Christmas Gratitude

Job 1:21 (ESV): Gratitude

And [Job] said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

The following meditation comes from Kristen Holmberg at Our Daily Bread Ministries:

Job is famous for a life of such “troubling” moments. Indeed, his losses were deep and many. Just moments after losing all his livestock, he learns of the simultaneous death of all his ten children. Job’s profound grief was evidenced in his response: he “tore his robe and shaved his head” (1:20). His words in that painful hour make me think Job knew the practice of gratitude, for he acknowledges that God had given him everything he’d lost (v. 21). How else could he worship in the midst of such incapacitating grief?

The practice of daily gratitude can’t erase the magnitude of pain we feel in seasons of loss. Job questioned and grappled through his grief as the rest of the book describes. But recognizing God’s goodness to us—in even the smallest of ways—can prepare us to kneel in worship before our all-powerful God in the darkest hours of our earthly lives.

O God, You are the Giver of all good things. Help me to recognize Your generosity in even the smallest ways and to trust You in seasons of loss and hardship.

I, like Kristen Holmberg above, hope to live deliberately, to be thankful, and to experience God in the minutia of my day. But the breakneck pace of life easily robs me of this beauty. How can I slow down?

At the end of her article, Kristen Holmberg recommends starting a “gratitude list” to remind us of the beautiful, sacred gift of God’s love in the small moments of our lives. I am going to take her up on this . . . as soon as I finish the shopping, wrapping, worrying, unboxing, cleaning, recycling, assembling, and donating.

I wish each and every one of you a blessed Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Stan

Scrooge and Fezziwig

Philippians 4:4-5: To Be a Person of Loving Kindness

Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!
Your kindness should be known to all.

There is joyous scene in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It appears in Stave 2, when Scrooge visits with the Ghost of Christmas Past. During that visit, the ghost takes Scrooge to a time when he was a young clerk under the tutelage of Mr. Fezziwig. In this scene, Dickens paints a beautiful picture of Mr. Fezziwig’s generosity and kindness. Celebration and self-giving are evident throughout the scene. And when Scrooge once again feels the love and warmth of the moment, he makes an important observation:

[Scrooge said,] “It isn’t [the few pounds that it cost], Spirit. [Mr. Fezziwig] has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count them up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”

What Scrooge finally realizes here is that true happiness does not come from avaricious self gain. True happiness, instead, comes through kindness, love, and self giving as exemplified by the generous spirit Mr. Fezziwig. Scrooge feels such joy in this scene that it evokes a momentary epiphany, and he says, “I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now! That’s all.” This memory, moreover, erodes Scrooge’s selfish worldview.

Paul, in his letter to the church at Philippi, reminds us to rejoice always in God’s generous love, a love that we take for granted. Like Scrooge, it is easy to forget God’s generous love and instead get caught up in our world of ambition and responsibility. But if we take a moment to pause and think about Paul’s point, we are easily reminded of God’s awesome love.  And in that reminder we, like the fictitious Mr. Fezziwig, can be ensigns of God’s love and generosity to those around us.

May God’s example of love be the model for our own kind, generous actions today and every day. In Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.

Have a blessed week!

Stan

The "Christmas Season"

Luke 3:4: The “Christmas Season”

Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.

When I was a kid, there was nothing more exciting than the day after Thanksgiving. My mom would have us climb the attic stairs to retrieve our Christmas decorations. Our house, then, would be filled with decorating and preparing for that wonderful day of the year, Christmas. The hi-fi stereo in our dining room, would croon the Christmas tunes of Elvis, Lawrence Welk, The Partridge Family, Andy Williams, and Johnny Mathis. The air smelled of warmth and sugar. The excitement of the Christmas season was electric. As an adult, however, pre-Christmas days bring a sense of financial dread.

Every year around November, we begin the maddening march to spend mountains of money on gifts. By the time December rolls around, our finances are decimated. Though we vow to be frugal in our gifting game plan, the reality is the opposite: We overspend. And in that economic squeeze, that race to get “the right gift,” we lose sight of the most important gift we have -- God’s love.

