pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

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Knowing Their Name

Reading: Luke 16: 6-19

Verse 20: “At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus”.

In the opening verses of Luke 16 Jesus talks about how many the love the things of this world and about how shrewd the worldly are in getting what they want. Jesus reminds us that we are rich in the things of God and he encourages us to be faithful in how we use these blessings. He concludes by warning us that we cannot serve both God and wealth. Just a few verses later we read the story of the rich man and Lazarus.

Our passage today illustrates what happens when one loves the things of the world too much. The rich man is dressed in fine clothes and lives in luxury. He probably does not know the name of the one who lies just outside his door. He treats Lazarus as if Lazarus did not exist. When one allows wealth to become the god that matters, then it becomes a struggle to see past your own wants and desires and pleasures. The focus becomes inward and narrow and selfish. Choosing to live this way does not yield an eternal home with Jesus.

We do not know much about Lazarus either. He was a poor beggar who lived a hard life. He was hungry but received nothing from the rich man’s excess. We can assume that Lazarus was a man of faith because he spends his eternity in a heavenly home. And we know his name. We know his name because Jesus knew his name. Lazarus was a child of God who claimed his place in God’s family. Contrast him to the rich man, who is also a child of God. He did not claim his inheritance though because he was consumed by the things of this world.

The world still operates this way. We know the names and faces of the rich and famous. We see a homeless person on the street and we’d just assume avoid them. Knowing their name is out of the question. Yet God knows their name. Jesus knows their name. And Jesus says to us, “Come and follow me”.

Prayer: God of all, you have eyes and a heart for all. Give me your eyes and heart. Jesus had the hands and feet of a humble servant. Give me those hands and feet. Strengthen me to walk the way of Jesus this day and every day. Amen.


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Thanks and Praise

Reading: Hebrews 13: 15-16

Verse 15: “Let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise”.

Today we conclude our time in Hebrews for a season. During our time together in Hebrews we have been reminded of the heroes of the faith and have been called to walk with in their footsteps. We were reminded that the greatest example to follow is that of Jesus Christ, the perfecter of our faith. We were also reminded that with eyes of faith we see and understand this world and the world to come from an eternal perspective, not an earthly one. Both because we know Jesus and the hope, peace, joy, love, strength, mercy… that he brings AND because we hold the promises of a new heaven and earth and of eternal life, we should live into the words in today’s passage: “Let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise”. Praise is our joyful response to all that God has done, continues to do, and will do for us.

Most folks offer praise on Sunday mornings or when a big thing happens in life. In these times the “fruit of our lips” does offer praise and does confess Jesus as Lord and Savior. On these occasions we are sharing our faith with others. But is this really ‘continually’? Or is it more like once a week at best? The answer to this depends on your personal spiritual practices.

Let’s assume we all pray every day. Is it just a meal blessing or do you have a dedicated time of prayer each day? If so, is thanksgiving part of your routine or is your prayer time filled with asking God for this or that?

Do you have any other spiritual disciplines that involve offering your thanksgiving to God? If not, consider keeping a little “thank you” journal or notebook. For many years now, each morning I have been jotting down five or six concrete things to thank God for from the day before. Sometimes the list stretches to eight, depending on the day. It is a simple but regular way to praise God and it helps me to be attuned throughout the day to God’s daily activity in my life. Could this work for you? If not, what means will you find to praise and thank God every day?

Prayer: Father God, thank you for this time this morning – to once again be reminded of your loving actions in my life. The time to read and meditate on your word is a daily joy that strengthens me. Thank you, Lord! Amen.


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Joy and Sorrow

Reading: Proverbs 8: 1-4 & 22-31

Verses 22-23: “The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works… I was appointed for eternity”.

Proverbs 8 opens with wisdom calling out. It then speaks of why mankind should seek wisdom and of how we can use wisdom. Then, in verse 22, we find a shift. Read through New Testament eyes we read wisdom as Jesus Christ. Hear Jesus’ voice in verses 22 and 23 as we read, “The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works… I was appointed for eternity”. Before the creation of the world that we find in Genesis 1, Jesus was with God. In this Genesis account we also read that when the darkness was still over the surface of the deep, the Spirit of God was “hovering over the waters”. In the beginning, the Trinity was there.

Verses 24-29 contain a simple reminder of the creation story. Jesus was there before the oceans, before the mountains, before the fields, before God marked out the deep, before the clouds… When God “marked the foundations of the earth”, Jesus was there. Like God, there is the eternal nature to Jesus.

