Waiting

December 15, 2013 –– Third Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 35:1–10 / James 5:7–10 / Matthew 11:2–11

Waiting

Waiting is hard for most people. Waiting for Christmas Day is hard for children. It’s hard to wait when a big turkey dinner is cooking; the smell fills the house, and you are hungry. Waiting is hard when you are in a supermarket and have just a few items, then you get to the checkout and the lines are backed up with people who have full carts. Waiting is hard when you hit some problem on the interstate where traffic is backed up for several miles. For some of us, waiting is even hard when you just missed the green light and have to wait though a whole cycle.

Long-term waiting seems like an extinct species in our culture. It is common for people who want some expensive, but non-essential, item not to wait and save for the money to buy it; they go into debt to have it now. More and more couples who are “in love” do not wait for marriage before sexual intimacy. There is a surrender in our society to a spirit that says, “I want it, and I want it now!” Do we in the Church understand that embracing this attitude is sin?

A major emphasis of Advent is waiting. Throughout the Bible God’s people are waiting more than anything else. God is not in the instant-gratification business (but we might consider the evidence that the devil is). Getting what we want is rooted in selfishness. Satan made selfish desire ultimately appealing to Eve. Getting what we want now compounds it. Because we are broken, waiting is a hard thing. Yet God uses waiting to develop faith and hope in us. Satan tries to use waiting to defeat us―for us to become so obsessed with what we want and when we want it that we allow unfulfilled desire to affect everything else.

Advent is a time to take a head-on look at this issue of waiting. Today’s Scripture texts help us see three ways that waiting can affect our spiritual lives. We are warned not to allow waiting to cause us to be discouraged, distracted or demanding.

Think about John the Baptist. After an initial popular ministry he was put in prison. He had preached that One greater than himself was coming, but sitting in a jail can dampen one’s enthusiasm. Maybe John was waiting for the Coming One to make everything right―including a rescue from jail. Finally he sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus: Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?

Why did John ask this? He was probably discouraged. He was stuck in prison and waiting. John’s discouragement may have been exacerbated once it was clear that no popular Messianic expectations were being reported. So often we nurture our ability to wait by thinking God is going to work a certain way, but if God doesn’t work the way we think he should, it discourages our waiting.

Is it accurate to suggest that a spiritually discouraged person is a complaining person? How easily little irritants in life turn us into complainers! (I am preaching to myself.) James exhorts, Do not complain, brothers and sisters.... He reminds us of the patience a farmer needs (most of us are so far removed from basic agriculture that the example doesn’t connect). He commends the example of hardship and patience that we find in the prophets. They faced real hardships––like John being put in prison. We live in a world that tries to convince us that life needs to be easy and pleasant all the time, and if it’s not, it is our “right” to be discouraged and complain.

Once we are discouraged, we are vulnerable to distraction. We find other ways to compensate for the pain of waiting. The world will always offer us something that seems innocent, but it can cause spiritual weakness. We may no longer feel “discouraged”―but it’s because we are distracted. Something else can give us temporary comfort and joy, then we are not focused on our Lord and waiting on his promise to come.

And if that state of mind goes for too long, we develop demanding spirits. We embrace an attitude that all but insists that we get what we want and that we get it now. Surrendering to an attitude like this is spiritual death. The person who refuses to wait patiently―the person who demands his own way―is cutting himself off from the Spirit of Jesus.

Advent is a time of expectation. The question today is: What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for God to do things your way? Could it be that God isn’t even part of the equation, but you are simply waiting for what you want (and you’ve decided you can’t be happy until you have it)? Or, on the other hand, are we waiting on the Lord? Maybe it would help to reflect on the idea of Christians as people living in a Waiting Room! Advent calls us to this, and the Church has wisely built this time into the rhythm of our spiritual lives to help us not become discouraged, distracted or demanding. You see, as we live in this world, we can be waiting on the Lord wherever we are and whatever else we are doing.  Advent is waiting.... on the Lord.

Rest & Renewal

Wednesday: 11 December, 2013 –– 2nd Week in Advent

Isaiah 40:25–31 / Matthew 11:28–30

Rest & Renewal

Weariness is a reality. Our bodies get tired.

Sometimes it’s a satisfying weariness. We’ve worked hard and accomplished much, and rest comes easily at the end of a long, hard day.

Too often, it seems, we experience another kind of weariness. It’s the restlessness that comes from worry and stress. It’s the awareness of a foreboding cloud which seems always to be hovering all too near.

It’s to that kind of burden we hear the words of our Lord: Come to me.... and I will give you rest.

This is because Jesus is the Word made Flesh. God has entered our situation. Jesus knows what it’s like to live a human life in a weary world.