The season of Advent is too often obscured by the craziness of pre-Christmas spending. But in the midst of the madness, if we pause and listen closely to our hearts, we are reminded of the greatest gift ever. God, in his self-emptying love, became one of us in the womb of a poor Hebrew virgin, Mary. God chose to be born a vulnerable human, to take on the temptations of sin, to the feel the pain of loss and abandonment, to give his life so that we could live. What we celebrate in Advent is not the mentality of “I can’t wait until this is over.” Advent is, instead, a time to anticipate and meditate and reflect on the greatest gift of love ever given to the world, the birth of Jesus Christ, God who became man to demonstrate true self-giving love and to save us from our sins.

If you are like me, the second week in December can be distracting with spending, wrapping, and readying. However, we have the choice to look toward the manger, to remember Gabriel’s words to Mary, to recall Mary’s “yes,” to remember Joseph’s choice of Mary and Jesus over himself, to remember our awesome God who loves us beyond our comprehension. Advent is a beautiful time to meditate on our God who is always with us.  

O merciful Father, we thank you for loving us with the great gift of your Son, Jesus Christ. Please let us focus on your love rather than the business and busyness of the world. Guide us, dear God, in your love always so that we, too, can reflect that love to all we encounter.

Have a blessed Advent!

Stan

The Path of Christian Understanding

Luke 18:34 (NRSV): The Path of Christian Understanding

But the disciples understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what Jesus said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

I always find the disciples’ spiritual blindness comforting. Here we have the closest friends of Jesus, those twelve specifically chosen by him, without a clue to what Jesus’ most important teachings mean. The disciples’ misgivings, moreover, give me hope.

In chapter 18 of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus reminds the disciples that he will be victimized, tortured, die, and rise again on the third day. But the disciples, as clueless as they can be, do not get what our Lord says. It is typical of the neophyte followers, for they listen with human ears, see with human eyes, and respond with human ambitions. Not until The Acts of the Apostles, and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, do the disciples finally get those all-so-important lessons that Jesus gives in the gospels. Our Christian formation, likewise, must go through its own trials.

Every time I try to understand moments in Scripture, prayer, faith, or life lived, I am reminded of my own ignorance, my own spiritual blindness. The beauty, however, is when, by grace, we persevere despite our own missteps, much like the disciples. That is when our spiritual misunderstandings steer us not away from God but toward him, even though our routes to him may be crooked. And believe me, I follow many crooked routes.

I once heard someone compare our misunderstandings with GPS navigation. His analogy went on to describe the circuitous route that happens when we make wrong turns or follow detours. With every deviation from the original route, the GPS recalculates our path and reconnects us to our destination. These missteps often lengthen our distance and estimated time of arrival. But we eventually get there if we trust and commit ourselves to this technology. Our faith in God is no different. We will make wrong turns and follow certain detours in life; it’s inevitable. But we must trust and put our faith in Christ. He will guide us through every twist and turn in life.

Let us pray for clarity, faith, hope, and forgiveness and thank God for his loving patience with each of us, especially when we, too, succumb to the wrong turns and detours of our own spiritual misunderstandings. Amen.

Have a blessed week!

Stan

How Well Do We Love?

John 18:37 (ESV): Leaving a Legacy of Love

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

A little over a month ago, I attended my second-cousin’s viewing: He was 47 when he passed away of stage four pancreatic cancer. Even though Frank and I lost touch over the years, his passing resonated deep within me, touching a personal place in my heart, reminding me of the short space of my earthly life. Death, when it strikes close to home, often reminds us about what truly matters -- family, love, and friendship.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus answers Pilate’s pointed question about kingship. Jesus says, in essence, that his own kingliness is not that which anyone of the “world” understands. Jesus does not declare himself a king of this world. Instead, he says something that connotes the opposite. Jesus declares himself as a witness to truth. Pilate -- a man of politics, warfare, power, and position -- does not understand truth as Jesus attests. Truth, according to Pilate, is slippery and loosely defined within the context of the moment, factoring in advantage and control. But Jesus himself is the truth. All that Jesus teaches, exemplifies, and preaches is God’s truth. And God’s truth, in a word, is love. This love is a foreign language to the likes of Pilate, for love is a truth that mounts the cross in self-sacrifice for for others -- yes, even Pilate.

