Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

11 Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 15 He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. 16 He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. 17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.

–Deuteronomy 8.11-18 (NIV)

In today’s passage, we are confronted with the the problem of the human condition. Our pattern of rebellion (which the Bible generally calls sin) has led us to be delusional. We want to take God’s rightful place and play God ourselves. This manifests itself, in part, when we want to take credit when and where it is not due. Here we see God reminding his people Israel through his prophet Moses to remember Whose they are, what they are, and to give credit where it is due.

As we read today’s lesson, the first thing we must do is to get past the historical context in which it is set. Remember that God interacts with his people in the course of human history and therefore Scripture will always have an historical context. We may not have herds and cattle, gold and silver as indicators of success, but the point remains the same. When things are going well for us, we tend to delude ourselves into thinking that we are the ones primarily responsible for our success. Think about it. When we get a job promotion, become popular and enjoy status and prestige, or enjoy financial success, we tend to pat ourselves on the back and make it all about us.

“Not so fast,” says God to his people. “Sure, you have to put forth the effort and use the gifts I’ve given you to acquire the material benefits in life, but without me you have no hope for success because all good things in life come ultimately from me. Stop being obstinate and rebellious and acknowledge this truth and it will go well with you.” For you see, the underlying issue involved in today’s passage is this: Who will be God in your life? Will it be the one true God or will it be some false god of your making (which might include yourself) whom you worship?

God goes on to remind his people that it was he who delivered them from their slavery and exile in Egypt. It was God who helped his people navigate the treacherous wilderness and delivered them to the promised land. Likewise, when the storms of life descend on us, it is the same God who will help deliver us from them. That doesn’t mean he will make us immune from all that can go wrong in this life. Rather, it means that God will be with us and guide us through those storms.

This is what faith is ultimately all about. Do you believe that God can and will do this for you?

If you do, you can count on God to give you what you need, both in good times and in bad. When things are cooking with gas for you, God will give you the needed humility to remember that God is the One who provides for you. You will remember that you are simply the beneficiary of his abundant generosity toward you.

When things go terribly wrong for you, God will give you what you need to navigate through the dark periods of your life. You may not be skipping through those bad times and whistling on your way–in fact, that is highly unlikely–but you will be given what you need because God is a God who provides for his people and who will deliver them from the evil that can beset them.

We know this primarily because God has taken care of the problem of sin and death for us by becoming human, bearing the penalty for our sin himself, and then rising from the dead as the first-fruits of his promise to us of New Creation. If God can and will raise us from the dead, is there anything in life that he cannot handle or help us handle?

When you really believe this, you really will have the Easter hope and promise, and it will make all the difference in the world for you. The Easter promise does not make us immune from the hurts of this world. What it does is to remind us that we are connected to the Source and Author of all life who will not let even death separate us from his great love for us. But to claim the promise we must give up our delusion of self-grandeur. We must acknowledge that God is God and we are not, and we must willingly submit to his will for us to become agents of his New Creation.

Our obedience as his agents of New Creation will be characterized by love and service for God’s broken and hurting creatures and creation, and he calls each of us to use our gifts in different ways to serve him. When we decide to do this, we can count on it going well for us, even in the face of all that hell and the world can throw our way. Because as God reminds us in today’s passage, God wants things to go well for us. He created us to love him and enjoy him forever and it all starts by giving credit where credit is due.

If you do not have this kind of life-giving relationship with God, what are you waiting for? Do yourself a huge favor and tap into the power of the God who will raise you from the dead. After that, everything else is basically rock and roll, isn’t it?

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

How to Use Scripture Properly

An example of the importance of considering each part of Scripture’s teaching on any subject in the light of the whole is the second coming of Christ. It would be easy (and dangerous) to be selective in the texts from which we build up our doctrine.  Thus, some passages indicate that Christ’s return will be personal and visible, indeed that he will come ‘in the same way’ as he went (Acts 1:11). But before we press this into meaning that the return will be a kind of ascension in reverse, like a film played backwards, and that Christ will set his feet on the precise spot on the Mount of Olives from which he was taken up, we need to consider something Jesus said to counter those who wanted to localize his return: For the Son of Man in his day will be like the  lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from  one end to the other (Lk. 17:24). The truly biblical Christian, anxious to be faithful to all Scripture, will want to do equal justice to both these strands of teaching. The coming of the Lord will indeed be personal, historical and visible; but it will also be ‘in power and great glory’, as universal as the lightning, a transcendent event of which the whole human population of both hemispheres will be simultaneously aware.

—Dr. John R.W. Stott, Understanding the Bible, 179

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918), Canadian Army

Learning How to Overcome Our Fear

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

We have been looking at the notion that God is a God who meets us where we are and moves us to where he wants us to be. Last week I talked about what it means to be Living Stones for God, noting that God meets us where we are there too. I also talked about the very real possibility of meeting terrible opposition because the powers and principalities do not want to give up running the show. This, of course, can cause us to become afraid, which can paralyze us and our discipleship. This morning I want to briefly look at why we become afraid and what we can do to stop being afraid so that we can become better Living Stones for Jesus.

In today’s Epistle lesson, Peter encourages us not to be afraid when we suffer for things that really are not our doing. We remember that there are people out there who hate us because we are Christians and who would gladly imprison or kill us if given half a chance. We may not have to suffer that kind of persecution in this country—it usually comes in the form of scorn, ridicule, and derision—but there are Christians being killed all over the world, simply because they are Christians.

As we think about Peter telling us to not be afraid, we cannot help but marvel over this because we remember the many times in his life that Peter himself was afraid. We wonder what has changed for him, assuming he is not simply a pontificating hypocrite. Take, for example, Luke’s account of the time when Jesus and his disciples were in a boat on the sea of Galilee. A storm erupts quickly and threatens to engulf the boat and drown everyone in it, including Jesus. The disciples are terrified and call out to Jesus to save them (Luke 8.22-24).

We can immediately relate to a story like this because if we are old enough, we’ve been in the disciples’ shoes many a time. We may not have faced the actual danger of drowning but each one of us has been in situations that have made us afraid, either for our physical safety or for our psychological/spiritual safety (or both).

Fear might come when we lose our job or a loved one. It might come when we fail at a task and wonder about our future. We may be afraid that no one will ever accept us for who we are, not even God. It might come with a medical diagnosis that is life-threatening. It might strike us as we think about growing old and infirm.  And yes, fear may paralyze us in our discipleship because when it gets right down to it, we just don’t want to have to suffer for Jesus and are afraid he may call us to do just that. The list is endless, but you get the point. Because we live in a broken and fallen world, we are confronted constantly with things that can make us afraid.

But here is the interesting thing. The most common command in the Bible is “don’t be afraid.” We see it in action in Luke’s story. Who can blame the disciples? They are on the verge of drowning and the guy who can fix things is fast asleep, getting ready, apparently unawares, to be drowned with them! I mean, really. How often do we think the same thing in the midst of the storms of our life? “Jesus! I am about to be swamped! Don’t you care about what happens to me? Why are you sleeping?” To which Jesus responds, “Why are you afraid?”

And here we get to the crux of the matter. We are usually afraid because we don’t know Jesus well enough to trust him or to believe he can help us. Or we might believe that he can help us but that he will choose not to do so. Others of us are content to try to be the master of our life and our own destiny, and fool ourselves into thinking that we are—until “it” hits the fan and everything starts to unravel. Then to our shock we learn otherwise and we become afraid.

