Sunday, February 25, 2018

Love’s Genesis

1 John 4:19 (GNT): Love’s Genesis
We love because God first loved us.
Mornings are my quiet time. I rise very early to pray, read, and work out. When that quiet time is interrupted by spouse, child, or dog, I can get irritable. This is my time, I often think, and you are ruining it!
One morning, I heard the small pitter-patter of socks coming across the linoleum, short steps with increasing volume as they came closer. It was my two-year-old son, Luke. My instinct was to defend “my time,” for it is sacred to my mental and spiritual health. But the intense love radiated through Luke’s smile and outstretched arms reminded me of why I am here. As I gathered him into my arms, we went to our favorite glider chair in his room, hugged, and rocked for 30 minutes. He fell fast asleep. It was the best thirty minutes of prayer I could ever spend. Holding my child close, feeling his warmth, and hearing the steady cadence of his breath against me filled me with the deepest, undefinable sense of love. And that love is only possible because God loves us first.
As we go through our week, let us look for moments to savor the love all around us and be reminded that it does not come from us, but it comes from our God who is, himself, love.
Loving Father, thank you for your great love. Empower us through your Spirit to be ambassadors of your love in our world. In Jesus Christ we pray, amen.
Have a blessed week.

Stan

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

To Be Ministers of Healing

Acts 3:3-8 (NRSV): To be Ministers of Healing
When [the lame beggar] saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
Peter and John were Jesus’ closest friends and disciples, so when we read this account it is easy to pass off the ministry of miraculous healing to those of the apostolic age. As modern thinkers, we may even pass off this miracle as a metaphor for the inner healing that the gospel of Jesus brings. But there is something more at work here. Jesus uses Peter and John to bring his healing to a sick and crippled world, both literally and figuratively. The beggar at the gate begs for alms and receives healing in Christs’ name. We are modern-day apostles commissioned with the same healing ministry as Peter and John. How can we approach others in faith and provide them with the healing grace of Christ?
When a student chooses to fail, educators work to intervene. One of my students is in his second year of ninth grade, and he is currently failing most classes. His behaviors are the same in all classes: He refuses to do any work. He, like the lame man in Acts 3, is stuck, cries out, and needs healing. This student has a sad story, however: His parents have no time, he is depressed, and he needs outside counseling. This child struggles to breathe, lives a life of neglect, and barely keeps his head above emotional water. No wonder he is failing. School work is the least of his concerns. Witnessing this struggle, begs the following question: How can I channel the healing ministry of Christ to those who hurt?  
Richard J. Foster, in his book Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, outlines a method in which the faithful can reach out to those who need healing. He presents a process that includes four primary steps: Listen, ask, believe, and thank. We listen with a discerning heart to the needs of others, ask God in faith to use us as instruments of his healing, believe with assurance that Christ’s healing radiates through us to others, and thank God with heart-filled gratitude for those moments that we witness his healing.
As Peter and John brought miraculous healing to those around them, we, too, are called in Christ to do the same. It does not have to be in a formal context. Instead, Christ’s healing can radiate in the small circles of what we know -- our families, our friends, and the people we serve. Simple healing comes in many forms. We can listen to someone vent, ask if those who suffer need prayer, spend time with the ones who need us when we would rather do “our thing,” or write a letter to bridge a distanced relationship. In all, we thank God for the opportunity to be present.
Heavenly Father, we ask you to use us as agents of your grace in this world. Send us, Lord, to be your healing light to others. We pray in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.
Have a blessed week.
Stan

Sunday, February 11, 2018

How to be Perfect

Matthew 5:48 (NRSV): The Cost of Perfection
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Perfection seems an impossible word to the Christian faithful. We are all sinners who fall daily in our walk with the Lord. But we are called by Christ to be perfect as our “heavenly Father is perfect.” This is a tall order, especially for a sinner like me. In Mere Christianity, however, C.S. Lewis explains this teaching with clarity: 

