Another Reminder

 

Another Reminder

 

Matthew 26:1-5, NIV - When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, “As you know, the Passover is two days away—and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.”

Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they schemed to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him.  “But not during the festival,” they said, “or there may be a riot among the people.”

 

                Yet again, Jesus reminds His disciples that things are about to happen that they don’t want to hear.  I think about Matthew, a few decades later, recording the events after the resurrection, ascension, Pentecost, and the massive growth of the early church.  It’s almost like Matthew is reminding himself that, “O wow, Jesus really did warn us SO many times that this was going to happen and we never really heard Him.”  The reality is that they probably were not able to really hear Jesus before it all happened.  Jesus knew this.  But he sets them up to remember later.  That remembering is powerful; it will cement the disciples’ faith and strengthen them for their mission. 

                What if you could find a weather forecaster that was always right – every prediction they made about tomorrow’s weather was spot on.  If they said it was going to rain, you’d take an umbrella out the door when you left knowing you were going to use it.  If your big outside party was tomorrow and “Super Weather Guy,” said it wasn’t going to rain, you wouldn’t even have a back-up plan.  You would have developed this confidence over weeks, months, or even longer seeing that the forecast was always 100% correct.  This is the link between memory and confidence.  You trust because you have multiple memories that confirm that trust.

                This is what Jesus does for His disciples.  He’s constantly telling them what’s going to happen even though they will not really hear Him in the moment.  But later, the memory will confirm faith and strengthen their resolve to build the Kingdom.  God still does the same thing for us.  I can’t tell you the number of times I have remembered something that someone tried to tell me, but I was obviously unable to hear in the moment.  Later, their words would become prophecy to me because I saw the truth of their statement through experiencing that truth after they said it.  Many things my parents tried to teach me growing up did not become wisdom to me until my experience showed me the wisdom in their words.  In the light of my experience, my memory of their words cemented the wisdom.  The truly amazing thing about that is that my Dad actually told me this would happen.  When I was eleven and enduring one of my father’s lectures after making a serious mistake, he said these words to me:

“Eric, right now, you think I’m stupid.  But as you get older . . . you watch  . . . I’m going to get smarter.”

My Dad was setting me up to remember his wisdom later, knowing I was not really ready to receive it in the moment.  Jesus did this for His disciples. God still does for us, and occasionally, we do it for each other.  Our wisdom, trust, resolve, and love grows as we remember.

 

Question:  What are some examples of wisdom that someone tried to give you, but you didn’t realize it until much later. 

 

Prayer:  Lord, we trust that You have planted multiple seeds of wisdom, truth and faith in our minds that we have not realized until we remember them later in the light of our experience.  Thank you for preparing us for the future with these seeds of the past.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend time thanking God for the great teachers put in your life.

 

Song:  Ancient Words – Robin Mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue6a3LERJW8

Sheep and the Goats (Not the “Greatest Of All Time)

 

Sheep and the Goats (Not the “Greatest Of All Time)

 

Matthew 25:31-46, NIV - “But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne.  All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.  For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home.  I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink?  Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing?  When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’

“Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons.  For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink.  I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’

“Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’

“And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’

“And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.”

 

“If we believed this passage, the orphanages would be empty.”  I read that in online commentary on this verse.  This comment sums up why I have always struggled with this passage.  I really resent the statement, but it’s true.  There are more Christians than orphans in the world, so if all Christians never refused to help an orphan, they would all have homes. 

Jesus seems so black and white in this passage.  If you’re a sheep you will always feed the hungry, show hospitality, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoners. If you’re a goat, you won’t.  One of my problems with this is that I don’t know one person who always does those things.  The truth about human beings is that for those of us who try to follow Christ, we’re sheep on some days and goats on other days. So what do we do with this?

The next problem makes the first problem even worse.  Taking Jesus at his word, goats are cast out, sheep are invited in.  So if I have ever refused to help those in need (and Jesus says he is those people), than I am a goat. I am cast out.  Three decades of ministry ruined in a moment!

I have to confess that I don’t have easy answers.  One option is to try and soften Jesus words somehow – “he didn’t really mean that!” and come up with what he really did mean.  I always try not to do that.  I believe Jesus said what he said intentionally.  Besides, if we did that whenever Jesus seems too harsh, than Jesus sure did misspeak a lot.

My best thought at the moment is that this is a polemic.  A polemic is “an aggressive attack on or refutation of the opinions or principles of another.” (Meriam-Webster dictionary)  Polemics are often used by prophets and other change agents to bring urgency to something that needs to change.  Polemics often are black-and-white by nature to draw contrast between what is and what should be.   They are used to create tension in those who here them.

The polemic idea fits with another peculiar aspect of this passage – the fact that the sheep and the goats don’t know they are sheep and goats until the Lord sorts them out. It isn’t a labeling system that we get to use.  This is a good thing because I would always be a sheep and I certainly have some ideas of who the goats are.  See how dangerous the labeling system is in my hands?  No, only Jesus can be trusted to apply the judgement.  So my job is to shoot for sheeplike behavior and trust Jesus’s judgement.

