Life in the Desert: Not Wanting This Journey, But Here It Is

People say all the time, "Life is a journey," or "I am on a journey," and this sounds good.  The image that comes to mind is you are on a road of your own choosing, and despite a rock or two in your path, you walk on, aware that you have not reached your destination.

But what if the journey you are on is not of your own choosing?  The road that you now walk is not familiar and each day is more like a strenuous hike then a gentle amble. 

Then it hits you:  How did I get on this road in the first place?  Maybe I chose to walk it initially, but then it became something I had not planned on, and now each mile is a drudge. 

I am personally in the desert.  I went from teaching literature and writing at a community college to a full time caretaker after my husband suffered a stroke and a heart attack ten years ago. My life changed in a New Your minute. So did his. 

His road became my road. After seven years, I went back to work, but the stress of teaching high school and continuing to caretake wore me down.  Modern teachers do a lot of caretaking of students--their needs, their mental health, their unhappy home life and their parents, who are either absent from their child's education (until they get a bad grade and it must be the teacher's fault, right?) or they come in like a Mongolian hoard or your administrators do, wanting to placate a parent who has spent all morning in their office. 

So, I am at home full time.  Just recently, my husband had open-heart surgery.  It was a long procedure, and everything went well. But his road is my road, and it will be a long one as he recovers.  

I want to explore desert life in light of the Israelites' sojourn. It struck me that they never asked to be slaves in Egypt.  In Genesis 42, we learn that a famine in Canaan, where Jacob and his sons lived, drove  Jacob to send his sons down to Egypt to buy food. 

Legitimate reason, right?  Why not?  

We are starving, there is food available for sale to us down south, so let's go!

Joseph is in charge and his brothers don't recognize him and he tests them by demanding that they bring their brother back, to prove they are not spies. Sometimes the road has obstacles and these sons of Jacob (and brothers to Joseph) hit theirs, but the famine drove them to do what Joseph requested. They arrive at Joseph's court and having proven themselves not to be spies, Joseph invited them to eat, but "They served him by himself, the brothers by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because Egyptians could not eat with Hebrews, for that is detestable to Egyptians." (Gen. 43:32). 

Whoops! Another obstacle.

Oh great. I can smell the food, the table's set and now these Egyptians have some stupid custom that we cannot eat with them. Oh, wait a minute. OK, we get to eat. So what if it's in another room. We will get to eat!

But this obstacle can be overcome. It's a short detour, but not a lengthy, soul-sucking one. That comes later when a Pharaoh rises to power and didn't know Joseph (or was either probably unaware or didn't care about all he had done for Egypt) and saw the children of Jacob as a threat, because of their very numbers.  He embarked on a murderous program of their baby boys.  He enslaved the people. 

Not a road of their choosing.  Nor, did they count on the length of stay: 400 years in Egypt.  What started out as a journey to survive a famine became enslavement.  The people, starting with Joseph and Jacob, had no idea where this journey would take them, and how it would turn out for everyone. 

But that's the broad sweep.  How about everyday life for the Hebrew salves?

Hey!  I heard that we were free once, and didn't have to work day after day in the desert sun.  What happened?

Joseph did right by us. We had food and what we needed and Goshen is a nice place to live.  What happened?

The Pharoah has set up a plan to kill our baby boys!  WHAT HAPPENED?

All good questions, but that is truly the motto of the desert:  "What happened?"  Life as I know it has changed so much that my life is now almost unrecognizable.  All that I took my identity from is gone.  All that I saw as part of my life as faded into view and now I face the uncertainty of wide open desert spaces with rocks, wind and emptiness.

What happened?

Come, walk with me in the desert.  You may have just left one and you are trying to process the experience; you may be entering one, and wondering what the future holds or you may be in yet another one, wondering if there is any other kind of terrain in your world.  This might be your first sojourn and you are looking for a map.

Join me. If you notice that once the Israelites went into the desert, they went together--in a community.  God does not have you out there alone.

Even Jesus, who entered the desert, went out with His Father and the Holy Spirit, and the angels ministered to Him when His time out there was done.  

Come. 

No one asks to go in to the desert, but we can choose, even if we are broken and weary, how we respond. 

Come. 

The Messiah Will Not Arrive in Air Force One, Part III

I have been absent from my blog because my husband just had open heart surgery. He had an aortic valve replacement in 2014, and it was no longer doing its job. He also needed a double bypass. He's back at home, recovering well.

It's been a long journey, and will be for a while, but God is in the desert of our lives. We may view the past as sweeter, complaining just as the children of Israel did: "The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, 'If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.'" (Ex. 16:1-3)

Did you catch that? It had only two months since they saw God's mighty display of the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea and, most of all, their liberation from slavery.

Yes, they had pots of meat to eat. Why? Because masters feed their slaves. They ate with the whip nearby.

Yes, they could have died in Egypt, had there been no blood placed on their doorframes, but they didn't. Why? God was liberating them and taking them to a place they couldn't even begin to imagine. 