This is what our rebelliousness (what the Bible calls sin) has done for us, in part. It has made us afraid because we don’t know God well enough to trust him or we think that we know better than God what is best for us.

So how do we learn not to be afraid? Jesus alludes to the answer in today’s Gospel lesson. “I am sending you the Spirit so that you won’t feel abandoned or alone. He will help you remember your experiences with me,” he says. “And if you don’t know me yet, take the time to really get to know me so that you will know the love I have for you and the power I have to save and protect you. Now if you expect me to keep you from ever having to experience the hurts and trials of this world, I won’t do that. Don’t ask me why I won’t do that because you are not ready and able to hear the answer. But if you really do know me and trust me, that shouldn’t matter to you. After all, what if you die? I’ve conquered death for you and you have the hope and promise of New Creation awaiting you. My resurrection will be (and is) proof of that. And besides, life is more than your mortal existence. When you get to know me, you will soon discover that you have the ability to transcend fear because you realize that whatever happens to you, I will turn it into your good and that nothing in this creation can separate you from me or my love for you.”

Talk about requiring a leap of faith!

When we become afraid, then, there are some practical things we can do to help us get to know Jesus better and/or to remind us why we need not fear. First, we should make a conscious effort to recall stories/persons from the Bible that remind us of God’s love for us, that remind us why we should not be afraid. For example, read the story of Abraham in Genesis or the stories of Esther and Ruth to see how they dealt with the uncertainties of their lives. Read the heart-wrenching story of Jeremiah to learn how to really put your trust in Jesus. Read the story of the Exodus about how God delivered his people from slavery and exile. Read the beginning and ending passages of Matthew in which God promises to be with us by becoming human (Immanuel, God with us–1.22-23) and in which Jesus promises us to be with us always, even to the end of the age (28.20). Read the first several chapters of Acts, where Luke tells us how Jesus’ disciples were transformed from sniveling cowards into bold and fearless apostles. Read Romans 8 and Psalm 23 to remind you of God’s great love for you and how nothing can separate you from it unless you do so yourself by willfully rejecting his love.

Take Jesus’ advice to his disciples that we have read about in our Gospel lessons these past two weeks. We cannot experience Jesus the way his disciples did when he walked this earth but we can experience him in and through the Spirit and get to know him intimately by reading the Gospel accounts repeatedly, always with the mediating help and Presence of the Spirit which Jesus promised to send us.

Toward this end, resolve to read your Bible every day and in a systematic way so that you will know the stories of everyday people who discovered God’s love and protection in the midst of their trials and note carefully that often they were not spared of having to go through trials. Learn from this.

Then think about the times in your life that God has acted on your behalf. Resist the temptation to take the credit for your successes and be humble enough to give credit where it is ultimately due. Think about the times when “it” hit the fan and you received just what you needed to help you deal with “it.” Surround yourself with Christian friends—this is massively important—who will love you enough to speak the truth in love to you and who will remind you not to be afraid; who will be with you, physically and emotionally, in your times of trial when you need the human touch the most so that you will have a palpable sense of God’s Presence in the midst of your struggles.

Ask God in prayer to give you a sense of his Presence in your life, to give you boldness to live for him and be his agent of New Creation, and when you start to meet opposition for doing this, take it as a badge of honor and give thanks to God. Consider the possibility that in your trials God is giving you an opportunity to show you his trustworthiness so that you can learn to trust him in any and all circumstances.

And by all means, do not try to pigeonhole God by demanding that he act in a particular way or grant you a particular outcome before you will give him your love and loyalty. God does not negotiate with terrorists and you will likely go away very disappointed and angry. The very expectation itself is a reminder to you that you do not trust God, that you know better than God how things should go.

I am not going to suggest to you that doing these things will have an immediate or magical effect on you. If my experience is typical, they won’t. What you will find is that over time you learn to go back to God in the ways I have suggested and that will make the fear subside in you (or go away completely). The key is to focus on God in Jesus and to get to know him better through reading your Bible, prayer, partaking of the sacraments, and through the tangible love of Christian fellowship. None of this is a magical elixir. All of this points to common means of grace that have been proven to help us not be afraid because we know the One who is in charge and we trust our very lives to him.

If you are afraid, resolve to come to the One who can still the raging waters of your life and who has conquered forever the great enemy of humans—death. As you get to know him you will learn to trust him and when that happens, you will discover the blessing of God’s peace in your life that not even the gates of hell will be able to take away. When that happens, you will discover that you are really living the Good News, now and for for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

Learning Not to Be Afraid

22 One day Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side of the lake.” So they got into a boat and set out. 23 As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger. 24 The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!” He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. 25 “Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.”

–Luke 8.22-24 (NIV)

We can immediately relate to this story because if we are old enough, we’ve been in the disciples’ shoes many a time. We may not have faced the actual danger of drowning but each one of us has been in situations that have made us afraid, either for our physical safety or our psychological/spiritual safety (or both).

Fear might come when we lose our job or a loved one. It might come when we fail at a task and wonder about our future. It might come with a medical diagnosis that is life-threatening. We may be afraid that no one will ever accept us for who we are, not even God. The list is endless, but you get the point. Because we live in a broken and fallen world, we are confronted constantly with things that can make us afraid.

But here is the interesting thing. The most common mandate in the Bible is “don’t be afraid.” We see it in action in today’s Gospel lesson. Who can blame the disciples? They are on the verge of drowning and the guy who can fix things is fast asleep, getting ready, apparently unawares, to be drowned with them! I mean, really. How often do we think the same thing in the midst of the storms of our life? “Jesus! I am about to be swamped! Don’t you care about what happens to me? Why are you sleeping?” To which Jesus responds, “Where is your faith (why are you afraid)”?

And here we come to the crux of the matter. We are usually afraid because we don’t know Jesus well enough to trust him or to believe he can help us. Or we might believe that he can help us but that he will choose not to do so. Others of us are content to try to be the master of our life and our own destiny, and fool ourselves into thinking that we are–until “it” hits the fan and everything starts to unravel. Then we learn otherwise and become afraid.

This is what our rebelliousness (what the Bible calls sin) has done for us, in part. It has made us afraid because we don’t know God well enough to trust him or think that we know better than God what is best for us.

So how do we learn not to be afraid? Jesus alludes to the answer in today’s passage. “Get to know me,” he says. “Really get to know me so that you will know the love I have for you and the power I have to save and protect you. Now if you expect me to keep you from ever having to experience the hurts and trials of this world, I won’t do that. Don’t ask me why I won’t do that because you are not ready and able to hear the answer. But if you really do know me and trust me, that shouldn’t matter to you. After all, what if you die? I’ve conquered death for you. And besides, life is more than your mortal existence anyway. When you get to know me, you will soon discover that you have the ability to transcend fear because you realize that whatever happens, I will turn it into your good and that nothing in this creation can separate you from me or my love for you.”

Talk about requiring a leap of faith!

When we become afraid, then, there are some practical things we can do to help us get to know Jesus better and/or to remind us why we need not fear. First, we should make a conscious effort to recall stories/persons from the Bible that remind us of God’s love for us, that remind us why we should not be afraid. For example, read the story of Abraham in Genesis or the stories of Esther and Ruth. Or read the heart-wrenching story of Jeremiah to learn how to really put your trust in Jesus. Read the beginning and ending passages of Matthew in which God promises to be with us by becoming human (Immanuel–God with us) and in which Jesus promises us to be with us always, even to the end of the age.

