This Blog Has Moved

For anyone who has followed “Reflections of Something” in the past, I have been going through a significant season of transition and as a result, have recently launched a new self-hosted website called “Echo” at  www.craigsefa.org.

This website includes my new blog as well as weekly audio sermons and other resources for spiritual formation.  Over the next few months the blog will offer my reflections on a recent pilgrimage I took in Ireland to study the movement of Celtic Christianity.  For more information about the vision behind “Echo” check out the “About” page and my sermon simply entitled “Echo”.

I hope you enjoy the new site and invite others as well.  The current site will remain for anyone wishing to view archived blog posts or my reflections on the Holy Land from 2010.

Thanks for following…

When Jesus Pulled an “All-Nighter”…

Reading: Luke 6:12-19

At about that same time he climbed a mountain to pray. He was there all night in prayer before God. The next day he summoned his disciples; from them he selected twelve he designated as apostles…

~ Luke 6:12-13 (The Message)

I honestly don’t know what today’s terminology is, but most of us have had at least one time if not many times in life when we have stayed up all night in preparation for the next day. I remember these nights fondly at the University of Florida, locked into the architecture studio from sun-down to sun-up striving to get the latest project just right before it was critiqued and possibly destroyed by a professor the next morning. They didn’t call it “Archi-torture” for nothing. Of course, there was always the 3:00 am alarm that called us across the street to Krispy Kreme for fresh donuts and large cappuccinos to get through the rest of the morning. And honestly, there is no more peaceful time on campus than 3:00 am… seriously… the nights were beautiful.

Whether you call it an “all-nighter” like we did or “burning the midnight oil” or whatever other slang you may have used, the point is always the same… to get more work accomplished because there were not enough hours in the day.

This is why I am struck by these few short transitional verses in Luke’s Gospel and why I am slowing down even more as I seek to be more intentional about knowing Jesus through every word of these first and second hand accounts of his life (confession: I am quickly coming to the realization that this journey will take a few years for Luke’s Gospel alone and I am slowly becoming more OK with that.)

When Jesus pulled an “all-nighter”, it was not to do more work or get more done… it was to spend more time with His Heavenly Father.

It appears from Luke’s account that Jesus already had a following by this time. He already had many disciples. He doesn’t come across as the mysterious sage walking along the beach and calling people at random from their jobs to follow him. He knew the people and he knew the pressures of ministry to these people and to the miracle seeking crowds which continued to grow around him. He also knew that his task was not simply to walk around performing miracles for three years, but to equip and train apostles whom he would send into all the earth to continue his task of opening the floodgates of heaven into this broken world.

Given the task ahead and the pragmatic ways of thinking today, I can easily envision Jesus sitting up all night at his desk agonizing over resumes and realizing that not one of these applicants was qualified for the job at hand. I can see him throwing the stack of papers in the air and walking across the street to Krispy Kreme at 3:00 am with tears in his eyes, overwhelmed by this impossible task. And I can see him setting his cappuccino on the desk, kneeling down to gather up the pages, and slouching into his chair with a sigh as he begins to read through them again.

But as the sun rises over the mountain, Jesus has nothing to show for his lack of well-deserved and much needed sleep. He hasn’t read a single resume. He hasn’t made notes on a single candidate or their qualifications. He hasn’t sent a single e-mail or text to schedule an interview for the position of “apostle.” And through it all, he never even got a cappuccino or a hot and fresh glazed donut (which you are probably thinking about going to get right now 🙂

“He was there all night in prayer before God.”

We say a lot of prayers. We recite prayers in worship. We pray before meals. We open and close every meeting at church with a prayer. We are constantly telling our friends and family members that we are praying for them when they are sick or going through difficult times. But I wonder if we have truly ever been “in prayer before God.”

Only once in my life can I remember being part of an all-night prayer vigil and it was completely spontaneous and unplanned. I was on a fall retreat with a campus ministry during my freshmen year of college and after the evening session several of us stayed in the chapel to worship and pray. I honestly cannot tell you what all we prayed for that night, how many songs we sang or how many scriptures were read or recited. But I can tell you that I will never forget when the adult leaders of the camp came into the chapel and told us that it was time for breakfast. You could have heard a pin drop. We had not gone to bed. We honestly only thought an hour or two had passed. All I can say is that caught up in God’s presence as we were, time stood still. Time has no meaning to Eternal God.

But somehow, even without sleep, we were fully engaged and ready for what God had for us the rest of that weekend. And the ministry continued to expand exponentially when we returned. New Bible Studies popped up in dorms and Greek Houses across campus. Weekly worship and prayer gatherings grew. The Holy Spirit had set us on fire with a passion to reach our community with the love of Christ.

“The next day he summoned his disciples…”

Jesus was fully engaged and ready too. He selected his apostles and coming down off the mountain he was ready to proclaim the Good News of God to the crowds gathering from all across the land, “even from the seaside towns of Tyre and Sidon” (v. 17).

We’ll wrestle with what exactly he taught them in a later post, but for now I am simply seeking to find peace in my own heart and life that I don’t have to accomplish more. I don’t have to run myself into the ground all night to get more done. But I do need to spend more nights “in prayer before God,” where time stands still in His Holy Presence, and where true clarity, wisdom, direction, strength and even rest can be found.