The past isn't always as sweet as we remember it, but in the light of current events, the past seems to have a golden hue. Yes, I am in a trying time, but God, despite my grumbling in the desert, has led me day by day. My verse during this time is, "You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself." (Ex. 19:4) I have heard the gentle sound of wind as I have travelled in this desert. It has been hard. Very heard. But I still hear that gentle wind. God is faithful, even when I am not.  We can come out of Egypt, but it's hard to get the Egypt out of us.

So, let us continue our exploration of who we are counting on for the reclamation of our country.  I came across two scriptures that are informative to this question. The first comes from Psalm 146:

"I will praise the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
Do not put your trust in princes,
in human beings, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God." (2-5)

Psalm 118 echoes that same declaration: 
 
"When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord;
he brought me into a spacious place.
The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?
The Lord is with me; he is my helper.
I look in triumph on my enemies.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in humans.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in princes." (5-9)

Interesting, huh?  It's is far too easy to depend on others to make things right.  We are then able to cheer them on, when they accomplish the things we have on our political "to-do" list.  But we feel we have the right to excoriate them when they fail us, bringing out an ugliness that is not a good representation of the God we serve. Our justification for our ire and condemnation is that they failed us. 

Really?  Do we get a free pass to be verbally abusive and condemning when our leaders fail us?  Look at the verses from Leviticus 19: "The Lord said to Moses, 'Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: "Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy."" (1-2)

These people were former slaves.  Yet God, because of His mercy and grace, brought them to a new space:  They were to be good not to avoid the whip, but to be representatives of God in a world filled with violence and violation of all things holy.  

Yes creation speaks of God, but we personalize God, make Him evident in our lives or when we fail Him, we misrepresent Him in our lives.  I love how The Message puts it:

"Friends, this world is not your home, so don’t make yourselves cozy in it. Don’t indulge your ego at the expense of your soul. Live an exemplary life in your neighborhood so that your actions will refute their prejudices. Then they’ll be won over to God’s side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives. Make the Master proud of you by being good citizens. Respect the authorities, whatever their level; they are God’s emissaries for keeping order. It is God’s will that by doing good, you might cure the ignorance of the fools who think you’re a danger to society. Exercise your freedom by serving God, not by breaking the rules. Treat everyone you meet with dignity. Love your spiritual family. Revere God. Respect the government." (1 Peter 2:11-17)

Yes, but don't trust it.

Yes, but don't let it be a substitute for your own responsibilities and witness.

Yes, but don't let it lure you into anger and verbal reprisal when it fails to do what you think it should do.

Serve God where you are:  desert, Promised Land, or somewhere in between.  

He is faithful.  

So should we be: to Him and to letting the light of His love shine in our lives. 

It's not satisfying to our flesh to pray and serve the community we are in as opposed to going out in the streets and yelling for the political blood of our opponents, to post mean things and riling ourselves up about how the other side is just plain ________ (your choice of invective). 

But we are not to satisfy our flesh.  

It is not faithful. It can cause us to create division amongst the people we know, love and serve with, and all for what?  When the political event is over, and so are some of our relationships, then what?  

Jesus knew that empires change not because of better leaders, but because of changed hearts.  He could have overturned the Romans (and if anyone needed to be kicked to the curb, it was them) but Jesus chose a quieter, more subtle and yet way more powerful way:  transforming people's hearts, conforming them to His image and empowering them to love, serve and reflect His work in their lives.  

The Roman empire continued to be ugly, violent and contrary to all things holy, but God's people endured. The Romans are gone. But we are here, aren't we? 

One final note:  We may have to stand up against a violent and ugly government (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Corrie Ten Boom and Father Oscar Romero come to mind) but He needs to call and empower us to pursue His way of challenging evil, not our flesh.

Keep praying and pursuing the call on your life, but don't get suck into the political maelstrom that is seeking to overwhelm us all. 

The Messiah Will Not Arrive in Air Force One, Part II

We have explored the Kingdom of God in this blog, and its values.  The Kingdom extolls humility over power, forgiveness over vengeance and love over insistence. 

But the Kingdom of God is just that:  It is of God.  He sent His Son to inaugurate "a new and living way" and this way is at odds with the world and how it operates.  

But what about when Jesus is made to be a partner to the political process?  Doesn't that reduce His position, excellence and authority?  Then, sadly, having reduced His beautiful and majestic position, we offer Him a new label, one that suits our needs, because "Lord" doesn't fit our agenda very well.  We partner Him with our cause, and He becomes an honorary Democrat, Republican, monarchist, loyalist, Confederate, Union, Zealot, or whatever historical label people have given Him over the centuries.  

He is one of us, but He isn't any particular one.  He died to save mankind, and not just Americans or whatever group that would seek to make Him just theirs.    

That's the beauty of Jesus:  He is Lord to the poor, the broken, the lost--anyone who calls upon His name.  