If the “sheep and the goats” is a polemic, then it is an effective one.  As I talked about above, it creates tension in me.  It brings laser-focus to Jesus desire that I am to act like a sheep and not a goat.  I can’t say I’m a follower of Jesus and then not show it by my actions.  It makes me want to shed my goat-like tendencies.  Mission accomplished Jesus.

 

Question:  Thinking over the last week, when were some times you may have encountered Jesus in the “least of these?”

 

Prayer: Jesus, we want to be your sheep.  Help us to look for you in those we encounter who are in need. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the “least of these” today.

 

Song: Keith Green - The Sheep and The Goats (live)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix8ddosjg-k

Blessings Where We See Curses

 

Blessings Where We See Curses

 

Matthew 24:45-51, CEB - “Who then are the faithful and wise servants whom their master puts in charge of giving food at the right time to those who live in his house?  Happy are those servants whom the master finds fulfilling their responsibilities when he comes.  I assure you that he will put them in charge of all his possessions.  But suppose those bad servants should say to themselves, My master won’t come until later.  And suppose they began to beat their fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunks?  The master of those servants will come on a day when they are not expecting him, at a time they couldn’t predict.  He will cut them in pieces and put them in a place with the hypocrites. People there will be weeping and grinding their teeth.

 

                We all have work to do. When we’re young, it’s schoolwork and for many, chores.  We graduate.  Maybe we go to college where our work is more schoolwork and possibly a side job.  At some point though, our formal schooling is over and we begin a different kind of work.  Even those who start a family and make the choice quit their job to raise children have work, perhaps more work than most jobs outside the home.  After the children are gone and all the others retire, most find other work.  They volunteer.  They help their adult children and dote on grandchildren. They take up a hobby that they’ve been thinking about but never had time while they held a formal “job.”  Many elderly people who can no longer do the physically and mentally demanding work they did earlier in their lives seem to find ways to keep working at something.  They find ways to keep working. Our work may change over the course of our lifetimes, but we always have work to do.

                Quite often, I have observed what happens when people choose not to do the work they have been given.  I’m not talking vacations or sabbaticals or transition times.  Those are all healthy ways of making sure we can keep working.  I’m talking about people who choose to stop doing their work permanently.   It can happen at any stage.  Children who give up on their school work often flounder for the rest of their lives.  People who quit or lose their jobs and choose to stop working altogether lose their sense of purpose and connection to the world.  Even many people who retire and don’t discover their post-career work struggle with the same issues of purpose and connection. 

It seems that having work to do is generally good for us even though we don’t often feel that way. I often find myself fantasizing about a “someday” when I will no longer have work to do.  I even occasionally have days now when I rebel and refuse to do my work.  I also thoroughly enjoy short periods of time of “days off” or vacation and my “work” is to intentionally do nothing.  But I’m realizing more and more that the work I’ve been given to do is a gift.  Even the work that I do for others often does more for me than it does for them.  I’m not always aware of this in the moment, but I’m aware of this truth right now.  Faithfulness in our work in the world is good for us.

Maybe the “weeping and gnashing of teeth” Jesus spoke about in the passage above is more of a “self-inflicted wound” than a punishment for those who chose to interrupt their faithfulness.  I don’t know for sure.  What I do know is having faithfulness to perform does more for us than simply pleasing God, although Jesus assures us God is pleased.  The ways that Jesus teaches us to live are really the best way to live – for us, for our families, for our communities, and for the world.  Go figure.

 

Question:  How have you been blessed by your faithfulness to God and other relationships that you are in?

 

Prayer:  O God, sometimes we begin to think that the work we do is a curse.  Forgive us.  Give us eyes to see it the way you do.  You are pleased in your faithfulness to us.  May we be pleased in our faithfulness to You and each other.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend a little extra time praying for the members of your household today.  If you live alone, pray for the people in your extended family.

 

Song:  The Weight | Featuring Ringo Starr and Robbie Robertson | Playing For Change | Song Around The World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph1GU1qQ1zQ

The Gospel of Matthew: Endgame

 

The Gospel of Matthew: Endgame

 

Matthew 24:1-14, CEB - Now Jesus left the temple and was going away. His disciples came to point out to him the temple buildings.  He responded, “Do you see all these things? I assure that no stone will be left on another. Everything will be demolished.”

Now while Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately and said, “Tell us, when will these things happen? What will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?”

Jesus replied, “Watch out that no one deceives you.  Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I’m the Christ.’ They will deceive many people.  You will hear about wars and reports of wars. Don’t be alarmed. These things must happen, but this isn’t the end yet.  Nations and kingdoms will fight against each other, and there will be famines and earthquakes in all sorts of places.  But all these things are just the beginning of the sufferings associated with the end.  They will arrest you, abuse you, and they will kill you. All nations will hate you on account of my name.  At that time many will fall away. They will betray each other and hate each other.  Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.  Because disobedience will expand, the love of many will grow cold.  But the one who endures to the end will be delivered.  This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all the nations. Then the end will come.

