28 February 2013

Psalm 71; Jer. 4:9-10,19-28; Rom. 2:12-24; John 5:19-29

We hear Jeremiah's reaction to the judgment of God on Jerusalem.  He has no pride in being right in his prophecy, he is in pain and anguish.  Only one who loves the people and loves the city of God can experience such pain.  Jeremiah cares deeply for the people and yet he cares more for the Lord.  He is a man caught betwixt and between, he has not emotionally or spiritually separated himself from the nation, he is one of them and what he now sees is horrible.  Verses 23-26 hearken back to the beginning of creation, Genesis 1.2, the heavens and earth are created but the earth is formless and void, there is no light, no animal life, no humans.  The devastation of the nation is so great that these images are the only ones that will suffice.  The prophet has seen the fierce anger of the Lord, and he knows this is the penalty for sin, it is not unjust, it is, however, horrific.

About ten years ago a bishop of the church wrote a polemic to say what was wrong with the church and how it needed to change in order to be relevant in a world that was dominated by scientific knowledge, a knowledge that he believed in so much that the Bible was obsolete as it was in conflict with science.  One of the things he thought needed to be done away with was the idea that God continued to act in space and time, particularly in any way that contradicted what we "know" is possible, i.e. the miraculous.  Jesus, however, says the Father is continuing to work and Jesus did those things He saw the Father doing.  The Father was healing and Jesus simply was an agent.  More than that, He clearly claims equality with God, just as the Father judges and gives life, so the Son does.  Failure to honor the Son is equivalent to failing to honor the Father.  These are remarkable claims, offensive claims if they aren't true.  Jesus also says judgment has to do with "doing".  Faith and action go together.  What Jesus did revealed who He was, same with us.

We live in a time when we have taken the reformation formula of salvation by faith alone to an extreme that Jesus and Paul would not recognize.  Yes, we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus, but justification and sanctification go together.  Once we believe we are to walk in truth, live according to what we know God's will to be.  We will repent, turn away, from those things in our lives that we now know to be contrary to that will.  We will live for different rewards, march to the beat of a different drummer.  Our attitudes and values will change, our goals and objectives as well.  If there is no observable difference in your life because you now believe in forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and a God who will ultimately judge, you may not believe at all.  We need a radical realignment not a tweak. 

27 February 2013

Psalm 72; Jer. 3:6-18; Rom. 1:28-2:11; John 5:1-18

The worship of Baal is centered around the belief that the god controls productivity of the land.  If you want to ensure that the land is fertile, has enough but not too much rain for instance, then you do certain acts of worship in order to appease Baal and entice him to provide that fertility.  It is based on sympathetic magic, the worshippers do what they want Baal to do, and it is about sex.  The Baal worship required temple prostitutes and here, both Israel, the northern kingdom, and Judah, the southern kingdom, are accused of spiritual prostitution in going after this worship.  Hills and certain trees were the places of Baal worship, there is a sense in which it could be defined as earth worship but with a god.  Israel has already received her punishment for this sin and yet Judah has learned nothing from Israel's experience and has done the same.  The promise is restoration, the requirement is confession and repentance.  Judah is accused of sort of confessing but not truly repenting, hedging its bets.  There will be restoration but there won't be idols, even the ark of the covenant, because the Lord will be in their midst, a glorious future.

The lame man believes in healing, he believes it is dependent on getting into the pool when it is disturbed.  When Jesus asks if he wants to be healed his response is to explain it hasn't yet, in thirty-eight years been possible because no one is ever there to help him into the waters.  Is healing in the water or is it the Lord?  Jesus commands him to take up his bed and walk and, surprisingly, the man obeys, walking into his own healing.  It is an amazing thing to consider he hadn't walked in thirty-eight years, how atrophied must his legs have been, and now he is able to not only walk but carry something else.  That act of carrying a bed, however, has been determined to be work and since it is Sabbath, work is sin.  Why does he, when he learns Jesus is the one who healed him, go immediately to the Pharisees and tell them?  Jesus says that he should sin no more lest something worse happen to him, was sin the cause of his condition?  When Jesus says His Father is working until this day, and so He can work also, they now condemn him not based on the man's testimony, but His own, He made Himself equal with God, it wasn't all just a misunderstanding, they knew who Jesus claimed to be.