Jesus ministered to anyone who would come to Him.  Think of the rollcall:  a Roman centurion; a former demon-possessed woman; a prostitute; a tax collector; a rich young ruler; a leader in the Sanhedrin; a blind man; a lame man; a leper; a member of the religious class; an unclean and suffering woman; a friend who grew sick and died; a father whose daughter died; a widow whose son died; a man who hung on a cross next to Him.

Those are the ones whose label He took on and did so gladly.  He became the Suffering Servant who walked with them in their suffering and was not ashamed to be associated with them.  He sought the lost. 

He still walks with us in our darkest moments and utterly understands our plight: No matter where we are, no matter who we are and no matter what we have done. 

But if we stick our label on Him, and not the one the Father gave Him, His beloved Son, then we miss who He really is.  He is the Lord of all, the Savior, the King of kings and Lord of lords and the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world.  

Right now, I am seeing Jesus used as a partner in this presidential race and it deeply grieves me.  I feel we are being groomed by political molesters who sit around mahogany desks and scheme how their candidate can get the Christian vote. We see photos ops and hear a kind of diluted Christian rhetoric that feels disingenuous to me.  

Are we exchanging the freedom we have in the Kingdom of God, where we can work everywhere with everyone, to a more limited sphere, where we only associate with those who think as we do?  

If the society is to change, it must do so from the ground up.  You and I need to be the change that we want to see in this world--not deferring to a political leader to do it for us.  We cheer that leader on, all the while we go about our own selfish business as usual. 

We love Jesus but we ally ourselves to a political party, to an agenda, created by those who seek to manipulate us, to gain power and then control us.  A vote for this or that leader is a vote for Jesus.

Really?  Is He so powerless that He needs us to vote in a leader that can do the work for Him?  Do we think so little of His power that we hedge our bets politically to get things done?  

God offers another way:   

"He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy 
and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8)

"Humbly" can also be translated as "prudently" according to Bible Gateway. We need wisdom from God, and not just who to vote for, but how to act in these perilous times.  

James tells us: "Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such 'wisdom' does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness." (3:13-18)

Wow. We need to ask Jesus to imbue us with His wisdom. 

Jesus was surrounded by ambitious people, who thought they had figured out the best way to transform Israel to its former godly glory:

1.  The Zealots:  Hey Jesus!  Fight the Romans with stealth and sword, and then at the right moment, rise up and rebel, and tear down their godless government, with their disgusting emperors and bloodthirsty ways!  We will be standing behind You all the way!

2.  The Jewish religious leaders:  Listen to us!  Return to the Torah with increased fervency and devotion and follow the Law without wavering, and don't listen to that Rabbi from Nazareth.  We know what's best, not Him. 

3.  The Disciples:  Just use your incredible power, Jesus, and become that Warrior-Messiah we know You are and make this Roman oppression go away!  Then set up a new government with us in charge!  

The list goes on and on.  

Jesus is not a running mate.

He is Lord and is calling us to bring His light into a dark world, healing to a broken world and love to an angry world. 

The Messiah Will Not Arrive in Air Force One, Part I

We are in perilous times.  I am wrestling with how we, as Christians, should respond to the chaos that is gripping our country.  Even people who do not believe sense something is truly amiss. 

We have lost the art of public discourse.  We respond in tweets and postings that are monologues, not dialogues:  We want the other side to hear us.  Just us.  Then if someone does respond, we are offended and hunker down with even more vitriol.  So the cycle continues, leading to an eye for an eye mentality.  But as Gandhi observe, such a pursuit will lead to the whole world being blind.

We are blind now:  to each other, to finding common ground and to discussing our differences with respectful listening. 

Even the church has experienced stinging animosity from within its own walls as well as from the surrounding culture. 

How do we respond?

The chaos seems to be a free pass to bad behavior, even on the part of Christians.  Many years ago, I was talking with a neighbor of mine who was very calm and then as soon as Covid came up, his whole countenance changed and he grew sullen and angry and said he had "faith, not fear."

Fear does that to people, Christian or not.  When you feel that you have no real influence on the world around you, that things just happen and that you cannot trust other people to be dependable, fear creeps in and it is way too easy for us to lash out.

The Covid pandemic showed us just how fear transformed this country into picking sides, and glaring at those who took the side you didn't take.  People felt free to blurt out whatever they wanted to and expected people to listen and not react in a negative way, yet they equally felt they could attack anyone they disagreed with.  Covid showed us how deeply divided a nation we really are.  Now, the presidential election is ramping up the fear and people are lashing out again. 

But look at Jesus' choice of disciples.  He picked Simon the Zealot to follow Him.  We not told in the Gospels where or when He chose him, but clearly Jesus was making a point by including him.  The Zealots had legitimate complaints.  Their nation was no longer under Jewish control; worse, it was in the hands of pagans.  People who enjoyed watching people get torn apart by wild animals, have sex with male and female prostitutes, engaged in sex trafficking and slavery, conducted brutal wars and had little or no regard for the God of Israel.  Yes, there were God-fearing Romans (the centurion whose servant Jesus healed comes to mind) but the vast majority of them were completely removed from the value system of the Jewish people.

