Bishop Mark Lawrence: Mice in the palace

An Ash Wednesday reflection from Bishop Mark Lawrence:

I read once — but cannot remember where — a children’s story of a king who had an infestation of mice in his palace. He went to his counselors who advised him to hire some cats. Soon the cats cleared the palace of the mice but the cats multiplied. He returned complaining about his infestation of cats. So his wise men counseled him to get some dogs. Well the dogs soon supplanted the cats, sleeping upon the king’s bed and being a general nuisance—howling at night and barking at his guests. So returning again to his counselors to get rid of the dogs they all agreed that lions would scatter the dogs—which of course they did. But before long the lions were lounging on the beds and couches and eating his store of fine meats. “What am I to do now?” he quizzed his wise men? They said, “Get some elephants!” Well the elephants drove out the lions but then they played havoc with his Great Room and hallways, leaving unseemly droppings and crushing furniture. “Now what?” he asked his advisers. “Bring in some mice” said the wise men, “they will scare the elephants away!” Far too often we try to deal with our problems with solutions that only lead to other problems and we end up back with the mice because we never bothered to ask the question, “Why are the mice in the palace in the first place?”

Ash Wednesday is a day set aside by the church to ask the question and deal with the problem of the mice in the palace—or rather, I should say, the problem of sin— sin in the heart. Sin, in Christian teaching, is not primarily what we call wrong doings. These are sins. Sin in the singular refers to the deeper problem of our wrongness—or “bentness”—which is all wrapped up with our wrong relationship with God, which is at the heart of our sins. How we deal with this problem of our sin—which leads to the sins we do, both sins of commission and those things which we don’t do that we ought to do, sins of omission—is really the heart of the matter.

Read the rest at Bishop Lawrence's blog.

Palm Sunday: The Triumph of Humility

Catholic scholar Marcellino D'Ambrosio delves deep into the mystery of Christ's passion and how our Lord triumphed over violence and humiliation through love and humility. Good reading for Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. . .

His earthly beginning was frightfully humble. And his earthly end would be no different. The wood of the manger prefigured the wood of the cross. 

From beginning to end, the details are humiliating. No room in the inn. Born amidst the stench of a stable. Hunted by Herod’s henchmen. Growing up in a far-flung province of the Roman Empire--Galilee, the land where the country accent is so thick, you can cut it with a knife. How it that the high priest’s servant-girl knew Peter was a disciple of Jesus? His hillbilly accent gave him away (Matthew 26:73). Jesus disciples were not cultured, learned men of ability. They were drawn from the low-life of a backwater region…

When one of his closest companions offered to betray him, he did not require millions. Jesus’ worth was reckoned to be no more than the Old Testament “book value” for a slave--thirty pieces of silver. When he was finally handed over to the Romans, he was not given the punishment meted out to Roman citizens. Beheading was the quick, dignified way to execute someone of any standing. Instead Jesus was given punishments reserved only for slaves and rebellious members of subjugated peoples – flagellation and crucifixion. These two penalties were not just about the pain, but about the humiliation. In first century Palestine, men and women typically covered themselves from head to toe, even in the scorching heat. A crucified man was stripped naked and put on display for all to see.

But this is not primary a story of violence and humiliation. The events of Holy Week are much more about love and humility.

Approaching Lent: Musings on the wilderness state

The wilderness is not unfamiliar territory for the great heroes of the Bible. Moses and the children of Israel spent forty years wandering in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land. Elijah spent a great deal of his life withdrawn from the daily life of the northern kingdom, showing up only during those pivotal times when Israel needed to hear (although seldom heeded) the Word of God. Jesus himself, as we will be reminded a few Sundays from now, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days following his baptism.

The history of the church is filled with stories of great men and women of God who spent significant times in a wilderness state, not fully understanding until years later just what God's purpose had been in calling them there. John Wesley embarked on his mission to Georgia with high hopes, only to be met with the painful reality of his own unfitness even to be called a Christian, much less a minister in the church.

