HOW MUCH GRACE?

Luke 13: 6-9

Everything has a function. Think about it. Whether big or small, everything is built by man or by nature to do something. If you’re a boat, you provide transportation or carry things down a river or across an ocean. If you’re a building, you house businesses or people to do their work or raise their families. If you’re a bomb, you blow things up. Everything man-made has a reason to be built and God is no different in his craftsmanship of the world. Everything happens for a reason and everyone is put here for a purpose.

So if you’re a fig tree in ancient Israel, you bear figs. That’s the reason you exist. In a land of poor soil, arid conditions and harsh climate, food bearing soil is at a premium and there is just no room for fig trees that do not produce figs.

Sandwiched in between Jesus’ ‘repent or perish’ comments beginning chapter thirteen of Luke’s gospel and later the parable of the mustard seed, is a short and rather obscure parable about a barren fig tree. A fig tree has not yielded any fruit in three years. The owner is ready to cut it down. The vinedresser asks for more time…time to nurse it along. He promises that if it doesn’t work, he will indeed cut it down.

Well, that’s nice, but what in the world does it have to do with me and you? What does it mean and why is it there? What is the lesson of the barren fig tree? I can understand that if I don’t repent, I will perish, as Jesus says in the beginning of the chapter. I can understand that a little faith goes a long way in the same manner that a small mustard seed can grow a bush big enough to be called a tree. But a barren fig tree? What is Jesus telling us?

Is the story about allowing us more time? Yes, I think it is. Is the story about running out of time? Yes, I think it is that, too. William Barclay calls this story “The gospel of the Other Chance and the Threat of the Last Chance.”

Ancient Israel was hardly the breadbasket of the world. The soil was shallow and poor. Crops and trees were grown on every inch of soil worth planting. There was no room for things that did not produce. It was the custom to give a fig tree, whose fruit was used for many purposes, three years to bear fruit. If it did not do so in the allotted time, it was cut down to make room for something which would produce. Such is our story today. The owner says “for three years, I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?”

In the sixth chapter of John’s gospel, Jesus has been talking to a crowd gathered to hear him. They are hungry and they want to be fed. Jesus tells them that he is the bread of life. They cannot comprehend how he can feed their souls. For three years, he brought the message of grace, first to his disciples, then to religious leaders, and finally to the people all around him. He planted the seeds of grace but many times they fell on the hard ground of legalism and unbelief.

The vinedresser’s answer was to give the stubborn tree another year. He wanted to give it more attention, He promised to feed it, water it, fertilize it. He wanted to go another mile to give it a chance to bear fruit.

Doesn’t that remind you of what our Savior did for us? When he couldn’t get us to understand, he provided the example. When he couldn’t get us to commit, he committed himself. When our faith remained weak and barren, he went to a cross to pay our debt of sin. The parable of the barren fig tree is another chance at grace, just like the chance that Jesus gave us.

We have been given so many opportunities to know God. We are like the fig tree in the vineyard. It occupied a special place. Good soil came at a premium and the little fig tree was privileged to occupy some of that favored soil. And yet, the parable shows us that it had failed to produce even though it had ample time to do so. Because it failed to respond to the opportunity given it, it was in jeopardy of losing not only the opportunity, but its very life. Jesus uses the parable to tell us that we must do something with the opportunities we are given. We must claim the promises made to us by Jesus. If we do not do so, there will come a time when our uselessness closes off our opportunity.

For three years I have come seeking fruit and I find none, says the owner. How many times have you been offered the chance to do something and failed to act on it? How many ways have you looked in the eyes of your Savior and ignored him just because he was dressed in a different way or spoke in a different tongue? The people of Israel had had a whole lot longer than that poor little fig tree. How long have you had?

The vinedresser begs for another year. He bargains with the owner. Give it a little more time. It’ll come around. I’ll tend to it. I’ll irrigate it and feed it. Even though the time for bearing fruit has passed, he coaxes another year out of the owner.

Barrenness is an often used theme in the Bible. From Sarah to Elizabeth, barrenness indicates a condition of being without. Then God comes and solves the problem. Barrenness turns to fertility and the fruit comes forth, whether it is the fruit of the vine or the fruit of the fig tree or the birth of a newborn child. Hand in hand with the theme of barrenness is that of hard-heartedness. As the fig tree yields no fruit, neither do the people of Israel come to see our Savior standing in front of them. They have hardened their hearts and the fruit of the Spirit escapes them. How much are we like the people of Jesus’ time!

In this parable lies a warning of judgment. While the fig tree may have been ransomed for another year, the promise, even of the vinedresser, is that if it does not bear fruit within that year, then the owner can cut it down. In this little story of a fig tree, Jesus himself warns us that our rejection of God’s grace is not without a time limit. There will come a day of reckoning. “If it should bear fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.” The little fig tree has been allowed ample time to get its act together. It has been allowed to take and take and take. Jesus warns that if we do not begin to bear fruit, to give back, our days are numbered. 

It is a dire lesson that our little barren fig tree teaches us. The threat of the last chance is a hard pill to swallow. So often we think of Jesus as Savior, a wonderful, understanding, brother figure who stands in the gap reaching out for us and promising us eternal life. It’s all true, too. But that’s only part of the truth that Jesus promises us. He also promises judgment for every one of us. He is the door through whom we must pass and like our fig tree, we will have to account for what use we were in this world.