So, in the Zealots' view of the world, why not stick a knife into a Roman and start the insurrection that would kick the Romans out once and for all? 

Isn't God on our side?  This is His land, His people and He will honor the efforts of His patriots to uproot the poisonous weed that is the Romans!  

In fact, Rome had spread into all corners of Jewish society:  The Jewish leaders of the Temple had to work with them to maintain the system; the walls of the Fort Antonia were taller than the walls of the Temple, so the Romans soldiers could look down on (literally and metaphorically) what was going on in the Temple courts. 

The Romans used Jews to collect their taxes for them--Matthew was a testimony to that.  The people were barely getting by, and yet the Romans reached in and took their hard-earned money to do what?  Build more palaces, more temples, more roads, more entertainment venues, and all for what?  The glory of Rome! Romans went to those places, but Jews didn't and yet they helped pay for them.

Is Jesus somehow advocating the Zealots' agenda by including him as a disciple?  Or is He showing him there is another way?  The Zealots had grown impatient with God's seemingly inactivity with vindicating His people.  So, the Zealots were going to lead the charge and because they were the chosen people, God would step in and assist them against His enemies.  Many of the psalms talk about David's desire to have his enemies crushed and is calling upon God to come to his aid.

So, why not now! argued the Zealots.  Jesus' miracles were testimony to how God's power resided in this Man, and now the Warrior-Messiah was clearly in this world.  Simon got to follow Him!  So, Simon must have felt utter elation....finally, God's Anointed One was here, ready to overcome the Romans with His fire and thunder.  The Romans, as with any of God's enemies, wouldn't stand a chance.

Yet, that is not what Jesus did.  In fact, He allowed the Romans to crucify Him.

What?  

But Jesus knew that you can change kingdoms but without changed hearts, those kingdoms will descend into chaos and become just like the ones they replaced. In other words, any kingdom that is based on untransformed hearts will rule from the flesh:

"So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.  The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."  (Gal. 5: 16-21).

But as Timothy Keller points out in his book, Encounters With Jesus, evil is not just the sum total of a fallen humanity's decisions. There is an evil presence that then magnifies, amplifies and encourages the sins of individuals, and then drives those decisions to deeper and more catastrophic results. 

That is why a political solution to our country's problems is so fraught with danger.  It's not just humans beings trying to work out solutions to problems and making mistakes in the process; it is our sin being amplified by the prince of this world that makes our solutions problematic.

That is why Jesus didn't become the Warrior-Messiah that the Zealots wanted;  He knew that He needed to die to set us free not from the clutches of a depraved government but from ourselves and from Satan's prowlings that augment our sin.

We are facing the same conundrum today.  We see a society that is hostile to Christian values and we are looking to leadership to change our country for the better.

Not unreasonable. 

But my question is this:  If we expect change from the top down, are we allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us on a daily basis, so we may be salt and light to a world that is decaying and descending into darkness? Are we actively growing, confessing, reconciling and seeking to build bridges with others or are we letting the culture so anger us that we lose our restraint and allow our flesh a full rein?

Are we expecting the Messiah to arrive in Air Force One? 

Or do we let Him arrive in our hearts each day to enact His will and His love in this world, through us and in us? 

Easy to be a Pharisee

A few weeks ago, I blogged about an older man disrupting our service to yell at a young man up on stage wearing a hat.  Truly, it was a generational difference:  Young men today wear their hats all the time, indoors and out. This man yelled at him, accusing him of being disrespectful.  The older man then left in a huff with his wife following after him.

My pastors then spent time emphasizing how God welcomes us all to His table; you come as you are.  I made the analogy in my blog that if a church is a hospital, then people are welcomed to come in bleeding, sick and disoriented.  If we stop them at the door and say, "Oh, I am sorry.  We can't let you in like that.  You need to clean up first," then why are we here as a church, representing the work of Jesus on this planet?

Look at Jesus responded to the messiness of humanity: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." (Luke 5:32) 

Sinners know they need Jesus.  The "righteous" are so caught up in themselves that they think they have achieved what God demands, so they go their merry way, condemning others for their failure to be like them.  Their "righteousness" has set the standard whereby they judge everyone else.

But we do not set the standard, no matter how good we are.  The standard is set by God and is of God.  Paul argues that as good as the Jewish people are, even compared to the Gentiles, everyone falls short: 

"What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:
    'None is righteous, no, not one;
    no one understands;
    no one seeks for God.
    All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
    no one does good,
    not even one.'” (Romans 3:9-12) 

That is quite the indictment, but if God Himself is the standard, then there is no way we are going to ever reach an equal equivalent, and thus judging one another is ridiculous.

