DISCIPLESHIP DUES

Luke 14: 25-33

            If you’re a builder, you generally quote a project in one of two ways. Either you bill for time and materials, meaning that you charge for the labor and materials used plus a percentage of that cost to cover your time, or you charge a fixed, or “turnkey,” price. Time and materials is safer. Your time is covered through a percentage of the project cost. Turnkey takes more knowledge. You had better cost your labor and materials accurately or your profit might disappear in inaccurate estimates.

Whether you’re a CEO or a gunnery sergeant or a school teacher, you spend time in logistics. You have to properly allocate resources, both human and material, if you want to be around at the finish line. The apostle Paul made many references to runners and races and sports competitions. He would be the first to caution that a distance runner must measure the cost of a long distance race on his endurance. A race run too fast in the beginning leaves nothing for the finish. So ultimately, success is directly connected to a realistic estimate of the ultimate cost, both materially and personally, of the job to be done.

          Once an estimate is completed and once we are satisfied that it is realistic, then is the time for decisions.  Whether we call it a materials list or an estimate or a cost takeoff or just a “to do” list, we use that information to help us make our decision. Sometimes, the information makes us realize that the cost is just too much to pay for the limited return that is foreseen. Sometimes, such information forces us to recognize that it is only an estimate, that there still remain many unknowns that cannot be accurately forecast. Sometimes, no matter what the information reveals, the project is just so important, so life-changing, that it requires intense and even risky decisions on our part.  In these instances, a conscious advance commitment must be made.

          Jesus’ ministry attracted large crowds. Not all the people following him were disciples. Many followed him to see what miracle he would do next. Rumors abounded that he might be Messiah. Was he the Promised One? Would he lead the revolt against Israel’s oppressors? Were the Jews about to become prominent again, a player on the world stage? These were the kinds of questions that caused many to continue to follow Jesus.

Of course, Jesus had already named his Apostles. There were probably quite a few more faithful followers whom we might call his disciples. But the crowds, and there were large crowds…that was a different story.

In today’s passage, Jesus has just explained the importance of humility and unselfishness through his parable of the great banquet. Now he warns those who think they would follow him that there is a cost to such discipleship.

It is the Near Eastern method of description to over exaggerate. Jesus speaks in the customs of his time when he describes the severe cost of discipleship by calling upon true disciples to leave their own fathers, mothers, wives and children for his sake. He is not being literal, although in the case of differing belief systems, it may well come to that. Rather, Jesus is saying that the decision to follow him will affect all relationships one has. He is saying that to follow him means very literally to put him first, to make him our first priority.

It takes some real growth and some Godly discernment to make such a move. We are raised to take care of our own. We look after our families. We feed and clothe and nurse our loved ones. This is God’s way, isn’t it? Yes, it is. So when Jesus tells the crowds that discipleship comes at a cost, he looks for a comparison that will get their attention. Comparison to family, the strongest relationship with which they can relate, makes that cost comparison. It is high. When Jesus uses this comparison, the average guy in that crowd can begin to see that the cost estimate for discipleship is very high and that the decision involves a conscious advance commitment.

Jesus goes on to give a couple more examples. He talks about the builder costing a tower before he starts to build. To fail to do so accurately will both leave the tower incomplete and the builder subject to the ridicule of his neighbors. And then there is the king who has the foresight to scout his enemy’s strength before he commits an inferior force to a battle it cannot win. Each must weigh the cost in order to make a decision about commitment.

Having explained how it works, Jesus then levels the crowd. What does it take to follow Jesus? In the Army, it’s usually a three to six year commitment. In a full time job, it’s about forty hours a week. Even in marriage, there is a time and place for being alone, for being able to pursue one’s own hobbies and talents. But what about discipleship? Well, says Jesus, “any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”

Does this mean that we have to give up everything? All our possessions? That may be appropriate in some cases, but I think that it’s more likely that Jesus meant for us to become stewards of our possessions, willing to apply them for use in God’s kingdom rather than hoarding them like the rich farmer did in building more barns in which to house his crops. Wealth is a wonderful advantage when used to advance God’s kingdom. That takes stewardship and planning in order to be a good disciple.

As you know, it wasn’t all that long before those big crowds began to peel away. The cost of discipleship was, and still is, high. It was just too much for many who listened, only to turn away and go back home. Jesus said, “bear your own cross and come after me or you cannot be my disciple.”

Thank God that some stayed. Thank God that Jesus’ invitation was accepted by his Apostles and other disciples. Thank God that throughout the ages, people have heard this call, weighed the cost and committed in advance to whatever the road to the cross may take.

In this so-called Post-Christian age, we daily confront a watered down approach to our faith. We are told we must be inclusionary. We are reminded that God’s grace can accommodate us all. We are encouraged to feel good as we welcome people of all faiths into a country where personal freedom is our watchword and the rights of the minority are protected regardless of the extent to which they may infringe upon those of the majority. We are, more and more, a country of individuals bound together by a bundle of rights which permit our diversity, but ignore our core values.