If there is no God, or if there is no judgment, where does restraint come from regarding the way we conduct our lives?  Paul says without God, a righteous God who judges sin, there is no moral imperative.  We can choose morality or we can choose immorality, there is no absolute claim, it is all situational.  Consequences are earthly not eternal.  Paul says that is a lie, there will be judgment.  Is his statement, "He will render to each one according to his works" a contradiction to the doctrine of justification by faith?  No.  Paul says the righteous will "live" by faith.  In other words, life reveals faith.  If we believe his argument that there will be a day of judgment, we will direct our lives in accordance with God's Word, our lives will show that we believe both in judgment and in God's Word.  The Israelites to whom Jeremiah was sent showed by their actions that they had not returned to the Lord, their faith, or the lack thereof, was revealed by their continued offering of worship to other gods.  What does your life show?

26 February 2013

Psalm 61, 62; Jer. 2:1-13; Rom. 1:16-25; John 4:43-54

The Lord makes His accusations against His people very clear.  He asks if there has ever been a nation who has changed their gods, especially for gods that are not gods at all.  They have forsaken Him even after all He has done for them in bringing them into the Land and giving it to them.  There was a time when they were like a bride, they loved Him and followed Him but those times didn't last long when they came into the Land.  Now, they have defiled the Land, they have forsaken Him, even the priests and prophets do not know Him or seek after Him.  Ultimately, there are two sins they have committed, they have forsaken Him, the fountain of living waters, but not for nothing, they have instead hewn out cisterns and these are not even suited to the task of holding water.  A cistern is a fine thing but living waters, flowing waters, are far preferable.

One of the key words in John's Gospel is believe.  Here, Jesus responds to the official's request to heal his daughter by saying unless y'all see signs and wonders you won't believe.  The man simply responds by saying, essentially, "Can we go now, the work still needs to be done."  When Jesus tells him to go alone, the man believes and goes and on his arrival at home finds his child healed.  When he learns that the healing occurred at the time Jesus was speaking to him, John tells us that he and all his household believed.  It seems to me that there are three points in the story in which the man believed: when he first asked Jesus to come, when he walked away alone, and when the healing happened.  How is that possible?  Belief is a continuum, walking in faith will frequently lead us into situations where we find our faith deepened by seeing.  Let us take those first steps believing in the promises of God to be with us in our work of making disciples and expect  to see Him work.

Is Paul actually a pre-scientific man, captive to his own lack of knowledge concerning the world?  Science today makes claims that would overthrow Paul's argument here, that the creation reveals the invisible attributes of its Creator.  Science says there is no creator, this is all there is, scientific naturalism.  If we buy into the idea, we lose much and without getting anything into the bargain.  Fortunately, all scientists don't agree on this point.  Faith matters, faith in the revealed word of God.  If Jesus is who He said He was, we have a creator God.  Paul says it all begins and ends with faith, acknowledging there are those things we cannot know with certainty apart from revelation, and walking in faith to receive more revelations.  We need to check our worldview to see if it is living water or a leaky, broken cistern.

25 February 2013

Psalm 56, 57; Jer. 1:11-19; Rom. 1:1-15; John 4:27-42

So the Lord tests Jeremiah's ability to see prophetically and the first thing is an almond branch which the Lord says should tell him that He is watching over the word to perform it.  It is a play on words since the word for almond sounds like the word for watch.  A good start that surely put a smile on Jeremiah's face.  Next however, the Lord shows him a boiling pot facing away from north and the interpretation is that the nations from the north are coming down and laying siege to Jerusalem.  Are you serious?  The Lord is bringing disaster and judgment against the nation for their sins and apostasy and Jeremiah is to get up, get dressed and go share this word.  The smile surely disappeared quickly.  Who could want to give such a word or expect that giving it would go well?  Jeremiah's career is certainly off to a rough beginning.