The wilderness is a place of confusion, at times, but also a place where we sort out our confusion. Oswald Chambers noted that the way out of such a state "is not simply to say that you should not be confused. It is not a matter of right and wrong, but a matter of God taking you through a way that you temporarily do not understand. And it is only by going through the spiritual confusion that you will come to the understanding of what God wants for you."

When something does not make sense, it is probably because we are looking at it from our own, quite limited, perspective. God calls us into the wilderness in order to help us begin to see it from his perspective.

Two directions, one Gospel

2 Samuel 2:1-11; Acts 15:36-16:5; Mark 6:14-29

Paul and Barnabas, although best of friends, could not come to agreement on the suitability of one "John called Mark" as a companion on their missionary journey. Barnabas, perhaps influenced by family ties (Mark was his cousin), wanted to bring him along after Paul suggested a return visit to "every city where [they] proclaimed the word of the Lord." Mark had not made a good impression on Paul, however, and he "thought it best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work."

Disagreements among church leaders so often involve non-essential matters. This was a dispute between the two greatest missionaries of the early church, and it involved a personality, not a doctrinal question. It was a dispute so sharp that Paul and Barnabas ended up separating. They teamed up with their respective proteges (Barnabas with Mark; Paul with Silas) and went in different directions. Wherever they went, however, they proclaimed the same Gospel.

Paul, Silas, and their new partner Timothy continued to spread the Gospel throughout the Roman Empire. Luke devotes the bulk of the remaining chapters of Acts to their ministry.

Barnabas and Mark, however, also did their part. From his letters, we know that Paul eventually came to accept Mark as a fellow worker. The Gospel that bears his name endures as a testimony to how this scared young man, once judged unfit for missionary service by the church's greatest missionary, was transformed into one of the church's greatest evangelists. The breakup of Paul and Barnabas was used by God for a good purpose. They went in different directions but never stopped proclaiming the same life-transforming Gospel.

The right man at the right time

2 Samuel 1:1-16; Acts 15:22-35; Mark 6:1-13

Saul's death is not received as good news by David, even though it means he is now free to claim the throne in Israel. For one thing, Israel is, at that moment, a defeated and humiliated nation. Who would want to be king at such a time? But David's reaction to Saul's death illustrates why he is exactly the kind of king Israel needs at this moment in its history.

Rather than rejoicing over the downfall of an enemy, David and his men tear their clothes and mourn, weep, and fast until evening. Executing the Amalekite who brought him the news seems a harsh thing to do, but moreso than following an established custom, David once again demonstrates his respect for Saul who, although flawed and far from God at the time of his death, was nevertheless "the LORD's anointed." God himself would be the final judge of Saul, but no mere man could take matters into his own hands, even if Saul had asked to be taken out of his misery.

David, unlike Saul, will remain in God's favor throughout his reign, even though his own record will be far from spotless. David has what Saul lacks: a heart that is right toward God. Although he will do many things which displease God, his heart will never stray from him. It is a character we see displayed in his reaction to the news of Saul's death. He does not rejoice, but mourns. He does not honor the man who inflicted the fatal blow, but has him put to death. His reaction, in every way, reflects his character. It may seem, to our present-day sensibilities, over the top and irrational, but it is, for its time, appropriate and measured. If anything, it is beyond what might be expected of the one upon whom the burden of leadership for a nation now falls. For that very reason, David is the right man at the right time for Israel.

A desperate hope

1 Samuel 31:1-13; Acts 15:12-21; Mark 5:21-43

Death itself must flee at Jesus's word. He raises Jairus's daughter by simply saying, "Talith cumi," which means, "Little girl, I say to you, arise." Words are not necessary, however, for the woman with the discharge of blood. In faith, she reaches out to touch the hem of Jesus's garment, knowing that this is sufficient for her healing. The depth of her faith is all the more astounding considering the fact that she "had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse." What reason did she have to believe Jesus would be any different? She had tried everything else.