So what are you doing with your “all-nighters”?

Lord, help us be still in your Holy Presence.

Working Hard Not to Work

Reading: Luke 6:1-11

On another Sabbath he went to the meeting place and taught. There was a man there with a crippled right hand. The religion scholars and Pharisees had their eye on Jesus to see if he would heal the man, hoping to catch him in a Sabbath infraction. He knew what they were up to and spoke to the man with the crippled hand: “Get up and stand here before us.” He did.

 Then Jesus addressed them, “Let me ask you something: What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?”

 He looked around, looked each one in the eye. He said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” He held it out – it was as good as new! They were beside themselves with anger, and started plotting how they might get even with him.

~ Luke 6:6-11 (The Message)

There is much talk in Christian circles about the relationship between “doing” and “being”, generally calling us to stop working so hard to “do” things for God and rather spend more time just “being” with God. Indeed this is a valuable discussion, particularly in light of a culture which defines us according to our work. Our status in society, both economically and socially, often centers on what we do, whereas God loves us for who we are, children created in His Image.

But has all of our conversation about learning to “be” instead of “do” actually become a form of “doing” in itself? Throughout the history of God’s people, Sabbath was one of those days where “being” became central as “doing” ceased altogether. No work could be done and we are called to simply rest by being in God’s presence. Yet endless toilsome hours have been spent, both in Jesus’ day as now, striving to figure out exactly what the limits or restrictions of Sabbath are. For 1^st century Jews it may be a question of how far one could walk on the Sabbath or whether they could provide medical care for someone in need. For us it may be a question of whether or not it’s OK to mow the yard on a Sunday after church, even if we enjoy it, or if it’s too unspiritual for Sabbath to sit back and enjoy the game on TV.

For most of us the idea of taking an entire day to cease from work is so counter-cultural that we have ignored this law altogether. For those, including myself, who have ever attempted to give it a serious try, the endless questions of what might be considered appropriate or inappropriate to do on Sabbath can make the day more of a burden that a joy. But Jesus models another way. He reminds us that Sabbath is about freedom, not burden, and that it opens the door to a way of life, not just a day.

Jesus asks the same question we ask… “What kind of action suits the Sabbath best?” But then he takes it a step further. “Doing good, or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?” The religious leaders were experts at the first question. They could have shown Jesus volumes of laws and traditions to explain what actions suit the Sabbath. But somewhere along the line they became blind to how their “lack of doing” or their “inaction” on Sabbath could actually become the equivalent of “evil actions”, particularly where someone in need was ignored.

It would seem that Jesus is pointing us toward a new rule of life. Jesus isn’t concerned with the things we should not do, on Sabbath or on any other day for that matter. Jesus always seems more concerned with what we choose to do, because even rest and inaction is ultimately a choice to “do” something. We can’t escape it.

And so as John Wesley puts it in what has become known as his Rule for Christian Living…

“Do All the Good You Can,
By All the Means You Can,
In All the Ways You Can,
In All the Places You Can,
At All the Times You Can,
To All the People You Can,
As long as Ever …
…You Can!”

Sounds a lot like Jesus’ response to the challenge the he broke the law by healing on the Sabbath. And if we’re truly “doing” this much good, both in our busyness and in our rest, maybe we’d find that all of life is restful because all of life is lived in the presence of God, doing the good God has called us to do. After all, didn’t Jesus say, “My yoke is easy, my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30)?

We can’t truly “stop doing”, for even lying out on the beach is “doing” something. But in what we choose to do, we can find Sabbath rest. In doing all the good we can, we can know peace.

Shalom!

Dump the Hand Sanitizer

Reading: Luke 5:27-39

After this he went out and saw a man named Levi at his work collecting taxes. Jesus said, “Come along with me.” And he did – walked away from everything and went with him.

Levi gave a large dinner at his home for Jesus. Everybody was there, tax men and other disreputable characters as guests at the dinner. The Pharisees and their religion scholars came to the disciples greatly offended. “What is he doing eating and drinking with crooks and ‘sinners?’”

Jesus heard about it and spoke up. “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting outsiders, not insiders – an invitation to a changed life, changed inside and out.”

  ~ Luke 5:27-32 (The Message)

When we talk about people being “saved” or “accepting Christ” or “following Jesus,” we talk a lot about the importance of leaving the old life behind and starting fresh. In our world this usually implies hanging out less with our old “sinful” friends in “sinful” places and spending more time at church fellowships with our new “church friends.”

We work so hard to keep ourselves clean, to change our lives, to break the bad habits we had before we accepted Christ, and so on. We desire to keep ourselves away from those places and people and situations that might lead us down a worldly path. We take very seriously the King James Version of 1 Thessalonians 5:22 that says to avoid any “appearance” of evil, even though the Greek word used for “appearance” is translated as “form” in nearly every other version.

But in all of our efforts to stay pure and to isolate ourselves within our moral and upright church communities, we seem to have gotten stuck. We have put up such a wall between us and “the world” that we can’t even conceive of how to “reach” them. Evangelism has become little more than trying desperately to bait those evil, sinful people into our buildings one at a time so we can convince them to “get saved” and join our little group.