 

                Following Jesus’s last public address in the Temple, Jesus and His disciples leave.  As they are walking out of the Temple, the disciples make comments about the beauty of the Temple.  Jesus shocks them by announcing that the Temple will be reduced to rubble.  As Jesus predicted, the Temple was destroyed in AD 70, a few decades after Jesus’s crucifixion. It would never be rebuilt again.  All that remains of that Temple is a portion of the western wall, now called the Wailing Wall, where millions of people from multiple faiths go to pray every year.  People stuff small pieces of paper with their prayer concerns written on them in the cracks of the wall.  I did this myself when I was in the Holy Land some years ago. 

                The disciples were thrown by the news that the Temple would be destroyed.  It must have consumed their thoughts until they reached the Mount of Olives.  As Jesus sat down there, his disciples ask Him three questions:  (1) when will these things happen?  (2) what will be the sign of [Jesus’s] coming?  (3) What will be the sign of the end of the age?  Jesus’s answers to these questions make up the remainder of chapter 24 and constitute one of the passages in the New Testament that have most difficult to interpret.  There is great disagreement in the scholarly community to this day over the precise meanings of Jesus’s words here.  While we will carefully work through this confusing chapter in the next couple of reflections, the goal is to gain some general insight into what Jesus is trying to convey and not to try an arrive at the perfect interpretation.

                In the passage above, Jesus begins to address question 1, the question of when.  The frustration is that what he offers here is not a precise “when,” but a definite “not when.”  There will be people claiming to be the Messiah;  when that happens, you will know that they are surely lying.  Terrible things that feel like the end will happen.  The end is not then either.  The disciples themselves will be persecuted and killed – not then either.  People will lose faith and fall into hate.  Betrayal will abound.  False prophets will be numerous.  Wars, earthquakes, and famines will be common.  Disobedience will expand to an epidemic level.  Still not the time. 

                It must be said that in every time period since Jesus uttered these words, the idea has been floated that the time period Jesus described is the present time.  When we look at the conditions of the world today, we could make the case that Jesus was talking about the 21^st century.  While that cannot be ruled out, Jesus’s message in this description above was not that we try to read the descriptions of world events and try to match them up to what we see in the news.  The point is essentially is this approach won’t work.  When you think it might be the end, it’s not the end.  Focus on proclaiming the Kingdom to the whole world, not on trying to predict the end.  Persevere through the catastrophes.  No matter what happens or how bad it gets, those who do this will be delivered.  Let the end be God’s concern. Keep the faith.  That’s our job. 

                As I already stated, we have just begun to explore Jesus’s response to the disciples three questions.  But for today, let’s focus on what Jesus says should be the focus – perseverance and proclaiming the Kingdom. 

 

Questions:  What does persevering in the faith men for your circumstances right now?  What is your role in “proclaiming the kingdom?”

 

Prayer:  Lord, we know that the advancement of your kingdom is the real news we should be paying attention to in the midst of all we see today.  Help us to see how You are moving in our circumstances, our community, and the larger world.  Give us strength to persevere and be faithful.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus: Pray for those who have left the faith in recent years

 

Song:  Won’t Back Down – Tom Petty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h9HPZhqHE

Jesus’s Public Goodbye

 

Jesus’s Public Goodbye

 

Matthew 23:37-39, CEB - “Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You who kill the prophets and stone those who were sent to you. How often I wanted to gather your people together, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you didn’t want that.  Look, your house is left to you deserted.  I tell you, you won’t see me until you say, Blessings on the one who comes in the Lord’s name.”

 

                Jesus completes His address in the Temple with a lament.  This is the last time He will be in the Temple and the last time He will formally address the public.  He is aware that, in only a couple of days, he will be betrayed by one of His closest friends, arrested, tried multiple times, beaten and crucified on a Roman cross.  As he looks over those gathered, from Passover pilgrims to Pharisees, you can hear the growing sadness and foreboding as He wishes things could be different.  I invite you to read the above passage again aware of Jesus’s heart breaking as He speaks.

                Jesus’s words sound like a mother who has done all that she knows to do to bring her wayward children under her protection, but her children’s apathy and/or rebellion rebuffs the offer.  Accepting that things cannot be different, Jesus publicly says “goodbye.”  He informs those who hear Him that He will not return again anytime soon.  What Jesus knows is that the Temple itself will be reduced to rubble before He returns and this surely adds to His sadness.

                Too often, God’s demeanor towards rebellion is portrayed as angry and vengeful.  To be fair, some of those portrayals stem from Old Testament texts.  Without disregarding those scriptures, Jesus adds more insight into the heart of God when people ignore and rebel.  God is sorrowful toward those who will not heed spiritual guidance and wisdom.  God’s heart is to protect them, not smite them.  That is Jesus’s final public word. 