And yet, there is that other part of the parable…that wonderful, amazing part where, even when it is past our allotted time, our heavenly vinedresser pleads our case. Let me work with him a little more. Let me feed her the fruit of my Spirit. Give me just a little more time. Let me use just a little more grace. Then we will see fruit.

How much grace? I don’t know. I do know it’s more than I deserve. As surely as I know that there is an end to God’s grace, I am equally persuaded that his grace is both sufficient for me and available to me. How much grace? Enough to overcome my barrenness. Enough to overcome my hard-heartedness. God gives us every chance we need. Just don’t wait for next year. You never know when the owner will say: it’s time.

Let us pray.

8/25/13

The Crucible of Crisis (Luke 12: 49-56) 8/18/13

 

Jesus is speaking to his disciples and the crowds that follow him. Luke tells us that Jesus has stopped on the way to Jerusalem to talk with his disciples and to the very large crowd that has gathered. Jesus talks about the division that will result from his ministry and message, warning that families and friends will suffer and split from his teachings, as some will follow him and many will not. He goes on to exclaim how blind we can be to revelation right in front of our eyes, He talks about how a south wind means hot weather approaching, while clouds rising in the west mean a shower is on its way. We can interpret the earth and sky by how they present and yet we seem to have little idea how to interpret what is going on all around us.

This passage contains several lessons, but I keep being drawn to verse 50: “But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed.”  Jesus is looking toward the cross. He knows what is coming. He has to die to light the fire. He is not only the solution. He is the kindling for the fire to come.

Baptism. It is a sacrament in every Christian church. Along with the Lord’s Supper, it is one of two sacraments recognized by most Protestant churches, including ours. In the Reformed tradition, of which we are a part, baptism is recognized for both infants and adults, although we most often see it observed with infants. In that setting, it is an acknowledgment by both parents and church to raise a child in the church until he or she obtains the age of consent. But the word has a much richer meaning and history. Webster’s Dictionary tells us that, in addition to the Christian definitions, baptism means to purify, cleanse or initiate. In the New Testament, the term comes from two Greek roots. One is baptizo, which means to make fully wet. The second is baptizen, meaning “to dip.” It is used of someone submerged in some grim and terrible experience. We might paraphrase Jesus’ words this way: “I have to pass through a terrible experience, and my life is full of tension until I pass through it and emerge triumphantly from it.” 

Jesus was letting us “in,” so to speak, on where he was and what he was going through. Most of the time, we look upon Jesus as our Savior, someone so much higher above us that we stand in awe. We admire him, we worship him, but we do not relate to him. It’s certainly right to see Jesus in this light, but it’s not the only way we should see him. We know that Jesus was fully God. From that vantage point he knew exactly why he was here and what he was ultimately going to do to redeem us. But we know also that Jesus was fully human and I think this verse gives us a glimpse into that very human part of Jesus the man. This is a part of Jesus that we can relate to.

“But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is fully completed.”  The part of Jesus that was God knew he would face the cross and complete his task, but the part of Jesus that was man was not so sure. The verse foreshadows Jesus on the Mount of Olives the night of his arrest. Remember? In the cool of the night, he is in anguish, “his sweat is like drops of blood falling to the ground,” (Luke 22: 44) as he asks the Father to let this cup (the cross) pass away from him (v.42). He is deathly afraid. His fear is not just of the pain of the cross, but of failure; failure of his mission for his heavenly father; failure of this opportunity to deliver God’s saving grace for mankind. He knows he has to come through. Too much is riding on it. So Jesus is in crisis. He is looking down the road of crucifixion and death. He is in the crucible.

          A crucible is a container that can resist great heat. It is the hollow at the bottom of a furnace where the molten metal collects. It’s where the heat is at its unbearable greatest. Ever been in the crucible of crisis? Ever been at the point where people you love are depending on you and the only way to come through for them is to do something you can’t do, go to a poiny where you might break? It’s hot there, and there’s no room to breathe, no margin to err, no wiggle room. It’s a dark place when you’re in the crucible.

Crisis came to Jesus. He had many temptations, but perhaps only one great crisis. Crisis and temptation come to us as well. They come in many forms. Though not as significant as the crisis faced by Jesus, they are very powerful and often seemingly overwhelming. Crisis has many names: poverty, illness, disease, divorce, addiction, to name a few. There are people here who have gone in to work only to be handed a pink slip at the end of the day. They know what I’m talking about. There are many here who have sat beside the hospital bed of a parent or child or friend fading from life. They know what I’m talking about. If you have been served with divorce papers, had to apply for disability, admitted an unwilling parent to a rest home, bailed a child out of jail, you know what I’m talking about. Even if you have led a charmed life to this point, the crisis of your life may be around the next corner.

There is ugliness and hardship in this world, and very few escape its clutches from cradle to grave. Yet for all their gravity, these sorts of crises do not rise to the level that Christ faced. Indeed, the book of James tells us to consider such things “joy.” James call these events “trials,” and tells us that “the testing of our faith develops perseverance, which must finish its work so that we may be mature and complete” in the eyes of God.

Jesus, the Son of Man, was in crisis. He was in the crucible. The King James Version translates verse 50 this way: “But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished.”  “Straitened?”  In the Greek (sunecho), it means kept in, pressed. Jesus is in a vise, and there he will stay until he has met and conquered the cross and all that goes with it. Paul tells us in 2nd Corinthians 5:21 that “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us…” Matthew and Mark tell us that on the cross, Jesus cries out in a loud voice: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He makes this appeal in the ninth hour, right before he dies. All three Synoptic Gospels report that darkness had come over the land three hours earlier. I think that somewhere in this three hour period, perhaps right at the moment of the ninth hour, the sin of all mankind for all time physically entered into the heart and soul of Jesus and, as Paul tells us, Jesus became sin. At this point God, who cannot look upon sin, turned his back on Jesus. It is not that Jesus sinned. Jesus never sinned. But he became sin; he became the vessel for all our sin.