At the same time,

The LORD is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary,

his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint,

and to him who has no might he increases strength.

The most wearying thing we can do (or try to do) is to control what is beyond our control. So much of our worry and stress is about things we want to direct or change. Those are the things where God invites us to come to him.... and TRUST. I have to remind myself that even if I had the power to control things, I don’t have the wisdom to control things. God has both!

So Jesus says, Come to me.... leave it with me.... believe that my love is big enough to bring life even out of death. Because,

they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint.

Expendable?

Tuesday: 10 December, 2013 –– 2nd Week in Advent

Matthew 18:12–14

Expendable?

....will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray?

The assumed answer to Jesus’ question is yes. I am afraid a common answer today would be no. We live in an expendable world.

The military has given us the phrase “collateral damage” –– it usually refers to non-military targets or even civilian casualties which are considered expendable in order to meet an objective. We have become accustomed to “planned obsolescence” –– planning and making products in such a way that they become out-of-date or useless within a known time period. We live in such an opulent society that almost anything can easily be replaced. Matter-of-fact abortion is perhaps the ultimate step of living as if human life itself is routinely expendable.

In Dickens’ A Christmas Carol we are shown the ugliness of Scrooge’s disposition in the dialogue:

“I help to support the establishments.... those who are badly off must go there.”

“Many can't go there; and many would rather die.” 

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Do we really think that “losers” are worth the time and trouble of our love and care? Do we believe that our Lord desires the conversion of the person who is blasphemous or perverted or cruel? Jesus says, It is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.

May our Lord help us to see with his eyes and love as he loves. In the kingdom of God, no one is expendable.

You Have To Serve Somebody

November 24, 2013 –– Thirty-fourth (Last) Sunday in Ordinary Time

Solemnity of Christ the King

2 Samuel 5:1–3 / Colossians 1:12–20 / Luke 23:35–43

You Have To Serve Somebody

Back in the late 1970s the folk-icon Bob Dylan went through an Evangelical Christian phase, during which he wrote a song with this refrain: You're gonna have to serve somebody.... Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord / But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

Yet there’s a protest. There is something in us that does not want to serve. We want to be “free” to make our own choices. There is a brokenness in us that incites us to what Scripture and the Church call “sin,” and that brokenness makes us want to serve ourselves. When the ex-Beatle John Lennon (who esteemed Bob Dylan) heard Dylan’s song, he became so angry that he went into the studio and vented his rage into a long, long song called "Serve Yourself." The power of darkness (using Paul’s term when he writes to the Colossians) loves it when we think we are free to follow our self-interests. It only means we are spurning the rule of God’s kingdom.

Today we come to the final Sunday of the Church year with the Solemnity of Christ the King.  Kingship seems to be an almost universal concept in human history. Earliest civilizations exhibit the phenomenon of divinized kings. This suggests an innate desire in humans to be ruled for the common good––an imprinted recognition that we are not sufficient, by ourselves, to take care of ourselves. We were created to live under a king. Dylan was right: You're gonna have to serve somebody.... But it makes all the difference in the world––and for eternity––who we serve. We live in a world where self-love and abuse of power cause fear and pain and death. Spiritual rebellion is real, and we can be so blind to the real cause of the evils in our world.

Jesus is truly the Messiah of God––the King of the Jews promised in the OT, and ultimately all the earth will bow to the King of kings and Lord of lords (see Philippians 2:10–11 and Revelation 19:16). Ironically, in today’s Gospel we hear those who do not believe––Israel’s rulers, Roman soldiers, and a criminal dying alongside Jesus. They taunt and revile him. They can only see a man who claimed to be a king who is nailed shamefully to a cross. Surely a king would be able to save himself! A “crucified messiah” does not make sense; the power of darkness will have nothing of it. But Jesus did not come to save himself; he came to save us. 

It is by the blood of his cross that Jesus reveals his Kingship––not by saving his life, but offering it as a ransom for ours. In this way God the Father transfers us, in the words of the Epistle, to the Kingdom of his beloved Son. Our allegiance is not to self-assertiveness or raw power, but to a King whose name is Love.

We do not have a choice whether or not to be mastered. You're gonna have to serve somebody....  Yet we do have a choice who our master will be.  Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord / But you're gonna have to serve somebody. On this day when we honor Christ the King, invite him to be the King of your heart.