Was it desperation or hope which caused this woman to seek out Jesus and touch the hem of his garment? Perhaps it was a little of both; a desperate hope that, at long last, she would find in Jesus the healing that had so long eluded her. What she did, however, was no mere lark. The closer she got to Jesus, the stronger her faith became. A person of lesser faith would have given up. The crowd was pressing in Jesus himself was otherwise pre-occupied with Jairus. Still, this woman persevered. Perhaps that is what made the biggest impression on Jesus. This woman never abandoned hope. She continued to trust that God would heal her despite twelve long years of one setback after another. Now, in Jesus, God had finally rewarded her perseverance. All she had to do was touch the hem of his garment and be healed.

There remained the final comforting word from Jesus that confirms the woman's faith. Knowing "that power had gone out from him," Jesus asked who touched him. The woman "in fear and trembling," came forward and told him "the whole truth." Jesus spoke his word of comfort and healing to her, commending her faith and sending her away healed. It was the woman's faith which healed her. But it was Jesus's word of assurance that made her whole.

The Jerusalem Council: Through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ

1 Samuel 28:3-20; Acts 15:1-11; Mark 5:1-20

The first dispute in the early church was over the distribution of food. The Greek-speaking Jews complained that their widows were being left out of the daily distribution. This matter was settled with the appointment of the seven deacons. But as the church continued to grow and reach well beyond Jerusalem, not only to Jews but, even moreso, to Gentiles, a more complicated dispute was bound to emerge. Such was the case when, after Paul and Barnabas had brought many Gentiles to the faith with their message of salvation by grace, a group from Judea came down and began proclaiming a different message; a "gospel" with a distinctly Jewish flavor which required Gentile converts to be "circumcised according to the custom of Moses" in order to be "saved."

Paul and Barnabas wanted nothing to do with this legalistic aberration. They "had no small dissension and debate with" these Judaizers. To settle the matter, a delegation including Paul and Barnabas was sent to Jerusalem. For the first time, there would be a church council involving the apostles and elders. On the matter of whether or not the Gentiles should be required to observe the Jewish law, there were strong opinions on both sides. Paul and Barnabas, no doubt, argued strongly for salvation by grace through faith. But there were also some "who belonged to the party of the Pharisees" who "rose up and said, 'It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.'"

However, it was Peter, the senior apostle himself, who made the argument that carried the day. Requiring the Gentiles to submit to the law would not only be superfluous, but blasphemous, Peter said. "Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test," he asked, "by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?"

God had opened a new door to allow a new people to be brought in. Jew and Gentile alike would be saved in the same way. Peter stated it succinctly, "But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, just as they will."

The kingdom is for those who have ears to hear

1 Samuel 25:1-22; Acts 14:1-18; Mark 4:21-34

It takes discernment to understand the parables with which Jesus describes the kingdom of God. That is why he says, "If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear." The parables are not secret messages with hidden meanings. Their message and meaning are obvious to those with ears to hear. That is, for those who are citizens of the true Israel, the parables make perfect sense, but to those who have been masquerading as Israel, namely the religious establishment for whom God and the covenant had become private possessions, the meaning was indiscernible due to their spiritual blindness and deafness.

Depending on one's perspective, the parables are either the beginning of something new or the end of something old. For those with ears to hear, the seed of the kingdom of God was being planted. In Jesus, the glorious reign of God was being inaugurated. It would take root and grow from humble beginnings to bring renewal and restoration to the whole created order. For those who were set in their ways and valued things as they were, however, the parables were messages of doom and destruction. The world they so valued, the world in which they were first and everyone else was last, was coming to an end. The last were about to become first, and the first were about to become last.

In utilizing parables to communicate the Gospel of the kingdom, Jesus was not so much describing what that kingdom would be like when it finally came in all its fullness. Rather, he was announcing its arrival in language that could only be understood and received by those who had truly been longing for it. To those with ears to hear, the parables were a message of hope and a promise of better things to come. For those invested in the kingdom of this world, they were a stinging rebuke which portended the ultimate dismantling of their world of privilege, power, and self-congratulation.