But we do judge.  The older man judged that young man because in his generation, you doffed your hat as a sign of respect.  Fair, but not biblical.  The older man said that young man was being disrespectful to God.  I believe him yelling at that young man, disrupting the service and causing a wounding of the Body of Christ that day was even more disrespectful.

But lest I come off as a Pharisee, I had to have the Holy Spirit remind me not to make God's love conditional, so I said nothing to him earlier that morning about taking off his hat. He comes from a church that is saturated in works, and makes God's love conditional on how well you perform those works.  And of course, you are  never good enough, because there is always so much to do for a large and demanding church. 

As we read the gospels, we are horrified at the Pharisees' behavior.  They sniped at Jesus' teachings, accused Him of being demon-possessed, questioned His choice of followers and who He associated with, where He got His authority,  discounted His miracles and then after He raised Lazarus from the dead, plotted to kill Him.

What?

When did the Pharisees become, well, Pharisees?  There were exceptions of course:  Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, but if there were others, they were probably cowed into silence by the subtle intimidation of their colleagues. 

They started out wanting to study Torah, and to live a life that reflected God's work in them.  They saw themselves as the representatives of Israel, to the world and to their fellow Jews, and believed they were role models for the faith.

Not a bad goal.

But what happened?  They added a layer of oral law, because they deemed the Law of Moses was somehow inadequate to navigate all disputes.  The Britannica puts it this way:

"The basic difference that led to the split between the Pharisees and the Sadducees lay in their respective attitudes toward the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) and the problem of finding in it answers to questions and bases for decisions about contemporary legal and religious matters arising under circumstances far different from those of the time of Moses. In their response to this problem, the Sadducees, on the one hand, refused to accept any precept as binding unless it was based directly on the Torah—i.e., the Written Law. The Pharisees, on the other hand, believed that the Law that God gave to Moses was twofold, consisting of the Written Law and the Oral Law—i.e., the teachings of the prophets and the oral traditions of the Jewish people. Whereas the priestly Sadducees taught that the written Torah was the only source of revelation, the Pharisees admitted the principle of evolution in the Law: humans must use their reason in interpreting the Torah and applying it to contemporary problems." [1]

None of that sounds unreasonable. But Jesus, in His list of woes against the Pharisees, sees their tenacity to the Law has instilled in them a wicked attitude, filled with blindness and hypocrisy:

No. 1: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others..." (Matt. 23:1-5)

The teachers want to teach, but they themselves do not live our their teaching. 

No. 2:  “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." (Matt. 23:13-15)

With your deception, you end up misguiding those you teach, because you do not live by the truth, so you can't teach the truth.

No. 3: “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?  And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?  (Matt. 23:16-19)

You pick and choose, based on your own standards, what is righteously done and what is not.  You pervert what is sacred and model that to others to follow. 

No. 4: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!" (Matt. 23:23-24)

You major in the minors:  You worry about the little details you can control, all the while missing the most important things to God.  You'd be humbled if you saw what God saw.  

No. 5: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean." (Matt.23:25-26)

You look good on the outside and everyone looks at you and admires your righteousness, but inside,  you are quite the opposite. 

No. 6: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." (Matt. 23:27-28)

Hypocrisy is utterly unacceptable, because although human beings can't see it, God can.  God matters. Your keeping up of appearances does not. 

No. 7:  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’" (Matt. 23:29-30)

You act as if you would never behave in such a dishonorable way, but given enough offense and anger, one day you will kill the Prophet:  Jesus Himself. 

In other words, Jesus is not saying rules are bad, but when you dehumanize people ("We are not like those people!") and elevate the rules ("Everyone needs to do what they are told!") which are impersonal and not made in the image of God, and then not obey them yourselves, Jesus is not pleased.  At all.  He wants to see you humbly walking with your fellow human being, not standing there waving a finger and condemning them.  

In other words, He wants us to act like citizens of the Kingdom of God. 

So, let us return to the young man with the hat.

If the older man, instead of disrupting the service and yelling at him, had come up to him later and  quietly talked with him, that would have been a start.  But there still is a problem with that.  The older man had not cultivated a relationship with this young man.  He hadn't gotten to know him, and had not even tried to understand even a small part of this young man's story.  Instead, the older man relegated the young man to "that kid with a hat" (Did the man even know his name?  I think not) and felt that the violation of a cultural (not biblical rule ) allowed him to be a Pharisee, and uphold a standard at the cost of this young man's dignity.  

Rules and regulations are neat and clean, black and white, and there's no need to explain them--just do them.

Right? 

But are we sacrificing a person to an impersonal rule, because we really don't want to roll up our sleeves and get to know the person?

"But," someone might say, "That man spoke the truth in love."

Did he? He stormed out of church and then screamed at the pastors through the door of his home after they came over and tried to reconcile.

Where was the love? 