When I kneeled near Frank’s open casket to offer a prayer, I noticed something. Propped against his right hand was a homemade cardboard sign in the shape of one of those 1980’s World Wrestling Federation championship belts. It read “Saint Ann’s Tag Teem Champions,” scrawled in what looked like his second-grade hand. When I saw this, it told a hidden story, and the purity of childhood friendships came to mind. From the crooked penmanship to the phonetically-spelled “teem,” I was reminded of childhood simplicity. As children, our love connotes innocence, devotion to others, trust, and unbridled friendships. Through God’s blessings, an enduring love is the truth we forge as our legacy to the world: How well do we love? And from what I gathered at his viewing, Frank loved (and was loved) much.

Jesus tells Pilate plainly: “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” I pray that our ears be open to the truth of Jesus’ life. And I pray that our lives create a legacy of God’s love for all of the people we encounter each day, from the families we raise to the lives we serve throughout the world.

Have a blessed week!

Stan

Where and When Will the Kingdom of God Come?

Luke 17: 20-21 (GNT): God Within Us

Some Pharisees asked Jesus when the Kingdom of God would come. His answer was, “The Kingdom of God does not come in such a way as to be seen. No one will say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’; because the Kingdom of God is within you.”

When the religious leaders look for a concrete answer from Jesus about the end-of-times, Jesus responds with an unexpected answer. His answer reminds the Pharisees that the kingdom of God is not so much about a place and time, for God’s kingdom is in the here and now. The kingdom of God, Jesus teaches, is within and among us. It is not a far-off date or place. And it is not about a prophecy or punishment. The kingdom of God is here and now, present in the love and grace of Christ in our hearts. But we have to open our eyes to see God’s kingdom both within and among us.

I see God’s kingdom in the smile of each of my children, and I hear God’s voice in their laughter. Just the other day, I experienced the reward of snuggling up with my youngest son, Luke, and my daughter, Lily, on our couch. We watched a Christmas movie together. Feeling their nearness and warmth and keeping time with the cadence of their breathing, I paused and thanked God for the gift of them. God’s kingdom is within and among us.

I see God’s kingdom in the loving attention of my wife, Dana. Whenever I come home, no matter how difficult a day she’s had with raising our three children and managing our household -- organizing doctor’s visits, scheduling school events, shuttling to and from places, keeping an immaculate house, nursing sick children, and cleaning up after and organizing for a frazzled, forgetful husband -- she has a welcoming hug and kiss for me as soon as I come home. God’s kingdom is within and among us.

I see God’s kingdom in the children I teach. With each greeting at my classroom door, each smile and wave, each “thank you” and “how was your weekend,” I hear the voice of love, care, and concern. God’s kingdom is within and among us.

Jesus teaches us that God’s kingdom is not a far-off place, hidden in the ether of an unknown realm. God’s kingdom is right here within and among us in the presence of love emanated by those around us. And God’s kingdom is in each of us, too, when we choose to radiate the love of Jesus to those we encounter.

I pray that we all receive the grace to recognize that God’s kingdom is within and among us, allowing God’s love to spring from our outreach and service to others.

Have a blessed week and Happy Thanksgiving!

Stan

To Be a Coin in the Purse of God’s Heart

Luke 15:8-10 (CEV): To Be a Coin in the Purse of God’s Heart

Jesus told the people another story:

What will a woman do if she has ten silver coins and loses one of them? Won’t she light a lamp, sweep the floor, and look carefully until she finds it? Then she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, “Let’s celebrate! I’ve found the coin I lost.”

