This weekend I figured out who the Messiah is! I know...I know, you are thinking to yourself, “You’re a Christian pastor, shouldn’t you know?”
However, I could not believe it when I saw it right there is Isaiah. And, being the good bible scholars that you are, you are thinking to yourself, “But, Isaiah is in the Old Testament. Jesus is not in the Old Testament.”
But it was right there. It is the only place in the Old Testament where the name of the Messiah, the anointed one of Israel, is given. Isaiah himself tells the Israelites who it is. And, let me give you a hint: it is not Jesus.
And the Messiah is: King Cyrus of Persia, the conqueror of Babylon, the puff-headed, full of himself, “I am the greatest in the world,” "kiss my golden sandaled feet," “I will free the entire world from the Babylonian scourge because I am great,” Cyrus! In fact, “Cyrus” in the Hebrew language means “Messiah.” I assume that his parents were preemptively concerned about his self-esteem. The man did grow up, humbly baring the name, Messiah, on his chest in glowing neon with an “Oppressed? Turn Here” arrow flashing on and off. However, he did live up to his name, eventually unlocking the jail bars and freeing the Israelites from captivity in Babylon to their homeland to live happily ever after…or at least until the Romans conquered them.
But, we are getting ahead of ourselves. When the prophet Isaiah revealed the name of the Messiah to the Israelites, they had no idea that this foreign king would save them. I do not know much about Isaiah, where he was born, where he came from, how many wives he had, but I do know that the day he announced, "Cyrus as the Messiah," was the day the Israelites sent him to the old folks home for good. Telling them that a foreign king who did not know God, did not follow God’s commandments, and was not from the house of David was probably like telling Isaiah telling us that our economic crisis will be solved by none other than the economic genius, Osama Bin Laden. Despite how crazy it sounded, God chose to use Cyrus to be the Israelite's Messiah. Read what God had to say about it:
“I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things.”
God gets God’s work done in any way that God can, and it is amazing. The Lord took a foreign king, used the fault of his arrogance as an advantage, and freed God’s people. God gets God’s work done in any way that God can, and it is amazing.
The Lord once took a nun who continually doubted God’s presence and goodness, put her on the streets with the leprous and starving, and created Mother Teresa. Thousands have been saved by God through this “ye of little faith” nun. The God gets God’s work done in any way that God can, and it is amazing.
Jesus once indicated that the destruction of Israel’s temple by no means signaled the destruction of God. “From these stones God can raise up descendants of Abraham.” God gets God’s work done in any way that God can, and it is amazing.
Since becoming a pastor, I have to say that the name, “Cyrus” has been running through my head constantly. It runs through my head every time that someone says, “I think God left me out of God’s purpose. I don’t know any gifts that God has given me.”
“You may not know your purpose, but God knows. Just take a look at Cyrus,” I think to myself.
“I just cannot stand _____ who sits over there. She is worthless.”
“You may not see any worth, but God does. Just take a look at Cyrus,” I think to myself.
When God looked at Cyrus, God did not turn away when he saw the faults of arrogance or distance from the faith. No, God saw someone through whom salvation could occur.
Whenever, Mother Teresa looked into the face of a pealing, blood pustuled, leprous person, she did not see the disgusting, she saw someone whom Christ had died for. If Christ could die for him, then she could also. Seeing Christ in everyone was the basis of her ministry. And she is honored for it.
And, whenever God looks into any of our faces, it is not the mistakes and terrible faults that God sees there. Whenever God look into our faces, God sees someone worth dying for; God sees someone who is precious; God sees someone who is worthy being called a minister of the Kingdom of God; God sees someone through whom great things may happen. God gets God’s work done in any way that God can, through anyone whom God chooses, even your enemies, even you, and it is amazing.
All Scripture quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyrighted, 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and is used by permission. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Reflection on Isaiah 25:1-9
It was the alien ideas that did it.
Ideas alien to God that is.
The ideas are far from alien to us.
In fact, many of us hold these alien ideas precious to our hearts. The alien ideas go something like this: if you work long and hard you will be rewarded with a great feast that will allow to build your dream home, buy your dream car, get dream electronic gadgets to make your life better, take dream vacations, and enjoy it all with your dream family. The dream seems harmless enough. How could having a nice home and enjoying the pleasures of life with your family be harmful?
Yet, this drive to “get the nice things in life” is what sent men and women of the banking industry down the road of selling bad loans to people (without any regard as to whether or not the loan would eventually ruin that person’s life). It was an easy sell, because the person seeking the loan had the same dream of a great feast and all the fine things in life. And, as long as the sale of the loan could buy me a nice sports car, it couldn’t be all that bad could it? This idea of ambition and personal prosperity is foreign to God and always has been.
We are not the first country in the world to wreck on the road of ambition and personal prosperity. And we will not be the last either. If only we would have looked to history before speeding off. If only we would have just opened our Bibles to Isaiah, we would have recognized ourselves in the story.
If we had done so, we would have seen a city, Jerusalem, with great ambition and personal prosperity. We would have seen a ruling, wealthy class, driving itself toward something great; a great downfall. We would have read of their alien notions of personal wealth and enjoyment and we would have seen how God allowed them to be completely ruined because they failed to speak the same language of God. They spoke this alien language of personal prosperity, allowed it to pervade their whole city, and in response God made “the palace of aliens…a city no more, it will never be rebuilt.”
These people, leading an alien life, were warned of course. Isaiah warned them to start speaking the same language as God and the city will not be turned into ruins. But, the allure of the alien language of personal prosperity and greatness was much too loud. They wanted the feast for themselves.
