from presumption, self-righteousness, or asserting our own prominence in the kingdom.  I wish there were more of it in the church, myself included.

20 June 2012

Psalm 119:97-120; Num. 11:24-35; Rom. 1:28-2:11; Matt. 18:1-9 

(Once again my editorial comment is that the Episcopal church chooses to leave out two verses in the lectionary, verses 26 and 27, here they are:  “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; ²⁷ and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”  Apparently they don’t agree with Paul’s judgment here concerning homosexuality and haven’t since 1979 when this Prayer Book was issued.  The agenda was at work earlier than most people realize.) 

The issue that was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Moses was food, their craving for meat.  As a carnivore, I certainly understand that craving well, but the craving wasn’t the problem so much as their method for getting it, complaining about God’s lack of provision rather than asking for it.  Moses can take no more and so God gives him help, taking some of the Spirit given to Moses and giving it to the elders chosen by Moses but also revealing His own sovereignty over the people by giving it to others not chosen by the people.  The amount of dead quail here is stunning, three feet deep for a day’s walk all around the camp and they gathered constantly for two solid days, gathering 60 bushels apiece.  Why had the quail died, was this the reason for the plague?  Had God provided these quail or did they simply take it up?   

Humility,  not seeking to be great, is the key to greatness.  Is that some sort of Zen saying?  Jesus showed the way to greatness was to humble Himself to be like us that we might receive His Spirit and become like Him.  The great condescension of God becoming man that we might take on His life is the most amazing thing in the Gospel story to me.  It is the most amazing thing that has ever happened in human history.  God’s love, His concern for our lives, us who live on a little planet in a little solar system in a smallish galaxy in an enormous universe, is unbelievable without the Holy Spirit being given us.  That truth is humbling, or should be.  If we took Jesus’ instructions re those parts that cause temptation, what would we look like today?  Most, if not all of us, would be maimed, blind, deaf, and unable to function.  Thanks be to God that we can get forgiveness but we need to say no to temptation more often. 

My editorial comment should not work against the reality that homosexuality is not singled out as the worst sin.  It is a sin, the Episcopal church leaving out those verses notwithstanding, but those next verses convict all of us, “evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”  As Paul will say later, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  What then shall we do, lose heart or have faith in Jesus and glory in His Name?  Again, with Jesus, Paul tells us to struggle against temptation because we are guilty of sin and prone to sin.  We don’t possess in our flesh the righteousness God has accounted to us, we must now, because of His great kindness to us, work for righteousness in our lives, hating sin and denying ourselves.  Our works don’t save us but they prove our faith.

19 June 2012

Psalm 78:1-39; Num. 11:1-23; Rom. 1:16-25; Matt. 17:22-27 

So fish cost nothing in Egypt and they had it made.  Memories are truly short aren’t they?  Forgotten is the bitter slavery and mistreatment, remembered are the delicacies of Egypt and now they were free.  Perhaps they caught them in the Nile, but what difference does that make, nothing costs anything in the wilderness.  This is the last straw as far as Moses is concerned.  He can do nothing about the complaint and all the people are standing in the doors of their tents weeping and wailing because they want meat. Is their complaint unreasonable?  Moses has only one thing to do, pray and ask the Lord, but he doesn’t, he quits, he lays the people down, distancing himself from them.  The Lord has mercy on him by giving him seventy elders to help with the work.  Moses lacks faith that the Lord can provide meat for this multitude, just like the disciples lack the faith Jesus can feed the five thousand.  Faith is always the needful thing. 

Peter surely knew better than to say that Jesus paid the temple tax.  Jesus’ response to him concerning his duplicity was to make an extraordinary claim.  He need not pay the temple tax because he is the son of the One worshipped at the temple.  Jesus provides the money for the tax by sending Peter to do a little fishing.  Surely that idea sounded strange to Peter, it was going to require faith.  Peter knew how to fish but he fished with a net not a hook and line.  He must have felt like an idiot standing on the bank, casting a line in the hope that it would help him catch a fish with a shekel in its mouth but we have to believe he did.  He got not only a lecture but also an incredible sign, a fish that was even better than free. 