Read the story of the Exodus about how God liberated his people from their slavery and exile. Read the first several chapters of Acts, where Luke tells us how Jesus’ disciples were transformed from sniveling cowards into bold apostles. Read Romans 8 and Psalm 23 to remind you of God’s great love for you. Read the farewell discourses in John’s Gospel and be reminded of the promises that God himself made to you.

Then think about the times in your life that God has acted on your behalf. Resist the temptation to take the credit for your successes and be humble enough to give credit where it is ultimately due. Think about the times when “it” hit the fan and you received what you needed to help you deal with “it”. Surround yourself with Christian friends–this is massively important–who will love you enough to speak the truth in love to you and who will remind you not to be afraid, who will be with you, physically and emotionally, in your times of trial when you need the human touch the most so that you will have a palpable sense of God’s Presence in the midst of your struggles.

Toward this end, resolve to read your Bible every day and in a systematic way so that you will know the stories of everyday people who discovered God’s love and protection in the midst of their trials and note carefully that often they were not spared of having to go through trials. Learn from this.

Ask God in prayer to give you a sense of his Presence in your life, to give you boldness to live for him and be his agent of New Creation, and when you start to meet opposition for doing this, take it as a badge of honor and give thanks to God. Consider the possibility that in your trials God is giving you an opportunity to show you his trustworthiness so that you can learn to trust him in any and all circumstances.

And by all means, do not try to pigeonhole God by demanding that he act in a particular way or grant you a particular outcome before you will give him your love and loyalty. God does not negotiate with terrorists and you will likely go away very disappointed and angry. The very expectation itself is a reminder to you that you do not trust God, that you know better than God how things should go.

I am not going to suggest to you that doing these things will have an immediate and magical effect on you. If my experience is typical, they won’t. What you will find is that over time you learn to go back to God in the ways I have suggested and that will make the fear subside in you (or go away completely). The key is to focus on God in Jesus and to get to know him better through reading your Bible, prayer, partaking of the sacraments, and through the tangible love of Christian fellowship. None of this is a magical elixir. All of this points to common means of grace that have been proven to help us not be afraid because we know the One who is in charge and we trust our very lives to him.

If you are afraid, resolve to come to the One who can still the raging waters of your life and who has conquered forever the great enemy of humans–death. As you get to know him you will learn to trust him and when that happens, you will discover the blessing of God’s peace in your life that not even the gates of hell will be able to take away.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Christian Discipleship–It Also Starts at Our Church Home

1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. 3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. 9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

–Romans 12 (NIV)

Yesterday we looked at a practical application of Christian discipleship in the context of family life. In today’s lesson, Paul gives us another practical application of Christian discipleship, this time in the context of our church home. Like yesterday’s lesson, we need to read today’s passage within its broader context. The church at Rome apparently consisted of both Gentiles and Jews, and previously in this letter Paul has walked them through God’s plan of salvation for and the unification of all humanity in Jesus Christ. Hence, if we are to see today’s lesson as more than just a bunch of rules to follow, we need to look at chapters 1-11 of Romans so that we can appreciate the context in which Paul gives us another practical application of Christian discipleship in action (being agents of New Creation). And as we saw yesterday, being an agent of New Creation starts in the home, in this case, our church home.

It is impossible for me to comment on all that is contained in this passage. I will therefore offer a few broad observations. First, it is quite evident that Paul envisions the Christian life to be lived together. Just as he was concerned about family members living their lives together and adhering to their God-given roles so that God’s peace and order would reign, so too is Paul concerned about the same things regarding the church. This is obvious by the amount of time he spends on how Christians should interact with each other in the context of church and in the broader world. Paul is telling us quite clearly here (and elsewhere in his epistles) that if we are going to be a member of Christ’s body, we cannot be an armchair quarterback who is detached from the rest of the members of the body. It won’t do to have an “all about me” mentality when we are members of Christ’s body. Rather, the proper mindset to have is one that is “all about the welfare of others within the body in addition to my own welfare.”

Of course, for Paul, this all starts with the transforming of our mind by the Holy Spirit. The verb Paul uses here, metamorphoo, is the same verb used to describe the transfiguration of Jesus. It means to be changed at a fundamental level so that we become something completely new. This doesn’t happen overnight nor is it an event. Rather, it’s a process that usually takes a lifetime to achieve. Regardless of how the dynamics of this transformation work, Paul’s point is that we cannot be Christians or God’s Kingdom workers without the help of the Spirit because what follows in this passage is impossible for fallen humans to achieve on their own. Why? Because we tend to make it all about us and our selfish desires. That is the way of the world. It’s business as usual and that will not turn heads.

But when we have a saving faith in Jesus, everything changes. We open ourselves up to his Spirit so that he can live in us and change us into the beings he created us to be. We have a new orientation about life, an outward focus, and caring for the needs of others is as important to us as caring for our own needs. Thus we see Paul’s emphasis on the active participation of all members of Christ’s body. We each have different gifts but no one is devoid  of them. Consequently, we are to use what we have to help build each other up so that we can be agents of God’s healing and transformative love.

Paul has in mind here a group of people who show their faith in Jesus by imitating him in their love for and service to each other using the gifts they have. This, in turn, allows the Spirit to work powerfully in and through them to build up the church and equip the saints to be Jesus’ salt and light to the world. There is no room for bloated egos in this configuration because nobody is indispensable and no one is superior to others. Jesus is the head, not us, and when our minds are transformed by the Spirit, we instinctively understand that. You cannot serve others, nor will you have the slightest interest in even doing so, if you think you are somehow superior to them. At best we might find some patronizing behavior but that is not love in action.

This then is how we worship God. We become living sacrifices for the sake of others, just as Jesus presented himself as a living sacrifice on the cross to end our exile from God forever. At its most fundamental level, Christian discipleship has always been about imitating Jesus and here Paul gives us several broad and practical applications for doing that.

Paul then talks about the difficult work of loving and forgiving others, and making peace with them. Conflicts will arise in the life of the church and outside of it. It is unavoidable. Conflict is not necessarily a sin unless we refuse to work at resolving our conflict with others for hateful, selfish, or self-righteous reasons. When we see ourselves as superior to others we are much less likely to want to forgive them when they wrong us or disagree with us. After all, why should we? If we are convinced that we are right all the time, we will not be interested in hearing others’ perspectives and needs. This is what happens when we shut ourselves off from the Spirit’s Presence, either consciously or unconsciously.

But when we open ourselves to the Spirit’s transformative Presence, things change. We realize we are in the same boat as everyone else. We understand that others have needs just like we have. We therefore work to resolve our conflicts with others, always remembering that it takes two to reconcile. We cannot control how the other acts and if he or she is not willing to forgive so that reconciliation can take place, we are not responsible for that. Paul tells us to take care of the things that we can control and we are always to be about the business of peacemaking and offering mercy and forgiveness because we have been the grateful recipients of God’s mercy, forgiveness, and peace offered to us in the cross of Jesus.

The Spirit also makes us aware of Whose we are. We are Jesus’ disciples and are called to bring his healing love to a world and people who are  often hostile to him. And they are just waiting for us to slip up and bring dishonor to the Name. How many times have you seen Christians slip up badly and cause people to disparage both Jesus and the faith?

