Upside Down: Life in the Kingdom Week 5

This past Sunday we did something a little different when it came to the message time.  Because it was a Sunday where a lot of people were away, we decide that instead of doing a "traditional" message that we would explore our Scripture text for the morning, Luke 9:23-26, using Lectio Divina.  

Below is how you do a group Lectio Divina, though you can use it for your own spiritual practice as well.  In fact, I would encourage you this week to spend some time using this spiritual exercise along with our text for the morning to see what God might be saying to you through it.  And if you do it, I'd be interested in hearing how it went.

Practicing Lectio Divina as a group

Begin by identifying an individual to lead the process. This person will lead the process by reading the selected text three times. Each reading is followed by a period of silence after which each person is given the opportunity to briefly share what they are hearing as they listen to God.

First Reading
During the first reading, read the text aloud twice. Read through slowly. The purpose of the first reading is for each person to hear the text and to listen for a word, phrase or idea that captures their attention. As group members recognize a word, phrase or idea, they are to focus their attention on that word, repeating it.

Second Reading
During the second reading, read the text again. This time, listeners are to focus their attention on how the word, phrase or idea speaks to their life that day.
What does it mean for you today? How is Christ, the Word, speaking to you about your life through this word, phrase or idea? What is Christ, the Word, speaking
to you about your life through this word, phrase, or idea? After the reading, allow a brief period of silence and then invite group members to share briefly what they have heard.

Third Reading
Read the text again. This time, listeners are to focus on what God is calling them to do or to become. Experiencing God’s presence changes us. It calls us to something. During this final reading, what is God calling you to do or to be as a result of this experience? After the third reading, allow a period of silence, and then invite group members to share what they are being called to do or to be. Finish the exercise by having each one pray for the person on his or her right. 

Upside Down: Life in the Kingdom Week 4

Matt. 20:1-16

The upside down Kingdom – “The first will be last and the last will be first”

Parables were told by Jesus to answer questions, they were often used for shock value to get us thinking or to expose something in the hearer’s hearts.

Context of where this parable falls in Matthew:

• Instructing the disciples on the way of life that their soon to be crucified but risen Lord requires in the reign of heaven:

• Community relationships marked by humility, mutual consideration 18:1-14
  19-20 utilize the audience’s knowledge of the four standard elements of the ancient world’s

  hierarchical household structure to propose a different order for households of the reign of God.

• Jesus resists the unlimited power of the husband over the wife 19:3-12,

• calls all disciples to live the marginal existence of children 19:13-15,

• opposes the use of wealth as the means of defining human identity and social

  relationships 19:23, 16-30,

• Urges all disciples to imitate Jesus’ act of service (his death, 20:17-19, 28 as servants and

  slaves for each other 20: 17-28.
  He offers disciples roles of the marginalized, eunuchs, children, and servants and slaves.

  This parable comes right after the question of Peter “Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?

  Jesus answers with “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” Followed by this parable.

  So what is Jesus getting at here?
  This parable has had many interpretations

  • Historical allegory: Spans Israel’s history

  • Theological eisegesis: To teach that God’s appointed way of salvation is by grace

    and not by works

  • Social: pointing out the care of the landowner for the oppressed

  • Urgency: of the harvest – bringing others into the Kingdom

In light of where it falls and who Jesus is speaking to, I believe it is much simpler than these in depth interpretations and that it can affect us in the same way it must have affected the disciples who heard it. It is intended to shock our sensitivities.

I believe it was meant as a heart check and as a warning as well as a message of God’s scandalous grace and to teach us how God’s values are so very different from the values of the world we live in.

Let’s put this in present day context:

You work a job that you love, you work 40 hours a week and get paid $45,000 a year. You are at the annual Christmas party and you are seated next to someone who does the same job as you. In speaking with them you come to know that they only work 15 hours a week. They proceed to tell you they love the job as well and can’t believe that they have a job they love and how gracious the owners are to pay them $45,000 salary and can imagine that you do very well working the 40 hours a week that you do. How do you feel in that moment? Suddenly your perspective shifts and your attitude changes.

Let’s go back to the culture the story was told in and imagine the two perspectives of the day laborers that night when explaining their day to their wives.

God’s value system is scandalous! What a strange merit system – regardless of labors expended no one earns either more or less than the other – God’s gift is lavish and right.

We like fairness – assurance, order, predictability, control, hierarchy. We live in and promote a wage based society.

What happens when divine goodness trumps human fairness? – Grace is dangerous. It reverses business as usual.

Grace reveals the goodness of God. Wages reveal human effort. Grace seeks unity and inclusion. Wages make distinctions and separate.

Tragedy of a wage based life – blinds us to the presence of grace, can make us resentful of grace, goodness and beauty in the life of another. Separates/isolates us from others, we set up standards and expectations of others and eventually of God.

Neither group owned the vineyard; both groups needed work and were invited to join in the work.

We see this theme throughout God’s word: The sinful woman who wept at Jesus feet – neither could pay the debt. The prodigal son (compare perspectives).

Two lessons for me through this passage:

• Perspective: have I lost the thrill of partnering with God on His mission, how has my love and thrill of him grown cold? (share examples)   Judgement: the judgements I have made on others (share examples). What happens in your heart when you make a judgement?

• The lavish grace of God in comparison to our human understanding and capacity.

  How do we live from the proper perspective? How do we get there?

  Phil. 2:3-11 – the humility (mindset) that is ours in Christ Jesus – two different interpretations

  We cry out to God, to break us and change our hearts, to renew our passion and the awe of His grace in our lives, to break our judgmental attitudes.

  So what is the message for each of us and for this community? What areas does the Lord want to address in us?

  May we all be led to a shocking examination of our perspectives and our hearts, leading to humility and unity in the body of Christ! 

Upside Down: Life in the Kingdom Week 3

Today we continue our series Upside Down: Life in the Kingdom looking at teachings of Jesus that seem so upside down from the world in which we live.  Seem so opposite of what we are taught growing up in our world today (and also then as well).  

Two weeks ago Matt, Laura and Eric helped us explore the way up is down and what humility as a follower of Jesus looks like.  Last week we talked about this radical, subversive, countercultural call that Jesus wants his disciples to live out, the call to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those that curse us, and to pray for those who mistreat us.  

This week we’ll be exploring a question that always seemed to be on the lips of the disciples….who is the greatest in the Kingdom?  And as is the case in Jesus teaching, it isn’t what the disciples (or you and I) would think.  It is again another upside down Kingdom answer that Jesus gives.  

Let’s explore this question together and see how Jesus answers this question about greatness in the Kingdom.  To do so let’s turn to Matthew 18:1-5.

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them.  And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

So in this story we see the disciples coming to Jesus and asking him who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.  We know that this question was something that the disciples thought a lot about.  We know that the argued about where to sit when they ate.  They thought a lot about place, power and prestige.  And they dialogued around who was greater than the others.  

Something else that we also need to know is that Matthew talks a lot about the Kingdom of Heaven, which is just another way of saying Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God is where the rule and reign of Jesus/heaven touch down on the earth.  So let’s not think in the terms of Kingdom of Heaven meaning this place, where you go when you die, where Jesus is King.  Let’s think of here and now and the not yet, where Jesus rules and reigns right here and right now, where heaven and earth overlap and interlock, but also at the eschaton when Jesus will fully rule and reign.  

When the disciples asked Jesus this question they no doubt had a list of people that they thought would make the Greatest in the Kingdom list.  Each of them thought that they would be on the list.  But no doubt they had people who had done great things for the Jewish people (and by definition for God).  People like Judas Maccabeus, who led the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire (167–160 BCE). The Jewish feast of Hanukkah ("Dedication") commemorates the restoration of Jewish worship at the temple in Jerusalem in 164 BCE, after Judah Maccabee removed the Hellenistic statuary.  And so they asked Jesus hoping that they would be on the list and that their own heroes (usually those who took up the sword to defeat the “evil” powers that be) would also be on the list.  But Jesus, as he so often did, flipped the answer upside down, and answered the question in a way that none of the disciples would have ever thought to answer it in.  Jesus took their list and threw it out the window.  

After the disciples asked him the question of who was the greatest in the Kingdom, Jesus finds a child and brought that child in the middle of the conversation.  He answered their question by showing them a child and saying, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  This was a radical, upside-down, countercultural way to answer the question, because no one thought that children would have been on the list.  You see children in the ancient world were frequently seen as only half-human until they had reached puberty, perhaps for the worrying reason that until they were available as sexual partners- adults wouldn’t want to know about them.  Children in the ancient world were property and were to be seen and not heard.  According to commentator R.T. France, “A child was a person of no importance in Jewish society, subject to the authority of His elders, not taken seriously except as a responsibility, one to be looked after, not one to be looked up to.”  Girls, especially bore the brunt of this.  They suffered the most.  Newborn girls were often simply thrown away- left to starve or be eaten by predators or sold for prostitution at an early age.  

When we see the Greek word for child here in this text what we need to know that the word for child in the NT is neither masculine or feminine but neuter.  A child wasn’t a He or She but an it.  While there may be no way to figure out if this child was a boy or a girl, my best guess, and one that would be even more upside down and countercultural from the prevailing culture, would be that this child was a little girl.  A girl would make with special clarity the point Jesus was wanting to get at.  In the disciples minds a girl child would be the weakest, most vulnerable, and least significant human being in their mind.  But to Jesus and in the Kingdom the weakest, most vulnerable, least significant human begin you can think of is the clearest possible signpost to what the Kingdom of God will be like.  In God’s Kingdom, the future time when heaven rules of earth- won’t be about survival of the  fittest.  It won’t be the result of some long evolutionary process in which the strongest, fastest, the loudest, the angriest, people get to the front ahead of everyone else.  

No, when the Kingdom rules and reigns in our lives now, and also when it comes into it’s fullness, it is the humble, the powerless, the marginalized, the poor and oppressed, the pushed aside who are great in the Kingdom.  And in that day and age who more represented the humble, the powerless, the marginalized, the poor and oppressed and the pushed aside then children?  

So Jesus calls his followers then and he calls his followers now to become like little children if they want to enter into his Kingdom.  He is not saying that we are to have childish faith, where we scream to get our own way, where we whine and complain, and where we want to be all about us.  No.  We are to have childlike faith not childish faith.  

But what does it look like to be great in the Kingdom like a little child?  I have a few thoughts about what it means to be great in the Kingdom like a child.  

First, I think about humility.  Most children know that they don’t know it all.  They realize they need to grow and learn and don’t have it all figured out.  That is something those of us who are following Jesus need to remember with our theology.  We don’t have it all figured out.  Author Leonard Sweet puts it this way,  “I warn students that at my very best, 80 percent of my theology is correct, 20 percent is wrong. The problem is, I'm not sure which is the 80 percent and which isn’t.”  I’m not saying that we should keep an open hand with everything regarding God and our theology.  For me, my core and what isn’t up for debate with me revolves around the person, mission and ministry of Jesus.  His teachings, his life, his death and his resurrection and how we redeems all of creation, and sets it all right.  That, for me is my center and I’m willing to explore how to grow deeper into my center but I’m not budging on that.  But there are a ton of other things in my theology that I’m not 100 percent sure of, that I am willing to look at again, and explore some more.  I am saying that if we think we have God in our box and we have him figured out, he will blow apart our box, squirm out of it, and end up somewhere else.  And if we believe God is in our box, that God is a very very small God.  So let’s hold our theology and belief about God with some humility especially in our interactions with those who are seeking and questioning.  After all the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty.  

Closely connected to that is the idea that to be great in the Kingdom, and to approach faith like a little child, is to be inquisitive and approach faith with eyes wide open, like you are seeing it for the first time.  If you have ever spent any time at all with young kids you know that one of their favorite words is why.  Why is the sky blue?  What is the grass green?  Why do you have grey hair?  Why do you have a mustache mommy?  I think all too often we get tired of all the why questions, and then we transfer that thought to God and question whether God gets tired of why questions.  But I really truly believe that one of the thing that Jesus was getting at by bringing a child into the disciple’s midst that day, was saying that if we are to be great in the Kingdom, we need to be inquisitive and ask God questions.  We might be afraid of people’s questions and I’ve heard it before, “Why can’t you just believe?” and they frame it in such a way that they quote this text as a way to backup their thoughts about not asking questions…But that is really just childish faith and not childlike faith.  But God is not afraid of our questions…so  ask him.  And I think a community of people who follow after this God should not be afraid of questions either.  One of the dreams that I have for this community is to be the type of community who can have substantial conversations around things that matter most, and be open to questions, and doubt.  So instead of being known as a people who are afraid of questions, let’s be like little kids and ask God and each other a bunch of questions and then let’s work together, let’s dialogue around these questions, and let’s be open to others asking questions as well.  Maybe something that we could do quarterly is to have a night full of questions about faith.  Maybe called Doubt Night or Elephant in the Room or A Night of Questions.  

Lastly, what does it mean to be great in the Kingdom?  Look at what Jesus says himself at the end of our Scripture text.  Verse 5 says, “And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”  Jesus is certainly calling for his disciples, the church, to welcome children into their midst.  To move away from how society in that time saw children- seen and not heard, to seeing children who are following Jesus not as the church of tomorrow, but as the church of today as well.  We are a family here church and part of our family are children (though we could definitely use more children).  So are we welcoming children in his name? Are we helping the children we do have find, experience, and come to know Jesus?  Or do we wish we could just see them but not hear them.  How many of us never engage the children in our midst in conversation, pretending that they aren’t there.  This is wrong.  If you want to be great in the Kingdom of God, then welcome the children that we already have in our midst, and also those who may come in the future.  

