Strong Enough

 March 29, 2022

“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” —Ephesians 3:14-19 

Paul says something quite curious in his prayer for the Ephesian Christians when he prays that they be strengthened with might through his Spirit (v.16). Christians are often perceived as weak pushovers in life; those too timid to tackle life on their own terms, needing to be propped up by religion.

Paul sees it quite differently. He wants us to be strong so Christ can dwell in us. The implication is that Jesus has little time for weak, pusillanimous followers. He is too powerful, too big for weak people to contain. It takes a unique kind of strength to admit one’s need for a Savior. It can be scary to acknowledge we need help. Faith means stepping out with certainty onto an uncertain path. Weak people cannot muster enough strength to ask for help, and so never take that first step.

When I was a college freshman, one of my classmates down the hall decided to mix up some homemade root beer. He followed the instructions on the root beer syrup container, bottled the concoction, and put it in his closet to work (ie. “ferment”). I don’t remember how long it sat in his closet, but there came the day when one of the bottles exploded. Then another…and another. One after another, he tallied each explosion. It took about a week before he dared open the closet door, for fear one would burst in his face. Needless to say, his wardrobe was a bit messy!

If we are to be filled with the power of the Spirit, we must be strong, lest the fermenting power of Christ’s new wine burst the bottles of our old self. Weakness just cannot contain what God is up to.

Glue

 March 28, 2022

Yesterday I wrote about Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15, focusing on a single word, “himself,” and the profound compliment Jesus gives us in that single word. Last night, a friend posted his own take on this story, from a sermon he preached. With his permission, I share it with you tonight because it shed new light (to me) on the text, and on me. Rick Danielson looks at this story in terms of family dynamics and how grace and forgiveness are the glue that bind us together, and their absence as what tears us apart. It’s true in families, in church families, in communities, and all of life. Read and be blessed. And thank you, Rick.

“Recently I was in a coffee shop and was intrigued by a tattoo inked on the arm of the man I stood behind in line.  In big letters, written in an elaborate, sprawling script, it read “No Mercy. No Compassion,” and beneath, in much smaller letters, were the words “For I have received none.”  The words caught my attention because I had been pondering the story of the Prodigal Son all week, especially the part about the father having compassion when he saw his son again.  I did something out of character for me.  I asked this large man with the leather vest and handlebar mustache and arms like hams about his tattoo and what it meant.  He stared at me for a moment, surprised, and then replied with measured words: “It’s a long story, about a difficult life.”  Then he grabbed his coffee off the counter and walked out the door.

 “No mercy; no compassion”; just a man old before his time, recording the painful legacy of rejection on his bicep in permanent ink.

“People often ask this about the parable of the Prodigal Son: Who is this story really about?  The son who wandered?  Or the loving Father who welcomed him home?  The answer, I think, is “yes,” but it’s even more than that.  It’s the tale of a whole family and how they struggled to understand and to forgive one another.  It’s about the complexity of their relationships and how the stresses of life brought out their best and also their worst.

“Jesus gives us a thumbnail sketch of three family members: a father who cares deeply about both of his boys; a son who is impatient about growing up; a brother who feels invisible and unappreciated in his own home.  The deepest needs of each intersect with and rub up against the needs of the others.  They can leave, as one did, but they can’t get away from each other.  As Maya Angelou, the poet, wrote: “I believe that one can never leave home.  I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears, and the dragons of home under one’s skin.”

“Like every family, the father and the two sons each had a specific role, a part, to play.  I think you know what I mean by that.  Here in this story are the roles of “Long-suffering Parent,” “Black Sheep,” “Golden Child.”  They each knew what was expected, and they went through life playing their part and waiting to see if they were affirmed or rejected by those around them.  They wanted to know whether they would be pulled close or pushed aside during their best and their worst moments. 

“Because of our imperfections and tendency to veer off track, as the old hymn puts it: “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,” we are in constant need of what the Bible calls grace.  I’ve had people say to me, “I understand all about grace, but I just don’t feel like I deserve it.”  Which of course means that they don’t understand grace.  The very essence of grace is that it is in fact undeserved, “unmerited.”  If we deserved it, it would no longer be grace.  Grace is at the core of our life together as believers in Jesus.

“The story of the Prodigal Son, or the Loving Father, or the Resentful Brother, or whatever we want to call it, is a story about us as well; it’s a reminder that the values of compassion and grace are the glue that makes it possible for us to be together. Grace affirms us as fully accepted, and grace relieves us of the burden of trying to make everyone else live up to our requirements.

“In our worst moments there is grace.  Not deserved, but fully and lavishly given.  It’s a gift, like an unexpected sign along the highway.  And it’s a sign that we are loved unconditionally no matter how sure we are that we have passed the limits of redemption.

“When families are at their best, they become the primary and most effective channel for grace to flow into and out of the lives of people like you and me.  Sometimes we’re like a loving parent: throwing open our arms to embrace the wayward child, washing mud from an embarrassed face, showing with our actions once again the supreme value of every person.  Sometimes we’re more like a resentful sibling: wondering why the troublemaker is getting all of the attention again.  But always we are the children of a God who will never turn away from us no matter how determined we are to head in the wrong direction.

