Lord, you are the God who saves me; day and night I cry out to you.
May my prayer come before you; turn your ear to my cry.
I am overwhelmed with troubles and my life draws near to death.
I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like one without strength. I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care. Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do their spirits rise up and praise you? Is your love declared in the grave, your faithfulness in Destruction? Are your wonders known in the place of darkness, or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?
All day long suffering surrounds me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me. You have taken from me friend and neighbor—darkness is my closest friend.
~Psalm 88:1-5, 11-12 & 18

                                  ________________________________________

I’m going to bet that most Christians have not really spent time with Psalm 88. The honest struggle with life and with God’s apparent silence flies in the face of much of American Christian thinking. We’re not supposed to say things like that, are we? Questioning God’s goodness or groaning over our struggles is not very strong faith, is it? It’s not very joyful. Aren’t we supposed to be positive and joyful always? Apparently the psalmist didn’t read that part of Scripture.

Psalm 88 gives voice to a reality that “faith” doesn’t overcome: to be human is to suffer. In fact, nearly everyone you know is suffering something right now. There’s a burden, a pain, a loss, a hurt that is plaguing every person at this moment. You are one of them.

Psalm 88 is one of the most honest Psalms in Scripture. It’s not the only one; half of the psalms are like this. That’s not a neat Bible stat. This suggests something of what “Biblical” faith should be like. Psalm 88 is distinct, however, because it ends in darkness. There is no “but I will praise your name, Lord” ending. While Psalm 88 begins recognizing the Lord is the one who saves, at the end the psalmist has a hard time experiencing that truth.

When suffering, pain, or loss show up, we want to minimize it. We want to ignore it. We want to push it to the side and occupy ourselves with busyness. We try to overcome it with “happiness,” or positivity or optimism.

But suffering, pain, and loss don't go away. And they won’t. As soon as the present burden or suffering passes (if it does), another is waiting in line. It’s like being at the DMV. There are several burdens and sufferings in the room. Each one just takes a number to come up and sit with us. This is life.

I don’t mean to paint a negative picture. If this is seen as a “negative” picture, however, I wonder if it’s a sign that we’re too used to a faith that doesn’t make room for lament. Yet, struggle, suffering, darkness, and pain realities for life “under the sun” as the great teacher in Ecclesiastes puts it (Ecclesiastes 2:17-26). This is not negative. It’s reality. Pretending it’s not there doesn’t make it go away. We have to learn how to sit with it.

This is why Holy Saturday matters.

So often it seems that Christians treat Good Friday as the day Jesus forgave us of our sins, and jump quickly to Easter as the day when we celebrate triumph and overcoming the grave. We hear “it’s Friday, but Sunday’s ‘comin!” Not so fast, Tigger.

Between Friday and Sunday is Saturday. And it’s not a skip-over day. A narrative that overlooks the silence of Saturday results in a “skip-over” faith. This sort of faith misses the way that the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection takes into account the real darkness and emptiness of life in this world. Yes, resurrection means God destroys death and suffering. But a central part of the story of Jesus is embracing the darkness, emptiness, and pain of death and loss. Jesus goes there. So must we. In this life we still must sit with it. Holy Saturday reminds us of that, and it teaches us how to sit with it.

In the face of the emptiness and darkness of real life, rather than being surprised or dismayed, rather than ignoring it or masking it over with toxic positivity, rather than not knowing how to sit with it, we learn the Christian practices of silence, stillness, and lament.

Jesus’ disciples probably didn’t stop crying out to God after Jesus was buried. And in those days he was in the tomb, they probably couldn’t see through the darkness. In fact, all they knew was darkness. Blinding darkness. They didn’t see resurrection coming. All they knew is that it was over. And God seemed silent. I bet Psalm 88 (and others) gave them the words.

Psalm 88 (and others like it) suggests that this honest emptiness before God is ok. In fact, maybe this is an important part of our lives with God.

Darkness. Hiddenness. Emptiness. Hopelessness.

Recognizing this and sitting with our darkness, pain, and loss does not mean life is or will always be like this. It doesn't mean we'll turn into Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. To cry out in hopelessness does not mean we’ve lost faith. It actually means we'll deepen our faith and connection to Jesus. 

Life in this world and the life of faith necessarily includes this sort of experience. And we should probably, like the Psalmist, make space for it. We don’t need to triumph over it too quickly with resurrection. It’s necessary to give space to struggle, to admit that resurrection doesn’t always look like it’s going to happen, to recognize that sometimes the horizon seems dark, and we’re not sure that the sun will rise again. We have those moments in life. Jesus did.

Holy Saturday makes those moments sacred.

God of hiddenness, sometimes the horizon is too dark to see you. It seems as if you have up and gone. With Christ, call us into the darkness to sit with Christ who died. Give us eyes to see in the darkness. Amen.

Songs for today:
"Death be Not Proud"
"The Year of the Locust"
"The Rain Keeps Falling"
"Helpless Hope"

"Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
~John 12:31-33

                                 __________________________________________

Each year we go through Holy Week and the Paschal Triduum (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) of Jesus’ story. The Paschal Triduum is the phrase to refer to the climax of Jesus' story. Throughout Christian history, it has always been these three together. You can't have any of these on their own. They lose context and meaning. Friday on its own is a tragic death. Saturday makes no sense without Friday. Easter is fun, but has no meaning apart from Friday and Saturday. Easter looks back on Friday and Saturday as vindication. It does not overcome Jesus' death on the cross; it confirms Jesus' death on the cross as the way, the truth, and the life, the true revealing of the Father (John 14:6).

We are used to looking at Good Friday through the lens of Easter. We know how it will end. Unfortunately, this can steal the power of Good Friday. It's a totally different experience to put ourselves in the shoes of Jesus' disciples, of the women who followed, of the Roman soldiers and others.

Can you imagine being there as the day goes on and things continue to unravel? First, Jesus stands before the religious authorities. Then, he goes to the political rulers. Then, he's handed over to be flogged.

At this point, Jesus' followers understand clearly this is not going to end well. The religious authorities and Roman powers are just having their way. They are steamrolling over Jesus, just like they have done to all non-citizens and slaves who don't accommodate to Rome's ways. Jesus was bringing something new and good to the world, yet it upset the status quo, so they conspired to get rid of him because it was in their power to do so.  

But how could it go so badly? Isn't this Jesus, the Son of God? If the Lord is with him, how can things go like this? Isn't he more powerful than Rome? It should be Jesus who is steamrolling over the corrupt religious and political powers! 

This is what Jesus' followers wanted. They wanted to see Jesus win. They wanted a Jesus who would overcome. Fix the problem. But they could only understand this through the grid of human thinking. That's why Peter objected so strongly when Jesus said he was going to suffer and die (Matthew 16:21-22). That is why Jesus responded so strongly to Peter's objection when he said, "Get behind me, Satan!" (Matthew 16:23). When we try to fit God into our box of glory and triumph, we lose Jesus.

I wonder how often we confuse God's activity with things going well from our human perception and expectations. Or we think that things going well are "proof" that God is active and working. And I wonder how often we miss the profound ways God might be more present and active in circumstances or experiences that seem like things are going "badly," or look unimpressive, or even like losing to the powers, systems, or circumstances of our broken world.
                                          _________________________________

The dismay and disillusionment must have been heavy. The failure to understand must have made things so distressing. Any hope that God would make things right is spiraling down the drain. It doesn't seem like there's any way to stop this. The women begin to weep. A deep, aching emptiness begins to rise up. No one knows whether to run home or stay and see what happens.

And then Peter, likely not alone, begins to distance himself from Jesus. Both Matthew and Luke say that Peter followed Jesus "at a distance" (Matthew 26:58; Luke 22:54). Things are going so sideways. And if you know how Rome works, you don't want to be even close to guilty by association. If they're running Jesus through the gauntlet of a political troublemaker, someone who claimed "kingship," you'd best distance yourself if you want to get out alive.

The fear in Peter's heart must have been profound. At the same time, the pain in his heart over Jesus and realizing what he'd done in denying friendship with Jesus must have been overwhelming.

I wonder how often we do that -- distance ourselves or deny Jesus. Just in normal life, when there's not even a real threat that we'll be handcuffed and beaten like Jesus. We have no idea the serious fear Peter was experiencing. And yet we deny Jesus so easily in our lives: when we prefer some temporary cultural ideologies rather than serve the "least of these" we deny Jesus (Matthew 25:31-46); when we fail to love our brother or sister as Christ loved us, we deny Jesus (1 John 4:16-21); when we forget the great forgiveness of the Lord for us and withhold forgiveness for our enemy (Matthew 18:21-35).
                                        ___________________________________

On Good Friday, Jesus experienced shame, mocking, violence, hate, suffering -- not at the hands of purely evil people. He experienced it at the hands of what was at the time pretty "normal" things by "normal" people doing what they felt was "right" according to good Roman and Jewish ways of thinking and living. That's the scary part. It wasn't some extreme level of human sin that put Jesus to death. It was normal human yuck: pride, national arrogance, bitterness, evaluating others based on status, class, or ideology, superiority, judgmentalism, self-preservation.

Yet, how could this happen? Jesus, "God with us," is being pushed around and overcome by this human ugliness. He becomes among those we dismiss, ignore, deny, mock, shove to the curb, laugh at, ridicule, and belittle. He becomes the one that humans in their arrogance consider expendable. Just so we can keep our ways as they are. Just so we can hold on to our status and false-made selves. Everyone has turned on Jesus by the end of this night. NO ONE is exempt. Because it is our basic fallen humanity and the systems we create to protect it that is the problem. When we share in these tragic human ways, we continue to push God to the margins. No impressive church ministries or visions statements will fix this.

Jesus, as God with us, does not come in to reinforce our broken ways but make them "better" by putting Jesus' name on it. He fully dies to it all. God refuses to share in it. This is the sort of human behavior that has to go away. And so Jesus silently lets it kill him. Not because Jesus knows he'll rise again, so it won't really be that bad. As Paul says, Jesus dies to it in order to put it to death (Romans 8:3). It's God's stamp of disapproval. 

But it is also God's act of love. God does not come down to crush us, but to absorb our ungodliness and transform it into hope. And this is why it is "Good Friday." Because on this day, Jesus' act of evil-absorbing love created an escape hatch to take us all out of our captivity to "normal" human disfunction. The resurrection confirms this is the way out and into the new creation God intends for the world.

But, as Jesus says, we must die to it all with him.

God of love, open our eyes to the ways we give in to the shallow ways of humanity. By your love, call us to go with you to death, so that we might live. Amen.