In our pursuit of holiness, I wonder if we have actually abandoned Jesus? One thing that always distinguished Jesus from the religious leaders of his day is that he never seemed overly concerned with being infected by those who were unclean. He didn’t carry around spiritual hand sanitizer or wet wipes just in case he came in contact with someone who had sinned, or was diseased, or had any other kind of impurity that the institution feared. In terms of outward appearances, Jesus may have been one of the least “Holy” people alive, or at least that’s what the “Holy” temple folks seemed to think.

So where is Jesus if not hanging out at the bingo table or potluck with the church crowd?

Maybe, just maybe, Jesus is still at Levi’s party having a great time with tax collectors and other disreputable characters who would never feel welcome in church.

And the best part… it didn’t make him any less “Holy.” In fact, things tended to go the other way. His holiness rubbed off on their sinfulness, just like it did with Levi… just like a doctor’s medical knowledge helps heal the sick.

If we really want to know Jesus, maybe, just maybe we need to dump the hand sanitizer and step outside of our bomb shelters to the real world where people are broken and hurting just like us and where Jesus is still binding up their wounds and inviting us to do the same.

The Thing We Forget to Ask For

Reading: Luke 5:12-26

Impressed by their bold belief, he said, “Friend, I forgive your sins.”

That set the religious scholars and Pharisees buzzing. “Who does he think he is? That’s blasphemous talk! God and only God can forgive sins.”

Jesus knew exactly what they were thinking and said, “Why all this gossipy whispering? Which is simpler: to say ‘I forgive your sins’ or to say ‘Get up and start walking’? Well, just so it’s clear that I’m the Son of Man and authorized to do either or both…” He now spoke directly to the paraplegic: “Get up. Take your bedroll and go home.” Without a moment’s hesitation, he did it – glory to God all the way.

 ~ Luke 5:20-25 (The Message)

So a man comes to Jesus on a stretcher, lowered through the roof by his friends because that’s how determined they are to help him find healing. They all knew Jesus had the power to make him walk.

Yet after such a bold and dramatic entrance which according to Luke even impresses Jesus, his only response is “Friend, I forgive your sins.”

“What?” we might respond in his shoes. “That’s nice, but I didn’t ask for forgiveness. I haven’t even done anything wrong. Can’t you see I’m paralyzed? You’ve healed so many others. Won’t you heal me?”

It’s easy to lose sight of this point in light of the fact that Jesus does indeed heal the man as evidence to his critics that he indeed has the authority of God to forgive sin. We celebrate yet another miraculous healing and go on with our lives, hoping and praying the same kind of miracle of us or our loved ones.

But what if we have missed the point? I’ve always struggled with physical healings in Scripture because they often seem to promote a view of God that combines Santa Clause meets with the best doctor in the world. It’s as if God does little more than pop down people’s chimneys, or in this case, sits in someone’s house waiting for a paralytic to pop down the chimney, or at least through the roof, and fill our stockings with magical potions or incantations to make all of our ailments go away. And if physical healing is God’s primary purpose, as it would seem by looking at most of our church prayer lists, then what do we make of death? Every person Jesus healed eventually died. Where was God then? Every one we know who has experienced healing either has since or will eventually die, and so will we, no matter how many times we experience God’s healing power.

But what if healing for Jesus is not an end in itself? What if healing is always meant to point us to a larger reality? Jesus uses healing in this instance to prove that he is filled with the power and authority of God and therefore also has the power to forgive sin, as only God can do.

It’s not that Jesus doesn’t love us and want us to experience healing and wholeness in our lives… mind, body and spirit. Rather it is that any such healing will always be temporary as our lives are temporary. If Jesus only came to earth to heal a few dozen, or even a few hundred people who would later die anyway, there is little point in studying his life 2,000 years later. We may as well study any great medical researcher, surgeon or physician.

But Jesus is always up to more than just the healing he provides.

A few verses earlier we read the story of a leper who came to Jesus and asked to be made clean. Jesus heals him immediately and told him not to tell anybody. But Jesus’ instructions don’t end there. He also tells the man to go to the priest and make an offering for his cleansing as required in the Law of Moses. In other words, it is not enough for the man to be physically healed and go on about his life as if everything is OK. He must go through the proper procedures to be officially declared clean and therefore restored to society according to the social order of the day. If the healing was the ultimate goal here, why not just let him go on his way. He had been healed whether a priest declared him so or not. Yet despite that outward healing, Jesus knew this man still carried a stigma which isolated him from his community and that stigma could only be removed from the public eye through a declaration of the priest.

In the same way, Jesus knows that the paralytic, along with the rest of us, are trapped by the stigma of sin. We may be healed on the outside, but there are still behaviors and attitudes which keep us focused on ourselves and isolated from God and others. Physical healing is never enough.

Perhaps the biggest problem here, however, is not just that Jesus offered this man forgiveness, but that he did so without the man even asking for it. Jesus’ extension of mercy showed this man, his friends, and all who were gathered that they were in need of something more. It was not only their physical disabilities that kept them on the margins of society. It was not only their outward diseases that made them feel isolated from the religious community and from God. It was something deeper that is in all of us, though we are often working so hard to be good that we don’t realize just how severe it is.