                I find comfort in this because I have been among the apathetic and rebellious at times.   That apathy and rebellion led to my own pain in some cases, something God would have helped me avoid if I had been more responsive.  Fortunately, those times of struggle have been instructive and serve as a constant reminder that I am prone to wander.  I’m reminded of the great hymn, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” particularly words from the final verse:

Oh, to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be

Let Thy goodness like a fetter

Bind my wandering heart to Thee

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it

Prone to leave the God I love

Here's my heart, oh take and seal it

Seal it for Thy courts above

May this hymn be our prayer today as we hear Jesus’s heart for those of us who are “prone to leave the God [we] love.” 

 

Question:  Are you aware of any apathy or even rebellion towards God in your heart this day?

 

Prayer:  God forgive us for own insensitivity to Your Spirit’s call. Take our heart and seal it in Your mercy and love.  Quash any rebellion in us.  Help us accept your guidance this day and every day.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the people of Ukraine and Russia today as war begins within Ukraine’s borders.

 

Song:  Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing – Chris Rice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTCTzF5Yj8I

The Eight Woes – Part 4

 

The Eight Woes – Part 4

Quick note:  I apologize for not posting this yesterday as scheduled.  I had it written and somehow, in the midst of interruptions, thought I had sent and posted it.  OOPS!  I will be posting the one for today later today.  Be looking for it.  

 

Matthew 23:29-36, The Message - “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You build granite tombs for your prophets and marble monuments for your saints. And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands. You protest too much! You’re cut from the same cloth as those murderers, and daily add to the death count.

“Snakes! Cold-blooded sneaks! Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper? It’s on account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and scholars generation after generation—and generation after generation you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding them with abuse.

“You can’t squirm out of this: Every drop of righteous blood ever spilled on this earth, beginning with the blood of that good man Abel right down to the blood of Zechariah, Barachiah’s son, whom you murdered at his prayers, is on your head. All this, I’m telling you, is coming down on you, on your generation.

 

Matthew 5:10-12, The Message - “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.

“Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.

 

                Our contrast between the blessings of the eight Beatitudes at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry and the condemnation of the eight Woes at the end concludes today with the persecuted over against those who persecute them.  More to the point, Matthew 5 describes those who have so embraced God’s message to them brought by God’s messengers that they are willing to endure ridicule, shame, and even worse instead of renounce the truth they have embraced.  Matthew 23 describes those who not only reject the message of the prophets, but they also harass, flog, and even kill the messengers.  Reading through the first passage above, one can sense the rising emotion in Jesus’s voice for He knows that He, Himself, is one of those messengers who will be rejected, flogged and killed.  He knows it will happen in the matter of a couple of days.  He feels the hate that will motivate these actions emanating from the leaders he is presently condemning. 

                I’ve asked us to work to receive Jesus’s warnings in these eight Woes as personal warnings.  Perhaps of all of the Eight, this one is the hardest to personalize.  We like to think of ourselves as people who would never reject God’s message, much less persecute the messengers.  I do want to remind us though, that the leaders hearing Jesus’s words in the Temple that day, liked to think of themselves that way too.  This is why Jesus specifically addresses what He knew they were thinking:

“And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands. You protest too much! You’re cut from the same cloth as those murderers, and daily add to the death count.”  (v. 23:30)

Put yourself in the Pharisees place for a moment.  They have just been told that they are no longer necessary as mediators of God to the people.  They have been told that they are hypocrites in every way possible.  Jesus’s words are a repudiation of everything their lives have been about since they were children and they have received this judgement in front of the people they have had the responsibility of leading.   To the extent that we can squarely put ourselves in the place of these condemned leaders, we can almost understand the holy rage they will unleash upon Jesus in the coming days.

                To place ourselves in the Pharisees’ place is to connect with the emotion of being confronted with truth that beliefs you have held strongly for most of your life are unfounded.  Maybe you are familiar with that emotion and maybe you are not.  But regardless, God’s truth continues to confront wrong-headed beliefs.  To say that it is impossible for us to be people who are sometimes on the wrong side of God’s truth is to make the same mistake that the religious leaders of Jesus’s day made. 

                Don’t do that.  The Beatitudes guard against falling into the Woes.  Humility. An openness to others suffering. Meekness. A passion for God and people.  Mercy. A pure heart.  Peacemaking. Conviction that withstands persecution.  These are the ways of the Kingdom of Jesus. 

 

Question:  How open are you to the possibility of being wrong?

 

Prayer:  Lord forgive our arrogance and hard-heartedness.  Help us see your Truth being revealed in the present time even if it challenges long-held practices and/or beliefs.  Install the beatitudes in our heart.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for peace where there is war today.