Let’s be clear. We are not called to defend Jesus. He can do that quite nicely for himself, thank you. Instead, we are called to bring honor and glory to his Name and we do that by showing the world there is a better way of doing business. It’s called Gospel living in which we behave toward others in the manner Paul talks about in today’s passage. We love each other, serve each other, care for each other, forgive each other, and are always willing bearers of God’s peace, which means that we are ready to forgive and be forgiven. We offer ourselves in joyous service to God and our fellow humans because we know our eternal destiny is secure and we eagerly look forward to the New Creation of which Jesus’ Resurrection is the first-fruits.

But we don’t sit around trying to predict when that will happen. We get busy at bringing God’s love for folks in Jesus to bear and we don’t mind getting abused for doing so along the way because we remember that life is more than just biological existence. Real life is all about having a restored relationship with God made possible only by the blood of Jesus shed for us on the cross. As the Spirit transforms us and helps us deepen our understanding of this wondrous grace, so our joy in living and our willingness to embody Jesus increases exponentially. It’s that old fruit of the Spirit thingy and it is our best indication that we have his gentle and ineffable Presence working in and through us.

Following Jesus is hard to do because that means we cannot make life all about us. But we don’t mind because we know our present and future are secure. In following Jesus we find meaning and purpose in living because we understand that we are allowing God to use us to continue his work of bringing healing and redemption to his hurting and broken world.

And we remember always that we do this work together.

We don’t do any of this because we are swell people. We do this only if we have the Spirit living in us and changing us into the very likeness of Jesus. If you are looking for abundant life, for another place beside your home to start following Jesus, start with his body, the Church. You will find abundant life when you decide to follow Jesus and live life in the fellowship of other believers whom Jesus will use to help you grow, and to comfort and support you when things go bad in life, as they inevitably do. You will also find that he uses you to do likewise for your fellow believers.

Again, the proof is in the pudding. You cannot theorize about this. You have to jump in the water and start swimming. If you have not already done so, take the plunge and become an expert swimmer. You’ve got the best person in the entire universe to teach you and you will have the very support of the rest of his body to help you when you get tired.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Christian Discipleship: It All Starts at Home

18A wife must put her husband first. This is her duty as a follower of the Lord. 19A husband must love his wife and not abuse her. 20Children must always obey their parents. This pleases the Lord. 21Parents, don’t be hard on your children. If you are, they might give up. 22Slaves, you must always obey your earthly masters. Try to please them at all times, and not just when you think they are watching. Honor the Lord and serve your masters with your whole heart. 23Do your work willingly, as though you were serving the Lord himself, and not just your earthly master. 24In fact, the Lord Christ is the one you are really serving, and you know that he will reward you. 25But Christ has no favorites! He will punish evil people, just as they deserve. 1Slave owners, be fair and honest with your slaves. Don’t forget that you have a Master in heaven. 2Never give up praying. And when you pray, keep alert and be thankful. 5When you are with unbelievers, always make good use of the time. 6Be pleasant and hold their interest when you speak the message. Choose your words carefully and be ready to give answers to anyone who asks questions.

–Colossians 3.18-4.2, 5-6 (CEV)

There has been a tremendous amount of ink spilled over this particular passage from Paul today, much of which completely misses the context of these instructions and therefore Paul’s point. The context in which we must read today’s passage is Colossians 3.1-17 in which Paul talks about what being transformed by the power and Presence of Christ looks like. The verses above are simply a practical application of what Paul has just talked about. We must also remember that Colossians was written to and for Christians. In other words, Paul is giving instructions to Christian households. He is not writing for everyone as verses 5-6 above make clear.

(I do not have the time or space to address the slavery issue here. Suffice it to say that Paul was not endorsing slavery, but rather proposing to end the practice from within through Christ’s ability to change people. The principles I talk about below concerning family relationships are broadly generalizable to the matter of relationships between slaves and their masters).

When we give ourselves to Christ and allow him to live in us, he changes us from being selfish people to people who have a real heart and passion for others. Relationships become hugely important, both with God and each other, and we understand what we must do to maintain those relationships. In the context of the Christian family, Paul reminds us that each family member has his or her role. Wives should acknowledge that the husband is the spiritual head of the household and hold him accountable for that (keeping in mind that Jesus is the ultimate head of any Christian household because both husbands and wives must submit to his authority and obey him).

Being the spiritual head of the Christian home is a tremendous responsibility because it requires that the husband makes sure to provide an environment in which all family members honor Christ in the way they treat one another and that they are all growing in their knowledge of him. So, for example, we would expect the husband to insist that the family worship together, pray together, read Scripture together, and talk about what it means to live the Christian life together. The key word, of course, is together because Paul never envisioned a privatized and isolated form of Christianity. This doesn’t mean that we cannot read Scripture alone or pray alone, but rather that we live out our faith together. It’s not an either-or proposition.

Moreover, when Paul enjoins husbands to love their wives, he has in mind, as Ephesians 5.21-33 makes clear, the kind of self-giving love that Christ demonstrated by going to the cross to redeem a sinful and alienated humanity. This is not easy stuff for either husband or wife, but especially the husband, because this kind of love is hard for naturally sinful humans to do. Read properly, no one can possibly interpret this passage as giving Christian husbands a carte blanche invitation to abuse their status, let alone their wife and children, so husbands can satisfy their selfish desires and make the family all about them. That just isn’t being Christlike and Christian husbands (along with everybody else) need to understand this.

Keeping in mind that Paul expects all Christian communities, households included, to behave differently than non-Christians so that they could be Christ’s salt and light to those who need it most, Paul goes on to remind children that they should submit to the authority of their parents because that is God’s intent for the proper ordering of families, which produces God’s peace (because God is the God of peace, not disorder, cf. 1 Corinthians 14, especially v. 33).

But just as he did in discussing the roles of Christian husbands and wives, so Paul balances out the duties of Christian children by reminding parents, especially the Christian father who is the spiritual head of the house, not to abuse this ordering. Christian parents are never to treat their children harshly or abuse them because of the potential to cause disorder, both personal and familial, on so many different levels. Christian parents are never to interpret Paul’s instructions to children here as a license to do whatever they please because children are not given to parents to be objects for their personal disposal. Christian parents are charged with the sobering responsibility of raising their children to become Christian adults, and this is no trifling matter. That is why Christian fathers (and mothers) must take their responsibilities seriously and holistically. The Christian life cannot be compartmentalized. It is to be lived as a whole.

Do you see what is going on here? Paul is showing us how obedience to Christ plays itself out in the context of the family. There is no license to abuse. There is only the solemn command to look out for the needs of others before looking out for our own needs. How much more stable would our families be today if Christians took Paul’s instructions seriously! But alas, it is rare that passages like today’s are even read anymore out of fear over how it will be perceived, especially by outsiders and non-Christians. It seems we would rather bow and worship the god of political correctness  than to pay attention to the wisdom and good will of the Living God. Sadly, many of us have decided that we cannot trust God’s authority expressed through Scripture in the matters of family relationships and have taken matters into our own hands.

A quick look at the divorce rate and the dysfunctional nature of many families will give us a clue as to how that’s working out for us.

And as Paul reminds us, as Christians we should always be prepared to give an account of our behaviors, to explain to others why we do what we do. We can’t do that if we don’t know ourselves. That is why it is so important for Christians to engage Scripture and prayer together and to be prepared to share honest differences of opinion rationally and with charity.