But it also goes beyond children.  Jesus is also calling his disciples, his church, to be a people who embrace the broken, the hurting, the poor, the marginalized, and the outcast.  He is calling his disciples not to run after the seats of power.  He is calling his disciples not to fawn over the rich, powerful, beautiful, and the privileged.  We are to discriminate based on power, money, and influence.  We are to be open to all people, all walks and kinds of people.  Rich, poor, white, black, American, European, Japanese, etc…  And we are to welcome them in Jesus name, because according to Him, when we welcome them, we are welcoming him.  Kind of sounds like the parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25 doesn’t it?  How are we doing church in welcoming children and those who are like children (how they were seen in 1st Century?)

So let’s talk about a little further about what God may be saying to us as individuals and as a community about being great in the Kingdom, about being humble, about asking questions, and about welcoming others into our midst.  Let’s see what God may have for us in our time of unpacking and discussion. 

Upside Down: Life in the Kingdom Week 2

Today we are looking at our second week of our series Upside Down: Life in the Kingdom.  This series is looking at how our lives when they follow Jesus seem to be upside down from the values and norms of culture.  

Last week Matt covered the message of The Way Up is down and looked at Humility and did a great job of it, along with some help from his friends. 

Today we are going to be covering the theme of loving your enemies.  

Before we jump into the Scripture text for the morning, I want to share an experience that I had earlier this week that sheds light on our Scripture and our theme.  This past week I traveled to Tampa, FL to attend the 2015 Annual Conference of the Church of the Brethren, of which our community is a part of denominationally speaking.  One of the things that took place during the conference was the participation in the conference of the EYN women’s choir.  EYN stands for Ekklesiyar Yan'uwa a Nigeria and is the largest Church of the Brethren body in the world, larger than us here in the US.  Many of you know what has been happening in Nigeria in relation to Boko Haram. We heard about the Chibook girls who were abducted in April of 2014.  The majority of these girls were EYN members.  

There were two things that happened during conference that truly stood out to me.  The first was when there was a “wall” of victims of Boko Haram in front of the gathered body.  This “wall” stretched from one side of the stage to the other and each section of the “wall” was around 5 feet tall and had names of people killed in the conflict.  It was deeply moving and ripped my heart out to see those thousands of names.  Names of men, women and children massacred in cold blood from 2008 to the present.  And to see those who were holding the sections, knowing that probably every single one of them had lost friends, family, and relatives to the senseless acts of violence perpetrated by Boko Haram.   

The second thing that happened during the conference was that the EYN Women’s Choir sang several times throughout the conference.   One of the first times they sang was during a worship gathering early in the week (it was either Saturday night or Sunday morning).  During one song sang in their native tongue they sang about Christ’s call for those who follow after him to forgiveness.  One of the lines in the song was something like “What kind of person are you if you can’t forgive?”  Here was these women who had suffered so much, who stared at the face of evil, who no doubt had friends and family members murdered, and possibly even been attacked themselves, up on stage singing about God’s call to forgiveness.  God’s call to love our enemies.  Over and over the call was for prayer for Boko Haram.  In those prayers and messages there was no hint of hatred, bitterness or rage.  No, they had a love for Boko Haram and wants them to come to know Jesus and his saving love and forgiveness.  I was so struck with the fact that those dear sisters and brothers understood something that I don’t.  They understood what Jesus meant when he called for his disciples to love their enemies.  

Let’s look at our text today and see what Jesus is calling us to live out in his upside down Kingdom.  Let’s look at Luke 6:27-36.  

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.  Do to others as you would have them do to you. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.  And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.  But love your enemies, do good to them,  and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

From first glance we can obviously see that this text is radical, subversive, and upside down from the world and culture.  This is not how we are taught to live according to the ways and attitudes of the Kingdom of this world.  But Jesus call here is for those of us who would follow after Him, and in following after Him and His Kingdom, we live an upside down existence.  

Jesus spends no time in getting right to this upside down call of loving of enemy.  In fact the first four things he calls his followers to, are so upside down, that in our fleshly state, we can’t see how this call even makes any logical sense.  If we are to follow what Jesus is calling us to, we don’t need to do an external change of behavior, what is truly needed is a change of heart.  And this change of heart can only come from an encounter with Jesus.  One of the questions that came to my mind when hearing the EYN Choir was “where does this kind of love, forgiveness  come from?”  I knew the answer, the only answer that would allow someone who had faced so much hell on earth, to turn around and love the ones who had inflicted so much pain on their lives.  The answer to that question has to be an encounter with the living, resurrected Jesus.  

The first thing we see in verse 27 is Jesus call for us to love our enemies.  If you were sitting there listening to Jesus speaking and you heard his call to love your enemies, your mind no doubt went to the Roman empire.  That was the largest enemy that the people of Israel had.  The empire that taxed them heavily, took over their land, and crucified them if they go out of line.  So when Jesus was calling on them to love their enemy, he no doubt meant that they were supposed to love the Romans.  

But what does it practically look like to love your enemies?  To truly flush out in the every day this upside down call of love for enemy?  The rest of verse 27 and verse 28 give us some clues about loving one’s enemy and what it looks like.  Jesus goes on to say after his call to love our enemy, that we are to, “do good to those who hate you,  bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”  Talk about upside down- life in the Kingdom.  What Jesus lays out in this 3 simple to understand, but extremely difficult to live out actions, is what it truly means to live an upside down- Kingdom of God existence.  There are passages in Scripture that can be hard to truly understand what they really mean.  I don’t believe this Scripture is one of those.  It is really easy to understand that we are to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us, and to pray for those who mistreat us.  Very very simple to understand, but very very difficult to actually live out and put into practice.  Usually these are the last 3 things we want to do to our enemy.  Instead of doing good we want to get them back for what they did to us.  We want revenge.  When we get cursed we want to curse back.  When we get mistreated, we want to turn around and mistreat them.  The last thing we want to to do is to do good to those who don’t want to do good to us.  The last thing we want to do is to bless those who are cursing us.  The last thing we want to do is to pray for those who are mistreating us.  And when we live in the flesh, these 3 things are next to impossible.  We can't will ourselves enough to live them out.  We can't work enough love up in our lives to respond to evil with good.  No, these kinds of reactions, this kind of love that would rather love and forgive then hate and get revenge can only come into our lives through the power, grace, and love of Jesus.  After all, he isn’t calling us to do anything that he hasn’t already done.  You are to be like this because this what he is like.  He didn’t show love only to his friends, but he also showed love to his enemies, weeping over the city that had rejected his plan for peace, forgiving those who had crucified him while hanging on the cross, etc..

You see Jesus is saying that it really is easy to love those who love you.  It’s easy to do good to those who have been good to you.  It’s easy to loan to someone you know who will repay you.  But it’s really difficult to love your enemy when they want to harm you, curse you, mistreat you, abuse you, and want your downfall.  But that is exactly what Jesus is calling his disciples to then, and that is what he is calling his disciples to today.  This radical, counter-cultural, subversive, upside down, Kingdom of God life that Jesus is calling us to, if we really want to live this out, it will require our death.  No, not in the literal sense (though it has costed others literally to lose their lives by loving their enemy instead of fighting back).  No if we want to love our enemy the way that Jesus wants, we will have to die to ourselves and follow him.  Just a few chapters after our text for the morning, in Luke 9:23, we find these words, and unless we take them to heart, and seek to live them out, our topic about loving our enemies is really moot.  Luke 9:23 says, “Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”  Unless you die to yourself and seek to follow Jesus, all this conversation about loving your enemy, doing good to those who hate you, blessing those who curse you, and praying for those who are mistreating you, makes absolutely no sense.  And not only does it not make any sense, you actually won’t want to follow Jesus into his upside Kingdom life.  So before you can love your enemy, the first thing you really need to do is to get on the cross, die to yourself, and then get off the cross and begin to live His life through your life.  And part of this life living through you is not only the desire to, but also the ability to.  The desire and ability to look at your enemies and to love them.  The desire and ability to pray for those who are or want to mistreat you.  The desire and ability to actually do good to those who are or want to harm you.  The desire to bless those who are cursing you.  And the desire and ability to repay evil not with more evil, but to repay evil with good.  

That is where the EYN women’s choir and the whole EYN church got it from.  That is where they got the desire and ability to love their enemies and to forgive them. They got it from Jesus and that is where we will get it from.  

So let’s flesh this out a little more fully.  Let’s talk about the text, let’s tell stories of when we have seen this passage fleshed out in our world, let’s talk about how we might love our enemies more, and let’s talk about what God might be saying to us through his word, the messages, and our conversation together. 

God of Justice Week 4

We come to the end of our 4 week series entitled God of Justice, looking at God’s heart for the poor, needy, oppressed and vulnerable in the world.  We have talked about justice and we have also talked a lot about how God’s heart breaks when he sees injustice in the world.  And how we should pray that the things that break the heart of God would break our hearts.  

We’ve spent the last 4 weeks in the Old Testament and have seen the thread of God’s call on his people has not just been about sacrifice, but about mercy.  That God’s heart throughout all of Scripture is about justice.  The thread that we have seen is that God doesn’t just want his people to worship him and then not think a thought about how we then engage with the world around us.  These things, our religious rituals and practices and our acts of blessing, service and justice are intrinsically connected to each other according to God.  

The first two weeks we looked at two texts in Isaiah.  Isaiah 58 talked about the kind of fasting that God wanted.  The prophet Isaiah was sharing with the people of God that the needed to not just fast and worship, but their fasting should be to work for justice in the world.  To  feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, etc..  And basically even though the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats hadn’t been spoken yet, to live out that parable in the world.  

We then took a look at the text that Jesus took as his mission statement if you will, Isaiah 61.  We talked about how these verses drove everything about Jesus ministry in the world.  And how it really should be our hearts cry and mission in the world as well.  To live out shalom, the way things should be, in the here and now.  

Last week we looked at Amos 5:21-24 and saw the thread that runs through so many of the prophets.  The people of God thinking that their religious rituals and practices were enough.  That that is what God really wanted, but God wanted and wants justice to flow like a river and a never ending stream.

Today we take a look at another prophet and see what he might say to us about God, God’s heart for justice, and what He might truly require of us.  We’ll spend time look at Micah 6:1-8.

Before we jump into Micah 6:1-8 let’s take a deeper look at Micah to understand the context of what we will be reading together.  Micah was a prophet in the 8th Century BC and he was from Moresheth in Judah, which was roughly around 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem.  He was a contemporary of Isaiah, Hosea and Amos.  His message was chiefly to the southern Kingdom of Judah, his people so to speak.  But especially to those living in the heart of Judah, the city of Jerusalem.  Much of Micah’s indictment against Israel and Judah involves the Nations injustice towards the lowly- unjust business practices, robbery, mistreatment of women and children, and a government that lived in luxury off the hard work of it’s nations people who struggled and were oppressed.  He also reproaches unjust leaders, defends the rights of the poor against the rich and powerful and preaches social justice while looking forward to a world at peace centered on Zion under the leadership of a new Davidic Monarch.  We see this longing in Micah 5:2 where he prophesies where the Messiah Jesus will be born.  

With the background out of the way, and a way to give us insight into our text for the morning, let’s turn to Micah 6:1-8 and see what we might find out about justice from this text.  

Micah 6:1-8 says, Listen to what the Lord says: “Stand up, plead my case before the mountains; let the hills hear what you have to say. “Hear,  you mountains, the Lord’s accusation; listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth. For the Lord has a case against his people; he is lodging a charge against Israel. “My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you?  Answer me. I brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam. My people, remember what Balak king of Moab plotted and what Balaam son of Beor answered.

Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.” With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God?  Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?  Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?  He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

So Micah 6 kicks off with an imaginary conversation or even a courtroom trial between God and Israel.  In verses 1-5 the Lord introduces his case against the disobedient people of Israel.  He lays out their story and how He delivered them, redeemed them, and lead them in their history.  A history that every single person would have known, studied and repeated to their children.  God through Micah lays out that common history to show them his deep love for the people of God and how he truly wants the best for them.  Even if they think he is burdening them with a burden that they can’t bear.  

After pleading his case to the people of Israel, verses 6-7 record Israel’s response as a series of questions beginning with “with what shall I come to the Lord.”  And right here is where you realize that the people of God just don’t get it.  They just don’t realize that, even with all of their history, with this God, this redeemer, this provider, this sustainer, this God of Justice, that they don’t know his heart.  They don’t know that God desires mercy not sacrifice (as Hosea 6:6 says) and so they ask him these questions.  

These questions are focused on their external religious rituals and their questions show progression from lesser to greater.  The first question is the wondering if God would be satisfied with burnt offerings of year old calves.  The second thought they wondered about, whether it would satisfy God, was a thousand rams.  Now this is full of hyperbole because to accomplish the sacrifice of a thousand rams would either require a very very wealthy individual or the entire community.  And lastly the question leads them to what they would consider the biggest act of sacrifice they could even imagine, would the sacrifice of their own child satisfy God.  Unfortunately sacrificing of their own children was not unheard of in Israel.  It happened mostly in the Valley of Hinnom, where we get much of the pictures that Jesus would have used to describe Hell.  They try to seek God’s satisfaction with anything but the true thing that He wants, our Hearts for Him and our hearts for others.  