Is the economic downturn we are currently in our own version of Jerusalem’s final ruin, or is it just the Prophet Isaiah coming to tell us to turn ourselves around before it is too late? Is the threat of global warming our own version of Jerusalem’s final ruin, or is it just the Prophet Isaiah standing in the doorway of the church shouting out to the world to listen and to start speaking God’s language which cares for all of God’s creation?
The language of personal gain and prosperity is extremely familiar to us, but it is not God’s language. If we were to talk to God in God’s language it would go something like this:
“O Lord…you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat…On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth…” (NRSV, Isaiah 25:4,6-8)
Apparently, when Jerusalem had forgotten to care for “the poor” and “the needy” of “all peoples” and “all nations” they had forgotten how to speak the language of God. How had they forgotten to speak God’s language? How has our culture forgotten to speak God’s language when we have the example of Christ living out God’s language coming at us from our pulpits and televisions all the time? We regularly hear how Christ fed the poor, healed the blind, took concern for the children, ate with the sinner, healed the broken-hearted, refused the alien notion of personal prosperity as he turned away the young rich man, and sacrificed his life on the cross for the sake of all. How easy it is to ignore God’s language of grace for the world.
Perhaps this is not the end. Perhaps, this is the prophet Isaiah shouting at us to start speaking the language of God.
I do know that the language is being spoken out there. Christ is at work out there. If you have been watching the travel channel the last two weeks you just might have seen an amazing commercial. The commercial starts out with waiters dressed in white smoothing the wrinkles out of fine table clothes and precisely setting the tables with fine china and crystal glasses. The head waiter signals the guests to come into the exquisite dining area and soon you see a group of poor and homeless individuals and families enter in to start their meal. In the soup bowl of the first course set before them, the bread make the shape of a cross and these words appear: "First course, dignity.” Click Here to see the add: Watch the ads. It is a commercial for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is not a pie in the sky representation of what we hope to be. It is a real ministry of a real church in Bismark, North Dakota who has not forgotten how to speak the language of God. This church serves dignity for all. This church is filled with the language of Christ and knows in its heart that the feast is for all.
I hope and pray that the language of God’s grace and care for all permeate all of our churches. I hope and pray that the language is so strong that it spills out of our doors and starts to drown out the alien language of prosperity. I hope and pray that our nation be filled with this language so that it spills out onto the world. God, may it be so.
All Scripture quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyrighted, 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and is used by permission. All rights reserved.
Ideas alien to God that is.
The ideas are far from alien to us.
In fact, many of us hold these alien ideas precious to our hearts. The alien ideas go something like this: if you work long and hard you will be rewarded with a great feast that will allow to build your dream home, buy your dream car, get dream electronic gadgets to make your life better, take dream vacations, and enjoy it all with your dream family. The dream seems harmless enough. How could having a nice home and enjoying the pleasures of life with your family be harmful?
Yet, this drive to “get the nice things in life” is what sent men and women of the banking industry down the road of selling bad loans to people (without any regard as to whether or not the loan would eventually ruin that person’s life). It was an easy sell, because the person seeking the loan had the same dream of a great feast and all the fine things in life. And, as long as the sale of the loan could buy me a nice sports car, it couldn’t be all that bad could it? This idea of ambition and personal prosperity is foreign to God and always has been.
We are not the first country in the world to wreck on the road of ambition and personal prosperity. And we will not be the last either. If only we would have looked to history before speeding off. If only we would have just opened our Bibles to Isaiah, we would have recognized ourselves in the story.
If we had done so, we would have seen a city, Jerusalem, with great ambition and personal prosperity. We would have seen a ruling, wealthy class, driving itself toward something great; a great downfall. We would have read of their alien notions of personal wealth and enjoyment and we would have seen how God allowed them to be completely ruined because they failed to speak the same language of God. They spoke this alien language of personal prosperity, allowed it to pervade their whole city, and in response God made “the palace of aliens…a city no more, it will never be rebuilt.”
These people, leading an alien life, were warned of course. Isaiah warned them to start speaking the same language as God and the city will not be turned into ruins. But, the allure of the alien language of personal prosperity and greatness was much too loud. They wanted the feast for themselves.
Is the economic downturn we are currently in our own version of Jerusalem’s final ruin, or is it just the Prophet Isaiah coming to tell us to turn ourselves around before it is too late? Is the threat of global warming our own version of Jerusalem’s final ruin, or is it just the Prophet Isaiah standing in the doorway of the church shouting out to the world to listen and to start speaking God’s language which cares for all of God’s creation?
The language of personal gain and prosperity is extremely familiar to us, but it is not God’s language. If we were to talk to God in God’s language it would go something like this:
“O Lord…you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat…On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth…” (NRSV, Isaiah 25:4,6-8)
Apparently, when Jerusalem had forgotten to care for “the poor” and “the needy” of “all peoples” and “all nations” they had forgotten how to speak the language of God. How had they forgotten to speak God’s language? How has our culture forgotten to speak God’s language when we have the example of Christ living out God’s language coming at us from our pulpits and televisions all the time? We regularly hear how Christ fed the poor, healed the blind, took concern for the children, ate with the sinner, healed the broken-hearted, refused the alien notion of personal prosperity as he turned away the young rich man, and sacrificed his life on the cross for the sake of all. How easy it is to ignore God’s language of grace for the world.
Perhaps this is not the end. Perhaps, this is the prophet Isaiah shouting at us to start speaking the language of God.