Jesus would be a rebel were he walking the streets of America today. I have no doubt he would be heard because he is the Son of God and even a nation full of individuals would still be attracted to a rebel with a cause and with such a unique pedigree.  I think he would largely ignore what goes on or doesn’t go on at the White House and in the halls of Congress, but I’m afraid he would have a hard time with the church. After all, it is his bride. He is its Head. It says so right in our Book of Order, our Church Constitution.  What he would mostly find, I’m afraid, is a group of mostly well-meaning folks who are not at all prepared to renounce all that they have in order to follow him.

At seminary this weekend, I heard a story of a minister who recently left a church to which he had been called. He left because his church leaders wouldn’t back him up over an issue. The issue was whether to allow two church members to continue to be members when they were living together out of wedlock.  In this particular church, members were required to take vows at the time they joined the church to try to live in accordance with the ordinances of the Christian religion. The ordinances of the Christian religion do not condone living together out of wedlock.

Bear in mind that we are not talking here about attending church. Attending church is for everyone from seeker to saint. But once one is ready for membership in the body of Christ, there are commitments to be made. To join the church requires a Profession of Faith and with that comes discipleship. There will be dues to be paid for that discipleship.

          The minister counseled the members and encouraged them to marry if they wished to commit to each other and remain members of the church. The couple left the church. Throughout the process, the minister continued to receive the cold shoulder and was never supported by the church leadership.

That minister paid a heavy price for the discipleship he brought to that congregation. He put discipleship before popularity. He articulated the Bible’s teachings instead of diluting them for the sake of membership. He paid his discipleship dues, but did the church?

How would I handle the same issue, or other issues like it, in this church? How would the leadership of this church respond to me if I chose to follow the clear teachings of the Scriptures instead of modern convention? How would this church respond as a congregation?

What is our duty as members? The Westminster Confession of Faith, one of the confessions which comprise Part Two of our Church Constitution, says this:

All believers are, therefore, under obligation to

sustain the ordinances of the Christian religion where

they are already established, and to contribute by their prayers, gifts, and personal efforts to the extension of the Kingdom of Christ throughout the whole earth.

(WCoF, 6.056)

The cost of discipleship can be heavy. Indeed, it can cost you your job, your friends, even your life. The real cost of discipleship is everything you have, every day you live. Salvation is free, but it’s not cheap. Jesus calls upon us to take up the cross. To do so, we must come to him in faith. Faith involves risk. We will not know all the answers up front, but we do know the outcome.

Yes, discipleship dues are demanding, sometimes in the extreme.  But non-discipleship also comes with a cost. It, too, is heavy. It is separation from our Creator God for eternity.  Think about it. When compared to the alternative, God’s grace is still the best buy on earth!

           

Let us pray.        

9/15/13

A Heavenly Seating Chart

Luke 14: 1-14

            There is an idiom used to describe going from a bad situation to a worse one. We know it as jumping from the frying pan into the fire. We think of it as another Southernism, but actually it is hundreds of years older. An Italian fella named Abstemius wrote a collection of 100 fables in the fifteenth century. One of them was called The Mountain in Labour. In the fable some fish are thrown into a frying pan of boiling fat. One of them urges the others to save their lives by jumping out, so they do…right into a bed of burning coals.

           I suspect that’s about the way Jesus felt when he showed up for supper at the house of a Pharisee on the Sabbath. It was one thing to deal with all these religious rule-givers in the Temple and in the streets, but to come into the home of one of these lawyers? And on the Sabbath to boot! That’s going from bad to worse.

          Unlike those poor old fish, Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. He knew why he had been invited. He knew he was being watched. But then, Jesus was always being watched, wasn’t he. Jesus lived a very public life in his years of ministry. The times he is found alone in Scripture, he is usually engaged in prayer.

          A man at the Pharisee’s house has dropsy. This is suspicious. Why is a man with dropsy at the house of a Pharisee at the supper hour? His presence is suspicious enough that some scholars think he was planted there, designed to trick Jesus into “working” on the Sabbath. The Pharisees had more rules than Old Mother Hubbard had children. William Barclay gives us an example: Cooking food on the Sabbath was work, so it had to be prepared the previous day. Keeping the food hot was tricky, for most methods involved work. It could be put into “clothes, amidst fruits, pigeons’ feathers and flax tow,” but it could not be put into “oil dregs, manure, salt, chalk or sand.” There is much more, but you get the idea. No wonder Jesus got fed up with their rule making.

          It is into this atmosphere that Jesus asks the question. “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” He got no answer, of course. He healed the guy and sent him on his way. Then Jesus gave us that famous saying that we all have used to explain ourselves. To paraphrase him, if your ox is in the ditch on the Sabbath, aren’t you going to pull him out? The Pharisees remained silent.

