31 May 2015 – Trinity Sunday

Psalm 146, 147; Ecclus. 43: 1-12(27-33); Eph. 4:1-16 ; John 1:1-18

We begin to contemplate Trinity Sunday in the best possible place, creation.  All contemplation of God should begin there.  Whether by simply looking at the world around us and marveling at its complexity, diversity, beauty and developing our sense of awe and wonder or by actually studying these things, we begin by locating His majesty in all that surrounds us, even to the vault of the heavens.  We begin, then, at our own insignificance when we consider His greatness, He is all.  The writer, by considering the sun, moon and stars, what seem like the “big things” to us, the things that appear to govern all things, discovers the majesty of God and then goes on to say, “Many things greater than these lie hidden, for I have seen but few of his works.”  Powerful telescopes have allowed us to see greater things, the things that govern these governors and powerful microscopes, the large hadron collider and other tools have allowed us to see those things that lie hidden because they are so small.  This complexity should cause us to wonder how it all fits together, how it all could possibly have come to be at all and the mind that designed it.

John, after years of contemplation not of the physical world but of the man with whom he spent those three years, those glorious and incomprehensible three years, the man called Jesus, and says that He is the Logos, the Word of God, there at creation.  It was in fact through His Logos, His spoken word, by which all things were created.  John begins His Gospel by situating Jesus in creation, in beginning.  Only when we start to contemplate Him in this way can we see that all else must find its place and purpose in that which pre-existed all things.  His wisdom supersedes all other wisdom.  By being before all things, His wisdom necessarily is greater.  In the end, He is the very wisdom of God for us and to us.  The incredible reality of the incarnation, the word made flesh, dwelling among us, the mystery of the majesty enfleshed, holds John’s attention and His wonder, even after He saw it all, “we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The church is the creation of the Holy Spirit.  Without Him, there is no church at all, only people with opinions about God.  The Spirit of truth creates and sustains the bond of unity in the Church.  It isn’t the creed that binds us, it is the belief in the truth of those truths, which binds us together and that belief is possible only because the Holy Spirit convicts us of their truth.  Because of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, we know those things are true.  The only way I can believe in a particular God who created all things but who is also Father, is because of the witness of the Spirit.  I can believe in the incarnation via a virgin birth only by the Spirit.  I can believe in His resurrection from the dead and my own, by virtue of the Spirit.  None of these truths are self-evident, they require the Spirit for us to know them.  The wisdom and the knowledge of God have the same source, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

30 May 2015

Psalm 30, 32; Deut. 5:22-33; 2 Cor. 4:13-5:10; Luke 16:19-31

“Who is there of all flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire as we have, and has still lived?”  What is the answer to that question?  Moses.  He had heard this same thing hadn’t he?  Because he heard that voice from the burning bush and lived, he had come to lead them out of slavery to freedom, out of death to life.  The Lord knew the hearts of the people, that they were not a faithful people and they would turn away.  His desire was that they would indeed always have this same fear and dread of Him and His judgment, that they would be careful to obey the commandments, statutes and rules He would give them.  He knew, however, that this would not last.  In fact, it wouldn’t last long at all, just over a month, and they would forget while Moses was doing exactly what they asked him to do, meet with God and get the rest of the law. 

The first question to be asked of this reading is, is it a parable or not?  Luke doesn’t tell us it is a parable and Jesus tells it as though it were a true story, not a parable.  The truth doesn’t change one way or another but it does tell us that Jesus has knowledge that is unavailable to anyone else concerning eternal life.  Lazarus, whoever he may be, is in the bosom of Abraham while the rich man who ignored the needs of Lazarus in life is in a place of torment, in Hades.  The rich man is concerned first for himself, asking that Lazarus be sent to help quench his thirst and, when that is denied, is concerned for his family, that they not suffer as he does, asking that Lazarus be sent to his father’s house to warn them of judgment.  Both requests are denied, the second with the statement, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”  All will not believe the Gospel of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  That, however, does not mean we should not preach it because, indeed, some will believe.  The Good News is Good News whether believed or not.

“So we do not lose heart (because of faith in the one who resurrected Jesus from the dead).”  I wish that were true of me.  I lose heart all the time, I get discouraged, I doubt and I want to just go away somewhere and hide.  Somehow, the Holy Spirit is able to pick up the shattered and tiny little thing that still remains of faith and breathe new life into it and here we go again, back into the battle.  The thing that keeps me going sometimes is nothing more than the reality of the resurrection and the knowledge that in the end there is no question who the victor will be no matter how it goes day to day.  I can’t say that I am “always” of good courage but I have my days.  My hope is in the one who had courage enough to die on a cross.  I am nothing without Him.

29 May 2015

Psalm 31; Deut. 5:1-22; 2 Cor. 4:1-12; Luke 16:10-18

Have you noticed the language Moses always uses regarding the commandments?  He says that God used a specific kind of language when He gave them, ““Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today…”  The rabbis teach that God isn’t repeating Himself by speaking of “statutes and rules”, that these mean different things.  Rules can be rationally deduced while the basis of statutes is incomprehensible to the human mind.  You would think the progression would be from rational to incomprehensible but it is always the opposite and they reason that this is so that we not depend on reason, that we understand that these rules and their rationality, show them to be first the will of God and then rational. The reason and logic that make these rational, then, are to be seen and valued as gifts from God.  There are certain things that everyone would agree on that would be beneficial for good society like not murdering, no adultery, no stealing, but the first commandments about one God, no carved images, a Sabbath, etc., you can’t deduce, you must be told.  We would say that reason is a gift from God but it, like everything else, participated in the fall and needs redemption and transformation.  We would also agree that reasoning flows from the truths God speaks that we can’t know apart from His graciously giving us these truths. 

The Pharisees don’t like Jesus’ form of reasoning because it indicts them, challenges their own reasoning.  It is an easy thing to be a lover of money when we believe that health and wealth are signs of God’s blessing.  You can easily slip past Jesus’ words here and say you’re not a lover of money you just want His blessing.  I know, I am an expert at it.  The way Jesus says it though makes me feel like He is talking about those first commandments, that money is an idol, a substitute God, and they don’t see it.  We would like it best if idols were easy to spot, a totem of some sort rather than something less obvious like money, we would be less prone perhaps to idolatry.  Jesus’ argument is that everything goes back to that first commandment, you have to accept that He is your redeemer and your God and allow everything else to find its rightful place behind that.  Why does He transition from that discussion to adultery?  It’s actually incredibly logical, if you forsake your God to chase something else, wouldn’t that tend to apply to human relationships, especially your covenant relationship? 

Would reason ever lead you to foresee the cross as God’s means of redemption?  A man dying on a cross cannot be the savior of the world, cannot be the final statement on death.  That man did not rise again to life three days later, did not ascend to the throne in heaven and will not come again in judgment on sin.  Not a single bit of that is reasonable.  We don’t even think it reasonable any longer that God created the world, how could we believe those other things?  Paul says plainly, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”  These things are unbelievable to those who have not received the Holy Spirit and they should think us mad for believing them. For us, the cross and the resurrection become the keys for renewing the mind.  All reason and logic is subservient to these things, we know our reason and logic to be fallen when we believe these non self-evident truths.  What other truths, then, are there that I have denied and are unknown to me in my fallenness?  Evangelism should always begin with prayer for God to give the Holy Spirit, the gift of sight and true reason.

28 May 2015

Psalm 37:1-18; Deut. 4:32-40; 2 Cor. 3:1-18; Luke 16:1-9

Moses needing to remind the people of all God has done for them seems sort of like those little packets of silica gel that are in everything we buy nowadays that have the warning not to eat it. It is necessary to say that?  The American Association of Poison Control Centers reports that about 38,000 people a year, most of whom are under six years of age, eat that stuff.  God’s people need constantly to be reminded of all He has done for them as well.  This group either saw for themselves and remember the events of the exodus from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea and the giving of the Law at Sinai and yet they can forget His greatness and His choosing them to be His people by all these acts.  We can easily forget such things in either hard times or prosperity.  We need to remind ourselves regularly of all He has done and is doing for us lest we forget.  (By the way, silica gel isn’t particularly toxic, even if you ingested a relatively large quantity of it the worst that would happen is some nausea and vomiting.  I looked it up, didn’t test it.)