I do know that the language is being spoken out there. Christ is at work out there. If you have been watching the travel channel the last two weeks you just might have seen an amazing commercial. The commercial starts out with waiters dressed in white smoothing the wrinkles out of fine table clothes and precisely setting the tables with fine china and crystal glasses. The head waiter signals the guests to come into the exquisite dining area and soon you see a group of poor and homeless individuals and families enter in to start their meal. In the soup bowl of the first course set before them, the bread make the shape of a cross and these words appear: "First course, dignity.” Click Here to see the add: Watch the ads. It is a commercial for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is not a pie in the sky representation of what we hope to be. It is a real ministry of a real church in Bismark, North Dakota who has not forgotten how to speak the language of God. This church serves dignity for all. This church is filled with the language of Christ and knows in its heart that the feast is for all.
I hope and pray that the language of God’s grace and care for all permeate all of our churches. I hope and pray that the language is so strong that it spills out of our doors and starts to drown out the alien language of prosperity. I hope and pray that our nation be filled with this language so that it spills out onto the world. God, may it be so.
All Scripture quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyrighted, 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and is used by permission. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Reflection on Matthew 21:33-46
Some parables are fun. The “Good Samaritan” is a fun parable that shows us who our neighbor is and what it is to be a good neighbor. The parable challenges us, yes, but it does not raise any fear. It is fun and refreshing. The parable from Matthew 21:33-46 is not fun. Are we not encouraged to read the Bible all the time by our pastors? And, if I am going to listen and invest some precious time into doing it, should it not be fun and refreshing? It should be a holistic experience that draws together the body and soul into one healed whole. It should cause you to walk away feeling good that you took the time to do it. Reading this parable is the opposite of that.
Discussing wicked tenants who are given control of a landowner’s vineyard does not appear to begin a fun and healing parable. Why should we care whether or not they try to steal the produce for themselves because they were put “in control” of it? Who wants to talk about tenants staining red the soil of the vineyard with the blood of the slaves and the son of the vineyard owner? There is nothing fun about the vineyard owner coming in and slaughtering the bad tenants to make room for good tenants. There is nothing fun about this parable at all in fact. I believe that this parable was probably skipped in most Sunday Schools because of its bloody and quite frankly un-fun nature. Perhaps, we should do the same and focus on some nice Biblical texts.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Those are nice texts are they not? They are so healing…so full of hope. Everyone who suffers and hungers will be healed and fed by God. Surely those are the texts that God wants us to focus on.
I do this with myself quite often; I choose to read the Bible texts that make me feel good; the ones that do not poke at me and cause me to evaluate myself. The bad thing about a lectionary (the three year cycle of Biblical texts that we read in church) is that I am forced to look at texts I do not like. And, you are forced to read texts that you just may choose to skip over when opening the Bible. Of course, you still have the option to just close out this blog and ignore them altogether. I do not have that option.
What I do and you do when we choose to not read things we do not like is what I call selective blindness. We choose to remain blind when we start to read something we would rather not. We choose to remain blind when what we are reading starts to pry into our lives and wrench things loose. An example of this selective blindness is to take this parable and interpret the parable to be talking only to the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. “They are the bad tenants who horde the power and wealth given them by God and we are the good Christians to whom God has now given the kingdom of God.” Selective blindness would stop right there.
Selective blindness would not venture to ask the question, “Well, if we are the new tenants, are we doing any better with what God has given us? Are we sharing all that the Lord has entrusted to us or are we hording it? Do we share God’s possessions or do we convince ourselves that God's possessions are our own to do with however we please? Do we share the good news that says, the sick are made well, sinners are restored to the community, and God is praised because it is all God’s doing,” or do we like to keep those hope filled biblical texts to ourselves? Are they just treasures that we keep hidden on our bedside night table for personal encouragement only? Selective blindness does not allow us to ask those questions because it fears the answers.
Fear from questions such as, “But, if I share it, what will I do if something happens to me?” penetrate us. It enters into our veins and muscles and allows us to ignore Christ. It allows us to want blessings for the poor in spirit but does not allow us to participate in making that happen. Not only that; this fear does not allow us to trust that Christ will find a way to provide for us.
What if we did get the courage to offer some of our wealth to our poor neighbor and something did happen to us? Is the only option that we will die because we cannot care for yourselves? Do we really trust Christ so little? Do we really need to steal God’s possessions and direct them only to ourselves in order to feel secure?
We and the Pharisees do not knowingly reject Christ and his wondrous kingdom where the blind see, the hungry are fed, and the sinful are forgiven. All we know is that we are scared. We do not understand how fear causes us to loose sight of what God’s will for the world really is. We cannot see unless we allow these uncomfortable, not fun texts to encounter us and unsettle us.
If selective blindness had not hidden this parable from those involved with sub-prime mortgages (those who handed out mortgages to people who could not possibly afford them) would our nation be in trouble now? They only saw the money from the sales of those mortgages that would make them personally secure.
Of course, it is easy to point fingers at others and showcase how fear and the resulting greed can ruin everything. What is hard to think about is how your own blindness has unknowingly hurt someone else. Trust me, it has. I have done it, and you have done it. This may be a fearful placed to trod. You might hate me for bringing it up just as the caretakers hated the son. But, do we really want to be the selfish, wicked caretakers? I thought not. It is time for some truth seeking and some truth telling; for the sake of ourselves, for the sake of our communities, for the sake of the nation, and for the sake of the world. Christ's light shines most brightly when the truth is close by.
