Sunday, August 30, 2015

Mark 7:1-5, 20-23 (NRSV): What Truly Matters?

Mark 7:1-5, 20-23 (NRSV): What Truly Matters?


So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”  He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
‘This people honors me with their lips,
   but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
   teaching human precepts as doctrines.’
You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
… And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come ... All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”


I have a confession to make: I am a former legalist, a former doctrinal specialist, a former Pharisee. Once I first truly came to Christ, and I am not talking about at the baptismal font but when I first said “yes” to His prompting of love, I envisioned a life of discipleship as a vast area of learning about and sticking to doctrine. If it was doctrinally in Scripture and tradition, I wanted to know about it and enmesh it in my life. As you can imagine, I quickly hit a life-sized, spiritual wall.  In my zeal to know more about Jesus and His church, I was failing to nurture our relationship, a relationship that is built on His grace, mercy, and love. I was the Pharisee in this Scripture asking myself, and indirectly others, “Why do [you] not live according to the tradition of the elders…?”


Through life experience, grace, and prayer, God reveals that human tradition is without meaning if it is void of His love and mercy.  Jesus exemplifies this throughout the Gospels, and it is ingrained in all of His teachings. How could I have missed it?


This weekend, my son asked if we could go to his favorite restaurant for lunch. Although we were at the end of our summer budget, we agreed and had a delicious meal together.  During our meal, however, there was a raucous, inappropriate conversation taking place at an adjacent table.  The group, comprised of adults, was loud and their content and language were not conducive to family dining.  “From within,” I became enraged and began internally railing against these patrons, casting burning looks of implied judgment toward my wife: We were thinking the same thing.


I had an epiphany.  In the midst of my “evil intentions,” God was calling me to not hate but to pray for these people. Admittedly, I did not want to, but it felt necessary. When we got into the van and later returned home, my son and I had a conversation about how difficult it can be to love others unconditionally.


It is so easy and satisfying to judge others and think through the lens of condemnation, but Christ demands that we slough off our evil intentions and stick to what truly matters, mercifully loving others even in the face of offense and irritation. Thankfully, I am still Christ’s work in progress and desperately dependent on His grace.


May you all be blessed and encouraged in the love and peace of Christ.  

Stan

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Matthew 22:37-40 (NLT): Loving Others as Ourselves

Matthew 22:37-40 (NLT): Loving Others as Ourselves


Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

I like what C.S. Lewis has to say about loving our neighbor as ourselves, as difficult as this can be.  In Mere Christianity, Lewis says the following:

“...We must try to feel about [others] as we feel about ourselves - to wish that [he or she] were not bad, to hope that [he or she] may, in this world or another, be cured in fact, to wish [his or her] good. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving [others]: wishing [their] good, not feeling fond of [them] nor saying [they are] nice when [they are] not.

“I admit that this means loving people who have nothing lovable about them. But then, has oneself anything loveable about it? You love it simply because it is yourself. God intends us to love all selves in the same way and for the same reason: but He has given us the sum ready worked out in our own case to show us how it works. We have, then, to go on and apply the rule to all the other selves. Perhaps it makes it easier if we remember that that is how He loves us. Not for any nice, attractive qualities we think we have, but just because we are the things called selves.”

Lewis has a unique way of explaining how both God loves us and how we must, in turn, love others.  This is a tall order, especially when the object is a person we find difficult to tolerate, but it is what Christ demands: “A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ “ Can we do this of our own volition? No. But the Holy Spirit in us, renewing us each moment, can.

May you all be blessed and encouraged in the love and peace of Christ.  

Stan

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Luke 22:31-32 (NLT): Forgiveness and Strengthening Others

Luke 22:31-32 (NLT): Forgiveness and Strengthening Others

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”
Jesus reminds Simon Peter that he will undergo a trial and that the enemy has demanded “to sift” Simon.  As Dr. Charles Stanley states, “When Satan sifts believers, his goal is to damage our faith so much that we're useless to God.” Jesus, however, “[pleads] in prayer” that Simon’s faith not fail but be strengthened.  We know how the story goes.  Peter boastfully tells Jesus that he would follow Him “both to prison and death” (Luke 22:33). Peter, in his weakness, denies Jesus three times. Peter’s faith, although “sifted” does not fail.  Instead, he turns from his sin, seeks the risen Lord, and declares his love to Jesus three times (John 21:12-17).

As humans, we are subject to the same forces as Peter.  The enemy tries to “sift” (vigorously shake) us off of the foundation of our faith. Something much more powerful is at work, however: Jesus is praying for us.  But we are weak in our free will and sometimes choose the easy way out. When the easy way leads to sin, we either egotistically deny it and become desensitized to our sin, or we become aware, like Peter, and desire repentance. That awareness and desire for repentance is God’s grace.  That desire for right is the Holy Spirit guiding our conscience. We must abandon our pride and embrace the humble voice of Christ.  

“So when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.”