Jesus became the bridge to our righteousness. Had he failed to finish the task, had he appealed to the angels standing by, had he cried out for rescue, mankind would have lost the redemption that he bought with his life. But Jesus didn’t fail. He endured his time in the crucible. He faced the crisis of the cross.

There are other examples in the Bible that come to mind. Think of Joseph languishing away in an Egyptian prison; Jonah in the belly of the great fish; Daniel in the lions’ den; Abraham standing over his son Isaac with knife raised for sacrifice. These people were at turning points in their lives. They were in the crucible.

          Today we too face crises. We already talked about that briefly. Jesus paid the price and we are ransomed. We are made righteous by his atonement.  But we still have to believe and work out our salvation. I think a big part of that is to understand that while salvation comes to individuals, it is largely achieved through community. And the community of Christ in the United States and other western nations is in crisis. It may be bigger and stronger today than ever before. We: you, me, our families, our country, our church, are all in the crucible. We face a crisis of commitment.

We have answered that call before. Here are just a couple famous examples. On a December day in 1955, a 43 year old black woman boarded a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama and took her place in a seat behind all the white people on the bus. Later, when the bus filled up and a white man was without a seat, this woman was directed by the driver to surrender her seat. When she refused, the police were called and she was arrested. Rosa Parks had voluntarily placed herself in the crucible, and in doing so, became one of the catalysts for the Civil Rights movement.

Called by many the most influential person of the 20^th century, Mother Teresa spent her first year in India with no income and had to resort to begging for food and supplies. As she emerged from the cloud of loneliness and doubt that plagued her, she wrote in her diary: “Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the cross…Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire to remain and do whatever be your Holy will in my regard…”

Our times are no exception to the call to commitment. You can think of others not so famous who live their lives in such crises. They are your family, your friends, your neighbors, and they also have entered the crucible of commitment. They are part of that cloud of witnesses to which the Book of Hebrews refers and their example must not be lost upon us. Nor must our example be lost upon a new generation for Christ waiting in the wings, for if we fail to spend our time in the crucible, if we fail to pass on the Good News of the Gospel to our children, to our peers, to our friends and acquaintances, we will have failed our commitment which we shoulder as Christians. The next generation for Christ is in our hands. In this so-called “Post-Christian” era, it is a battle line from which we must not retreat.

 Paul tells us in Philippians that “to live is Christ, to die is gain.” I sometimes think the dying part is the easy part. Faced with the prospect of losing our freedom, denying our faith, I think our chances are fair that we can face death. But living with committment? That’s a crisis without a deadline. That’s a wake-up-with, go-to-work-with, go-to-bed-with, get-up-the next-day-and-do-it-all-over-again sort of crisis. We are in the crucible. We can’t always feel it, but it’s there all the same. The crisis is real and the stakes are high. The reward is out of this world, but it takes commitment of Christians, church and community to live in Christ.

The Message translates verse 50 in a way that I think  catches the mood of Jesus on that day. It says: “I’ve come to change everything, turn everything rightside up—how I long for it to be finished” Jesus did that for you and me. We have only to reach out in faith. Get in that crucible. Get upside down if you need to, if it helps you see things rightside up. Feel the heat. Get committed. Become part of the fire. You won’t get burned.            

Treasure in the Heavens (Luke 12: 29-34) 8/11/13

 

          The twelfth chapter of Luke’s gospel finds Jesus addressing a laundry list of themes. There is a warning to beware of the hypocrisy exhibited by the Pharisees. There is an admonition to fear no man, but to fear God, another to acknowledge Christ before men. Jesus tells a parable about a rich farmer who, when confronted with his massive wealth, chooses to build bigger barns to store his crop rather than to share it. Jesus calls him a fool because the treasure he lays up is earthly and fleeting and cannot follow him in the life to come. Then, Jesus turns to the subject of anxiety. His advice is to seek the kingdom of God rather than concern ourselves with what we wear or what we eat. He tells us not to worry because God has already thought of all that. Jesus is talking about priorities. Where are yours?

          Later in the chapter, Jesus warns that we must be ready. Though he is still living and talking to his disciples, he speaks of a future which they cannot yet grasp. He tells them that they must be ready, that “the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” The disciples couldn’t understand it at the time, but later they would come to know what Jesus meant.

          But before Jesus talks about being ready, he stops to give some comforting words and to provide us with some marching orders on how to live our lives and on what our investment portfolio should look like.  He talks about our Father’s good pleasure, about that with which we will provide ourselves, and what our treasure is. He wants his disciples, and us, to see that the real treasure is not in what we have, but rather in who we are and how we act. 

          This chapter is a mixed bag when it comes to Jesus’ audience. The chapter begins with many thousands of people gathered together, and yet Jesus begins by talking to his disciples. He next addresses his friends, who might well be his disciples still, then seems to turn to the crowd. Someone in the crowd asks him a question, and Jesus answers him. Then Jesus again turns to his disciples to talk about worry. In the next paragraph, Jesus addresses his “little flock,” apparently alluding once more to the disciples.