An Issue Of Heaven or Hell

November 10, 2013 –– Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 Maccabees 7:1–2, 9–14 / 2 Thessalonians 2:16–3:5 / Luke 20:27–38

An Issue Of Heaven or Hell

Sometimes we need to be reminded that faithfulness to God is worth dying for. When the Scripture reading gives explicit reference, “sometimes” is now. Faithfulness is an attitude of heart that becomes the difference between heaven and hell. The Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection. They were the aristocrats of Jewish society and collaborated with Rome (the power of the day)––not an unusual response for the wealthy of any time or place. They did not wish to lose their wealth, their comfort, and their “place.” The Sadducees were focused with the here and now. They accepted only the Torah (first five OT books) and rejected the Prophets and Writings. The Old Testament gives progressive revelation, so the covenant blessings of the Torah were indeed focused on temporal good. But limiting faithfulness to the here and now has an inherent danger. Comfort and convenience can suffocate spiritual life. Who feels a need for God if it seems everything is going great? Heaven can seem like a nice fairy tale. Life in this world becomes more important than being accountable to God.

Contrast the Sadducees with the seven brothers and their mother in the Maccabees story. Life certainly was not comfortable and convenient for them. Alexander the Great’s empire had extended into Judea and there was a tyrannical demand that everyone be totally unified in their allegiance to the state. There was no place for a religious commitment that conflicted with the unification of the whole society. What do God’s people do when they are forced to choose between allegiance to the state and allegiance to God? Even after being tortured one of the brothers said, It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised up by him....

Some people want to believe that making God a part of one's life is like investing in an insurance policy that will provide an escape from hard and painful things in life. Prayer is made out to be a direct line to a heavenly Santa Claus. This Thessalonian letter written by St Paul almost 2000 years ago an ongoing reminder to Christians everywhere that the world is a hard place––especially for those who give total allegiance to Jesus.

Do you know what kind of prayers God always answers? It's those which are aligned with his will. It is a natural tendency to focus our prayers on things which affect our own convenience.  The Sadducees would have prayed like that. We need to learn to pray for what God wants. Here is the Apostle Paul––the great missionary, a man who knew the power of the Holy Spirit––and his request to the Thessalonian Christians is for them to pray for him and other believers. Prayer is critical for all Christians because all of us are in a spiritual war and we need God's power and protection. So St Paul identifies three things people committed to the Lord should pray for.

First, Paul says, pray.... that the word of the Lord may speed forward and be glorified (v1). Christians are to be witnesses (the root meaning of “martyr”). If we seriously embrace our profession of faith, we are saying that we believe that Jesus Christ is the one way to escape eternal banishment from God and punishment in hell, and thus we will live as if hell is something to be seriously avoided. One common slogan I used to hear at missions conferences was This generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of lost people. When Paul asks for prayer that the Gospel will spread, he is calling us to give attention to what is eternally important to God and us.

The next thing to pray is that we may be delivered from perverse and wicked people, for not all have faith (v2). When people give Jesus total allegiance––when Christians have a passion for the Gospel to extend to the whole earth––there will be obstacles to keep it from happening. It is not happenstance that so much of the world is closed to Christian witness today. Think of the millions of people under totalitarian governments who are hindered from hearing the gospel. Think of false religions. We are in a spiritual war. 

It’s not only human opposition, though. There is also direct opposition from Satan himself. There is a promise here here that implies a prayer: he (the Lord) will strengthen and guard you from the evil one (v3). I wonder how many Christians take Satan seriously as a spiritual foe. It seems that Satan has been reduced to a joke: "the devil made me do it." Satan wants us to be distracted. Satan is happy when we think the most important things are being comfortable and entertained. Or if Satan can bring God's people into shame and ridicule and disrepute, then the spiritual war is going his way. Think about the many priests and other ministers whose failures have been nationally publicized so that Christian Faith itself is ridiculed and dismissed.

When Satan cannot distract or discourage Christians, or keep the Church in scandal, he pours all the power of hell, literally, into the fight. One way he does that is by manipulating wicked people to oppose Christians––even to the point of persecution and death. It’s been that way throughout history. God’s people have sometimes paid for their faith with their lives. More Christians died for their faith in the 20th Century than all previous centuries combined! It is estimated that in the two millennia of Christian history, 70 million faithful have died for the Faith, and 45.5 million––65%––were in the last century. Satan is real. He does not want the love of the Lord to prevail in Christians’ lives. We are in a spiritual war.

In such a world, what can keep us faithful? How can we not succumb to the numbing effects of seduction like the Sadducees? Well, we have examples of faith like the seven brothers and their mother, and we have the martyrs of the Church. Most of all we have Jesus affirming a life that goes beyond this world because the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob is not God of the dead, but of the living. And Paul tells the Thessalonians that the Lord is faithful (v3).