This is, without doubt, the most difficult of all Jesus’ parables.  Is He commending the steward?  The wealthy man is always used as God in the parables so the wealthy man has to be the good guy in the story.  The steward is going to be fired and the reason is that “charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions.”  When he goes to the clients first, he marks down the bills in order to ingratiate himself with these debtors.  He still has, technically, the authority to do this because he has the books.  The clients would certainly have been impressed with the forgiving nature of the man but they would also have soon known that the manager was fired that day.  Their appreciation would be towards the manager when the owner didn’t re-instate the amounts owed and they would have owed the manager a favor.  Jesus doesn’t commend this deceit, only notes that the worldly know how to use things to their own advantage.  Making friends “by means of unrighteous wealth” is an awkward translation of a Syrian term “mammon of unrighteousness.”  To do this that “when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings” would indicate that we are to use our wealth to help the poor, to help our neighbors who have need, that we might show we are not attached to wealth and thereby be received into the heavenly dwellings.

What the people of Moses’ time could not gaze upon, the fading of the glory of God as Moses spent time apart from Him in doing the work of leading the people, is of no real comparison with what we see in gazing at the face of Jesus.  The miracles, beginning with a virgin birth, continuing through things like the blind receiving sight, the deaf hearing, demons driven out, lepers cleansed, the dead raised, and ultimately Jesus’ resurrection from the dead rise to a higher level than even what the Jews saw in Egypt and at the Red Sea, Sinai, and in the wilderness.  We are witnesses to something greater and yet we doubt and question when life is hard or we don’t think of Him at all when it’s all good in our world.  

27 May 2015

Psalm 38; Deut. 4:25-31; 2 Cor. 1:23-2:17; Luke 15:1-2,11-32

Moses speaks prophetically about the future of the nation.  He knows that they will forsake their God and go after other gods.  He knows it because he knows human nature and because he has seen this people do that very thing, even the people who stood at Sinai, saw the smoke and the fire, heard the voice from heaven and begged off hearing the fullness of the revelation for fear.  What Moses also knows is that this God is forgiving, He is a covenant making and keeping God, He is faithful to the covenant He makes without respect to the faithfulness of the partner.  There will be punishment for waywardness but the covenant cannot be annulled because He guaranteed it alone.  As He is everlasting, so is the covenant everlasting.  He can change the terms of entrance into the covenant but the covenant stands on Him.  They may be in exile but they are always His people and all they have to do is repent and obey to restore relationship.

The parable of the Prodigal speaks to the forgiving nature of God.  The man was wealthy and had two sons but neither, it seems, appreciated their father.  One couldn’t wait to leave him and the other remained but out of duty not love.  The son who asked for his inheritance essentially says to his father, I wish you were dead now but you’re not, so let’s pretend you are and you give me what I will receive when you die.  When he came to himself after squandering it all, he knew where he could go, his father treated his servants well, it wouldn’t be so bad to go back and ask forgiveness and be a servant there.  Reconciliation begins with confession and repentance but the future of the relationship is in the hands of the one who was sinned against and the father doesn’t allow the son to state his terms, accepts him back as son.  The elder son is jealous and yet the father reminds him of the truth, all I have is yours.  He has held nothing back from this son, it is always available.  He has no love in his soul, only duty, the way the world works, not the way God does.

If you’re going to be criticized isn’t it always best if you know the person doing it is someone who loves you and hates to give criticism?  I can receive criticism from those with whom I am in closest relationship far better than I can a boss or someone peripheral to my world.  I know that the person giving it cares about me and wants to see me grow.  Paul says that was the situation in which he had written to confront the Corinthian church in a previous letter.  If you look back to 1 Corinthians 5 I think we can see the issue about which Paul has written such a scathing indictment of the church, a man sleeping with his father’s wife.  Here, it seems the man has repented and Paul’s word is that they should comfort and restore him to fellowship.  We are to love and forgive as we are loved and forgiven.  By acting in this way, we show that we are not elder brothers, that we recognize the love God has shown us by showing it to others.

26 May 2015

Psalm 26, 28; Deut. 4:15-24; 2 Cor. 1:12-22; Luke 15:1-10

Yesterday it was, “keep your soul diligently” and today it is “watch yourselves very carefully.”  What is the need of watching ourselves?  It is that we not allow ourselves to be seduced away from the Lord and create idols for ourselves.  Idolatry is an easy default for us, to worship nothing at all, or everything, or, best of all, something that demands of us exactly what we are willing to give and no more, something that doesn’t require us to change much, to rethink our values and priorities.  This form of idolatry is nothing more than narcissism, worshipping what we already love.  What is it that you worship?  What you are chasing after, money, house, cars, body, prestige, popularity determines who you are becoming.  If we don’t watch ourselves very carefully, we will indeed lapse into idolatry, we have to deliberately follow Him, it doesn’t happen by accident.  As the philosopher Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”  Diligence is required for covenant keeping.

A wonderful thing about our God is that He cares if we get lost along the way. The nature of a covenant relationship is that both parties have an obligation to one another but the best thing about our covenant relationship with our God is that it is based in mutual love.  It isn’t only that He did something for us once, Jesus died on the cross, but it is that He continues to love us enough to bring us back when and if we stray from Him.  Hosea’s life was to be a demonstration of God’s love for His wayward bride.  However far we stray from that covenant relationship, however many lovers and idols we have, He continues to love us and is always willing to receive us back with open arms.  Is that love reciprocal?  His goal is more than eternal life, it is a love affair, a betrothal.  The parables here tell us of His great love and our great value to Him.

Apparently some in Corinth have questioned Paul’s sincerity and his love for them.  He wanted to visit them but, it seems he was unable to follow through on that hope and some have concluded that he failed to visit because he really was weak in character and integrity.  Having been in ministry for a time now, I can tell you exactly what this looks like.  When our plans change, people get their feelings hurt and then we can do nothing right, our motivations are questioned and they conclude we don’t really love them.  Paul says in his defense, “we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.”  He has examined himself and his motives and is confident that he has not acted towards the Corinthians with anything other than simply and sincerely.  We can sometimes get disappointed with God and feel like He has not done as He promised when our plans go awry.  We need to watch this attitude towards Him and others very carefully, it is the first step to idolatry and to a failure to love.

25 May 2015

Psalm 25; Deut. 4:9-14; 2 Cor. 1:1-11; Luke 14:25-35

“Keep your soul diligently.”  That thought struck me as unusual.  How does Moses say we are to do that?  We are to remember what we have seen so that we don’t forget the Lord’s goodness to us.  We aren’t just to sit in a rocking chair and recollect it though, we are to tell it, specifically to our children, those who either were too small to remember or those yet unborn, which is exactly what the liturgy of the Passover meal is designed to do.  It is what our own liturgy is designed to do as well.  In order to help them, Moses tells the story of Sinai.  The Lord told me to have you gather and you did.  When you gathered at the foot of that mountain, do you remember the sights and sounds, while it burned with fire “to the heart of heaven” and there was darkness and thick gloom and then the Lord spoke out of the midst of the fire and there was no body, just that voice.  The role of liturgy is to put us back into the original setting, make us, born out of time, a part of the original that we might experience it in such a way that we never forget.  Keeping our souls diligently requires good liturgy for remembering.

