Mark 5:18-20 (NLT): Our Christian Mission

Mark 5:18-20 (NLT): Our Christian Mission

“As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged to go with him.  But Jesus said, ‘No, go home to your family, and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been.’ So the man started off to visit the Ten Towns of that region and began to proclaim the great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed at what he told them.”

Once I truly came to Christ in May of 2012, I felt truly liberated. At that moment grace was tangible, for I could have scooped it up and held it in my hands to display to all the world.  There is no way to explain this new beginning as other than miraculous; the agony of stress, fear, and deep-seeded emotional pain were gradually released and became manageable. My life is certainly not perfect now, nor will it ever be on this earth, but through Christ’s work in me, all things, both celebrations and setbacks, now have purpose. The overriding question still remains, however: How can I be a better, more effective disciple for Jesus? Early in my walk with Christ, my answer was naive and misguided: I focused on legalism and a devotion to everything “church.” But  through time, prayer, and grace, God speaks through “that still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12-13) about my mission, a mission that always lies in front of me in the simplicity of the everyday.

In the above passage, Jesus frees the demoniac from a grueling spiritual and corporeal prison. In the exuberance of this liberation, he “begs to go with [Jesus].” Devoted discipleship, naturally, would be the response of someone liberated from a terrifying, debilitating force. The liberated man is flooded with grace and wants to witness that grace as one of Christ’s intimate disciples. Instead, the liberated man is given another mission. He is to “proclaim the great things” of the gospel to his own family and community.  Jesus says, “No, go home to your family, and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been.”

Sometimes the most important mission we can serve for Christ is to be His witnesses among our own family and neighbors. Our calling is more often not formal ministry. It is, instead, spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ among the most intimate communities in our lives, our own families and friends. Most likely, this mission does not require preaching or evangelization in the strict sense, but it asks us to witness, through our character and lives, the light of Christ’s love. Through this mission, we become the living stories of Jesus’ love, mercy, and liberation in the world.

Please keep each other and our special intentions in prayer this week.  

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

Stan

Mark 4:20 (NRSV): Being the “Good Soil” to Others

 Mark 4:20 (NRSV): Being the “Good Soil” to Others

“And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.”

Mark 4:20 (NRSV): Being the “Good Soil” to Others

“And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.”

In the parable of the sower, Jesus clearly differentiates four environments of the sown seed.  Seeds on the “path,” “rocky ground,” and “among the thorns” do not produce fruit that lasts.  The seed, however, sown in “good soil” flourishes with fruit. Christ wants our hearts to be the “good soil” of the gospel message.  He offers us the opportunity to cultivate our human hearts into the rich, fertile soil of love. Our job, as Jesus states, is to not only hear the gospel but to “accept it.” When we accept the unfathomable love of God through Christ, we become a fertile field ready for planting, a field of “good soil” that will, with God’s grace, yield “thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold.”

That’s all good, but what, I often wonder, does this “good soil” look like in our world?  How do we allow Jesus to renew our hearts to bear the good fruit of the gospel so that it can both flourish in us and be, in turn, blessed, broken, and given to our neighbor? If we “look” and “listen” (Mark 4:12), we can see Christ all around us in the reflection of human love, compassion, and kindness. Recently, StoryCorps posted two daughters’ interview with their loving father Ken Morganstern. Listening carefully to Ken’s three-minute interview, we hear the love of Christ cry out to us through the “good soil” of this man’s heart.  In the interview, Ken’s daughters say to him, ”You’ve created such love around you.” I look at Ken’s example of self-giving and happiness, the legacy of love he leaves, and pray that I, too, can cultivate this “good soil” in my small corner of the world.

Please keep each other and our special intentions in prayer this week.  

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

Mark 1:18 (NRSV): Leaving our Nets

Mark 1:18 (NRSV): Leaving our Nets

“And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’

And immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

The Gospel of Mark has an uncanny stylistic tone of immediacy. The biblical scholar, Richard A. Horsley, says the following regarding The Gospel of Mark’s style:

Its style features rapid sequences of brief and vivid concrete episodes linked simply by “and” or “and immediately,” frequently omitted in translation for less awkward reading in English. The narrative often shifts from the past tense into the present tense, enlivening the action. (The New Oxford Annotated Bible 1790)

Mark’s narrative, therefore, is full of Jesus’ and His disciples’ immediate actions.  In these verses, Simon Peter and Andrew are busy at their nets as fisherman on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus passes along the sea, and, wasting no time, calls for them to follow Him. There is no hesitancy on the part of Peter and Andrew: They immediately drop their nets and follow. Radically, these brothers leave behind their livelihood and families to follow Jesus. Does this mean that we must do the same? Yes and no. God’s purpose and will is according to each individual and their station in life. Some are called to literally leave everything, but this is the exception rather than the rule. Most of us, however, are called to leave behind our figurative unhealthy attachments. Nets can trap, confine, tangle, and weigh us down. Our unhealthy attachments do the same to us. It is our job, then, to leave the burden of our figurative nets behind, whatever they may be, and follow Jesus.

• Please pray for those who lost their lives this weekend in Paris and for the families and friends who mourn.
• Please pray for Christ’s peace and forgiveness to enter the hearts of all people.
• Finally, please keep each other and our special intentions in prayer this week.  

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

Stan

Matthew 5:4-5 (NRSV): The Wounded and Worn Out

Matthew 5:4-5 (NRSV): The Wounded and Worn Out

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

Throughout the Gospels, Christ welcomes, heals, and liberates the outcasted meek who mourn. We do not see, in contrast, the Pharisees and Scribes with their flowing robes, preferred seating, ritualistic demeanor, and long public prayers as the captives being set free. Instead, it is the outcast, the prostitute, the tax collector, the leper, the child, and the widow who become the object of Christ’s healing and God’s grace -- those who are meek and mourn.  What sets them apart? Humility, self-admitted sin, and a longing to feel loved and renewed. One of my favorite writers, Philip Yancey, conveys the core message of the Beatitudes in his book The Jesus I Never Knew:

The Beatitudes express quite plainly that God views this world through a different set of lenses. God seems to prefer the poor and those who mourn to the Fortune 500 and supermodels who frolic on the beach. Oddly, God may prefer South Central L. A. to Malibu Beach, and Rwanda to Monte Carlo. In fact, one could almost subtitle the Sermon on the Mount not “survival of the fittest” but “triumph of the victims.” (113)

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

Please keep each other and our special intentions in prayer this week.  

Stan

Matthew 5:3 (NRSV): Spiritual Humility

Matthew 5:3 (NRSV): Spiritual Humility

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

The Beatitudes offer one of the most accurate but also hard-to-pin-down lessons on discipleship.  Jesus, delivering His Sermon on the Mount, offers this lesson: We must be poor in spirit in order to receive the kingdom of heaven.  Does poverty, in this context and audience, mean to be monetarily poor? No. Poor in spirit is to practice spiritual humility; it is to rely on God no matter how intellectually talented, rich, or powerful we are in this world.  In this spiritual humility, a humility modeled by Jesus, we find, as Fr. James Martin mentions in his tweet, true happiness. Happy are we who offer ourselves in humble service to God and neighbor.

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

Please keep each other and our special intentions in prayer this week.  

Stan