          So is the message of chapter 12 a message to Jesus’ disciples? Some theologians say so and draw more narrow conclusions about the meaning of Jesus’ remarks. There is one point where Jesus answers a question from someone in the crowd, so at least part of this discourse is meant for everyone. Some scholars point to this as evidence that Jesus is addressing all of those present. It seems to me that Jesus does both, but more importantly, all of it is reported in Luke’s gospel, so all of it is there as a lesson to me and you. If you are a seeker, then you are like the person in the crowd seeking Jesus’ advice. If you have been saved, then you are a disciple. Either way, Jesus is talking to you. What is his message to you?

          I went to say good bye to a friend this week. She was thirteen years my senior. Too young to be a mother figure, too old to be a close friend and yet, that’s exactly what she was. She was my friend. She cared about me. I came to visit her a couple weeks before she died. I knew she was in pain from the cancer, but I couldn’t find it in her eyes. I barely got to ask her anything. I was too busy answering her questions. She took the lead as always, wanting to know about our children, about my ministry. After the funeral, my wife commented how close she had felt to our friend and I had to laugh, for that’s the way everyone felt about this kind and gentle rock of a Christian. We all claimed her as our special friend, but she belonged to a community of friends to whom she had been so loving and gracious for so long. Her name was Joanne and she knew where her treasure is.

          At Joanne’s funeral, a neighbor and her daughters sat in front of us. She is a cancer survivor and a strong Christian. She is a beautiful woman about my wife’s age. For a decade, she has raised her two daughters by herself. They were there with her. Now in high school, they are striking in their appearance. Blessed with the genes of their mother, the three of them made quite a statement. This is particularly true in light of their mother’s steadfast loyalty to her daughters and our God through many years of being a single parent. She carries her burden so lightly that it appears invisible. Her name is Jane and I’m pretty sure that she knows where her treasure is too.

          I share these little stories because I am connected to these people. As I mature in Christ, I understand more fully what that means. To be connected to people in relationship is to open one’s heart to the treasure that God has promised us. It is in these relationships that God reveals his loving nature to us, and through which we become more able to understand and accept that unconditional love. Jesus said: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

          Jesus went on. “Sell your possessions and give to the needy.” What’s that all about? Well, Jesus didn’t say to sell all your possessions and I doubt that’s what he meant either. I think what he meant was to share the blessings you have been given, and to share those blessings especially with those who need them. I think he meant for you and me to give of who we are and not just from the excess with which we find ourselves. Do you have a gift for hospitality? Share it. Do you have a lot of money? Give some away. Do you have a voice? Sing for God. If you believe that Jesus died for you and that he will come again, if you believe that heaven waits on the other side of this earthly life, then do some heavenly estate planning.  Invest in a “whole life” policy instead of just a term policy. It builds value. You see, we don’t really get to retire. We just change addresses. Our father has given us the kingdom and that is our real security.

          This is an old farming community, so everyone is used to seeing tractors. How silly would it be to see someone hitching up a plow to the front of a tractor! And yet, friends, how often do we do exactly that with the lives that God has given us! Instead of calling on our heavenly Father and accumulating heavenly treasure, we lean on the things of this world. We want security and we trust to a bank or the company retirement plan to provide it for us. We want to trust, but we put our trust in jars of clay. People and human institutions let us down. That includes the church, for while it is ordained by God, it too is subject to human frailty.

          Not so with God. “Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.” Imagine. No aging. No rust. No thievery. No mildew. That’s real security.

          How do we capture that which God promises? We let go. [Take out keys]. I heard someone talking about possessions and material things a couple weeks ago and I love what she said. She said having things is OK, but as Christians, we must hold on to these things loosely. I look at these keys in my hand and I try to imagine that they represent all the material things I own. I have them. I control them. As long as I hold them loosely, I can stay in control. My possessions should be like these keys, dangling loosely on a ring, ready on short notice to be exchanged or even removed. [Throw the keys to someone]. See? I can let them go if I hold them loosely. I can surrender them or pass them on to someone else. I am still in control.

          But what if I hold on too tightly? [Throw the keys back]. Then the things of my life begin to control me. Now where is my treasure? Is it in my wallet? Is it in my possessions? I have made my own God. I can no longer see the treasure that my friend Joanne showed me, that Jesus promises, for I am blinded by my own light, guided by my own selfish desires.

          God has promised us treasure in the heavens. He has promised eternal life and life abundant. But he has given us the power to reject. We can choose to be selfish. We can choose to build up our treasures here on earth. The only problem is that those treasures cannot save us from death. Only God can do that.

          Where is your treasure? Are you seeking the kingdom? If you do that first, everything else that your heart desires will be added to it. We have God’s promise for that. Or are you seeking to please yourself and give God the leftovers? If you don’t like the answers that are ringing in your heart, then change it. All you have to do is ask. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Amen

 

Knock, Knock (Luke 11: 1-13) 7/28/13

           In the eleventh chapter of Luke, we find Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. It is a prayer that he taught to his disciples and might be better understood as the Disciples Prayer. It is a model prayer meant to guide us into both worship and intercession. It is a prayer we learn early and say often. It acknowledges God as our father and our sovereign. It calls for God’s rule both here and now and in the consummation of the kingdom. It petitions for sustenance, for forgiveness and for the strength not to fall away in times of trial. The use of the pronoun “us” seems to imply that the prayer is not just for each of us, but even more for us as a community of faith.

          Then Jesus tells a parable. It is found only in Luke’s gospel. It is complicated, but its lesson is simple. To better understand the parable, we need to know something about Palestinian homes of Jesus’ time. But first, let’s put the scene in a contemporary setting.