Jesus said, “In the same way God’s angels are happy when even one person turns to him.”

No one is without value in the eyes of our loving God. Every person, no matter their past, is loved and cherished. Each of us matters greatly, so much that God stripped himself of everything to become a vulnerable human being, to live with us, teach us, love us, and die for us. The cross is the greatest reminder of God’s love and the value that each of us holds in his heart.

It is too easy to look around our broken world and find examples of human suffering. Whether it is the streets of Calcutta, the avenues of Manhattan, or the Appalachian dirt roads of West Virginia, we can see the face of human beings reduced to ruin. “How can a loving God allow this?” many ask. But what we fail to remember is the fall of humanity. The first books of Genesis spell this out with clarity and conviction. We have fallen into temptation, rejected God, and lost paradise. Since then, our world has been one in need of unity, love, and renewal. Christ came to set the standard. As people of faith, we are called to spread his Good News with our lives. In many ways we succeed; in others we fail. But our successes and failures do not mean that God loves us any more of less. He loves us unconditionally with his whole life. No matter how hard we try, succeed, or fail, God’s love is the beautiful constant of our lives. Each and every one of us matters. The problem is when we doubt this. Jesus tells a parable in Luke 15:8-10, however, to assuage our doubts.

We are the lost and found coins of the world. Often we are in the purse of our Creator, living life reflecting God’s love to the world. But there are moments when we choose the opposite: We gossip, resent others, seek revenge, act with passive aggression, lie, and reject love. After all, we are only human. But seeking the lost coin, God sweeps his house looking for us, never giving up. When we finally repent -- turning our lives around and asking God for forgiveness -- God and all of heaven celebrate! We are imperfect and prone to sin, but each of us is a shining coin held in the purse of God’s heart. Never forget it!

I pray that we all remember how much our lives matter to our loving and faithful God. And through God’s grace, I pray that our lives sparkle with his love to all those we serve and encounter.

Have a blessed week!

Stan

Loving God is Loving Neighbor

1 John 4:20: Loving God is Loving Neighbor

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

God shows himself in the most unsuspecting ways. We often look around and find imperfections in the world, especially in the people with whom we interact. “I find that person offensive and irritating,” we often say to each other and ourselves. When in the presence of that irritating, oppressive person, we should pause and ask the following question: “In what way is God asking me to love this person?” It is probably one of the most difficult questions to ask, for its answer often scares us.

Sharing work space with a difficult colleague is a challenge. A few years ago, I found myself in that situation. He and I did not have the same teaching or classroom management philosophy, and this made the professional end of our relationship a struggle: We often butted heads with how to approach lessons, manage the class, and teach content. As the year went on, I noticed that I was not the only one who had this problem with my colleague. Other people dreaded working with him, too. As problems arose in our class, I tried to compromise but felt that he refused to meet me halfway. I either had to concede to his way or become someone I was not comfortable being, a person prone to conflict. And I detest conflict. Time passed, and resentment toward my colleague welled up in my heart and psyche. I felt stressed, uncomfortable, and frustrated. What was I doing wrong?

Love in the biblical sense is not the kind of love we gravitate toward in 2018. Biblical love, the kind of love Jesus both teaches about and models, is a love of inclusion, welcome, sacrifice, and service. To love biblically doesn't mean we have to embrace or even like the person; it means we have to hope, care for, and be our best to the people we often like the least. How’s that for a challenge?

In my personal life, as in the example above, I often fail to love as Jesus teaches and models. Instead, I love myself, my own comfort, my preferences, my autonomy . . . my . . . my . . . As you can see, I often love selfishly. I often love, in the way that Linus points out in the Peanuts illustration above, according to vague lip service rather than the specificity of human engagement. I have a long way to go. Thankfully, I worship a God of unconditional love and patience.

I pray that we all let go of the self-centered hurdles in our spiritual love life and follow the advice Jesus gives: We need to love God above all things and, as important as this, to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Have a blessed week!