Discussing wicked tenants who are given control of a landowner’s vineyard does not appear to begin a fun and healing parable. Why should we care whether or not they try to steal the produce for themselves because they were put “in control” of it? Who wants to talk about tenants staining red the soil of the vineyard with the blood of the slaves and the son of the vineyard owner? There is nothing fun about the vineyard owner coming in and slaughtering the bad tenants to make room for good tenants. There is nothing fun about this parable at all in fact. I believe that this parable was probably skipped in most Sunday Schools because of its bloody and quite frankly un-fun nature. Perhaps, we should do the same and focus on some nice Biblical texts.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Those are nice texts are they not? They are so healing…so full of hope. Everyone who suffers and hungers will be healed and fed by God. Surely those are the texts that God wants us to focus on.
I do this with myself quite often; I choose to read the Bible texts that make me feel good; the ones that do not poke at me and cause me to evaluate myself. The bad thing about a lectionary (the three year cycle of Biblical texts that we read in church) is that I am forced to look at texts I do not like. And, you are forced to read texts that you just may choose to skip over when opening the Bible. Of course, you still have the option to just close out this blog and ignore them altogether. I do not have that option.
What I do and you do when we choose to not read things we do not like is what I call selective blindness. We choose to remain blind when we start to read something we would rather not. We choose to remain blind when what we are reading starts to pry into our lives and wrench things loose. An example of this selective blindness is to take this parable and interpret the parable to be talking only to the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. “They are the bad tenants who horde the power and wealth given them by God and we are the good Christians to whom God has now given the kingdom of God.” Selective blindness would stop right there.
Selective blindness would not venture to ask the question, “Well, if we are the new tenants, are we doing any better with what God has given us? Are we sharing all that the Lord has entrusted to us or are we hording it? Do we share God’s possessions or do we convince ourselves that God's possessions are our own to do with however we please? Do we share the good news that says, the sick are made well, sinners are restored to the community, and God is praised because it is all God’s doing,” or do we like to keep those hope filled biblical texts to ourselves? Are they just treasures that we keep hidden on our bedside night table for personal encouragement only? Selective blindness does not allow us to ask those questions because it fears the answers.
Fear from questions such as, “But, if I share it, what will I do if something happens to me?” penetrate us. It enters into our veins and muscles and allows us to ignore Christ. It allows us to want blessings for the poor in spirit but does not allow us to participate in making that happen. Not only that; this fear does not allow us to trust that Christ will find a way to provide for us.
What if we did get the courage to offer some of our wealth to our poor neighbor and something did happen to us? Is the only option that we will die because we cannot care for yourselves? Do we really trust Christ so little? Do we really need to steal God’s possessions and direct them only to ourselves in order to feel secure?
We and the Pharisees do not knowingly reject Christ and his wondrous kingdom where the blind see, the hungry are fed, and the sinful are forgiven. All we know is that we are scared. We do not understand how fear causes us to loose sight of what God’s will for the world really is. We cannot see unless we allow these uncomfortable, not fun texts to encounter us and unsettle us.
If selective blindness had not hidden this parable from those involved with sub-prime mortgages (those who handed out mortgages to people who could not possibly afford them) would our nation be in trouble now? They only saw the money from the sales of those mortgages that would make them personally secure.
Of course, it is easy to point fingers at others and showcase how fear and the resulting greed can ruin everything. What is hard to think about is how your own blindness has unknowingly hurt someone else. Trust me, it has. I have done it, and you have done it. This may be a fearful placed to trod. You might hate me for bringing it up just as the caretakers hated the son. But, do we really want to be the selfish, wicked caretakers? I thought not. It is time for some truth seeking and some truth telling; for the sake of ourselves, for the sake of our communities, for the sake of the nation, and for the sake of the world. Christ's light shines most brightly when the truth is close by.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Reflection on Philippians 2:1-13
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God,
Did not regard equality with God
As something to be exploited,
But emptied himself…”
A recent trend in American culture has started us down a path of health. Remember how, through the 90s, we were convinced that if a half pound hamburger was good, a one pound burger with a healthy barrel of fries and a tanker of coke would be better? Bigger was better in the super-size me culture of the fast-food world. Playing on primal fears that less food means certain death, many of us were taken in while out pants sizes had to be let out.
However, notice that the super-sized language has stared to fall away from the fast-food industry and portion sizes can now fit within your vehicle. Something happened. A number of reports on American health and children’s health in particular (which told us that the majority of our grade school children were now obese) came out and shook us into reasonableness. The film “Super-size Me” came out and reinforced the idea as we watched a man slowly killing himself while eating only a diet of McDonalds. We learned that more is not better. There is something to be said about emptying.
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God,
Did not regard equality with God
As something to be exploited,
But emptied himself…”
Our awareness of healthy eathing aside, I am not so certain that we have completely convinced ourselves of the wisdom of emptying. If you are a parent or a grandparent now raising a child as if you were the parent, you now know that there is a lot of pressure on you. There is a lot of expectation on you. In the past, to be a good parent meant baking cookies periodically, letting your children run around outside for hours on end, showing love by reading stories, sending them to their room when they were bad, and kissing a lot. Doesn’t that sound nice? Doesn’t that sound semi-relaxed? Doesn’t that sound completely foreign today?