Songs for today:
"The Silence of God"
"Beautiful Scandalous Night"
"How Deep the Father's Love"

Thursday, March 26

The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him....When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.
~John 13:2-5 & 12-16

                                __________________________________________

"Kiss my ring. Bow at my feet. Wash my feet. Make sure you serve and honor me the way that I deserve." These are things the gods and goddesses of the religious marketplace of the ancient world demanded. They are actions nearly every king, ruler, and person in power has demanded throughout human history. Or at least they thought it if they didn’t say it. These are words Jesus never said.

During Jesus' last night, he revealed in a startling way what had been true from day one. As God's presence on earth:

• He was born in obscurity and poverty in a common room filled with animals, the living "tools" of a pre-tech age. He died among the common. In his resurrection there was no celebration. From birth to resurrection, there was no show, no fame, or headline.  
• He lived among the struggling and the sick, among the sinners and the burdened. He didn't come to lend a hand from a higher, safer position. He was no different in his life than they. He never made it his mission to make his way out and climb to the top of the social ladder. Jesus is not a poster God for the American dream.
• He tended to the needs of the forgotten with his own hands. He wasn't above going into the homes of everyday people who didn't have it all together. He healed through touch and human embrace. Social expectation would have said, "you don't belong there, Jesus," or "you're above that." He went there anyway.

On his last night before his death, he washed his disciples' feet. Many of us probably know the basics: it was the job of a slave to wash the feet of their master. It was just another way the ancient world reinforced the status quo of seeking prominence. It all started from the top: this is how the gods behave, which trickles down to the earthly powers and rulers, down to the social fabric of society, down to the household and family.

Jesus redefines the whole system.

Jesus, as God's presence in a human life, came and served humanity, and did not demand us to serve him. He made it ultra clear: “The Son of Man came NOT to be served, but to serve” (Matthew 20:28).

There's no category for this. "The system didn't plan for this," as hip-hop artist Lecrae puts it in his song "Anomaly." This isn't just "servant-leadership." The “leadership” idea is absent here for Jesus. It’s just servant. It requires following because this is how God works. It's not a way of leadership, of chasing the status of "leader," but just in a more humble way. Jesus abandons "leader" seeking altogether. In his life and actions, he brings a complete transformation of how we think and live. Our minds and ways of thinking are not able to really handle it. I know this well.

Our human default method of thinking revolves around merit. We’re constantly striving to be better, do more, climb higher. Our world tells us you want to get to the place where you are the one in a position of being served. But you have to earn it. This affects our life with God. The downside of this is that the merit system communicates that we must, like we're an employee in God's business, do the right things to keep the owner happy with us. When we fall short, the relationship becomes distorted, we can't make eye contact, we try to evade talking to the boss. We suffer under moral-perfection syndrome, and it’s ruining our lives.

Too many people carry a sense that they have disappointed God with their lives. The question: Am I "good enough" to get to heaven? is a sure sign we've imbibed on the merit and status seeking of broken humanity. Many people bend over backwards to alleviate the pressure and convince themselves (and others) that they are "good enough," or that it's "ok to not be good enough." Feeling cornered, we try to justify who we are saying, "Well, deep down I'm a good person, it's just that I've made some mistakes, but who doesn't, right?"

Moral-perfection syndrome leads people to either object to the religious god who demands morally perfect, good-citizen lives, or to buckle under the weight of trying to be perfect. There's something deeply off about the whole system.

When Jesus reveals a God who didn't advertise his greatness or demand that we kiss his feet, say the right prayer, or attend church at least twice per month, he breaks the system. Jesus shows us that God came to serve us. We don't know what to do with that. We might like that idea, but our lives are still stuck in the old system. If God serves us, then what are we supposed to do? Just nothing? We can't get our merit-based heads around it. We think it will lead to laziness.

When Jesus washes his disciples' feet, when he says "this is my body, given for you," he's breaking the system, shattering the status quo. He's giving himself to us, for us, to break us free from the weight of falling short and free us into something new: true life, joy, peace.

Taking part in the life of Jesus – living the life God made us for – is not about achieving some ideal of worthiness. Jesus embraces a way of humanity that is overlooked and under-class. He shows us the way of God that is not about achieving, but serving. Sharing in the life of God is about being transformed and changed by the God who serves. He only asks that we allow our dirty feet to be lovingly cleansed, rather than hidden from sight. If this is how God is, then this is how we should be. We don’t need to be noticed or patted on the back for how spiritual we are. We just receive the cleansing of the Lord who serves, and then, like him, lovingly serve our sister and brother.

Jesus came to serve, to lift humanity to himself, because we can’t get there by our merits, honors, or talents. Let Jesus reveal a God who comes to wash your feet. If he can’t serve you, he can’t be your master and Lord. It’s what he came to do.

Lord Christ, you have come to serve us and wash our feet. May we receive your cleansing and be transformed from our status-seeking to embrace your ways of lowliness, peace, and love. Amen.

Songs for today:
"My Sweet Lord"
"Carry You"
"We Are Not as Strong as We Think We Are"

Wednesday, April 1

“Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.’ “But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. ‘This is the heir,’ they said. ‘Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
~Luke 20:13-15

                                        ___________________________________

By this point during Jesus’ final week, several things have been set in motion. Most importantly, Jesus wasn’t turning out to be the sort of character people wanted or expected. He wasn’t affirming the status quo, he challenged taken for granted ideas about how God should look and act, and he foolheartedly associated with groups of people whom others found to be not worth the time, the ones who didn’t look the part of good, clean citizens. He spoke as if God welcomed them. In other words, Jesus was messing with everyone’s standards, comforts, and lifestyles.

The week begins with Jesus’ ‘triumphant’ entry into Jerusalem (Matthew 21; Mark 11; Luke 19). I don’t know why it’s called this, because it honestly probably looked silly. Yes, there were crowds of people there. Yes, they were raising their voices and singing. Yes, they were announcing Jesus was God’s king. But if you were looking on, say, from Herod’s temple, you might have thought it was cute. A peasant on a donkey trying to look like or act like a triumphant ruler entering into his city. Doesn’t look the part at all. Or he’s mocking the Roman triumph model, in which case it wouldn’t have been all that funny.
For Jewish observers, it was fulfillment of the prophets claim once a long time ago that God's king would be humble, riding on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9). But they would still have wanted a "kingly" figure on that donkey. Jesus' wasn't. But they were so wrapped up in the idea of God's king that how Jesus presented himself didn't register to them. The form is the message.

Either way, the colloquial response would have been, “This guy’s different.”

Then Jesus goes into the temple and shows frustration. Sometimes Christians use this to legitimize “holy anger.” Jesus was angry, to be sure. But this is no license to become unglued and throw things around and be violent. We have no business. Jesus was God in flesh demonstrating his disgust at the ways those who should have known better were turning worship of God into a circus. He had every right. We do not. Mostly because we're more likely to be those in the temple than the "righteous" one to play the role of Jesus.
Jesus' actions recall the prophets who chastised God’s people – particularly the faith leaders – of misleading the people away from God’s heart. Those in the temple that day were doing things all for show, to draw a crowd, trying to be like everyone else. Other temples are selling meat and religious and sacrifice related things, and it seems to be working. Let’s do it, too. No harm. It will bring more people in. Yeah, Jesus wasn’t a fan of that.

Everything Jesus was doing was the climax of a long storyline. It’s the storyline of God showing up to undo our human mess. Since Adam & Eve, humanity has staged a human takeover of God’s world. The problem is that our pursuits and our loves are disordered and misguided. But we’re so used to our ways that when God shows up to reorder things, we object. So much so that we’ll put the Son of God on a cross so we can keep our ways as we want, with all of our pride, violence, and religious show. “Sin” is an abstract idea. This is what it looks like when we live it out.
This is the point of the parable Jesus tells during his final week in Jerusalem. It’s in Luke 20, Mark 12, and Matthew 22. It’s a parable filled with meaning. A landowner builds a great vineyard and puts his servants in charge of it. But the servants stage a takeover, thinking they should be in charge. Except it's not their vineyard. When the landowner sends his son to gather the harvest, they don’t want to give up control. So they kill him.

It can be difficult to put ourselves in the final week of Jesus’ life. It’s been 2000 years. That’s a significant removal of time and culture. And there’s been a lot of time for Christianity to get familiar with the story, to make it our own, to make it comfortable for us. The challenge of holy week is to make the story strange again.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, imagine being a little curious about it. Maybe you’re wondering now if he’s going to bring the national freedom you and your family and your friends have been praying for. Take Israel back for God. Get rid of the evil Romans who are leading the world astray. Maybe you’re cheering for Jesus, not knowing how his death on the cross would be a huge disappointment. Your ideas for what God should do is not what Jesus does.
When Jesus overturned the tables in the temple, maybe imagine you were among those offended. He just thrashed the way you and your worshipping community had set things up for worship, as if it was a waste of time. Imagine Jesus tearing down the sound system and all the musical instruments. Imagine Jesus saying "no" to the choir or tearing up the LBW. Or calling out one of your “ministries” because it’s more of a show than about real following. Like the Pharisees, you’d want him out, too.
Maybe you’re among the ones on the outside watching. You see something different going on. Jesus is not one of the typical Messiahs or kings. Something IS different. You’re intrigued, but you’re skeptical, too. You’ve been disappointed by the false Messiahs who have come and gone. But the way this one seems to genuinely care for the poor, the sinners, and the marginalized makes you reconsider. Could God finally be among us?

Holy Week invites us to pause and consider who we think Jesus really is. It invites us to consider how we have made Christianity into something that suits us. It invites us to consider how Jesus comes to undo the ways in which we’ve participated in the human takeover of God’s world. Will we reject him like the servants in the parable? We think, "Of course we wouldn't." Maybe we're too confident.

We need a savior, make no mistake. And it’s not to save us from the evil in the world around us. It’s to save us from the mess WE have made, from OUR wrongheaded ideas about God and the world. Jesus, as God’s humble king, comes to clean house and make it beautiful again. If only we could let go of our own ideas, and let Jesus show us who God is and how God intended for us to live. How he enters Jerusalem is a big clue.

God of mercy, we too often are married to our human ways and ideas. Even our ideas of who you are tend to reflect our own preferences. Soften our hearts, Lord. Undo our human mess. Draw us to truly follow you, rather than to just celebrate the idea of what we want you to be. Amen.