Last week, three of our grown children and our grandchild came home for the weekend and my wife’s friend from college also flew in for a few days. We had to borrow a blow-up mattress from our neighbor in order to provide everyone with a bed to sleep in.  Our neighbor was glad to accommodate us, but imagine if, instead of asking in advance, we knocked on his door at midnight on Friday night. Our neighbor most likely would not have been so accommodating. Imagine that I just kept on knocking until I woke him up and then wouldn’t leave until he found his portable mattress all properly stored away and put it in my hands. I’m thinking that our friendship might have been stretched to the limit.

          Jesus talks in Luke 11 about friendship and hospitality. A friend comes visiting late at night. The host is caught unprepared. In first century Palestine, it was not unusual to travel at night to avoid the scorching heat of the day and time of day didn’t matter when it came to hospitality. It was the custom of the day to always be prepared for visitors. It was the sacred duty of the host to be ready to extend hospitality and to do so with abundance.

          Confronted with the inability to perform his sacred duty, the host goes to his neighbor. Even though it is midnight, he would rather prevail upon his friend nearby than to forego his duty as a host. The neighbor says “the door is now shut and my children are with me in bed.” It helps to understand this in context. In first century Palestine, doors to dwellings stayed open all day. Privacy was non-existent. But at day’s end, the door closed. Quite often, the hens and the goats were taken inside the house as well. The home usually consisted of one room with a dirt floor. About a third of the floor was raised and upon this a charcoal fire was built. The entire family slept close together on mats near the fire, because nights are cold in that part of the world. So, when the neighbor said that his children were in bed with him, he was being literal. To get up was to roust the family and the small livestock which had all settled in for the night. 

          Of course, the host knew this situation and knocked anyway. He not only knocked; he continued to knock until the door was opened. The ESV says he was impudent. Perhaps a more accurate characterization of this term would be to understand our host as shamelessly bold or persistent. He had a duty to perform and he could not do it without the help of his friend and neighbor. So he persisted until the neighbor came to his aid. Jesus goes on to say that the neighbor performs not because of the friendship, but because of the persistence of the host who knocks at his door.

          At first reading, it would seem that our task as Christians might be to persist in prayer until we are heard, for this passage, after all, is still about prayer. But Luke’s meaning may be more subtle than that. Yes, we are exhorted to be boldly persistent in our prayer life with God, but we should understand that here Jesus is saying that we can take anything before God in prayer; that God is more gracious and more caring than any neighbor—even a neighbor who eventually comes to our aid. This parable has parallel tracks. Parable means “to lie alongside of” and this is a good example.  We see a good result in this story of neighbor helping neighbor. One person reacts to another’s need. Jesus uses this to illustrate how much more our Heavenly Father will care and meet our needs than this earthly response!  

          Jesus then turns to the famous phrase, “Ask…seek …and knock.” In the Greek language, all three words are verbs in the imperative. In other words, they are spoken as commands. These requests then point out what an earthly father might do. If even sinful men can act with love, how much more will the Lord do for his people? Jesus promises that everyone who asks receives, that the one who seeks finds, that to the one who knocks it will be opened. But for what shall we ask? For whom and what shall we seek? When we knock, on whose door are we knocking?

          Part of the lesson here is our need to pray. It can be compared to the need of the host to do his duty to his traveling friend. He had a great need and he boldly persisted with his neighbor until he could meet that need. In a similar fashion, we must recognize our need to pray. When the need is real to us, we will be boldly persistent about our prayer life. This need for persistence in praying is not God’s need, it is ours. Neither is the persistence to be seen as constantly praying for one thing, but rather for God’s presence, for God’s guidance, for God’s Spirit to be present in our lives. If we pray boldly and with passion for God’s will to be done, we can pray with confidence of the result.

          The end of the passage finds Jesus asking a “how much more” question again.  Luke uses this device to compare and contrast what God can do as opposed to the limits we have as humans. Jesus guides us in our directions to ask, seek and knock. If sinful people can give good gifts to their children, and we all know they certainly can, then how much more will our heavenly Father do?

More important is the nature of the gift promised here by our heavenly Father. Jesus promises us the Father’s gift of the Holy Spirit to those of us who ask him. It is the answer to our prayer, but it is God’s answer. What is promised is not prosperity or wealth or even health, but instead the gift of the Holy Spirit. The real answer to all our asking, the true destination to all our seeking, the final entry to the door of our knocking is the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is in this way that God answers every prayer. He comes to us with the gift of himself. William Barclay puts it this way: “We are not wringing gifts from an unwilling God, but going to one who knows our needs better than we know them ourselves and whose heart toward us is the heart of generous love. If we do not receive what we pray for, it is not because God grudgingly refuses to give it but because he has some better thing for us.”

          There is no such thing as unanswered prayer. But in our prayer, as Jesus taught us, we need to discern who is in charge. We need to ask for the right things, such as God’s will in our lives. We need to seek the right directions, and then and only then can we end up at the right door, so that when we knock, it will be opened to find God on the other side. If we seek God, we will find him and we will find him waiting with a full measure of the Holy Spirit as a house-warming gift. And unlike the host with an empty larder, we will never find him unprepared. 

Choosing the Good Portion (Luke 10: 38-42) 7/21/13

          Do you have an adopted family? A family who you choose to “adopt” just because everything feels so relaxed and easy? If you do, it probably started out with visits to a friend’s house, but somewhere along the way, you just began to enjoy your friend’s mom or dad as much or more than your friend. My mother was like that. I remember coming home from college and military service, only to find out that several of my friends had come by. They knew I wouldn’t be there. They just came by to have some ice cream and shoot the breeze with my mom at the kitchen table.

