The “otherness” of God

  

Genesis 22:1-3 - Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

 

We can’t talk about Abraham without talking about this awful story.  I encourage to go read the rest of Genesis 22, but the quick summary is that Abraham obeys God by taking Isaac to the appointed mountain and gets ready to sacrifice him.  God stops him at the last moment and promises him to reward him for his being willing to obey this terrible command.

There are so many troubling aspects to this story – problems that I cannot and will not explain away.  Why would God ask such a heinous thing?  Why was Abraham willing to do it (full disclosure, I wouldn’t)?  Why is God’s “reward” for Abe’s obedience the same thing that he had already promised multiple times before?  These are just some most glaring problems with digesting this story.

So you may ask, “Eric, if you have no intention of explaining this story, why the heck did you even bring it up?” 

Here’s my reply.  The reason I bring it up is to point out what Karl Barth called the “wholly otherness” of God.  God can not be fully explained and /or domesticated.  There will always be things about God that causes us to want to walk away because we cannot fit them into a neat, tidy, nicely-wrapped God package.  God is “wholly other” meaning that we will never get God into a manageable box.  This story is one of those stories (there are many others) that remind us of that.  It creates questions that cannot be answered in this life.  It reminds us that faith, trust and obedience aren’t produced by having all our questions answered.  God can be wholly other and wholly trustworthy at the same time.  The witness of this story is that God is both – other and trustworthy.

So trust God even though there are unanswerable questions.  That’s what Abraham did.  It worked out for Abe and it will work out for you and me.  We may not always understand God and at times, trusting God may actually be terrifying.  But I have found that God’s otherness has become one of the very reasons that I do trust God.   We’ll talk more about that tomorrow as we finish up our time with Abraham.

For more on Abraham, read Genesis 22 – 25:11

 

Prayer:  God, we don’t know more than we do know about you, but help us to trust you anyway. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people you know who do not believe in God

 

Song:  Crowder – Praise the Lord – We’ve used this one before, but it goes especially well with today’s devo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhP8orOTHis

What Do WE Get Out of It?!

 

What Do WE Get Out of It?!

 January 26, 2022

Matthew 19:27-30, The Message - Then Peter chimed in, “We left everything and followed you. What do we get out of it?”

Jesus replied, “Yes, you have followed me. In the re-creation of the world, when the Son of Man will rule gloriously, you who have followed me will also rule, starting with the twelve tribes of Israel. And not only you, but anyone who sacrifices home, family, fields—whatever—because of me will get it all back a hundred times over, not to mention the considerable bonus of eternal life. This is the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first.”

 

                I have obviously never met Peter, the disciple of Jesus, but I love him.  He often says what I think I might want to say in the same situation.  The only difference is that I generally only think the Peter says without ever getting the words out of my mouth.  Peter evidently doesn’t have the filter that I do and I honestly love him for it. 

                Take the exchange above between Jesus and Peter.  Jesus has just told the rich young man that, if he wants to receive the kingdom, he needs to give up his wealth.  Peter hears this tough teaching and realizes that he and his compatriots have actually done what Jesus asked.  They weren’t rich (except possibly Matthew), but they left what livelihoods they had.  Most of them had families at home while they wandered around Israel with Jesus.  So Peter, realizing this, blurts out, “What do we get out of it?”

                Had I been there, I would have thought what Peter said, but never said it.  But I’m glad Peter did, because it provides Jesus a great moment to affirm and reassure his most committed disciples.  It also allows us that same affirmation and assurance.  Whatever we have given up to follow Jesus has been noticed.  “Yes, you have followed me,” Jesus says.  Jesus sees the sacrifices, whatever they may be for each of us.  Further, He promises that whatever you and I have left behind, it pales in comparison to what you will receive.

                In a lot of ways, I already see this in my life.  I have, on occasion, thought about how my life might have been different had I chosen a different vocation.  Most of the time, it’s seems impossible to imagine.  I might have made more money, but I’m not sure.  I’m not sure how my family would be different, but I am sure the difference would be night and day.  My guess is that we would have settled in one place and stayed there instead of living in a dozen different places over the years.  Yes, things would have been vastly different even though I struggle to imagine the details.  In the times I have indulged these musings, I always end up with the same conclusion.  I may have given up some possibilities to answer God’s call, but when I think of all that I’ve gained, it hardly seems like a sacrifice. I don’t regret the decision one bit.

