Series on Meeting Jesus, part 5

5) Jesus Shows Us the Path to Life

First-hand religion is what the Bible and Christian teaching point to, not second-hand or traditional. Jesus affirms this by teaching that the essence of the narrow way is “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength”; death is the path to life.

We can see this immediacy of relationship from the Old Testament in the stories of people talking with God: Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, Cain, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, and so on.  These stories include direct relationship with God, the immediacy of a present God, not a God hidden behind or within creation or tradition.

Yet even tradition was set up to personalize relationship with God.  The three big stories of the Bible below are those identified by Marcus Borg in Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.  He mentions there are others, such as illness to healing, becoming a disciple, and more.

Slavery to Freedom story

Deut 6:4-9 Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.  These words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart, and you will teach them to your children, talk of them in your house and on the road, when you lie down and when you rise up, wear them on your hand and on your forehead, write them on your doorposts and on your gates.

Re Passover: And you will show your son in that day, saying, This is done because of what the Lord did to me in bringing me out of Egypt.

Deut. 6: 20-23 And if your son asks you, What is the meaning of the rituals, rules, and laws God gave us? you tell him: We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Before our eyes the Lord sent miraculous signs and wonders—great and terrible—upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household.  But God brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land God promised to our ancestors.  The Lord commanded us to obey these commands and to reverence the Lord our God so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today.  And if we are careful to obey these commands before the Lord our God, who commanded us to do these things, that will be our righteousness.

Deut. 26:5-9 Then you shall declare before the Lord your God: My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, putting us to hard labor. Then we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terrors and with miraculous signs and wonders. God brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and now I bring the firstfruits of the soil that you, O Lord, have given me.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah, not the same as the covenant I made with their ancestors I brought out of Egypt, leading them by the hand, which covenant they broke, though I was a husband to them; but this shall be the covenant I will make with the house of Israel; I will put my law in their guts, I will write it on their hearts, and they shall no longer teach their neighbors, saying “Know the Lord” for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.

Do you have a part of your spiritual journey that relates to being freed from enslavement and brought into the promised land? Can you say these things aloud and put into the place of these nations the story of how God has brought you and your community out of slavery, whether literal or figurative, and into freedom? Try this and perhaps you will want to share the story with someone else.

Exile and Return Home story

Isaiah 40

Be comforted, my people, speak compassionately to Jerusalem; tell her that the battle is over, her sins are pardoned, for she has received double purification for her sins. The voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make a straight highway in the desert for our God.  Raise the valleys, level the mountains, straighten the winding, smooth out the rough.  God will reveal God’s glory, and all humanity shall see it at once.  This is what the Lord says.

Behold your God; The Lord comes with strength to rule, bringing along wages and reward. The Lord shall feed his flock like a shepherd, gathering the lambs up and carrying them up close, and gently leading the pregnant ones.

What do you say, Jacob; what are you speaking, Israel?  You say, My way is concealed from the Lord, and God passes by my judgment. Do you not know, have you not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth never faints, never tires. No one can grasp God’s wisdom and understanding of human beings.  God gives energy to the faint, strength to the weak. Even young folks are faint and weary, and fall to the ground, but those who expect, who look for the Lord shall renew strength, soar with wings like eagles, run without wearying, walk without fainting.

Isaiah 42:16 I will bring the blind by a way they do not know; I will lead them in unfamiliar paths; I will make darkness light for them and straighten out what is crooked.  I will do these things, and I will not forsake them.

Isaiah 43: 1-20 This is what the Lord says, the Lord who created you, Jacob, and who shaped you, Israel. Fear not, for I have paid your ransom, I have called you by your name; you are mine. When you pass through deep water, I will be with you; rivers will not sweep you away; fire shall not burn you, nor shall flame kindle on you.  For I am the Lord your God, the Holy one of Israel, your Saviour…Fear not; for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and west, the north and south; I will say, Bring my sons from far and my daughters from the ends of the earth. You have not called upon me, Jacob, and you, Israel, have been weary of me; you have not worshiped me with offerings and sacrifices; instead you have made me part of your sins and wearied me with your iniquities.  I, even I, am the one who blots out your transgressions, your rebellions, for my own sake; for my own sake I will not remember your sins. Remember me; let us converse; tell me your story and explain your side of things.

Isaiah 40:20-21 Leave Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans, and sing this song, tell this story even to the ends of the earth: The Lord has redeemed, has ransomed Jacob, and has led them through deserts where they did not thirst because water sprang from the rocks for them.

Isaiah 51:11 Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; everlasting joy shall be upon their head; they shall have gladness and joy; sorrow and mourning will flee away. 

