Heh. In honor of all the sad sack teams for which I have rooted over the years.

When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women. But other Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other believers before the city officials, shouting: “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil.

–Acts 17:1-8 (TNIV)

Two things stand out in this passage. First, we have an admirable model for evangelism. Paul reasoned with his hearers from Scripture (apparently Paul had not gotten the memo that faith and reason are mutually exclusive). He didn’t try to brow-beat those who were willing to listen to him, nor did he try to shame them. He reasoned with them from Scripture to provide his hearers with positive reasons why they should put their whole hope and trust in Christ, the way Paul had done. This, of course, means that Paul needed to know Scripture if he were to use it to reason with his hearers.

We do not have to be professional missionaries to do what Paul did. We can learn our Bibles thoroughly so that we can reason with our neighbors and friends and colleagues in the context of our conversations as opportunities arise (the extent to which we allow ourselves to get real with others is the extent to which those opportunities will arise). Paul went to urban centers because that is where the people were. So too, we can take our witness to where the people are in our daily lives.

Do you love people enough to share real life with them or to introduce them to the One who can give them real life and hope in the midst of our daily living? If you do, be willing to share with folks how you came to know Jesus and how he is helping you live your life, even in the midst of heartache and sorrow.

The second noteworthy thing from this passage is the statement that, “These men…have caused trouble all over the world…” Why, yes they have, thanks be to God! But why does the Gospel cause trouble all over the world? Because it challenges our pride and sense of self-sufficiency. We take offense at the notion that we need a Savior because we are too thoroughly infected with sin to save ourselves. The Gospel challenges worldly notions about power, wealth, prestige, and priorities. Jesus is Lord and we (or our families, countries, jobs–name your favorite thing) are not. This is threatening both to us and to those who demand that we give them or what they represent our ultimate allegiance.We typically want to determine our own priorities, not have them dictated to us, even if the one dictating is Jesus-God.

More importantly, the Gospel demands that we lose ourselves, that we put to death all that separates us from God, and we do not like to hear that or attempt to do so because it is hard to do. Very hard. And  so instead, we fuss about the Gospel being judgmental or outdated and/or make all kinds of excuses of why its demands are unreasonable.

But it is true. We cannot save ourselves. Without the cross of Jesus Christ we are toast. But even though that may offend us, we dare not lose sight of the fact that we have a God who loves us and created us for relationship with him, not destruction, and consequently was willing to condescend to us to make it possible to live for him both here and for all eternity. If that doesn’t cause trouble for this world, I don’t know what can.

This song has been running through my mind ever since we sang it two weeks ago and so I figured I might as well share it with you. 🙂

Are Ye Able?

“Are ye able,” said the Master,
“to be crucified with me?”
“Yea,” the sturdy dreamers answered,
“to the death we follow thee.”

Refrain:
Lord, we are able. Our spirits are thine.
Remold them, make us, like thee, divine.
Thy guiding radiance above us shall be
a beacon to God, to love, and loyalty.

Are ye able to remember,
when a thief lifts up his eyes,
that his pardoned soul is worthy
of a place in paradise?
(Refrain)

Are ye able when the shadows
close around you with the sod,
to believe that spirit triumphs,
to commend your soul to God?
(Refrain)

Are ye able? Still the Master
whispers down eternity,
and heroic spirits answer,
now as then in Galilee.
(Refrain)

–Earl Marlatt 530

You should become humble because the good God humbled himself for you. In Scripture the diagnosis of the Divine Doctor is clear: “The beginning of every sin is pride” (Sirach 10:13). The doctor himself came to you but you ridiculed him. You murmured, “What sort of God is this? One who was born, suffered, smeared with spittle, crowned with thorns and then hung up on a cross?” Despicable soul! You see the humility of your doctor; you don’t see the pride-filled wound that he has come to cure. You are displeased with the humble doctor because he is an affront to your pride.

–Augustine, Sermon 360B.17

Ouch. In typical fashion, Augustine cuts right to the chase. What kind of patient are you being for the Divine Doctor?