This then is a practical application of what it means to be agents of God’s New Creation, to be obedient to God in Jesus, and to demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit and your faith. None of what Paul writes about here is easy because we naturally want to have things our own way and we are usually prepared to do what we must to obtain that which we want. But that is not what it means to be Jesus’ salt and light to his broken and hurting world.

If you want to have the kind of life-giving relationship with Jesus, you must be prepared to demonstrate your willingness to do so, and a good place to start is in your home. You won’t be able to do this by yourself or by your own power, however. You will only be able to be the kind of Christian husband, wife, or child that you are called to be by the help of the Spirit living in and through you.

But here’s the cool thing. If you see that you are starting to live as the family member (and together as a unit) God calls you to be, you have tangible proof that you (singular and plural) are being seasoned by God’s love and grace, and you can take that as a sign that he is commissioning you to start sharing the seasoning, not by haughty self-righteousness and flowery words, but by humble and self-giving love and service to those who need it most in the context of your very life.

Are you ready to be Jesus’ salt and light by the help of his Spirit? May God bless you with the grace, power, and privilege to answer in the affirmative!

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

How to be a Living Stone

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Last week we saw that God is a God who meets us where we are and moves us to where he wants us to be. This morning I want to follow up on that notion and look briefly at what that might look like in the living of our days. In today’s Epistle lesson, Peter tells us that we are living stones, a holy and royal priesthood. We read this and wonder what that could possibly mean. If we are really honest with ourselves, we know we are hardly priestly. We remember our failures and shortcomings, the times when we have disappointed ourselves, not to mention God. We read stories like the one from Acts today that describe Stephen’s martyrdom and wonder how anyone could be so faithful (or foolish, depending on your perspective). All this can make us wonder from time to time how God could possibly love someone like us, let alone call us one of his priests.

If you ever have felt these kinds of doubts or fears, you should take it as a cue to pick up your Bible and read this passage from Peter again (and others like it) because it contains the wondrous promise of God’s healing and redemption. In other words, it represents the spiritual milk Peter tells us to crave. Passages like today’s Epistle lesson must always be read within the broader framework of the biblical narrative. This narrative is about how God is going about restoring his broken and fallen creation and creatures. We read in Genesis how human sin spoiled God’s good creation and creatures, and about the terrible alienation and hostility between humans and God that resulted. But we also see God pursuing his sinful creatures in the Garden of Eden, calling out to them even as they were hiding from him in the darkness of their own sin, and we get an initial glimpse of the heart of God.

We then read about how God called out his people Israel to be his agents of healing and restoration, but that Israel became part of the problem, primarily because they chose to pursue other gods and therefore became exactly like the people God had called them to help him bless and redeem. But despite Israel’s unfaithfulness, God remained faithful to his people and we wonder why he would do that. Yet God’s faithfulness to his unfaithful people gives us hope because we realize that maybe, just maybe, God might choose to remain faithful to us as well, even in our unfaithfulness. You can read that grand narrative in the OT.

As we move to the NT, we see God’s eternal plan to restore his broken creatures and creation continue to unfold in the narratives about Jesus. Here we see God himself intervening in our history on our behalf to be for the world what his people Israel had failed to be, to bring about our healing and reconciliation through his own death on a cross, and to end forever our exile from God and life. This makes our hearts glad because we are reminded that God created us to have a relationship with him, not to destroy us, and in the Gospel story, we see him acting decisively on our behalf to make that possible.

The manner in which God did this took (and continues to take) many of us by surprise. We expected God to visit his world in great power and might, to wave his hand and rid the world of all its evil and brokenness. But God did not do it in that manner. True, God in Christ will return one day in great power and glory to finish the work he started, but he came to us first in weakness and humility to put the world aright. He came as a crucified Messiah, not a conquering warlord, and he calls each of us to follow and imitate him in his work of New Creation.

In the Gospels we see God in Jesus coming to his world to overcome evil and its brokenness. We see Jesus heal the sick, give sight to the blind, raise the dead, and give hope to the hopeless. In Jesus’ mighty resurrection we get a preview of coming attractions, of God’s New Creation in which he will complete his restorative work and return his people to Eden. But it will be an Eden on steroids because the New Creation will be unlike anything we can hope for or imagine. Jesus’ bodily resurrection reminds us that God cares about his creation and intends to restore it. God invites us as his church to be his Kingdom workers and he has given us his Holy Spirit to help us help him in that work, just as he called Israel to do.

If we understand this, we will understand what Peter is saying to us today. We are God’s holy or called out people and we have work to do as Christ’s body, the Church. Together, we are to imitate Jesus in his earthly ministry and be agents of God’s healing and redemption to his broken and hurting world. But we cannot do this unless we first let Jesus work on us through the power and Presence of his Holy Spirit living in us to change us into his likeness. This, of course, takes a lifetime to accomplish, at least for most of us, but this is where we must also remember that God is a God who meets us where we are and will move us to where he wants us to be.

When we take our discipleship seriously enough to let Jesus work on us and change us into his likeness, we are ready to be his agents of New Creation. The term for this is transformative discipleship. So how do we do this? We start by taking Peter’s advice and crave the pure spiritual milk that is found in the Bible. It is impossible for us to be like Jesus if we do not know him personally or know anything about his values and method of operation. And so we read our Bible, pray, worship, take the sacraments, and talk to other faithful Christians to help us keep on track or to get support when we need it.

We then bring Jesus’ values and the economy of the Kingdom to bear on his broken and hurting world. For example, we offer mercy and forgiveness where none is deserved. We refuse to gossip. We start to pay attention to the needs of others and not just our own. We work to alleviate suffering and want where we see it. We may not be able to heal the sick or raise the dead, but we can be with the sick and dying during the time of their lives when they need the human touch the most. I could give many other examples but you get the idea.

This is what Jesus and the NT writers mean when they tell us to love each other. Love always manifests itself in action for the benefit of the beloved in light of the values of the Kingdom. This is what Peter was talking about when he urges us to be living stones and reminds us that we are a holy and royal priesthood. We are changed by God’s Spirit living in us so that we bring God’s love to bear on the world’s hurt just the way Jesus did, and we are content to let God use us to accomplish his will. Our job is not to fix people. It is to expose them to the One who can fix and heal them, and be satisfied in doing that.

And here is where I want you to understand about transformative discipleship. If you are like me, when we hear a word like transformative, we get intimidated because we think we have to do something spectacular like Stephen did when he was martyred. But that is not usually how transformative discipleship works. Instead, it works simply by bringing God’s love in Jesus to bear on people in the context of our daily lives.

Let me give you a quick example from my life to illustrate how this works. When I was 23 I had a fraternity brother who was an only child like me. He was a nice guy but we were only nominal friends because he had his circle of close friends and I had mine. Then his mother committed suicide. I can remember lying on my bed wondering what I should do. I hated funerals and sure didn’t know what to say, so I was tempted to stay away and do nothing. But then something in me reminded me that my friend was an only child just like me and I thought about what I would need if my own mother had committed suicide. I knew I sure wouldn’t want to be alone at a time like that so I went to the funeral home and just sat with him for a couple of days. I don’t remember what we talked about, if anything. I just remember smoking a lot of cigarettes with him during that awful time in his life. So where is the transformation in this story? We became close friends after that and remain so over 35 years later. He has told me more than once how much my presence meant to him and that has always amazed me because my presence wasn’t a big deal.