. . . Let me explain. When I was a child I often had toothache, and I knew that if I went to my mother she would give me something which would deaden the pain for that night and let me get to sleep. But I did not go to my mother—at least, not till the pain became very bad. And the reason I did not go was this. I did not doubt she would give me the aspirin; but I knew she would also do something else. I knew she would take me to the dentist next morning. I could not get what I wanted out of her without getting something more, which I did not want. I wanted immediate relief from pain: but I could not get it without having my teeth set permanently right. And I knew those dentists: I knew they started fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache. They would not let sleeping dogs lie, if you gave them an inch they took an ell. 
Now, if I may put it that way, Our Lord is like the dentists. If you give Him an inch, He will take an ell. Dozens of people go to Him to be cured of some one particular sin which they are ashamed of (like masturbation or physical cowardice) or which is obviously spoiling daily life (like bad temper or drunkenness). Well, He will cure it all right: but He will not stop there. That may be all you asked; but if once you call Him in, He will give you the full treatment. 
That is why He warned people to ‘count the cost’ before becoming Christians. ‘Make no mistake,’ He says, ‘if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect— until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less.’ (201-202)
Lewis kids not. Jesus says and means it. As Christ’s disciples, we are in for the full treatment, nothing half-baked or partial. The key to this, however, is to “not push [Jesus] away.” We have free will, and even if this call to Christian perfection is otherworldly and incomprehensible, its is God’s work in us, not ours. We are to abide in Jesus and do our best to love those in front of us. God will take care of the rest. 

Loving God, make us a new creation. 
We yearn to be what you call us to be, loving disciples of your Son, Jesus Christ. 
Amen. 

Have a blessed week! 

Stan

Sunday, February 4, 2018

Jesus as a Model of Service to Others

Mark 1:29,34,38 (NRSV): Jesus Models Service to Others
Jesus came and took [Simon’s mother-in-law] by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. . .

And Jesus cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. . . 

Jesus answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”
Healing and serving others, expelling evil, and bringing forth the message of hope seem like impossible tasks. Throughout the gospels, however, Jesus models them. As the body of Christ, we are called to imitate Jesus’ actions. At first glance, this call appears problematic: We are all not faith healers, exorcists, or preachers. Or are we?

My grandmother lived a life of clandestine Christian ministry. She was a devout Roman Catholic from Italy, emigrating to the US after she married my grandfather during the second World War. She was a brilliant entrepreneur, and with little language and cultural knowledge, she started with almost nothing and built a successful produce business that served her community for decades. I never knew a person who worked harder than she did. She was up before dawn and worked all day and into the night. She was not a person to sit still. In the midst of her buying, travelling, retailing, and conversing with customers, she always took the time to serve those who struggled to serve themselves. 

Mrs. H was in her eighties and had difficulty getting out of her apartment. I vividly remember my grandmother taking her orders over the phone. And it was not a business transaction. Those conversations were about family and health, and the theme of caring concern flowed over the receiver. My grandmother was known to add, gratis, a few special items like her homemade fruit salad. And believe me, there was no better fruit salad than that of my grandmother.  

I was often the delivery boy, and I dreaded the third-floor climb with that towering box full of produce. I would say hello, drop off the box, and look for my egress. But Mrs. H was always full of words. She thanked me and always talked about how good a person my grandmother was by delivering the produce she no longer had the mobility to get. 

As a spiritually blind ten-year-old, I did not get it. I saw those deliveries as a hassle, as an undesirable chore. But what was happening around me was miraculous. Through God’s grace, my grandmother was bringing healing, joy, love, and smiles to those around her. She was, whether she knew it or not, offering her Christian ministry to others, imitating Jesus’ model in the gospels. 

What is our ministry? How does our vocation allow us to be Christ to those we encounter? We are called to heal, to expel hopelessness, to serve, and to bring good news to those we encounter. 
Heavenly Father, grant us that, like Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, we all rise up in the healing hands of Christ, your Son, and serve others with all our hearts. And we pray in Jesus Christ’s name, amen. 
Have a blessed week!
Stan