The kingdom of God is for those who have ears to hear the clear and life-changing message of Jesus above all the self-exalting voices of this world.

Slow Dance: Poem by a terminally ill teen

Wesley J. Smith at Secondhand Smoke posts this beautiful poem, written by a terminally ill teenager whose dying wish is to have it read by as many people as possible.

SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day On the fly?
When you ask How are you?
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?

You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die,
Cause you never had time To call and say,’Hi’

You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….
Thrown away.

Life is not a race.
Do take it slower.
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

A little Lewis as Lent lingers

When Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral. When they speak of being "in Christ" or of Christ being "in them," this is not simply a way of saying that they are thinking about Christ or copying Him. They mean that Christ is actually operating through them: that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts--that we are His fingers and muscles, the cells of His body. And perhaps that explains one or two things. It explains why this new life is spread not only by purely mental acts like belief, but by bodily acts like baptism and Holy Communion . . . There is no good in trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.

Fleeing from a gracious and merciful God

Ash Wednesday
Jonah 3.1-4.11, Hebrews 12.1-14, Luke 18.9-17

Jonah knew God was "gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." But, for some reason, he was not happy serving such a God. What point is there in warning the people of Ninevah that God is about to overthrow them if, upon hearing the warning, the Ninevites repent and God relents of all the catastrophe he was going to inflict on them?

Mercy was at the heart of God's call to Jonah. But it was mercy toward a city which Jonah, no doubt a very devout Jew based on his knowledge of the Scriptures, saw as a hated enemy. This was Jonah's problem all along. He knew God was only using him as an instrument to bring about Ninevah's repentance. The grace, the mercy, the steadfast love were all directed tot he wrong place, the wrong people. "What's in it for me?" was Jonah's question. He knew the law. He kept the law. He was a diligent student of the Scriptures. How else would he know so much about the grace, mercy, and love of God? His prayer might very well have been similar to that of the Pharisee, "God, I thank you that I am not like other men . . . I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get." But it is the wicked Ninevites who are the beneficiaries of God's mercy because they, like the tax collector, cried out, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."

If we are honest with ourselves, we are more sympathetic with Jonah than with Ninevah. Consider Jonah's ordeal. He fled from the presence of God not, as it turns out, because he feared a vengeful, wrathful God but because he knew God was "gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." He knew the dire warning God was calling him to issue to the Ninevites was only a means of getting them to repent in sackcloth and ashes. God did not desire to destroy Ninevah, but to save it by bringing its people to their knees.

Jonah fled from God because he knew God all too well. He would rather see Ninevah destroyed than given a chance to repent. But God would not have been God if he had destroyed that city without warning. Jonah would rather have been the instrument of God's judgment, not of his mercy. But that was not his choice to make, and neither is it ours. No matter how "good" we imagine ourselves to be (and it is just our imagination, for only God is good), if we harbor resentment toward our enemies, if we desire their destruction rather than their redemption, then we are the first ones who need to repent.

If we know God is gracious and merciful, yet we would rather see him act with vengeance toward those who have mistreated us, then we may know him all too well, but love him far too little. If that is the case, we need to heed the words of Hebrews, "Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed."

Our loving heavenly Father may be subjecting us to discipline  precisely to demonstrate his grace, mercy, and love toward us in order that we can appreciate it when he extends it, likewise, to those we dislike, don't trust, and wish would go away.

"Strive for peace with everyone," says the writer of Hebrews, "and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." Peace and holiness go hand in hand. Unless we are at peace with everyone, we cannot strive toward holiness; and without holiness, "no one will see the Lord."

Demas syndrome: A love affair with this present world

To be "in love with this present world," like Paul's former companion Demas, is to be deceived by its illusions. Demas deserted Paul in his hour of greatest need, much like the disciples deserted Jesus during his hour of trial. In fact, Paul writes, "At my first defense, no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me." All of his fair weather friends, it seems, turned out like Demas. They loved "this present world" too much to sacrifice their livelihood for the hope of the world to come. But, in true Christ-like fashion, Paul says, "May it not be charged against them!"