This isn’t about what a swell guy I am. It is about how Jesus used me to be an agent of his New Creation, to help another young man deal with his terrible grief and loss in the context of our daily lives. I bet each one of you can recall a story like this, either where you were the beneficiary or God’s agent of New Creation, even if you were not aware of it. Notice that at the time I really didn’t understand how Jesus was using me, he just did. Of course there are times when I refused to let Jesus use me. Unfortunately, that is part of the growing process that all Christians must go through. But I have found that the more I grow in my knowledge of Jesus and deepen my relationship with him, the more faithful I am when he calls me. Likewise for you too.

Our Easter hope, the climax of the biblical story of God’s plan to restore his broken and hurting creation, is the basis for transformative discipleship. As our Lord reminds us in today’s Gospel lesson, our eternal future is secure in him and so is our present. When we take our discipleship seriously we have the wondrous privilege of working with God as his Kingdom workers. He can and will use us to help continue Jesus’ work of healing and redemption. This, of course, provides us with real meaning and purpose for living and we do this work best when we do it together as God’s church.

Make no mistake. The work is difficult and we will encounter great opposition because the powers and principalities want to continue to run the world. But take heart and hope. Jesus has overcome the world and will equip us as his people to help him in his work to restore his broken world. And when you understand this, you will discover that you really do have Good News, a total package for living life abundantly, now and for for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Getting Yourself Ready to be God’s Agent of New Creation

1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

–Colossians 3.1-11 (NIV)

I have spent quite a bit of time this Easter season (you do know that we are still in the Easter season, don’t you?) writing about our Easter hope, the hope of New Creation of which Jesus’ resurrection gives us a preview. We have seen that not only does our Easter hope give us a future hope, but also provides us with marching orders for the living of our mortal days. We who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ have the privilege of imitating Jesus in his Messianic work. We are empowered by the Presence of his Holy Spirit living in us to offer Jesus’ healing love, and mercy to his broken and hurting world. We have the opportunity to turn heads and make folks ask us by Whose authority we do all this. And as we have seen, in doing so, we learn how to live life with real meaning and purpose. The catchphrase for this kind of living is having a “transformative faith,” a faith that makes a difference in our lives and the lives of others with whom we come into contact.

In today’s lesson, Paul reminds us about the prerequisite for having a transformative faith so that we really can make a difference in bringing Jesus’ healing love to his world. In Chapter 2 of Colossians Paul tells us how we are made alive in Christ. In today’s lesson, Paul reminds us what being made alive in Christ is all about, about how it changes us fundamentally and equips us to be his agents of New Creation.

We can never hope to bring Christ’s power to his broken world if we are not fundamentally changed in and through our relationship with him.

Hence, transformative faith starts first and foremost with our relationship with Jesus. It is also important to remember that Paul was writing this letter (Colossians) to a community of believers on the ground. Paul was writing this to the Church because Paul envisioned the Church to be the main vehicle in which to bring God’s plan of salvation through Christ to the world. There are certainly lessons for each of us in this letter, but we dare not forget that Paul had in mind a community of redeemed persons whom he believed would serve as the primary human agency through which God would bring his healing love in Christ to the world.

And this should all make sense to us. Without being changed fundamentally by our relationship with Jesus through the power and Presence of the Holy Spirit living in us, we have no hope of being an agent of New Creation because if we are not changed, we are still part of the old, broken creation. Brokenness cannot heal brokenness. It all starts, therefore, with having a solid and life-changing relationship with Jesus and here Paul fleshes that out a bit for us.

When Paul speaks of setting our minds on things above and about our life being hidden with Christ, he is not talking about some kind of ascetic, other-worldly kind of faith in which we withdraw from the affairs of the world and wait to get raptured up to heaven (the latest doomsday prediction notwithstanding). After all, God did not pursue that strategy himself! Instead, he became human and lived among us to defeat evil and begin the work of restoring his broken and fallen creation and creatures. What Paul is talking about in today’s passage, then, is to remind us to keep our bearings and our orientation straight. He is reminding us to build our life on the only foundation for real life–Jesus. When that happens, we have Jesus as our primary identifier instead of some lesser thing such as race, gender, nationality, or ethnicity, and we demonstrate we are his first and foremost by how we behave (i.e., our obedience).

Paul also reminds us here about our Easter hope, the hope of New Creation, when he talks about us appearing with Jesus when he returns again in power and glory to finally restore his good but fallen creation.

The Easter hope is not about dying and going to heaven forever because that is not the Easter hope contained in the NT. It is about New Creation and Paul alludes to that here.

It is this hope that must sustain us and serve as motivation for everything we do in this life. If we don’t have a real Easter hope that is built on a firm biblical foundation, we can never expect to be transformed by Jesus because in the back of our minds there will always be a doubt about our future and we are therefore more susceptible to fall back into the ways of the world. It’s that old, “eat, drink, and be merry” thingy because tomorrow we die. There’s no hope or potential for transformation to be found in this kind of thinking.

But when we have a real Easter hope, we are fundamentally changed. This, in turn, makes us willing to do our part in our relationship with Christ so that he can use us as palpable and tangible examples of what his healing love looks like and can do for humans. We put to death those things in us–only with the help of the Spirit, of course–that cause us to remain hostile toward God and each other, and here Paul gives us a list (not to be read as a comprehensive list) of some of those things.

When we put on Christ (i.e., when we imitate him), we can offer healing, reconciliation, and hope to others. When our enemies curse us and want to destroy us, we bless them and pray for them. We seek to alleviate need and suffering to the extent we are able. When we see injustice being done in our neck of the woods, we speak out against it and try to replace it with God’s justice. We treat others with integrity and honesty so that they can trust us. And when we have Christ in us, when we see ourselves and others through his eyes, this gives us new perspective. For example, it makes it a bit harder for us to get angry at folks who do us wrong because we understand we are all in the same boat–we are all profoundly broken people who desperately need Jesus’ healing love.

You can’t do any of this stuff if you let your fallen nature, your old creation, rule the roost. If that happens, it will be business as usual–an eye for an eye (or worse), cursing our enemies when they do us wrong, refusing to be reconciled to them, turning a blind eye to injustice or worse yet, being part of injustice because we will personally benefit from it. You get the idea.

Moreover, Paul is not telling us to not have any fun in our lives. He is simply inviting us to consider what constitutes real fun and real living, and having our fallen nature rule the day isn’t it. I used to think the former when I was a young man. The things Paul talks about in today’s lesson sounded like a bunch of arbitrary rules to me. But that’s not what they are and through much sorrow, pain, and emotional suffering over the years, I have come to realize that fun and meaning in life isn’t to be had by self-indulgence and self-worship. When we are transformed and healed by the love of Christ, we are freed to be real humans and this, in turn, leads to real fun because we are living life as God intends for us. But here’s the thing. You’ll never discover this until you take a chance and try it.

Finally, this should make us understand why Paul has in mind the community of believers when he wrote this letter. We are human and need the human touch. None of what I have talked about is easy to accomplish, even with the Spirit’s help. It involves blood, toil, tears, and sweat, and it takes a lifetime to accomplish. Our fallen nature is deeply ingrained in us and won’t go down without fighting like hell to be preserved. Anyone who has taken his or her Christian discipleship seriously understands this. That is why God provides us help and support in our fight via Jesus’ body, the Church. We can never hope to be an agent of New Creation by ourselves because we will certainly get picked off along the way, either by our own selfishness or by the Evil One (or both). There’s no such thing as an isolate Christian and we ignore this truth at our own peril. The Christian life is intended to be lived together.

