2 June 2015 - utterly amazed

The heart of the just one is firm, trusting in the Lord.

We are called to trust in the LORD with firm hearts. Even in bad circumstances our trust should be steadfast. Tobit starts off well, burying the dead, not caring about the consequences. But then when times actually get hard he begins to enter into a mode of self preservation. He is no longer one about whom the psalmist says,  "Lavishly he gives to the poor". In fact is even unable to accept blessings himself.

She said to me, “It was given to me as a bonus over and above my wages.”
Yet I would not believe her, 
and told her to give it back to its owners.

Tobit himself is made poor, in a sense, by losing his eyesight. But instead of trusting in God he enters into survival mode where he is only considered with what he himself can provide for himself. He not only fears "An evil report" but he can't even trust a good one.

When we are tempted to enter into survival mode we should remember that nothing we have is truly ours.

Whose image and inscription is this?

We ourselves are made in God's image and inscribed with his name. All we have is ultimately from him. If it bears the image and inscription of Caesar, well, Caesar himself bears God's image. We should therefore relate to the things of this world as Paul prescribes:

"those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away" (cf. 1 Cor. 7:30-31).

In our hearts, let us render all things to God for they are all truly his. When we remember "from him and through him and for him are all things" (cf. Rom. 11:36) we are no longer susceptible to the passing highs that worldly praise can give. We don't fall for empty praise just as Jesus does not.

Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man
and that you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion.
You do not regard a person’s status
but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.

At the same time, we no longer fear even an evil report. Our hearts become firm, trusting in the LORD. False pleasures don't make us stumble. Hardships don't make us fear. We see this embodied in Jesus. No wonder Mark says of the Pharisees and Herodians:

They were utterly amazed at him.

The word amaze and its derivations appears about 6 times in the OT but 45 in the (much shorter) NT. This is because Jesus is the one who is truly amazing. Let him amaze us today. This is the first step to loosening our grip on this world because Jesus himself is the one who has overcome the world. It is to union with our amazing Savior that we are called!

1 June 2015 - our part

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;

What stones are we rejecting?

How much control do we demand for our construction projects?

Are we willing to do our part and entrust the rest to God? If not, we might be engaged in vanity projects more than mission.

This vineyard is where God calls us to work. It is the vineyard he himself plants and defends. Even though he chooses to work through us, and in that sense leaves on journey, that does not mean that we can forget about his plan and purpose for the vineyard. We can't try to keep the fruit for ourselves. This is the first step in the wrong direction. This is where we try to use the pleasures and good things of this world without reference to the one who gives them and their true purpose. This first step quickly leads to more where we become abusive toward fellow servants. We eventually can't stand to hear the messengers God sends.  We kill them in our hearts, still somehow hoping to keep the inheritance for ourselves.

God is calling Tobiah and his family to use the stones of feeding the poor and burying the dead. He is calling them to build with the corporal works of mercy. They are threatened when they do these things. Society calls them to reject these stones. But they realize that the house they are building is the LORD's house. They will not reject the stones which he desires.

The neighbors mocked me, saying to one another:
“He is still not afraid!
Once before he was hunted down for execution 
because of this very thing;
yet now that he has scarcely escaped,
here he is again burying the dead!”

Tobiah and his father are blessed because they fear the LORD. Since they do not reject the building materials the LORD supplies they themselves become living stones in the temple of the LORD. They become a light to those around them revealing the goodness of God.

Light shines through the darkness for the upright

They do not keep the fruit for themselves, because "by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes". It is wonderful indeed.

31 May 2015 - name above all names

God reveals that he is a Trinity, three persons united in love. He does this not to become more obscure to us but in order that we might know him more.

We worship, but we doubt. Even after when we know that Jesus is risen from the dead we still have further to go to overcome fear and engage fully the mission which God has for us.

The end to these doubts begin with a name. Perhaps even more than the tetragrammaton which the Jewish people dare not speak, this name reveals the deepest truth of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Not merely loving, he is love eternal. If God were merely one and not also three he could not be described as love itself. He could possibly be loving in relation to creation after creating. But in himself he would not be love. It is because his name is Father, Son and Holy Spirit that we can say, "God is love" (cf. 1 Joh. 4:8).