To be a good parent today you have to fill your children up with lots of good things. You have to not only cook them the correct things, but you also have to make sure they are in a sport to build up self-confidence and team spirit, you have to get them to the zoo so that they learn about caring for animals, you have to get them to a museum so that they are not culturally stupid, you have to make sure they play an instrument, you have to make sure they are connected to their friends with cell phones so that they are not social outcasts, you have to make sure they are not down about themselves, you have to tell them they are doing good even if they are not, you have to make sure they visit everyone in the family at least four times a month, you have to get them to church, eat your vegetables, eat your vitamins, take your medications, they cannot watch too much TV but they need to watch some educational TV but only certain ones that come on a 8:30, 9:30, 10:00, and 11:15. Is it possible for the TV power button to go bad? Did I mention that you have to do all of this in the three hours that you are not working your job, cooking, or sleeping? In other words, we are still caught in the supersized mentality that says we need to be filled up in order to be great people.
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God,
Did not regard equality with God
As something to be exploited,
But emptied himself…”
I am not certain that even Christians have seen the wisdom in emptying. Don’t we feel like we need to be doing more in order to be the true people of God. To be great people we need to read the Bible more, get out and serve the poor more, get out and visit the sick more, make some more food for more church dinners, pray more, get together more, worship more, give more, give more, give more, love more, more, more, more…and if you fill yourself up with doing all of these tasks along with the normal everyday stuff, you will be worthy to stand before God and say, "Boy, wasn't I great."
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God,
Did not regard equality with God
As something to be exploited,
But emptied himself…”
I find it interesting that Jesus saved the world through his death on the cross, not by filling himself up, doing more, and making himself great, but by emptying himself. Somehow, in having your life cleared out, you will find life. Somehow, in trying to do less and love less, you will actually love more. God’s love is not a task. It is who we are. It is what is left when we allow Christ to clean out our lives.
There is a great difference in accomplishing tasks of love on top of everything else you have to do in the day and being love no matter where you are. Jesus walked the earth not to fill himself up by accomplishing lots of tasks. He simply gave of himself wherever he went; a healing here when asked, and shared meal there, freeing the spirit troubled prisoner who stumbled up to him. Christ emptied himself. Everywhere he went he was love; he was God.
Sacrificial love is not a task. Sacrificial love is who you are. You were made that way in your baptism, when Christ splashed sacrificial love upon you. Allow Christ to continue to use that baptismal water to clear out all of the expectations on you. Allow love and forgiveness to cleanse you. And if we are successful as a Christian community, we will have an empty congregation. Of course it will not be one that is physically empty, but it will be one that is ready to love.
Who, though he was in the form of God,
Did not regard equality with God
As something to be exploited,
But emptied himself…”
A recent trend in American culture has started us down a path of health. Remember how, through the 90s, we were convinced that if a half pound hamburger was good, a one pound burger with a healthy barrel of fries and a tanker of coke would be better? Bigger was better in the super-size me culture of the fast-food world. Playing on primal fears that less food means certain death, many of us were taken in while out pants sizes had to be let out.
However, notice that the super-sized language has stared to fall away from the fast-food industry and portion sizes can now fit within your vehicle. Something happened. A number of reports on American health and children’s health in particular (which told us that the majority of our grade school children were now obese) came out and shook us into reasonableness. The film “Super-size Me” came out and reinforced the idea as we watched a man slowly killing himself while eating only a diet of McDonalds. We learned that more is not better. There is something to be said about emptying.
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God,
Did not regard equality with God
As something to be exploited,
But emptied himself…”
Our awareness of healthy eathing aside, I am not so certain that we have completely convinced ourselves of the wisdom of emptying. If you are a parent or a grandparent now raising a child as if you were the parent, you now know that there is a lot of pressure on you. There is a lot of expectation on you. In the past, to be a good parent meant baking cookies periodically, letting your children run around outside for hours on end, showing love by reading stories, sending them to their room when they were bad, and kissing a lot. Doesn’t that sound nice? Doesn’t that sound semi-relaxed? Doesn’t that sound completely foreign today?
To be a good parent today you have to fill your children up with lots of good things. You have to not only cook them the correct things, but you also have to make sure they are in a sport to build up self-confidence and team spirit, you have to get them to the zoo so that they learn about caring for animals, you have to get them to a museum so that they are not culturally stupid, you have to make sure they play an instrument, you have to make sure they are connected to their friends with cell phones so that they are not social outcasts, you have to make sure they are not down about themselves, you have to tell them they are doing good even if they are not, you have to make sure they visit everyone in the family at least four times a month, you have to get them to church, eat your vegetables, eat your vitamins, take your medications, they cannot watch too much TV but they need to watch some educational TV but only certain ones that come on a 8:30, 9:30, 10:00, and 11:15. Is it possible for the TV power button to go bad? Did I mention that you have to do all of this in the three hours that you are not working your job, cooking, or sleeping? In other words, we are still caught in the supersized mentality that says we need to be filled up in order to be great people.
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God,
Did not regard equality with God
As something to be exploited,
But emptied himself…”
I am not certain that even Christians have seen the wisdom in emptying. Don’t we feel like we need to be doing more in order to be the true people of God. To be great people we need to read the Bible more, get out and serve the poor more, get out and visit the sick more, make some more food for more church dinners, pray more, get together more, worship more, give more, give more, give more, love more, more, more, more…and if you fill yourself up with doing all of these tasks along with the normal everyday stuff, you will be worthy to stand before God and say, "Boy, wasn't I great."
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God,
Did not regard equality with God
As something to be exploited,
But emptied himself…”
I find it interesting that Jesus saved the world through his death on the cross, not by filling himself up, doing more, and making himself great, but by emptying himself. Somehow, in having your life cleared out, you will find life. Somehow, in trying to do less and love less, you will actually love more. God’s love is not a task. It is who we are. It is what is left when we allow Christ to clean out our lives.
