Matthew 13:51-52 - The Greatness of Crazy Times

The Greatness of Crazy Times - November 8, 2021

 

Matthew 13:51-52, NLT - Do you understand all these things?”

“Yes,” they said, “we do.”

Then he added, “Every teacher of religious law who becomes a disciple in the Kingdom of Heaven is like a homeowner who brings from his storeroom new gems of truth as well as old.”

 

I hope all of you have had the experience of at going through at least one season of awakenings.  By that, I mean a season where you are discovering new insights at such a rapid pace that you can actually notice how you are changing in real time.  I have had a few such seasons, but the one that stands out for me above the others is a time during 1995-97.  In the space of one month in 1995, I graduated from seminary, began my first full-time appointment as a Pastor, and became a father for the first time.  I can feel the stress of all that even now as I remember it two and half decades later.  However, my memory of that time is very sweet.  I think I learned more in the next two to three years than I had in in other period of my life before.  That’s saying a lot because I had just finished twenty years of formal education!  Looking at that time now, I can see that it was the two decades of formal education that “set me up” for that flood of insights as my education met the reality of living and working in the “real world.”  The “old” knowledge of my childhood was combined and enhanced with the “new” wisdom I was gaining being a full-time pastor and new father. 

There have been other periods of streaming insight since then, but they have all been different.  One such period was the year following a two-week trip to the Holy Land.  My view of scripture has never been the same since walking the terrain where so much of that scripture happened.  Another rich period of wisdom followed some deeply painful experiences and losses.  All of these periods of breakthrough, though, involved the combination of new experience and insight with what I had known before. 

I think this is what Jesus is talking about above in his comments to his disciples.  He has been pouring into them new experience and wisdom about the in-breaking kingdom of God that is happening before their very eyes.  However, what they are experiencing and learning only enhances what they have already known.  They see the old in a new light and re now able to offer more to those that they will serve.  Jesus is reminding them that it’s okay to embrace new insight without fear of “losing” cherished beliefs and convictions from the past.  Those old insights still have value and are still part of them. 

This is so important for us to remember right now.  Collectively, the human race is going through one of those periods of incredible change and insight right now.  The pandemic has forced us to look at much of the “old ways” through a new lens.  This can be a time when a synthesis of the old and new can forge new wisdom to meet our challenges.  While we will have to let go of much from the past, the past is still part of who we are and will always be.  Our new understanding on the other side of this seminal time is built on the foundation of all that we knew before. 

I’d be lying if I said that I’m excited about all this.  Frankly, I’m deeply disturbed by a lot of what I see happening now.  I’m also a bit disoriented because I don’t know where it all is going.  Many who experienced Jesus firsthand were just as disturbed and disoriented by what they were seeing.  It would be much later that these disturbed and disoriented disciples would become the great apostles of the church that we revere two thousand years later.  It took them a while to digest what Jesus was giving them and integrate it with all they had known before.  It will be the same for us.

 

Question: What are you learning or experiencing right now that has shed new light on something you knew or experienced before now?

 

Prayer:  God, open our eyes, ears, hearts, and minds to what is happening right now before our very eyes.  Give us insight into how our present experience can enhance our experience of the past and prepare us for all that is coming next.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for teachers you know today.

 

Song:  Teach Your Children – Crosby, Stills, and Nash

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

Matthew 11:16-19 - Seeing the World As We Are

 

Daily Devo w/ Pastor Eric October 15, 2021

Seeing the World as We Are

 

Matthew 11:16-19, The Voice - What is this generation like? You are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out, “When we played the flute, you did not dance; and when we sang a dirge, you did not mourn.”  What I mean is this: When John came, he dressed in the clothes of a prophet, and he did not eat and drink like others but lived on honey and wild locusts. And people wondered if he was crazy, if he had been possessed by a demon.  Then the Son of Man appeared—He didn’t fast, as John had, but ate with sinners and drank wine. And the people said, “This man is a glutton! He’s a drunk! And He hangs around with tax collectors and sinners, to boot.” Well, Wisdom will be vindicated by her actions—not by your opinions.

 

In the passage for today, Jesus is lamenting the resistance to God’s kingdom that he mentioned in his defense of John that we read yesterday.  John was labeled demon-possessed because he didn’t do what the people expected.  Jesus Himself was labeled a glutton and a drunk for eating and drinking with the wrong sorts of people.  This may sound like nothing more than Jesus venting about the hard time he and John have had as they have pursued their mission, but I invite us to see the deeper principle that he is describing because it is still being played out two thousand years later as God’s kingdom continues to unfold. 

