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.