Paul was ready to endure whatever suffering "this present world" could inflict upon him. His wayward companions seemed lacking in perseverance. Being "in love with this present world" clouds one's perception of things. From a "this present world" perspective, the natural is the reality, not the spiritual. Thus, one can, as Jesus says, "see a cloud rising in the west" and "say at once, 'A shower is coming.' And so it happens," and "see the south wind blowing" and "say, 'There will be scorching heat, and it happens." In other words, one can discern all the natural phenomena of "this present world" but be completely blind to the true spiritual climate of "the present time."

Jesus' words were a stark warning to a generation blissfully unaware of its impending doom. They could judge by natural appearances, but they could not discern their own sorry spiritual predicament, punctuated by their inability to recognize who Jesus was and what his coming meant. They were all too eager to receive a Messiah who would inflict violence upon their enemies and free them from foreign rule. They were not prepared, however, for a Messiah who would bring division within their own households. But Jesus emphatically declares, "I came to bring fire on the earth," and the first to get burned will be the household of Israel itself. His coming means not peace, but division, "three divided against two and two against three, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

This is what might be called a perfect division; the kind of division which can only come from the One who wields the double-edged sword of the Word of God. It is not what those "in love with this present world" expected from the Messiah. They expected him to take on Israel's enemies. They did not expect him to take on the enemy within. But that is exactly what Jesus came to do. He came to cleanse the temple and drive out those who had turned it into a den of robbers. The ones he came to judge first were those who should have known better. But they were "in love with this present world" and did not realize their love affair was little more than a form of spiritual adultery.

Undiscipled disciples (Dallas Willard)

For at least several decades the churches of the Western world have not made discipleship a condition of being a Christian. One is not required to be, or to intend to be, a disciple in order to become a Christian, and one may remain a Christian without any signs of progress toward or in discipleship. Contemporary American churches in particular do not require following Christ in his example, spirit, and teachings as a condition of membership--either of entering into or continuing in fellowship of a denomination or a local church. Any exception to this claim only serves to highlight its general validity and make the general rule more glaring. So far as the visible Christian institutions of our day are concerned, discipleship clearly is optional. . . . Churches are filled with "undiscipled disciples," as Jess Moody has called them. Most problems in contemporary churches can be explained by the fact that members have not yet decided to follow Christ.

Little good results from insisting that Christ is also supposed to be Lord: to present his lordship as an option leaves it squarely int he category of the white-wall tire and the stereo equipment for the new car. You can do without it. And it is--alas!--far from clear what you would do with it. Obedience and training in obedience form no intelligible doctrinal or practical unity with the salvation presented in recent versions of the gospel.

The "secret" of the kingdom

Outward appearances meant everything to the "hypocrites" who were always exalting themselves over everyone else. They wanted others to praise them for practicing their "righteousness" openly. When they gave to the needy, they made sure everyone knew about it. When they prayed, they stood in the synagogues and loudly proclaimed their thanksgiving to God for having not made them like other people. When they fasted, they wanted everyone to know it by the gloomy countenance on their faces.

Such persons got exactly what they wanted. They were praised by others for their outward piety. But inwardly, they were still the same. All their acts of righteousness gained them noting but the accolades of the crowds. Jesus warns against this kind of false religiosity. The kind of "righteousness" that truly honors God is that which is practiced not in public, but in secret.

Give to the needy, buts let the joy of giving be its own reward (Matthew 6.2-4).

Cultivate a life of prayer, but keep your focus on God, not yourself (Matthew 6.5).

Spend your prayer time in secret, where you can be open and honest with God about your faults, your failures, your struggles, as well as be genuinely thankful for his blessings (Matthew 6.6).

Practice fasting, but don't make it a public spectacle. Glorify God in your fasting by maintaining an outward appearance that reflects the inward joy you receive from walking daily in his presence (Matthew 6.16-18).