There is a great difference in accomplishing tasks of love on top of everything else you have to do in the day and being love no matter where you are. Jesus walked the earth not to fill himself up by accomplishing lots of tasks. He simply gave of himself wherever he went; a healing here when asked, and shared meal there, freeing the spirit troubled prisoner who stumbled up to him. Christ emptied himself. Everywhere he went he was love; he was God.
Sacrificial love is not a task. Sacrificial love is who you are. You were made that way in your baptism, when Christ splashed sacrificial love upon you. Allow Christ to continue to use that baptismal water to clear out all of the expectations on you. Allow love and forgiveness to cleanse you. And if we are successful as a Christian community, we will have an empty congregation. Of course it will not be one that is physically empty, but it will be one that is ready to love.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Reflection on Romans 13:8-14
Peering through the clouds, using a sideways glare, I tried to see if God was watching. I was worried sick and running scared because I thought I had been caught. I do not recall in the least what I had done. Perhaps, I had punched my younger brother. That seemed to be a regular, enjoyable sin of mine. Perhaps, had looked at a girl with lustful intent. All the sudden girls were all around and I could not help but look. Or perhaps, it was the huge, enormous sin of not changing the toilet paper roll after using the last sheet. Whichever it was, I was certain that God peered around the clouds and saw what I did. I was waiting for retribution to fall from the sky in the form a falling piano or flying tractor trailer. I do not know exactly where I got the idea, but it never, never crossed my mind that God just might choose mercy instead of retribution.
It is strange that I had this vengeful conception of God, because my pastor was a great Lutheran preacher, so good was he that he is soon to become bishop in Minnesota in the next couple of years I am certain, and he preached God’s grace all the time. He made the love of Jesus Christ very real, even for a small child, using examples of parents and loving dogs. For some reason, after listening to him I knew that my dog Sparky loved me no matter what, he slobbered up my face after-all, but I was not convinced concerning God.
How we see God is so important, because we will follow the God we hold in our hearts. There is the phrase, “be careful what you do, your children are watching.” And, I think that this is true for God also, except I am not certain that we watch God all that closely. We will strive to be like the God we hold in our hearts. If we hold to a God of vengeance, not only will we worry about whether or not we are being perfect, we will also likely worry about whether or not everyone around us is being perfect. If they are not, they will deserve to be punished, and we will make certain that happens. I am not saying that justice is not important and that God does not care about justice, but I suspect that giving out vengeance because God has been personally hurt by what we did is not usually God’s way.
It is going to be hard to follow the advice of Paul in Romans to “Love your neighbor as yourself” if we never believe that God actually ever followed by that same rule. We will be judges if we are certain the God is only a judge. However, by the same token, we will put our lives on the line for another person if we are convinced that God has done the same for us.
Fast-forward a year or two when I was in the Jr. High locker room and a classmate was being pushed around in the shower. Stepping in between the classmate and the bully, I took a shove, slid across the floor on a nice film of soap, and ended up on my rear-end in the gutter of the shower. Laughter ensued of course, it is Jr. High after-all, but the laughter was now on me and my classmate was able to slip away safely. This really was no doing of my own, it was God. At some point, someone allowed me the grace to stop running from God and understand that Jesus Christ stuck his neck out for me in a big way. It was more than his neck. He stuck his whole body out for me on the cross. I learned what it meant to “be loved,” and it made a difference for that classmate.
“Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” These words of Paul make no sense if we don’t believe God acts the same way. But life is different when we understand that Jesus Christ loved all of his neighbors (the whole world) as much as himself; dying for everyone’s sake on the cross. Life is different when you are told that you are loved.
Instead, of running away from a God who was going to drop a piano on my head, I would have used that same amount of time to go and pick flowers for my neighbor (she was a cute golden-haired girl, just a year younger than myself). Or I could have gathered more of those violets and shared them with the cute girl’s great grandmother. Life would have been different if I would have known that God loved instead of despised.
You are loved by God, more than God loves Godself. That is the message of the cross. You are loved. And, it makes a difference in how we see the world, in how we see other sinful people like us walking around, and how we act towards them individually and as a church. But, that will be the subject of next week’s reflection. Just know today that God is a God of mercy. You are loved. Allow yourself to “be loved.”
It is strange that I had this vengeful conception of God, because my pastor was a great Lutheran preacher, so good was he that he is soon to become bishop in Minnesota in the next couple of years I am certain, and he preached God’s grace all the time. He made the love of Jesus Christ very real, even for a small child, using examples of parents and loving dogs. For some reason, after listening to him I knew that my dog Sparky loved me no matter what, he slobbered up my face after-all, but I was not convinced concerning God.
How we see God is so important, because we will follow the God we hold in our hearts. There is the phrase, “be careful what you do, your children are watching.” And, I think that this is true for God also, except I am not certain that we watch God all that closely. We will strive to be like the God we hold in our hearts. If we hold to a God of vengeance, not only will we worry about whether or not we are being perfect, we will also likely worry about whether or not everyone around us is being perfect. If they are not, they will deserve to be punished, and we will make certain that happens. I am not saying that justice is not important and that God does not care about justice, but I suspect that giving out vengeance because God has been personally hurt by what we did is not usually God’s way.
It is going to be hard to follow the advice of Paul in Romans to “Love your neighbor as yourself” if we never believe that God actually ever followed by that same rule. We will be judges if we are certain the God is only a judge. However, by the same token, we will put our lives on the line for another person if we are convinced that God has done the same for us.