And so they ask what he truly wants, and God’s answer is a thread, that I said before, runs throughout each Scripture that we looked at the last 4 weeks, but also throughout the Prophets in the Old Testament, and throughout all of Scripture.  In fact God says, through the prophet, “I have already shown you.”  It’s almost like he says, “I’ve already told you over and over and over again.  And you keep missing it. You think that if you just do these religious rituals, that that will appease me and you can then go off and oppress others, and commit injustice in the world.”  No, he says, if you really really want to know what I require.  What I really desire, it is simply three things.  Just as Israel’s rhetorical question had a 3 part progression, Verse 8 contains a similar progression.  

The three things that God truly requires of his people is that we would act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.  

First, he desires his followers to do or act justly.  To act in a just and fair way towards others.  Treat them the way you would want to be treated.  Micah’s audience would have understand the idea of acting justly as living with a sense of right and wrong.  And living in such a way that when they would see wrong being committed (injustice) that they would act to bring justice to that situation.  God’s heart and his desire is for his people to live and act out justice in the world and have God’s heart for people facing injustice.  NT Wright says, “Doing justice in the world is part of the Christian task.” and “Those who follow Jesus are committed to as he taught us to pray, God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven and that means that God’s passion for justice must be ours too.”  This acting justly, according to the Biblical narrative, is intimately connected to reconciliation, to setting relationships to the right.  If we want to act justly in the world, it really means (as we’ve talked before) not just signing up for a one time service project (though it may start there), or just giving some money to a local non-profit (though it may start there to).  No, acting justly means getting to know someone, hearing their story, sharing your story with them, and committing to walk with them, pray for them, listen to them, and using your voice and your influence (because believe it or not you have more influence and voice than you think you do) to advocate for them.  

The second thing God wants from his people is to love mercy.  The Hebrew word for mercy is hesed which means loyal love or loving-kindness.  Israel was to promote mercy.  They were to not only show mercy, but to love to show mercy.  Again God is putting his finger on something that they (and all of us I believe) struggle with.  They (and us) aren’t just to show mercy but to love to show mercy.  We can’t think that we can fool God by acts of mercy, when our hearts aren’t in it.  Maybe we want to show mercy to someone because we have to, or we’ll get a pat on the back, or someone will look at us and say “Wow.  You are amazing.  How do you do it.”  And so we do these things for appearance sake, or to get a high off of doing something good, or the recognition that might come with it.  But God is again zeroing in on our heart.  God has a heart of justice and mercy and he wants us to have his heart.  You see both justice and mercy are foundational to God’s character.  And if we say that we want to follow Him, then we need to have his heart for justice and mercy as well.  

His last desire for his people is that we would walk humbly with Him.  A description of the heart’s attitude towards God.  Instead of taking pride in what we bring to God (like what verses 6-7 speak about)we have to humbly recognize that no moment of personal sacrifice can replace a heart committed to Justice and love.  We need humility in how we approach God and how we then live out His Kingdom in the world.  The Israelites thought they had God figured out and in their box.  Just do some sacrifices, do the religious ritual things and God will do what we ask or want.  We give him what he wants, he’ll give us what we want.  But God doesn’t work that way.  And God doesn’t just want our external religious rituals.  He wants us to walk with Him, learn from him, see people the way that he sees them, figure out what he loves and begin to love that, and to see what breaks his heart so that it would break ours and send us out into the world being his hands and feet and working for shalom, the way things should be.  

The response of a Godly heart, set of really knowing and living what He wants, is outward (do justice), inward (love mercy) and upward (walk humbly with our God).  That is what it really comes down to.  The same 3 relationships Jesus had, and the same three 3 relationships that he wants us to have and live out.  In fact, when we pull these all together we have a disciple of Jesus who loves God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength and loves their neighbor as they love themselves.  

And so my prayer for us from this series is that we wouldn’t just run out of here and seek to do acts of justice. My prayer is that we would realize that our discipleship means that our worship and prayer life is intrinsically linked to our blessing, serving and justice life.  That worship and prayer is worship and prayer, but so is justice and standing up for the poor, marginalized, oppressed and needy.  And that God desires all of that together and for us to live a holistic life as a follower of Jesus.  

And so what does it mean to follow this God of Justice?  What does he really want from us?  Act Justly, Love Mercy and Walk humbly with Him.  Simple to say.  Hard to live out.  So let’s talk about what that might look like.  What does it look like to live these 3 things out holistically?  And what can we do as followers of Jesus to live out justice, mercy, and walking with Him?

1.  What thoughts, comments, insights, questions, etc.. do you have regarding Micah 6:1-8 and/or the message?  

2.  Which of the three verbs (Act justly, Love mercy, walk humbly with your  God) stands out to you?  Why?  How might you seek to grow in that one area?

3.  What are practical ways our church can join in the rich history of  standing against injustice and for righteousness in our own community  and our world?

 4.  What is God saying to you and what are you going to do about it?  What is God saying to us and what should we do about it?

God of Justice Week 3

Today we continue our 4 week series entitled God of Justice looking at God’s heart for justice in the world, his desire for us to move our worship out into the world, and how our hearts should break with the things that break God’s heart.  And one of the things we definitely know is that God has a heart for justice (last week in Isaiah 61 we read these words, “For I, the Lord, love justice”), and that injustice in the world breaks his heart.  

Today we are looking at Amos 5:21-24 but before we get into the text that we are looking at, we are going to do some background on the prophet Amos, what lead to it’s writing, and what he was speaking out against.  

Amos was a prophet, who was a shepherd and a fig tree farmer before God’s call on his life.  He preached around 750 BC and was a contemporary to Isaiah and Hosea.  He was from the southern Kingdom of Judah but preached in the Northern Kingdom of Israel.  Both Judah and Israel were enjoying great prosperity and reached new political and military heights.  It was also a time of idolatry, extravagant indulgence in luxurious living, immodesty, corruption of judicial procedures and oppression of the poor.  He spoke a lot about the widening gap between the very wealthy and the very poor and his major themes in the book that bears his name are social justice, God’s omnipotence, and his divine judgment.  

With that background let’s turn to Amos 5:21-24 and see what it might have for us today in our world almost 3,000 years later.  Amos 5:21-24 says, “I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.  But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”  

So God through the prophet Amos is confronting the people of God, the Israelites, regarding their communal life together.  He is confronting them in relation to their religious practices.  God points out that He isn’t looking for an abundance of religious practice.  No, what he is really looking for is his people working for justice in the world.  Religious ritual and practice aren’t enough.  I’m not saying that spiritual disciplines such as prayer, fasting and worship aren’t needed and that God doesn’t care for them.  No, what I am saying, as Amos is saying, is that God wants our internal lives to match our external lives and that our worship, prayer, and fasting should lead to acts of right living, right action, and working for justice in the world.  

In verse 21 we read this, “I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me.”  Wow.  Talk about harsh sounding.  Amos was in the midst of a culture, as I mentioned before, that was steeped in religious tradition, religious practice, religious systems, and religious rules and regulations.  But all the religious traditions, religious systems and religious practices didn’t lead to a better or more just world.  The people who were caught up in the religious system still went out, after participating in worship and other religious practices and oppressed their workers, the poor, and others.  And God saw right through the religious veneer of these people and to their heart.  That is the reason that God through the voice of Amos is saying that he hates their religious festivals and assemblies.  

Here was the people of God, the Israelites, living out the faith that was handed down to them for probably thousands of years.  Religious rituals, festivals, assemblies and ways of relating to God that generations had followed before.  So Amos comes along and says that God despises their religious assemblies and festivals.  And the people loved it and welcomed Amos and his message with open arms….or not.  It isn’t a surprise then to realize that this message would have offended those who would have heard it.  I can almost hear the voices and responses now…”But isn’t this what you wanted from us.  Isn’t this the type of religious “system” that you wanted from us?  Isn’t this how we are to have a relationship with you?  Why do you despise what you initiated?”  But before we can get an answer to those questions, Amos continues on telling the people what God is seeing in their engagement with him and with those win the world.  

Amos continues speaking the voice of God to the people of Israel when he says, “Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.”  Everything that the people of God prided themselves on.  Their religious sacrificial system.  There religious festivals.  Their songs of worship.  All of these religious things that the people of God did, that they thought God wanted from them, was actually getting in the way of what God actually wanted.  What Amos is getting at here is that God doesn’t care about good worship, or good theology if justice doesn’t accompany them.  He is saying that all of these things that the people were doing were actually being rejected by him.  That they were a stench to him because they didn’t move from worship and engagement with Him out into the world to be about the work of the Kingdom of God in the world.  Yes they “worshipped” and “prayed” and did all the religious rituals, and then when they went out into the world, their religious rituals didn’t translate into loving of their neighbors, caring for the poor, the widow, the orphan.  

What does God want then?  If the people’s religious rituals (their festivals, their worship, their prayers, etc..) were a stench to him then what is worship that he would accept?  Verse 24 answers this question.  “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”  So we know that it really wasn’t Israel’s religious practices per se that was the problem.  It was the fact that these religious practices didn’t lead the people into acts of justice and righteousness.  Religious activities without justice and righteousness are abhorrent to Yahweh. Moreover, the righteous and justice acts he demands are not the intermittent kind showing up here or there. But the constant kind that rolls down like waters and is an ever-flowing stream.  The people of Israel (and by definition those who seek to follow Him) would find them (and us) trying to fight the very God they are worshipping.  If our acts of worship, prayer, etc.. aren’t in tandem with acts of justice and righteousness, then the river of God will wash over us.  And we will find ourselves struggling against the current of God’s river of justice.  We will actually be trying to go upstream, fighting the current, and going in the wrong direction.  God calls us to lift our feet off the bottom of the stream, turn around, and be led by his Spirit, into the world as the hands and feet of Jesus, working for justice and righteousness all around us.  To live justice, the way things should be.

It is a reoccurring theme within all the prophets: God resists religious expressions that separate orthodoxy (right beliefs) from orthopraxy (right actions). Isaiah complains about Sabbath observances disconnected from care for the needy (Isaiah 58). Joel calls for God's people to rend their hearts, not their garments (Joel 2:13). Micah reminds us of what God's final requirements are: do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8). These prophetic calls in no way diminish creed and liturgy in the life of the church: those rubrics which give us the very grammar we need to worship God. But it does demand that creed, liturgy and practice all be brought together in an inexorable bond under the umbrella of our ecclesial head, Jesus Christ.

Put another way..if our orthodoxy (right belief) doesn’t lead to orthopraxy (right action) that it isn’t really orthodoxy.  If all of our religious beliefs, practices, rituals, systems, events, theology, etc…don’t lead to justice and righteousness then they are really a huge waste of time and God doesn’t get any praise, joy, worthship, etc.. out of it.  I would say that if we aren’t engaged in acts of seeking to make this world a more just, fair, and right world, then God would also not want us to worship Him at all. God wants holistic individuals and communities who see worship, prayer, fasting, etc.. and justice, mercy, blessing going hand in hand with each other.  They are not separated from each other.  We don’t need worship Christians and Justice Christians.  We need followers of Jesus whose worship and prayer sometimes looks like “worship” and “prayer” and sometimes their “worship” and “prayer” looks like feeding the hungry, standing up for the poor and oppressed, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and needy, and living out the life of the sheep found in the parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25.  

The river of God’s justice is flowing out of his throne and into the world.  Just as plants and animal life flourish where there is water, so humanity flourishes where there is justice and righteousness.  God is asking us to jump into this river of justice and righteousness.  To wade deep into his water.  To go with His flow (His Spirit) into places which need the waters of life and justice.  Where the water of God’s love, grace, mercy, righteousness, and justice will heal, restore, renew, and grow.  Where human life will be able to flourish and be the way things are supposed to be.  

Are we worshipping God on Sunday morning but not working for justice during the week?  Are we doing the external acts of worship and prayer and other spiritual practices yet not getting to the deeper matters of mercy, justice, and righteousness.  (Matthew 23:23…

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”  Are we going against the flow of God’s river of justice and righteousness? 

How can you and I do a better job of combining our worship and prayer with our justice work?  Or better yet how can we do a better job of seeing our prayer and worship as worship and prayer but also see the things we do that work for justice and against injustice in the world as prayer and worship as well?  How can we be holistic followers of Jesus who serve the poor, oppressed and needy out of our connection with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit?  How can we be Justice and Worship Christians, where our worship and prayer leads us into justice work. And where our justice work leads us into worship and prayer? 

Let’s spend some time dialoguing around these issues raised in Amos 5 as well as the message.  Let’s talk about what it looks like to be holistic in our worship and justice work.  And let’s talk about what it might look like for you and I to jump into God’s river of justice and righteousness and go along with the flow of the river and see where we might end up.  

1.  What thoughts, comments, insights, questions, etc.. do you have about Amos 5:21-24 and/or the message?

2.   Has religious practices ever gotten in the way of God’s justice in the world?  How can our worship lead us into justice work and how can our justice work lead us into worship?    

3.  How can you and I let the river of God’s justice and righteousness flow through us?  What might it look like for Veritas to jump into the river together?

4.  What is God saying to you and what are you going to do about it?  What is God saying to us and what should we do about it?

God of Justice Week 2

If you were to come up with a mission statement that drove the life of Jesus what would you come up with?  Would you come up with the Great Commission from Matthew 28:16-20 about making disciples of all nations?  Would you share the Great Commandment to love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as you love yourself?  Would you vote for John 10:10 that Jesus came to to give us life and life to the fullest?  Or would you turn to Luke 4 and recall the words that Jesus read in the Synagogue from Isaiah 61?  