The one thing that remains is for us to live in true faithfulness––to give total allegiance to Jesus. Paul's final exhortation is for the Thessalonians to do two things––two things we need to do as well. The first is to direct [our] hearts to the love of God. That's what Christian living and witness is all about. We're not called to witness to something we don't live, and we're not called to live something God hasn't provided. If we know Jesus Christ today it is because we have come to know God's love. And knowing that love, we are to show love the same way....  to our wife or husband.... to our children.... to our neighbors.... to the people at work. We are to give witness to the love of Christ everywhere we go. When we do that, we are being witnesses of the gospel. When we witness to the love of God, we show that there is something more important than our own desires––our own comfort and convenience.

When Christians live like that, there will inevitably be opposition of some kind, so there's a second thing here. We must always be prepared to direct [our] hearts to the endurance of Christ––to share in Christ's sufferings. Luke sets this Gospel reading with Jesus on the way to the cross (starting in 9:51). Maccabees tells the story of faithful people who paid the ultimate price. We are all called to “martyrdom”––laying down our lives in selfless love. Sometimes it’s “red martyrdom”––laying down our physical lives for Jesus’ sake. More often it’s what the Church calls “white martyrdom”––dying daily to our selfish desires so that the life of Christ in us can grow. We do that through total allegiance to Jesus Christ. We are to pray for that. We are to give our time and our money and remember, if necessary, our physical lives for Jesus Christ. It’s an issue of heaven or hell.

All Things Work For Good

Wednesday: 30 October, 2013 –– 30th Week in Ordinary Time

Romans 8: 26–30

All Things Work For Good

All things work for good. That is one of the more popular biblical verses that people quote, although I wouldn’t be surprised if many think it comes from Poor Richard’s Almanac or some such source. Whether or not the true source is known, what is usually quoted is not by itself true.

“Things” are not animate so that they are able to “work for good.” And in no way are all things good––there are horrible and evil events and circumstances. What is St Paul saying?

First, a better translation of the verse would be, In all things God works for good.... The focus here is on God, not on our circumstances. Second, it is crucial to recognize the qualifiers. For whom does God work in all things for good? It is in the lives of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

What is God’s purpose? It is not what is idolized and pursued by our culture. We live in a society in which the ultimate concern is being happy. God’s purpose for us is to be holy––conformed to the image of his Son....

How can we hope that in our lives all things work for good? We need to love God, and we love God by loving what God loves and desires. The fullness of God is shown to us in Jesus Christ. When we truly want to be like Jesus, then God does indeed make all things work for good.

A great picture of this is shown in the life of the Old Testament Joseph. His brothers hated him and sold him into slavery. After long and terrible years in Egypt, Joseph was eventually elevated to a position second only to Pharaoh. It was then that Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt seeking relief from famine, and Joseph was in charge of all the food. When the brothers realized who Joseph was, they were afraid. Then Joseph modeled what it means to love God and to know this makes all things work for good. He told his brothers, “You meant it for evil, but God used it for good.”

Yes, St Paul invites us to know that all things work for good. But even more he wants us to know that this hope is for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

Is the desire of our heart to be happy.... or to be holy? It is when we want to be holy that all things work for good.

Suffering Unto Salvation

Tuesday: 29 October, 2013 –– 30th Week in Ordinary Time

Romans 8: 18–25

Suffering Unto Salvation

Do you know what suffering does in a Christian?  It drives a Christian to prayer.  When we are pulled into the heart of the reality that something is wrong in this world — when the wrongs of this world touch us so that we hurt so deeply that it seems all we can do is groan — we find that God is there. The word “groan” appears three times here in short succession (and only six other times in the New Testament).  Sin is so bad and so pervasive that creation groans (8:22).  On top of that, Christians groan (we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan inwardly (8:23). But we do not groan alone: the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express (8:26).

There is a popular stereotype that the ministry of the Holy Spirit always produces joy and victory in Christians.  Or the Holy Spirit always makes worship alive and thrilling.  Both of those things are partly true, but that is not entirely. The Holy Spirit also meets us in the depths of our despair. 

It is in those times that we come to a deeper understanding of God. We get drawn into what he has already done; that is why we have hope and that is why we pray. We also become aware of what God has yet promised to do. He has promised full salvation, but it is not yet full reality: hope that is seen is no hope at all — who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently (8:24b,25).  Waiting patiently is so hard.  I am terrible at it.  Do you know one reason we can be patient?  God is working his Spirit into those who belong to him.

But in the meantime....  And that is where we are right now, “in the meantime” — living in two worlds:  this seen world that is passing away, but also in an unseen world that promised (yet already here to those who have faith).  If we have this faith it is because the Father is working his Spirit into our life. Can you see this in what Paul says as reading begins? I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us (8:18). God is working his Spirit into all who belong to him.... even in the midst of this world and all its suffering.  And God’s Spirit is life.... a salvation that is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.