This is not to say that repentance doesn’t matter, for there are many examples of Jesus calling people to change their hearts and lives as a result of his grace in their lives. Rather it is to say that forgiveness is readily available even before we are aware of our need for it. And perhaps it is that availability of grace which reminds us of our need and draws us back to Jesus time and time again. It almost feels like going to the grocery store to pick up something for dinner but as you walk past the dairy section you realize you are out of milk as well. When a need we did not realize is met right before our eyes, it is easier to remember how much we need it.

The same is true of grace. Jesus’ primary purpose in healing, at least in this passage, is to remove those things which isolate people from God and from their communities. He is reconciling relationships and giving people back their worth as children of God no longer defined by their afflictions.

We may pray for physical healing, either for ourselves or for someone else, but I wonder if Jesus may be offering something more that we would never think to ask for. No matter how many times we are healed throughout our lives, whether from a terminal illness, a tragic accident, or even a common cold or flu, we will all face the day when such healing no longer comes in this life. Yet even in the absence of physical healing, can we hear Jesus’ heart speaking to us… “You are not just a cancer patient… you are not just a paralytic… you are not just a depressed person… you are a child of God. Your sins are forgiven. You can be restored to your Father’s arms, sick or not. You are loved.”

When we start to see Jesus’ heart beyond the healing, or lack thereof, maybe that’s where the real healing begins.

Nothing to Fear?

Reading: Luke 5:1-11

“Jesus said to Simon, ‘There is nothing to fear. From now on you’ll be fishing for men and women.’”

~ Luke 5:10 (The Message)

There is nothing to fear. From now on you’ll be catching people instead of fish.

Am I the only one who sees a great irony in the placement of these two statements?

I’m an introvert to the extreme. The idea of going out and gathering a bunch of people is one of the most anxiety filled prospects I could face.   I’m not exactly a fisherman either, but given the choice, I’d much rather be on a boat in the middle of a quiet lake than in the midst of a crowd of people. Some are gifted with charismatic personalities that just attract everyone they meet, but that is not me. The thought of not only being around people but actually having to draw them or “catch” them in some way is even more frightening.

Some people may love the idea of fishing for people, but to me, this is not a command I would ever associate with the phrase “There is nothing to fear.” For someone like me, it seems there is everything to fear. What if nobody listens? What if nobody follows? What if they don’t like me? Where am I getting the energy to deal with all of these people? What if I let Jesus down?

And yet for as difficult and fearful as this command may seem, Jesus has just proven that these are not empty words. He stepped into Simon’s world, a fishing boat where Simon knew the ins and outs of the business and of these particular waters, and managed to catch a multitude of fish that Simon could not find. In other words, if Jesus can handle our business and the things we are good at even better than we can, what makes us think he can’t handle his own business… saving souls, far better than we can.

It’s also interesting that this calling is given to Simon after his fearful response. When Simon saw Jesus’ power and authority in catching so many fish where there had been none, he cries out “Master, leave. I’m a sinner and can’t handle this holiness. Leave me to myself.” (Luke 5:8, The Message). Simon knows he’s not up to the task of following Jesus, and this is before Jesus even mentions the whole “catching people” mission.

But perhaps that is exactly why Jesus is able to say “There is nothing to fear.” What if the greatest fear is actually admitting that we are afraid and that we can’t handle it? Simon thought he was in control out on the lake but it turned out he couldn’t even do that as well as he thought he could without Jesus. When we are pulled out of our own comfort zones and forced to depend on someone else entirely, even if it is God, our biggest fear is often just admitting our dependence. We don’t like to depend on anyone for anything.

But it seems that once we overcome that hurdle and confess those fears to Jesus, he takes over. There is nothing left to fear because Jesus has already proven that he can and will do the work and he simply invites us to participate. He knows we are not able and he wants to make sure we know we are not able, for it is in our weakness that God’s strength is made known.

The issue here is not that there is nothing to fear in fishing for people, for this is a very fearful and overwhelming mission. Rather there is nothing to fear, because Jesus has gone ahead of us, Jesus is going with us, and Jesus will see this mission through to completion. And along the way, he’ll provide everything we need as well. After all, the catch he just provided for Simon and his colleagues would go a long way toward funding their families’ needs while they were traveling with him.

Jesus Left

Reading: Luke 4:38-44

“He left the next day for open country. But the crowds went looking and, when they found him, clung to him so he couldn’t go on. He told them, ‘Don’t you realize that there are yet other villages where I have to tell the Message of God’s Kingdom, that this is the work God sent me to do?’”

~ Luke 4:42-43 (The Message)

So much can be said about Jesus from just these few short verses. He apparently already knew Simon (later called Peter), stayed at his home and even healed his mother-in-law. He was tireless when it came to healing the crowds who kept pressing in throughout the night, long after the sun went down. And he was recognized as the Messiah, the Son of God, by demons who greatly feared his presence.