Songs for today:
"Deliver Us"
"Salvation Song"
"Ring the Bells"

Tuesday, March 31
‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.
~Luke 14:21-23
_____________________________________

Have you had the experience of hearing great music, watching a powerful (or funny) movie, or tasting outstanding food? What did you do? You had to tell someone else, didn’t you? There’s a natural desire to share the experience you had, often by telling someone else. But it’s even better to invite someone else to share in the experience with you. You might say, “Come over here! You HAVE TO listen to this with me.” Or you watch the movie (again) with your friend or spouse. You share the podcast and talk about it. You go to the same place for dinner and bring others with you.

This is what being an agent of grace is all about – sharing the experience of the extravagant generosity and goodness of God. When it comes to faith we often have been conditioned to think that we need to “evangelize” or “tell others about Jesus.” These aren’t bad. Don’t stop doing these things. But (you knew this was coming), let’s not leave it there.

If grace was understood in the world of Paul and Jesus as sharing and participating in the fellowship and livelihood of the giver, then being an agent of grace must involve more than just telling someone else about it. We’re not talking about just a message to believe. We’re talking about an existence of life to share in together!

Grace is about being brought into a new household. This means a new existence with new ways of living, new patterns, new habits. It’s not about getting it “right” as much as becoming formed into the new household culture. But it’s so wonderful and life-giving you want everyone to move in. In this house of grace, everyone has a place; everyone is cared for by one another; no one is higher in status or position or rank. And everyone receives equally in the abundance of God’s gifts. Can it get better than this?

When we think that “grace” is just pardon for my sin, we miss out on the fullness of what grace really is and what it meant when the New Testament writers (or Scripture as a whole) talk about it. When we re-imagine that grace is God “moving us on up” (thank you The Jefferson’s) into a new existence of God’s abundance – a completely new existence with others – then things change.

In the parable of the great banquet in Luke, the master of the house had invited many people to share in his feast – an act of grace. The first round of people invited resisted the grace because they had other things to do. Such individuals would have been social equals, wealthy people with their own little kingdoms and priorities.  

So the invitation went out to people who were not socially on the up & up, who had nowhere else to go unless they were invited through an act of grace. They were not “worthy” recipients. In fact they were embarrassingly unfit for such a feast. This would have been shameful for the master. But he did not care. And the master wanted his house filled with them. The door is open to share in all of the goodness.

As agents of God’s grace, we are above all recipients of God’s invitation. Consider yourself invited. Your unworthiness is no barrier. In fact, it is probably your ticket in. And it’s so wonderful it changes you. And you can’t help but go out and invite others to share in the goodness of grace. And grace is not a bait-and-switch to then burden you with things once you’re in. You don’t have to earn your keep. You come and receive. That’s all. Period. In the receiving you are transformed. And you don’t have to leave. You are home.
                                        ____________________________________ 
For reflection:

• Read Luke 14:15-23. Imagine the experience of the people who weren’t invited originally. How would you respond if you were one of these? How are we sometimes like the first group who rejected the invitation?
• What is something you’ve experienced that was amazing and wonderful (a song, a movie, a restaurant). Did you tell others about it? What did you say?
• For those with kids: Talk about what it’s like to be invited to something that you didn’t expect. How would you respond? What would you say to others? How would it make you feel about yourself?

 
Prayer: You are the God who invites those who are unworthy. We are the unworthy. Teach us to live with humble and thankful hearts. And teach us to live in a way that invites others to know your grace. Amen

Monday, March 30

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
~Luke 15:1-2
When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
~Luke 19:5-7
While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
~Matthew 13:10-11
______________________________________

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but the most joyless people Jesus encounters are also the ones who take issue with God’s lavish grace for others. I find that interesting, don’t you?

The joyless ones are the ones trying to hold it all together because they have some standards or ideals they’re trying to maintain. And it’s not just “religious rules.” It’s social expectations usually. They’ve worked so hard at building and maintaining a fortress of “pleasing” or “proper” behavior. They’ve forgotten or ignored there is a palace already prepared for them (and others) to live in (remember Psalm 23!). Oh, and by “they,” I really mean me and mostly all people, because these are our built-in human tendencies that come pre-packaged with our old humanity.

Somehow we as humans think we can work really hard at establishing something to go along with or compliment the existence of grace God has already given. It’s with good intentions, but it’s also not what God asked for, what God wants, or what God needs. And importantly, it is not what we need, either.

All throughout Scripture the grace of God opposes this human tendency. Adam & Eve – God had already given them everything. Yet, they were convinced they needed to build their own thing to become like God.  Bad move. The tower of Babel – silly humans trying to build the biggest spiritual fortress to God so others would notice them (sort of like many modern churches, sadly). Bad move. King David wanted to build a nice big temple for God. God said, “I really don’t need that. Maybe YOU need that to make your kingship look good, but I, the Lord of heaven and earth don’t need that, thank you.” The Christians in Galatia thought imposing certain lifestyle laws on other Christians would make everyone more Christian. It did not.
And on and on.

When we do things like, we steal our own joy. We become occupied with maintaining our thing, our ideas, or our wants and preferences and then think others should value and appreciate and live according to them. It distracts from God’s grace and lays an unnecessary burden on us.

God’s grace is given precisely so that we don’t have to do this to ourselves. Jesus invites us to lay our burdens down and rest from our striving and building our own thing. Just learn from him. Simple. When we embrace God’s grace, we are genuinely free to stop trying to build our own little houses. And maintain our own little houses. And compare our own little houses with someone else’s little house. All of that steals joy and enslaves us to ourselves. We become Pharaoh to ourselves (and sometimes over others).

God’s grace is God drawing you into his fellowship to share in all things – ALL THINGS! – so you can put down your striving to build your own existence, or worse, an existence based on your preferences that other people should follow.  This is THE danger of our celebrity, social media, building-a-brand Christian culture today. We cancel out God’s grace by building our own things. We distract from God’s grace by focusing on our doing. And then we become joyless, tired, burned out. God’s grace says you don’t have to live like this.

                                 __________________________________________

For reflection:

• Read Matthew 6:1-21. Notice how Jesus instructs people to do things “in secret.” Why do you think this is important? How does this connect to todays’ reflection on God’s grace?
• For those with kids: Talk about how God’s grace means that there is nothing you or I need to do for God to welcome us. Sometimes the things we try to do actually distract us from God’s grace. Compare it with being in your home. Imagine of one of your kids said, “I’m going to try to build my own house.” Would that make life more freeing, or would it steal joy and be more of a burden?

Prayer: Heavenly father, you have welcomed us into your life as an act of grace. You have given us all things. Teach us to rest from striving to build our own ways. Amen.

Sunday, March 29
Am I not allowed to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous? So the last will be first, and the first will be last.
~Matthew 20:15-16

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Jesus seems to have enjoyed telling stories. He did it a lot. He also seems to have enjoyed telling stories that surprised, shocked, or upset people. He wasn’t doing this to be difficult. On occasion he did this to issue a clear challenge. But genuinely, Jesus’ stories are meant to open people’s minds to a new imagination for life in this world according to his kingdom.

Those whom Jesus sometimes challenged with his stories are often framed as the “religious” people. There are books about this. I’m sorry to say this is not exactly true. It’s something we have created in our culture as a way of defending our culture’s obsession with distancing ourselves from religious institutions or practices that are too “wooden” and boring. So we create the “religion” or “religious” category as the bad guy. If you haven’t noticed, this has not proven very effective or helpful. And, most of all, it blinds us to the ways we are just like the Pharisees.

Jesus’ stories challenged not the religious mindset, but rather our human tendencies to want to be “right,” and our superiority complexes that think we have a handle on God’s ways, which mostly just means that God’s ways are the ways we think God should act. Of course, we are quick to point out that we all know that God’s ways are not our ways. But, in practice we show ourselves to be liars and hypocrites. Just like the Pharisees. So, Jesus’ stories often upset the neat God applecart we have arranged according to our own likeness.

Jesus’ told one such particular parable in Matthew 20. The final quote of the parable is the Scripture today. We should read this parable daily, I think. And yes, it will challenge everything we want to or think should be “right” and “fair.” And…it’s a central parable of grace.

The parable is about a landowner who has offered grace to several workers in the marketplace. They’re standing around waiting for work. They’re poor, unattached, struggling for a livelihood. This landowner generously goes out and hires workers throughout the day as he sees them. In this, they are offered grace – a sharing and fellowship in the work and livelihood of this landowner.

The trouble is that the workers he hired had a certain understanding of how the grace system was supposed to work in the ancient world. This parable doesn’t play by the human rules of what’s “fair” and “just.” You can imagine what they might think: Why share such monetary generosity with those who don’t deserve it? It’s not just or right! Well, it seems to be just fine to God. And it makes us uncomfortable.

In our discomfort, Christians often spiritualize this parable and say it’s really about God’s forgiveness. It’s not. The entire context of the parable in Matthew is about giving to the poor and about the last or least being first in Jesus’ kingdom. The parable is really about generosity – God’s generosity that gives us all we have, that challenges our economics, and our sense of what’s fair.

We all are like the people in the marketplace. We often put ourselves in the category of one of the early workers who worked all day. No one puts themselves as the last one who showed up at the last minute. How lazy.

The point of the parable is that we are not the good diligent worker. We think we are, but in reality we are all like the one who really doesn’t deserve the generosity. Yet, this is in fact what God has done for us, my friends. And so we should for others. Until we get this, we don’t get the parable. Being religious isn’t the problem. Human pride is.

Am I not allowed to be generous however I want? Yes, Lord, you are.
Are you not a recipient of my generosity? Yes, I am, Lord.
Do you think my lavish generosity is just for you or that you’re more deserving of more of it? No, I do not.
Ok, then. Drop the “I’m better” act and live in the joy of my grace. 
And probably be generous, too.
                                         ___________________________________

For reflection:

• Read the parable in Matthew 20:1-16. Why is this parable challenging? How might this parable help us understand that our work and our earning comes from the generosity of the Lord? How might this change how we are generous also?
• For those with kids: Read the parable with them. Ask them if they think what the landowner did is “fair.” What do they think about the idea that this is how God treats all of us?

Prayer: God of life, you bless us with everything we need. Help us to be grateful recipients of your generosity. Amen.

Saturday, March 28

The Lord is my shepherd; I have everything I need. He brings me to open spaces of green grass to rest; he leads me to quiet and refreshing waters; he restores my life in all ways. He leads me down paths that are good, because he is good. Even though I walk through the valley of darkness and chaos, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. I am comforted by your shepherd’s staff, I know you will fight for me. You prepare a great feast for me, even when trouble is around. You bless me with your anointing, my life overflows with your generosity and goodness. I am certain that your goodness and mercy will follow me all of the days of my life, and I will find my home in the Lord’s house, even after my days on this earth are done.                                                                                                                
~Psalm 23

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Read Psalm 23 carefully. I’m using a different translation just for a change of pace. Notice who is doing ALL of the action and who is receiving all of the doing.  