“Today is a good day to choose grace; to remember our own need for forgiveness, and to let go of all the requirements we hold for others.  Above all, my hope today is that you will know God as the adoring parent whose love is unconditional and who waits by the door to welcome you home.”

Home At Last

 March 27, 2022

We’ve all heard it or said it. Maybe both. You’ve had a rough day; it seems everything you touch falls apart when someone says something that makes you snap angrily. Realizing your error, you then apologize, saying, “I’m sorry; I’m just not myself today.” Raise your hand if you can say, “Been there; done that.”

There was a time when my reaction to such an apology would have been, “No; your real self just came bursting through the facade you’ve established.” In one sense, I wouldn’t have been entirely wrong. If we have any conscience at all, we are aware of how careful we are to make a good impression. We aren’t proud of our jealousy, our greed, our lust, our laziness, so we work hard to offset those tendencies with acts of kindness, selflessness, and sacrifice.

Today’s Lectionary Scripture is taken from Luke 15; the story of the Prodigal Son. In actuality, it’s a story of two sons. One wandered from home, but came back; the other never left home, but was just as lost as his younger brother. 

In the story, this younger brother squandered his inheritance in a faraway land; something we’ve sadly seen with amazing regularity. Whether the fortune is actual dollars, or perhaps health, or relationships, squandering what has been given us is too often our own story. This young man ends up in the worst of all places—a pigpen. For a Jew, there could hardly be a more despicable place to be. But he’s there, starving, when according to the story, “he comes to his senses.”

Only that’s not what it says. Our modern translations have missed the mark here, for Jesus was paying this sad young man quite the complement. What Jesus said about him was this: “He came to himself.” Whereas once I thought people at their worst were exhibiting their genuine self, Jesus saw things in a completely opposite manner. This young man wasn’t his real self wallowing in a pigsty. He was his true self when he thought of his father and home.

How we see people, the lenses through which we interpret life tell more about us than them. Saying that people at their worst is who they really are is a reflection on me. My outlook is skewed, my vision is clouded by my own sinfulness, the darkness in my own soul. Our true selves are seen in our longings for home, for a father who stands at the gate, gazing into the distance, hoping and praying for his lost son to come home.

In the end, the story is a contrast between the father and the elder brother. The father’s heart was broken for his son; the brother’s heart was hard and heartless towards this younger sibling who, broken by his sins, finally came crawling home. I suspect the elder son saw his brother much as I used to see people: He was a worthless wastrel who deserved no pity. The father however, saw him as he really was: a son who finally had realized his real identity. 

It was some years ago that God taught me my error; I can still be judgmental, but am grateful that my heavenly Father saw through the filth and grime and told me who I really am. It made all the difference.

Splashing in the Shallows

 March 26, 2022

I’m still musing over yesterday’s text:

“…I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

—Ephesians 3:13-14, 16-19 

Though imprisoned and having endured many trials, when Paul prays for eh Ephesian Christians, his request of God is that they may know the surpassing love of Christ. He didn’t ask to be delivered from prison; his troubles didn’t dissuade him of his assurance of Christ’s love. Unlike many of Luis today who question God’s love with every little problem that comes along, Paul’s assurance didn’t come from an external situation, but from within. 

I suspect that we have difficulty in this area. Because we haven’t plumbed the depths, but are rather content to paddle around on the surface of life. We measure Christ’s love for us by the amount of temporal blessings we have received, and when they are taken away, we discover that all we had was the shell of temporal blessing. There is no inner substance to our assurance, which is why we are so dependent on the external signs. We get so caught up in them we never even imagine there’s anything more. We don’t even look.

Too often, we’re like toddlers in an inflatable wading pool set up on an ocean beach. We splash and laugh, unaware of the length, breadth, and depth of the ocean that washes the sands only inches away.

“Lord, show me how to step out of my little pool. Give me the courage to cast out into the deep. It takes more than Bible study. It takes you.”

Back to the Future

 March 25, 2022

How often I’ve listened to Christians speak of the “attacks of Satan” upon them. We face a difficulty, a temptation, or an obstacle, perhaps an illness, financial instability, a strained or failed relationship, even death, and we interpret it as an attack from the enemy. It is tempting at such times to feel as if we have been singled out for special wrath.

In his book, “Praying Circles Around the Lives of Your Children,” Mark Batterson references Lisa Bevere, who in her book “Girls With Swords,” compares the enemy’s attacks to the Terminator movie in which the heroine is living a rather ordinary life until a robotic assassin from the future tries to kill her. She doesn’t know why this is happening until it is explained to her that in the future, an artificial intelligence network will initiate a nuclear war designed to wipe out all mankind. Her yet-to-be-born son will rally an army of survivors to lead a resistance movement. This movement is on the verge of victory, so the Terminator has been sent back in time to kill her before her son is born.

Bevere muses: “The attacks on your life have much more to do with who you might be in the future than who you have been in the past.” Batterson adds that they may have to do with what God plans to do through your children or grandchildren than they do about you.