Do you have a part of your life that resonates with the exile and return home story? Can you witness to the faithfulness of God described above to rescue you from being strangers in a foreign land, whether literal or figurative, and bring you and your community back home? If so, you might consider sharing your story with someone else.

Sacrifice and Redemption story

This story describes human beings as marked by guilt, shame, experiential distance from God, and then through the intervention of Jesus’s death and resurrection, receiving forgiveness, grace, acceptance. The key is turning toward God and accepting what God has done independent of our own efforts to reconcile with us.

Psalm 51 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, and thee only have I sinned. Wash me, and I will be clean, purer than snow.  Create in me a clean heart, O God…

Matt 9:13, 12:7 Why does your Master eat with publicans and sinners?  Jesus heard this and said to them, Those who are well do not need a doctor, but those who are sick do.  Go and learn what it means when God says, I will have mercy and not sacrifice; for I came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.

Why do your disciples break the Sabbath law? Jesus said, But if you had known what this means—I will have mercy and not sacrifice—you would not have condemned the guiltless.

Eph 5:2 Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God.

Heb 7:27, 9:26, 10:12 Jesus was made the guarantee of a better testament…holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, made higher than the heavens, who offered himself up once for all time.

Now he has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God…For by one offering he has perfected for ever those that are consecrated to God.

John 3:16, 17 For God so loved the world that God gave the only begotten Son, that all who believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

Mark 10:45, Matthew 20:28

Whoever wants to be highly ranked among you shall wait on tables, and whoever wants to be the boss shall serve everyone.  For even the Son of man came not to receive service, but to do service, to give his life to ransom many.

Do you have part of your life that resonates with the sacrifice and redemption story? Have you turned around from alienation and estrangement from God, guilt, and shame to an awareness of God’s redemptive action on your behalf, grace, and acceptance?  If so, perhaps you will want to share this with another person.

Series on Meeting Jesus, Part 3

3) Jesus Shows Compassion (and shows us God's compassion)

The Spirit of God moved him to an ethic of compassion rather than an ethic of purity, which characterized the most dedicated of the religious folks of his day, the Pharisees. 

Compassion in the following New Testament passages speaks of a deeply visceral response. Often the King James Version translates the Greek as bowels, which were thought to be the seat of love and pity. This KJV quotation does just that: But whoso hath this world’s good and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? (1 John 3:17) Or in modern parlance:  Whoever has the good things of life and sees another human being in need and shuts off compassion from that human being, how can the love of God be alive in him or her?

Jesus’s response to human lostness, human sorrow, human pain is that he moves to meet the needs around him.

As you read the following scriptures, think about how you have experienced the compassion of Jesus and how you have passed that on to someone else.

When he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd.

And Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.

Then Jesus called his disciples and said, I have compassion on the multitude because they have been here with me three days and have nothing to eat, and I will not send them away hungry and fasting.

So Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes; and immediately their eyes received sight and they followed him.

And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand and touched the leper and said to him, I will, be clean.

And when the Lord saw the mother of the dead boy, he had compassion on her and said unto her, weep not. And he raised the boy from death.

Then the Lord of the servant had compassion on him and freed him from his unpayable debt, forgiving him

A certain Samaritan came where he was and had compassion on him

His father saw him a long way off and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck, and kissed him

But compassion does not characterize only Jesus.  It is frequently attributed to God in the Old Testament, too. “Racham” (to be soft, primary idea cherishing, soothing, gentleness, to behold with tenderest affection) occurs 47 times, many of them describing God (Blue Letter Bible, available online, word number H7355). (I owe this awareness to Borg's book Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time.) 

Here are a few:

God said to Moses, I will make all my goodness, my true character, pass before you, and I will be gracious, I will be gracious; I will show compassion, I will show compassion.

The Lord God will turn your captivity and have compassion on you and will return and gather you from the nations to which the Lord scattered you.

As a father has compassion for his children, the Lord has compassion for those who revere him.

Gracious is the Lord, and just; yes, our God is compassionate.

One striking passage is in Isaiah 49: they shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor the sun smite them; for the one who has compassion on them shall lead them, shall guide them even by springs of water…sing, o heavens, be joyful, o earth; and break forth into singing, o mountains; for the Lord has comforted the people and will have compassion upon the afflicted…can a woman forget her nursing child and not have compassion on the child of her womb? Yes, she may forget, yet will I God not forget you.

A second form of the word Racham occurs 44 times (Blue Letter Bible, available online, word numer H7356); again many of these refer to God. This word refers to “womb” in the singular, and is used of the woman whose baby Solomon threatened to cut in half. She yearned compassionately from deep inside herself toward her son (1 Kings 3:26). The word means “compassion” or “tender mercies” in the plural, where it refers to very tender affection, love, familial love.

