Blinded by the light

Luke 19:41-44

Looking at what leads up to this I'm struck by the fact that Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem...i.e, he is on the way to pay the ultimate price -- to die. Chapter 19 is about multiple kinds of blindness: Those who can't see any good in Zaccheus (while this supposedly unclean tax collector "gets" Jesus and impulsively offers restitution). The servant who is so afraid of the master that he wastes his talents rather than investing them. The Pharisees demanding that Jesus stop the natural outpouring at the arrival of the Messiah. He goes on to drive out those who are selling what is "necessary" for restoring relationship with God, completely blind to the fact that in Christ God is reaching out directly to those excluded by the religious system.

I think Jesus is weeping here for God's chosen, who seem completely blind to what God is about. Their pre-conceptions seem far too strong to allow even the evidence of God's action among them to change them.

Do we ever allow our pre-conceptions, our notions of what God "should" be doing (according to us), get in the way of seeing the Spirit working among us?

And justice for all?

Two news headlines from yesterday:

The Bank of America ad on the hunger article (and the Wells Fargo ad I had to click through to get there) add to the irony.

As always, it's nothing new...

⁷ You who turn justice into bitterness
and cast righteousness to the ground
⁸ (he who made the Pleiades and Orion,
who turns blackness into dawn
and darkens day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out over the face of the land—
the LORD is his name-
⁹ he flashes destruction on the stronghold
and brings the fortified city to ruin),
¹⁰ you hate the one who reproves in court
and despise him who tells the truth.
¹¹ You trample on the poor
and force him to give you grain.
Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,
you will not live in them;
though you have planted lush vineyards,
you will not drink their wine.
¹² For I know how many are your offenses
and how great your sins.
You oppress the righteous and take bribes
and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
¹³ Therefore the prudent man keeps quiet in such times,
for the times are evil.
¹⁴ Seek good, not evil,
that you may live.
Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you,
just as you say he is. (Amos 5)

The more things change...

"To put it bluntly: the call to evangelism is often little else than a call to restore "Christendom," the Corpus Christianum, as a solid, well-integrated cultural complex, directed and dominated by the church. And the sense of urgency is often nothing but a nervous feeling of insecurity, with the established church endangered; a flurried activity to save the remnants of a time now irrevocably past... In fact, the word "evangelize" often means a Biblical camouflage of what should be rightly called the reconquest of ecclesiastical influence. Hence this undue respect for statistics and this insatiable ecclesiastical hunger for ever more areas of life." -- J.C. Hoekendijk, The Church Inside Out, Chapter 1 (1966)

What do you want?

Luke 18:35-43

Last night @Ka1r0s we talked about how many of us are reluctant to ask God for things, as it seems selfish. At the beginning of this chapter Jesus told us to be persistent in prayer. To me that means a consistent prayer, being connected with God in high times, low times, and the much more frequent boring times.

What I love about this story is that the blind beggar knows what he needs, and isn't afraid to say it. Curing his blindness is not just a nice thing for him. Restoring his sight restores him to the whole community. It takes him off the side of the road begging and allows him to be productive and perhaps self-supporting. It allows him to reconnect with his family. It moves him from unclean in the view of the religious community (afflictions such as blindness were thought of as signs of sin) to clean, he is included again in the circle rather than excluded. Jesus isn't just healing him, he is fulfilling his mission, bringing healing and shalom. And by seeking healing and shalom, the beggar is also participating in God's mission, because healed he can also spread shalom rather than being just a recipient of it.

If Jesus asked you what you wanted, what would you say? Would it be about stuff or your own desires, or about God's shalom?

Looking for a sign

Luke 17:20-25

Rather than looking for miraculous signs or portents of doom, Jesus directs his followers to be on the watch for signs of his presences *in and around them.* While it is tempting to look for blessings or signs of the end of the world, Jesus reminds us that "the kingdom of God is among (or within) us." When we are homesick for his presence we don't need to search the headlines or ancient prophesies. We need to be aware of the ordinary, everyday signs that God is present in daily life.

What do you see God doing in and around you these days? Ask God for eyes to see these ordinary signs more clearly.

Duty and devotion

Luke 17:11-19

In healing these lepers Jesus doesn't absolve them of their religious duty, he commands them to fulfill it: Go, show yourselves to the priests.

What is interesting is that nine of the ten -- the implication is that they are not Samaritans/outsiders -- take their religious duty as enough, rather than also coming back to worship their healer. Why would those who are "inside" that faith take the miracle for granted, while the "outsider" gets it?