It’s easy to talk about Jesus as an activist, never ceasing to do good, to work miracles, and to call people to repent and receive the Kingdom of God in their lives and their world. It’s easy to see Jesus as one of those highly prized employees who keeps ordering more coffee until the job is done, no matter how many evenings and mornings may pass. I can imagine being Simon or any member of his family by about midnight or one in the morning wondering if this Jesus is ever going to send people away and go to bed.

But when morning came, Jesus does something very different. He left. The crowds go looking for him so apparently there is still more work to be done. Jesus didn’t make sure his desk was straight and all of his case reports were tucked away in their proper files. He didn’t even reschedule all of those patients still waiting to be seen. He just left. He wanders out into the country, to a secluded place.

We might make brief mention of this point in a study on Sabbath or on the importance of daily devotions, noting that even Jesus needed some time to rest and be alone with God. But what we don’t often talk about is what happens when the crowds find him. He doesn’t go back with them to continue healing and performing miracles. He doesn’t put up a sign to tell them that he’ll be back in an hour, or even the next day after he’s had a chance to rest. Instead he tells them that he is moving on. “Don’t you realize that there are yet other villages where I have to tell the Message of God’s Kingdom?” he asks.

Jesus is leaving town with his work unfinished. There are still more people to be healed. There are still poor and hungry who need to be fed and cared for. There are still demons to be cast out. There are still people who don’t understand the good news of God’s Kingdom and there is much teaching and preaching still to be done. But Jesus is closing up shop and moving on to the next town like a traveling vacuum cleaner salesman. Only he’s not selling… he’s giving away… and what he’s giving out is God’s grace to clean up our lives, not just our floors.

I am particularly struck this afternoon, however, by the simple fact that Jesus is leaving with his work unfinished. What does that say for us? For someone like me who thrives on completing tasks, resolving issues, and finding closure in everything, Jesus’ move feels a bit jarring and uncomfortable. On the other hand, perhaps there is a degree of amazing grace in this move as well, because if Jesus couldn’t, or at least wouldn’t stick around long enough to heal everyone and solve everybody’s problems, what makes me think I can? Jesus’ example in this instance offers an ironic sort of “stressful relief.” Stressful in that there is no closure and the work is left unfinished and yet a relief in that it’s OK… somehow.

Perhaps the work that is left undone, however, is the work we were never called to do. Jesus says explicitly he must “preach the Kingdom of God” and that this is “the work God sent him to do.” Now certainly healing disease, casting out demons, and the countless other acts of compassion and justice done by Jesus are part of that, but the task ultimately is to “preach” the Kingdom of God or to “tell the Good News” that God’s Kingdom is hear. This truth is demonstrated through his miracles, but the miracles are not his end goal. And so while in some sense, he left the work of physical healing unfinished, in another sense, the healing was not the primary task he was sent to complete.

We like doing the work of healing because there is a measurable result. We can easily count how many were healed and how many are left. Likewise we like doing the work of growing congregations, raising money for good causes, starting new ministries, programs, classes or groups, etc. because all of these things have measurable results. We can log how many devotional books we have read or how many days in a row we spent time reading our Bible or praying. We might even be able to count the number of people we have explicitly shared Christ with, especially if they prayed some prayer with us that might imply their conversion to Christianity.

But Jesus has given us a task that is not measurable and a task which we can never complete or mark off our to-do list. This thought makes me cringe, and yet it forces me to an ever deepening reliance on and acceptance of God’s grace to stay the course and continue proclaiming the Good News of God’s Kingdom here and now while learning to rest in the fact that an “Incomplete” on this assignment is not the equivalent of failure.

I find myself needing to regularly ask at this point, how much am I putting off the immeasurable task of proclaiming the Good News while I sit around trying to make the crowds around me happy by meeting their various and apparently never-ending needs? And maybe without realizing it, I am even doing this to meet my own needs because it is so comforting to count my “success” stories.

Jesus reminds us that it is never about our needs, or even the immediate needs of the crowd. God’s mission is so much bigger.

Lord, help me… help us, to stop wasting time trying to fulfill our own needs by trying to fulfill everyone elses’ needs around us and instead lead us to the people and places who still need simply to hear the Good News of Your Kingdom Come.

Words that Make Stuff Happen!

Reading: Luke 4:31-37

“He went down to Capernaum, a village in Galilee. He was teaching the people on the Sabbath. They were surprised and impressed – his teaching was so forthright, so confident, so authoritative, not the quibbling and quoting they were used to.

In the meeting place that day there was a man demonically disturbed. He screamed, ‘Ho! What business do you have here with us, Jesus? Nazarene! I know what you’re up to. You’re the Holy One of God and you’ve come to destroy us!’

Jesus shut him up: ‘Quiet! Get out of him!’ The demonic spirit threw the man down in front of them all and left. The demon didn’t hurt him.

 That set everyone back on their heels, whispering and wondering, ‘What’s going on here? Someone whose words make things happen? Someone who orders demonic spirits to get out and they go?’ Jesus was the talk of the town.”