To pray for those who are in mortal sin is the best kind of almsgiving–a much better thing than it would be to loose a Christian whom we saw with his hands tied behind him, bound with a stout chain, made fast to a post and dying of hunger, not for lack of food, since he has beside him the most delicious things to eat, but because he cannot take them and put them into his mouth although he is weary to death and actually knows that he is on the point of dying, and not merely a death of the body, but one which is eternal. Would it not be extremely cruel to stand looking at such a man and not give him this food to eat? And supposing you could loose his chains by means of your prayers? You see now what I mean. For the love of God, I beg you always to remember such souls when you pray.

—Interior Castle

St. Teresa’s teaching here would be very unpopular in today’s western culture. She actually had the audacity to believe that it is not love to encourage everyone to do their own thing because we typically choose things that lead to death, not life (the human condition). What is worse, she had the audacity to believe that love is made manifest in desiring the best for the other, and the best is Jesus Christ. One can hear the politically correct squealing with righteous indignation! O, the intolerance of it all!

But I ask you. If Jesus Christ really is who he says he is, if he really is the only way to the Father, then who is demonstrating real love here? The one who prays that God will lead people out of their darkness and into his light or those who encourage us to do our own thing, all in the name of tolerance and freedom?

How are you doing in your love for others?

When a [person] gives us self, his past sins will no longer oppress him [emphasis mine]. It is enough for the good of life that God lives, that the All-perfect exists, and that we can behold him. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” said the Divine, making excuse for his murderers, not after it was all over, but at the very moment when he was dying at their hands. Then Jesus had forgiven them already. His prayer the Father must have been heard, for he and the Son are one. When the Father succeeded in answering his prayers, then his forgiveness in the hearts of the murderers broke out in sorrow, repentance, and faith. Here was a sin dreadful enough surely [the crucifixion]–but easy for our Lord to forgive. All that excuse for the misled populace! Lord Christ be thanked for that! That was like thee!

–George MacDonald, Creation in Christ

In this life we are plagued with infirmity and disease. They weigh us down, they crush us. I believe that if God were speaking to us, he would say, “Submit to the doctor’s knife!” Just think of the things we suffer from human doctors! They immobilize us in splints, lance our wounds, and then purify them with fire. Because the doctor promises possible health we not only endure painful surgery; we beg for it. This being the case, don’t you think that you are being cured of your spiritual illness when you suffer hardship in this life? Don’t you believe the words of Scripture: “In fire gold is tested and worthy men in the crucible of humiliation” (Sirach 2:5)? So put up with what the Divine Doctor applies to the patient when he acts like a goldsmith applying fire to the gold being refined.

—Sermon 23B.11

Much as I hate to admit it, I think Augustine is right here. The times in my life that have most profoundly changed me and helped me grow were not the good times, but rather the adverse ones. What about you? Has that been your experience as well?

Compassion comes out of a deep experience of solidarity, in which one recognizes that the evil, sin and violence which one sees in the world and in the other, are deeply rooted in one’s own heart. Only when you want to confess this and want to rely on the merciful  God who can bring good out of evil are you in a position to receive forgiveness and also to give it to other men and women who threaten you with violence.

—Thomas Merton: Contemplative Critic

Nouwen hits on a profound truth about forgiveness. It is what enabled Paul to write Timothy that, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst” (1 Timothy 1: 15b). We cannot really forgive others until we realize that we are just like them. Neither do we really need a Savior if we honestly believe we do not need saved.

If I should slow diverge, and listless stray into some thought, feeling, or dream upright, O Watcher, my backsliding soul affray; let me not perish of the ghastly blight. Be thou, O Life eternal, in me light; then merest approach of selfish or impure shall start me up alive, awake, secure.

—Diary of an Old Soul

Keep me from wrath, let it seem ever so right: My wrath will never work thy righteousness. Up, up the hill, to the whiter than snow-shine, help me to climb, and dwell in pardon’s light. I must be pure as thou, or even less than thy design of me–therefore incline my heart to take man’s wrongs as thou tak’st mine.

—Diary of an Old Soul

To speak of the thirst for holiness, then, is to speak of a moral vision and a capacity for love that comes from the source of creation itself. Holiness is that which expands our humanity, for it not only provides the context in which growth takes place, but provides a vision of what life is ultimately about and toward which we stumble and slowly make our way, owning our brokenness but rejoicing in the Grace that alone will make us whole.

–James Fenhagen, Invitation to Holiness