          Healing on the Sabbath was a major issue between Jesus and the religious leaders. It occurs seven different times in the Gospels, four in Luke. Here is Jesus in the house of a Pharisee, a ruling Pharisee no less, and the issue comes up again. What should this teach us? Is it about working on the Sabbath? Is it about keeping the Fourth Commandment? Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. It certainly could be. It probably is. But I think it is about something much more fundamental as well. Rules had been made hundreds of years before. Don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t covet, don’t be disloyal to your marriage vows and your spouse. Do love, obey and honor God. Do honor your parents. The rules were made to show us the difference between right and wrong, to keep us on the playing field and not let us run out of bounds.

          Over time, religious leaders had distorted the original intent of some simple rules. When Jesus came, he threatened that way of life. He had every intention of doing just that. The rules had become the reason. Rules are never meant to be reasons. They don’t know how. They bring order, but even order can be too much of a good thing. What Jesus brought was the reason. Isn’t it a shame that the religious leaders of the day couldn’t see the reason!

          If you step back a bit and just take a look at Chapter 14 of Luke’s gospel, it’s not hard to see that it is a lesson on discipleship. Discipleship is a simple idea. Follow in the footsteps of another. In this case it’s Jesus. Follow Jesus. To do so means to release all those selfish ambitions and desires. To do so means to be obedient. To do so means to replace pride with love.

          In this passage, Jesus takes direct aim at those who call themselves leaders and use that leadership to show off or climb the social ladder. If you’re going to impress the Son of God, you can start by going to the end of the line. He doesn’t like religious snobs. Honor for Jesus starts with humility. The way to the front lies at the back. G.K. Chesterton describes humility this way: “All men are ordinary men; the extraordinary men are those who know it.” The message is profound. “When your host comes…” says Jesus. “When your host comes…”  Luke does not call him God in deference to the Jewish custom of not using God’s name, but there is no doubt about the identity of the host to whom Jesus refers. Jesus is not talking about Pharisees or religious rulers or judges or even emperors and kings. Jesus is talking about his Father and our Father. When God comes, says Jesus, let him be pleased at your humility and your love. It will be its own reward.

          Then Luke tells us another story about Jesus. If you want to follow Jesus, you have to get upside down and inside out. Jesus doesn’t do business with the world the way the world wants to do business. Jesus tells a parable of a great banquet. Think big. Think about a family reunion or a wedding rehearsal dinner. Who do you invite? Family of course, and friends. You invite some folks who will invite you to something later. You hire the best to entertain the best way for those who are your best. Right? Wrong, says Jesus. Want a blessing? Don’t worry about who will return the favor. Think big, but think the way Jesus does. If you have a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. Invite the invisible among us, the ones who can do you no good whatsoever in the here and now. In the world to come, in the resurrection of the just, as Jesus puts it, there you will be repaid. In other words, invite and entertain with generosity and an eye to those who need your generosity. Forget what it does for you and think of what it might do for someone else.

In Pharisaic religion, these disenfranchised people were excluded from full participation in religious life. Not so with Jesus. Jesus was all about accepting the unacceptable, eating with the unknown, loving the unloved among us. You can’t read this passage without eventually noticing that the attitude of the religious leaders was no better than that of pagans. Both were forms of religious snobbery and both were part of Jesus’ message that observing the Sabbath is a love act and not a ritual.

          My wife, Cindy, who sometimes acts as my sermon barometer, asks if this means that we can’t get together with friends and loved ones. I don’t think that was what Jesus meant. I think that he was reminding selfish people of their selfishness. I think he was reiterating the great commandment. He wants us to love our neighbor and to do so unselfishly. He wants us to know no strangers. He want us to do what he would do, to act with the welfare of the other person foremost rather than to invite someone for the purpose of social climbing and self-interest. In the world of Jesus, family gets extended by acts of love that forever bring more of us into the fold.

          Is there a message here for me and you? Of course. I am persuaded that there is not a single passage in the Bible that does not carry a message. Sometime that message remains veiled to us until the right time comes along. Sometimes it screams at us to change, to come, to see the light that is always there.

In this passage, Jesus speaks to you and me. He speaks to the Pharisee in me, the rule maker in you, the immature snobbery that all of us carry like a parasite. He speaks to the church, that body of people who represent him and carry his message until he returns. We are his church, but sometimes our selfishness and stubbornness surfaces over ritual, such as a change in the worship service. Sometimes it shows up in the form of some prejudice toward our neighbor. Sometimes it just smolders in our bellies as we become pregnant with self pride. It would be nice to puff up and make fun of those silly Pharisees, but it would not be accurate, not unless we include ourselves in that number as well.

          How do you practice the Sabbath? Do you keep it holy? Who will you invite to your banquet? How will you seat your guests? Does your seating chart include someone whom Jesus would have you invite? When Jesus comes, will he find you his humble servant? Practicing discipleship is humbling and never-ending. And it always starts at the end of the line.

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.