Stan

How Jesus Calls Each of Us

Mark 10:49: How Jesus Calls Each of Us

Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, he is calling you.”

Each day at the beginning of my lunch period, a former student stops by my room for a visit. As I am tidying up my room, he opens the door and greets me with, “How is your day, Mr. Blackburn?” It is a stock greeting that I have come to expect over the past two months, and my response usually links back to how he is doing in school and life. Although we only get three minutes of dialogue each day, I have noticed the following: He is stressed out with school work, busy working in his family’s business, and in need of attention and acceptance. And to be honest, his daily visits sometimes annoy me. I feel guilty, but there are times I selfishly hope he would stop by weekly instead of daily. A recent event, however, showed me how wrong I often get it, how blind I am to Jesus’ presence in my life.

A few days ago, I celebrated my birthday. I like to keep this quiet, celebrating only with my family. But when this student entered my room, wished me a Happy Birthday (he remembered from last year when his class mistakenly found out), and presented me with a handmade present, I could not believe my blindness. Most moving, however, was the message he enclosed on a 3x5 index card. It contained the following line: “You have been like a father figure to me.” I was (and still am) speechless.

Jesus calls each of us in ways we often fail to see. God’s voice is heard in the call of those around us, looking for our attention, kindness, and love. It is a call that comes during our free time, challenging our selfish nature, calling us to love outside of our comfort zone. This incident reminds me that I am no different than the blind Bartimaeus. And I need our Lord to open my eyes so that I, too, can rise up and follow him on the way.

I pray that we are all blessed to see those moments when Jesus appears in the least expected places of our day and that we always respond with love.  

Have a blessed week!

Stan

What Does it Mean to be Truly Great?

Mark 10:43-45 (NABRE): True Greatness

Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Greatness is something for which many of us strive. We work hard at our jobs and have gone to professional, trade, college, or graduate school. Our hope is to be the best we can and to achieve the American Dream -- independence, livelihood, and a status of achievement among our peers. Being great in our society is being respected, elevated, and admired. But Jesus, as he so often does in the gospels, turns the tables on our perspective of greatness.

Greatness is service. According to Jesus, being truly great is giving to and providing for others first. It is easy to “look out for number one,” as James and John illustrate in today’s gospel. Jesus, however, corrects them by presenting the inverse. The self aggrandizement of the disciples is antithetical to Christ’s definition of greatness. And Jesus provides the perfect example of service: He willingly dies the death of a criminal in order to bear our sins and make us right with God.

Greatness is taking on the role of a slave. The last thing many of us would choose is to live a life of slavery. Now this in not slavery in the historical sense -- the inhuman, immoral ownership and treatment of human beings as property. Slavery in the Christian sense points again to the service of others before ourselves. Jesus best illustrates this when on the day before Passover and his impending suffering and death, he washes the feet of the disciples. In first century Palestine, washing the feet of guests who enter a house was a job reserved for the lowest-ranking servant. In John 13-1-17, Jesus disrobes himself, gets down on his knees, and cleans the feet of the disciples, modeling the duty of a slave to drive home his point: Following Jesus is to do as he does, to love as he loves, to give as he gives. And that means living life as a slave of love and self giving to others.

Greatness is giving up our lives for the love of the other. Jesus clearly states that he came not to be served but to serve and give his life up in order to free us from the sins that imprison us (Mark 10:45). Look at any crucifix and you will see a suffering Jesus, who in agony dies the most painful death possible during his time. And he dies between two criminals, a scandalous social statement. The crucifix is not, as some fundamentalists argue, a symbol of failure. Rather it is a reminder of how far God goes to express his love for us. It is a reminder that Jesus, God himself, willingly died a painful, human death for each one of us. Why? Through his human suffering, God expresses his deep, limitless love for each of us; on the cross, he illustrates his desire to be with us for eternity. True greatness is to give up our lives for the love of another.