I believe that you could probably answer any one of these Scriptures as Jesus mission statement.  But for our conversation today we are going to look at one of the Messianic texts in the Old Testament that points to what the role of the Messiah was to be in the world, and then what I believe those of us who seek to follow Jesus should be about, and how we should spend ourselves for the sake of the world. 

Let’s turn to the text that Jesus quoted from when he stood up in the Synagogue in Luke 4:14-21 and let’s look at how this text from Isaiah I believe directed how Jesus saw himself and his calling upon his life as Savior and Messiah.  Let’s look at Isaiah 61:1-9 together.  

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,

and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy

instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. Strangers will shepherd your flocks; foreigners will work your fields and vineyards. And you will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God. You will feed on the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast. Instead of your shame you will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace you will rejoice in your inheritance. And so you will inherit a double portion in your land, and everlasting joy will be yours. “For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing. In my faithfulness I will reward my people and make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”

So what we see at the beginning of this text is this statement, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me”  The word anointed here is the word that we get the word Messiah from.  And so from the days of this writing this text was considered a Messianic text, as I mentioned before, and was what people would expect the future Messiah to be all about.  What the Messiah’s ministry and life would revolve around.  Now the beginning of this text in Isaiah is about the Messiah.  He is the true Anointed One, which is what the word Messiah means.   But in a very real way, each of us, if we are followers of Jesus are also anointed.  We aren’t THE anointed one.  But we are anointed, as we’ll look at in a bit, to be about the same thing that the anointed one was all about.  So let’s see what the Anointed One was anointed to do, and then by definition what things we are supposed to be about as followers.

The first thing the Messiah was anointed to do was to proclaim good news to the poor.  The word good news used here is the word from which we derive the word Gospel from.  Now as we talked about last week I believe there are two sides to this concept.  I believe that all of us are spiritually poor and are in need of the Gospel and so there is that spiritual side of things if you will.  Just like what we find in the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 which says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  But I think we do a disservice, if not an outright mishandling of the text if we just limit it to the idea that Isaiah is talking about spiritual poverty.  And that we are supposed to proclaim the gospel to the spiritually poor.  No, this text speaks more primarily to the reality of poverty, lack of resources.  There is the hard reality of actual poverty in our world.  In our world there are 2.2 billion people live on less than 2 dollars a day.   

Is the church being good news for the poor?  Are we siding, like Jesus, with the poor?   If the message of good news is not good news to the poor, than it is not the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It reminds me of the statement that was made famous by Karl Marx, “Religion is the opiate of the masses.”  What he was saying and getting at is the problem of making the gospel all about an end destination and not this life, and then you can treat people however you want, just giving them hope for a better eternity.  But this is not the gospel, especially if it isn’t good news to those who are in poverty.  

Next the Messiah was anointed to bind up the brokenhearted.  We get the picture of a heart that is broken, defeated, joyless, and hopeless and we get the picture of someone coming and putting the broken heart back together.  To get this heart wholeness, healing, victory, joy, and probably one of the biggest needs, the need of hope.  A picture of people, coming alongside others, walking with them, fighting for them, praying for them, advocating for them, and helping them reclaim hope.  And probably the biggest way of doing that is not to look at people as projects, but look at them as people.  People created in the image of God and loved by our Creator.  I think we would go along way and that justice would go along way if we would just remember this and put it into practice.  

Next the Messiah was anointed to “proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  This part of Isaiah 61 was related to the practice of Jubilee and definitely points back to Leviticus 25:8-12 which says, “Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.  The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines.  For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.”  Jubilee was about restoring the land and possession to people who had lost them every 50 years.  Debts were forgiven  and ancestral land was return.  Jubilee was about justice…the vision that makes things right again.  

Obviously again this part of the Scripture brings spiritual freedom, spiritual darkness, spiritual captivity to mind.  That Jesus coming to this earth was about freeing people from sin, death, evil and hell.  That it was about deliverance from sin and death.  That these things that Jesus came to set right were all effects of sin.  God seeks to reverse the effects of sin and calls us as followers to do the same things.  But again if we limit these verses to only “spiritual things” and only talk about things like evangelism and sharing the good news without talking about freeing people from physical captivity (like in relation to Human Trafficking and sexual slavery) and giving to physical sight to the blind, then we are doing a disservice to this text, and are committing super flawed exegesis.  No, to truly live out the calling of being a follower of Jesus we do the work of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ (the gospel) both with our words and in our actions.  Yes we proclaim freedom and sight for the spiritually bond and blind.  But we also work for the physical freedom of prisoners who are unjustly punished and also physical sight for the blind.  

Jumping to verse 4 we revisit the picture of justice being like rebuilding a devastated town or city that we saw in Isaiah 58.  Verse 4 says, “They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.”  A few comments need to be mentioned here.  The word they is interesting.  It seems to be saying that those who have been freed, proclaimed the good news to, given sight, mourned and comforted, are now to go out and work for justice in the world.  They are the ones then to go work to proclaim the good news, bring freedom, comfort, hope, giving sight, etc..  That once you have experienced justice in your life, you are to work for justice for others and not just keep it to yourself.  This works, I believe, in proclaiming the gospel both in word and in deed.  

Also the work of justice is about rebuilding, raising up and repairing. If justice is about the ways that things should be, then the picture we get of people who are working for justice in the world is a town that is being rebuilt brick by brick, block by block, house by house.  It brings to mind, no doubt, the people of God coming back from Exile and finding their towns and cities in ruins, (Nehemiah comes to mind) and beginning the long hard work of putting their cities back together.  That is what Justice does.  It puts towns, cities, countries and the world back together the way that it should be.  

The work of justice.  The world of rebuilding, raising up and repairing isn’t just for those who work with justice non-profits.  It isn’t just for the young.  It isn’t just for those whose heart beats around the cries of injustice.  No, according to verse 6, the work of justice is for all those who follow after the anointed one.  “And you will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God”.  You see we are all Priests.  We are all Pastors.  We are all missionaries.  And the work of justice is for everyone, from the youngest to the oldest, from the richest to the poorest, from the suburbs to the country to the cities.  

This work of justice doesn’t come from our own compassion for justice in the world  No, justice comes directly from the heart of God.  In verse 8 we read, “For I, the Lord, love justice;  I hate robbery and wrongdoing.”  God loves justice and his heart breaks because of the injustice that is happening in our world today.  Our prayers today and everyday should be God break my heart with the things that break yours.  When you begin to pray that your heart will break because of the injustice in the world.  Your heart will break just like God’s heart in relation to injustice.  

Lastly, Isaiah is calling the people of God back to their calling as a people.  The calling that has been on the people of Israel from the time of Abraham.  The Abrahamic covenant found in Genesis 12 is reiterated in verse 9 and calls the people to the work of justice in relation to why they exist in the world.  “Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”  And if they are the people that the Lord has blessed, then these people are blessed for the sole reason that they are blessed to be a blessing.  To use their blessings to be a blessing to others.  To use the power, position, education, etc.. to work for justice in the world.  That is God’s call on the church as well.  We are blessed to be a blessing and to use what we have been given (our time, talents, finances, position in life, education, etc..) to be a blessing by working for justice in the world and fighting against injustice.  You and I are anointed by the anointed one to be about the work of justice.  

The question then becomes what does verse 1 and 2 look like for each one of us.  How are you and I proclaiming good news to the poor, binding up the brokenhearted, proclaiming freedom, and releasing people from darkness?  Also why did Jesus choose this passage as his manifesto, his mission statement, his campaign as King so to speak?  And how can we live out this type of justice in our world today.  Let’s talk more about ways to live Isaiah 61 as individuals and as a community. 

Discussion Questions:

1.  What thoughts, comments, insights, questions, etc.. do you have regarding the Scripture (Isaiah 61:1-9) and/or the message?

2.  Why do you think Jesus chose this passage as his mission statement, manifesto, or for his campaign (if you will)?  How did he preach good news to the poor, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim freedom, and give sight to the blind?

3.  How can you and I live out Jesus mission statement from Isaiah 61:1-9 in Lancaster and the world?  How are you currently living our his mission statement through your life?

4.  What is God saying to you and what are you going to do about it?  What is God saying to us and what should we do about it?

God of Justice Week 1

Today we begin a four week series looking in the Old Testament and finding God’s heart for justice in the world.  We’ll explore 4 different Scriptures that share God’s heart for justice and his call to those who follow him to have his heart and work for justice in the world.  

Today and for the next 3 weeks we will be exploring God of Justice.  Many times when we think of the Old Testament we don’t realize the amount of space given to God’s heart for the poor, oppressed and needy.  In fact, the whole of the Scriptures mention poverty and God’s heart for the poor over 2,000 times.  

In our world today many are longing for justice.  We have seen it in Baltimore, in Ferguson, and many other places.  I believe justice is a cry that is innate in every human heart.  A cry that I believe is connected to God’s heart and God’s image on every human.  Longing for justice makes us human.  NT Wright, in his book simply Christian puts it this way, “Christians believe this is so because all humans have heard, deep within themselves, the echo of a voice which calls us to live like that.”

But what is justice?  What does God say about justice?  What is our role in living out justice in this world?  These are some of the questions that we’ll be exploring over the next 4 weeks in this series entitled God of Justice.

I would define justice the same way that I would use the word shalom.  Back last fall we spent a few weeks talking about the concept of biblical non-violence and I used the word shalom, which is the Hebrew word for peace.  But Shalom can best be defined as the way things should be.  Justice I believe can be defined the same way.  It is when things are the way that they really should be.  

The other night I finally sat down and watched the deeply troubling and heart wrenching story of Martin Luther King Jr. and his march from Selma to Mobile, Alabama and the work of the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) to secure rights of African Americans related to voting.  Their cries for justice were met with tear gas, guns, batons, water cannons, and dogs.  It broke my heart that people were treated that way, and it breaks my heart that people are still treated that way, many times from people who call themselves Christians.  Those who follow after the God that has a heart for the needy, the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed.  So often we don’t realize the connection between connecting with God and seeking justice in the world.  But there is a deep connection between our spiritual internal lives and our external missional life.  I don’t believe we can have one without the other.  They are intrinsically linked.  Jesus said it so himself when he said that the two greatest commandments are to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love your neighbor as you love yourself.  

Let’s look at today’s text and see what it has to say to us about our relationship with God and our relationship with the world around us, and how they are connected.  Turn to Isaiah 58:6-12.  “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. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”

What was happening in the days of Isaiah the prophet was that the people of God, the Israelites were doing all the external acts of religion.  They were praying, they were fasting, they were worshipping.  But at the same time they were treating their workers poorly.  They were exploiting the poor and needy.  And they were asking God, “God why aren’t you answering our prayers.  Why aren’t you hearing us and moving in the way we want you to move?  How come you don’t feel close anymore?”  It’s almost like they believed that there was a reciprocal relationship between their religious practices, and getting what they wanted from God.  Almost like, if we do these certain religious rituals (prayer, fasting, etc..), we can get God in our debt, and he can give us what we want.  But also it seems like they also believed that God was only concerned about the “religious” rituals and not life as a whole.  Because while doing all their religious rituals, they were, according to the verses before our text, “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.”

God then tells them that if they want to hear from him, if they want to have their prayers answered, if they want to feel close to God again, then they need to fast in the right way.  They need to fast in a way that pleases him which begins with getting right with their brothers and sisters and stop oppressing others.  Isaiah is telling them (and us) this simple but hard to live reality.  That worship that doesn't lead to a life of justice, is not worship.  You can fast, pray, worship all you want but unless you are living the kind of fast that God wants, it means nothing.  It is just noise to Him.  Getting right with God begins by stopping the evil that we do to others.  

Normally we think of fasting as giving up something, mostly food.  And this is a good practice to do.  To give up something for a period of time and use that time, money, etc.. to grow closer to Him and maybe even seek to do some acts of justice through the fasting process.  But in Isaiah 58:6-7 we see the kind of Fasting that God wants his people to be involved in, and it has more to do with working and fighting against injustice, then just giving up food.  In verses 6-7 we read the kind of fasting that he wants his people to live out, “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?”  Proper fasting is not merely refraining from food, but a commitment to justice for the poor.  This is where God’s people will find life.  If God’s people would couple their fasting, with works and lives of justice, then God would answer their prayers, meet them where they are, and make his presence in their lives reality.  

What does it look like then to live for justice?  What does it look like to fast in the way that God desires from his people?  What does it look like to live out verses 6-7?  It looks the same as the parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25:31-46.  Notice the overlap between verses 6-7, verse 10 and what the “sheep: are commended for in the parable.  They are the same things.  Justice in both Isaiah and Matthew looks like feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, giving radical hospitality, clothing the naked, looking after the sick and visiting the prisoner.

Isaiah after laying out the kind of fasting that God desires, lays out 3 things that the people of God should stop doing and 2 things that the people of God should start doing.  In verses 9-10 we read, “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,”  The 3 things God through the prophet Isaiah is calling the people of God to stop doing are to stop oppressing people, to stop pointing fingers at others and to stop speaking malicious talk.  And the 2 things that God wants the people of God to start doing is to spend themselves on behalf of the hungry and to satisfy the needs of the oppressed.”  