This is something which we can understand with our minds. But it is meant to point beyond our ability to reason. From here on, God is understood better by loving than by reason. And any love at any time toward anyone contributes to this new higher understanding. 

"The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love" (cf. 1 Joh. 4:8).

But although God is love, we are not. We are each individual. We are only one. We cannot cross the threshold between self and other. God invites us to enter into his own love. To know him we must enter this love. It is the love which he pours into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom. 5:5).

Once this Spirit fills us we enter into the love relationship between the three persons of the Trinity. It is this perfect love alone which casts out fear (cf. 1. Joh. 4:18). It is this love which leads us from worshiping but doubting into fearlessness:

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but you received a Spirit of adoption,
through whom we cry, “Abba, Father!”

This is the God who reveals himself to us!

Did a people ever hear the voice of God
speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?

It is amazing and unmerited grace that God wants us to know him so intimately. It is amazing that we can know any of it and not die of love but live on. For our response let us hope in in his kindness and give him undivided hearts:

This is why you must now know,
and fix in your heart, that the LORD is God
in the heavens above and on earth below,
and that there is no other.

We are truly blessed that this is the God that has chosen us as his own! He is our help and our shield. Knowing that he loves us, we trust him!

30 May 2015 - having all sweetness within

We should seek wisdom from our youth until the end. It is not a trivial thing. It is not something which is meant to be left for sages on Himalayan mountain tops with no bearing on daily life.

Wisdom can be the delight of our hearts. Most of us, too used to finding delights in sensual pleasures, find this implausible. Wine, women and song seem like delights to be sure. We are content to leave wisdom hidden in the obscure tombs where we assume it resides.

Yet without wisdom all of other things can quickly lose their savor. Too much of a good thing can become distasteful. Too little of goods we should have leave us empty and longing. Only wisdom can keep our feet "to the level path".

This is how the precepts of the Lord give joy to the heart. Wisdom really can be sweeter than honey because it is the sweetness it the core of all pleasure. It enlightens the eyes to see where this true pleasure is found. Unlike the worlds ideas about pleasure this sweetness endures forever because it is rooted in God and his design.

Fair enough. But what is it? How do we find it? Are we off to distant mountains after all?

No. It is the simple who find wisdom. They find it by trusting in the precepts and law of the Lord to refresh them. At it's core, wisdom is the ability to answer the question of whether something is "of heavenly or of human origin" It is the ability to recognize the "authority" of Jesus. When we recognize this we trust in his commands and allow him freedom to do what he wants in our lives. We don't rebel. We don't ask, "By what authority are you doing these things?" Instead we come to Jesus with simply trust. He speaks with an authority which we can hear. "For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes" (cf. Mat. 7:29). We realize that “No one ever spoke like this man" (cf. Joh. 7:46) and so we submit ourselves to these words. Here is the wisdom we need. In the word of Jesus and in his Body we find "all sweetness within" just as we sing in adoration.

Let us taste this sweetness! Let our hearts rejoice in it!

29 May 2015 - trying to fig-ure it out.

Let us allow Jesus to purify us. 

We don't want to be barren fig trees. We want to bear fruit in due season (cf. Psa. 1:3). We want to be the faithful and prudent servant who distributes food at the proper time (cf. Mat. 24:45).

We can't buy these fruits from temple money changers. We really wish we could. We wish that the careful arranagement and use of our own strength and resources could yield the results which Jesus desires. He will not let these illusions persist. He drives the money changers out. He wants our Church and therefore each one of our hearts to be a house of prayer. It isn't about effort. Money and other things of this world aren't problems until we begin to try to use them to buy entrance to the kingdom or fast passes to sainthood. So let us allow Jesus to drive these money changers from our hearts. They have nothing to offer us.

Instead, let us receive the fruit from the only place from which it comes: the Holy Spirit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law (cf. Gal. 5:22-23).

The upside to not being able to buy it is that it is not dependent on any conditions or circumstances of this world. Even if it is "not the time for figs" our faith is the door through which the Spirit enters us, fills us, and bears his fruit in us.

Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain,
‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’
and does not doubt in his heart
but believes that what he says will happen,
it shall be done for him.

We hear this and begin to think that we have to earn it. We imagine that the reason that we aren't moving mountains is because we haven't achieved a certain level of holiness. But this is not the case. If we embrace the faith Jesus offers we too can move mountains even today.

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways (cf. Jam. 1:6-8).

This is how we leave a legacy that endures even if we ourselves are forgotten. Our legacy becomes part of the legacy of the covenant fidelity of God to his people. Rather than simply being remembered we give the world a form of wealth which remains: the love of God.

Their wealth remains in their families,
their heritage with their descendants;
Through God’s covenant with them their family endures,
their posterity, for their sake.

The Lord wants fruit, true wealth, and festive dance for his people. He purifies us precisely because he "takes delight in his people" and wants the best for us. May he purify us so that we truly rejoice.

28 May 2015 - that i might see

Let us be like Bartimaeus this morning.

Let us say to Jesus, "Master, I want to see."

We are all blind to some degree. We don't say, "I recall God's works; what I have seen I will describe" because we don't see it.  Even though the way in which God's glory fills all things is "clear to all" we are still somehow blind to it.

After all, God's works are amazing! "How beautiful are all his works! even to the spark and fleeting vision!" Even if we see this to some degree, "can one ever see enough of their splendor?"

And so we pray, "I want to see."

We ask Jesus to have pity on us so that we can see that his kindness fills the earth.

Because, after all, we see a lot in this world that is imperfect. We see many things which are less than kindness. We do not always see beauty. We do not see as much justice and right as we would like. There is a deeper truth than this ugliness. There is a beauty untainted to which we long for our eyes to be opened. There is a deep purpose to all things which the corruption of sin is unable to taint or destroy.

And so we pray, "I want to see."

Even amidst the sufferings of this world we want to see God's hand at work restoring and giving life. We do not ask to be distracted by abstractions with no connection to the world in which we live. We ask to see the beauty of God's purpose even here and now. We long to say, "O Blessed Fault! O Necessary sin of Adam!" as we behold the beauty that God brings forth even through our weakness, even through our ugliness, even through our failure.

And so we pray, "I want to see."

And we hear, "Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you."

And we pray "I want to see."

And we hear, "Go your way; your faith has saved you." But we cannot go our own way anymore. Together with Bartimaeus we follow Jesus on his way.

Give thanks to the LORD on the harp;
with the ten-stringed lyre chant his praises.
Sing to him a new song;
pluck the strings skillfully, with shouts of gladness.

27 May 2015 - he goes ahead of us

The disciples were on the way, going up to Jerusalem,

and Jesus went ahead of them.

They were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.

When we face uncertainty Jesus does for us what he does for the Twelve. He tells us in advance what is going to happen.

Taking the Twelve aside again, he began to tell them

what was going to happen to him.

But it isn't necessarily easily to digest.

Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man

will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, 

and they will condemn him to death

and hand him over to the Gentiles who will mock him,

spit upon him, scourge him, and put him to death,

There are hardships in the future. Jesus knows this. He tells us this. He tells us about hardships in advance so that we may have peace. How does it help us to know about them in advance? Doesn't that just contribute to our anxiety? It helps because it puts our trials in perspective.

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

He tells us this so we can see our afflictions for what they are: momentary and passing.

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison

The danger is that we hear about the threat and tune out the promise. We try to find other things to fixate on. We try to distract ourselves from the threat instead of focusing on the one who has already overcome all threats.

Grant that in your glory

we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.

It isn't about this. It isn't about building up our own egos. It isn't about giving our pride something to which to cling. Instead we are called to let the hard times empty us of our selfishness. We are to follow the one who comes to serve.

For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve

and to give his life as a ransom for many

It is this perspective, a perspective we can only have when we focus on the promise and not distractions, in which suffering is imbued with meaning.

When we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus he does "Give new signs and work new wonders." The power of his resurrection, the light of his kindness, transforms our fear into fearlessness.

Then we, your people and the sheep of your pasture,

will give thanks to you forever;

through all generations we will declare your praise.