Jesus calls for complete renunciation of everything, even our families, if we are to follow and be His disciples.  The first disciples did exactly that, they walked away from their nets, their custom tables, whatever they were doing before.  The very first men, the fishermen, walked away from the family businesses they were engaged in to follow Jesus.  He must be first but He showed the way, as Paul says to the Philippians, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped…”  He walked away from the unbroken fellowship and the presence of God to be with us and to make it possible for us to experience that fellowship and presence.  The taking up of the cross imagery was unthinkable at the time Jesus spoke these words but later became clear and the disciples themselves could never have thought of this day, these words, without thinking of Jesus’ cross.  Life becomes the liturgy of taking it up every day.

Paul knows that good leaders are in the battle with their soldiers.  He knows that it is important that those to whom he writes are aware of his own struggles and suffering for the sake of the Gospel.  He can’t invite others to risk themselves for the Gospel if he isn’t willing to do it himself.  He says that our sufferings are for your comfort and any comfort we receive is also for your comfort.  He is willing to suffer for one simple reason, that Jesus suffered and died as one of us.  He is willing to follow no matter the cost because He knows the resurrection from the dead is certain.  He is following because of the resurrection of Jesus, he knows that suffering and death lead to life if He follows Jesus.  That is life as liturgy, it has a story, a past, but it also has a present, taking up the cross in imitation of Jesus, and it has a future, resurrection.  Remembering, right remembering, takes us through past, present and future.

24 May 2015

Psalm 118; Isa. 11:1-9; 1 Cor. 2:1-13; John 14:21-29

The coming of the messianic age is a glorious thing.  Messiah is described as a righteous branch, and “the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”  Under His reign the separations created by the Fall will be healed.  The brotherhood of man will be re-established as well as the relationships with the rest of creation, enmity will be at an end.  That same spirit which rests upon the righteous branch has been given to us, the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge and the fear of the Lord.  What changes everything about the world?  “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”  We need always to pray for the outpouring of the Spirit in our lives and on the earth.

Do you see the logical statements Jesus made in this passage?  “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me…If anyone loves me, he will keep my word…”  Loving Jesus and keeping His commandments/word are inextricably tied to one another and the result of these is that the Father loves, manifests and makes His home with the one who does these things.  In case someone missed the connection, Jesus stated the negative condition implied by the positives, “Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.”  Are we keeping His words?  The first thing necessary to keep His words is to know them, to meditate on them, understand them, and apply them.  We do this, however, not because we are under compulsion but because we love the one whose words they are because, as John wrote in his first epistle, He first loved us.  The true blessing of the Holy Spirit is as our teacher, leading us into all truth, giving us the wisdom to understand the words and how to apply them in our lives in all situations.

Paul says that in Corinth his message wasn’t one of plausible worldly wisdom but in Spirit and in power.  The message of the virgin birth, the incarnation itself, God becoming man and dwelling among us, dying on a cross, rising to life again three days later, the ascension and the belief that Jesus will come again and permanently establish God’s kingdom, don’t fit within anyone’s plausibility structure.  Paul knew that the message of the cross was foolishness to these people but he preached in believing in the power of the Holy Spirit to convict them of the truth of his proclamation.  Apart from the Spirit there is no hope for anyone other than someone who is out of their right mind to believe such a message.  It makes no sense for God to come into the world and suffer and die as Jesus did at the hands of His creation.  Through the power of the Holy  Spirit, God still breaks into this world today and does things that defy explanation. 

23 May 2015

Psalm 107:33-43, 108; Ezek. 43:1-12; Heb. 9:1-14; Luke 11:14-23

Ezekiel saw a vision here of the glory of the Lord filing the temple as it had done the tabernacle in Exodus 40 and the temple in 1 Kings 8 when those two structures were first dedicated, when all was new and the Lord proved by this to be present among His people.  What Ezekiel saw was a prophetic vision of the new temple, that the Lord would once again reside in the temple in Jerusalem that the returning exiles would build in years to come.  That temple was built in the time of the prophet Zechariah who encouraged the work and the workers with the promise that what they were doing was the Lord’s work.  The presence was contingent on removing the idols from the land, returning fully to the Lord, and consecrating not just the temple but the entire temple mount to Him.  Do you see why this area is such an issue to the people today with the Dome of the Rock occupying the space?  They are unable to re-consecrate the ground or the temple.  As Christians, we have a different understanding of the temple and presence of the Lord.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  So wrote John in the prologue to his Gospel.  Here, we see the people asking for a sign from heaven or opining that Jesus did the work of casting out demons by demonic power and force itself.  The sign from heaven was the power of God in Jesus.  God had “broken out” of the temple confines and was now dwelling in the flesh among them and John continued to say, we have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only.  The glory of the Lord was shone in the works Jesus did in overcoming the powers of darkness of spiritual oppression, disease, imperfection and death.  The power was so great that some could only conclude that it was a demonic power since God was over at the temple.  Jesus was clear and logical about this possibility, it made no logical sense that satan was at war with satan, there must be two opposite powers here and one clearly stronger than the other in every way. 

The author isn’t denigrating the temple worship.  In fact, he has already acknowledged it to be of God’s design and here affirms that the worship of the temple, with its sacrifices and other rituals, are also part of God’s plan.  His argument is that the ministry of the temple was incomplete in the sense that it didn’t deal with the heart and conscience of the worshipper, only with what they had done or not done.  What we really need is that heart transplant that leads to transformation, the renewing of the mind.  To align our minds with God’s purposes requires us to feel differently about sin, to grieve over sin and its result, separation from God.  We need to know something is unacceptable but what we really need is to know the how it affects our relationship.  Once we have drawn close, received forgiveness, had that intimacy with God, we can know through the indwelling Spirit, the loss of intimacy, the reality that we have not sinned against the Law, we have sinned against a person who has loved us enough to die for us.  Sin becomes a personal matter, not a juridical matter.  If we saw the glory of the Lord filling the temple of our body in a literal way at the time of salvation, could we abide its either dimming or departure by sin without grief and confession? 

22 May 2015

Psalm 102; Ezek. 34:17-31; Heb. 8:1-13; Luke 10:38-42

The Lord will judge not only the shepherds but the sheep and goats as well.  There are apparently those who have acted selfishly and without regard for others and who have treated the poor with contempt or indifference.  These, the Lord will judge and will restore justice and righteousness for those who are characterized as “lean sheep.”  When Jesus taught the Beatitudes, He was teaching us not to act selfishly, but to look around us and see that there was injustice, righteousness, mourning, a lack of peace, those in need of mercy, etc.  If our situation is good, we are called to look to others and see the suffering of the world.  The promise is that He will rule and establish David, “my servant.”  Jesus is the fulfillment of both these promises, He is both God incarnate and also the Son of David.  The promise is that these will be established, blessed, prospered, and live peacefully in the land.  So we are taught to pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  We are praying for the reconciliation and restoration of all things in Him.

It would have been somewhat scandalous for Mary to have sat with the men to listen to Jesus teach.  Women weren’t discipled by rabbis, they were taught in the home by fathers, husbands, mothers, other women.  For Mary to have chosen to sit rather than serve would have raised eyebrows.  There was the work of hospitality to be done and her choice forced Martha to attend to all the work herself.  Hospitality was one of the most important mitzvot in Judaism, as we see in Abraham’s extension of it to the three men in Genesis 18.  She makes a complaint to Jesus as lord, the one who is in charge of the situation, that He tell Mary what to do, help her serve these men.  Jesus, however, gives a completely unexpected response, not only is it fine for Mary to be there learning, it is the preferred action, more important than hospitality.  This would have been a radical teaching for the church to assert in the culture, easier to leave it out of the Gospels than to put it here.  Something remarkably new in those words.

The argument here is from Platonic philosophy.  The language of copy and shadow point to the forms and archetypes of Plato.  The idea is that we create things on earth that are copies of an ideal form that exists but it not in the present world.  The tabernacle and temple plans were given directly by God rather than from the mind of man and these then were more perfectly realized forms because they were given by God.  Jesus would be the perfect man as opposed to all other men, a perfectly realized form of God’s image, without sin.  Because of this, He is the priest of a better covenant than can be realized among men.  The covenant itself is based upon an improved mankind because of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  We can know the mind of God in a different way, a direct way.  Ultimately, the argument rests on rejecting the form for the ideal.  Who would want the imperfect if they could have the perfect?