The "secret" of the kingdom of God, the path to perfection and holiness, is the inner life of constant communion with God. The "righteousness" we practice outwardly is to be a reflection of the righteousness God is cultivating within us through the work of his Holy Spirit, forming and shaping us into the image and likeness of Christ.

What is prayer? (Johann Gerhard)

Browse your typical Christian bookstore these days and you will find, for the most part, a vast wasteland of trendy titles, self-help schmaltz, and leftover copies of Left Behind. Every now and then, however, you might come across a real gem from a more classical era. Such was the case today when I came across Johann Gerhard's classic collection of devotional prayers, Meditations on Divine Mercy. Here is a small sample, from the introductory chapter, "What is Prayer?"

If someone wants to describe adequately the usefulness of pious, earnest prayer, he will, in my opinion, surely find a beginning more easily than a conclusion. Pious prayer offered in faith is familiar conversation with God. It is a salutary remedy to all the difficulties of life. It is the key to heaven and the door to paradise. It shows us how much we depend on God, and it is a ladder of ascension to God. It is a shield for our defense and a faithful messenger of the ambassador. It is refreshment in the heat of misfortune; it is medicine during illness. It is a winch, drawing us to heaven, and a vessel that draws water from the font of divine kindness. It is a sword against the devil and a defense against misfortune. It is a wind that blows away evil and brings earthly benefits. It is a nurse that nurtures virtue and conquers faults. It is a great fortification for the soul and gives free access to God. It is a spiritual feast and a heavenly delicacy. It is a consolation for the dejected and a delight for the holy. It grants knowledge of the secret things of God and acquires His gifts. It upholds the world and rescues people. it is a joy for the heart and a jubilation for the mind. It follows God's gift of grace, and it leads ahead into glory. It is a garden of happiness and a tree full of delights. It calms the conscience and increases our thankfulness. It sends demons running and draws angels close. It is a soothing remedy for the misfortunes of this life and the sweet smell of the sacrifice of thanksgiving. It is a foretaste of the life to come and sweetens the bitterness of death.

The sheep dog (Evelyn Underhill)

We offer ourselves, one way or another, to try to work for God. We want, as it were, to be among the sheep dogs employed by the Lord Shepherd. Have you ever watched a good sheep dog at work? He is not an emotional animal. He goes on with his job quite steadily; takes no notice of bad weather, rough ground or of his own comfort. He seldom or never stops to be stroked. Yet his faithfulness and intimate communion with his master are of the loveliest things in the world. Now and then he looks at the shepherd. And when the time comes for rest, they are generally to be found together.

Let this be the model of your love.

A true pastor prays

Thoughts from Wilhelm Loehe:

He who does not pray for the flock is not a true shepherd; intercession is at once an obligation of our office and of love. Yea, prayer is an invincible and inescapable passion of the true pastor's heart. A true shepherd prays even when he receives no answer. Nor does he pray only for his own visible activity. When Boos was pastor on the Rhine in the year 1820 he had a visit from a friend. He took him about the neighborhood countryside and said: "Look around here, there is hardly a spot on this mountain where I have not many a time lain on my face and wept and prayed that the Lord would give me the grace to open my mouth with boldness and preach his Word with success to the reviving of hearts, but I receive no answer." He could do nothing but pray. And he was heard, more than he knew. And what his biographer says is certainly true: "There is no doubt that here in Sayn on the Rhine, the Lord did more through him--at least in him--than anywhere else, but he would not let him know it. It was to happen quietly." Let us mark that, to our shame! May the Lord, however, mend his servants and teach them in penitence to seek cleansing of their sins! May his Holy Spirit teach them to pray!

The door into abundant life

A meditation on John 10:1-18

"I came that they may have life and have it abundantly," Jesus says. Some have taken this passage and misled many into believing their life ought to be one of blessing upon blessing, joy without sorrow, comfort without suffering. Suffering is seen by these purveyors of the half-truth gospel as a sign of weak or inadequate faith. Life, for the victims of their false teaching, becomes one long guilt trip punctuated by the constant fear that they somehow lack the faith to inherit the kingdom.