Paul felt no shame in the Gospel, a Gospel that has the potential for shame indeed.  It is a strange concept and always has been that Jesus was God, was born of a virgin and died on a cross to be bodily resurrected on the third day.  It flies in the face of reason and requires faith to believe.  Stranger still is that all this brings eternal life for those who believe and that is a free gift of God.  If we do not believe and put our faith in Jesus, we receive God’s wrath.  The Gospel demands we stop trying to do it ourselves, that there is nothing we can do, partly because we have the whole thing wrong from the start, and that we receive grace, unmerited favor.  Paul says that wisdom is displayed in faith, that those who fail to live by faith end up perverting everything that is common sense and plain to them.  There may be no such thing as a free lunch but free is the word for grace.  It will, however, cost you this other life to gain the life of God.

18 June 2012

Psalm 80; Num. 9:15-23, 10:29-36; Rom. 1:1-15; Matt. 17:14-21 

I know they were in the wilderness and not in the Land but there is something appealing about this image of following the pillar of cloud and fire.  Just to know you were where you were supposed to be and that God would be there too is comforting, even if you’re in a desert place.  I doubt that I would be able to rest in that for very long, I would be impatient to get to the Land.  What a sight this must have been to see an enormous caravan of people, more than 600,000 of them with whatever animals they kept, moving as one with a gigantic pillar of cloud during the day and fire at night leading their movements.  God wants that with the church and it requires abiding, it requires prayer and seeking Him.   

The disciples have done remarkable things but they don’t have the faith to heal this particular boy.  In another version of the story Jesus says that this kind only comes out with prayer.  Why do they lack faith?  Perhaps the reason is that they have misplaced faith, they are too reliant on their belief in themselves and haven’t depended on the Lord.  The more they try the more desperate and faithless they become and ultimately they are unable to do anything at all.  The only thing I don’t like about this story is the application some make with respect to healing.  I have seen similar situations where people blame the parent of the sick child for not having enough faith or they put the blame on the person praying.  God doesn’t heal in all cases, we cannot make such judgments without a very specific revelation from the Lord.  We need to learn to move with the Spirit if we will see healings. 

Paul is thankful for the faith of the church at Rome which he says is known all over the world.  In spite of that, Paul believes he has something to offer them and he also wants to visit that their faith may be mutually encouraged.  It is important to leaders to have their faith encouraged by the people of God, it is not a one way transaction.  The heart of a leader is greatly blessed by the knowledge that the people he is given to lead are growing in their faith and that the leader’s work is bearing fruit in the lives of the people.  The greatest joy a leader knows is not being told he preached a good sermon, it is when what is sown bears fruit, we need to hear what God is doing in one another’s lives in order to see the pillar of cloud and fire.

17 June 2012

Psalm 93, 96; Num. 6:22-27 ; Acts 13:1-12 ; Luke 12:41-48 

To have the blessing of God and the peace of God is a powerful thing that we mostly take for granted and treat like a Hallmark card sentiment.  At the end of our worship I say, “The blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be upon you and remain with you always.”  Liturgically I rarely give it much thought but the reality is that those are truly powerful words if they convey that blessing.  The blessing of God is for fruitful lives.  When He blesses it is always for fruitfulness, that the person or thing would bear the fruit it was intended to bear.  We ask His blessing on our food that it would nourish our bodies.  Jesus blessed the meager food He had when He fed the multitudes and He blessed the bread and wine at the Last Supper.  Aaron’s benediction is to reveal to the people what it means to be God’s people.  Let us receive it with gratitude and humility but receive its power. 

“Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.”  We have been entrusted much if we know Jesus and confess Him as Savior and Lord.  Peter says that the Gospel includes “the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.”  Jesus said, “many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”  In the witness of the Holy Spirit then we have been entrusted with things neither the angels nor the prophets of old had known.  We have also been blessed for fruitfulness. What hinders the kingdom from advancing? We have a responsibility for what we have been given. 

Paul deals with a false prophet, one who opposes the Gospel because of the power he currently possesses.  Luke tells us that Paul looked intently at the man and then pronounced concerning his true nature, “son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy…”  His sentence, blindness.  Paul perhaps saw himself in this man and knew what a bit of blindness could do for him.  Paul formerly opposed the Gospel and blindness for a few days did a good bit for him when the Lord restored his sight.  We walk in power over the forces of darkness and evil, we should not cower in fear or fail to fight the battle.  We have more power than they.