Do we then throw all rules out the door?  Well, no.  But we must ask ourselves some penetrating questions, in order to avoid becoming Pharisees, based on Jesus words: 

1.  Are we living out the rules ourselves or do we give ourselves an exemption because the person we are involved with needs these rules, but we, in our superiority, do not?

2.  Are we so convinced of how right we are, we never examine ourselves against Scripture and so we pass on our knowledge to others, with the very real possibility that we are deceiving them? 

3.  Do we let the culture of the past or the present decide what is right?  Have we idolize a period of time or a practice that again, is not biblical, but we think it's so important that it ought to be? 

4.  Do we feel the larger forces of life are controlling us, so we decide to control our little corner of the world like a tyrant, believing everyone should see things the way we do? 

5.  We talk a big talk, but we don't walk the walk because why should we? We are better than everyone else.  We allow ourselves a little sin because we have it all under control; they don't. 

6.  Hypocrisy is what others do.  Us?  We may not be consistent, but at least we stand for something, darn it!

7.  Anger can lead to murder, Jesus taught.  But we feel we have a right to our anger, because we are right, and everyone needs to get that. It's not like we are actually killing anyone (except maybe their  spirit). 

Jesus summarized how we are to approach rules and those who break them in a Kingdom of God way: 

"But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." (Matt. 23:8-12)

[1] "Pharisee/Jewish History," Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pharisee.

Kingdom Living: Mary of Bethany

It's easy to talk about the Kingdom of God, but how about living there?  It's easy to write a theological treatise on it, but what about when you are persecuted, feeling poor in spirit, and having to forgive someone you rather not?  Then the Kingdom become real:  It is Jesus' map on how we navigate life, and how we should think about what is confronting us as well as how we should react.  

Life in the Kingdom is not easy but it gives us a hope because we now we have the answer.  The  answer is a person:  Jesus.  

So, how do you live in the Kingdom when something earth-shaking and faith-shattering happens?  When the rug is pulled out from underneath you and you hit the floor really hard? Suddenly, Jesus sitting on a mountainside talking about the Kingdom feels distant, unreal, and not at all powerful, for what is happening to you is so overwhelming, everything gets pushed to the margins.

Including Jesus. 

Well, there is one person we can trace in the Gospels whose life went from trusting Jesus, to being so devastated that she accuses Jesus, to finding there was no one or nothing else but Jesus:  Mary of Bethany.

Her trajectory shows us life in the Kingdom.  As we dwell there, let's take inspiration from those who have gone before us.   Mary is in that cloud of witnesses that cheers us on.

We meet Mary as the sister of both Lazarus and Martha.  I want to include the full passages so you can understand the context.  Each passage will have a titled theme.  

Acceptance: 

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)

 Mary starts with a fundamental attitude as she neared the Kingdom: acceptance.  She was intrigued by what Jesus had to say.  She then sat enraptured at His feet, ignoring all that was going on around her. The two sisters had “opened their home to him,” and Mary sensed there was much more to this travelling rabbi than just a few blessings or a few teachings.  She could have busied herself with Martha in preparing the meal and all that goes with it.  She went beyond extending hospitality, because she wanted more than just making Jesus and His disciples comfortable. She offered her heart and Jesus touched it with His kindness.  But it was more than that:  She accepted Him and then responded to Him  because He was so much more than anything or anyone she had ever experienced.  

She sensed He was a kind of journey.  She set out courageously on His path. 

Accusation, Part I

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” (John 11:1-7)

Jesus knows that a kind of stage has been set.  It is a grievous one, played out generation after generation: the confrontation with death.  It is a thief, stealing away loved ones. It is a destroyer, taking away life and replacing with cold pale stillness.  It is a sun that sets but never rises. It is a final good-bye, bathed in tears, regrets and finality. Jesus knew that He would change all of that. Death came to Lazarus, took him into the tomb and Satan danced, snickering that Lazarus, like that stone, wasn't going anywhere.   

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” (John 11:17-27) 

Lazarus was dead. Period. No one would even think to dispute that. The silence, the tears, the finality of it all signaled Lazarus was no more.  

I am indebted to Timothy Keller in his wonderful book, Encounters with Jesus, for his insight into this passage.  He remarks that Jesus gave a divine answer to Martha's accusation of Jesus' seemingly dereliction of duty.  He answered her by saying something only God could say: He is the resurrection itself; it is not some distant day or time.  God gives life.  God breathes life into us, animating dust into a sentient being whose sole purpose is to worship God. Martha's words are piercing but so it Jesus' reply. 

At the moment, Jesus, who is fully God and fully man, answered from Heaven to Martha's cry from earth.  Her theology, while correct, did not fully comfort her.  It gave her hope, but in the moment, the hurt and loss was so overwhelming, that theology didn't matter. 