21 May 2015

Psalm 105:1-22; Ezek. 18:1-4,19-32; Heb. 7:18-28; Luke 10:25-37

In the new covenant Ezekiel is told that there is a significant change, we are no longer to be judged based on the sins of our fathers.  We each have a “clean slate”, we will be judged on our own merits or lack thereof.  The covenant people have a fresh start after this exile.  The message of Ezekiel is, in many ways, like the message of John the Baptist.  He is preparing a people, a people who stand before the Lord as repentant sinners.  If your understanding of the Lord and His covenant was that you would be punished for the sins of your ancestors, this was incredibly welcome news.  What was the basis for this declaration?  It was the exile itself, the sins of the past were dealt with and now they were living with God in real time.  We have the same in Jesus.  When we came to faith in Him, our sins were washed away and now we deal with all that in real time.  We have an ongoing relationship with God made possible first, last and always by the cross which is an ever-present reality.

Just as the Lord loves us, whether we are sick, dying, or merely filthy with sin, so are we to love others.  The ones who pass by the man all can have excuses for not seeing to his needs.  The priest and Levite are going to serve in the temple and if they come near the man they may become unclean if he is bleeding or dead and they would be unfit to serve.  People are counting on them, it is important for them to do God’s work.  The Samaritan is out of his territory, he can’t worship at the temple anyway, but that reality has nothing to do with his actions, he genuinely extends himself on the man’s behalf and is willing to continue to provide for his needs.  His priorities are in order, he knows his neighbor is anyone, known or unknown to him, who has need of him.  If I were on the way to church and saw someone get hit by a car, as the pastor, what should I do?  Should I attend to the person’s needs or should I go on to church because I have to preach? How would the Lord have us prioritize our obligations?  I am certain that the incarnation and crucifixion of Jesus provide us with the answer to that question.  He loved God by loving those who were created in His image.

The priesthood that Jesus has is unlike the Aaronic priesthood in several ways and is the priesthood of a better covenant.  The Aaronic priesthood was one of descent, men died and were replaced by other men in their family.  Jesus since He was resurrected from the dead, now lives forever and needs not be replaced, He continues forever in keeping with the word of the Lord, ‘You are a priest forever.’  He also need not offer sacrifices daily because He is unstained by the world as He is at the right hand of the Father.  He need not replace the showbread weekly, He is the bread of life.  He needs not trim the lamps and replace the incense in the holy place, He makes intercession directly and has given the Spirit to all flesh.  He has permanently entered the holy of holies through his blood and that was deemed acceptable by God and we know it because of the resurrection.  He has made it possible for us to enjoy a relationship with the Father whereby He knows us each by name and made it possible for our sins to be forgiven and no longer remembered because He took them on the cross.

20 May 2015

Psalm 101, 109; Ezek. 11:14-25; Heb. 7:1-17; Luke 10:17-24

The exiles were encouraged to go far from Israel by those who chose to remain.  Safely in a distant land, they would not be a burden to those who stayed in Jerusalem.  Those inhabitants had not believed the word of the Lord concerning the fate of the city.  Now, after the destruction of the city, the Lord sends word to Ezekiel that He will give the land to these exiles.  They are to remove all the abominations from the land, all the idols, all the Asherah poles, and cleanse the land of its polluted worship.  In order to make that possible, the Lord promises a new heart and a new spirit for the people who return, a spirit that will desire to keep the Law and to follow Him.  We are those who have received that Spirit from the Lord.  How then shall we live?

The disciples return from their mission trip and rejoice that even the demons were subject to them in His Name.  Such things are wonderful but Jesus says there is something greater, He says, “rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”  Power is great but more important is that we are known by God and will be His throughout eternity.  We can get caught up in the work of ministry and forget that Jesus’ rejoicing was over the fact that these received the truth as little children, in faith, not like the wise and understanding, who could never have gone on this mission trip and done the things these had done, they could not believe.  Faith, like a child, is always the key to effectiveness.  When we rely on Him rather than our cleverness, wisdom and understanding we are living from the Spirit.  These seventy two who had faith to believe that Jesus gave them power saw what kings and prophets longed to see.

The writer continues to pick up on this Melchizedek as one without origin, whose priesthood is directly from the Lord, and compares him with Jesus.  The Aaronic priesthood was one of descent, if you were in the line of Aaron, you were a priest, if you came from Levi, you had an obligation to serve.  This Melchizedek comes before all that was instituted, he is truly a puzzlement.  Jesus is seen as a priest after this man as He is both priest and king whose anointing is from God.  Jesus’ priesthood is directly from the Lord, not through lineage as He is from the tribe of Judah, a non-priestly tribe, a kingly tribe, descended from Davidic origins.  We receive Him as priest on faith, the faith that believes He has passed into the throne of His Father and makes intercession for us there.  That faith also believes we have received the Holy Spirit.

19 May 2015

Psalm 97, 99, 100; Ezek. 7:10-15,23b-27; Heb. 6:13-20; Luke 10:1-17

The first words of the prophecy, “Behold, the day! Behold, it comes!” don’t exactly prepare you to hear the next words, “Your doom has come.”  That is perhaps the most jarring juxtaposition of words in the entire Bible.  It sounds as if something wonderful is about to happen and then the words are of nothing but doom and destruction.  The Lord will have no mercy on the people, all will suffer from this judgment because all share in the guilt of the nation.  Those who have remained did so after Jeremiah warned them to leave but they did not believe, they believed instead the false prophets.  It is an awful thing to think that the Lord could judge His people without mercy and we think surely such will not happen to the church or the nation of churches that enjoys prosperity but we are sadly mistaken.  Read the letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 and then tell me He won’t judge the church.  Judgment begins at the house of God and a people who are ostensibly in covenant with Him, who have taken the responsibility of making His Name great, honoring Him, hallowing the Name, who reject His words will be judged for taking His Name in vain, dishonoring it and leading others astray.

When Jesus sent out the seventy two they were sent to do one simple thing, proclaim that the kingdom of God had come to them.  That proclamation was to be made in word and deed.  The healings were meant to be harbingers of the kingdom, when there will be no more disease and dying.  The power of God to heal and make whole that which is weak and broken was on display.  When the kingdom comes, such healings will be the norm, all will be made whole and clean.  If the towns where such proclamations were made rejected them, they were to shake the dust off their feet as a sign, that the Lord had rejected them as well.  Judgment will come on such places Jesus says but we are not to call it down, we leave that to the Lord in His time.  When the seventy two returned, they rejoiced that the Lord had done through them exactly as Jesus had prophesied.  The mark of a true prophet is that his word is validated.

The covenant between God and Abraham was one-sided.  Abraham simply did what God told him to do.  He took some birds, cut them in half and arranged them apart from one another, creating a path between the parts.  God, in the forming of the smoking pot, passed through the pieces but Abraham did not.  The imagery was meant to signify that the one who passed through the pieces was making an oath to do something and putting his life on the line to ensure it.  The message was that it would be done to the person making the oath as to the animals he passed through if he failed to do what he promised.  God’s oath was on Himself while we might swear on the Bible in court to tell the truth, invoking the idea that God’s judgment would be on us if we failed.  God did all He promised to Abraham. He can be trusted, the evidence is clear and plain. 

18 May 2015

Psalm 89:1-18; Ezek. 4:1-17; Heb. 6:1-12; Luke 9:51-62

Ezekiel is instructed to make models.  He is to take a brick and draw Jerusalem on it and then build models around it to show it under siege by an enemy and then is told to place an iron griddle between his face and the city, signifying God’s indifference to the siege.  The second part of the prophetic action is to bear the sin of the people by lying on his left side to signify the years of punishment for the northern kingdom (over a year lying on that side!) and then to roll onto his right side and lie there forty days for the years of punishment for the southern kingdom, Judah.  He is then to simulate what would be famine and drought in Jerusalem by eating about eight ounces of food a day and drinking only a few ounces of water per day.  by these actions he is prophetically acting out what the Lord is going to do in punishing the nation. 