16 June 2012

Psalm 75, 76; Num. 3:1-13; Gal. 6:11-18; Matt. 17:1-13 

The priesthood was an inherited privilege, the sons of Aaron were the priests.  What amounts to the diaconate was also an inherited privilege.  The sons of the tribe of Levi were those who provided temple services, assisting the priests in worship and maintenance of the temple.  These belong to the priests and to the Lord who takes them for His service as a tithe of sorts of the people.  The people were to be a kingdom of priests serving the Lord but the Aaronic priesthood and the Levites served the Lord by serving the people.  There should not have been nor should there be an idea of religious hierarchy in the sense that some are more important to the Lord.  If we are all priests then some simply have different roles and different parishes.  Some serve the household of God while others serve Him in other ways but all alike are servants. 

Jesus isn’t like Moses and Elijah, He is altogether different.  If Peter knew Jesus was the Son of God, he didn’t get the distinction between Jesus and these men.  Jesus was a man but He was more than a man.  He was both the Son of David and the Son of God at the same time.  The reality of His person is revealed here in that the glory of God, the Shekinah glory which we see in Exodus 40 and 1 Kings 8 when the tabernacle and temple are dedicated and inhabited by the Lord.  That same glory shines forth from every fiber of Jesus’ being and the voice proclaims that Jesus is the one to whom they are to listen, everything else is understood through Him.  In the new creation we see this vision as Jesus as the lamp through which the glory of the Lord shines.  We don’t reject Moses and Elijah, we understand them in light of Jesus.   

Those who are confusing the Galatians are those who have essentially refused to accept the pre-eminence of Jesus.  They see Him as addition to the existing structure rather than its fulfillment.  They have not seen Him fully transfigured, they still place Him alongside Moses and Elijah.  Circumcision of the flesh was superseded by the circumcision of the heart as promised in Jeremiah and other prophets and as fulfilled at Pentecost and since in the giving of the Spirit.  Do we put our trust solely and completely in Jesus or are we still thinking like these?  Do you know that your salvation is through grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone?  If you lack that certainty it may be that you’re still thinking about being good enough.  You aren’t but He is.

15 June 2012

Psalm 69; Eccles. 11:9-12:14; Gal. 5:25-6:10; Matt. 16:21-28 

“Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”  The book ends with an admonition to enjoy youth while it lasts, old age is no picnic.  Indeed, the naivete of youth is a wondrous thing in retrospect.  Dreams have not been dashed, reality has not destroyed the hopes of youth.  Life is hard, things happen that cannot be reconciled with the way things ought to be and yet we need not become cynical about life, we can continue to be idealists in the face of sinful reality.  We believe that He is indeed making all things new. 

Peter is the first to confess aloud that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah and yet he believes that he knows a bit better than Jesus concerning some things.  Jesus tells them of things that will be but Peter decides Jesus is misguided here and sets about the task of correcting His theological understanding.  Jesus’ response is to sharply rebuke him, referring to Peter as satan.  It was indeed a similar temptation to the one offered at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, glory without pain, a kingdom without a cross, and Jesus sees it for what it was, satan using one close to Jesus to propose this path once again.  We too must understand our lives and our mission as one of taking up a cross and following Him, from the start of His ministry to the end, Jesus promised it wouldn’t be easy, there would be persecution and difficulty.  He says also that when He comes with the angels He will repay each person for “what he has done.”  Does that mean salvation is works based?  What about grace?  James is right, what we do reveals what we truly believe.  Works don’t save us but they do reveal our hearts.  Our lives should testify to what we believe and if they don’t, can we say that we believe? 

Paul says we are to bear one another’s burdens but each is to bear his own load.  A load was defined as what one person could carry on his/her own while a burden was excess baggage.  We need to learn the difference between the two.  Too often in the church and in society we allow people to dump their loads on one another, thereby creating burdens for others.  Paul also ties life to belief, what we sow refers to how we live.  We are to do good to all, especially those who are of the household of faith.  In this way, we live into Jesus’ words that those who do the will of God are the ones He will call mother, sister, brother.  As we do good especially to our family, so we do for those closest to us and that then overflows to loving the world. 