           The Bible doesn’t say so, but if you read between the lines, the family of Lazarus seems to have had that kind of effect on Jesus. The family lived in Bethany, just outside Jerusalem. Of course, Jesus had his own family and he had his disciples. Peter, James and John are referred to as the “inner circle” of Jesus, but Lazarus may have been his “go to” guy. Lazarus was arguably the subject of Jesus’ greatest miracle, when he was raised from death after four days in his tomb.  Even though Jesus knew what he was to find when he arrived, he wept when told of his good friend’s death. While there are a number of reasons for Jesus to have done so, at least one of them is the strong connection he had with Lazarus.  And Jesus’ connection with Lazarus went beyond his friend. Jesus enjoyed his visits with Lazarus’ sisters Martha and Mary as well. It seems that every time Jesus came to Jerusalem, he stopped by to see his friends in Bethany.

          Luke introduces us to Mary and Martha in the tenth chapter of his gospel. Sandwiched in between the parable of the good Samaritan and the teaching of the Lord’s Prayer is a short story about one of those visits to Jesus’ “adopted” family. It’s a very short story with a very big punch line. The Good Samaritan story is a powerful parable and the Lord’s Prayer is a powerful Prayer. But the story of Mary’s heart for relationship has a powerful signature as well.

          You know the story. It has been told and retold many times. Martha runs around making ready, doing all the chores of the house. She is tending to the details of hospitality and meal preparation and serving. You know what that’s like: a million details and not enough time or hands when they are needed. Into this fray comes sister Mary, who has left it all to Martha. Suffice it to say that Martha is less than happy. She’s so vexed she even complains to Jesus.

          Jesus tells Martha that only one thing is necessary. Don’t you know that just about threw Martha into a tailspin? But Jesus meant what he said. In the great scheme of life, only one thing was necessary. But what did Jesus mean? What was the “thing?”

In the 1991 movie City Slickers, Jack Palance plays the part of Curly, an aging cowboy who guides Billy Crystal and his friends on a dude ranch cattle drive. Crystal is on a quest to “find” himself, to find the smile he used to have in his life. Driving the cattle, Curly holds up his index finger and tells Crystal that life is “just one thing.” “Just one thing?” asks Crystal. “What is it?” Palance smiles wryly: “That’s for you to find out.”

Jesus goes on to say that Mary has chosen the “good portion.” Portion is an interesting word. The Psalmist tells us that “the Lord is my chosen portion” (Ps.16: 5); that “God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Ps.73:26); that “the Lord is my portion” (Ps. 119: 57), and that the Lord is our refuge, our “portion in the land of the living” (Ps. 142:5).   Portion is roughly synonymous with inheritance or share. Notice that at least four times in the Psalms, it is God or the Lord who is our “portion” or inheritance. Sure enough, the inheritance, or portion, that Mary is interested in is close fellowship with God. So Mary walks out of the kitchen, sits down at the Lord’s feet and listens to his teaching. What Jesus is saying is that Mary has chosen her inheritance wisely and at the end of the day, that’s all she really needs.

So Mary would have an answer to Curly the cattle drive foreman. Mary would tell Curly that her “one thing” is fellowship with her Lord, that the “good portion” is being in relationship with Jesus.

We live in a Martha world. We are so busy, getting and spending, going and coming, preparing. But just because the world seems to be set up for the Marthas doesn’t mean that they have the corner on wisdom. Far from it. While we all need to be like Martha, we need to know when enough is enough. We can all take a lesson from Mary’s heart.  Want to find your smile again? Grab Martha’s hand and come on in the den. Sit down with Mary. Take a timeout and a load off. Have a seat at the Master’s feet and listen to his teaching. That’s the one thing that is necessary. That’s the good portion.

Who Is My Neighbor? (Luke 19: 25-37) 7/14/13

                                          Who Is My Neighbor?

        Luke 10: 25-37

A long haul trucker is making a run across the desert. He’s over his load limit and he decides to take a detour around the weigh station. He just can’t afford the fine. It’s a little after dark when his fuel pump dies, and with it, his short wave radio. Of course, he had meant to charge his cell-phone, but forgot.  He can’t stay with the truck and it’s a long walk back to the interstate. If he stays on this road, he should come to a truck stop about thirty miles down the road. So, he sets out to walk.

Not long after dark, his flashlight batteries give out. The trucker…let’s call him Hank, is getting a little spooked. He has only gone about five miles when he stops for a quick break. For almost an hour, not a single vehicle has come by. As he starts to get back on the road, he hears a hissing sound close to him. He sees it just as it strikes his the calf og his leg. The fangs go right through his jeans. He doesn’t know the exact type, but it is definitely a rattlesnake.

Hank makes a tourniquet with his belt, but it isn’t long before the poison begins to do its job. Hank is having a very hard time breathing. He can’t go on. He lies down on the side of the road to wait for help.

An hour goes by. Hank has passed in and out of consciousness. The red line of poison can be traced up his leg. A car comes by. It is a minister on the way back from prayer meeting. He slows down, but he still has one more appointment with a shut-in on his way home. The minister looks at Hank and surveys the situation. The guy on the side of the road could be carrying a disease. He could be faking it, waiting to lure a victim. It’s too dangerous and the minister has an appointment. The minister drives on.