Fast-forward a year or two when I was in the Jr. High locker room and a classmate was being pushed around in the shower. Stepping in between the classmate and the bully, I took a shove, slid across the floor on a nice film of soap, and ended up on my rear-end in the gutter of the shower. Laughter ensued of course, it is Jr. High after-all, but the laughter was now on me and my classmate was able to slip away safely. This really was no doing of my own, it was God. At some point, someone allowed me the grace to stop running from God and understand that Jesus Christ stuck his neck out for me in a big way. It was more than his neck. He stuck his whole body out for me on the cross. I learned what it meant to “be loved,” and it made a difference for that classmate.
“Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” These words of Paul make no sense if we don’t believe God acts the same way. But life is different when we understand that Jesus Christ loved all of his neighbors (the whole world) as much as himself; dying for everyone’s sake on the cross. Life is different when you are told that you are loved.
Instead, of running away from a God who was going to drop a piano on my head, I would have used that same amount of time to go and pick flowers for my neighbor (she was a cute golden-haired girl, just a year younger than myself). Or I could have gathered more of those violets and shared them with the cute girl’s great grandmother. Life would have been different if I would have known that God loved instead of despised.
You are loved by God, more than God loves Godself. That is the message of the cross. You are loved. And, it makes a difference in how we see the world, in how we see other sinful people like us walking around, and how we act towards them individually and as a church. But, that will be the subject of next week’s reflection. Just know today that God is a God of mercy. You are loved. Allow yourself to “be loved.”
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Reflection on Romans 12:9-21
You are loved by God and there is nothing you can do about it. You can work your whole life doing great things, and none of those things will earn you that love. You can be the most spiritual person in the world, connected with nature and other people, with niceness and wisdom oozing from your pours and still you will not have earned that love. You are loved by God, because God chose to love you. As a loving parent cradles their crying child, so too God loves you and forgives your annoying shouts and fits through the forgiveness of Jesus the Christ.
So you are in a family of love. The grace of Jesus Christ fills your entire being and surely you will allow some of it to spill out. And this is the point that Paul is at in his letter to the Romans. He has explained God’s grace, how we do nothing to deserve it, and now we have these love filed bodies. What do we do with them?
I have to admit, love isn’t an easy thing to let spill all over. God’s love certainly spilled everywhere; “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,” but we have been taught to be careful with our cups. We have been taught from childhood to pour carefully rather than to spill. When you pour, you have control over where it is going. When you pour love, you are certain that it goes in the intended direction and not behind you where it just may land on your worst enemy. What a waste that would be. When you "pour" your love, you are seen as nice. The correct people will rejoice in your niceness and will appreciate your niceness. However, niceness never travels beyond a small group of people. Niceness does not spill love on the whole world as God’s grace did. One of the worst things your church could be called is “nice.” Niceness does not transform lives; grace does.
We have been taught to pour, but Jesus the Christ appreciates the spilling action of grace. Jesus has no problem with the child who takes the cup of love and wings a nice streak of love all across the room, marking the dog, soaking grandma, filling the $2,000 curtains, and finding its way through the screen door, onto the neighbor who cut down your tree just because it was blocking the sun.
Jesus appreciates having fellow spillers to share God’s word of grace. But, spilling is hard to do. It is hard to live messy lives. Things will not always be logical in a love spilled world. People who should not be honored and blessed will be, and people who should be blessed will be expected to do the work of doing the honoring. You do not get any awards for your great wisdom or your peaceful nature in a world of spilled love. Instead, in a world of spilled love people’s lives are changed by God (people you would never expect to turn their lives around have their lives turned around), and you get no recognition. This kind of world makes little sense; it certainly not come naturally; but it is the way of God. So, like the Olympic runner who reminds themselves of specific things in order to continue running a gold metal race, “Keep your fingers loose and floppy…glide don’t bounce,” Paul reminds us of specific things that will make certain we are sharing love and not just being nice.
Hate doing evil, and embrace good.
Outdo each other in showing appreciation for each other.
Have hope, God is not far away.
Be patient…even when suffering…be patient, God is not far away.
Help the poor…those who are forgotten or hated for being lazy.
Talk to the stranger and welcome them with everything that is yours. Don’t just stare at them.
Bless those who hate you. In fact, pray for them that they may turn from their ways. Do not say bad things about them or wish them to die. Encourage the goodness that they do have.
Spend time with others: rejoice and weep with them. In hard times, do not leave those who weep alone.
Spend time with the lowly, those whom no one else spends time.
Be yourself. Who you are is good enough. Do not claim to be better or more wise.
Do not seek revenge. God showed love on the cross, not revenge. God will deal with evil people the way God wants to. Your only job is to love.
Be peaceful. Do not stir up trouble. Be a peacemaker.
When it comes to love, there is no difference between your friends and your enemies: feed them, give them drink, provide them with shelter.
Spill your love on even enemies and hot refiners coals will shower on them, the evil will burn away, and what will remain in them is God’s grace.
You are an athlete for God. Practice spilling grace. Hopefully, when someone visits the church community they will not say, “They were really nice.” Instead, they will say, “When I went there, I found what it means to be loved by God.” Practice spilling grace.
So you are in a family of love. The grace of Jesus Christ fills your entire being and surely you will allow some of it to spill out. And this is the point that Paul is at in his letter to the Romans. He has explained God’s grace, how we do nothing to deserve it, and now we have these love filed bodies. What do we do with them?