We are not expected to mount a cross on Calvary anytime soon. But we are faced with many choices to love throughout our day. How many of us have family, loved ones, and friends to whom we gladly give our time? That is true greatness. Greatness is lived out through the many times we put our lives on hold to serve and love someone in need. Greatness, moreover, is lived out in the many small sacrifices we choose in the living moments of our lives.

Loving God, we pray to choose the love of others over the love of self. Your word tells us it is something the disciples often did not understand. Jesus, however, found the best teaching method, his life’s example. Please give us the grace to follow Christ’s example and live lives of true greatness. Amen.

Have a blessed week!

Stan

Our Failures and God's Grace

Mark 10:20-22, 26-27 (GNT): Jesus is Our Perfection

“Teacher,” the man said, “ever since I was young, I have obeyed all these commandments.”

Jesus looked straight at him with love and said, “You need only one thing. Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me.” When the man heard this, gloom spread over his face, and he went away sad, because he was very rich.

The Good News of Jesus Christ is free, unmerited, and for all. The gospel is God’s gift to give; it’s not ours to earn. We don't have to go through life crossing off a list of commandments to say we are good people and warrant heaven. We can’t! The Ten Commandments, moreover, are the means by which God reminds us where we fail to love him and our neighbor (see Romans 7). No matter how hard we try (and as Christians we should try our best to abide in the commandments of God), we will never be able to keep them all with perfection.

The rich young man in Mark 10 feels that he has kept the law. But Jesus reminds him just how short he has fallen: “. . . [S]ell all you have,” Jesus says, “ . . . then come and follow me.” After witnessing this, even the disciples ask, “Who then can be saved?” This is, as Jesus instructs, impossible for us to do on our own. For as Mark writes, “Jesus looked straight at them and answered, ‘This is impossible for human beings but not for God; everything is possible for God.’” The gospel is God’s work through our cooperative “yes.”  

Let us examine our lives -- our families, our circle of friends, and our vocation -- and notice the places where we fail and fall short. Do not be discouraged, however. For our failures only remind us that God’s grace, love, and mercy are plentiful and abundant. And through the salvific love of Jesus Christ and our faith in him, we will be held up and made strong as servants of his love in this world, no matter how human and imperfect we are.

Have a blessed week!

Stan

Grace and God's Loving Choice

Colossians 3:12-14 (GNT): God Chooses Us

You are the people of God; he loved you and chose you for his own. So then, you must clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else. You must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you. And to all these qualities add love, which binds all things together in perfect unity.

There were many years in my life that were spiritually empty. During those years, however, I would never admit I was missing anything. But there was something under the surface of myself that lacked; there was an indiscernible emptiness. If asked, I could not identify it. Through grace, however, God reaches out to us. And one day, I experienced the burning desire to discover Jesus in my life. For some time, I felt like I chose to embrace Jesus, and there is truth in that statement. It was my decision, for example, to open the scriptures, pray, and seek a church community during that time. In Paul’s passage to the Colossian church, however, he reminds us that God loves us and chooses us for his own. This makes so much sense: Why would any of us experience the need for Christ in our lives? What is the catalyst? Is it our life experience and context; or is it something else, something deeper? The answer is simple: It is God’s grace.

Through grace we are reminded of God’s love for each of us. We are called, Paul says, to “clothe [our]selves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” We are to be tolerant and forgiving of each other, for God himself became human frailty so that he could die in our place, taking on our umpteen faults and failures. And if that is not enough, Paul proclaims that God’s forgiveness, care, and concern for each of us are bound in the same way that we are bound to each other, in the perfect union of love.

As we begin a new week, let us go out into the needy world knowing that we are each chosen and loved by our great God. And as we bask in the warmth of his love, let us soak it in and reciprocate it to the world through forgiveness, “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”

I pray that God’s blessings be upon you and those you love and encounter.

In Christ,

Stan

What Part of our Lives Does Jesus Demand?