Another hour passes. An elder from a popular church up the road comes by. He stops and looks at Hank, now barely breathing. The man stays in his car at a distance. He is wary. It could be a trap. What’s a man doing out here on a dark road in the desert in the middle of the night unless he’s up to no good? The elder too drives on.

Past midnight, a long haired dude with a pony tail is riding down this back road on his motorcycle. He has noticed the abandoned truck about five miles back. He sees Hank and pulls over. As he checks Hank’s pulse, he notices the belt improvised as a tourniquet. He sees the swelling in Hank’s leg. He is glad that he didn’t take his side car off the motorcycle. He gets Hank in the side car and takes him to the nearest emergency room some forty miles out of his way, where the ER doctor immediately begins anti-venom therapy. Hank is in for a rough several days. Meanwhile, our hero, the hippie, has made arrangements for Hank’s truck to be towed. He has agreed to be responsible for the hospital bill if Hank can’t pay. He has even hired a mechanic to put a new fuel pump on Hank’s tractor and left extra money for whatever else the mechanic might find.  He promises to check back when he comes back through that way again.

In Luke’s gospel, a lawyer, an educated man, asks Jesus how to be sure of eternal life. Jesus answers the question with a question. What does the Law say? You carry it around on your wrist. Read it. Devout Jews of the time carried little leather boxes called phylacteries. Inside these boxes were favorite scriptures. So Jesus, referring to the man’s scripture box, literally says: “How do you read it?” The lawyer answers, quoting part of the Shema from Deuteronomy 6:5. We also know it as the Great Commandment from when Jesus quoted it: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Yes, says Jesus. “Do this and live.” That is how you can be sure of eternal life.

          I’m thinking about that minister and that elder who kept on driving. Don’t they know that’s not the way to inherit eternal life? Surely they of all people, Christian people, would know what to do. Surely they know more than this hippie on a motorcycle.

          Back to luke. Although the lawyer has the answer, he doesn’t like it. He wants to narrow the playing field of responsibility. The lawyer is playing lawyer. He asks “And who is my neighbor?” And Jesus tells him a story, a story of a man needing help, lying on the side of the road.

          A week later, the unnamed hippie comes back through the area. He stops at the hospital to check on Hank, who is now recovering from his ordeal. Hank has another visitor. The minister has stopped by to invite Hank to a church fundraiser. He is telling Hank what he must do to inherit eternal life. He ignores the man covered with the dust of the road. As the minister talks, Hank realizes he has seen this man. He says to him, “I know you. You pulled up across the road from me when I was lying there helpless, but you didn’t even get out of the car.” Overhearing the conversation, the hippie gets back on his bike and rides away, kicking up quite a cloud of dust as he leaves.

          “And who is my neighbor?” asked the lawyer. “I must know my limits,” the lawyer might have said. “I need to know where this stops.” And Jesus told him a story, a story a lot like the story about our friend Hank the trucker. Then Jesus asked another question of the lawyer. Which of these three proved to be a neighbor? In our trucker story, was it the man with the religious training? Was it the upright citizen and church leader? Or was it the long haired stranger who dressed weird and rode a motorcycle?

          The lawyer, a strong religious man, could not bring himself to answer that the good neighbor was a Samaritan, a man whom the lawyer would not be caught dead speaking to. So instead, he answered that it was the man who showed mercy.  He was right, of course. It is the one who shows us mercy who is our neighbor.   

          Sometimes the best prayer meetings take place on the side of the road. Sometimes the most powerful witnessing for our Lord happens without a word being spoken. Sometimes mercy comes with a ponytail and a beard. Who is my neighbor? He is the man who helps me. She is the girl who offers me a cup of water. It is the church member who invites me to supper, the young man at the supermarket who stops to carry my groceries even though he doesn’t have a job there.

          We cannot confuse religion with righteousness. We must not sacrifice mercy for convenience or even safety.  We should never define Christian neighborliness by geography or ethnicity or social status. When we do, we try to limit a limitless Savior. We witness to those who would join us, but our witness is that the church may be a place of boundaries, a club instead of a sanctuary. We send a message to the Good Samaritan on his motorcycle that he is on the outside, that he cannot belong. We send a message that there are limits to our mercy. And so he goes on his way. He has seen the church through the minister who ignored both him and the man on the roadside. This is not his neighborhood.

          If we want to be God’s people, we have to be neighbors. If we want God’s church to be open, then we have to carry it with us wherever we are and to whomever we meet under all kinds of circumstances. Everywhere we go, everything we do, becomes a witness. Someone is looking. Someone is measuring God’s love and God’s message by our love and our message.

Who is my neighbor? The one who shows mercy. “And Jesus said to him, ‘You go, and do likewise.’ ”

7/14/13

Making Satan Fall (Luke 10: 1-11, 17-20) 7/7/13

                                                 

It is generally thought that the second most important post in our government is that of Secretary of State. The Secretary of State is the delegate of not only the President, but the United States as well. If the Secretary makes a promise to a head of state, it carries the power of the Presidency behind it. It is a position of both enormous power and of enormous responsibility.

When Jesus sent out the seventy two in the tenth chapter of Luke, they were acting as his emissaries, just like the Secretary of State does for the President. He sent them out with the power of the Son of God. When they spoke, they spoke with the authority of God behind them. These people were entrusted with both enormous power and enormous responsibility. They took the Word of God on the road and they were charged as the advance team to carry the message of the kingdom of God to every town and village to which Jesus would later go.