                I am aware that my experience is not universal.  I have had colleagues over the years that have deeply regretted following the path that has me so grateful.  I’m also aware that my sacrifices seem so insignificant to those of the disciples for which Peter speaks up.  I am aware that, right now, there are Christians who are being tortured and killed because they decided to follow Jesus.  Jesus has already kept this promise to me, but He will make good on the promise for everyone who follows Him.  The decision to follow Jesus is always the best investment anyone can ever make.  As we watch Peter grow into his calling through the rest of the Gospels and other New Testament books, we see Him live into Jesus’s promise.  A mere fisherman becomes the central leader in a movement that numbers in the billions today.  The Catholic church reveres him as the first Pope. 

                The stories for the rest of the disciples that day vary greatly, but history has shown that Jesus kept the promise to them as well – some of them while they still walked the earth and all after they were martyred.  The bedrock takeaway from this story is that the life Jesus invites us to is one that does require us to say goodbyes to things that, in many cases, seem very difficult to give up.  However, the promise is that, compared to what we will receive in this life and the next, the sacrifice is minimal.  I need to remind myself of that from time to time.  Maybe I’m not the only one.

 

Questions:  What has it cost you to follow Jesus?  What would have been the cost if you had not chosen that path?

 

Prayer: God of provision, your call to follow and serve you requires us to leave things behind.  Help us realize and trust that it is the best decision we can ever make.  Help us catch a glimpse of the great things ahead of those of us willing to trust you.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the thousands of persecuted Christians across the Globe.

 

Song:  Lord, You Give the Great Commission – arr. Foster

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZU1jpAu79Y

Matthew 12:1-14 - Pharisaical Tendencies

 

Daily Devo w/ Pastor Eric October 20, 2021

Pharisaical Tendencies

 

Matthew 12:1-14 - At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”

He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry?  He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests.  Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent?  I tell you that something greater than the temple is here.  If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.  For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”

He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.

 

This passage is obviously about keeping the Sabbath, but it is also about something much bigger than the Sabbath – legalism.  As soon as I say the word “legalism,” most of us consciously or unconsciously uncheck the imaginary box in our mind that this passage is speaking to us.  After all, who wants to admit that they are a legalist.  But I want to submit to you that we all have legalist tendencies. 

In the passage above, the Pharisees (the quintessential legalists of the gospels) are challenging Jesus on this disciples harvesting food for themselves on the sabbath.  That was forbidden on the Sabbath and the disciples had actually done what they charged.  They were guilty according to the law and so the Pharisees are not technically wrong to challenge what they did.  But Jesus finds them wrong nonetheless.  Why is this?

There are two ways in which they are wrong.  As interpreters of the law, Pharisees are charged with communicating and teaching the intention or “spirit” of the law.  Jesus points the intention of this particular law when he quotes Hosea 6:6, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”  The Pharisees would rather the disciples sacrifice by not eating than by eating and breaking the letter of the law.  Jesus points out that it is merciful to let them eat and that showing mercy is more important than keeping the letter of the law because mercy is the intent of sabbath laws.  In Mark’s version of this same encounter, Jesus says, ““The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).    In other words, the Sabbath is supposed to be a merciful thing for people, not a sacrificial thing.

The second way in which the Pharisees are wrong here is related to the first, but is subtly different.  This plays out through the subsequent healing of the withered hand.  After Jesus has healed the man, the Pharisees are furious and begin to look for a way to kill Jesus.  Why would a healing provoke rage?  The answer lies in the fact that Jesus shows that the Pharisees were never interested in the intention of the law in the first place.  What they were interested in was USING the law to entrap Jesus and/or his disciples.  Jesus exposes this intention and embarrasses the Pharisees in front of others.  He is also challenging the very basis of their power which is being able to use the law for their own intentions. 

“Shame on those Pharisees” we like to say, but I would close today by making a bold claim.  All of us have pharisaical tendencies.  There are times when the “rules” are a convenient way to dismiss a difficult issue.  There are other times when we our use of the rules is not merciful.  Jesus reminds us today that when choose the rules over being merciful, we are not only choosing against mercy, we are choosing something He himself would not choose. 

 

Questions:  Do we ever use the “rules” to try and gain an advantage or avoid dealing with something difficult?  Do we use the technicality of the rules so we don’t have to deal with the intention behind the rules? 

 

Prayer:  For our own sake, Lord, show us our Pharisaical tendencies.  Amen

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the fourteen kidnapped missionaries (including children) in Haiti. 

 

Song:  Buddy Greene - Recovering Pharisee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMyplW33E7c