Luke 9:59-62 (NABRE): What part of our lives does Jesus demand?

And to another [Jesus] said, "Follow me." But he replied, "Lord, let me go first and bury my father." But he answered him, "Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God." And another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home." Jesus answered him, "No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God."

There are no "Yea But"s when it comes to following Jesus. We are called to follow him in every aspect of our lives. Work cannot be the exception; our personal lives cannot be the exception; our family lives cannot be the exception. We are called to be dedicated disciples bar none, devoted in every inch, nook, and cranny of our lives. But this is a tough task for us humans, for we are all human and susceptible to conditional living, susceptible to sin. 

Jesus, however, reminds us that his calling must come first in our lives. And this does not mean abandoning our familial responsibilities. It means, on the contrary, blessing our familial responsibilities with our newfound faith in Christ. We are to embrace Jesus in every aspect of our lives -- family, work, public, and private. 

Jesus answered him, "No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God."

Our Solidarity

Mark 9:38-40 (NLT): Being One in Faith, Hope, and Love

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he wasn’t in our group.”

“Don’t stop him!” Jesus said. “No one who performs a miracle in my name will soon be able to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us.

It is frustrating to discover people who claim to be the “one true church,” as if one Christian denomination or group of believers has the monopoly on Christ’s teaching and, therefore, is entitled to the “fullness” of God’s blessings. While I respect that many Christian elitists are spurred on by their zeal and love for God, they are blind to a major theme expressed in the New Testament: Elitism, entitlement, and special privileges have no place in the kingdom of God and are antithetical to Jesus’ teachings and example.

Many of the readings in the Gospel of Mark highlight the apostles’ misunderstanding of Jesus’ teaching. When Jesus, for instance, teaches about the necessity of his suffering and death, the apostles get it wrong. Peter insists that Christ not suffer and die (Mark 8:32). And the apostles, unable to understand Jesus’ lesson about suffering and death, instead argue about who among them is the greatest (Mark 9:34). Again, elitism, entitlement, and special privileges have no place in the kingdom of God. Discipleship, instead, is about offering ourselves as Christ’s ambassadors; giving our lives in service to others; and representing genuine love, humility, and service in this world. This is Jesus’ mission. And it is ours, too.

As the apostles look around at the people outside of their circle, they notice someone casting out evil. Their skepticism, jealousy, and elitist attitudes prompt them to intervene and try to stop the person. Expecting Jesus to affirm their position, they bring the incident to his attention. Jesus, however, turns the tables and says, “Don’t stop him! . . . Anyone who is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:40). Jesus teaches that we are all one bound by our love for others and our opposition to evil. Faith and loving action are not about labels or special groups. Being part of the revolution that Christ ushers in is about acting in love, not proclaiming an elitist membership. When we act in love, when we cultivate hope, and when we work in service to others, we are part of one family of God, regardless of our religious affiliation.

Heavenly Father, we pray to be one in Christ Jesus your Son. Although we are of many denominations and faith beliefs, we ask to be bound as one by the loving sacrifice and service that Jesus models for the world. And we pray in Jesus Christ’s name, amen.

Have a blessed week!

Stan

Jesus Embraces the Most Vulnerable

Mark 9:35-37 (ESV): Do We, too, Embrace the Most Vulnerable?

[Jesus] sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”

Thirty-two years ago, a group of compassionate educators intervened on my behalf. I was a freshman in high school and headed down a dangerous path. Family life crumbled around me, my daily routine was one of abandon, and the company I kept was significantly older. These circumstances and my poor choices flowed into a river of potential destruction. But these caring people saw the warning signs. They acted in effort to help an insignificant, troubled kid. And instead of allowing another statistic, they devoted their time, effort, and talent to rescue me. I am forever grateful.