But Jesus does not promise us a comfortable life, a luxurious life, or a life free from sorrow or suffering. Jesus says of those he came to save, “I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.”

Familiarity with the imagery Jesus uses is no less and obstacle to understanding what he is talking about than it was to his original hearers. Jesus says he is the "good shepherd" who "lays down his life for the sheep." Tending sheep was a common enough profession in Jesus’ day. Moreover, the Old Testament was replete with images of the shepherd. “The LORD is my shepherd. . .” What is Jesus doing, if not simply elaborating on what should be a very familiar tradition in the history of Israel? Yet, the people don’t understand this “figure of speech,” and many of us today are in the same boat. But why?

For the answer, we need look no further than the Scripture itself. “All who came before me,” Jesus says, “are thieves and robbers.” Now, think for a minute. This is all very, very basic. The coming of the Messiah, the true Shepherd of the sheep, is preceded by false teachers, pretenders, and those who would turn the truth on its head and deceive many. When Jesus arrives on the scene, a veil of deception has descended upon the people, stopping up their ears and turning their hearts to stone. They are enslaved by the false teachings of a religious establishment which has twisted the law so to make it an end in itself, rather than the means to prepare God’s people for the end, which comes in Jesus. When Jesus speaks of the shepherd who enters by the door, who calls the sheep by name and leads them out, he is employing the figurative language of apocalyptic. The shepherd gathering the sheep is an image of the end time, of the last day. It is Jesus gathering the elect, leading them out of the darkness of death and into the glorious light of the presence of God. But not only is Jesus the shepherd who enters by the door. He also says, “I am the door.” To enter through the door that is Christ is to enter into the life of Christ, which is the very life of God. That is the life, the abundant life, which Jesus came to give us.

Read it all at Columbia Faith and Culture Examiner

Ash Wednesday: Keeping focus on God

It is possible that the shock value of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18.9-14) has been lost on those of us who, two thousand years removed, have been so immersed in the comforting doctrine of salvation by grace through faith. Of course, it was the tax collector, not the Pharisee, who “went down to his house justified.” He was the one who relied on the mercy of God, unlike the Pharisee, who thought he could justify himself by reciting his litany of good deeds. To the twenty-first century evangelical, there is nothing at all unusual about this parable and what it teaches. It is the very essence of the Gospel.

But there is an old dictum that the Scriptures were written for us, but not necessarily to us. Jesus had a very specific audience in mind when he cast the Pharisee as the self-righteous blowhard and the tax collector as the humble penitent. To any devout first century Jew, The Pharisees represented the purest form of Judaism. Tax collectors, on the other hand, were the ultimate collaborators. Not only did they sell out the faith of their fathers, they also exploited their position for personal enrichment.

The contrast could not be more stark: the Pharisee, the embodiment of everything good and pure and decent, and the tax collector, the very face of collaboration and exploitation. There could be little doubt whose side Jesus’ original listeners would take. They wanted, and expected, the Pharisee to go home justified and the tax collector, despite his pleas for mercy, to get everything he deserved. To their ears, Jesus’ words, “I tell you, this man [the tax collector] went down his house justified, rather than the other [the Pharisee],” would have been shocking. The very idea that a miserable tax collector would be justified in the sight of God just because he cried out for mercy and the fine, upstanding Pharisee would be turned away despite his record of service would have literally turned their world upside down.

The beginning of the Lenten season is a particularly appropriate time to consider the implications of this parable. Much of the emphasis over the next forty days will be on precisely the kind of spiritual disciplines which the Pharisee thought would justify him before God. How quickly we tend to fall back into a legalistic form of righteousness, especially when the emphasis of the season is the invitation to observe the disciplines of “holy living.” We must be careful to remember that none of these disciplines are ends in themselves. We are justified by grace, not by works, and no amount of boasting about our sterling record of spiritual discipline will make us worthy to stand before God. As the writer of Hebrews reminds us, it is God himself who disciplines us for our good. What was it, after all, that brought that tax collector to his knees in the first place? Was it not God’s own gracious initiative, the promise of forgiveness if only he would turn from his sin and cry out for mercy?