I have to admit, love isn’t an easy thing to let spill all over. God’s love certainly spilled everywhere; “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,” but we have been taught to be careful with our cups. We have been taught from childhood to pour carefully rather than to spill. When you pour, you have control over where it is going. When you pour love, you are certain that it goes in the intended direction and not behind you where it just may land on your worst enemy. What a waste that would be. When you "pour" your love, you are seen as nice. The correct people will rejoice in your niceness and will appreciate your niceness. However, niceness never travels beyond a small group of people. Niceness does not spill love on the whole world as God’s grace did. One of the worst things your church could be called is “nice.” Niceness does not transform lives; grace does.
We have been taught to pour, but Jesus the Christ appreciates the spilling action of grace. Jesus has no problem with the child who takes the cup of love and wings a nice streak of love all across the room, marking the dog, soaking grandma, filling the $2,000 curtains, and finding its way through the screen door, onto the neighbor who cut down your tree just because it was blocking the sun.
Jesus appreciates having fellow spillers to share God’s word of grace. But, spilling is hard to do. It is hard to live messy lives. Things will not always be logical in a love spilled world. People who should not be honored and blessed will be, and people who should be blessed will be expected to do the work of doing the honoring. You do not get any awards for your great wisdom or your peaceful nature in a world of spilled love. Instead, in a world of spilled love people’s lives are changed by God (people you would never expect to turn their lives around have their lives turned around), and you get no recognition. This kind of world makes little sense; it certainly not come naturally; but it is the way of God. So, like the Olympic runner who reminds themselves of specific things in order to continue running a gold metal race, “Keep your fingers loose and floppy…glide don’t bounce,” Paul reminds us of specific things that will make certain we are sharing love and not just being nice.
Hate doing evil, and embrace good.
Outdo each other in showing appreciation for each other.
Have hope, God is not far away.
Be patient…even when suffering…be patient, God is not far away.
Help the poor…those who are forgotten or hated for being lazy.
Talk to the stranger and welcome them with everything that is yours. Don’t just stare at them.
Bless those who hate you. In fact, pray for them that they may turn from their ways. Do not say bad things about them or wish them to die. Encourage the goodness that they do have.
Spend time with others: rejoice and weep with them. In hard times, do not leave those who weep alone.
Spend time with the lowly, those whom no one else spends time.
Be yourself. Who you are is good enough. Do not claim to be better or more wise.
Do not seek revenge. God showed love on the cross, not revenge. God will deal with evil people the way God wants to. Your only job is to love.
Be peaceful. Do not stir up trouble. Be a peacemaker.
When it comes to love, there is no difference between your friends and your enemies: feed them, give them drink, provide them with shelter.
Spill your love on even enemies and hot refiners coals will shower on them, the evil will burn away, and what will remain in them is God’s grace.
You are an athlete for God. Practice spilling grace. Hopefully, when someone visits the church community they will not say, “They were really nice.” Instead, they will say, “When I went there, I found what it means to be loved by God.” Practice spilling grace.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Reflection on Matthew 14:13-21
The wilderness is where you go when struggling in life. Setting out into lonely, deserted places is what we do when struggling with faith, with life in general, and with grief in particular. It is where we go to cry, to shout, to get lost, and to search for answers.
After hearing about John the Baptist’s death, Jesus sets out for the wilderness. Getting into a boat by himself, he rows toward a deserted place with the memories of his friend…his earthly mentor…on his mind. He rows across the lake to a deserted place to have time to think.
When a close friend of mine discovered that his wife was cheating on him, he set out for the woods; for the wilderness. When my grandma discovered that she had cancer, she closed herself away in her room; the wilderness. And, when I discovered that I would be the only one left with the memories of fishing out on the lake with my grandfather, such as the time the fish spit my hook out and the combined force of the spit and my tugging sent the lure sailing dangerously close to giving my grandfather a pierced lip, I took a long walk in to nowhere in particular; the wilderness.
Lots of people search for answers in the wilderness. Perhaps, that is why when Jesus gets ashore he finds in his deserted wilderness 5000 men plus women and children wandering around and searching also. The wilderness is sometimes a popular place. Perhaps it is because in the wilderness we are certain that we will get our answers. We have a good reason to think this also. God wrestles Jacob in the wilderness and God gives him a blessing. God feeds the Israelites manna in the wilderness. Jesus is tested and given a purpose in life while in the wilderness. And the five thousand plus will also have their hunger satisfied.
Jesus, God on earth, sees their need and hears their cries. He shares healing and hope and feeds everyone with bread and fish. Everyone who wandered into the wilderness was filled. No one walked away without being filled.
The world normally assumes that God is present most, and at work the most, when great things in life are happening. There are preachers who live and breathe this type of understanding of God. They fly into deserted, hungry places with their helicopters, proclaim that if only people believed hard enough they too would have a great and rich life, and then they fly out again like angels who have found the good life. They teach that God is found in the great things. But, I find it interesting that the people of those deserted villages are provided actual food and given knowledge of how to farm not by these preachers, but by actual people who are willing to come into the wilderness, live there with the people, struggle there with the people, and discover God there with the people. The helicopter preachers have discovered the great and powerful god of wealth. The villagers have found the true and humble God of the wilderness. The true God sends people to live among them, struggle with them, and show grace to them.
God does not require big things to be present. God is always present in the little things. God is found in the deserted places, where we cannot depend on ourselves, and we need to trust. God is most present when we struggle and find ourselves in the wilderness. God’s love was found on the cross, the most deserted place of them all. Do you feel lost? Do you feel hurt? Are you lonely? Are you in the wilderness? You could not possibly be closer to God and God’s love.
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