 ~ Luke 4:31-37 (The Message)

If I’m being honest, there are times Jesus makes me cringe and recoil in discomfort. As an intellectual type and a strong introvert, I prefer to live in the realm of theory and ideas. At one point in my childhood I thought about being an engineer, or better yet, an “Imagineer” at Walt Disney World. Looking back, I think I would have found that path extremely challenging and frustrating because engineers cannot stay in the world of imagination. Their job is not finished when the words are on paper like a writer or when they have a beautiful picture of what they are thinking of like an artist or graphic designer. They actually have to find the right materials and tools to actually assemble whatever they have imagined and make it work in a physical and tangible way. And quite honestly, physical and tangible limitations can quickly frustrate the boundless visions of word and thought.

That is why this text scares me. Jesus preached a great sermon in Nazareth about what the Kingdom of God will look like. The vision for all people to experience healing and wholeness is amazing. But now it’s time to put flesh on those words. The only thing is that Jesus didn’t need to hire a team of engineers, city planners, social workers, political leaders or even pastors, worship leaders and missionaries to put his words into action. Rather, Jesus is the very Word of God made flesh. Hence the startled response when the people of Capernaum realize that Jesus is “Someone whose words make things happen!”

Jesus has just escaped the mob of friends and neighbors whom he grew up with in Nazareth after they turned and tried to throw him off a cliff. For me, this would be a good time to find a cave to hide out in and re-evaluate my ideas and my ministry. I would be consumed by the fact that my words and ideas didn’t go over very well and probably be second guessing myself. How could I have said that better? How could I help them understand?

At this point, everything is still in the abstract world of word and thought so it is easily changeable. I could simply make some tweaks to my presentation before pitching it again and perhaps it would be better received the next time. Maybe those promises were too big. Maybe I really should have helped my hometown people first before marching off to save strangers.

No doubt Jesus was a very reflective person, often going off by himself to pray and seek wisdom from the Father, but in this case no reflection is needed. Jesus is absolutely certain of both his message and his authority to make it happen. And so he continues straight into Capernaum in Galilee with the same message, but this time the Word takes on flesh in a way that everyone can see.

The limitations of the physical world do not limit the Kingdom of God. Rather, the Kingdom of God breaks through and transforms the physical world.

Even the demonic forces are quick to recognize the power and authority of Jesus. They are not fooled by the physical limitations and weakness of his flesh or even his human identity as a boy from Nazareth. They fear him all the same, and their fear is fully justified as Jesus speaks… “Quiet! Get out of him!” and they flee without harming the man whom they had possessed.

I fear that all too often I relate to Jesus in an abstract spiritual sense. It is easy to talk about the values of God’s Kingdom… about forgiveness, love, justice, peace, healing, freedom from oppression; and so on. It is easy to talk about promises of this reality from an Eternal perspective, as something to look forward to beyond the grave.

But in the end they are often just words. Words that speak only of some ethereal afterlife have no tangible or physical effect on what we consider reality. Hope and joy sound great in theory, but what do these words mean for the one who is grieving, dying, or living in depression or loneliness? Forgiveness and mercy are very convenient when we receive it, but do they have any meaning for the prisoner who has been written off as a black mark on society, or to the one we have held that grudge against for so long. Love is a wonderful subject for any occasion, from a sermon to a pop song, but is it real to the child who has been abused or abandoned or to the victims of broken homes.

If we take Jesus seriously, every Word he spoke must continue to take on flesh and transform the physical world until the end of time. The Holy Spirit is the engineer responsible for making the glorious words and visions about the Kingdom of God here and now a tangible reality. And the only raw materials the Spirit has to work with are our frail bodies, our foolish minds, and our self-centered hearts. Perhaps this is why Paul writes that we hold this great treasure from God in earthen vessels, jars of clay, or unadorned clay pots, so that no one could confuse God’s incomparable power with us (2 Corinthians 4:7).

Nonetheless, we who live by the power of the Spirit as Jesus did are called to be the tangible and working models of an abstract Kingdom of Heaven vision that we cannot even begin to fully comprehend. And this is why today’s passage scares me, and ought to scare you as well. For if Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit and a prophetic vision of God’s Kingdom breaking into the physical realities of earth, spoke “words that make things happen,” then perhaps our words should be making things happen too.

Heavenly Father, by the grace and mercy of your Son Jesus Christ, and by the unfathomable and infinite power of your Holy Spirit, may your Words continue to take on flesh through me… through us, that your Kingdom may be fully manifest on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

Justice vs. Favoritism… Which Do We Really Want?

Reading: Luke 4:23-30

“He answered, ‘I suppose you’re going to quote the proverb, ‘Doctor, go heal yourself. Do here in your hometown what we heard you did in Capernaum.’ Well let me tell you something. No prophet is ever welcomed in his hometown. Isn’t it a fact that there were many widows in Israel at the time of Elijah during that three and a half years of drought when famine devastated the land, but the only widow to whom Elijah was sent was in Sarepta in Sidon? And there were many lepers in Israel at the time of the prophet Elisha but the only one cleansed was Naaman the Syrian.’

That set everyone in the meeting place seething with anger. They threw him out, banishing him from the village, then took him to a mountain cliff at the edge of the village to throw him to his doom, but he gave them the slip and was on his way.”