In verses 30 and 31 we catch a glimpse of the relational nature of Jesus. He was the craftsman at God’s side. He was filled with delight and rejoiced in God’s presence. Jesus also rejoiced in God’s creation and he delighted in humankind. When I consider these thoughts, both joy and sorrow come to my heart. I rejoice because this is how I see Jesus living out his earthly life. He rejoiced in interacting with and ministering to people. Jesus loved one and all. This is an extension of what he felt as creation began and continued to unfold as he was at God’s side. But there is also a little sadness for me. In spite of his great love for us, that was not enough. Jesus had to die for the ones he loved. On our own we could not and cannot overcome sin. So in love he gave himself for us. Jesus’ love is so much greater than our love. While I am a little sad that he had to, I am so very grateful that Jesus Christ loved me that much. Thanks be to God.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for the beautiful world that you created. Thank you for my place in it. More than that though, thank you for the gift of your son, who went all in for me and for all of humankind. Thank you God. Thank you. Amen.


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Be Reconciled

Reading: 2nd Corinthians 5: 16-21

Verse 18: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the mission of reconciliation”.

The church in Corinth was very diverse. There were former Jews and Gentiles, there were slaves and slave-owners, rich and poor, young and old… This diverse group of people was trying to figure out how to live together. They are struggling to live in a community together. In a lot of ways, our churches are like this. Some of the labels do not apply anymore, but some do. There are also new ways to identify how we are different from one another. Our challenge, therefore, is the same: to figure out how to live in Christian community.

Paul’s solution for the church in Corinth applies to us today. In the opening verse Paul writes, “From now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view”. He is saying to forget all those labels that come from the secular culture. He is saying for the rich and the poor to just see a fellow Christian. He is saying for the slave and the slave-owner to just see a fellow Christian. Simply being a follower of Jesus Christ is the only thing Paul wants them to identify with. That is the bottom line, the thing that brings them all together as equals in the body of Christ. Paul writes, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the mission of reconciliation”. We have been brought back into relationship with God through Christ Jesus. God has reconciled us to Himself. Paul is pleading with the Corinthians to be reconciled to one another.

Churches today are still pretty diverse lots. Within the four walls of the church there are many individuals. The Bible, our instruction book, contains about 31,000 verses, give or take, depending on your preferred translation. When I read a passage now that I read a year ago, sometimes it says something new or different to me. Sometimes I discover something I missed the last time. This informs my faith. Now multiply that idea by the number of verses and the number of people in the church. Like the church in Corinth, we will read and understand some things differently. Some things Joe thinks you should do or follow, Suzie doesn’t see that way. Same thing for Anthony and Molly. Same thing for Zoe and Stephen.

To the church in Corinth and to the church today, Paul calls us to be reconciled to Christ. He calls us to Jesus. Jesus is our model of how to live out God’s love. Jesus is our example of what it looks like to love God and neighbor. Jesus is the redeemer from sin. Jesus is our path to eternal life. Jesus is our all in all. Through Christ we are one body, reconciled to God and to one another, on a common mission to make disciples of Jesus for the transformation of the world. May it be so.

Prayer: God, help us to see with your eyes – not as all exactly the same but loved exactly the same by you. Help us to look past the smaller things and to see the only thing that matters: Jesus and His love. May I see well today. Amen.


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Repent

Reading: Luke 13: 1-9

Verse 3: “Unless you repent, you too all will perish”.

Today’s passage begins with two tragedies. In the first Pilate has killed some folks who were making sacrifices. Jesus asks if they were worse sinners than others because of this tragedy. No! He then recalls the 18 who died when a tower collapsed. He again asks if they were more guilty than others. Again the answer is “no”. In life there are terrible things that happen. But God does not single out the worst sinners or any sinners or those sinning at that moment to experience these bad things. Pilate’s cruel decision and the structural weakness of the tower are things that happened and unfortunately affected people. The folks affected were innocent victims, not sinners forced into those situations by God.

In response to both tragedies, Jesus says the same thing. Twice He says, “Unless you repent, you too all will perish”. He is not saying that Pilate is about to rage violently or that another tower is about to fall. He is not saying that some sinners will find themselves in those situations. Jesus is saying that we are all sinners. We are all sinners who need to repent of our sins and to be made right with God. If any one of us fails to repent, we will perish. Jesus is not talking about perishing immediately. If I sin today and do not confess by the end of the day, then it does not mean that I will die tonight. Jesus goes on to share a parable about this in verses 6-9, but that is for tomorrow.

Repentance is not just saying “sorry”. It also involves a change and an effort to not commit that sin again. For me to tell at a child of mine, then to repent, then to turn around and yell at them again is not true repentance. To truly repent means to turn away from the sin and to work to not go there again and to be align oneself with God. A hollow apology with no intent to be more holy is not what is required of us.