It seems ludicrous that James and John would have asked, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” because the people in a Samaritan village wouldn’t receive Jesus and the disciples.  We have to recall the enmity between Jews and Samaritans to understand why they would say such a thing but even then, we can’t give them a pass on their attitudes, Jesus certainly didn’t.  I have heard Christians say similar things about the city I live in, that there are so many pagans here and they hate the church so much that we should call down curses upon them or abandon the city in the ridiculous idea that God has abandoned it.  Part of the cost of following Jesus is loving your neighbor as yourself, whether they love you too or not.  We always need to be counting the cost of following, not just in the beginning. 

This passage is a stumbling-block for many because of this statement, “For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance…” In context, what is the writer referring to, backslider, people whose sin leads them astray from the faith, perhaps not in denying Jesus but simply living in sin?  Look at the context at the beginning, “not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.” Those things are all reversion to the old covenant, the belief that these things are necessary for salvation, they negate the cross by substituting works.  They deny the efficacy and sufficiency of the cross, of Jesus’ completed work.  Ezekiel bore the sin and shame of the people for a season of time, Jesus bore the sin and shame of all mankind for eternity.  If we deny that and attempt to have a DIY salvation, how indeed can we be restored to repentance?  Repent of what, my works in keeping with the law, how is keeping the law sinful?  See the problem the writer is talking about?  Paul knew what this meant, he had to repent of such things.

17 May 2015

Psalm 66, 67; Ezek. 3:16-27; Eph. 2:1-10; Matt. 10:24-33,40-42  

It is a heavy responsibility laid upon Ezekiel.  He has the responsibility to speak all the Lord speaks to him faithfully.  If the Lord speaks to him about someone and he fails to deliver the word of warning or rebuke and the person falls into sin, Ezekiel is jointly responsible.  It seems simple but does anyone really enjoy doing that?  In the age of the spirit being poured out on all flesh do we have similar responsibilities?  We all have blind spots and we need those around us to speak into our lives to call our attention to those things in our lives that are sin but that we have grown so accustomed to that we no longer even see them as such.  Especially given the situation of Israel as the nation in exile, the prophet’s job is a difficult one.  Who wants to continue to convict people who are going through such difficult times?  The work begins by the prophet being bound by cords, unable to talk, as a sign to the rebellious nation.  The people would have been anxious to hear a word from the prophet, waiting expectantly.  We have no idea how long this season of time lasted but it was apparently quite lengthy.

What is it that keeps us from speaking the truth?  Fear.  It might be fear that relationships will be affected or even ended but it also might be the fear of being wrong even when we know we aren’t.  Not a single one of us receives criticism perfectly. Some may receive it better than others but none of us receives it without feeling the sting and developing some level of resentment.  It may not last forever but it happens, we want to defend ourselves, we don’t want to be that transparent, that naked, that accountable.  Ultimately we are that accountable, we are accountable to God and we are indeed naked before Him, either unashamed or ashamed.  This is Jesus’ reminder to us that fear isn’t bad, it is part of the package of being created in His image, that we have a responsibility first to Him, then to our fellow man.

“And you were dead…”  Not dying, not drowning, dead in trespasses and sin.  Dead requires not resuscitation or rescue but resurrection.  The most important words for us are, “But God…”  If I accept that I was dead in trespass and sin and an object of wrath, could I have anything to do with my own salvation?  Dead people cannot help themselves can they?  God acted from mercy based in love on your behalf to give you life.  He did so only on the basis of His love for those created in His image, and He did so that we might, in the coming ages, be shown “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”  What awaits us is even greater than we can imagine.  We owe everything to Him who has given us life and all this is gift, something we did not and cannot earn, but that does not mean that works have no place in our lives.  We were “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”  They are response to what He has done for us.

16 May 2015

Psalm 87, 90; Ezek. 3:4-17; Heb. 5:7-14; Luke 9:37-50

Ezekiel is commissioned as a prophet and told that he is to preface his remarks with the words, “Thus says the Lord.”  He is to be careful what he speaks because he speaks for God.  He is also told that they won’t listen, they are rebellious in the extreme.  If the Lord had commissioned him to speak to foreigners it would seem like a difficult thing but they would be receptive to the message while Israel will not.  Jonah could attest to that surprising reality, as could Paul.  Nonetheless, they are the Lord’s own people and He has not quit on them.  Ezekiel goes from the presence of God back in the spirit to where he saw the vision, back to the tents of the exiles and for seven days he is among them in dismay.  Where does he begin and when?  It is miserable to go from God’s throne to this reality of exile and also he is more hopeless than any exile, he has heard that he shouldn’t have high hopes for his ministry either.  He can’t, however, begin until the Lord speaks and now He does. 

Sometimes you just have to shake your heads at the disciples.  They couldn’t heal the boy, they didn’t understand what Jesus was talking about when He spoke of His death, and yet they still wanted to argue which of them was greatest.  Did it really matter which of them was greatest when Jesus was so much greater?  The three had seen He is greater than the two greatest heroes in the nation’s history and all had seen His ability to do what they could not. Is greatness even a category for us if we know Jesus?  It is like righteousness, in comparison we are neither great nor righteous so what is the point in talking about such things, the category should simply be retired.  We can’t receive His word or His authority so long as we fail to see things as they truly are, and see ourselves for what we are and all that is dependent on seeing Him as He really is.

When the writer of Hebrews looks for a human analogue for Jesus’ priesthood, he rejects the possibility of Aaron and goes to the most enigmatic character in the Bible, Melchizedek, the king and priest of the kingdom of Salem which later is chosen as God’s city, His dwelling place, and named Jeru-salem.  This priest is greater than Abraham, Abraham offered tithes to this man of whom we know so very little.  All we know is that he was a priest of God and we know that because Abraham recognized him as such and Yahweh did not rebuke him.  Was Melchizedek a theophany, a pre-incarnation manifestation of Jesus?  The writer is speaking to a community who has allowed their doubts to cause them to hedge their bets on Jesus, to wonder if perhaps they have been hasty in abandoning the practices of Judaism since He hasn’t returned.  They are told, “solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”  We can’t waffle between opinions, whether those be Moses and Elijah or something else, there is no both/and, it is Jesus or nothing.  He is without peer and until we see that we don’t have faith, we have an opinion.

15 May 2015

Psalm 85, 86; Ezek. 1:28-3:3; Heb. 4:14-5:6; Luke 9:28-36

Do you see all the parallels between Ezekiel’s vision and the revelation given to John?  The creatures around the throne, the bow in the clouds, the falling to his knees at what he saw, the voice speaking, commanding him to rise are all recounted in both men’s visions.  Does that cause you to doubt that John was really given a vision of his own?  For some scholars, this is their reaction.  Why would the men have seen different things?  In my mind, one would tend to validate the other.  Ezekiel is given a scroll, with writings on both sides, to eat and in his mouth it is sweet like honey.  John was also given a little scroll to eat in the Revelation, in chapter 10 and it too was sweet like honey in his mouth.  The word of God, the call to prophesy His word, is sweet to the taste because it is pure and true.  Ezekiel and John, however, are given the word to speak to a rebellious people who, even in exile situations, remain rebellious.  So long as we are accusing and blaming God for our situation, we remain in rebellion.  Only when we accept the truth, that our sins are our downfall, do we begin to have any hope of redemption.