It’s a powerful thought. Much of what we think is about us isn’t about us at all. You may labor in obscurity, imagining yourself a failure, but God is using you as the incubator for what he intends to do long after you have been laid in the ground. In my reading of Ephesians 3 this morning, I came across this little gem: “I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.” (V.13)

In the next verse, Paul launches into his prayer for the Ephesian Christians. Linda has prayed this prayer over our grandchildren for over twenty years. I will quote it as she prays it.

“I pray that Christ may dwell more and more in your hearts, living within you as you trust in him. May your roots grow down deep into the soil of his marvelous love so you may know and understand how wide, how long, how deep and how high God’s love for you really is, though you will never fully know or understand it, but someday you will be filled up with God himself.”

You can read it for yourself in Ephesians 3:14-21. What I hadn’t noticed before was the context of this prayer. Paul is languishing in a filthy Roman prison. He could be feeling sorry for himself, cursing Rome, railing against God, but instead he says to his readers, “I don’t want you to get discouraged because of me.” His suffering wasn’t about himself, but was for them. “For your glory,” is how he put it. 

Our steadfastness and faithfulness in the trials and difficulties of life aren’t merely the devil’s attacks upon us; they are components of God’s plan to bless someone else. He wants to be able to point at us and say, “Do you see him/her? THAT’s what I’m after. Follow his example. Listen to her words.” And it just may be that those times you stumbled and God picked you up were his way of keeping you on the right path for the sake of a child yet unborn who is to be the teacher, the pastor, the physician, or the statesman who will be instrumental in transforming the lives of multitudes. 

It’s not about you. It’s not about me. It’s about Jesus.

This Generation

 March 24, 2022

When it seems that the world is shaking, tottering off its foundations, it is good to know Psalm 24. 

“The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, 

the world and those who dwell within. 

For he has founded it upon the seas, 

and established it upon the waters.” —v.1

Adults often worry about the world their kids or grandkids are growing up in. Things are certainly different than when I was growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, but the promise of God remains:

“This is the generation of those who seek him, 

who seek your face.” —v.6

And finally, 

“Lift up your heads, O you gates!

And be lifted up, you everlasting doors!

And the King of glory shall come in.

Who is this King of glory?

The LORD strong and mighty,

The LORD mighty in battle.” —vv.8-9

God makes no mistakes. He has raised up our children for this hour, and will be as faithful to them as he has been to us. Of course, not every child seeks his face, but there is a generation of young adults who are doing so with an intensity and purpose that many of us older folks would do well to emulate. And the world they are inheriting from us, for all its tragedy, danger, and sorrow, is still God’s world. He is the one who establishes it, and even when the foundations tremble, God’s Word endures. He who calmed the troubled sea will one day calm all of Creation as every knee bows and every tongue confesses Jesus Christ to be Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus himself guaranteed it: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my Word shall never pass away.” (Matthew 24:35) So I pray for my kids and grandkids, and for many other young adults I know. I don’t pray in fear, hoping against hope that nothing bad happens to them. We know better. “In this world, you shall have tribulation,” Jesus promised (John 16:33). My prayer is that when that trouble comes, this generation will have learned how to stand strong, how to get up when they’ve fallen, how to overcome adversity. If they don’t, it’s on us for not teaching them.

This old earth may totter and shake, but we can lift up our heads because the glorious LORD of all the earth is coming! Contrary to some (deficient) theology, the world doesn’t belong to Satan. He is at work, but he is an intruder, and this world, sad and broken as it is, belongs to God, who will restore it to even greater beauty than at the beginning. 

In the meantime, this generation is rising up; a generation who seeks God’s face, and in seeking, will find, and in finding, will stride forth in the power of the Holy Spirit to shake this world in a whole different way.

Instrumental

 March 23, 2022

Tonight at our Lenten dinner and Bible study, a video by Max Lucado told the story of a man who vowed never again to play his trumpet after playing taps at his son’s funeral. But his daughter-in-law was pregnant at the time, and now twenty years later, his granddaughter wanted him to play for her wedding—a request any grandparent knows can’t be refused.

So he took his old instrument to the repair shop where the master craftsman hammered out the dents, freed up the valves, and polished it till it shone. As I listened to this story, it occurred to me that the instrument can play songs of sadness or joy. It can only do what the music and the musician determine. The music determines the melody, the instrument the tone, but it is the musician who determines the soul, taking notes on paper and translating them into music that swells and recedes, carrying aloft the emotion and intensity of the song.

We are instruments in God’s hand. He wrote the music, and is the conductor of the orchestra. We play with all the intensity and love, the gravitas and joy that is in his own heart. We provide the subtle and varied tones, from the reedy clarinets, oboes, saxophones, and bassoons, to the brassy tubas, trombones, euphoniums, and trumpets. There are the soft notes of the flutes, the rattle of the snares, the chords and runs of the piano, the sweeping sweetness of violins, cellos, and basses. Each instrument contributes a different timbre, a different feel to the music, but the performance is the work of the Composer/Conductor, and elicits the praise of all Creation. 

Isn’t it amazing that we get to play our part, contributing to the symphony that was in the Father’s heart, written in the blood of his Son, and moved by the wind of the Spirit in us!