The people of God, who were fasting, praying, and worshipping and desiring God to show up, if they were to live out the call of justice in the world, then God would said “Here I Am.”  When they would work for justice, God would satisfy them, protect them, guide them, and allow them to see clearly.  Their heart’s desire to connect with God was great and right.  But as I said before however true worship is not just about prayer, worship, and fasting.  True worship leads us into acts of justice and compassion like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, hospitality to strangers, etc..  And then as you pour yourself out for others, you will find yourself filled up.  You will find God in the faces of those who you are pouring your life into.  Those faces of people that you are seeking to love and come alongside of.  And ss Jesus said in Matthew 10:39, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”

I love what God through the prophet Isaiah says is the end result of what happens when God’s people move beyond just religious rituals and begin to work for justice in the world.  Not only does He say that he will show up, his will give guidance, and that he will answer their prayers.  Isaiah says that when God’s people work for justice in the world, “Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”  That to me is what justice looks like.  When everything seems to be crumbling and falling apart.  When the foundations of society are borken and shattered.  When justice seems like an impossibility, followers of Jesus will work in building the Kingdom of God.  NT Wright puts verse 12 this way, “We dream the dream of justice.  We glimpse for a moment of a world at one, a world put to rights, a world where things work out, where societies function fairly and efficiently, where we know not only what we ought to do but actually do it.”  

I don’t know about you but I really want to be called “Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”  I want to work for justice in the world and be apart of working to make this place the way that it should be.  I want to see justice come for all people.  I want to see a world where hunger, poverty, disease, homelessness, lack of clean water, etc… come to be known as things of the past.  I want to work for justice not only around the world but also here in Lancaster.  I also want to see the face of Jesus in the faces of those that we love, serve, and work alongside in helping justice to come.  I want my worship to lead to acts of justice and mercy.  I want to fast in the way that is pleasing to Him.  

What about you?  What about us as a community?  How does our worship and fasting and religious life actually get in the way of working for justice?  What does working for justice look like here in Lancaster?  What does working for justice look like around the world?  How can you and I fast in the way that God through Isaiah is calling the people of God to?  Let’s talk about true worship, true prayer, and true fasting, which is working for justice in the world.  And let’s talk about concrete ways that we have been “fasting” and ways that we might “fast” in the future. 

1.  What thoughts, comments, insights, questions, etc.. do you have about Isaiah 58:6-12 and/or the message?

2.  How could "fasting" get in the way of actually living out justice in the world?

3.  How can we live out fasting that God desires in Lancaster and around the world?  Give some concrete ideas of ways to work for justice in the world?

4.  What is God saying to you and what are you going to do about it?  What is God saying to us and what should we do about it?  

The Generous Life Week 6: Stewardship of Relationships

Today we wrap up our 6 week series called The Generous Life looking at the issue of stewardship. We started this series right after Easter, and we began to realize, that in a very profound way, that living a Generous Life is what it means to live Resurrection lives in the world.

We talked about stewarding the body that God has given to us. And we realized that if the resurrection was true, than God actually does care about humanity, and for more than just our “souls”. He does care about our bodies and how we use them and how we view them. That we are called to steward them well by exercising, getting enough sleep, etc.. But also he is concerned with how we view our bodies and our own self image.

We talked about God’s care for the environment and how he has called us to steward his good creation. He has called us to have dominion over the earth, and rule it in the exact same way that he has dominion and rules over it, with love and grace.

We spent two weeks talking about money. We talked about the importance of stewarding our financial resources well and also talked about the importance of giving to the local church, to be about the work of the Kingdom of God.

Last week we talked about stewarding of the gifts and talents that he has placed within each one of us. We talked about taking risks and using the gifts for his Kingdom instead of burying them in the ground, and/or using them for our own selfish gains and glory.

Today, we wrap up the series by coming full circle. By putting an exclamation point on our conversation. By coming around to the most important part of what it means to live resurrection lives. And sharing the foundation that we need to have when it comes to being a good steward. Without what we will be talking about today, everything that we have covered in these past 6 weeks, stewarding our bodies, the environment, our finances, and our gifts, would be done out of wrong motives. When it all comes down to it, stewardship, and living the Generous Life and living the resurrectional life, is all about love. Love of God and love of others.

Jesus said the same thing when it came to what the most important of the OT law was. In Matthew 22:34-40 we read these words, “Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.  One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:  “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

So let’s look at this text and see what it might have for us in relation to our topic today of stewardship of relationships.

The first thing we see is the Pharisee’s getting together for the expressed purpose of trapping Jesus with his words. The Pharisee’s had just seen the Sadducees asking a question of Jesus in relation to resurrection, even though they didn’t believe in it. So the Sadducees according to Matthew were silenced, so the Pharisees thought that they could get together, and come up with a better plan to get Jesus in trouble with the Religious leaders and possibly even the Roman empire itself. After getting together they ask Jesus a question that had been a question of the Jewish religious leaders from the time of the founding of the law of Moses. That question was “What is the most important commandment?” You see that was a raging debate in Jewish circles. There were a total of 613 laws that people sought to follow. These laws were divided into greater and smaller laws. So they wrestled with questions about the laws, which were more important than others, and what if two of the laws were somehow in tension which one would you follow.

So the Pharisees come to Jesus to get him to weigh in on this centuries old debate on which law is the most important. They ask him point blank, “What is the greatest commandment in the law?” His response is to pull together 2 commandments directly from the Old Testament.

The first and greatest commandment Jesus says is to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. His answer is pulled right from Deuteronomy 6:5 which every observant Jewish person would know by heart because Deuteronomy 6:5 is also part of the Shema, which is a Jewish prayer that they would pray daily. I believe Jesus starts with love of God as the greatest commandment, because I believe then everything flows out from there. If we love God with all of our hearts, soul and mind, then we will naturally seek to live out the Kingdom which includes loving our neighbors as ourselves.

So what does it mean to love God with all your heart, should and mind and what does that have to do with stewarding relationships? I believe in this text there are three relationships that are mentioned that we are called to steward, and the first one being our relationship with God. Jesus calls us to steward our relationship with him with our hearts, or with our emotions, and with our will. He calls us to love him with our soul, or with our lives and living solely for him. And he calls us to love him with our minds. Following Jesus, unlikely how it is so often portrayed in popular culture, is not about turning off our minds and becoming sheep who blindly follow. There is a book that I have and it unfortunately points to a scandal within contemporary evangelicalism. The book is called Scandal of the Evangelical Mind and the authors premise for writing the book is that the scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is no evangelical mind. But God calls us to use our minds in loving Him. We should not be afraid to read, study, interact and engage in critical thinking, not only about other world views and beliefs but our own as well.

To steward our relationship with God means that all of our facilities are used to grow in closer relationship with him. It means we spend time in the classic spiritual disciplines of Scripture reading and mediation, prayer, sabbath, silence, and even fasting. It means that we spend time reading, growing, asking questions, and exploring the Christian faith. It means that all of our selves, everything that makes us human, our intellect, our will, our desires, our feelings, our emotions, etc… need to be brought into play in stewarding our relationship with Him.

Now when we steward our relationship with God well, there will be a natural byproduct of our engaging with God, that being love of others. Jesus said it like this, “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”  Here Jesus is quoting from Leviticus 19:18. If the life of God is real in our life it will show by the presence of our love, first for God and for others. The more we steward our relationship with God, the more we will begin to love everyone we meet and come in contact with. If we are stewarding our relationship with God, and we don’t love our neighbors, than 1 John puts it this way, “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”

So the second relationship that God calls us to steward is that of others or as Jesus puts it, neighbors. That includes those who would call themselves followers of Jesus and those who are not. How do we steward relationships with others? I think that is where crossover happens in how we look at our walk with God and our relationship with others. I would say one of the best ways to steward your relationships, with God and with others, is in relation to time. If you want to love God more. If you want to love him with all your heart, soul and mind, it means spending the time in relationship with Him. If you want to love your neighbor as you love yourself, that also requires time. Time spent with people. Without time there really is no relationship. And without time there really is no love. If you aren’t willing to invest time, whether in your relationship with God or in your relationship with others, I would challenge you to take a serious look at your life and see whether or not you actually love God and people.

The last relationship which I believe God wants us to steward as well is in our relationship to ourselves. He says we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. But I know many people who feel that they do a better job of loving others than loving themselves. Obviously Jesus isn’t saying that if you don’t love yourself then you are off the hook with loving others. I believe that one of the biggest things that I need to work on in my life has to do with loving myself and that is really rooted in my relationship with God. If I am stewarding my relationship with Him, and truly understanding what it means that I am made in the image of God. If I am spending time listening to the truth of His Word and how it calls me a son of the King of the world, instead of listening to the lies from the evil one calling me useless, evil, sinner with no hope of redemption, and a failure, this will help me to begin the journey of loving myself.

What does it mean to love yourself, not in a narcissistic way, but in a God honoring way? It means what we talked about the first week of this series. It means the external things like eating well, exercising, getting enough sleep, and probably one of the hardest in our culture of perpetual busyness, is taking a needed sabbath rest. But it goes beyond external things to deeper more substantial inner issues such as self-image, and where we derive our sense of self and self worth from. To love ourself means we begin to see ourselves through the eyes of Him. We begin to see ourselves as sons and daughter’s of the King. As someone who has intrinsic worth not because of anything we do, but because of whose we are and that we are created in the image and likeness of God.

So when you boil it all down. When you take the entirety of the Old and New Testament. Jesus and his life, death, and resurrection. The entirely to Christian and Church history. You come down to only one word. One word that sums up everything that God is calling his people to do and to be. That word is love. Love of God and Love of others.

If we got through this entire 6 week series and never got to this point, it would, in my opinion, be a waste. If we became a better stewards of our bodies, but didn’t love God, others, and ourselves more. If we became better stewards of the environment, but didn’t love God and the world around us and those who will be inheriting the planet from us. If we became better stewards of our financial resource and gave more to the local church, but didn’t love God, people and ourselves more. If we became better stewards of our talents and the gifts that God has given to each of us, but we weren’t using those gifts out of love for God, for others, and ourselves. Then we have just created another list of rules and laws to live by. This “Great Commandment” begins to come into their own when they are seen not as orders to be obeyed in our own strength but as invitations and promises to a new way of life. A Generous Life where we are stewards of our bodies, the environment, our money, our talents, and our relationships because we love God with all of our hearts, soul, and mind and we love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

So let’s unpack a little more about stewarding our relationships with God, others and ourselves. Let’s talk about how we can better steward those relationships. Let’s talk about concrete steps that we can take in order to be better stewards. And let’s see what God might be saying to each one of us and our community and what he wants us to take away from our conversation today and our series as a whole.

1. What thoughts, insights, questions, etc.. do you have regarding the Scripture and/or the message?

2. How are you doing in stewarding your relationship with God? What is one thing that you might do to grow in stewarding your relationship with God?

3. How are you doing in stewarding your relationship with others and/or yourself? What is one thing that you might do to grow in stewarding your relationship with others and/or self?

4. What is God saying to you and what are you going to do about it? What is God saying to us and what should we do about it?

The Generous Life Week 5: Stewardship of Talents

Today we continue our series entitled the Generous Life. Throughout the last 5 weeks we’ve been exploring what it means to live a Generous Life and to be a good steward of everything that God has put into our care as humans. We have explored what it means to be a good steward of our physical bodies, how we need to take care of the environment, and the past two weeks we’ve explored what it means to be generous and a good steward with our money, finances and the idea of tithing to the local church. Next week we will explore together what it means to be a good steward of the relationships that God has entrusted into our care.

Have you noticed the explosion and the proliferation of television shows that are all about finding a person with the best talent? Maybe it is America’s Got Talent. Or maybe it’s the Voice. Or the old standby American Idol. It seems like our world is obsessed with the idea of finding people with a talent that will propel these people into the spotlight and change their lives forever. Now you and I might not have the most beautiful voice in the world. We might not have a talent that could land us in the finals of America’s Got Talent and win us a million dollars. Or we might never end up on TV showing off our amazing talent. But know this, God has blessed each one of us with a abilities, gifts and talents. And because he has blessed us with these gifts, he is calling us to use them to bless others (and unlike what we see on TV, not use them for our own glory and blessing)

So today we’ll explore what it means to be a good stewards of the abilities, gifts and talents that God has given to us. We’ll do that by looking at, for those who grew up in the church, what might be a very familiar parable, called the Parable of the Talents. This parable is found in Matthew 25:14-30.

“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them.  To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more.  So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more.  But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.  “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them.  The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’  “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’  “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.  So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’  “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed?  Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.  “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags.  For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.  And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Before we jump to much into this text, I have to share with you that this Scripture is one of the main reasons that Kim and I planted this community. Back in 2007 I was wrestling with my vocational call in ministry. It was during the year that God kept bringing the word risk to me through various mediums like quotes, various church gatherings, church values, and this parable kept showing up over and over and over again. So this parable is really one of the reasons honestly that Kim and I decided that God was calling us out to plant Veritas.

Secondly, we need to look at the beginning of the text because what we read started this way, “again it will be like.” Which leads me to the question, what will it be like? What is Jesus talking about when he tells this parable. And to understand what it will be like we need to go to Matthew 25:1 which starts another parable with these words, “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like….” So what Jesus is getting at here in Matthew 25 is about what life in the Kingdom of God is all about. What does it mean to live under the rule and the reign of King Jesus? If there is a King and a Kingdom that God calls us to live under, we have to make a choice then to decide to live under his rule and reign or decide to live under our own rule and reign. And that in a huge way is really also what this parable is all about. Do we decide to live under the rule and reign of King Jesus, and use what he has entrusted us with to help further his Kingdom, or to take what we have been given and either use it to further our own Kingdom or (which is really the same) to bury it and not use it for his glory and his kingdom.