What are the disciples doing while Jesus is praying?  What they are always doing it seems, sleeping, just like on the night of His arrest.  Men are weary from the journey and the day, Jesus perseveres in prayer, just as He does now at the throne.  When they awaken, they see the vision of the three men, Moses, Elijah and Jesus and as the others are parting, Peter suggests that they make booths for them, that they might stay, capture the moment, not let it pass away, and who can blame him?  Instead, his attitude reveals that he is still not seeing things rightly, that Jesus is supreme and that in Him they have all they need.  Moses and Elijah were precursors, neither complete in themselves, and Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the prophets together.  The voice proclaims that now the time has come, they are to listen to Jesus, not these others who saw through a glass darkly, but the one who speaks truth because He is truth.

The main job of the high priest was to enter the Holy of holies once a year and sprinkle blood on the ark, the mercy seat of God, as atonement for the sins of the people.  They knew their sins were forgiven by the Lord by two things, the priest lived to return and the goat sent into the wilderness did not return.  We know the Lord has accepted Jesus’ sacrifice because He came back from the dead, He was found worthy of receiving life.  The high priest could not, with complete confidence approach the throne of grace.  He knew his own sins and the sins of the people and he knew that the holiness of God was pure and could not abide sinful men.  He counted on one thing only, the promise of God that if they did all things according to His plan, He would forgive, but the high priest always had to have a question in his mind.  Did we do all things correctly?  In Jesus’ resurrection and ascension as our perpetual high priest, we can have confidence that the high priest did not.  The word of God retains its sweetness because of Jesus.

14 May 2015 - Ascension

Psalm 8, 47; Ezek. 1:1-14,24-28b; Heb. 2:5-18; Matt. 28:16-20

Ezekiel suddenly gets a heavenly vision as he is among the exiles in Babylon.  His call to prophetic ministry is as dramatic as any with this vision of the heavenly throne.  The detail in the vision of the creatures is striking, the impression it made on him was seared in his brain and his heart forever.  What could he have made of the vision?  Can you imagine being among a group of mourners, as the exile community would have been, without hope, and suddenly being given such a powerful vision from the Lord?  What do you do, how do you react?  Why are these “living creatures” the first thing the prophet reveals to us?  In Judaism, Maimonides (12^th century ) ranked these creatures as first among the angelic order, upholding the throne of God and the earth itself.  They are remarkably similar to the creatures John saw in the Revelation.

Some doubted.  Who are these who doubted even at this time?  It is speculated that there were more than the eleven disciples gathered at this time, and that some of these others doubted.  It does indeed seem unlikely that the disciples could have harbored doubts at this time, they had seen Jesus and spoken with Him on several occasions and their doubts were seemingly put to rest.  We also could question whether those assembled on the mountain were doubters, simply that there were some to whom He had not appeared who doubted or that until they saw what Matthew tells of the Ascension there were some others who doubted.  The truth is we don’t know what Matthew intended here, it is even possible that he is referring to the episode which John details with Thomas.  The Commission given to the disciples and, by extension, us, is to baptize, make disciples and teach them to obey all He commanded.  The promise is that even though He is going away, He will be with us as we do this work, even to the end of the age.  The ascension, which we celebrate today, makes possible the outpouring of the Spirit.  Because Jesus goes to the place of honor at the right hand of the Father, we now have access to the Father through the Spirit.

The incarnation restored the redeemed humanity to its original place in creation.  For a time, we were lower than the angels but the incarnation, death, ascension and resurrection of Jesus carries our nature to the right hand of God.  We do not yet see all things in subjection but by faith we, like Abraham, know it as a fait accompli.  He has become the great high priest who makes propitiation for the sins of those who are created in the image of God.  We have seen what Ezekiel has seen and yet we have seen the fullness of the vision in a way Ezekiel longed to see, in the cross of Jesus.  The angels might be of great importance but none can compare with the one the angels worship, the lamb looking like it was slain who appeared before the throne of God, the perfect and final sacrifice.

13 May 2015

Psalm 119:97-120: Baruch 3:24-37; James 5:13-18; Luke 12:22-31

Do we realize that we have access to the wisdom that created and sustains the universe, the wisdom that knows the truth about past, present and future?  We have been given the Holy Spirit as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  In the cross, we have received life, the real tree of life is indeed the cross of Christ, the Spirit gives us access to the greatest database of wisdom the world could imagine and yet we rarely query it because we think we already possess it through other sources.  The cross itself tells us the folly of that worldly wisdom, that the way of life is through His death on the cross.  The fear of the Lord, who possesses true wisdom and knowledge, is indeed the beginning of wisdom but we are also required to persevere in that “fear” to gain more wisdom but we do so from love and that we are the beloved.

There is indeed an inextricable connection between anxiety and faith.  Do we believe God is both great and good?  When I was a kid I was taught a meal time prayer, “God is great, God is good. Let us thank Him for our food.  By His hand we must be fed.  Thank you God for daily bread.”  The two affirmations that begin that prayer should be deeply woven into our lives as the central truths that govern them and guide us.  If we really believe that He is both great and good, we would increase in faith always, even when times are tough because we would be constantly looking for evidence, even in pain, for those two things.  How long do you think the Israelites in the wilderness got up each morning and peeked out of the tent to see if He had indeed continued to provide manna?  At some point they took it for granted and the next step was to despise it and want meat.  Can we learn the humility to truly be thankful for daily bread in all things and to be so thankful for what He provides that we don’t begin despising it?  Only if we seek the kingdom first.

What does James mean by the prayer of faith?  He seems to absolutely believe that the prayer of faith will result in healing the sick and forgiveness of sins.  He then speaks of the prayers of the righteous having great power.  What then is a righteous man?  Jesus alone is righteous, we know that, but then he points to Elijah, a man considered righteous by the Jews but whom James says, had a nature like ours.  We know that he did because he grew recalcitrant in his service to the Lord when it seemed the Lord wouldn’t deal with Jezebel and she continued to seek Elijah’s life.  Even though he had a nature like ours, even though he had his moment of doubt and despair at the goodness of the Lord, his prayers were heard.  In Jewish thought, a righteous man isn’t a sinless man, only one whose aim is to do the Lord’s will.  Their expectation is that no one will do so perfectly.  The prayer of faith is prayer offered by those who confess their sins, who pursue righteousness, and who trust the Lord to be able to do what we ask and believe in His goodness to do good.

12 May 2015

Psalm 78:1-39; Deut. 8:11-20; James 1:16-27; Luke 11:1-13

Moses’ great concern for the people is that they will forget the Lord and all He has done for them.  When they come into the land and they eat their fill and they enjoy the fruit of the land and its bounty, will they remember Him?  He says the temptation will be to say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’  This particular generation might not face that temptation but there will always be that temptation to future generations, that is the reason for the festivals like Passover and Sukkot, to remind each generation in their turn of the story of what happened.  There will also always be the temptation to chase after other gods when we believe we got this on our own, but now gods might come in handy so that we continue to enjoy it all or that we might have more of something.  I got myself this much, perhaps adding some god to the mix will give me more.  Moses gives a solemn warning to those who abandon the Lord, you will surely die.  Where have we heard that before? 

The Lord’s prayer is one way of remembering how indebted we are to the Lord.  We ask for our daily bread and we ask for forgiveness, not to be led into temptation and to be delivered from the evil one.  The little parable that follows it is sometimes very frustrating to me as I believe that I am asking for good things and sometimes not only denied those good things but instead am given scorpions instead of eggs, serpents instead of fish, etc.  The reality is that I honestly don’t have the wisdom to know what is good for me, what I think is a scorpion might actually be an egg.  The prayer is one that calls us to humility and to recognize that the world is a messed up place and we don’t know ultimately what is even best for us, the best thing we can do is pray for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done, that all things be set right, that I might see things rightly now.

“Every good and every perfect gift…”  As I just noted, I don’t honestly know what “good” is.  When I look back on my life so many of the things I thought were good at the time turned out to be not good at all and some of the most painful things in my life turned out to be places where God was doing something that led to great good.  When will I learn to trust that will be so in pain now?  A long view of things coupled with the humility to acknowledge I don’t know what is good and evil apart from Him and the trust to believe He truly loves me and wants good for me would be the best thing I could cultivate.  If I simply did what I know of the word and left the rest to Him, my life might be less frustrating to me and I might see Him more often.