David said, I am in trouble; let us fall into the hand of the Lord for his tender mercies are great; let me not fall into the hand of man.

The word occurs often in the Psalms:

Remember, O Lord, your tender mercies and your lovingkindnesses for they have been present from ancient times.

Withhold not your tender mercies from me, O Lord; let your lovingkindness and your truth continually preserve me.

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your lovingkindness; according unto the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.

God redeems your life from destruction and crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies.

Let your tender mercies come to me, so that I may live, for your instruction is my delight; great are your tender mercies, O Lord; make me live according to your justice.

The Lord is good to all; and God’s tender mercies are over all God’s works.

It is because of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because God’s tender mercies never fail.

To the Lord our God belong tender mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him

We do not present our supplications before you because of our righteousnesses but because of your great tender mercies.

Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true justice and show mercy and tender mercies every one to each other.

Take a moment to think back over your life. How have you experienced the tender mercies of the Lord over the past 40 years?  How have you passed tender mercies on to others on behalf of the Lord? Perhaps you will find this useful to share with someone else.

Jesus's Family

Preached Aug. 1, 2010, Family reunion 

Mark 3:31-35

Jesus says, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35). If I get to be Jesus’s sister by doing God’s will, I need to know: What is God’s will? Jesus says that the law and prophets are summed up in loving God wholly and loving my neighbor as I love myself. This tells us the direction we should be moving in every action we take—toward love, toward family.

I grew up in a missionary family in a dangerous part of the world—central Africa.  My parents brought me up to know Jesus, and they set a great example of following God’s call wherever it leads.  And yet, my experiences as a child left me unsure of the stability of God’s love for me and unsure if God had good things in store for me, and the gradual recovery from that is taking a lifetime.  These ae some things I’ve learned over that lifetime about God and people.

1) People run from God when they fear God is angry about their sin. They think, “I don’t belong in God’s family.”  But it’s really like when kids get their good clothes and themselves dirty when their parents have clearly said, “Stay out of the mud.” They want to run and hide the evidence they have disobeyed.

2) God looks for people to show them love, just like how parents want to clean the kids up.

3) People need to stop running, turn around, and see who God really is and how God really feels about them. If the kids stop running and come out of hiding, the worst they face is a bath and different clothes, particularly from parents with a sense of proportion.

4) Jesus came to make this clear: God wants to love us and to do us good. “Bring the kids to me,” says Jesus. “Don’t make it hard for them to trust in God’s love. Sure, God’s going to give them a bath and new clothes, but those are the signs God loves them and won’t leave them dirty and afraid.”

5) Turning around and looking into God’s eyes will give us confidence in God’s love; we can persist in talking with God about what worries us, and we can be generous to others. “What food do you have,” Jesus asks, and the disciples answer, “We’ve got a kid here willing to share two fish and five little biscuits.”

6) All this good news is true even if our world is ending personally or globally.

This is the good news: God is here, God loves you, God has forgiven you. Trust God, talk to God, and be generous. This is what God wants us to tell everyone who is on the run: God wants us to “go home to our friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for us and what mercy he has shown us” (Mark 5:19).

The disciples worried about who was a real follower, a real insider, a member of God’s family: who is doing God’s will?

John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward. If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea” (Mark 9:38-42).

Whoever is not against us is for us; whoever gives us a cup of water in Jesus’s name is for us; whoever makes it hard for us to trust in Jesus is against us. Whoever gathers others toward Jesus is for Jesus; whoever drives others away, scatters them, is against Jesus. In families, we need to consider how we make it easier for others to trust in Jesus, and we need to consider how we make it harder for others to trust in Jesus.

St. John writes in 1 John 3 and 4: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. . . . The children of God and the children of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters . . . We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another . . . We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action . . . this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another . . . Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”

How to be a member of Jesus’s family

1) trust in the character of God as revealed by Jesus Christ, God’s Son

2) obey Jesus’s commandment to love one another

3) do what you can to to meet people’s needs and set them free—including family members—representing Jesus to them

We know how complicated families can be by having come from some sort of family ourselves. Disagreements within a family are often harder to work through than disagreements with acquaintances or friends—in my own family I was not sure it was ok to disagree until I was in my 30s—after a loud family fight in which my father shook his finger at me and said, “You aren’t going to change my mind on this,” and I said, “I don’t know whether I even belong in this family,” we found a way back to each other and learned we could disagree and express that and still honor and respect each other. When my dad was dying, his last words to me were, “Thank you for being you.” That’s redemptive family talk.