~ Luke 4:23-30 (The Message)

Jesus heard the skepticism. He could sense the uncertainty and confusion. He knew many did not believe his words regarding the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy in him, a hometown boy from Nazareth. So he verbalizes what they are not bold enough to ask for outright. “Give us a sign, Jesus. We heard you did great miracles over in Capernaum. Why not here? Why don’t you show us how you can give sight to the blind?” And yet their own blindness continued, proving Jesus’ point that the blind in his hometown could not or would not see.

The parallels between this text and Satan’s temptations in the wilderness are striking. In both cases Jesus is being asked to prove himself; his identity, his authority, and his power. And in both cases, Jesus does not feel the need for any defense. He continues on with His mission, confident in His own call and the power and authority granted Him by God the Father through the Holy Spirit. He also continues to use the Scriptures to demonstrate his point. For as radical as we tend to think of Jesus, very few of his ideas were new. Rather, they are ancient Scriptural truths which seem to be forgotten, misunderstood, distorted, or ignored.

Nevertheless, Jesus does not offend his hearers at Nazareth with some arrogant “Holier-than-thou” attitude, as though they are beneath him and undeserving of his miraculous power and healing. They are offended for the same reason we are often offended or often should be offended by the Scriptures. Whenever we read a Biblical text and try to apply it to our lives, we tend to cast ourselves in the shoes of the “good guy.” If Jesus condemns someone, we are quick to say, “Thank God I’m not like that person.” If Jesus shows mercy to a victim of circumstance, we are always the victim feeling loved and justified.

In the case of a first century Jewish audience, the “good guy” is Israel, God’s chosen people. They are the ones who are supposed to be favored and blessed by God and yet they are also the ones who appear to have been treated unjustly throughout most of their history, from one form of slavery, exile, or oppression to another. If anything, Jesus’ usage of the stories of Elijah and Elisha remind them of this so-called injustice. But it is more than a reminder; it is almost a reversal of their interpretations of history. Both stories take place during periods of drought and famine for Israel. Suffering and starvation plague God’s people. Yet in the midst of their suffering, God’s prophets perform miracles to bring health and new life to foreigners. In the minds of Jesus’ hearers, this likely escalates their sense of injustice. How could God bring healing and hope to outsiders while He appears to sit by and watch as His own people suffer?

Our offense, and theirs, however, stems from the wrong question. Ultimately we are asking why God would help someone more undeserving than us, but this question assumes that our status as Children of Abraham, as Christians, or even as good church people who try to live right, somehow makes us more deserving of God’s love and mercy than others.

I am reminded of another story in Matthew 20 when Jesus tells us of several workers who arrive on the job at varying times throughout the day, and yet they all received the same wages regardless of how long they did or did not work. By our standards, this is unjust, but Jesus reminds us that the employer fully honored his agreements with those who worked all day and it was well within his rights to be generous to those who came later by offering a full day’s wage. Injustice implies that someone did not get something they were promised, but such was not the case. God always honors His promises.

So long as we operate out of this sense of deserving or entitlement, we hinder God’s work among us. God desires to pour out gifts of mercy and grace upon all people, and such a gift is only received and appreciated through faith and humility. Jesus has no intention of performing miracles in Nazareth and fueling their prideful sense of entitlement. He does not want to reinforce the idea that they somehow deserve special treatment over Capernaum or anyone else just because he grew up in their town or even because they are God’s people. I won’t say he couldn’t have, but in some ways giving out blessings in response to such attitudes only perpetuates the lie that we can somehow earn or deserve grace. Jesus doesn’t play favorites.

Rather than being humbled by Jesus’ response, the people of Nazareth get angry and attempt to throw him off a cliff. Personally, I would call that a conversation ender.

The tragedy is that in all of his grace and mercy, Jesus loves us enough to leave us alone when we push Him out. He doesn’t try to find a way to convince them of his point. He doesn’t offer a compromise by performing a few little miracles. Instead, he slips away and moves on, heading back to Capernaum where the people gratefully received him with no expectations or strings attached. He offers no apology to Nazareth for offending them and makes no effort to right the wrongs they perceive he has committed. As the wind moves toward areas of low pressure, so does the Holy Spirit, and Jesus goes where the Spirit Wind blows, leaving the storm behind.

When Jesus moves with the Spirit to those who will receive him, do we go along with Him and participate in His work, or do we sit back in Nazareth complaining about the injustice, when we are really only offended because Jesus won’t give us the preferential treatment we thought we deserved?

Show Us What You’ve Got… or Maybe Not

Reading: Luke 4:14-22

“Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written,

God’s Spirit is on me;
He’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor,
Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind,
To set the burdened and battered free,
To announce, ‘This is God’s year to act!’

 He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the place was on him, intent. Then he started in, ‘You’ve just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place.’”

~ Luke 4:17b-21 (The Message)

I began this week considering the whole of this familiar story of Jesus in his hometown, found in Luke 4:14-37, but so much is happening here. Within these few verses we see people at every emotional extreme possible; one minute celebrating one of their own going into ministry and the next trying to throw him off a cliff. Rather than attempting to summarize all of this as I will need to do in my sermon a few weeks from now, allow me to savor smaller portions of this text, and likely many texts throughout this journey, to see firsthand what God reveals to us moment by moment through the person of Jesus.