11 May 2015

Psalm 80; Deut. 8:1-10; James 1:1-15; Luke 9:18-27

Surely the people expected that following the Lord who had done such marvels in the plagues of Egypt and at the Red Sea was going to be something that would be a true delight.  Those forty years in the wilderness could hardly be described in that way.  Moses says that all that was a test, the Lord humbling the people to see if they would come to love His commandments more than anything else.  Later, prophets like Hosea will write that this was a time of blessing even though it was a time of privation, for it was just the Lord and His people.  The exile to Babylon was for the same purpose, to wean the nation from prosperity and their attachment to it in order that they be dependent on Him as all in all.  How many of you have been tested for forty years?  We aren’t ready for blessing until we know that there is nothing that compares with Him, until we are truly satisfied in Him.  Moses worried about their ability to handle prosperity, he knew the allure of the stuff of earth and how easy it is to seek satisfaction in those things.

The crowds don’t know what to make of Jesus, He is an enigma to them.  The disciples need to have no such doubts about Him and Peter gets it right, “The Christ of God.”  The real issue is, what does that mean?  Jesus knows that they think that means that He will set up the Davidic throne and Jerusalem will be the center of the universe, Israel will be the most important place and nation because God will have established it as His own place of dwelling.  No, Jesus says, He must suffer and die and if they will follow Him it will require them to take up their cross daily.  Not a single one of them signed on for that.  They had no idea what was in store for them or for Him.  We must develop the attitude of detachment for the things of the world, even our own life, reputation, etc. if we are to follow Him.  Praying for His kingdom to come, longing for it rather than kingdom of earth is the first step in that journey of radical detachment.

James’ attitude toward trial and mine don’t always line up.  I can’t always say that I count it all joy when I face trials, my first reaction is generally otherwise.  He’s right though, just as Moses noted in our first lesson.  Trials are an opportunity for growth and measurement, just like testing in school.  I can be prepared for a test and measure how I am doing or I can fail to prepare and more likely also fail the test.  Trials are generally a way of moving me away from the world and from desire, measuring how and where I take delight.  Losing something or being denied something becomes a way of knowing what I find important.  None of us start with a blank slate when we come to the Lord, we have already found ways of filling our lives and the process of denying self and following Christ generally requires Him to deny us the fulfillment of other desires. We don’t know how to deny self, we don’t see what it is that holds us until we have to deal with desire denied fulfillment.

10 May 2015

Psalm 93, 96; Ecclus. 43:1-12,27-32; 1 Tim. 3:14-4:5; Matt. 13:24-34a

The musical version of Les Miserables begins with the words, “Look down, look down, Don't look 'em in the eye, Look down, look down, You're here until you die.”  This day’s reading from Ecclesiasticus is all about telling us to look up, look to the sun, moon, stars, rainbow, all those things that tell of God’s glory.  When we look at images from the Hubble telescope, when we consider the vastness of the universe and the space approaching nothingness that our planet occupies in that universe, its utter insignificance and then our own insignificance on this insignificant planet, but that the God who created it all took on flesh and dwelt among us in order that we might become like Him and have eternal life, we have hope.  We’re here until we die becomes something to live for, tells us we aren’t slaves, we can raise our heads and look God in the eye because of Jesus.  Indeed, we can say more but we can never say enough, “He is all!”

Considering the vastness of the universe isn’t it amazing that Jesus tells parables of the kingdom of heaven using such common and small things as wheat, weeds, mustard seeds and leaven?  How could the kingdom of heaven be something as small as that?  It makes this life seem incredibly important to think that a cosmic battle to establish the kingdom of God could play itself through my life.  Every little thing plays a role of cosmic significance.  There is God and there is an enemy, why is their attention concentrated on this little planet?  Those are questions too great to consider, all we are called to do is love one another and that somehow changes the course of cosmic history.  I have to leave the judgment and the details to the one who can know such things that I can’t even imagine, and do the work He has given me to do in the belief that it truly matters in ways that are incomprehensible.

Great indeed is the mystery of godliness, that the Word, for our sake, became flesh and dwelt among us, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried, rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven and will come again to judge the living and the dead and that His kingdom will have no end.  What a marvelous mystery!  Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!  Paul affirms that all of God’s creation is good and that all things are made holy by two things, the Word of God and prayer if we receive them with thanksgiving.  Let today be the day you lift your eyes and begin receiving with thanksgiving for all things.  Let it be the day you come alive to all the wonder and possibility of God in and through your life.

9 May 2015

Psalm 75, 76; Wisdom 19:1-8,18-22; Rom. 15:1-13; Luke 9:1-17

The events of the Red Sea are recounted.  The Egyptians were foolish in their pursuit of the Jews after they had given permission to leave.  The author sees God as in control of the situation, His sovereignty extended to the foreknowledge that this would all happen.  If you look back to the actual event you will see that the Lord had the nation double back in sight of the Egyptians so that they would think they were aimlessly wandering and dithering about what to do and where to go.  This became the impetus for Pharaoh’s folly of going after the nation and ultimately to the further judgment of God on the nation and its army.  All of creation participated in the exodus, God summoned its participation in the deliverance of His people from their bondage.  Do we believe it to be under His command and control today?

If I called in the leadership of the parish and “gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal”, they might look at me a bit funny and call the bishop to tell him I had lost my mind.  The disciples, however, had seen that Jesus possessed the power and authority He was giving them but how did they know that He had given it to them?  They walked in faith.  They realized, though, that they had reached their limit when Jesus told them to feed the five thousand, they had no way of doing that and had no faith that it could be done.  Jesus, however, had both the power and the faith to do this very thing.  At the end of the day all were satisfied but none could have explained how it occurred.  If they could, we would have the explanation.

Is it possible that Paul could be commending the “weak” to whose “failings” he refers?  Of course not, but their weakness and their failings become a way for the strong to show love.  To please the neighbor (a strange word, please) Paul says is for a purpose, to build the neighbor up, that he might become strong.  Jesus served in just this way, He did not please Himself in this life, but submitted to the Father, He served us, bore with us and ultimately bears us today.  How can we serve the weaker neighbor that they might be built up in Christ?  Where are we pleasing ourselves at the expense of pleasing our neighbor?  The goal of all this is simple, “that together we may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  The foolishness of weakness is, to the strong, an opportunity to obey the command to love and serve.  We too were once foolish and weak.

8 May 2015

Psalm 106:1-18; Wisdom 16:15-17:1; Rom. 14:13-23; Luke 8:40-56

This passage is a reflection on the Exodus.  The mixture of fire and hail is one of those things that consumes the attention of the rabbis. How can these two exist together in any way without one doing away with the other?  Yet, during the plagues they indeed were mingled in judgment against the Egyptians.  That is a true miracle and the rabbis know it and marvel at how can such things be.  It should also have gotten the attention of the Egyptians at the time but their hearts were so hardened that they couldn’t see what was right before their eyes, the God of creation doing something impossible.  We see the same hardness of heart in the Revelation when God is destroying His good creation to get the attention of the people created in His image who refuse to see.  Science can be manipulated to explain it all if your commitment is to scientism.  The other thing about which the author marvels in longing is the manna, it tastes like whatever you want it to be and yet is so perishable that it melts with the first warmth of the day.  That reality, the author says, should get you up early to praise the Lord before even the dawn.