 

Song:  (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding  - Nick Lowe & The Southsea Alternative Choir

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1yfkye_qR4

The Eight Woes – Part 3

 

The Eight Woes – Part 3

 

Matthew 23:23-28, NRSV - “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.  You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.  You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.  So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

 

Matthew 5:7-9, NRSV – “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

 

The practice of mercy.  Purity of heart.  A heart to make peace.  The hearers of Jesus’s first public teaching, the Sermon on the mount, heard the vison of those who sincerely follow God.  In Jesus’s last public address, the so-called leaders of the followers of God called out for living out and teaching others the total anthesis of God’s vision.  The Pharisees stress tithing while taking advantage of the poor – a total repudiation of mercy.  They maintain a spotless image of piety that hides widespread corruption in their ranks – their hearts are far from pure.  They have not brought peace to God’s people, for they are only looking out for themselves and their position. 

                It’s important to remember the setting here. Jesus is speaking in the temple in front of many people with the various groups of leaders present.  This polemic against the religious establishment is directed at leaders, but clearly, Jesus wants the people to hear it. Just before he turns to the leaders, he talks about them to the people.  Jesus instructs them to do what they say, but avoid doing what they do.  Then the Eight Woes talk specifically about those “doings” that people should avoid.  This is the word for us today as well. This is easier said than done.

                Our tendency as humans is to expend a much energy in “image management.”  We all want to be seen as “good people.”  There’s nothing wrong with that desire.  But what God looks for in us is not our surface image, but the condition of our hearts, a condition that is often hidden from others because external image would be “tainted.”  People who are truly merciful are often seen by others as weak.  People who work to keep their heart pure are often accused of being “goody two shoes.”  The great peacemakers of this world often endure much vitriol from the very folks with whom they are seeking to make peace.  It’s much easier to appear merciful, pure in heart, and peacemaking than it is to actually BE those things.  So, all too often, we settle for appearances. 

                God cares much more about the real condition of our souls and the real substance of our living than the public appearances we maintain.  Jesus points out in the Beatitudes and Woes that there is blessing in the real work of faith and there is misery in the never-ending quest for the perfect image.  Jesus message to the people standing in the Temple that day (and to us) was to aim for the blessings, not the misery.   Be merciful even when it’s not popular.  Keep your heart pure even though it means you might have to say no when everyone else is saying yes.   Do the work of making peace even when it’s runs against the tide.  Align your heart and action with the heart and action of God.  God does not promise to do so is to avoid pain, but God does promise there is blessing in the Beatitude life and misery in living the opposite.

 

Questions:  How much energy do you expend “keeping up appearances?” How might some of that energy be better used?

 

Prayer:  Lord, help me see the ways in which I am only “going through the motions” for appearance sake.  Help me rediscover the your ways of blessing.  Reinstall the beatitudes in my heart and action.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people you know who are fighting discouragement right now.

 

Song:  Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly – Pat Barrett

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk7llf2LkKc

The Eight Woes – Part 1

The Eight Woes – Part 1

 

Matthew 23:13-14, NKJV - But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.

 

                Matthew 23:13-36 is often called the “seven woes” to the Pharisees and other teachers of the law.  You might have noticed that the title of this reflection is “The Eight Woes.”  This discrepancy points to something we have discussed before – textual variants.  Most English translations of the New Testament do not include Matthew 23:14. Thus, most translations only list seven woes.  But if you include v. 14, which I do, there are eight.  This is very significant in the structure of Matthew’s gospel.  This address in the temple is the last public address Jesus will make before He is crucified.  These eight woes correspond to another list of eight that Jesus rattles off in His first public address in the Gospel of Matthew – the eight beatitudes in Matthew 5 that kick off the Sermon on the Mount.  The eight beatitudes talk about the those who are blessed and by contrast the eight woes talk about how the religious establishment of the day have cut off those blessings. 

                Matthew’s intent here seems to be for us to see the ways in which the religious community can become the very opposite of God’s intention.  These “woes” are not as much a “the pharisees are bad” are they are a warning that all religious institutions have these antithetical tendencies.  I believe the proper way to hear these woes is ask ourselves to what extent we are guilty of the very same hypocrisies.  Our next few reflections will proceed with that approach.

                The first beatitude in Matthew 5 is “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 5:3).  The first woe condemns the religious leaders for their spiritual arrogance – they have not only rejected the Kingdom Jesus came to usher in, they have tried to lead others to reject it as well.  The contrast is drawn between people who know they need God and those who think God needs them.  It is so easy to become “puffed up” about what we think we know about God and God’s ways.  The pharisees and other religious officials of Jesus’s day had begun to act as though their convictions and their teachings were synonymous with God’s word.  They believed that when they said something, it was as if God had said it.  There are plenty of Christians in our own day in time who act much the same way.  Convictions about where God stands on a particular issue are important, but they should always be held with humility.  We should always leave room for God to reveal something new to us.  I don’t always do that.  I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.