He has just put the accuser in his place by resisting every form of temptation in the wilderness. He has proven his deep knowledge of the Scriptures as well as his humble dependence on the Holy Spirit. And he now returns to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, ready to change the world. Like a preacher fresh out of seminary coming back to his home church, he is welcomed with open arms and celebrated for his positive response to God’s calling.

And much like that young seminary graduate showing up one Sunday at the church he or she grew up in, the people who watched him grow are ready to see how this kid turned out. They hand him a Bible and essentially say, “Preach,” or “Show us what you’ve got.” It gives me flashbacks to the first meeting / fellowship dinner I’ve had with every church I’ve served. Even people who have never met me start off with the following statement: “Preacher, go ahead and bless the food.” In other words, “We’re paying you to be our spiritual leader now so give us a prayer and show us what you’ve got.”

Now Jesus may not have been getting a paycheck from the people at the Nazareth Synagogue, but they certainly put him on the spot. He knew he was expected to read the Scriptures and presumably expound upon them. I doubt he was doing a lot of sermon writing in the desert so this is about as extemporaneous as it gets. Nevertheless, he does what most good preachers do and begins with a statement regarding God’s call on his own life, and it just so happens that there is a scripture in Isaiah 61:1-2 that captures Jesus’ understanding of his call quite well. Granted, he does offer one slight alteration to the text, declaring “recovery of sight to the blind” rather than “the day of vengeance of our God” as is written in Isaiah. If anything he is being more merciful than the original text, offering an opportunity for those who are spiritual blind to receive sight or repent rather than immediately facing judgment.

Aside from this misquote which I won’t attempt to explain at this point, everything is going fairly well… but then he hands the scroll back to the attendant and sits down.

Every eye is upon him and they are intently waiting for what will come next. “Jesus, you do realize you’re supposed to preach, right? You’re not just here to read the scripture before the preacher comes up.”

There’s something rather final in this simple act of sitting down. A Jewish man in Israel once told me that they understood God’s rest on the seventh day of creation to involve an act of “sitting down” within His creation, to be present with those whom he created and loved. Similarly the Apostle’s Creed declares that Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Father after he died, rose, and ascended into heaven. In both cases, the phrase, “It is finished.” seems to apply. There is nothing more to be said. There is nothing more to be done. Everything up until this point speaks for itself and I will now sit down.

As a pastor I can almost feel the awkwardness in the synagogue. I’ve felt it myself when I sit down at any point during a worship service and the next person doesn’t remember that they’re supposed to come up. Everyone is watching, wondering what’s supposed to happen. Who’s in charge here? What’s next? Is that all?

After a period of silence, which surely felt much longer than it was, Jesus simply responds that the text he had read is now fulfilled.

If it was even possible, the tension continues to rise. Some are amazed. Some are impressed with how well he spoke. Honestly I’m not sure if they’re impressed with the concise pointedness of his “sermon” or simply with the way he read the text, likely with appropriate emphasis and passion. But others were still unsure. They knew he was just the son of a common laborer. He was still the same child they had always known. How could they take him seriously in the pulpit when they were the ones who raised him and taught him everything he knows?

What strikes me, however, about Jesus, is his calm, matter-of-fact certainty. There is no implication that he sat down because he didn’t know what else to say. Rather his sitting feels very much intentional. We don’t know if he had intended to say anything after such a dramatic pause or not, but what he did say is equally as intentional, not to mention bold and confident.

If indeed that particular prophetic passage was fulfilled in that moment of their hearing, we can be sure of several things. First, God’s spirit clearly rests upon Jesus and Jesus is certain of this truth. Second, Jesus sees himself as God’s messenger of good news to the down and out. And if this text is fulfilled in that moment, than Jesus has already preached the good news to the poor, announced pardon to the prisoners, given sight to the blind, set free the oppressed, and proclaimed the favorable year of the Lord. This also implies that the poor, the prisoners, the blind, and the oppressed were sitting in that room listening to this good news. But we don’t see any physical healings in this passage. He’s not walking around the synagogue touching the eyes of the blind so they can see. If they are in the synagogue, clearly none of them are in prison, though they may have known others who were prisoners. But what if the prophecy is not limited to physical healing? What if Jesus is implying a spiritual dimension as well? The hometown crowd in Nazareth was filled with those who were poor, those who were held captive by sin and inward pain, those who were blind to the work of God in their midst, and those who were oppressed in many ways.

All of the sudden this text is starting to sound like any given Sunday morning in church. Even more, it sounds like any encounter we have with another human being who experiences these aspects of the human condition. The great tragedy is that just like Jesus’ hearers, they don’t always realize that they are the ones of whom the prophet speaks. They don’t always see their own bondage or blindness. They don’t always realize how poor and oppressed they are. They don’t always see the need for God’s favor in their lives, and even if they do, it often seems like too much to hope for.

And friends, neither do we. What if we are the ones who grew up around Jesus or have known him for a long time and never realized who he was? What if Jesus is still preaching this message to us… to me? Does it make a difference? We can only answer that for ourselves.

Come, Holy Spirit… convict us, free us, open our eyes, break our chains. May this be the year of the Lord’s favor in our lives.