Here, then, is what discipleship training looks like. Transformative faith is a wonderful and achievable thing, but it takes great effort and faith on our part and it all starts by taking our relationship with Jesus seriously. We can only be in the position to be agents of God’s New Creation if we are changed ourselves and there are no shortcuts in doing this. It starts by taking our discipleship seriously and doing what is necessary to make that happen. First and foremost it means that we stop making excuses about why we only make a half-hearted effort to grow in our relationship with Christ and get busy doing it. We make this priority one above all else, and we will never do that without a real Easter hope to motivate us.

But there is a real Easter hope and we do have a Savior who is willing to meet us where we are, to take us by the hand and help us get to where he wants and needs us to be. The ride isn’t easy or linear. But it is the most important ride we can ever take and we have God’s very promise to be with us every step (and misstep) of the way. When you allow Jesus to work on you, you will discover you have real hope (not a hope that whistles through the graveyard) for the future and real meaning and purpose for the living of your days right here and now. It doesn’t matter who you are or what your gifts and talents are. God can and will use you to help him in his work of New Creation if you will let him, and it all starts by saying yes to Jesus’ invitation to you to have life and have it abundantly.

Do you have this kind of Easter hope? Do you have a real relationship with the One and Only Source of all life? Is your faith making a difference for you and others? If not, what are you waiting for?

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Bearing the Fruit of Faith

43 “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44 Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. 45 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

–Luke 6.43-45 (NIV)

In today’s lesson, Jesus is giving us practical instruction regarding the dynamics of faith. Faith isn’t some kind of ethereal, otherworldly thing. Neither is it an abstract concept. Faith always produces the fruit of obedience. Simply put, we obey because we believe. This is how we can test the faith of others and ourselves. We need look no further than the fruit we (and others) bear.

Elsewhere, Jesus reminds us that it is out of the heart that all kinds of evil come (cf. Mark 7.20-22). So how can anyone bear good fruit? Only by the Power and Presence of the Holy Spirit living in us and transforming us into the image of Jesus. That may (and usually does) take a lifetime to accomplish, but accomplish it the Spirit does.

And this should make sense to us. We who claim to be disciples of Jesus are called to imitate him and the only way we can do that is by the power of his Spirit living in us. Yes, we must open ourselves up to the Spirit’s Presence but it is he who does the work in and through us. But here’s the thing. The Spirit’s Presence is so gentle and he is so unassuming, that we often mistake his working in us as actually being us, and we end up taking credit for our good works, instead of giving credit where it is really due. But make no mistake. We only follow Jesus with the assistance of the Spirit.

So how do we follow Jesus? We look at what he said and did, and then decide to imitate him. This means, for example, that we have an outward focus toward people and resist trying to make it all about ourselves all the time. We start to become keenly aware of the need and suffering around us–need and suffering that results from evil and human sin, from living in a fallen world–and we resolve to do something about it, especially in the context of our daily lives. When we are confronted by evil of any kind, we respond as Jesus did. We offer mercy instead of condemnation. We seek to alleviate suffering and need as best we can. We strive for peace rather than war. We share our resources, especially the gift of ourselves, with those who desperately need it. And when we do, we can be confident that we have a saving faith in him because we are bearing the fruit of the Spirit, the very fruit of Jesus himself. It is not about following rules or bean counting. It is about a lifestyle and a spirit, both of which flow from the Spirit’s Presence living in  us. This kind of lifestyle will turn heads. It will make people stop and ask us by whose authority we are doing these things. Folks will want to know why we are behaving in this way.

Does this mean we get it right all the time? Hardly. And because of this fact, it is  best for us to look at our pattern of living rather than focus on the mistakes we make (or solely on our successes). Having this kind of outlook will prevent us from falling into despair or getting too puffed up by our human pride.

As Paul reminds us, we are saved by grace through faith, the latter being a gracious gift itself. Having a saving faith does not mean we sit around engaging in some privatized religion. No. We are called to be Jesus’ salt and light for his people and creation. This means following our Lord, rolling our sleeves up, and getting busy in helping him bring about his New Creation. We understand that we cannot do New Creation work fully or even particularly well. But that doesn’t matter to us because the work is not about us. We do this because we are thankful to God for his great gift to us in Jesus and we too look forward to the day God fully implements his New Creation. This is a hope we can only have when we have a saving faith in Christ. Hence, faith will always manifest itself in obedience.

Notice too that this kind of obedient faith provides us hope for the future as well as meaning and purpose for living our lives right now. It gives us a new appreciation of God’s creation and our stewardship of it because we know that creation and God’s creatures matter to God. He intends to fully restore it and us one day, and we have Jesus’ resurrection as the first-fruits of God’s promise to do this. That is why Easter matters. Are you living as an Easter person with an obedient faith and real hope? If not, what are you waiting for?

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Learning to Know the Real God

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. 21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

–Colossians 1.15-23 (NIV)

12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13 When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14 Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15 Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. 17 He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.

–Luke 6.12-19 (NIV)

If God is wholly other than us and not simply some magnification or personification of our best human qualities, then how are we ever to know and worship him? After all, it’s impossible for most of us to have a relationship with and worship an ultimate Ideal or Concept. Just doesn’t work relationally. So what to do?

Paul (among other NT writers) provides us the answer. If you want to know what God is like, at least as best we can in our finite and fallible state, and if you wonder how God expects us to behave during our mortal lives (i.e., what’s the purpose of life), then you needn’t look any further than Jesus because Jesus is fully God and fully human.

You see, at its most fundamental level, the problem of the human condition stems from human pride and idolatry. The Fall occurred essentially because humans are not content to let God be God. We want to be his equal rather than acknowledge we are his creatures and he is our Creator. If that’s not bad enough, we often want to take God’s place or decide to give our ultimate loyalty and worship to someone or something else, which is the essential definition of idolatry. This results in stubborn and persistent rebelliousness against God and has produced a massive and irreconcilable alienation between God and humans, at least until God acted decisively on our behalf to end our alienation and exile from him. The whole biblical narrative is the story of how God has chosen to do end our mutual hostility, first through his people, Israel, and ultimately through Jesus.

So how does this rebellion manifest itself in the daily context of our lives? One common manifestation of our rebellion is when we exclude God from our decision making. We don’t seek his guidance or his will, or we get impatient about it when we do and go about conducting our business and living our lives the way we best see fit to do. This is what it means to take God’s rightful place. This is rebellion at its finest, not unlike when teenagers all of a sudden discover they know best and their parents are complete ignoramuses.

This is not to say, of course, that we should not be active in making decisions about our life. It simply means that we are to seek God’s will first when we must make major decisions and follow God’s principles for living in the course of making the millions of daily decisions we have to make (e.g., do I respond honestly to questions, refuse to exploit others for my advantage, etc.).

We see a powerful “how-to” model of obedient living in our Gospel lesson today. Jesus, being fully human and therefore finite, retires to a lonely place to pray for God’s guidance right before he selected the 12 apostles. Luke reports this same dynamic of retiring to pray before every major decision point in Jesus’ life.

This is what it means to be obedient to God, to seek his guidance and wait for it, confident that God will respond in a timely manner. And if you really believe Jesus was fully human, this should make sense. Jesus’ prayers were not perfunctory. He didn’t know everything that was coming down the pike because he could not see fully into the future. He needed God’s infinite wisdom and eternal perspective to guide him.