                The second beatitude is, “blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”  It is the promise that God is about comforting those who are hurting.  The second woe brings an indictment on the religious leaders for doing the opposite.  It points to a practice where Pharisees and other officials would approach widows after their husbands had died with an offer “to help” them.  They would take care of their deceased husbands affairs and care for them.  This practice might have begun with compassionate intent, but by Jesus’s day, it had devolved into the leaders taking advantage of widows and assuming control of their assets.  The leaders actually added to the misery of the widows’ grief – the exact opposite of God’s intention to comfort those who mourn. 

                To be honest, this charge is hard to hear in a personal way.  None of us wants to think of ourselves as people who would take advantage of someone in a bad situation in the guise of “helping” them.  It’s a pretty despicable thing.  But I would encourage us to let down our defenses enough to see that the church today is sometimes guilty of adding insult to injury.  I think of divorcees, LGBTQ community members, and other “sinners” that have been shunned by their congregations.  I think of Christians picketing and harassing mourners at funerals for a number of “righteous” reasons.  And lest I try to exclude myself, I think of the times that I have added to someone’s suffering by failing to respond in compassion in their time of need.  The antidote to this is to see all those who are hurting, regardless of the reason for that hurt, as people God wants to comfort. 

                The thread that runs through the first two beatitudes is spiritual humility; the thread that runs through the first two woes is spiritual arrogance. Spiritual humility was in short supply in Jesus’s day and it is no less true today.  Likewise, there was a need for Jesus to confront spiritual arrogance in His day in the name of those who were spiritually and physically vulnerable.  The same is needed today.   

 

Question:  Not having to share your answer with anyone but yourself and God, are there ways in which you have been guilty of spiritual arrogance or at least lacked spiritual humility?

 

Prayer:  God, show me my own arrogance and inability to see people the way that you do.  Help me align my heart with yours. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend some time confessing to God the times that you failed to respond in compassion when you had the opportunity to do so.

 

Song:  The God Who Stays – Matthew West

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHMVSdIjBcg&t=86s

Do What They Say, Not What They Do

 

Do What They Say, Not What They Do

 

Matthew 23:1-12, NLT - Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples,  “The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses.  So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach.  They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.

“Everything they do is for show. On their arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra long tassels. And they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues.  They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘Rabbi.]

“Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters.  And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your Father.  And don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah.  The greatest among you must be a servant.  But those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.                       

              

I first heard the phrase, “descending into greatness” used by former mega-church pastor Bill Hybels.  He was giving a talk on the last sentence of the passage above.  The irony of this now is so thick, I can hardly believe it.  Hybels is one of many high-profile leaders that were exposed and brought down by their inappropriate behavior towards women.  Hybels talk, “Descending into Greatness” is another example of what Jesus meant when he instructed the people to do what their leaders say, but don’t do what they do. 

How does one become great through service and humility? I think you already know.  There are people who are high in the ranks of people you and I admire precisely because of their humility and heart to serve.  Mother Teresa is revered as one of the great spiritual giants of all time, but she literally shunned having attention brought to her personally and she spent her life serving the “lowest of the low” in the filthy slums of India.  I think of my friend Fred (name changed to protect the guilty) who literally has spent every available day since he retired serving others. You could add names to the “Humility Hall of Fame,” but of course, that would defeat the purpose.  The crazy thing about humility is that when you have it, you’re the last to know.  But Jesus tells us how we get it – by refusing to exalt ourselves and by always looking to serve. 

Jesus says something else in this passage that is momentous that is very easy to miss.  The teachers of the law didn’t miss it for what Jesus said threatened their prestigious place in the world.  Listen to it again:

 

“Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters.  And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven is your Father.  And don’t let anyone call you ‘Teacher,’ for you have only one teacher, the Messiah.  

 

Jesus says to us here is basically that you don’t need religious leaders anymore to tell you what to do.  No titles.  Nothing that exalts one over another.  No designated teacher.   Now, you have Me.  You know God because you know Me.  You are taught be God because you are taught by Me.  You don’t need to be “fathered” by a religious leader, because you are parented directly be God. 

                What is momentous about this is that our relationship with God no longer has to be mitigated through an intermediary.  With Jesus you now have a direct relationship with God.  It is this passage and others that form the basis for Quakers having no titled leaders among their ranks.  It is also this passage that has caused me discomfort at being called “Reverend.”  I obviously do believe there is an appropriate role for leaders in the community of faith, but what is clear to me from Jesus here is that it is not to grant others access to God or God’s blessings.  That’s Jesus’s job. My job is the same as your job – to serve humbly.  This is greatness in the Kingdom.

 

Question:  Who are the “giants” for you because of their humble and serving hearts?

 

Prayer:  God, give us humble hearts without us knowing about it.  Help us serve with a glad heart. Help to avoid putting anyone on a pedestal other than Jesus. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who provide service to you.

 

Song:  Tim McGraw - Humble And Kind (Official Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awzNHuGqoMc

Now I Have a Question. . .Watch Out!

 

Now I Have a Question. . .Watch Out!