“Two men went up into the temple to pray.” One, a Pharisee, went on his own initiative. The other, a tax collector, went in response to God’s invitation. The Pharisee was focused on himself; the tax collector was focused on God. That, in the end, is why the tax collector, not the Pharisee, “went down to his house justified.” No amount of fasting, tithing, or any other works, no matter how good they may seem, will send us home justified if they become ends in themselves, rather than means through which we keep our focus squarely on God.

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

In the midst of death we are in life

I was asked to provide the Words of Comfort at our annual memorial service for families of our hospice patients this Sunday. In putting together my message, I came across this meditation by G.A. Studdert-Kennedy from his book The Wicket Gate. Kennedy was a chaplain during World War I who gained notoriety for handing out cigarettes to dying soldiers. After the war, he embraced the misguided philosophy of Christian socialism. Those quirks aside, however, his thoughts on death and eternal life are worth pondering.

The last certainty is the certainty of death. It is the one thing of which we can be sure. We may try to forget it, but it will not forget us. Nor can we ever really forget it until we have faced it and come to a decision about it. In the midst of life, we are in death, unless we know that in the midst of death we are in life.

The more we grow in the love of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness, the more completely human we become, the more intense must grow our hunger for immortality and our abhorrence of death. The idea that belief in immortality is an ancient doctrine fast losing ground is an exact reversing of the facts, it is a completely modern doctrine which the growth of human personality and its firmer hold on a wider world makes inevitable. It is the human infancy that cries, "How good is human life, the mere living, how fit to employ all the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy." It is the fully developed human being who cries, "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you."

Faith in eternal life is and must be the logical conclusion--using logic in its fullest human sense--of the instinct of self-preservation. As we grow, so grows that divine discontent that severs us completely from the rest of the animal creation and bids us reach out to fuller and fuller life. We can find endless reasons to justify the instinctive craving, but it is the instinct that sets us reasoning, and unless the world is a fraud, that instinct points to something real by which it can be satisfied.

The shadowy hosts whom Virgil pictured in the underworld, crowding by the river bank and stretching out their hands in longing for the farther shore, held out their hands backward to the life that they had left, not forward to the life which was to come. But as humanity grows, the hands turn around and are stretched out to the future, not back to the past. We become conscious that the most perfect things in life like Love, Beauty, and Truth fall short of perfection. And yet God has given us so much, can we believe that God will not give more?

From the purely intellectual point of view there are many sound philosophical arguments for eternal life. But certainty only comes with certainty about God and God's love. We can never reach the point of victory and triumph over death until we reach the heart of the Father in Jesus Christ, and it is that triumphant certainty that we need not for the future only but for the present. We cannot live in this life aright unless we see it in its true perspective, see it as the foreground of eternity. Apart from that we tend to see all things in a wrong proportion; big things become little and little things become big and we labor for that which is not bread. There is no peace for us as long as we live in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. It is only the tender mercy of our God whereby the Day-spring from on high can visit us to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, only through God's mercy that our human feet can be guided into the paths of peace. Apart from this triumphant certainty life becomes vulgar and sordid. When the shadow of death falls over all the beauty of the world, the hunger for life in us is so strong that it tends to brutalize and drive us to grasp at everything we can get without caring how we get it, and life tends to become a struggle of swine about the trough--a struggle in which there is no tenderness and no mercy.

Unless then life mocks us and has no meaning, the instinct for self-preservation must have its perfect work and must lead to truth, not falsehood. The Christian hypothesis is that life is as good as God revealed in Christ and that behind the Cross there is ever and always the resurrection. And it is only by taking that hypothesis and living life as though it were true, flinging ourselves upon it recklessly in the faith that God keeps the good wine until the last, that we can come to that triumphant certainty which destroys death and makes us sure that in the midst of death we are in life everlasting.