To be sure, Jesus was God. But he was God laboring under human limitations, the very conditions he imposed on all humanity when he created us. As Paul reminds us in Philippians 2, this is what learning to obey looks like. Not that Jesus was disobedient or inclined not to obey, but rather that he was humble enough to know that he did need to seek out the Father’s guidance so that he could be true to his mission.

And when Jesus did open himself up to God’s guidance, amazing things happen as Luke reports in today’s lesson. The sick were healed, the blind were given sight, the deaf had their hearing restored, and the dead were raised. People were healed and made whole again, both physically and spiritually. They had their hope restored. Jesus’ obedience allowed him to be a conduit for God’s healing and restorative love to flow out to others, and folks found Jesus powerfully attractive.

Likewise with Jesus’ followers when we are obedient to God and humble enough to acknowledge God is God and we are not. Now of course we are not God incarnate, but like Jesus, we are able to listen for and obey God’s guidance. When that happens, we too can turn heads and make people stop and ask why we are doing amazing things.

God calls each of us to do different and amazing things. The paradox, of course, is that the amazing things we are sometimes called to do occur in the midst of the mundane and humdrum things in our daily lives. But that shouldn’t matter to us as long as we know we are being obedient to God’s will for us because when we are, we are allowing God to use us as agents of his New Creation. We are allowing God to help us imitate Jesus and when we do that, we begin to understand what it means to have real meaning and purpose in living.

All this points to the need for us to learn all we can about and from Jesus so that we can imitate him to the best of our knowledge and ability. We do so with the help of his Holy Spirit living in us and transforming us into the creatures he created us to be. The work can be hard and difficult because it usually goes against our rebellious nature and we have to put that to death with the Spirit’s help.

And when we imitate Jesus, we will also arouse the ire and wrath of his enemies. But we do not fear because we realize that in the final analysis they don’t have any power to harm us because mortal life is but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of eternity, and this knowledge provides us with much needed and Spirit-assisted perspective on life and our role in it.

If you are looking for meaning and purpose in living, look no further than Jesus. He is fully human and fully God. He can provide you with a model of living that will bring immense joy, peace, and purpose, even in the midst of opposition and personal suffering. In Jesus, you will find the secret to happy living because you are living life in the manner you were created to live. It’s not about following a bunch of arbitrary rules. It’s about letting God be God and letting him use you as you imitate Jesus in his work to bring about New Creation, both in your life and the lives of those around you. What are you waiting for? Say yes to Jesus’ invitation to you to live and live abundantly.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Don’t Put God in a Box

6 On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. 7 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. 8 But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there. 9 Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was completely restored. 11 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.

–Luke 6.6-11 (NIV)

We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

–Colossians 1.9b-14 (NIV)

Today I comment on another false and inadequate god that J.B. Phillips identified in his book, Your God Is Too Small. It is God-in-a-Box. This unreal god has been around for a long time as we see in today’s Gospel lesson above. The Pharisees had so elevated their traditions that they couldn’t see the forest from the trees. They got their means and end confused and when Jesus called them on it–in the context of this particular passage the conflict was caused by what the Pharisees saw as a Sabbath violation on Jesus’ part–he had to set them straight. He essentially told them to remember the two Great Commandments–to love God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love their neighbor as themselves. But they were too enamored with their own teaching and tradition to be bothered by a little thing like healing and showing compassion for one in need.

Sadly, there are some folks in various denominations today who act just like the Pharisees. They would likely be appalled if you told them they worshiped God-in-a-box but it is true nevertheless. These folks just don’t think God can operate outside the confines of their own particular denomination’s rules, traditions, or beliefs.

Now don’t misunderstand. I have nothing against the great Christian traditions. I am part of the Anglican Communion with its particular traditions and being part of the one holy, catholic, and apostolic church is very important to me. But I also try to always remind myself that Jesus is Lord, not Anglicanism. The various traditions are just fine because they reflect the diversity of peoples’ worship practices and lesser beliefs. But when we elevate our traditions and make them Lord instead of Jesus, we have a problem. A big problem.

For you see, Christians are a resurrection people and it is appropriate during this season of Easter to remember what we are and Whose we are. As Paul reminds us in his letter the Colossians, we are to live joyfully as redeemed people. We have been rescued from the darkness of our sins and have been reconciled to the Source and Author of all life. Our present and future our secure. We have the resurrection hope, the hope of New Creation, where we believe that one day when Jesus returns with great power and glory, our mortal bodies will be raised up and transformed into new resurrection bodies that are adapted to live forever in God’s New Creation, just the way Jesus’ mortal body was raised up and transformed. Just as importantly, in God’s New Creation, whatever that looks like, evil and brokenness will be vanquished forever.

That doesn’t mean we are to sit around gazing at our navels and waiting for that day to come. Just the opposite. It means that with glad and joyful hearts we roll up our sleeves and get busy in our lives right here and now. We join together with other members of Christ’s Body, the Church, and do the things we need to do to deepen our relationship with Jesus so that we can be transformed into his likeness through the power and Presence of his Holy Spirit. Only then we are ready to go out into the world and be his agents of New Creation, imitating Jesus and seeking to put right all that is wrong with his broken and fallen world, at least in the context of our own lives. We remember that we are not Jesus, but rather his followers, and we have his good name to uphold. Only God in Christ can finally put the world aright. We get that. But we also get that Jesus can use us to help him work on this project of New Creation until he returns again to finish his mighty and redemptive work that he started when he became human and walked on this earth.

But given the human condition, the temptation is always there to forget all this and to make something or someone else an idol to follow. Even as we open ourselves up to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and work as Jesus’ agents of New Creation, it is possible to forget our role and start to delude ourselves that the work we do is not possible without us or that it can only be conducted within the confines of our particular denomination. Right.

No, we must ask the Spirit to give us the proper spirit of wisdom and humility and to help remind us Whose we are, in part, through the loving fellowship of our fellow believers. We must do likewise for them. When that happens, and when we continue to grow in our relationship with Jesus through regular Bible study, prayer, and partaking of the sacraments, we can be confident that we won’t try to put God in a box. Rather, we will live our lives with joy, meaning, and purpose as we follow him. After all, there’s really no better feeling than knowing you are faithfully serving God and being obedient to his call for you.

That’s what Paul is talking about in today’s passage when he talks about being strengthened by power. It is the power to serve and obey God in Christ. It is the power to persevere when resistance comes–and make no mistake, resistance will come when we are obedient to God’s calling to us because we are telling the powers and principalities that they are no longer in charge, and they will not like that one bit.

When we remember who truly is Lord and serve him faithfully rather than make our religious traditions Lord, we will turn heads, just the way Jesus did. Folks will ask us in amazement why we do the things we do, and by whose authority. God-in-a-box, on the other hand, may turn heads, but it will be in the form of people shaking their heads in disgust or bemusement because they instinctively know that the god we are serving is one of our own concoction, not the God of this wondrous universe.

Find a tradition that fits your temperament and worship God for all your worth within the context of that denomination. After all, Jesus wants you to become part of his Body. But remember who you are and Whose you are as you do so. Remember that your tradition is there to help you get connected to the Living God so that he can use you, in turn, to be an agent of his New Creation. Then get ready for the ride of your life. If you have not done so already, consider these things and then accept Jesus’ gracious invitation to you to step out of your own darkness and into his light. It will be the best decision you have ever made. Talk about job security and work that makes a difference!

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!