So let’s take a further look at this parable that Jesus tells. We see in this parable a man about to go on a journey, and he entrusts his wealth to his servants. The servant’s then are called to steward what he had given them to care for in his absence. One of the servant’s received 5 bags of gold, one servant received two bags of gold, and one servant received one bag of gold. In an older translation of this parable the bag of gold would have been translated talent. A talent in Jesus day was a unit of money. A talent would be a lot of money. In fact it was around 15 years worth of a Laborer’s wage for 15 years. So even the servant who received only one bag of gold or talent received a lot and was entrusted with a lot.

The one who was entrusted with 5 bags of gold set to work and made a profit of another 5 bags of gold. The one who was entrusted with 2 bags of gold also set to work and made a profit of another 2 bags of gold. But the one who only had one went out, in fear, and buried in the ground, so at least he wouldn’t lose the one bag of gold that he was given.

One of the biggest difference in this story lies between the reaction of the first two servants and the last servant. The first two servant’s were given the most to steward and therefore had the most to lose if they didn’t steward the Master’s money well. They took the biggest risk in putting their Master’s money to use in order to gain more. What would have happened if they wouldn’t have gained double what they had been given? What if the one servant that was given 5 bags of gold, spent the 5 bags of gold to make more but lost it all? Because I am sure that could have been a possibility. But both of the servants who doubled their Master’s investment knew the risk, and took it anyway. They weren’t bound up in fear like the last servant. Only in that conscious decision to risk losing what they had been entrusted with, were they able to multiply that gift to be used by their master.

The last servant was afraid. He said so himself when he said in verse 25, “So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground.” What was he afraid of? I believe he was afraid of multiple things. He was afraid of the Master himself. He was afraid of taking the 1 talent and using it to gain more, because if he risked the 1 talent he might lose it all. He was afraid that he would not be able to use what he was given to make more. And so what did he do because of his fear and lack of risk? He buried it in the ground. it was fear that lead him to hoard and bury the resource in the ground rather than take a risk and invest it.

Last week we talked about tithing to the local church and one reason that Dave gave for not giving to the local church was fear. Fear that we wouldn’t have enough if we gave a portion of our income to the local church. And this is no different in relation to our talents. It is fear that keeps us from investing in the work of God. it is fear that keeps us from dreaming dreams with God. It is fear that leads us to hoard and bury our talents in the ground rather than investing them in the Kingdom. We need to make a conscious decision, like the first two servants, to risk using what God has entrusted to us, and then trust God to multiply our talents for the usage of the Kingdom of God. We can choose fear or risk when it comes to our talents and the Kingdom. It is up to us. But in this parable, the ones that risked the most got the most from that risk. The one who played it safe, was in the old expression, “left holding the bag”

Another question that I have been pondering is what would the original hearers of this parable understanding have been? How would they have understood the characters, the setting, and the point of it as? NT Wright says this about how Jesus’ original hearers would have understood it, “a story of a Master and slaves, in which the master goes away leaving the slaves tasks to perform and then comes back at last, would have certainly be understood, in the Judaism of Jesus’ day, as a story about God and Israel.” We then need to answer the question then who are the servant’s in this parable according to Jesus. NT Wright again says this, “It (the parable) belongs closely with Matthew 23 where Jesus denounces the Scribes and the Pharisees. They, may we suggest, are represented by the wicked servant who hid his Master’s money.” The Scribes and Pharisees had been given the law of Moses and the Temple- the sign of God’s presence among them. They were given a calling, a vocation, a covenant that God would bless them but that the blessing wasn’t just for them. But that God was calling them to use their blessing as a nation to be a blessing to other nations, and to the entire world. They, like the wicked servant, barrier their vocational calling to be a blessing in the ground, and over and over chose to use it only for themselves. They were like a city set on a hill, the light of the world, but they chose to cover their light with a bushel and keep it only to themselves. The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70 was a direct result of God’s people not living up to the calling that they were given, to bless others and point people to Him.

So the next question then for me was who are the other two servants? I believe these would be those who heard and hear the call of Jesus and lived/live in obedience of that call. They took on the Abrahamic covenant to be a blessing to the entire world as their own, and used their gifts to further his Kingdom. Who risked everything to follow Jesus and his Kingdom. Who risked living under the rule and reign of Jesus in the midst of a culture we it was radical, subversive, and could cost you your life when you said there was another king and it wasn’t Caesar.

So the question then becomes agin for all of us, who are we more like? Are we like the two who risked the most, and put their talents to use for the Kingdom? Or are we like the one servant who didn’t risk? Who played it safe and buried his calling, his vocation, his gift in the ground and didn’t allow that gift to be used for the Kingdom. I believe God has equipped each of us with gifts, talents and abilities. I believe he is calling us to steward them well. To use them for the blessing of the world and for advancing the Kingdom of God. I believe God calls us to use these gifts everywhere. In the world. In the church. For His Glory and for his Kingdom.

So let’s unpack and apply this message together. Let’s talk about how we steward our talents. Let’s talk about what talents we feel God has given us. Let’s brainstorm how the talents of this community may be used communally to further His Kingdom and bless the world.

1. What thoughts, comments, insights, questions, etc.. do you have about the text and or the message?

2. What talent(s) have you been given and how have you steward them for His glory and His Kingdom? How have you buried them in the ground?

3. How might our gifts and talents as a community be used communally for His glory and His Kingdom?

4. What is God saying to you and what are you going to do about it? What is God saying to us and what should we do about it?

The Generous Life Week 3: Stewardship of Money Part 1

Today we continue walking through our series entitle The Generous Life. We have been connecting the Generous Life with what we have been calling a resurrectional life. A resurrectional life that lives a life of stewardship, which we have defined as caring for things that God has given us, in the way that he would care for it. Stewardship then applies to things like money (of course), time, talents, relationships, our bodies, the environment, and more.

When we started this series 3 weeks ago we began talking about being a good steward of our bodies. That the resurrection, if anything, means that this world truly matters. And that are bodies matter to God and he wants us to take care of them. So we talked about exercise, sleep, etc… but spent a good deal of time talking about underlying. more foundational questions about image, self, etc..

Last week, as it was Earth Day Sunday, centered our time around taking care of the environment. That God wants us as image bearers to ‘radah’ (rule, dominate) over the creation in the exact same way that he would…which is in loving, caring, and helping redeem it. We also talked about that the creation was called very good at the beginning of Genesis, and that even despite of the fall into sin that affects even the Creation itself, that God, I believe, still calls this earth/planet good, and desires us to see it that way. And work towards the shalom of the planet, and that one day when Jesus comes back, he’ll set it all right, and it will be very good again.

Today and next week we talk about the topic that we all love to talk about so much when it comes to stewardship…that’s right..money. Today I’ll be talking about stewardship of money from more of a 30,000 feet viewpoint. And then next week Dave Witmer will come and talk in more detail about what stewardship of money looks like on a congregational scale and how our money influences our faith, and how our faith should influence our money.

So today we are talking about stewardship of finances and to do so we are going to go to Mark 12:38-44 and talk about this story that Mark tells about Jesus and his run in with the scribes, but also his encounter with a poor widow.

Look at Mark 12:38-44, “As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.” Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.  They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

At first reading, it seems like these two parts of our Scripture really have nothing to do with each other. But in looking at it deeper we see that there is a connection between these two parts. They are set against each other and Jesus is making a direct reference and difference between the teachers of the law, and the poor widow. How the teacher’s of the law operated when it came to stewardship and how the poor widow operated.

Let’s look first at the teacher’s of the law and what Jesus is really saying about them. Jesus says that they like to be seen as important. They like to be noticed. They like to be greeted in the marketplace, that they make a show of lengthy prayers. But the most interesting statement that Jesus makes about the teacher’s of the law is this statement: “they devour widows’ houses”. Commentaries are divided and unsure what this actually means. But the one that I read had this to say, “To devour widow’s houses means that the teachers of the law encouraged impressionable widows to make gifts beyond their means.” We’ll come back to this in a little bit in relation to the poor widow- who may have had her house devoured by the teachers of the law.

I am extrapolating this idea but I believe when Jesus sat down opposite where people gave money and saw the rich giving money, I would imagine that some of those rich people no doubt were the teachers’s of the law. It fits their MO so to speak. They like to draw attention to their acts of religiosity. Their devotion to God. And nothing like giving large sums of money “to God” to draw the attention, admiration, and respect of the people. You see in that day the only forms of money there were were coins. When Mark uses the word threw to describe how the rich people put in their offerings, he is getting at the point of the rich doing it for show. You see when you would throw your offering of coins into the temple treasury, the coins would make noise hitting the offering box. The more coins the more noise and the more attention it would bring to the giver. In relation we see the widow putting two small coins in, not throwing them in, not trying to draw attention to herself and her offering.

So it is evident from this that God cares not so much about how much we give, as in how we give. Throughout the Bible we see the idea that we aren’t to make a show of our piety. Jesus says that we aren’t even supposed to let our right hand know what our left hand is doing in relation to giving. And God calls us to be a cheerful giver, something Dave will explore next week. So how are you in relation to giving? Are you doing it to draw attention to yourself and your act of piety? Or are you doing it as a faithful steward, being grateful and thankful for all God has done in and through you?

So let’s now talk about the poor widow. This widow came to the offering box with two small coins which Jesus said were all she had to live on. These offering boxes we placed near the entrance of the temple, and the offerings went to the maintenance of the temple work, things like the building itself, the priests, and the furnishings.

So the poor widow came up to the offering boxes, and place two small copper coins in the box. These two small coins were what is called leptas. These coins were the smallest coin in the Greco/Roman world. The text says that they were only worth a few cents. Lepta’s were really only about 1/64th of a days wages, or in minutes, 6 minutes of an average day’s wage. This act of giving was an act of worship. This act of giving was an act of sacrifice, after all Jesus said that she gave out of her poverty, while others gave out of their wealth. This act of giving was a huge act of trust.

This part of the passage is then primarily about trust. The poor widow’s trust in God to provide. So as we are talking about stewardship of money today, we need to realize that stewardship when it all comes down to it, is really about trust. Do you trust God enough with your finances? Do you trust Him to come through when it seems like there is no way you’ll make it? Do you trust him enough to give part of your finances to him? Stewardship also when we come right now to it is not ultimately about what we give to the church. Rather stewardship reflects a conviction that everything we have has been entrusted to us by God. Stewardship is concerned with helping us use all that we have wisely. How we spend our money reflects our trust or lack of trust and also tells us and others about who or what our god actually is. This woman trusted God with all that she had. She was and is a picture of trusting God. What about each of us? Do we trust God with everything that we have, as it is ultimate his anyway, and we are just called to be good stewards of it?

But there is another part of this text that we need to explore. One that isn’t so evident on the surface. And one that I believe can help us understand more about stewardship from the heart and soul of Jesus, the one who we need to take our cue for how we give of ourselves and our money. And how our community, as a community of those who seek to follow Jesus, should live and how we should deal with this hard, divisive, difficult topic of stewardship and money. All too often churches actually get in the way of people’s journey to Jesus because of money. I just heard the other day someone said that they were told by a church that if they didn’t give 10% of their income, they were going to go to hell. That is so not Jesus. So let’s look at another side to this story. One that I brought up before when I mentioned the statement that Jesus said, “they devour widow’s houses.”

What if Jesus is not just holding up the poor widow as an example of piety, but also is holding her up as an example of someone who is being exploited by her religion? What if this story moves beyond just personal piety into the larger issue of right stewardship from a communal standpoint. From a religious communal standpoint. What if she was one of the widow’s whose house was devoured by the teachers of the law. That they were impressing upon this widow to give more than her means. You see in the previous scene Jesus is warning the crowds about the scribes and teachers of the law, who devoured widow’s houses. Also Jesus, after this scene leaves the temple for the last time. Perhaps after seeing how this religion, this temple system, took this poor woman’s money, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back and he finally totally forsook the temple for good. Also we see that just after Jesus triumphal entry days earlier that he had driven out the money changers, and accusing them of exploiting the poor. What if this story shows us the underbelly of a religious system? Exposing the temple for what it was. Remember we talked about Jesus turning over the tables in the temple because the money changers were literally getting in the way of people finding God? This is Jesus again exposing the temple for what it was…bankrupt, and devoid of true Kingdom Life. And saddling poor widows with a burden that they didn’t need to be saddled with. This doesn’t diminish the widow’s gift. Actually it puts her in a much more profound and deeper respected place, because she is so much more a model of stewardship, trust, worship, and true devotion.

Jesus words about the widow push us to expect more of ourselves and also our communities of faith. Jesus expects us as individuals and as a community to take everything we have and use it according to the ethics and the patterns of the Kingdom of God and not the Kingdom of this world. We need to ask ourselves these hard questions when it comes to stewardship of money: Where are our priorities? The Kingdom of God or our own comfort? How much do we trust God when it comes to our finances? How much do we trust Him to provide for us and take care of us (read Matthew 6:25-33)? How are we giving? Do we give to get? Get attention. Get approval. Get accolades? Get God in our debt. Are we more like the teacher’s of the law/scribes or the poor widow? And are we as a community who seeks to follow Jesus living our stewardship of money in the way that Jesus would want us to? Are we “devouring widow’s houses”? Are we using our communal “wealth” to prop up the system or are we using our communal “wealth” to further the Kingdom of God and use it for the shalom of the world (wholeness, healing, redemption, peace, etc..)?