 

Matthew 22:41-46, NIV - While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,  “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”

“The son of David,” they replied.

He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,

“‘The Lord said to my Lord:

    “Sit at my right hand

until I put your enemies

    under your feet.”’

If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?”  No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.

 

For the last few reflections, we have observed different religious groups taking turns trying to stump and discredit Jesus with the crowds in the Temple after Jesus’s arrival in Jerusalem.  In three days time, Jesus will be hanging on a Roman Cross outside the city in part because of the collusion of these very groups.  The questions have been handled brilliantly by Jesus and if fact, have backfired on His questioners.  The crowd is more impressed than ever.  It is the religious leaders who are looking bad about now.

Jesus makes things worse for them when He turns the tables and asks them a question – a question that they will not be able to answer.  As we will see over the next few reflections, this is only the beginning of the misery the religious leaders will endure.  In Matthew 23, Jesus unleashes a torrent of indictments upon them that will fuel their quest to get rid of Jesus.  But for now, let’s consider Jesus’s question:

“What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”

Jesus knows what they will say because the answer they will give is not wrong.  As expected, they say that the Messiah will be a son of David, meaning that the Messiah will be a human descendant of David.  However, this is only the setup question. 

“How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’?

Jesus then quotes the well-known messianic Psalm 110 to them to support the legitimacy of His question.  Jesus then repeats the question. . . just in case they forgot.  David does indeed address the Messiah as “Lord.”  There is a long silence.  The crowd looks over at the religious leaders, waiting to see how they will answer.  A longer silence.  Crickets.  They don’t even have a guess.  

This is one of those times when the readers of Matthew’s gospel (that includes you and me) have information that the people in the story do not have.  The religious leaders don’t have an answer for Jesus’s question and neither does the crowd.  At this point in the story, even Matthew himself doesn’t have the answer, for He writes this Gospel that we are reading decades later.  But we know the answer, don’t we?

Jesus is a Son of David.  Matthew established that in Chapter 1 with the genealogy of Jesus.  We also know that Jesus is the Son of God, for that has been established multiple times in the Gospel though Jesus often tells folks to hold that under wraps.  If Jesus is a son of David AND the Son of God, then David can address Him as Lord.  We know that and Matthew lets us enjoy the fact that the people who should know better than anyone else do NOT know.  Jesus is now going public with the secret He asked people to keep until now – the secret that we already know.  Jesus is Lord and Messiah because he is both the human son of David AND the divine Son of God. 

The real question for us is not whether we know the answer to Jesus’s riddle, but do we sincerely believe the answer is true?  And if the answer to that question is “yes,” then there is an even more poignant question:  How then, shall we live?

 

Question:  If you believe Jesus is the divine Son of God and the promised Messiah of all people, how does the way you live reflect that belief?

 

Prayer:  Jesus, thank you for revealing Yourself to us.  Help us represent You to others by the way we live each day.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people you know from other faith traditions than yours.

Song:  Build My Life - Michael W Smith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jYMEJ0QNcw

Love God. Love People.

 

Love God. Love People.

 

Matthew 22:34-40, The Message - When the Pharisees heard how he had bested the Sadducees, they gathered their forces for an assault. One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up: “Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?”

Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

 

Anyone who knows me knows that this passage is my “big deal” passage.  It is Jesus’s restatement of the sum total of all the Old Testament laws.  It simplifies the Ten Commandments into two (all ten have to do with either our relationship with God or our relationship with people).  At the same time Jesus is summarizing all the laws that have come before, He is also pushing them to a higher level.  As the Apostle Paul will explain later to the Corinthians, you can follow all the instructions of God’s law to the letter, but if you do it without love, it lacks power. 

I love how Eugene Peterson translates what we are used to hearing as “heart, soul, and mind” as “passion, prayer, and intelligence.”  It just seems to imply a greater intensity and action;  I believe this was Jesus’s intention.  The Ten Commandments include a lot of “do not’s.” Do not have idols.  Do not misuse God’s name.  Do not kill. Do not lie.  Do not commit adultery.  Do not envy.  You get the point.  Jesus’s restatement is suggests that it’s not enough to avoid doing unloving things;  the point is to transform the actions of our lives to actively loving God and people.  What we see is that while Jesus has simplified the “ten” into “two,” the two are actually harder to live out.  Jesus has raised the bar. 

What does loving with all of our passion, prayer, and intelligence look like?  It’s looks as unique as our passions, prayers, and intelligence are.  My passion moves in a different direction than yours and your prayer doesn’t sound like mind.  Our intelligence is focused in different directions.  This is a beautiful thing.  By God’s design, the collective passion, prayer, and intelligence of the entire human race is channeled toward loving.  At least that is the divine invitation issued by Jesus in this exchange with the leading religious leaders of His day.  His answer silenced them; they ask Jesus no more questions in Matthew’s gospel after this (as we’ll see in the next devotional, Jesus had one more question for them though).  But in this invitation is the power that will change the world forever. It is still changing the world. Love God and love people.  So simple, but also so difficult.  It’s still the invitation today for you and me.