We are all sinners. We will all sin multiple times today. Most often my sins occur in my head. My thoughts can turn to judging or condemning or comparing all too quickly. The old stereotypes or prejudices or experiences can creep in to influence my interactions with or my compassion for others. When I stumble and fall into one of these sinful behaviors, fortunately the Holy Spirit is quick to convict me. At that very point I must humble myself and confess my sin to God. I must commit to try to not turn to that sin again. I must try and take on the heart and eyes of Jesus to see that person or that situation as Jesus does. I must see with eyes of love. With those eyes I do not become sinless, I just sin less. The closer we can be to Jesus, the further we are from sinning. May we all strive to be closer to Jesus today.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, strengthen me today. When temptation comes knocking, may your Holy Spirit intervene quickly. Guard my heart and mind today, O God. Amen.


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People of Love

Reading: 1 Corinthians 12: 17-20

Verse 18: “In fact God has arranged the parts of the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be”.

In 1 Corinthians Paul gives some instructions on how to be the church. Some of it is practical – concerning worship and communion. Some of it is more relational and spiritual. Such is the case with 1 Corinthians 12. There must have been some discord and disagreement in the church in Corinth. Things typical in the world and in our churches today – ego, status, titles, judging – must have been present.

Paul uses a wonderful analogy of the body to explain how the church should function, see each other, and work together. In our verses for today, Paul is saying that all members of the church are important. He puts it this way: “In fact God has arranged the parts of the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be”. God designed the body with many parts, true. But all the parts are needed and all are just as God designed them.

Sometimes in our churches we cannot initially see how a new person or new family or new group of people from our community will become a part of our body. Maybe we see them as too different in this way or that. Maybe we cannot see what they bring to the body to make it better simply by their presence. And sometimes they bring new thoughts or ways of doing things or they have a new perspective that does not align with the status quo.

God designed the church to be a place with open doors, to be a place where people come to know Jesus and to learn to walk a life of faith. The church was designed to be a place where all people are welcome. If we choose to adopt Jesus’ eyes – to see all with eyes of love – then we will be churches who welcome all and seek to find each person’s place in the body of Christ. May we be people of love today.

Prayer: Lord, help me to see with eyes of love so that I find the image of you in all I meet. In doing so, in seeing you, help me to love all as children of God. Amen.


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Eyes to See

Reading: Luke 21: 25-36

Verses 26 and 26: “There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars… nations will be in anguish… men will faint from terror”.

In our gospel lesson for this week, Jesus tells us that there will be signs that signal His second coming. In our opening verses, He says, “There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars… nations will be in anguish… men will faint from terror”. These verses make it sound like it will be evident when the time is at hand. Yet for thousands of years people have seen catastrophic wars and diseases and disasters and wondered: is it now?

Since war and violence and pestilence seem to be natural parts of our world that occur with regularity and frequency, it is hard to interpret any of these as the signs that Jesus Christ is speaking of in today’s passage. So how will we know? I think the better question is: how do we see?

In our modern world we often rely on medicine instead of prayer. We turn to prayer as a last resort. We turn to ourselves to solve life’s problems instead of seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit. When this doesn’t work, we may try and numb ourselves or may turn to other ways to take our minds off the matter. Again, we turn to faith when all of our efforts to solve, avoid, numb, forget, ignore… have failed. We do not always see the world – both the bad as well as the good – through eyes of faith. If we are looking for signs with our human eyes, surely we will miss the signs from God.

To use a simple illustration, I see this revealed at funerals. If the person and family are people of faith, they see the loss with a long-term vision. If the person and/or family is not a person or people of faith, then the death is the end. Both families feel the sting and pain of human loss, but when viewed through eyes of faith, the hurt is tempered by the hope of eternal life and by thoughts of eventual reunion. These same can be said for how people view change, other losses, hard times…

Yes, Jesus will return. If we are looking for, even anticipating this, then we see the world with eyes of faith and our daily lives are so much richer. We will see signs of the kingdom often, being strengthened and encouraged along the way. May we ever be on the watch, seeing with eyes of faith, eager and ready to encounter Jesus here and when we do stand before Him one day. Amen.

Prayer: Lord, prepare me. Lord, give me kingdom eyes to see. Come Lord Jesus, come. Amen.


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focus

Reading: Luke 21: 25-36

Verse 36: “Be always on the watch… that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man”.

Advent begins this Sunday. It is a season of anticipation and expectation. It reminds us that we live in a now-not-yet space. Last week’s passage from Revelation reminded us that Jesus “was, is, and is to come”. This connects to our passage today and is a great pre-Advent thought. The Latin word that we derive “Advent” from is itself derived from the Greek word “parousia” – a term commonly used to describe the second coming of Jesus. Our passage today opens with signs that will proceed Jesus “coming in a cloud with power and great glory”. We are encouraged to “stand up and lift your heads” as we await His return. We are encouraged to stand up and declare our faith – to wish people a joyous “Merry Christmas” (instead of the secular “Happy Holidays”) and to focus ourselves and others on Jesus Christ during Advent.