Fast forward ten years. As a twenty-four-year-old beginning teacher, new and unseasoned in the field of high-risk education, I found myself teaching an 86-minute block of “alternative education.” The students in this class were eighth-graders who had been retained at least two times. Most had served time in juvenile detention; all came from volatile, at-risk environments. There were no special instructions or accommodations; these kids were at the end of the educational line. As I taught this class for the first five years of my career, I noticed something growing inside of me. That caring team of educators planted a seed that bloomed in my heart as a desire for service. As a result, I strived to make those kids feel wanted, appreciated, respected, and welcomed.

Many children in our world are dismissed, disregarded, and cast-off as unredeemable. In this week’s gospel, however, Jesus illustrates the opposite: He says that children, the lowest societal members of first-century Palestine, are the most important. Humility, meekness, helplessness, and poverty are the virtues that Jesus embraces. And he reminds his closest twelve that service, sacrifice, and surrender are what they must seek instead of self-aggrandizement. To illustrate this point, Jesus says, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” Immediately after, Jesus wraps his arms around the weakest member of society, a child, and reminds his audience that welcoming the weak is welcoming him and the Father.

Our lives are no different; our calling is just the same. The educators in my life made all of the difference, and whether they knew it or not, they were doing God’s will, saving the least by being servants of all. Let us ask ourselves if we, too, embrace Christ’s teaching and seek to serve those who are most in need. This does not mean that we are to hunt down the homeless, although helping the homeless is a good thing. What it does mean, however, is that in the span of our day, we give the best of ourselves to those we contact, especially to the person we think deserves it least. When we do, we, too, plant the seeds of love and service in the hearts of the future.

Heavenly Father, please grant us the grace to love and serve those who need us most. Give us the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the hearts to love, and the hands to serve. In Jesus Christ we pray, amen.

Have a blessed week!

Stan

When Burden Becomes Joy

Mark 8:34-35 (NABRE): The Sacrifice of Discipleship

[Jesus] summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it."

She was 85 and wheelchair bound, gnarled hands rolling a paper napkin into a tight ball at the pit of her palm. He was her elder by three years; they shared the same birthday, just different years.

He patiently pushed her wheelchair down the aisles of the supermarket.

“Pick me up; put me down,” she repeated with a cadence that kept time with the clock. Her face expressed vacancy.

He recalled a time ten years ago. Lying in a hospital bed, his body forty pounds lighter, he looked at her holding his hand and thought, This is love; in the throws of cancer, she stays by my side with the same devoted commitment that I remember on the night of our engagement. She was his strength, praying with him each day through the pain, wiping his mouth after feedings, holding his hand each night as he drifted off to sleep.

They approached the produce aisle. She always loved the smell of fresh greens and the pungent sweetness of ripening, in-season fruit. “Pick me up; put me down,” she repeated in predictable cadence.

The dementia had taken over her mind, robbing her of any faculties, memories, or recognition. But that didn’t matter to him. Their lives were one, and he promised her on that day 60 years ago to be at her side, in sickness and in health.

Love is a painful sacrifice, but it is a sacrifice of beauty and infinite reward. When we learn to let ourselves go for the love of the other, to give all that we have in body, mind, and spirit, we will feel pain. But the outcome of that pain is the most beautiful rebirth. We are born into creatures of love. Our lives given for the other transform us into a beauteous new being. Giving our lives away in love, exemplifies what Jesus says in this week’s gospel: “Whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” The “saving,” in this sense, is not out of the fear of hell. It is, instead, a saving of the other, a saving of life, a saving of the world. Lives transformed by love are contagious. People see and desire it. Let us, then, be reborn in love.

Jesus reminds us to look deeply into our own lives for the sacrifices we are called to give, the grace self-giving of love. Is it within our families, our careers, or our friendships? The crosses we take up are not as they may initially appear, burdens. But through our struggles, these crosses bloom into the sweet rewards of deep, self-giving love.

Heavenly Father, we offer our lives to you. Use us as instruments of love to those people close in our lives, no matter the personal cost. Kindly grant us the grace of transformative love so that we can give life to those who suffer. In Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

Have a blessed week!

Stan