He brings me to open spaces of green grass
He leads me to quiet and refreshing waters
He restores my life in all ways
He leads me down paths that are good
You (the Lord) prepare a great feast even when trouble is around
You (the Lord) bless me with your anointing

Everything about the psalmist’s life is a response to God’s doing. There is nothing about psalmist’s life that is apart from God’s doing.

I have everything I need BECAUSE the Lord is my shepherd
I will fear no evil BECAUSE you are with me; I am comforted by   your shepherd’s staff
My life overflows with the Lord’s generosity and goodness BECAUSE you prepare a table for me and anoint my head with oil
Goodness and mercy will follow me all of my days; I will find my home in the Lord’s house forever BECAUSE the Lord has taken me in.

Psalm 23 is not about special people who have worked their way into a special closeness with the Lord. This psalm describes all people. As soon as we think we’ve somehow made our way into this special closeness with the Lord through spiritual disciplines, Bible reading, service hours at church, extra small group participation or extra worship time, we’re fooling ourselves (great song by Styx, by the way). When we have this spiritual pursuit mindset, we’re in danger of building our existence on the basis of our “god-stuff” rather than on what the Lord has given.

The important thing about this psalm is recognition. Are not all of our lives full of God’s abundance? Are not all of us dependent on the Lord for life, restoration of our souls, protection from evil? All of this is most certainly true.
 
The flipside of this is that we absolutely can live as if this is not true. We can go about our days thinking and living as if what I have is because of me. Many of us do. Even the most committed Christians. We’ve just merged the story of God’s grace with our culture of merit and earning. Usually a bad idea.

Notice what starts it all in Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need. This means we don’t contribute to our existence as if somehow it’s up to us to provide for ourselves. This is not laziness; this is proper, indeed Biblical, perspective. Grace means that life begins and revolves around God’s giving. But it’s only when we recognize it that we are changed and life is what it is meant to be.
                                        __________________________________

For reflection:

• How are the words of Psalm 23 true for you? Which phrases are particularly real in your life right now?
• For those with kids: Read through Psalm 23 and talk about how the different phrases might apply to their lives and what it might mean for them.

Prayer: Shepherd God, you are the one who keeps our lives. You are our great caretaker. Help us to find peace and rest in your care for us today. Amen.

Friday, March 27

“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
~Luke 15:31-32

                                  ________________________________________

Everything is grace. That is, everything in this life is a gift. And God is generous. This is the story of creation, is it not? God created all things and has given generously of his goodness, kindness, and all things for our benefit. And God does not discriminate. As Jesus says, “he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:45).

It still is this way, and it always will be. The human struggle is to live as a human made in the image of this God, and not try to build our own world. Which means it is our calling to be generous agents of God’s ridiculous generosity. To do otherwise is to participate in the ways of death in the world.

And yet. You know this is coming…we fail. Sometimes miserably. And yet…that doesn’t stop God the Father of Jesus Christ and giver of the Spirit from continuing to shower his generosity on us. God is generous because God is love.

This, I know, causes all kinds of concern and discomfort when it comes to thinking that God would be so generous to “those people” who don’t deserve it (it’s always “those people,” never us).  This is what happened to the “good” son in the Prodigal Son story. The younger son had recklessly abused his father’s generosity. And then he dared to come home. And then the father dared not only to welcome him back as his son, but to lavishly bless this reckless abuser of grace and celebrate him! Of course the other son had a problem. More often than we’d like to admit, that son is us.

But the two sons are not all that different, really. They both are recipients of their father’s reckless generosity. And they both misunderstand the father’s generosity. One uses it for his own selfishness. The other doesn’t want it to be used. Both miss out on the full joy and abundance of living in father’s generous grace.

To be agents of grace, we have to be receivers of grace first. But, sadly this seems difficult. The one son was a taker of grace; the other son was a hoarder of grace, a protector of grace. The father was a giver whose generous grace was intended neither to be taken nor protected. It exists to be received, to bring abundance, flourishing, and love between one another.

Lent is a season that intends to bring us back to recognizing the father’s generous grace that is at the heart of who we are. It gives us space to return to the story of the father who welcomes us all home no matter what, and who showers his grace upon us. It gives us space to take time to reflect and remember that we exist by grace, that all things are ours, and God’s grace is something to celebrate with others, not protect and hold onto for a rainy day.

As agents of God’s grace, remember that we are first and always receivers. We are not curators or caretakers of grace. We are not protectors of grace. Grace is meant to be given – and only by the giver. We just share in it and share the joy.
                                        ___________________________________

For reflection:

• Read Luke 15:11-32. Think about the Lord’s grace for both brothers. How is the Spirit speaking to you through this story? Which son are you more likely to be like? How is God’s grace equally for both?
• For those with kids: Talk about the Prodigal Son story. What do they think about the father’s actions? Would they have acted differently?  

Prayer: Lord God, you are a God of radical grace and kindness. We often try to manage your grace, but you just want us to be recipients of it. Help us to experience the joy of your grace and share that joy with others. Amen.

Thursday, March 26

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. There was a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold. But he could not repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees and begged, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. But that servant found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ But he refused…Then the master called the servant. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
~Matthew 18:23-35

                                __________________________________________

During one of the reflections on God’s love two weeks ago, I mentioned how God’s love found meaning within the “grace” system in the ancient world. The word “grace” did NOT mean “allowance for mistakes.” The word itself just meant “gift.” Grace was understood as a relational interaction between two people. Usually “grace” was some sort of favorable gift that benefitted someone and indicated welcome and fellowship with the giver, sharing with the giver’s livelihood.

Grace was not a “no strings attached” thing. There were strings attached. Relational strings. It was common in the Roman world to talk of the “dance of grace.” If you received “grace” and were welcomed into fellowship to share in the livelihood of the giver, that meant you were brought into a sort of dance. The moves were that you were expected to live in a way that reflected the character of the giver. You essentially became a living billboard; your life became an extension of the giver. You became an agent of grace.

The story of the two servants in Matthew 18 is a great example of this. Both servants are understood to be people within the master’s household. In other words, they were already recipients of grace because they lived by his provision, sharing in his livelihood. The master in the story seemed to be quite generous. He apparently loaned a good sum of money to one of his servants, which was part of the life of grace.

The first servant could not pay back to the master (which would have been the master’s own money anyway). He was probably expected to make a return on the money, but failed to do so. This servant pleaded with his master to dismiss the loan. The master, who was generous, did; an example of this master’s character. The dismissal of the loan is not in itself the grace; it is an example of the sort of graceful character of the merciful master. This is important.

This servant, in turn, whose life existed by the master’s grace and received his mercy was to live accordingly. As the story goes, another servant within the same household of the same master owed a smaller amount to the first servant. The other servant pleaded to dismiss the smaller amount. Servant #1 did not. He failed to be an agent of grace.
 
What troubled the master so was that this servant forgot or failed in what he was supposed to do: be an agent of the master’s culture of grace. The master had mercy and forgave is failure to make a return on the money – that mattered less than his failure to reflect the character of his generous master. The servant decided he’d be his own agent of ungrace.

Jesus told this story to illustrate forgiveness. His point was that in his kingdom, everyone exists by the kind generosity of the Father. We exist within the culture of God’s grace. Our lives, then, are to be extensions of this. When we too forget this, we are not living as agents of grace. We are attempting to create a world of our own. And that world will always be poor, isolating, and graceless.
                               ___________________________________________

For reflection:

• When have you received radical grace, maybe from someone else? How did you respond to that? Is it difficult to extend the same generosity you’ve received?
• For those with kids: Talk about this story. What about this story bothers them? Talk about how life under God’s grace is meant to be life of generosity and forgiveness. Remind them God has forgiven us all and shared good things with us all. Maybe ask how and why it is sometimes difficult to forgive just as God had forgiven us.

Prayer:  Generous father, we all live by your generous grace. Everything we have and everything we are is because of you. By your forgiveness and mercy, we find life. May we extend the same forgiveness and mercy to others. Amen.

Wednesday, March 25

Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”
“From childhood,” he answered. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”“‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
~Mark 9:21-24

                                        _____________________________________

God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. G-R-A-C-E. This is one attempt to package grace into a simple, memorable, even marketable Christian phrase. I learned it back in the late 1980s in youth group. There are others. Some are neat attempts to define grace in a catchy phrase, sometimes in contrast to “works,” or “mercy,” or “judgment.” I’ve come to learn that we shouldn’t do this. Sometimes the attempt to simplify things is good and helpful. Other times it can be  unintentionally misleading.

The trouble is that these simplified phrases can communicate the illusion that we’ve “got it.” Even if we know we don’t, catchy phrases like this feed the sense that we can capture what God’s grace is all about. Before long, we’re more committed to the simplified phrase than to being drawn in more deeply to experience the reality of grace.

God’s grace resists. One theme running through these Lent reflections might be that Lent reminds us that much about God, the gospel, the cross, and God’s love is well beyond our capacity to understand. We’re mortal. Our vision is too small. Our interpretations of Scripture are too narrow and limited. We see through a glass darkly.

This doesn’t mean we throw up our hands, saying, “What’s the use? Why even try?” The sentiment is not wrongheaded. But, as Peter says to Jesus, “To whom shall we go?” (John 6:68). We are left as bumbling humans seeking home. That’s just where we should be.

The man in the story in Mark’s gospel was just that. He wasn’t sure if Jesus could heal his boy. He must have thought at least it was worth a try. Desperation does that. Jesus talked about faith. This man admitted he didn’t have enough faith. Help my unbelief! That was his cry.

In spite of our bumbling around in this life, we will get home. How is beyond me. This much I do know: it’s not by my “solid” faith or my ability to see well enough to follow the lead of Jesus. If I’m honest, my faith is weak more than I’d like. But if by “faith” we mean turning to Jesus because you aren’t sure where else to turn most times, then, yes, I possess faith. But it’s pretty fickle. And yet we find home.

Here’s what else I know (I think): God’s grace has everything to do with it.

Jesus didn’t withhold healing because this man’s faith was incomplete. Jesus reached beyond his partial faith. The man might have even wondered, “What just happened? I did absolutely nothing. I wasn’t even sure I believed he could do it. I was just at the end of my rope. I was desperate.”