Jesus uses the illustration of the fig tree to keep us focused and looking up and forward. Just as the buds indicate summer is near, we are to look for signs of the kingdom near us. Where can we see hope and love lived out this week? Where can we experience mercy and grace and forgiveness this week? Where can we be signs of the nearness of God’s kingdom, bringing hope and love, mercy and grace and forgiveness to other’s lives this week?

Our passage today closes with another good reminder. It ties back into the “stand up” idea. Maybe Jesus knew what Christmas would become. He warns us to be careful lest we become”weighed down” and filled with anxiety. As a parent I can remember times when I was weighed down and filled with anxiety over the gifts and reactions to them. It can be easy to go there. When our focus shifts away from God and His kingdom, then yes, the day will close upon us “like a trap”.

Instead, Jesus encourages us to “Be always on the watch… that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man”. Jesus must ever be our focus during the Advent season. Our eyes and heart must remain fixed on the Son of Man. Our lives will reveal what is truly in our heart and soul this Advent season. May Jesus Christ be what people experience in and through us.

Prayer: Lord God, help me to focus in on you alone this Advent season. Keep my eyes and heart on you and the coming of your kingdom. May my life reveal your Son as the focus of Advent and of Christmas. Amen.


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For Us

Reading: Mark 9: 38-41

Verse 40: “For whoever is not against us is for us”.

Who is in? Who is out? What do I have to do to be a part of this group or organization? What are the rules?

These are the questions we ask. We prefer rule and order. We like to be around people who are like us, people who have similar interests and hobbies, people who see the world as we see the world. It is even the way of the natural world. Lions hang out with lions, chickadees with chickadees.

In today’s passage, John asks Jesus about a man they do not know. This man was driving out demons in Jesus’ name. The disciples initial reaction was to tell the man to stop because he is not one of them. Who could walk into the church tomorrow morning and draw a similar reaction?

John is struggling with the opening questions that I posed today. This man is out, he is not part of their group, he is not following all the right rules. To John, one must be part of the group that follows Jesus 24-7. If you do not follow this rule, you better not be doing miracles in Jesus’ name. Jesus does not see it this way. Not even close. Jesus says to John and the disciples, “Whoever is not against us is for us”. Here we see Jesus once again being inclusive instead of exclusive.

If Jesus were the pastor left in our church tomorrow and “that” person or persons walked in, He would welcome them, introduce himself, help them to find a good seat, and would make sure they got coffee and cookies after church. He sees this man driving out demons as being for the kingdom. He wants His disciples to see people this way too. If you are not against us you are for us. For Jesus, all are welcome in the kingdom, all are invited. May we see all people this way too.

Lord, help me to be inclusive and welcoming and open to all people. When my heart or mind begins to erect barriers, smash them down. Give me eyes to see as Jesus saw and a heart to love as He loved. Amen.


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Keep My Eyes

Reading: Mark 4: 35-41

Verse 41: “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him”!

One of the things Jesus taught about just before getting into the boat was about the lamp on a stand. He reminded the crowd (and the disciples) that faith was something that was put on a stand to bring out whatever was hidden in the dark corners and to open what is concealed there. Jesus concludes this teaching with the statement that whoever has faith will be given more and that whoever does not have faith, even what little they have will be lost.

As the seas got choppy and the water level in the boat began to rise, the disciples had a choice to make. They could turn their focus to God to seek His protection and help. Or they could keep their eyes on the storm and the wind and the rising water level in the boat. Often in our lives we come to the same point. Our decision is the same: do we turn to our own powers or do we allow fear to take over or do we simply give up?

He was right there in the boat. I can envision sone of the disciples looking to Jesus and then to the waves, looking to Jesus asleep in the stern and then looking to the rising waves. With each glance away a bit of their faith ebbed away. With each longer gaze upon the rising waters, a bit more of their faith ebbed away. Again, so it is with us. If only we could look to Jesus at the first hint of rain and then keep our eyes on Him alone. If only we could choose to allow Him to be our all in all.

With just a few words Jesus banishes the fear and doubt and worry that had been building with each wave. An absence of faith, a moment of doubt – they allow the deceiver room to bring in thoughts of doubt and fear and worry. After being awakened and calming the storm, Jesus asks, “Do you still have no faith”? Instead of grasping the moment and allowing their faith to grow, the disciples ask, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him”! It can be easy to do. They are caught up in the miracle and not in the miracle-maker. It can be so easy to do. So we pray, Lord, keep my eyes focused on you and you alone. Help me to see you and not just the amazing things you do. Ground my faith in your love and care. Be my all in all today and each day. Amen.