Accusation, Part II

What was Mary's reaction to her and Martha's loss, and Jesus' absence? She stayed home.  The One she so loved, and thought held the answer for how live should be led, now hung back, her hopes dashed that He might not be who she thought He was. Finally Mary shows up, after her sister comes home and says that the Teacher is asking for her.  Her hope once again springs to life and she says the exact same words as her sister did: 

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

Jesus wept. (John 11:32-35) 

Again, Timothy Keller observes that Jesus isn't just upset, but He is deeply angry inside, for death is everything He is against.  

His Father made creation very good.

He made man and woman to laugh, walk and sit forever in the presence of His Father.

Death walked through the door of sin, and sought to push God away.  It has been walking alongside humanity ever since.  Humanity blames God for death, and Satan fans that flame, deflecting who was really responsible: himself. 

Jesus was saying to Death that day, in His anger and His tears:  "Victory?  Not on My watch." 

Timothy Keller comments that Jesus answered Mary from His human side.  He offered His divine answer to Martha, but His human answer was to Mary.  Both are essential in this moment.  If Jesus had only answered as God, Martha and Mary would still have been devastated, glad to know God will defeat death one day, but they needed to know God was acting right here, right now. If Jesus had only answered as Man, He would have been a lovely counselor, confidante and yet limited, in the sisters' estimation, as to what He could realistically do.  

So He did both:  He made it clear He was going to defeat death and yet this loss was real and He embraced it with all of His heart. He wept.  He entered the very human experience of loss.  

That's dwelling in the Kingdom.  We see Jesus from both vantage points. We see Jesus as fully God:  able to plumb to the deepest part of our heart with words and power that only He can provide.  But we also see Him as fully Man: standing alongside us, weeping at our loss and rejoicing with our gain. 

We can accuse Him of not caring, not understanding, but He always shows up. 

We know the end of the story, but the sisters and everyone else that day did not. What a day!  Lazarus pushed aside the cold embrace of death and walked out into the light of day, all because of Jesus.

That is Kingdom living:  We know that one day, God will dwell with us in the new earth and the new Jerusalem; in the meantime, we have Jesus.  

Did you hear that?  We have Jesus. 

Anointing 

We meet Mary again, after her brother's resurrection:  

Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume..." (John 12:1-3)  

Judas complained that her gesture was a waste of money, but after what Mary experienced, money was no object.  In fact, nothing could get in the way of her anointing her Lord, pouring out sweet perfume as well as adoration.  Jesus then commended her by saying she did this in preparation of His burial.  She understood Jesus at a deeper level now; did she perceive what was to come?  

We know that Jesus' raising of Lazarus sealed His fate: the Pharisees plotted and planned His death. 

Once more, Timothy Keller weighs in.  Jesus' act of sacrifice brought Him to His death.  He knew this, but loved those around Him and us enough to bring one man out of the tomb, only to go in Himself. Love is sacrifice. Jesus demonstrated this love by willingly dying on a cross.

John identifies this woman as Mary because he wrote long after these events. Timothy Keller suggests that Luke, writing earlier, while many of these people were still alive, didn't name her. 

Awareness

We catch another glimpse into Mary:   

“When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” (Luke 7:36-39). 

Jesus then told a story about those who are deeply in sin are all the more grateful for forgiveness than those who think they have little to confess.  

Jesus told her that her faith saved her, and He commended her love. While she poured oil on His feet and the Pharisees poured contempt on her head, she loved Jesus without any reservations.   

She became aware, through Jesus' love, just how much she meant to Him, no matter what others say. 

This is Kingdom living in a nutshell:  Her love for Jesus, her faith in Jesus, brought her to His forgiveness.  He loved her and even if she had been the only one who believed in Him, He would have hung on that cross for her.  

We live in the Kingdom with our doubts, our fears, our hope and our love, knowing Jesus never fails to show up, meeting us as fully God and fully Man.  

The Wounded Body of Christ: A Firsthand Account

This isn't really about the Kingdom of God but in a way it is.  How we behave on Sunday may look Christian, but what are we carrying in our hearts as we enter church?

I serve on my church's worship team.  We have a young man who has been attending for awhile.  He is a lovely young man with a heart to serve.  He comes out of a church that makes God's love conditional...it is a church based on works. Works are just another way of saying, "You are not good enough in God's sight unless you do this, or this, mand this..."  

That's not the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God invites you in with the idea that God loves you the way you are, but He wants the best for you and that means transformation--conforming to the image of His Son.  That takes time, and needs to be under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

Think of a church as an ER.  If a person comes in with a head wound, and is bleeding profusely, you wouldn't bar him from entering by saying, "Excuse me.  You cannot come in here until you clean up all that blood.  That is going to upset the people sitting in here."

Or a pregnant woman walks in, obviously in labor, and a nurse says, "Wait a minute.  Where's your husband?  What?  You are not married?  I am sorry.  That goes against everything we stand for here.  I must ask you to leave."

Yet, that is what we do in church.  We expect people to act, look and behave as we do.  Yet, in the ER,  the doctors are there to direct the person back to health. It may takes years for the person to recover, but they must start somewhere, and there will be many visits to subsequent doctors, therapists and the person making good choices to effect that change to a healthier self.