Such is grace. It is God sharing with us his life-giving touch when we are not sure it’s even possible. When we doubt. In fact, I’d wager that it’s in these moments that we see grace most fully for what it is. This experience of God’s grace – of God sharing with us his life – is happily too profound for a neat phrase. We don’t completely “get it.” We won’t. Just let it be what it is. Even when you struggle to believe.

                                 ___________________________________________

For reflection:

• Have you ever been like the man in the story who didn’t have solid faith, but turned to Jesus out of desperation? How has the Lord shared with you goodness, peace, healing, or love anyway? What does this say to you about God’s grace?
• For those with kids: Ask kids about times when they were not sure about God or their own faith. Maybe talk about how God holds us anyway. God is bigger.

 
Prayer: God of grace, we sometimes do not have strong faith. Sometimes we struggle to believe. Reach out past our unbelief with your grace, and lift us to you anyway. Amen. 

Tuesday, March 24

You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you that you must not oppose those who want to hurt you. If people slap you on your right cheek, you must turn the left cheek to them as well. When they wish to haul you to court and take your shirt, let them have your coat too. When they force you to go one mile, go with them two. Give to those who ask, and don’t refuse those who wish to borrow from you. “You have heard that it was said, You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who harass you so that you will be acting as children of your Father who is in heaven. He makes the sun rise on both the evil and the good and sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same?                                   
~Matthew 5:38-46

                                    ______________________________________

Sometimes life can feel trapped. We’re born into a world not of our own making. We’re “thrown” into an existence full of “you have heard it was said…” ways of living. This is how we do things here.

“Is this all there is?” we might wonder. Or maybe we concede to how things are and play along because we can’t imagine otherwise. Or we feel like our hands are tied, and we can’t do differently even if we wanted to.

Wendell Berry counsels to “think little.” Maybe change is not up to the influential people with “big ideas,” but to those whose daily lives are oriented around something else. And maybe through the little things of daily outlooks and habits a collective power rises up through the crust of the earth and shifts the tectonic plates. Earthquakes happen and the landscape changes.

This is the nature of the prophetic witness of God’s people. Lent reminds us of God’s call to repent, to change course, and to (re)align with Jesus’s witness to the kingdom of heaven among us.

In the sermon on the mount, Jesus instructs his followers to a unique way of living that probably would have caught people by surprise. Turn the other cheek…give them your coat too…walk two miles instead of one. In doing this, Jesus’ followers live in a way that breaks out of the conventional expectations; their lives are not trapped by the expected responses or norms.

Yet, Christians normally try to fit Jesus' words into the already existing systems. We try really hard to do this. How to turn the other cheek without being a wimp. We try to make Jesus' words fit our American ideals of "strength" and "masculinity." Or we try to explain how turning the other cheek is *actually* the strong thing to do.

Jesus doesn't do this. We should probably take notice. Jesus was clear that what he said was weird, strange, and not really awesome from the perspective of the Roman world. There was no making it look "strong," or whatever. It was just completely different and foolish. Period. Just how Jesus wanted it to be. If it were otherwise, it would not be the prophetic witness it is intended to be.

In a letter to a Roman named “Diognetus,” an anonymous early Christian writer describes Christians: “while they live in both Greek and barbarian cities, as each one’s lot was cast, and follow the local customs in dress and food and other aspects of life, at the same time they demonstrate the remarkable and admittedly unusual character of their own (divine) citizenship…They obey the established laws; indeed in their own lives they transcend the laws.”

The prophetic witness of Christians is a different type of resistance. Their prophetic witness doesn’t retaliate or defy what’s asked. It is the witness of actions and ways of living that create something new and unexpected. And suddenly the world around sees an alternative. You can imagine the response: “That’s not normal around here.”

It all comes down to “thinking little” – actions that embody a different imagination for how to live in the world, a world not of our own making, taken over by humans.

And yet, the prophetic imagination insists the human takeover is not all there is:

This is my father’s world, O let me not forget;
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet;
This is my father’s world, why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King, let the heavens ring! 
God reigns, let the earth be glad!

The prophetic witness of Christians never loses its imagination to take Jesus’ lead, to surprise the world with life, to live as fossils in reverse. Instead of evidence of what was in the distant past, we live as evidence of what will one day be.
                                   ______________________________________

For reflection:

• Read Jesus’ sermon on the mount, especially Matthew 5:1-48. How is Jesus’ teaching different than what’s “normal”? What if Christians took Jesus’ words more seriously? What kind of witness would that be to the world?
• For those with kids: Talk about times when you felt like you were expected to behave a certain way, but you knew there was a better way that God probably would call “good.” Why is it difficult to not do what the world expects you to do?

 
Prayer: God of surprises, we live in a world where we are often expected to act or respond in certain ways. Often these ways just make sense in our world. Inspire us to live as your people of surprise, as witnesses to the world of your kingdom that is among us. Amen.

Monday, March 23

Pray like this:
Our Father who is in heaven,
May your name be honored above all others.
Bring in your kingdom
so that your will is done on earth
as it’s done in heaven.
Give us the bread we need for today.
Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you,
just as we also forgive those
who have wronged us.
And don’t lead us into temptation,
but rescue us from the evil one.
~Matthew 6:9-13

The Lord’s prayer is more than just a religious prayer Christians say during worship. In fact, if that’s what it has become in the minds of people, then I’m afraid something has gone wrong.

In the early Christian world, the Lord’s prayer was probably not a prayer that was said out loud in public. It sounded subversive. You might get a concerned look, or worse, your gathering with other believers shut-down, or a knock on your door from a group of Roman soldiers.

During Jesus' life, Caesar Augustus was conferred as pater patriae That's Latin for: “Father of the fatherland.” Caesar, not the Father of Jesus, was "father" of humanity. It meant that Caesar was the embodied will of God in the world; he was the great benefactor of all; he was the one who provided all needs, stability, peace, and justice to the world. To imagine some other king or God would be in this position would be treason. Punishable by death.

To pray to “Our Father in the heavens” and to offer honor to this Father’s name would have been a political prayer. It would have been heard as dishonoring to the “rightful” ruler of the world. That could bring a Roman centurion (or a few) looking for you.  

To pray for another kingdom to come and the will of another “Father” to be done on earth meant dismissing the will of the one who was presumably in charge of the social, political, and economic things of the current life. What’s wrong with Caesar’s will? Careful how you answer that.

To ask this Father to give us our daily sustenance recognizes that Caesar is not in charge and the great benefactor of all good things to the world. Someone else is. Doing this might be seen as calling into question the benevolence of Caesar. Are you questioning that Caesar holds the power and authority to provide by suggesting some other “Father” has such power and that you pray to him instead? Such things should be stopped!

To ask the Father in heaven to forgive meant that the scales of justice and judgment were in someone else’s hands. Caesar was a mere impostor. Be careful saying or suggesting that.

Make no mistake. The Lord’s Prayer was a prayer of prophetic witness. It dared to not only recognize a different “Father” but also petitioned for this Father’s alternative engagement with this world. It’s like going past the manager to the company president, or circumventing the existing system for a result that the current system already thinks it’s achieving. It’s calling out the current order of things as unnecessary.

The Lord’s prayer remains a prayer of prophetic witness, if we let it. If we take it out of the safe confines of private religiosity and let its petitions ring with the same power they were meant for, perhaps if we let it shape our lives and get into our bones, we might live in a new way as the prophetic witnesses Christ calls us to be.
                                  _______________________________________

For reflection:

• Read the Lord’s prayer in both gospels: Matthew 6:7-15 and Luke 11:1-4. They are both different, but focus on many of the same things. List each thing the prayer asks of God, and put it into your own words. What would it be like to not just say this prayer, but live according to it?
• Who in our world is like Caesar in Jesus’ world? How does the Lord’s prayer challenge the authority and rule the “Caesar” in our world today?
• For those with kids: Talk about the Lord’s prayer. Maybe discuss how the Lord’s prayer helps us focus on the right things. How does Lord’s prayer point out what Jesus thinks is really important?

Prayer: Heavenly father, all things come from you. You are the source of everything in our lives, and your kingdom is the only one worth pursuing. May the words of Jesus’ prayer become our words and shape our desires. Amen.

Sunday, March 22

Day after day my people seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God. ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists.“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen -- to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: 
Here am I.
~Isaiah 58:1-9

                                   _________________________________________

Lent invites us to inward reflection and outward concern. With Lent we are reminded that we all are mortal, humans whose end is death. No one is different on this score. No one is exempt. No success, status, or wealth will change this. Lent asks that we turn around, gain appropriate clarity, and live accordingly, instead of living in accord with the fiction we’ve created that there are distinctions and differences on the basis of made up categories, like “middle class,” or “executive.”

During Lent, we are invited to hear the prophetic witness that reveals God’s desire for humans to live in the sort of community that reflects the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The gospel imagines a world where the categories “Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free” do not define status or worth (Galatians 3:28). 

In the Scriptures, God calls his people to Sabbath and to fast. These are not personal spiritual growth practices. They are communal practices to form God’s people and to refocus attention on the human community that God desires, but that human kingdoms have destroyed. When kingdoms of the earth have built categories and systems that exploit advantages over others, then a fast is needed, a Sabbath – a “stopping” – is necessary. To be prophetic witnesses is to live this out in real life.

Isaiah’s words echo this sentiment. The fast God has chosen is one that breaks the bonds and systems that oppress and keep some in a position where leisure comes easily for some, but rest from labor for others is impossible. It is a fast that turns attention to the poor and marginalized, to recognize it is God who has established God’s people.

When God’s people do this, says the Lord, then light will shine; their glory will break forth; the Lord will hear them and answer. But this takes the prophetic witness not of individuals, but of God’s people together who live as a prophetic community, a kingdom of people in the world whose priorities bear witness to a different way of imagining human life and how we spend our time.
                                        ____________________________________

For reflection:

• What systems and categories do we have in our world that define people? How do these systems and categories result in a world that is not of God’s good purposes for humanity? How does the church still play according to these systems and categories? What might God’s prophetic word to the church be today, as it was for the Israelites of Isaiah’s time?
• For those with kids: How do you see inequality in our world? What people have it easier than others? Do you know people who are treated as less important? Why are they, do you think? What would God say the church should do about it?

Prayer: God of freedom, you made a world for all people to flourish together. We live in a world where we don’t see that. Inspire in your church the bold witness to live so that the world might know your created purposes. Amen.

Saturday, March 21

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.  At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.  So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.
~Luke 16:19-25

                                      _____________________________________

One thing Jesus seems to have drawn attention to over and over again, especially in Luke’s gospel, was economics. Money. Wealth. But this was also about acquiring and status. Acquiring status. Jesus talks about this more than human sexuality, heaven/eternal life, or hell/Hades. In fact, many of Jesus’ limited references to eternal torment are reserved for the wealthy and those who pursue their own gain (Matthew 25:31-48; Luke 12:13-21; 16:19-31).