                People naturally struggle with being called to a new way of living.  John called people to repent because the Kingdom of God was coming.  Some people did, but most continued as if nothing had happened.  Jesus announces that the Kingdom has arrived and the people repeatedly ran Him out of town.  As we’ll see in tomorrow’s passage, he performed miraculous works in multiple towns with barely any response.  Ultimately, we know that Jesus and His Kingdom were rejected forcefully when He was nailed to a cross.  When you call people to change the way they are living, even when embracing that change can help them, they often respond drastically to keep doing what they have been doing.

                I point this out as if it is only others that act this way; it is not.  I act this way too.  I often react badly when others, however lovingly, tried to point out an error in my thinking and/or doing.  When God first called me to be a pastor, I pursued at least three other vocations before I became open to what God was offering.  Almost always, when I am confronted with a truth that requires me to change my thinking or behavior, my first instinct is to fight it or go in the other direction.   Over the years, I’ve gotten better at recognizing when this instinctive reaction has been triggered and I sometimes am able to override it with some clear thinking and engaged faith.  But that first instinct to resist has never gone away in me.  And in my decades of observation of others, I know I’m not the only one with this issue.

                The Kingdom of God is still unfolding; the revolution that John announced and Jesus catalyzed is still calling us to live differently than we are now.  We’ll talk more about this tomorrow, but for today consider this question.

 

Question:  What is something you know God wants you to do differently but, as of this moment, the resistance instinct in you has won out?

 

Prayer:  Have mercy on us, Savior.  Help us confront the resistance to Your kingdom that persists in our spirit so that we may embrace the life that truly is life.  Amen

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend some time confessing your own personal struggles with doing what you know is right to God today.

 

Song:  Man in the Mirror – Michael Jackson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivWY9wn5ps&t=23s

Matthew 9:14-17 - Eighteen Months Later

Daily Devo w/ Pastor Eric September 28, 2021

Eighteen Months Later

 

Matthew 9:14-17, NLT - One day the disciples of John the Baptist came to Jesus and asked him, “Why don’t your disciples fast like we do and the Pharisees do?” Jesus replied, “Do wedding guests mourn while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.  Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved.”.

 

March 2020, when the pandemic caused a worldwide shutdown, seems like such a long time ago.  As I take a few minutes to try and remember how things were back then, it is difficult.  If someone back in January 2020 described to me in detail all that was going to happen over the next year and half, I would have thought they were certifiably crazy.  What’s more, the pandemic continues.  What is clear is that we are still in the midst of humongous shifts in our world that we can’t even begin to predict how we will live on the other side of all this change.   We have some hints, but I’m sure we’re in for even more surprises.

 

Faced with all of this uncertainty, how do we cope? It seems that everything is different.  Schools are different.  Work is different in almost every sector of society.  Church is different. I know my tendency is to try and hold on to the familiar – routines, ways of doing things, activities that provide comfort.  There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but I know intuitively that many of those old ways of doing and being will cease to provide the comfort they once did (if they haven’t already).  I have heard many authors, preachers, and teachers use Jesus’s sayings above about patches and wineskins to try and caution me about this tendency for old structures not being able to support the new ways of being, but Jesus’s words have never hit me harder than they are now. 

 

I don’t know much at all about this “new wine” being poured out right now, but I know my “old wineskins” won’t hold it.  I see some epic wine spills coming and there is already a mess on the floor.  I have no tools to describe what our lives will be like even six months from now, because I’m too busy looking for new tools to handle what is happening right now.  As I re-read the last few sentences, it seems a bit over-dramatic for a pragmatist like me, but it does describe my current experience.  From conversations I’ve had lately, I know I’m not alone.

 

There is good news in all this.  God is still good and Jesus is still Lord.  A lot of things have and will change, but I know that God is still good and Jesus is still Lord.  I know that because I’ve experienced God’s sweet goodness many times over the past eighteen months. Many of those moments of goodness have come from exchanges I have had with you all.  Some have come from exchanges with people I didn’t know eighteen months ago.  I’ve been reminded that Jesus is still Lord because I’ve watched needed resources seemingly appear out of thin air.  I’ve gotten solutions dropped in my lap to address a problem I didn’t even realize I had yet. Yes, we will have to find new wineskins (and clean up all the messes) in order to make it in the future, but our good God/Lord Jesus will be with us. 

 

Prayer:  Lord, help us to breathe when we feel out of control and unable to face the future.  May we feel your Sweet, Sweet Spirit in that breath.  May we trust in your goodness and Lordship. Amen

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for members of US Congress as they address monumental challenges this week.

 

Song:  The Adventist Vocal Ensemble and the Congregation of St. John's, Hackney, North London - Sweet, Sweet Spirit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9EGwkimNeQ