So let’s dialogue around this text and see what might God be saying to us about stewarding our money in a Kingdom of God way and what that might look like for us as individuals and as a community.

1. What stands out to you? Thoughts, questions, insights, etc…

2. What area do you struggle with in relation to stewardship of money? (ie…trust, drawing attention, questions about churches use of money, etc..)

3. What is God saying to you and what are you going to do about it?

The Generous Life Week 2: Stewardship of the Environment

Two weeks ago we celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus. During our conversation someone asked the question, whether stated in this way or not, around what does it mean to live a resurrectional life. So we promptly began a series entitled The Generous Life looking at the issue of stewardship in many areas, not just the only one that normally comes to mind (money). Stewardship is defined as the act of caring for someone else’s property in a manner consistent with the way he or she would care for it. So stewardship revolves around us caring for things that God has given us, in the way that he would care for it. Stewardship then applies to things like money (of course), time, talents, relationships, our bodies, the environment, and more.

Last week we started talking about stewardship by looking at the stewardship of our bodies. We talked about things like sexuality, exercise, sleep, etc. But we also spent a lot of time talking about self-image and being a community that encourages each other in relation to the self.

When we talked the last two weeks about the resurrection we talked about the idea that the resurrection means that, in a very real way, this world matters. This world of blood, sweat, tears, earth, and flesh really matters.

And so today we are going to explore what has, unfortunately, been a divided issue in the Christian world, even though I don’t understand how it could be. This issue is the idea of being a good steward of the environment. Or as some like to call it Creation Care. So what does it mean to be good stewards of the creation that is all around us? What does the bible actually say about taking care of the environment? Is it only something that “liberal tree huggers” care about or is is something that followers of Jesus need to speak out on, live out, and be involved in? Those are some of the questions that we’ll look at in relation to stewardship of the environment.

This week is Earth Day and some in the wider church have designated this day Earth Day Sunday, the day of the year when the church sets aside time to talk about the environment and being good stewards of it. That is why we have chosen to talk about this today.

To talk about being a good steward of the environment we are going right to the beginning. Let’s look at Genesis 1:26-31 and see what we might learn about our environment and being good stewards of it.

Genesis 1:26-31 says, “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”  So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.  And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.  God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.”

This text has been used in so many different ways, even promoting a lack of stewardship of the environment. James Watt, the Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan said, “God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.” Another contemporary political and television personality said this in a more direct and pretty offensive way, “The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man’s dominion over the earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so: Go forth, be fruitful, multiply and rape the planet. It’s yours. That’s our job: drilling, mining, and stripping. Sweaters are the anti-biblical view. Big gas-guzzling cars with phones and CD players, and wet bars- that’s the Biblical view”. But is it really? Does our Scripture this morning agree with this statement or have we been reading it wrong to come up with that conclusion?

First, we want to look at the end of the verses we read. Verse 31 says, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” Now this was before the fall, before sin entered the world but I truly still believe that God’s creation is still good. I truly believe that God still calls it good, and wants us to steward it well, so that one day when it all is set right, it will be very good again. One reason to be a good steward of creation is because God calls it good, and if God calls it good, then we should as well. And if God calls it good, then we should work hard to keep it good.

Secondly, and the main part of this message revolves around the struggle of how we could draw two radically different meanings from the same passage of Scripture. Some people read it like those that I quoted above, and some others, more like myself, read it as a mandate to be good stewards of the environment, and for the environment not to be raped.

In order for us to get at what God is saying through this text, we need to do some unpacking of words, especially in verse 28. Verse 28 says, “God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” The two words that we need to look at especially are the words subdue and rule or sometimes translated have dominion over.

First the word subdue is the word Kabash, which means something like conquering or taming it, as a farmer would tame a wild field. It is like the idea of bring order to it. So we are to bring order to creation. But the main word that many struggle understanding is the word, in this translation, rule. But in many other translations we see it saying “Have dominion over”. The world dominion is the word which has led people to believe that we can rule and have power over this planet and do whatever we feel like to it. We can pillage it, rape it, mine it, and use it for our own good. After all, many people say, Jesus is going to rapture us out of here, and then destroy the world anyway, so why recycle.

But what does the word dominion actually mean? The Hebrew word there is Radah. It is a word that is only used about a dozen times in the Old Testament and is rather special in it’s meaning. It almost always refers to to military action or political authority. We have taken it to mean “dominate over” just as a mediaeval rule or potentate would dominate over his subjects, using them for this own ends, his own pleasure, his own prestige, his own wars, etc.. But an examination of radah shows that this is not the type of dominion that we are called upon to have over the creation.

To understand how we are supposed to have dominion over creation, we need to look at the verses preceding this one. Look at verses 26-27 which says, “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”  So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” To understand dominion we have to understand that we were created in the image of God. And so we should have dominion in the image or likeness of God. Humans should rule or have dominion over Creation in a way that is consistent with the way God rules. But the question then becomes how does God rule? Let’s look at Psalm 72:8, 12-14, “May he rule (radah) from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.  For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help.  He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death. He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in his sight.” He rules (radah) with love, grace, mercy, and compassion. He rules (radah) not with an iron fist and a cold heart. God does not exploit or dominate or consume recklessly. God doesn’t use his power to hurt, but to heal. God values what cannot be replaced. God works to preserve life not destroy it. Mankind needs to exercise radah over the creation as God would exercise radah. Gerhard Van Rad says it this way, “Just as powerful earthly Kings, to indicate their claim to dominion, erected an image of themselves in provinces of their empire where they did not personally appear, so man is placed above the earth in God’s image, as God sovereign emblem. He is really only God’s representative summoned to maintain and enforce God’s claim to dominance over the earth.”

And so God calls us, as image bearers, to radah/rule over his creation, in his stead. To rule it in the way and in the likeness of how we rules over it. Our “radah” of the creation is not be be for our own selfish gain. Our “radah” of the creation is to be not for own sake, but for the sake of the sake of the one ruled, that is, for the sake of the creation. We “radah” creation as God’s representative. 
Ultimately, even though he has given us “radah” over creation, the earth is the Lord’s and not ours, unlike what the person that I quoted before who said “It’s yours.” It isn’t ours. We are just stewards of it, just like everything else that he gives. Look at Psalm 24:1, “The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.” So the creation is God’s and we are called to be good stewards of it. We are called not to “rule over it and subdue it” in the way that a tyrant rules over and subdues his people. We are called to, as image bearers, model the same love, same care and same devotion to the creation that God has for it. We are called to see the creation in the same way that God did and does, as good. Broken, crying out for redemption, fallen but still good. And that we as followers of Jesus, as image bearers, are called to do the hard work of working towards the wholeness, redemption, healing, fullness and shalom of the creation that God has called us to steward.

But what does that look like? What does it mean to do the hard work of bringing wholeness, redemption, healing, fullness, and shalom to the creation? What does it look like to live out the mandate that God has laid out for us to “radah” over the creation as image bearers, and as God’s representative here on the earth? How have you sought to “radah” in God’s image in relation to stewardship of the environment? And what is God calling us as a community to do in being good stewards of the environment? That is what we will seek to unpack in our time of discussion.

1. What thoughts, insights, questions, comments, etc.. do you have regarding the Scripture and/or the message?

2. How have you sought to “radah” in God’s image in relation to stewardship of the environment? Where do you need to “radah” over creation more faithfully as a steward?

3. What is God calling us as a community to do as good stewards of his creation? What steps can we pursue together to better “radah” over God’s creation?

4. What is God saying to you and what are you going to do about it? What is God saying to us and what should we do about it?

The Generous Life Week 1: Stewardship of the Body

Today we begin a new series entitled “The Generous Life” in which we will be talking about the biblical concept of stewardship. Stewardship is defined as the conducting, supervising, or managing of something; especially :  the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care. So often when churches and pastors begin to talk about stewardship, everyone thinks that we will be just talking about money. But there is so much more to stewardship than just money. Yes, it includes begin a good steward of money, but it also covers our bodies, the environment, our time, our talents, and our relationships. So for the next few weeks we’ll be covering all of these things and learning what it means to be a good steward. We’ll learn what it looks like to steward these things well so that not only will our lives be changed but also how the world around us can be changed by followers of Jesus stewarding their resources (time, talent, relationship, environment, bodies, and yes money as well).

The first thing that we’ll be talking about in relation to stewardship is stewardship of our bodies. I’m not sure if I have ever heard a sermon revolving around being good stewards of our bodies or not. Have you? But today, maybe for the first time, we’ll unpack and dig into what it looks like to live a generous life in relation to our bodies. To do that we’ll look at two passages of Scripture. The first one being 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 and the second being 1 Timothy 4:8.

Let’s first look at 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 which says, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

Now before we jump too much into this text, there are a few things that I need to say regarding stewardship of our bodies. Last week we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus from the dead (Do you know that Easter is not just a one week celebration in the Christian church and the Christian calendar? It is a 7 week celebration called Eastertide running from Easter to Pentecost.). Jesus bodily died and he bodily rose from the dead. We talked about the fact that if he rose bodily from the dead, than that means that there is something important about our bodies. I quoted NT Wright when he said, “The point of the resurrection is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die. What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a good future in store for it.” If the resurrection does anything it affirms the importance of this world and of the material. All too often I believe the contemporary church has bought into a more Gnostic philosophy that says spirit is good but physical/material is bad/evil. But the resurrection of Jesus completely denies that possibility. Our bodies, like Jesus, will be resurrected (verse 14) at the end, and so what we do with our present bodies matter. What we do in and with our present bodies will have consequences, not just arbitrary rewards and punishments in the life to come.

So let’s do some unpacking of 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. First of all when we look at the context of this text, Paul is referring to sexual immorality. Corinth was known as a very hedonistic city. It could probably have been called the Sin City of it’s day. So Paul in this section is addressing what it means to be Christian in relation to sexuality. What Paul is getting at in this section is about followers of Jesus learning to use the human body in the right way, for the right purposes. And he is also getting at the fact that our bodies are meant for the Lord. Paul makes it plain that the Christian’s relationship with the Lord Jesus is not simply a “spiritual” one, but also a physical one. He is getting at the sense that Jesus wants to know us and work through us as fully physical human beings, both here and in the hereafter. And since verse 14 lays it out pretty clearly that our bodies will be raised, just like Jesus, that means that there will be some sort of continuity between the present body and the future one.

Paul is making a claim, that to us, doesn’t seem all that radical but it was very radical for his day, and if we take a step back and see what our language that we use tells us, than what Paul is saying is still radical for our day and age as well. Paul in verse 19 says, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” In Paul’s day in the world of many gods, there was this concept that deities lived in buildings of stone and wood. And Paul is radically challenging that and he says, No. God doesn’t live in special buildings built for him. Just look at Acts 17:24, which says, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.” No, God himself lives in a temple alright. But that temple is our bodies. The bodies of those of us who have made Jesus our King, Lord, and Savior. Even in our own day, it is not uncommon to hear people during a worship gathering call the place where they gather as the house of God, meaning that God somehow lives there and only there. God, in someway, when we open our lives to him, makes our bodies the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are the temple. If you are in Christ than the Spirit takes up permanent residence within you. Not just showing up when you “do religious activities”

And because we have the spirit of God living in us, and because of the fact that Jesus died for us, we need to honor God with our bodies. Our bodies, not just our souls or spirit were bought with a price, definitely referring to Jesus’ death on the cross. And so those of us who have been bought with a tremendous price or cost must remind ourselves of what special people we are, what it cost Jesus to redeem our bodies, and to learn what it means to be good stewards over the body that God has given to us. Paul puts it like this at the end of our text, “Therefore honor God with your bodies.” We are to glorify God with our bodies and to discover how to live the truly human life which brings glory to God in whose image we are all made and whose own unique image, Jesus, died to rescue us from all that will stop us from being the person that God longs us to be.

But what does it mean to honor God with our bodies? This is the question of stewardship, to honor him with what he has given to us, and in this case our bodies. What does ti mean to be a good steward of the body that God has given to us as a gift? I think the wider context of chapter 6 verses 12-20 gives us some possible ideas. Part of being a good steward of our body definitely has to do with sexuality. Paul makes the point that what we do sexually happens to our whole selves, not just a portion of our bodies (verse 18). People can think that our physical bodies and our spiritual selves are separate so what we do in our bodies doesn’t affect our spiritual lives, and vice-versa. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Our bodies and spirits are intrinsically connected. So what we do with our bodies does affect us spiritually, and what we do spiritually affects our bodies. To honor God with our bodies in this text refers to sexuality. Many of you are single in this community. To honor God with your body in terms of sexuality means biblically speaking that you keep the future marriage bed pure, by abstaining from sex before marriage. It is also more than just about the physical act itself. It doesn’t mean to get as close to the physical act as you can, stopping short of actual sex. No, it means keeping our bodies and spirits pure by fleeing from sexual immorality which encompasses sex before marriage but also things like pornography, etc.. For those who are married honoring God with our bodies means keep the marriage bed pure as well, by abstaining from sex outside of marriage and keep our bodies and spirits pure as well.