Jesus’ words about wealth and money make us uncomfortable. Jesus had some pretty difficult things to say. And, if we’re honest, most of us are not among the poor or low-class. Like it or not, if we’re going to take Scripture seriously, we have to concede that our culture’s ways sit uncomfortably in the crosshairs of Jesus’ words about wealth and money.

Let’s be clear: Jesus isn’t condemning the people who are wealthy (at least not directly). But he does offer prophetic warning. This is not Jesus being a stingy judgmentalist. What Jesus is really doing is pronouncing a different system of human living, prophetically witnessing to something other than the dominant option on hand in the 1st century, where wealth and status are things people think they should pursue.

The rich man in Luke 16 stands among other stories of prophetic witness. The rich man had more than he needed. The poor man, Lazarus, had far less. We don’t know why. One can presume all kinds of reasons, especially in our world now: one worked hard, the other was lazy. That doesn’t matter to the story, or to Jesus.

In the 1st century, it was the rich man who would have had status and been known because of his wealth. In Jesus’ story, the rich man is nameless. Yet, the poor man who is overlooked has a name. And it is he who receives good fortune in the next life.

God does not care about the accumulated wealth and status of the rich. God is unimpressed. Psalm 147:10 echoes this: “His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of the warrior.” Strong horses, strong warriors. Wealth. Status. Looks impressive to humans. Not to the Lord.

The prophetic imagination of Jesus proclaims an alternative. Money, possessions, and status will always be a thing in our world. Jesus’ story reminds the rich man that it was all “given.” We cannot build status or identity over others on the basis of what we’re given. We base it on the giver, who gives for the sake of all.

Lent invites us to imagine with Jesus. It calls us to repent where the rich man did not, and to reckon with the reality that everything is given, not possessed. Lent creates the space for us to turn around and notice what the rich man did not, and find our name, our identity, in undoing the system of wealth pursuit. It’s a call to another way of doing things, and it calls into question the value our world places on wealth and status. It’s all been given. Instead of pursuing wealth and status, Christ calls us to notice others, to pay attention to what God desires we do with what he’s given us.
                                       _____________________________________

For reflection:

• Read the following parables: Luke 12:13-21;16:19-31;Matthew 19:16-30. What prophetic challenge do these give our lives? What sort of alternative way of living do they invite into?
• For those with kids: Ask them if there’s anything in this world that is not given to them by God. Start with the year they were born, what color of eyes they have, the family they were born into, the ability to use their eyes, hands, and brain to do things. Ask if they did anything to “earn” these things. If they have not earned any of these things, ask if anyone else is any different. What difference does this make for what they have in this life and how they pay attention to others?

 
Prayer: God of mercy, you are the giver of all things. You have given us our lives, or abilities, and our resources. Open our eyes so that we do with all that is given to us what you’d want us to do. Amen.

Friday, March 20

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountain and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
~Matthew 5:1-12

                                     ______________________________________

Jesus’ beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-12 are statements of prophetic blessing. Each one of them dares boldly to announce divine blessing to categories of people whose lives are “unblessed” in Jesus’ world. If they are not “unblessed” already, then aligning themselves with Jesus’ blessings will land them among the “unblessed” in due time.

Yet, Jesus speaks as if that’s not right. He boldly claims blessing over those who do not qualify as the “blessed” in nearly every category of life in the 1st century. Jesus’ beatitudes are prophetic witnesses because they pronounce blessing against what is taken as “blessing” in the world as we know it. They imagine an alternative way of being in this world that is not according to human categories. They’re still just as counter-cultural today, in spite of how much we think we inhabit more “just” world.
 
To be a prophetic witness in the world is to live as if Jesus’ announcements of blessing are real and true. It is to recognize there is a kingdom where the poor in spirit are not pushed to the margins, but fully welcomed as people who belong.

To be a prophetic witness in the world is to embrace mourning because it reveals the world’s sadness, but also because there is finally a comfort among the people of Jesus’ kingdom.

To be a prophetic witness is to confidently take on meekness and humility in relation to others because our status and standing does not depend on how we are evaluated according to the world’s pursuits of significance.

To be a prophetic witness is to hunger and thirst for justice, which is to live uncomfortably in this world where human relationships are dictated more by self-preservation than concern for others, especially for the lowly, whose “justice” depends on systems that benefit the capable.

To be a prophetic witness is to embrace mercy in a world where retaliation is the name of the game. It is to risk looking foolish in order to identify with the king and kingdom who forgives the enemy.

To be a prophetic witness is to be pure in heart, that is, single minded in devotion and undistracted by the cares of this world, to not listen to or be directed by the latest click-bait, the newest tik-tok or Instagram phenom, or other frivolity that is passing away.

To be a prophetic witness is to be about the business of creating peace in a world where people are more interested making their voice heard by staking their position in either-or debates and keeping those who don’t think like you at a distance.

To be a prophetic witness is to risk being harassed, criticized, and made fun of, not just because we “believe” different things, but because we live according to a different righteousness.

To be a prophetic witness is to take Jesus seriously in what he says, even if it's not how the world works. To be a prophetic witness is to live as "pre-fossils." We are not evidence of the past, but evidence in this world of the future to come.
                                 __________________________________________

For reflection:

• Read Matthew 5:1-12. Consider each of Jesus’ statements of blessing. What things or people does our world consider “blessed”? How do Jesus’ statements contrast the world’s ideas of “blessed”?
• Maybe take time to write down how each of Jesus’ statements of blessing might be true of you. How are you each of these at one point or another? What does it mean that Jesus’ kingdom is made up of these, even if this world’s kingdoms are not?
• For those with kids: Read the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. Talk about what it means to be “blessed.” Do Jesus’ blessings say something different? Maybe talk about what Jesus’ blessing statements can mean in our lives today. If God blesses these people, does this give us hope? Does it give us courage?

Prayer: Heavenly father, you bless those this world does not always bless. May we live our lives according to the hope of your blessings. Amen.

Thursday, March 19
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
~ Isaiah 11:6-9

                                      _____________________________________

Being a prophetic witness begins with hope. Hope is the great act of imagination that questions what is perceived to be “real.” Hope is not optimism. Most of us have heard that. But it seems easy to turn hope into optimistic thinking: I’m hopeful things will turn out in the end. Or we might say that we’re hopeful based on current circumstances. The thoughtfulness of today’s youth makes me hopeful for the future.

The hope of the prophetic witness is not based on how things seem to be trending. The hope of the prophetic witness dares to imagine a reality and a future that is totally different from what seems true all around. It’s an outlook that refuses to accept how things currently are. But we can’t just imagine something new; we must have it proclaimed to us.

Several weeks ago, we encountered hope. While at Mayo clinic meeting with a specialist, we were told there is a surgery that most likely will correct our daughter Jaya’s double vision. I wept. In the office. The doctor compassionately smiled. He knew the hope he just spoke. We had heard of some sort of surgery that might be useful, but we had not had it proclaimed to us with such certainty ("most likely" is best doctors can say, even if they want to say something with 100% confidence. Insurance, you know....).

This proclamation came from a specialist who knows eyes and the brain and how they work. He knew what needed to be done and he could do it. And, he will do it.
Unless you’ve walked in such dark hopelessness, you have no idea how this changes things. And this wasn’t based on some hypothesis or optimism. It is based on the fact that this doctor has done this before.

Isaiah witnesses to a reality that makes no sense in the world as it is known. The wolf and the lamb? The leopard and the goat? Not predator and prey? It is the proclamation of circumstances that are nearly unimaginable. In fact the normal categories no longer apply.

These are words of hope, of a new reality that will break into the world only by God’s action. And God has done this before. This is the prophetic story of the God who births hope and makes all things new. All of the time. In creation, he brought life, beauty, and order from chaos, darkness, and nothingness. For Abraham, he birthed life and a future from a darkened, lifeless womb and old age. For the people of Israel, he brought a future and hope where everything seemed lost and destroyed and beyond repair – a new growth from a cut-down tree (Isaiah 11:1-10).

We are witnesses to such prophetic hope, friends. The stories of Scripture are not there to give us morals or answers. They are there to tell us the story so that we might live according to it. It’s the prophetic imagination of resurrection and new creation from lives that cannot seem to be further from God and God’s good purposes. Hope shines brightest where everything seems darkest. We are prophetic witnesses to this reality.

                                    ________________________________________

For reflection:

• Read Isaiah 11:1-10. What does it mean to hope? What unimaginable things are at the center of your hope? What things of God’s future do you most hope for? How can God’s promises of hope change how you live today?
• For those with kids: Talk about what it means to hope for something that you can’t see or imagine. Maybe talk about how hope for what God can and will do in the world can change how we live.  

Prayer:  God of hope, we need hope beyond what we can imagine. And we need faith to trust ourselves to you, the God who creates hope. By your Spirit, remind us of what you have done, so that we will be inspired by the hope of what you promise to do. Amen.

Wednesday, March 18

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
~Mark 1:14-15
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
~Isaiah 55:8-9

                                    _______________________________________

The pastor, theologian, and scholar Walter Brueggemann wrote often of “the prophetic imagination.” By “imagination” he means how we answer the question: what sort of world and story do you imagine you’re in?  The “prophetic imagination” conceives a world and story outside of our human ideas, rooted in the identity and deeds of YHWH. As the Lord says, “My ways are not your ways” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

Jesus’ opening words at the beginning of two of the gospels (Mark & Matthew) are: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Notice, that Jesus does not say: Repent, confess your sins so that you can be forgiven and get into heaven when you die.

Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” In other words, something very real is here, in your midst. Repent does not mean “confess your individual sins.” Confessing sin is important. Repent means something more like “jump off the train of the world you’re currently on, and get on the Jesus train which is moving in a completely different direction.” It’s not about little sins, and more about big ideas that shape our living.

The prophets were poets. This means the prophets are not giving simple statements of what to do and not to. Through metaphor and symbolism, they give an imagination for how to see the world, according to God’s good intentions. While this means calling out the ways God’s people go against God’s good intentions when they’re living by the shrunken imaginations of the world’s ideas, it’s more about imagining something better.