14 June 2012

Psalm 71; Eccles. 11:1-8; Gal. 5:16-24; Matt. 16:13-20 

The ways of God, and therefore, the ways of earth, are inscrutable.  We are to use common sense in this life but things that make perfect sense don’t always turn out the way they should.  Since sin entered the world it is less orderly, less predictable, we need the wisdom of God, His counsel, now more than in the beginning for this very reason.  We cannot make truly right judgment based on our own wisdom and knowledge alone, there are variables, unpredictability, that we can never anticipate.  Solomon knows these things and is coming to the conclusion that if we are to make right judgments we need heavenly guidance and wisdom.  We cannot even truly judge whether a thing is good or bad for we only see in part concerning the thing whereas God alone sees the future and knows truly whether the thing is ultimately good or not.  We are to do our best here and in all things know that God will determine the outcome of all things.  Luther wrote, concerning ethics, “Sin boldly but love God more.”  His argument understood that sin was inevitable because of the reality of the fall, we are incapable of completely altruistic motives, so we should choose the right or best action and move forward boldly in and for the love of God.  Solomon would agree here that we are to use the best information available to us, act on it, and leave the rest to the Lord. 

Why did Jesus ask the disciples who He was and then charge them not to tell anyone?  The one thing they would all have wanted to tell everyone is that they had been right to hitch their wagons to Him, He was indeed the Messiah and He said so Himself.  As always in the Gospels, the time had not yet come for such proclamation, His work was not complete and the world had to first conclude that He was not the Messiah but instead a pretender.  Abraham and his family had to wait 400+ years to inherit the Promised Land because the Canaanites sin was not yet complete and had not filled the land with abomination, the time had not yet come.  Until the sin of rejection of Messiah had come He had not finished the work, there was still the opportunity to accept Him on His merits.  Common sense and man’s judgment had to come based on evidence not testimony and in the end it would find against God.  Right judgment failed. 

Walk by the Spirit.  That is the one thing needful in this life if we are to serve Him and glorify Him.  If we walk by the flesh we will consistently fail to make right judgments and take right action.  We have that spirit available to us that Solomon had when he walked in true wisdom but he chose to follow the flesh and strayed from wisdom.  Those characteristics Paul speaks of in verses 19-21 as works of the flesh describe the world around us.  We are to be different from the world and yet too often the world sees exactly those same things in the church.  How are you doing on crucifying the passions and desires of the flesh?  I have a long way to go.

13 June 2012

Psalm 72; Eccles. 9:11-18; Gal. 5:1-15; Matt. 16:1-12 

Stuff happens that doesn’t make sense, that is the way of the world.  Solomon must have been a betting man and learned a few lessons thereby.  He learned that sometimes things don’t turn out the way you would expect, natural ability differences don’t always determine outcomes.  He has seen that there are things in the world that don’t operate as you would expect and concluded that life isn’t the way it should be.  Sin changes things, it means that the world isn’t as predictable as it should be.  In the end, wisdom is preferable to folly but it too has its limitations so therefore cannot be the “be all, end all” or summum bonum of this life. 

Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.  How could the disciples have possibly misunderstood this to mean bread?  It is not an easy saying to interpret it but it seems the least likely interpretation, especially after the feeding that just occurred, would be that it had something to do with literal bread.  So what is the leaven of these two groups?  They had very little in common even though they made up the leadership of the people.  The two groups had some significant theological differences and yet here they find a common “enemy” in Jesus, demanding a sign to authenticate His ministry, even after He has fed the multitudes after healing many of them.  Their leaven is to always doubt, always control through religion.  Jesus used the sign of Jonah, three days gone from life, as a perfect symbolism for them.  They had their own agenda, just like Jonah, and God couldn’t do enough to win him over.  They are acting like Jonah and their attitudes will carry over into the people as well. 

The Galatians are being led back to the law. Legalism is the leaven of the Pharisees.  Circumcision isn’t an issue of health, it is a submission to the demands of the old covenant and in submitting to this they have placed themselves outside of grace and gone to works.  The old covenant was based in grace but religion had obscured that reality.  Grace was found in the sacrificial system which harkened back to Genesis 3 when an animal died rather than the two humans who had sinned.  Forgiveness, the continuation of life, was possible and relationship could be restored between God and sinners.  Unfortunately, what they had done was to believe that righteousness could be achieved and that those who transgressed were without hope.  Jesus showed that righteousness was actually not something that could be achieved until true righteousness was understood.  His life, His righteousness, revealed true righteousness and we know that we need more grace than we ever realized but in the cross we see that all the grace we need is available to us.  That is true wisdom.