 

Question:  What does loving God and people with all your passion, prayer and intelligence look like?

 

Prayer: Lord of all people, you showed us what loving with passion prayer, and intelligence looked like in Jesus.  Shape our hearts, souls, and minds to be more and more like Christ.  Show us the specific opportunities we have today to love like Jesus.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people today that you have a hard time praying for. 

 

Song:  Love God, Love People – Danny Gokey (ft. Michael W. Smith)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-29WLQ3trA

More Love Than We Can Know. . .

 

More Love Than We Can Know. . .

 

Matthew 22:23-33, The Message - That same day, Sadducees approached him. This is the party that denies any possibility of resurrection. They asked, “Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies childless, his brother is obligated to marry his widow and father a child with her. Here’s a case where there were seven brothers. The first brother married and died, leaving no child, and his wife passed to his brother. The second brother also left her childless, then the third—and on and on, all seven. Eventually the wife died. Now here’s our question: At the resurrection, whose wife is she? She was a wife to each of them.”

Jesus answered, “You’re off base on two counts: You don’t know what God said, and you don’t know how God works. At the resurrection we’re beyond marriage. As with the angels, all our ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God. And regarding your speculation on whether the dead are raised or not, don’t you read your Bibles? The grammar is clear: God says, ‘I am—not was—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.’ The living God defines himself not as the God of dead men, but of the living.” Hearing this exchange the crowd was much impressed.

 

                Once again, Matthew includes a discussion between Jesus and religious officials that provides a contrast between this world and the Kingdom of Heaven.  Today the sparring partners are the Sadduccees, a religious group that denied much of what we would call the supernatural world - spirits, demons, angels, or any kind of resurrection (life after death).  Matthew notes this to point out the disingenuous nature of their question; they like the Pharisees before them, are only trying to make Jesus look bad in front of his followers.  And like the Pharisees, the plan backfires.  The followers are even more amazed and endeared to Jesus because of His answers. 

                The question they ask concerns one Moses’s laws.  In a culture so patriarchal it’s hard to imagine these days, Moses’s remedy for caring for widows was to give the responsibility for their care to the dead husband’s brother.  The Sadducces present Jesus with a preposterous “what-if…” scenario; what if all seven brothers are dead and then the poor widow finally dies.”  If there is a resurrection of the dead, whose wife will she be in the afterlife? 

                There is no good technical answer to the question, which is the Sadducces’ reason for asking it.  Of course Jesus knows this and doesn’t step into the trap.  Instead, He pivots to a much deeper issue, the nature of the Kingdom of God.  “Who was married to who?” is an irrelevant concern in the life after this one.  Though it’s hard to imagine a reality where such would be the case, somehow, in the eternal presence of God, we just won’t worry about such things.  Jesus pulls the rug out from underneath the Sadducces by pronouncing the whole basis for their religious order to be false.  God is a God of the living, a God of resurrection.   Matthew includes this exchange because Jesus is about to prove this truth by being resurrected Himself!

                Most commentaries I have read on this passage focus on the marriage question; will we still be married to our spouses in heaven.  I believe that is falling into the same trap as the Sadducces.   Jesus is trying to present a new vision.  Imagine a reality where the relationship between souls and the relationship between souls and God is so much better than we know now that who we were married to before seems like a silly question.  The very best we’ve experienced in this life pales in comparison to the love we will know in eternity.

 I’ll be honest; I struggle to imagine such things.  But I have heard first-hand witnesses from people who “died,” spent a few moments in the perfect presence of God, and then rejoined us here on earth.  They always struggle to find language to describe the love they felt surrounding them.  Some do report recognizing those who had died before being there with them, which is comforting to me and many others.  But in almost every case, the one thing the eyewitnesses to “the other side” want to make clear more than anything else is the Love present there.  

                I do my best to hold on to their witness.  I can also add to their witness that the Love that they struggle to describe sounds like the deepest longing of my soul.  A Love that will make all that has come before just melt away.  A Love with power to heal all the imperfections of the past.  A Love that becomes the only currency that matters.  The perfect and complete Love of God.  We get tastes of it but when the Kingdom reaches it’s fullness, it will be the only reality we’ll know.   I hold as much of that vision in my heart as I can.  I pray that you will too.  Because to the extent that we can, we can be part of that vision becoming reality right now. 

 

Question:  What do you really believe about the coming Kingdom of God?

 

Prayer:  We long for so much to be different than we experience right now.  No more tears. No more pain.  No more brokenness.  No more strife.  Plant the seeds of your Kingdom in our soul and helps us nurture the growth of Your Kingdom within us.  Help us experience the fullness of Your Love.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend some time today reminding yourself that our God is not a God of the dead.  The people that we see no more are not really gone.  They are waiting for us in the life to come.

 

Song:  Perfect Love – Planetshakers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bwlDBtGVd0