I think of the song, “A Million Dreams” from The Greatest Showman. Part of the lyric goes like this:

I close my eyes and I can see
A world that's waiting up for me
That I call my own
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it's gonna take
A million dreams for the world we're gonna make

The song imagines a world different than the one that currently exists. It’s a bold and inspiring song. The problem, however, is that the song’s vision revolves around “me” and “I.” The prophetic imagination in Scripture reflects the world God desires and designs, not you or me. It calls us to God’s vision of beauty, truth, and goodness, to God’s definition of justice and love.

The prophetic imagination means that the vision for life revealed in Jesus Christ is a vision that is more adequate and reliable than the ones on offer in our culture, no matter how appealing or beyond critique they might seem.

And the prophetic imagination is not a mere wish; it’s a reality that God will bring about. We are only witnesses to it. As witnesses, we do not create or build this kingdom. We testify to what is already taking place. We open eyes to see it: life through death, the suffering and humility of the cross as wisdom, joy and sorrow held together; love as the truth of who God is. Lent calls us to be reminded of this through repentance (turning around) so that we might be prophetic witnesses to this other kingdom.

                                   ________________________________________

For reflection:

• Reflect on Jesus’ announcement of the kingdom of heaven being “at hand.” How comfortable are you with the ways of the kingdom of the world now? What are the challenges to living according to a totally different kingdom way of life in our world?
• For those with kids: Talk about the best world you imagine. What’s it like? How do people behave and get along? What is important?

 
Prayer: Father of life, in Jesus you brought something into the world. Because of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, your kingdom is alive and growing among us. Give us the eyes to see it, and the faith to follow into it, and the passion to witness to it. Amen.

Tuesday, March 10

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
~ Isaiah 53:2-4

                                 __________________________________________

Our world makes no room for weakness. It’s so ingrained in how we live that often, until we are actually in a place of weakness, we won’t even notice it. For example, have you ever noticed how many places are not accessible to those with a wheelchair, walking disabilities, or other physical infirmities or weakness? Next time you walk down main street, try noticing. You might be surprised. You might also be surprised at how little you have actually noticed this before. Those with weakness in our “tough” world of making it on your own have a hard time. They have to navigate a world built around the capabilities of the strong and able. It’s hard. But, of course, in our world it’s weakness to admit that it’s difficult. Don’t complain -- isn’t that what we teach?

Houston, we have a problem.

The cross of Jesus is the epitome of weakness. In passage after passage, the New Testament writers highlight this (1 Corinthians 1:27-29; 2 Corinthians 2-5 and 13:4; Hebrews 4:15).

The writer of Hebrews says that Jesus empathizes with our weakness. He writes: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

Jesus came in weakness and embraced it, without sin. Now, the idea of “temptation” and “sin” for the writer of Hebrews is not lust or greed or lying. It’s the temptation to shun human weakness and suffering. He was writing to Christians who were starting to think following Jesus was in fact not worth it. The cross of Jesus was shameful and weak. Following Jesus exposed them as weak in the world, and that made life difficult. They were thinking of walking away from faith and embracing a better life that avoided weakness.

The writer of Hebrews makes it clear to them that Christ resisted temptation and sin by remaining weak and embracing the shame of the cross (Hebrews 12:1-3). Christ did not abandon weakness. And he is weak with them. The sin is to abandon weakness; to abandon weakness is to abandon Christ. It is not surprising that Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats specifically refers to actions that identify with the weak and suffering in society, and that Jesus says “what you do to the least (read: “weak”), you do to me (Jesus)” (Matthew 25:31-48).

According to the Apostle Paul, visible weakness is actually the evidence that his ministry is thriving (2 Corinthians 2-5). When was the last time you saw some new church name itself something like “Fellowship of the Weak”? You don’t see it. And you likely won’t, as long as the American church is taking its cues from a world of glory that doesn’t make space for weakness. We want to “hype-up” everything, look capable, strong, and “exciting.” We aren’t helping anyone (especially our youth) learn the way of the cross. Weakness is where Christ is found. Glory comes after this life. Weakness now. And it’s not a bait-and-switch where weakness is the path to something greater. Not in the New Testament. Weakness is the way of Christ. Period. The cross makes that clear.

Your weakness, pain, and suffering are not shameful things to overcome. They might be seen as that in this world. But Christ has overcome the world through weakness. Christ had no beauty; he was despised; he was rejected. It is this, my friends, that most identifies you with Jesus and not outward displays of beauty, strength, or success. Because Christ was weak and embraced weakness, so to can you. In weakness he is strong. Take heart.
                                 _______________________________________
 
For reflection:

• Read 2 Corinthians 2-5. How does weakness make space for the work of Christ in ways that human capability cannot? What weaknesses do you hide from that actually might be places for the power of God to shine through? Why is weakness so difficult for us/you to embrace?
• For those with kids: Talk about weaknesses they have. Do they think they have to hide them? Why? What if God said their weaknesses are actually the best things? What would that change about how they lived?

Prayer: God of glory, your strength and blessing is not found in human success, but in weakness and frailty. By your Spirit, draw us more deeply into this truth, so that our weaknesses might shine, and we might be transformed. Amen.

Monday, March 9

“You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for I am. If I, then, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also out to wash one another’s feet. I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Here’s what it comes down to: a servant is not greater than the master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
~ John 13:13-17

                              _____________________________________________

The Gospel of John is most famous for one verse, John 3:16:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that whoever believes in him might not die and fade out, but have eternal life.”

Sadly, this passage is often misunderstood. The Greek word translated “so” means “thusly” or “in this way.” It’s not telling us how much God loved the world. That’s not in question. John 3:16 is telling us how God shows love. John 3:16 tells us God’s love is love that gives radically to the world that rejects this love, and this is displayed in Jesus on the cross. Miss this, and you miss much of what John’s gospel is trying to communicate.

In John 13, Jesus washes his disciple’s feet. This is Jesus’ final action on his last night. Foot-washing was done by slaves. Slaves put other people above themselves; their lives existed for the sake of giving life to others.

Peter, speaking for the disciples, naturally objects to Jesus’ action because he gets it. What Jesus is doing is not normal, it’s not right. Jesus is their teacher! He is Lord, the Son of God! How can he take the position of a slave?! But that’s how Jesus defines love because the cross defines Jesus. What was seen as a dishonorable act of slavery becomes the example of divine love. Talk about turning things upside down!

In John 12:30-32, Jesus talks about being “lifted up” and casting out the ruler of this world. When he does this, he will “draw all people” to himself. He’s talking about dying on the cross, not the resurrection and ascension. The cross is the great act of love: the exaltation of lowliness, God giving of himself to lift us up to God. And it is through this kind of self-sacrificing love that evil is dismantled. Only this way of love, at every level of life: individual, social, political, national. No exceptions.

Remember that John’s gospel is the one that talks about Jesus as the “light” that overcomes darkness. This light that overcomes is the light of self-giving love that is so radical that it breaks the system. It’s as the rap artist Lecrae says in his song, “Anomaly”: “The system didn’t plan for this.” The cross of Jesus demonstrates that the kingdom of darkness is not overthrown through Christianized use of the same methods and tactics as the world. That might seem like it works, and it might result in visible success according to that lens. It might even be defended as “Biblical.” But it won’t be Christlike.  Only love that suffers like Jesus humiliated on the cross is Christlike. This is the way, the truth, and the life.
                                      _____________________________________

For reflection:

• The cross and foot-washing show how God loves, not just how much. 
• For those with kids:  This might seem strange to you, but get out a large bowl and fill it with water.  Get a towel. Take time as a family to wash each other’s feet.  Talk about how you felt to have someone else wash your feet.  Explain how washing feet is putting other’s above yourself.  Think about how you might serve other people in your life in this kind of way. (not literally washing feet)

 
Prayer: God of love, your love breaks our categories. It makes no sense. But this is how your love transforms life. We need this kind of love if there is to be any hope. Please teach us your way of love, so that it takes over our lives. Amen.

Saturday, March 7

From that time Jesus began to explain to his disciples that it would be necessary that he go to Jerusalem and suffer much from the elders and chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And Peter, taking him aside, began to rebuke him saying, “God have mercy, Lord! May this never happen to you!” But turning to Peter, he said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, since you are not thinking things of God but of human things.” Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wishes to get behind me, let that person disregard themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
~Matthew 16:21-24

                               ___________________________________________

We all want the hero Jesus. It’s baked into our cultural DNA. It was the same for Jesus’ disciples. They had no framework for any other idea of what Jesus could be. When Jesus announces he will suffer and die, it clashes with their foundational beliefs about who God is and what they wanted Jesus to be.

Jesus begins by saying that it is necessary for him to suffer and die. Jesus’ suffering and death are not just unfortunate events that are overcome by resurrection. They are necessary parts of the storyline. The way of God cannot not include human suffering and death. Jesus made it so. The hero god of glory and triumph is unnecessary. And this suffering is not merely what Jesus the human did for our sins. It’s more.

As Christians, we confess that God is a Trinity – Father, Son, and Spirit, one identity, mind, and purpose. And if Jesus is the one “in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:19), then Jesus’ necessary suffering and death is also the necessary revealing of who God is. Jesus reveals a God who vulnerably identifies with our human suffering. He does not stand away, detached from it.

Jesus is passive. Everything Jesus says are things that will happen to him. He will suffer from others, be killed, and be raised. It’s hard to imagine Jesus as passive. He does not act. He does not retaliate. We live in a retaliation culture. So did Jesus. His passivity was foolish. It is now. We don’t like that, especially in a John Wayne Jesus culture. We even sometimes try to cover it up by saying how strong and brave Jesus was. Maybe he was. But it’s interesting that the gospel writers never point this out. And that’s certainly not how it looked. It looked like Jesus was the weak, passive, shameful recipient of the power of the Roman state. As Isaiah says, “He did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). Human violence and evil are visited upon Christ. And he receives it. In this passivity (which is related to the word passion), Jesus absorbed human violence and evil into the abyss of his love, where it would drown into nothing. It is necessary. This is how God works. God is not the God of displays of power and violence, but the God whose love absorbs human power and violence.

For Jesus, the way of the cross – of humility, suffering, and death – is necessary. We don’t get to God by any other route. As it was with Peter, we get in the way when we try to think otherwise.

This is genuinely good news. We live in a world of heroism and retaliation. We don’t have to always be the hero. In fact, to not look the part of the hero might actually make us look more like Jesus. And to retaliate is not like Jesus at all. It's only to look like the violence of the world, taking justice into our own sinful hands. There’s another way, if we’re willing. Only in this way will we truly know Jesus.