The Secretary of State is always a senior person, usually involved with affairs of state for many years prior to his or her appointment.  Young folks need not apply. This is a job requiring years of training, decades of experience, thousands of major decisions behind the nominee.

But in Luke’s gospel, Jesus gives his charges about a paragraph’s worth of instruction and sends them on their way. No Secret Service. No helicopter. No Air Force plane. No business cards! Jesus sent the seventy two with no money, no knapsack, no sandals. They left with the clothes on their backs in twos. They were to stay in the first house that welcomed them and not move around. They were to heal the sick in the name of God. There was no training other than what they had received at the feet of Jesus. There was no logistics, no press. They went on faith, delegates of Jesus.

Think of a time when you had to do something completely out of your comfort zone. Maybe you left home…for college or military service. Maybe you took a job that caused you to move. Remember when you reported for work at your first real job. Those times can be very traumatic. Most of us don’t feel comfortable being thrust into new surroundings. All those trappings of home are absent and you have to be accountable. I remember a long time ago stepping out of a train at Grand Central Station in New York City with two suitcases and a job to go to the next morning. I was scared out of my wits. But even in that time for me… and there would be many more, right down to becoming the pastor of this church…even in those many times you have had to do something brand new, you had some sort of safety net. You could call home. You could ask your new boss or a co-worker. The only thing the seventy two had was that they were paired. There is no indication that there was a senior or a junior in the pairs. They just went out by twos. They had each other…and that was it.

My first grownup job was in the Navy. I had plenty of instruction for that. The Navy expects a lot from you, but it also trains you. My next job, and each one after that until I went on my own, came with some kind of training or apprenticeship. If that was the case with the seventy two, it certainly came in a hurry, for these first missionaries went in front of Jesus. They were called upon to pave the way in a sense. There was only the preparation born of that strong belief that they went out for the Master…and that whatever he asked of them would turn out okay because it was Jesus who asked.

It is typical of Luke to ignore the details of what went on with the pairs of missionaries. He is much more concerned with reporting what Jesus said...how Jesus reacted. Luke gives us only a summary of the activities of the seventy two. They return with joy, saying “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!”

The passage in Luke 10, verses 17-20 is one of those times that it simply is not enough to read silently. This passage must be read aloud and with emphasis. When John says that Jesus wept, I get it. But when Luke tells us that Jesus said: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven,” it’s not enough to read it. I think this is one of those times that the humanity of Jesus shined through like a beacon on a hill. “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven…nothing shall hurt you…rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”  Sometimes in the magnificence of Jesus’ life and deeds, we forget that he was also a small town kid who grew up to be a man just like you and me, only with perfect obedience to his heavenly father. And on this occasion, he took a risk. He sent out normal people to do an abnormal job. He sent them out on faith and they went on faith. When it was all said and done, the Son of Man looks up and out and says: I saw Satan falling! The good guys really are gonna win!

In the church, there is a lot of talk about sending. Our weekly bulletin has a sending section. We send people out into the world. In the Old Testament, there was a lot of sending. God sent Abraham to a mountain with his son Isaac to test their faith. God sent an angel to wrestle with Jacob. God sent Moses to deal with Pharaoh and liberate the people of Israel from bondage. God sent Isaiah and Jeremiah and so many more prophets to deliver his message. In the New Testament, God sends John the Baptist to baptize Jesus. And God sent himself. Yes, he sent himself. He sent God the Son from the Trinity that is God in three persons, and he sent him as a baby. He sent him as a human. He sent him to bleed his own blood for you and me and all human kind.

And yet, in the most bizarre turn of faith, God left the fate of this great experiment in the hands of amateurs. When Jesus returned to heaven, he left his disciples in charge. If they failed to carry the message for just one generation, then it was over. Christianity would fail. This is why Jesus was practically jumping out of his skin when the seventy two returned. They had acted in faith and that’s all it took. They said yes. Jesus did the rest.

Nothing has changed. The kingdom of God is still near to us. It is closer today than it has ever been and tomorrow it will be closer yet. When will it come? I don’t know and no one else does either. The Bible tells us to be ready…that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. It’s funny to hear that phrase this week. Last week someone broke into our home. That’s right. Someone violated the sanctity of our home. If the person had just broken into our house, it would already be forgotten. But the peace of our home was breached by a stranger and it has left us off balance. Now I understand anew what it means to hear that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. It will be a surprise. We will either be ready by living in a state of readiness…or we will be caught unprepared.

As much as I would like to see the coming of the Lord, I still take comfort in the fact that Christianity continues to spread…that people are daily being won to the Lord. The seventy two have multiplied considerably in the years since Jesus sent them out barefoot to pave the way. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t chosen to end the age. People are not only still being sent…they are still going. They are still accepting the call. And more than any other time in history, people are coming to God.

So listen. When you are asked, say yes. When the call goes out, say as the great prophet Isaiah said: “Here am I, Lord. Send me” [Isa. 6: 8]. The harvest is still plentiful and the workers are still few.  We are the modern day version of the seventy two. We are Jesus’ disciples, except we don’t just pave the way for him to come behind us. We stand on the shoulders of all those who have followed him and we build on that foundation for all those who will follow us. 

You will never be alone. Chances are that if you have not already been paired, God will provide you with the partner you need at the time. You will never feel prepared, but go anyway. Your assignment is always the same. Respond. Don’t say no when he calls you.

When you work for him, nothing shall hurt you. Your names shall be written in heaven. And maybe if you look up, you can even see Satan falling like lightning from heaven.