Faith on display.  The crowds have no idea what Jesus has done across the sea in the land of the Gerasenes yet they await his return with eagerness.  Luke tells us they were waiting for him and yet he doesn’t tell us why. We know of two whose reasons were plain, the woman with the issue of blood and Jairus.  The woman had been suffering chronically with her condition for twelve years and had spent “all her living” on doctors trying to be cured.  She had nothing left but this one hope, that Jesus, the man about whom she had heard much, would be able to do something and so she took a chance, she pressed in and touched the hem of his garment, breaking every convention and rule for women in such condition.  Her risk of discovery was great.  If she touched Jesus He would be ritually unclean as would anyone He touched, He wouldn’t be fit to enter Jairus’ house, the leader of the synagogue, whose daughter was sick and possibly dying.  She received faith’s reward and then Jesus asked who touched Him and she came trembling and fell before Him in fear and heard Him praise her for her faith.  Jairus’ faith was such that impurity no longer mattered, only his daughter and his hope was in this Jesus and his faith also was rewarded.

If my brother has a strongly held belief that something is sin and I feel that I have the freedom in Christ to partake or participate and there is no law against it, what is my duty?  Paul says that my duty is to love the other, weaker brother by abstaining from such things.  When I am with someone who is a recovering alcoholic I make it a practice not to partake of alcohol.  Does that make me a hypocrite?  No, it means I love my brother for whom alcohol could be a great temptation and a stumbling block.  Does that mean this should control all my life?  No, not necessarily, if the Word does not conclusively condemn something my brother has no right to make it a law in my life and curtail the freedom I have in Christ.  We have a duty to our brothers and sisters but that duty does not allow them to circumscribe our freedom in all things.  Faith is always the key, it is our guide to things clean and unclean about which Scripture is silent.

7 May 2015

Psalm 71; Wisdom 14:27-15:3; Rom. 14:1-12; Luke 8:26-39

We would hardly think of ourselves as worshippers of idols yet we are so expert at convincing ourselves we don’t do it that we fail to even see our idols.  Our idols can be family, work, money, home, church, sports, ambition, the past, the future, almost anything at all.  Whatever consumes our time and energy is potentially an idol.  Whatever concerns you the most, what you spend your time thinking about or fretting over is an idol.  Jesus was clear that we are to concern ourselves with the kingdom of God and His righteousness and allow Him to worry about all the rest, lest they become our idols.  Anything that promises happiness or security other than God can easily become an idol.  Idol worship is escapism in the sense that it beckons us away from reality while the worship of the true and living God immerses us in reality, His creation, His call and His people.

Jesus did a miraculous healing in the land of the Gerasenes.  He delivered a man from a legion of demons, so numerous that they couldn’t be bothered to name themselves individually, it was easier to simply say legion rather than give a roll call.  Jesus wasn’t impressed by their number or their collective power even though the people of the land had made accommodation to them by putting the man in isolation.  They clearly feared the demons but so long as they were in this man they were tolerable in the land.  When Jesus commanded them into the pigs, suddenly there was a problem that must be dealt with rather than tolerated.  Their livelihood was compromised, the pigs were more important to them than the man.  Jesus was treated then like the demon possessed man, He needed to leave them alone and let them get back to work.  They would rather have their prosperity than His power.

God deals with us as He created us, as individuals.  Too often I see a call for Christian conformity in things indifferent.  There are those for whom vegetarianism or some other issue is not only their call but the call.  There are innumerable issues which divide God’s people on which it is certainly possible for us to disagree while still being obedient to the Holy Spirit in our own lives.  I believe on these issues it is important for us to have the discussion while respecting the other.  We can talk about things like pacifism or war, alcohol, environmental issues, diet, creation, and other things with respect and honor rather than invective.  I don’t see it much though, mostly I see one side or the other claiming to be right and the other side listening simply because it isn’t worth arguing.  Paul apparently saw that in the church of his day as well.  The important thing on these issues is to listen to one another respectfully and lovingly, with true Christian charity.  Sometimes we have to ask, is this thing that consumes me an idol or the Gospel. 

6 May 2015

Psalm 72; Wisdom 13:1-9; Rom 13:1-14; Luke 8:16-25

We live in a time and place in Asheville where Mother Nature and nature itself are worshipped as gods in the way the author writes about here.  When there is no creation to speak of, there is no creator.  When we believe the myth of uncreation, the myth of the Big Bang without a Big Banger, of natural and impersonal processes that produce all that is, we miss the chance to worship a person, an artist par excellence, the Creator.  It is quite literally beyond the ken and ability of science to rule out God, that is a personal decision and choice, not a scientific conclusion.  The beauty and also the scientific beauty of the math of the universe, the quantum and particle physics of all that is, the biology and chemistry, astronomy and geology point beyond themselves and yet we study them atomistically rather than as Johannes Kepler did, to know the Creator.  We can’t see the forest for the trees when we do.

“Take care how you hear…”  How do you hear?  Do you hear in such a way as to know the truth of things or do you hear only what confirms you in your prior belief?  If the way you hear hinders you from hearing about Him, perhaps the renewing of your mind is still in process.  When Jesus’ mother and brothers came to Him, Jesus re-defined familial relationships not because his blood relatives were not important but in order to show there is a kinship of those who hear well, those who hear the word of God and do it.  These are true family because we recognize our common parent, God the Father.  Are their final words rhetorical?  “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

All things, rulers, systems, everything, is under the authority of God.  The sovereignty of God is all-encompassing.  We see that truth in the prophets, that even leaders who are wicked, even when they persecute God’s people, are under His authority, are sometimes used as instruments of His judgment, to bring about His purposes.  Paul is speaking like Jeremiah when he counsels the Roman church to submit to authority.  Jeremiah told the people to seek the prosperity of the city to which they were exiled, even though David, in Psalm 137, asked the poignant question, “How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?”  Jeremiah and Paul agree that we should sing the Lord’s song with confidence and faith in His sovereignty even when we are in a foreign land.  The one whose commands are obeyed by even winds and water is on His throne and in control of all things.

5 May 2015

Psalm 61, 62; Wisdom 10:1-21; Rom. 12:1-21; Luke 8:1-15

Wisdom is that by which men persevered in the face of wickedness, wisdom is righteousness, living according to the precepts of God.  Has that changed since Jesus?  Habakkuk wrote it, Paul picked up on it and Luther re-discovered the truth that the just or righteous shall live by faith and so we shall.  Jesus is our righteousness, not our works which are, as Paul says, no more than filthy rags even for the best of us.  This passage speaks of many which it calls “righteous” and some certainly rise above the rest but are they truly “righteous.”  Jesus is the only righteous man who ever lived in the sense that He kept the law perfectly, did not sin.  Many of these in this list sinned in ways that we are told about yet righteous is the word used for them.  If you look at the list a second time what you will discover is that these all were, as the writer of Hebrews wrote, men of faith whose faith was the wisdom that kept them safe, delivered them from evil, and made them truly noteworthy.

Certainly it would have been odd for this traveling band of disciples to have included a group of women, particularly women who “had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities.”  We know from the short list Luke provides that the women who followed the group included a royal official’s wife, indicating that the message and ministry of Jesus attracted attention at the highest levels of society.  As we have just looked at a passage where a woman we feel certain is a prostitute ministered to Jesus, we can see that His ministry reached up and down the social ladder.  That women were accepted into the group indicates that they would have also been there for teaching, a very different attitude from the culture, they would have been part of the group that heard this parable, and many teachers would have believed that they were incapable of learning, perhaps thinking of them as the poor soil of the parable.  We should examine our attitudes towards others in light of the indiscriminate work of the sower in the parable, perhaps we sow only where we think it might be profitable in bearing fruit.

The renewing of the mind begins with accepting the resurrection of Jesus, accepting that He alone in all of history is worthy of being the first person to be resurrected.  That truth leads to a sober reflection on ourselves doesn’t it?  Paul writes that we are “not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.”  For some that isn’t a problem while for others it is a great stumbling block.  The church often makes too much of some gift or other and when we do, we devalue the other gifts.  Some church cultures exalt the teacher, some the musicians, some the prophets, in some the gift of tongues is seen as the be all, end all and those who do not possess this gift as lesser, even suspect Christians.  In the end, Paul says that the only mark of a true Christian is love, keeping the new commandment Jesus gave at the Last Supper.