The disciples are baffled by several things.  Who is this woman Jesus is talking to and why is He talking with her?  What in the world is He talking about when He says that His food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work?  Remember that almond branch from the Jeremiah passage, the Lord was watching over His word to perform or accomplish it, there is a clear parallel here.  The important thing is obedience to the word to perform it.  Who could have guessed that it meant that the Samaritans would be the first to receive Jesus as Messiah?  They are the lost sheep of Israel, they were originally a part of the nation who were severed from the vine centuries before and Jesus is restoring them to their brothers and sisters in Himself.  No one actually wanted that to happen, there was deep antipathy between the peoples, but they were willing to believe.  In Acts they are also the first people outside Jerusalem to whom anyone intentionally goes, Philip the deacon goes after the persecution of Stephen and reaps a harvest among them.

How amazing that Paul, only a few short years after the life, death and resurrection of Jesus now writes to the main city of the world at the time, Rome, to believers there!  The word and the faith were spreading rapidly from the far reaches of the empire to the very center.  Paul says something he never could have imagined only a few years before, "I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."  He had never been under any sort of obligation to anyone besides his fellow countrymen prior to Jesus coming into his life and calling him to be an apostle.  He is eager, however, to reap a harvest among the Gentiles, he wants to bring as many people into the covenant as possible, to see God work powerfully to draw others to Himself.  He, the man who was once a chief persecutor of the church now becomes the man whose one desire is to  expand it believing that the Lord is still watching over the word to perform it.  You have been given the Good News to share as well, ask today that God give you both the passion to do so and the opportunities.

24 February 2013

Psalm 24, 29; Jer. 1:1-10; 1 Cor. 3:11-23; Mark 3:31-4:9

I wonder what Jeremiah thought when the Lord spoke to him thus.  Did he think he would have a glorious prophetic ministry?  He must have been quite young given his objection, I am only a youth.  He sounds a bit like Moses when he objected that he didn't speak well.  The Lord says not to worry about it, he was chosen for this work before he was born, and that the Lord will be with him in this work and will protect him from harm.  He will give him the words to say.  He is set over nations and kingdoms to destroy and also to build.  Surely he heard that he is not to be afraid, so he had to know there was something not completely edifying in the words he would be given, but what a promise the Lord makes to him to call him to the work.  Little could he have guessed how difficult his life would be in following this call. 

In our liturgy on Sundays we talk about our brother, Jesus Christ. It always makes me a bit uncomfortable to say those words but here Jesus says we are brothers and sisters of His if we "do" the will of God.  The call is always a call to action, not study and contemplation alone.  The purpose of those activities is to prepare us to do what we are called to do, bear witness to Him in word and deed.  The parable is one we see in the lectionary multiple times through the year and sometimes we focus on one aspect and other times another.  This time it seems that we should pay attention to the fruitfulness of the seed, is it doing what it is intended to do, produce something.  What is it in your life that is keeping you from producing the fruit God intends?

The work we do is built on the foundation of Jesus and Him crucified.  How would the people you meet every day know that He is the foundation and cornerstone of your life?  If we are Christians we are building our lives on the foundation that is Jesus and if that is true then everyone you know should know that truth about you.  Whatever is not Him, all the other things in our lives, our work, our friends, our hobbies, will come to nothing in the end.  It doesn't mean we shouldn't engage in these things or invest in them, but our investment in each and every thing in our lives should be based on producing some return for Him.  That is a high standard but it should absolutely be driving our thoughts.  How can this produce fruit for the kingdom?  I wonder how our lives would change if we thought that way?