Peter is obligated to strengthen his brothers and sisters. We, too, are under the same obligation.  God gives each one of us the gift of forgiveness, and His forgiveness is perpetual when we choose to repent. We, moreover, are to pay it forward, forgive, and love others. We are to witness Christ’s unlimited forgiveness in our unique situations. We are to love others as we are loved and forgive others as we are forgiven, strengthening our brothers and sisters in Christ.

May you all be blessed and encouraged in the love and peace of Christ.  

Stan

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Luke 21:1-4 (NIV): Giving from the Core of our Humanity

Luke 21:1-4 (NIV): Giving from the Core of our Humanity

As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury.  He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
Jesus paints a stark contrast in character between the arrogant religious leaders depicted in Luke 20:45-47 and this poor, humble widow who offers up everything she has (21:4). Clearly, Jesus is showing the disciples that humility and self-giving are the ways of living for God, exemplified by the self-emptying and spiritual poverty of this widow. When the rich put in “their gifts,” which surely amount to more money than “two very small copper coins,” Jesus sees into their hearts.  The gifts of the rich are given out of obligation and worldly wealth. These are not gifts of the heart and true fruits of discipleship.  The poor widow, however, gives out of the core of her being: “[S]he out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” Although this can mean that she puts in all her money and has nothing left on which to live, on a deeper level, the widow’s sacrifice points to a truth Jesus teaches us: We must give God our total selves, holding nothing back.  Total surrender to God is a recurring theme in the gospels, and in this image of spiritual poverty, Jesus calls every one of us to love more and give to God not from our wealth, for writing a check is easy, but to give from the core of our humanity, turning our hearts, minds, and spirits over to God.

What does giving from the core of our humanity look like? It looks like the mother who rocks her sick child to sleep even though mom is exhausted and has to get ready for work in an hour. It looks like the teacher who stays after school to help a struggling student even though the teacher has other assignments to grade or an appointment to make. It looks like someone who stops for a friend and offers a shoulder to cry on, listening and not speaking because all this person needs is a warm heart. It looks like a person in the store who offers to open the door for a struggling parent wielding a cart with three children screaming at each other. It looks like the relative who offers up their time to relieve the burdens of a family member, babysitting, cooking a meal, or cleaning. Giving from the core of our humanity is giving from our hearts; it is loving in a world that sometimes doesn’t love enough.

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Luke 15:7, 20 (RSV): God Loves Us in the Midst of our Faults

Luke 15:7, 20 (RSV): God Loves Us in the Midst of our Faults


7Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.
20And so he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and was filled with compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
Have you ever felt failure in living up to God’s expectations? Has discipleship ever proved incompatible with your personality and patience, sending you into head-shaking discouragement? My experience regarding the above questions has been an emphatic “yes!” I readily fall into the trap of trying to be my best for Christ and often failing miserably. Once the feeling of discouragement sets in, however, I tend to forget what really matters, God’s unmerited, unconditional love through His Son, Jesus Christ.


As we read Luke chapter 15, there are three parables told to the audience of Pharisees and scribes who question Jesus’ eating and commingling with sinners. These parables (Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, Lost Son), however, spell out the reality of God’s unmerited love that the first-century Jewish religious leaders could not see -- God loves us more than we can ever know, even in the midst of our sins.  The Father relentlessly looks for us in the midst of our discouragement, and when we turn to Him, He rejoices.


7Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.


The story of the Prodigal Son, for example, speaks to my own conversion, which took place in May 2012. Up until this time, I was far off in a world of self-serving Christian tepidity, confessing that I believed in Jesus if asked, but doing nothing about it.  I rarely thought of God, never read Scripture, and only haphazardly attended a few worship services over several decades. Nothing seemed to move me in God’s direction.  However, during a moment of fear and loss, I picked up a free ESV translation of the Bible and read the Gospel of Matthew. In reading Matthew’s narrative, an incredible thing happened, which can only be described as grace: I was infused with a sense of God’s love, and I met the most incredible person who was with me the whole time, Jesus Christ. God was waiting for me in the distance with robe and sandals, readying the ring, and preparing the fatted calf.  He knew I would come home, but patiently waited for me to choose when. It was God’s love, unearned and undeserved by me, that pulled me to Him.


20And so he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and was filled with compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.


My sins did not matter; Christ paid that debt. God’s love never fails, and he doesn’t keep tabs on our faults.  If he did, mine would be more than the national debt. God does, however, give us the freedom to choose.  God forgives and loves, but we must turn toward Him, another word for this is “repent.” Repentance, according to Brennan Manning in The Ragamuffin Gospel, “is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven.”


Why then, do we often try to earn God’s love?  Our self-righteous piety, like that of the first-century Pharisees and scribes, is worthless. God’s unmerited grace and love through Jesus Christ is everything.  Are we called to love and live in Christ’s light, carry the cross of discipleship, and be perfect as our Father is perfect? You bet. But we readily fail. God loves us regardless of our failures. This prodigal can tell you first hand of that amazing love.


May you all be blessed and encouraged in the love and peace of Christ.  

Stan