But is honoring God with your body just related to sexuality? No. I mentioned at the beginning that we would look at two different Scriptures this morning and this is where the second one comes in. 1 Timothy 4:8 says, “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” Know that this passage is talking about the importance to viewing spiritual development and discipleship as training and work. Discipleship takes as much training and work as physical training; But notice what Paul is saying here. Physical training is of some value. It has importance for this life. Just ask a doctor how important physical exercise is. Verse 8 is one of the clearest references to physical exercise in the New Testament. I believe a huge part of honoring God with your body revolves around physical training or exercise. When you get exercise you will become physically fit and able to work harder and enjoy more of life. When we train our bodies, I believe it can affect our spiritual lives. My wife when she gets in the habit of running, uses that time as prayer time. Just her and God out on the road, running and praying. I personally try to run somewhere between 3 and 5 days a week running around 3 and a half miles each time that I run for a total of between 10.5 and 17.5 miles a week. And I have noticed a difference, not only physically in my own body (energy level, weight, etc..) I’ve noticed spiritual growth from running as well. So another way to honor God and be a good steward of the body that he has given to us is to get regular physical exercise. What do you do to get physical exercise? How can that help your growth and development as a parson and in your spiritual life? That is one of the questions we’ll come back to in a minute.

There are a ton of other ways that we could talk about being good stewards of the body that he has given to us to use. We could talk about sleep, food, moderation, drugs and alcohol, and a few other things related to our bodies. But let’s turn now to thinking about what it means for you and I to be a good stewards of our bodies. Let’s talk about physical exercise and how we can help encourage that area in our lives together. Let’s talk about what areas of stewarding our bodies do we struggle with the most. Let’s talk about what God might be saying to us about how he wants us to steward this gift, this temple, that he has given to us.

1. What thoughts, comments, insights, questions, etc.. do you have regarding the Scriptures and/or the message?

2. What do you do to get physical exercise? How can that help your growth and development as a parson and in your spiritual life? How can this community help in relation to physical exercise?

3. What area in relation to stewardship of the body do you struggle with the most? How can this community help you grow and develop in the stewardship of your body?

4. What is God saying to you and what are you going to do about it? What is God saying to us and what should we do about it?

Art Show at Community Room on King looks at grief, sorrow.

Here is an article that was written last week about the Emotive 2: A Good Friday Art Show that we just held at the Community Room on King this past Friday night.

LAURA KNOWLES LNP CORRESPONDENT Art isn't always about flowers in bloom and robins in spring. Sometimes it's about pain and suffering and deepest sorrow.

While it may not be easy to deal with these difficult emotions, this Friday's art exhibit at the Community Room on King is titled “Emotive 2: A Good Friday Art Show.” The show will feature 10 local artists, most of them emerging artists.

This isn't the first time the Community Room on King has tackled the tough subject of art with deeper emotions like grief and loss of hope. Two years ago, “Emotive: A Good Friday Art Show” took the first step in a show about the more sorrowful side of life.

"When we did the first show, we were looking at the emotions as they relate to the story of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins," says curator Ryan Braught, a pastor for Veritas and organizer of the show. As he explains, the title "Emotive" has to do with strong emotions for or against something. And what could be stronger than the feelings of abandonment, grief, loss and hopelessness that we all feel at times?

"It seemed appropriate on this Good Friday to revisit these themes," says Braught, noting that in Matthew 27:46, Jesus cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

Among the artists exhibiting their work in “Emotive 2” are Shalom Beachy, Luis Quiñones, Mike Rock, Melinda Houvig, Emily Meneghin, Grace Engard, Alexandria Bonner, Sammy Lang and Grace Rhine.

Houvig knows something about betrayal and loss. Her sculpture is a powerful testament to the life-altering loss she suffered when she was an art student at West Chester University.

Her piece is called "Stage 5." In Houvig's life-sized sculptural installation, she relives the trauma of being a senior in college when she learned that she had cervical cancer.

"I underwent a partial hysterectomy shortly after I graduated in May 2012," says Houvig "The surgery, and the diagnosis altered my life in many ways and the sculpture work functioned as a platform for a conversation about physical trauma and the resulting emotions that are left after losing organs and confronting never being able to have children."

At first glance, her sculpture appears to be a pile of leaves, branches and birds' nests. Interspersed are haunting body parts molded from her own body. A hand reaching out. A foot that has lost its bearings. A leg folded in hopelessness.

She refers to it as detritus, which is defined as "the pieces that are left when something breaks, falls apart, is destroyed." And her work depicts the resulting emotional trauma from losing physical elements or parts of the original human form.

Yet, in many ways, Houvig's expression of loss has a sense of hope. A year after her surgery, she was accepted into the MFA Studio Art program at Moore College in Philadelphia and will graduate in August to pursue her art career.

"The piece is meant to be outside and I hope to eventually find a buyer for it so that it can find a permanent residence outside on the land," says Houvig.

Photographer Luis Quiñones is new to the art of photography and he takes an inside-outside view of the world. From his home on South Prince Street, he has observed the seasons changing and the views of the city. He started off snapping shots with his smartphone, then invested in a real camera. His photograph of crows evokes Alfred Hitchcock with ominous black crows gathering on the branches of a tree outside his window. As he explains, birds like robins and bluebirds symbolize joy and happiness. Not crows.

"Crows are often linked with death," says Quiñones. "But I see them as symbolizing mortality and freedom. I am fascinated by birds because they are not tied down by regulation. They are free." Quiñones likes to work in black and white, because of its power and simplicity, as in another photograph showing a child wearing skeleton makeup.

"In dealing with the emotions of suffering and loss, we can see the way to finding peace and hope," says Braught.

If you go: “Emotive 2: A Good Friday Art Show Fri. 5-8 p.m. Free Community Room on King, 106 W. King St. 572-5914 communityroomonking.com facebook.com/CommunityRoomonKing

The Last Week: Resurrection

We come to the end of our series called The Last Week looking at the last week of Jesus life’ here on earth, and in Jerusalem. Over the course of the last few weeks we have walked with Jesus through his week.

We started seven weeks ago looking at the beginning of Jesus week, on what we call Palm Sunday or known more specifically as the Triumphal Entry. We talked about his coronation as King and how his Kingship (represented by the animal that he chose to ride on) was not like the Kingship of this worldly Kingdom.

We then looked at Monday of that first holy week and his cursing the fig tree and cleansing the temple. We talked about how Israel and the religious leaders were getting in the way of people coming back to and finding God. We talked about how Jesus turned over tables so that people could find their way to God and how he needs to do that today in our own individual lives and our corporate lives.

Then we entered Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week and saw that for most of those days he encountered strong conflict and more conflict. We took one of those encounters when the Herodians and the Pharisees got together and asked him about paying taxes to Caesar. And Jesus responded by saying Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.

And then we came to Thursday of Holy Week and looked at Jesus dinner at Bethany and how Mary anointed Jesus head and feet with oil and how she was pouring her whole life out onto him and preparing him for burial.

We gathered Friday night to walk through that fateful Good Friday. We read the account of Jesus journey that day to the cross and his death on that instrument of capital punishment in the Roman world.

When we left this darkened room on Friday night, Jesus had died. He breathed his last, was taken off the cross, and laid in a tomb. Death seemingly had won. The powers of sin, death, evil, the devil, and hell had triumphed, or so it had seemed to everyone, including the disciples. The disciples had fled and only the women had followed and saw where Jesus was buried. Ideally to be able to come back and anoint his body, when time allowed for it, and after the day of Sabbath.

This is where we pick up the story. That first Easter morning 2,000 years ago. The disciples dismayed, out of hope, confused, and unsure of what to do from this point on. They gave their lives to follow this messiah, this Jesus, and now he was dead laying in a tomb that wasn’t even his.

Let’s pick up the story in Mark 16:1-8 and see what we encounter on that 1st Easter Sunday, who we encounter in the story, and what that first Easter tells us about our lives, our world, and the future of everything.

Mark 16:1-8 says, “When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.”

So we need to talk about the ending of this text before we dive into the story. We should notice that there are two alternative endings to Mark and a footnote at the end of the section that we have just read. It seems like Mark’s original ending was lost. The two best manuscripts from the fourth century end where this text breaks off. The alternative endings were later writings. So a question that we could raise would be something like, “What do you think Mark’s original ending looked like? What part of the resurrection story did it contain?” If you look at the other 3 gospels and also the flow of chapter 16 you could probably fill it in like this, “the women eventually speak to the disciples. The disciples go to the tomb. And they all eventually meet Jesus somewhere in Galilee.” But that is getting ahead of ourselves and the text that we are looking at today.

So that first Easter morning 3 women got up early, headed off to the tomb where two of them saw Jesus laid only 3 days earlier. They were going there, not because they expected to encounter a risen Savior. They were going there to anoint Jesus body for burial. You see, a traditional burial process in the 1st century Jewish world was a two step process or burial. The first step would be to anoint the body with various spices and lay the body in a tomb. The spices were to mask the smell of decomposition. The second part of the two step process was to come back a year later when the body was nothing but bones and collect the bones and put them in a box called an ossuary. That way you could use the tomb over and over and over again. So these women went to the tomb to take part in the first first part of the burial process. They didn’t get a chance to do this before laying Jesus in the tomb because the body was taken down, and immediately put in the tomb, so that it wasn’t on the cross during the sabbath.

You see in verse 2 this understanding about what they were going to do. They were talking about who was going to roll away the stone, in order to get into the tomb to anoint his body. They had no concept, no idea that this day, this first Easter morning, would change the course of their lives, but also the course of history, from that day until this day, and for all of history.

When they arrived at the tomb, after their discussion of who would roll the stone away from the tomb, they saw that it was already rolled away. When they entered the tomb, no doubt wondering what was happening. No doubt, their hearts beating out of their chests. No doubt, their brains moving a million miles an hour seeking to understand what this all meant. When they entered the tomb, they came face to face with an angel. His presence no doubt freaking them out. His words hitting them like a ton of bricks. His words shattering their darkness. His words shaking them to the core.

The angel in the tomb spoke these words to the women, “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

Obviously, as I mentioned before, these women didn’t expect the resurrection. Didn’t expect Jesus to come back from the dead. But Mark, told us, over and over again that Jesus tried to teach his disciples that he would suffer, die, and then be raised back to life. But they didn’t understand. In fact, it seems like the only ones who understood and thought about what Jesus said about his resurrection (even though they didn’t believe it) , were the chief priests and the Pharisees who come to Pilate and asked if they could put a guard at the tomb and secure it (Matthew 27)

We have clearly established that the early followers of Jesus, including the women, weren’t expecting the resurrection, even though Jesus clearly taught that he was going to suffer, die and then three days later be raised back to life. But my question for us today is what does the resurrection of Jesus actually mean for us and our world today? Resurrection isn’t just to secure an eternal future for us beyond this life. Resurrection for Jesus was about coming to bodily life after bodily death. So if it isn’t about an eternal future in some place called Heaven, what is resurrection all about? To get at that let’s go back to the text specifically verse 2 which says, “Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise,” Something about this part of the text clues us into, I believe, what the resurrection of Jesus is truly pointing towards. The first day of the week, if we are thinking biblically, should push our minds back to the beginning, back to Genesis and the story of creation. What is happening here in the resurrection of Jesus is connected with the story of creation. Jesus resurrection is to be seen as the beginning of the new world, the first day of the new week, and what God wants to do not only in Jesus, not only in us, but in all of creation. If Genesis 1 is about creation, than the resurrection story is about recreation. Jesus was re-created first, and then someday the rest of humanity who are in relationship with God will be re-created along with the rest of the created order. What we are witnessing in the resurrection stories is the birth of new creation. The power that has tyrannized the old creation has been broken, defeated and overthrown. God’s Kingdom is now launched and launched in power and glory, on earth as it is in heaven.

The resurrection is probably the ultimate place where heaven and earth overlap and inner lock. NT Wright has this to say about the resurrection, “The point of the resurrection is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die. What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a good future in store for it. What you do in the present- by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building, happily digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor and yourself- will last into God’s future.” The resurrection of Jesus is about this, that it affirms the material world that is currently broken and the promise of the renewal of all things. Scripture says it like this, “Behold I am making all things new.” (Rev. 21:5) Jesus through his death and resurrection is making all things new. He is making everything, including you and I (as we follow him) new. He has redeemed all things (Colossians 1:20….and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.).

But the point of the resurrection is that God’s new creation has already begun. It began with Jesus. He went first. And that if you are in Christ, he has begun that work of re-creating you, making you a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). And then he wants to use you and put you to work to make more bits of new creation happen within the world as it still is. And that we still live in the tension of a world that is being re-created but isn’t fully re-created. The world is not what it used to be, or what it will be. But we can know that because of the resurrection of Jesus, all will be made whole, made right, made new. And that because of Jesus resurrection, that shalom has happened, is happening and will happen. And that because of Jesus resurrection, we can not only be made whole, made right, made new but that we can be instruments of new creation (or as Paul says ambassadors). We are empowered to partner with God to remind our world that it isn’t always going to be like this. We, the people of God, are invited to live as though tomorrow’s new creation has already begun. And we know that, according to our resurrection text this morning, it already has.

Let me close with a quote from NT Wright about the resurrection and the work of new creation that the resurrection of Jesus began and what that means for you and I, and ultimately our world, “people who believe in the resurrection, in God making a whole new world in which everything will be set right at last, are unstoppably motivated to work for that new world in the present.”

So where are you seeing the resurrection work of re-creation in your life, in your relationships, and with the world around you? Where is the resurrection of Jesus touching down and breaking into your reality? These are the questions that we’ll be discussing together.

1. What thoughts, insights, questions, comments, push back, etc.. do you have regarding the Scripture and/or the message?

2. Where are you seeing the resurrection work of re-creation in your life, in your relationships, and with the world around you? Where is the resurrection of Jesus touching down and breaking into your reality?

3. What is God saying to you and what are you going to do about it? What is God saying to us and what should we do about it?