                                 _________________________________________

For reflection:

• Read Isaiah 53:1-12.
• What ideas of Jesus do you have that don’t include suffering? When you think of Jesus do you object to the idea that he was passive? Why?
• For those with kids: What do you think it means to suffer?  It means to go through hard things that are not pleasant.  How do you think Jesus makes us more like Him when we have to go through hard, unpleasant things?  Even though we don’t like them, we have to rely more on Him to get through them.

Prayer:
God of suffering, we often want to worship a God of power. By your Spirit, open our eyes to the way Jesus who suffers reveals who God truly is, so that we might also become like you. Amen.

Sunday, March 8

My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
~Luke 1:46 & 51-52

                                   ________________________________________

Luke’s story sets Jesus up as the one who rewrites what it means to be human. In Luke Jesus’ lineage goes back to Adam, not to Abraham like Matthew’s gospel. The point is that the life of Jesus is the fulfillment of humanity. When you think of the ultimate human purpose for life, and what that might look like, what way of life comes to your mind?

The Greek and Roman cultures of Jesus’ day both had their own ideas about what the fulfillment of humanity looked like. And it looked like what you’d think: comfort, pleasure, self-fulfillment. It left a lot of people on the margins, however. Pursue your own fulfillment and agendas first. Why should I care about others? I need to be worried about myself first, right?

Luke’s gospel also takes readers on a journey with Jesus. It’s a journey on the road to the cross. This is ultimately where Jesus is headed; it’s his ultimate destination. Other stories of great figures in Greek and Roman history had as their destination self-preservation, making a name for themselves through great actions. Not Jesus. His way focused on the marginalized and lifting up the lowly. And not as a nice effect of the gospel. It is the way of the cross.

Along the journey in Luke, Jesus will tell stories and do things that illustrate what this way of the cross as the fulfillment of humanity. The Good Samaritan, the rich man and Lazarus, the Prodigal Son are all classic stories of Jesus. But they’re not disconnected stories with nice morals. These are radical stories that are part of the journey to the cross. They are each important pieces of the puzzle that, once put in place, give a picture of Jesus on the way to the cross, AND the way of life for those who follow him.

The Good Samaritan in Luke 10 is a great example. It emphasizes the concern for the wounded and needy. The way to life is to “go and do likewise” and identify with the suffering and abandoned as the Samaritan did. This is what God has done for humanity, rescuing and restoring a humanity broken and damaged by its own greed and selfishness, leaving others to struggle on the side of the road in the journey of life.

In contrast to the Roman ways of being human, the way of the cross is all about undoing the upwardly mobile ways of the world. Instead life on the way of the cross seeks to restore life and dignity to the ones beat down and with nothing. This is the way of the other side, a life defined differently. The song “The Other Side” captures the idea well:

The way of the cross is the other side. It breaks through the little walls we’ve made to keep our lives safe. It makes no sense, looking at it from the side of the old, worn down ways of American culture. It’s not conventional. But it is the way to be human.

                                 _______________________________________

For reflection:

• What ways of being human are “normal” today, but are not of the way of the cross?
• Read the stories of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, and the Rich Man and Lazarus. How do they unsettle our comforts and call us out to those on the margins?
• For those with kids: Read the stories above with the kids.  Let the kids share what they think is happening in the stories and how Jesus is teaching us to live in a new and better way.

Prayer: God of life, you created us in your image. Yet, we have forgotten what it means to be truly human. We’ve taken over the idea with our own ways. We repent, Lord. Teach us to be human, and teach us to seek the good life for our neighbor, who is also made in your image. Amen.

Hello folks!

Here's the link to the entire booklet for week three: https://online.fliphtml5.com/zdiscipleship/Lent-Week-3-compan/

Happy Lent everyone!

Friday, March 6

Jesus’ disciples came to him saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling a child to him, he set the child in the middle of them all and said, “Here’s the deal: unless you turn your lives in a different direction and become like children, you will never enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles themselves like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
~ Matthew 18:1-4

                                 __________________________________________

"Go into the world and make disciples.” These are Jesus’ final words in Matthew’s gospel. But he goes on…“teaching them to obey all that I have instructed you.” To make sense of this, one must read (or reread) Matthew’s story of Jesus. There is no other way. And, as the reader will find, Jesus’ “instruction” is not just words and ideas. It is a way of life. Instruction by living.

There is a clear theme to Jesus’ instruction and living in Matthew’s gospel. It’s best illustrated in Jesus’ exaltation of children as examples. Jesus’ words of Jesus about becoming like children are only in Matthew’s gospel. There’s something important here Matthew’s gospel is highlighting.

First thing’s first: NO ONE in Jesus’ world exalted children as examples. Let me repeat: no one would do this. Let’s be clear on another thing: modern Christianity tends to totally miss the boat when it comes to understanding what Jesus is saying when he says this. We often interpret it to mean that we should have “childlike faith,” which often means believing without question (which is usually not quite right anyway…children ask the most questions), or some idea of innocence. How we think of children and how they did in Jesus’ world are worlds apart.

Children in Jesus’ world were low, generally despised as an annoyance, and unfit for “real life” until they grew up. They were in need of training and development. And, here’s the best one: they were disposable. They were numbered among slaves, the poor, and women as low in society.

Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel: become like these. Ummmm…say what, Jesus? In fact, he goes further: unless you become like these, the kingdom of heaven isn’t your place. Jesus doesn’t mean heaven after you die here. He means participating in the life of God’s good rule on earth. Unless you become low, disposable, insignificant, you’ll miss out. And he’s not joking.

Jesus says all of this in the context of talking about following him and taking up the cross. It’s in the context of Jesus’ disciples wondering which of them will be “great” among the people in Jesus’ kingdom. It’s in the context of the rich man (upwardly mobile in society) asking Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life.

Jesus himself lives this insignificant life. We often let his miracles overshadow this (which is something Jesus was very leery about). Jesus enters the world as the “un-king” born into poverty, among those ignored and overlooked. When tempted to seek power and get noticed, he refuses. When he teaches, his words speak of blessing for the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, and those generally under the wheel of struggle in the Roman world. When he rises from the dead, he makes no scene of triumph, but instead returns quietly to join with men and women sitting in fear (we should probably rethink our Easter celebrations).

At the end of Matthew, the message is clear. And the command is clear: be like this. This is the way of Jesus, the way of the cross. It is not living a life that seeks to make ourselves known, to try to have influence. That is our culture’s voice. And it is loud. We’re still Romans. And the way of the cross is still just as impractical. As long as we keep chasing our own importance, we'll never know what it means to become like a child in the kingdom.

                                ___________________________________________

For reflection:

• What would it look like to become like a child in the same way as in Jesus’ world? What are the challenges to this for you? How might it actually open you to a more abundant life?
• For those with children:  When have you ever felt insignificant?  Jesus says that the insignificant people are actually his favorite and that is what everyone in His kingdom is like.

 
Prayer: Heavenly father, you welcome the lowly and disposable as your favored ones. Too often we despise the lowly and do not want to be among them. We keep ourselves from the treasures of your kingdom. Soften our hearts and form us to be like children of your kingdom. Amen.
 

Thursday, March 5

From that time Jesus began to explain to his disciples that it would be necessary that he go to Jerusalem and suffer much from the elders and chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And Peter, taking him aside, began to rebuke him saying, “God have mercy, Lord! May this never happen to you!” But turning to Peter, he said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, since you are not thinking things of God but of human things.” Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after me, let that person disregard themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
~Matthew 16:21-24

                                  _________________________________________

"Take up your cross and follow me.” I wonder how much we truly understand this. It’s ok if we don’t. The disciples didn’t, repeatedly (Luke 9:45; 18:34). It’s challenging because our lives are too comfortable, too much on the top side of our society. We’d have too much to lose if we actually took up the cross as Jesus intended it. So instead we minimize the cross with the resurrection: the cross is defeated by resurrection, something that Jesus triumphed over; the cross is what Jesus did for us, so we don’t have to; we get to experience the win because Jesus went to the cross in our place. Sadly, the New Testament affirms none of this. The resurrection defeats death, not the cross.

I say none of this to make anyone feel bad or guilty. Jesus doesn’t operate by guilting people; we probably shouldn’t, either. But I do say this to draw attention to the serious call to the life of the cross. The cross is not a speed bump, an obstacle on the way to resurrection. Resurrection doesn’t overcome the cross; it affirms the cross. And the cross becomes the thing that defines the way of life for those who follow in the way of Jesus. The joy of resurrection must pass through the cross, for all of us. Lent reminds us of this. And it makes resurrection all the richer.

Crucifixion was a horrible and shameful state-enforced death. The body was exposed, usually naked. Those crucified were humiliated, shamed, and publicly displayed for passers-by to laugh at, mock, and be repulsed by. It was a sign that Rome was triumphant. Crucifixion was primarily (almost exclusively) used on the low class, non-citizens, slaves, criminals, and political or social rebellious types. When Jesus is on the cross, everyone thinks he’s one of those. He willingly went there. To take up your cross means to go there with Jesus.

You can see why the biggest problem for Christians for the next few hundred years was that they worshipped and modeled their lives after the guy who was crucified. Not good PR. Somehow, in a culture where seeing a cross necklace is as common as seeing a Starbucks, the scandal of the cross has been compromised.

That Jesus, the Son of God, would be crucified was utterly nonsense. Peter got it. You can see why he would object so strongly. You would, too. We still do, especially in the ways we are prone to “spiritualizing” Jesus’ death.

Yet, the early church did not try to get around it. This is probably one main reason the church for a long while was made up primarily of the lower class. Jesus was one of them. They got it. For most Greeks and Romans and Jews, if God or someone even claiming to act in the name of God were to become human and suffer and be crucified, the wheels would fall off of everything normal and respectable. Everything you built your world on, what you thought was “typical” or proper would be shattered. 
 
What if this crazy, nonsensical vision of taking up the cross were an invitation to a way of living that actually brings greater life than having all of the amenities and good things our world has to offer? What if taking the path of suffering and sharing suffering actually opens us up to a humanity that we’ll never know until we take it upon ourselves? What if it’s the thing we’re most deeply longing for, but looking for in other things or experiences that just won’t get us there?            
                                __________________________________________

For reflection:

• What makes taking up the cross uncomfortable? How do you avoid it in your own life (be honest about this)?
• What might it mean to think that the resurrection affirms the cross, rather than overcomes the cross?
• For those with kids: Imagine being ridiculed, made fun of, or treated as unimportant.  How would this make you feel?  This is how Jesus was treated on the cross.  How can you relate to Jesus?

 
Prayer: God of the cross, you call us out of our comfort. Too often we keep ourselves safe and protected. Heal our blindness to see the beauty of your nonsensical life. Amen.