See my point?

Once we start barring people, or putting pre-qualifications on them to enter our fellowship, why would they stay?

This young man plays on the worship team with me and several other people.  He was wearing a baseball cap.  I briefly thought of asking him to remove it, but the Holy Spirit said, "No.  Don't make him think he has to do certain things to be here, like his previous church."  Wow.  I let it go, knowing that him being here is the most important thing.  His family history is one of severe trauma, and he is with us because the Shepherd left us ninety-nine sheep and found this lost lamb.

Right after the first song, an older man stood up and yelled at us that the young man was being disrespectful to God by wearing that hat.  Another woman chimed in.

We were stunned.  Our worship leader/pastor responded with truth spoken in love: All are welcomed in our church and we are blessed by everyone being here. 

The older man was so angry, he got up and left.

The other pastor, in tears, shared with us his sorrow.  He was truly hurting for this young man, who was now shaking.  

Both pastors expressed their love for all of us and how some of our people are holding on to anger, judgment and this was not acceptable.  Our church is filled with older folks, and several of them have resisted change and are none too subtle in expressing it.  It has dragged down the hearts of our pastors; they have tried to minister to everyone equally and yet there are those who expect the pastors to bend to their demands.

Our pastors exhorted the people to stop being, in effect, impediments to the Body of Christ with their attitudes.  It was a powerful and much needed word from the Lord.  

If you view wearing a hat in church disrespectful, then so is anger, judgement, lashing out and condemning someone.  But those are hidden sins.  We saw them in full force yesterday, but more often than not, they lurk below the surface, unseen yet undealt with. 

They come out as the pastors listen once again to complaints about the music, or how they disapprove of x, y and z being done.  

The Kingdom of God is the opposite.  We pray for those we are angry at; we don't lash out; we don't come with our gift to the altar bearing anger or grudges and expect God to ignore all of that, because after all, those people deserve it!  Right?

Wrong.  

My prayer that this wounding of the Body yesterday will result in some introspection.  Several people yesterday did seek reconciliation and were deeply concerned about what happened; once everyone left, and the Holy Spirit got to work, I pray all of us would listen and follow His instructions.  He's the Great Physician, and wants us spiritually healthy.  Sometimes He guides us subtly and other times, He lances the sin boil and it hurts.  But healing usually cannot come any other way.

What kind of doctor would allow you to keep bleeding?  But it hurts when the doctor intervenes, but out of that pain comes restoration to health, so the short-term pain is worth the long-term gain.

One more thing.  Was that young man being disrespectful by wearing a hat in church?

Maybe in the 1950's.  But then women were expected to wear hats and gloves. In synagogues, you always cover your head as a sign of respect.  Men were expected to wear suits and ties.  Women wore  dresses.  Sunday best, right?

But does Jesus expect us to wear your Sunday best? What if you don't have a Sunday best?  Does that mean you are disappointing Jesus?

Or us?

Are people coming to church to honor us and our expectations?  Or are they coming to seek Jesus, sit at His feet, and learn from Him?

Do we get in the way, wanting the people to look, sound and act like we do?  If they don't, do we feel the right to correct them, not trusting the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives?

You may be thinking, "Hey!  Wait a minute!  Paul was very strict in his letters about behavior!"

Yes, true.  But he made a distinction between principles and practices.

Principles are not tied into culture--they transcend culture.  The Ten Commandments are an excellent example of principles:  Honoring God, honoring your family, and honoring your community is essential for a stable community that allows its members to flourish.

But covering your head? Not covering your head?  Paul addressed practices that some of his churches were engaged in and recommended against them in order to maintain the harmony within those churches.  Love is the ultimate principle, and it guides our practices  

So, yes, the practice of wearing hats in church showed respect at one time, but it is not a principle in Scripture.  Our Christian culture is not tantamount to the Bible, no matter how fiercely we may see it as so.  

The young man did witness one very important principle yesterday.  Conflict can be resolved in a loving way. Sadly, the elderly man missed out on that.  Despite our pastors' efforts to reconcile later in the day, and his rejection of their efforts, the older man missed out on what Christ's love can do with conflict. The young man, however, was surrounded with love.  He watched our pastors speak lovingly and truthfully about people's attitudes that are not harmonious with the Body of Christ.  So, that was a powerful lesson, despite its rather unpleasing beginning. 

The Kingdom of God is just that:  It requires we respect God and His Word, allow love to drive everything we do, and trust the Holy Spirit to work in us and to work in others, no matter how long it takes.  

The Kingdom of Man speaks death, traditions and alienation to those who dwell there.  The Kingdom of God speaks life, principles and community to those who dwell there. 

The door is open to both kingdoms.  We chose everyday which one we enter. 

Lord, help us to choose Yours.  But if we don't, help us to reconcile and seek forgiveness as soon as we can.  

The world is watching and wondering:  Are we a hospital or a prison?