How do religious duty and giving glory to God -- ritual and your spiritual life -- interplay? Do you ever get caught up in going through the motions and forget to kneel at Jesus' feet? Do you sometimes give glory to God but without a sense of discipline and regularity that comes from ritual?

It's my job...

Years ago, Jimmy Buffett recorded a Mac McAnally song called "It's my job." The lyric tells the story of a down-and-out man sitting on a curb watching a smiling, whistling city worker sweeping up the refuse along the curb. When asked why he's happy, the street sweeper replies: "It's my job to be cleaning up this mess, and that's enough reason to go for me."

This came to mind reflecting on Luke 17:1-10 this morning.

The apostles request for "more faith, sir!" comes in response to Jesus telling them that their imperfections are bound to cause them to stumble and misuse his message, and that they are to warn each other if they are missing the mark and forgive each other when they do.

The essence here is that Jesus is telling the disciples that they do have the faith that they need. They need to live it out.

Yet they are disciples, not the Lord. They know that they are not in control, so they ask for faith from its source: Jesus.

Jesus' story about the duty of slaves expands on this. It suggests that as we grow into our faith by being obedient to God, we will act out our faith and grow into the people we were created to be, on mission with our Lord. But it doesn’t change who is the master and who is the disciple.

One commentator notes that the idea of “thanking” the slave (v9) doesn’t mean verbalizing a social nicety but indicates that the master is now in the slave’s debt. We may want or receive thanks for the ministry that we do, but we need to be careful not to believe our own PR and think that now we have arrived, now people (and God) owe us something. We’re just doing our job…what we were created to do.

I keep coming back to the disciples' original plea: Give us more faith! I beg for this sometimes, often when I don't have the guts or the discipline to do what the faith that I have (a mustard seed?) is urging me to do. Do I really want more faith, if faith is what makes me a dutiful "slave" to God?

In his exegetical notes on this passage, Lutheran pastor Brian Stoffregen writes:

I'm not sure that a lot of people really want more faith. They may want more of the faith that will help them out – a faith that might heal themselves or a loved one, a faith that will help them pass a test, a faith that gives them assurance of eternal life; but do they really want a faith that will make them more Christ-like in sacrificial giving, in sacrificial loving, in sacrificial forgiving? I'm not sure if people want that.

It has been suggested that many people want only an inoculation of Christianity – just enough of it to protect them from catching the real thing. There is a danger in asking God to give you more faith. You might get it – then what?

Then what, indeed. Jesus spends a lot of time telling the disciples that his way is not a picnic or a free ride, but a way of surrender and submission. As Martin Luther put it, Jesus' followers are perfectly free...to be the slave of others.

If this is the job description, do I want smile and hum "It's my job to be cleaning up this mess"? Or am I drawn instead to that country classic, "Take this job and..."? How 'bout you?

Can the church come out and play?

A friend was just telling me of a church experience that embodied the first half of this exchange. He was visiting a church that was making a pitch for members to get involved...and everything mentioned was inside the box: committees, programs, worship. Not even a nod of the head to getting out in the community, trying to connect with or serve people outside the box. It reminds me of a former colleague's description of the Lutheran approach to evangelism, hoping that somehow fish will jump into our boat so we never have to deploy a net.

I am concerned by the number of people I meet who seem to either be daring the church to come meet them on their terms, or can't cross the street because of some old hurt, or (most frightening) don't even notice that there is a church as they walk down the street. These gulfs can't be overcome by appeals to community or belonging (there are no shortage of places to belong at some level) or by invitations to join in work that the invitees don't really see as relevant.

Only listening and sharing in the concerns of the community -- coming out of the box to play on the same playing field -- can start the process of connecting.

(ASBOJesus via Jonny Baker)

Monday gratitude

I took this morning off to finish the raking that Suzanne was kind enough to start. The back yard is green again, liberated from its blanket of gold and brown and yellow. I'm tired, a little sore -- and grateful.

• I'm grateful that I have a yard to rake.
• I'm grateful for a beautiful November day when I can rake in a t-shirt rather than a parka.
• I'm grateful that I can take a personal day.
• I'm grateful for a tree that provides shade from the south sun spring and summer yet only takes a couple of hours to clean up after in the fall.
• I'm grateful that all the leaves are off the tree so I don't have to do this again.
• I'm grateful that even though my back spasmed a bit I could continue thanks to stretching and Ben-Gay.
• I'm grateful for some physical work to help my mind let go.
• I'm grateful that Quakertown still sends around the Leaf-Vac to suck up our piles for mulch.

It's amazing how much there is to be grateful in such a simple project!

What are you grateful for today?