“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.
Monday, September 29, 2008
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.
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