14 March 2019 - knocking is no joke

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.

What do we desire? Let's be specific, thinking of the next day or so. Are these things for which we have sought the LORD? Have we asked, sought, and knocked? And if the door did not open immediately did we keep asking? More likely, we tend to briefly pray a tacit acknowledgment of these desires and then move on. There is a problem we conceal when we do this.  It is believing that God isn't interested in these deep desires or that he really can't intervene practically in our lives. But if he is not interested, than neither should we be interested. Yet we know that when it comes to giving good things God is indeed interested.

If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your heavenly Father give good things
to those who ask him.

True, sometimes the Father's good gifts are even better than we ask for. They are gifts of the Spirit rather than of the world. But even so our desires are never too great but only ever too little for what he wants to give us. The more challenging belief is to believe, like Mary, that all things are possible for God. Practically speaking, we believe that God can give us good and warm feelings and little else beyond subjective comfort. When we don't see the door opening day after day we get used to seeing it closed. How do we escape that vicious cycle? His words can empower us to transcend the limits of our expectations.

For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 

Queen Esther understood the practical sense in which God wanted to be involved in her deliverance.

God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, blessed are you. 
Help me, who am alone and have no help but you,
for I am taking my life in my hand.
As a child I used to hear from the books of my forefathers
that you, O LORD, always free those who are pleasing to you.
Now help me, who am alone and have no one but you,
O LORD, my God.

The main point today is that we are meant to be able to truly bring to God the things we care about, and to keep bringing them before him, trusting that he has answers waiting that are even better than that for which we ask.

Save us from the hand of our enemies;
turn our mourning into gladness
and our sorrows into wholeness.

The LORD will complete what he has done for us. Let's get to asking!

13 March 2019 - greater

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Jonah began his journey through the city,
and had gone but a single day's walk announcing,
"Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed,"

Jesus is greater than Jonah. Yet ironically, his preaching seems to have less effect. Nineveh repents when Jonah preaches. But only it is a minority who fully embrace the teaches of Jesus. He speaks with wisdom greater than that of Solomon, but more people are interested in arguing with him than in learning from him. Given the greatness of Jesus, why is he so apparently easy to miss?

One thing about the people of Nineveh and the queen of the south is that they are both foreigners. They do not have familiarity with the message of God sufficient to be contemptuous or complacent. The crowds in Jesus' day think they know him. They believe they understand who he is and where he is from. He seems to be just one from among them. And so Jesus, in his love, tries to upset these preconceptions.

and there is something greater than Solomon here. 

and there is something greater than Jonah here.

As to what, precisely is here, Jesus leaves us to imagine. He is the ever greater, more than we can fully grasp or imagine. And this is the other part of the reason why he is easy to miss. We prefer safe things which can be neatly categorized and held to certain expectations. Jesus, however, is not like them.

These risks about misunderstanding the identity of Jesus face us as well. He is always greater than the ideas and expectations our past experiences of him have shaped. We can become complacent.  We can argue when he goes against our expectations. We can dismiss him when we don't understand what he is doing. Or hopefully, by grace we can come to him sincerely, allowing him to be who he is, demanding no conditions for our part.

Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me

12 March 2019 - how you are to pray

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

We don't pray to tell God anything he doesn't already know. We don't pray to persuade him to act against what would be his normal inclination. We pray instead as people praying to a Father who delights to give us the Kingdom (see Luke 12:32). If Jesus himself tells us to persist like the widow against the unjust judge it is not a change in God that is the actual result. Rather prayer changes us first. The miraculous results in the world, though we should expect them, must be secondary in the mind of God or else he would not hold back until we ask.

Our Father who art in heaven

To pray well we must know who we are. We must begin with a sense of our identity as children of our heavenly Father. Only if his name is hallowed in our hearts do we have the confidence he wants us to have. When we cry out to God as Father we are able to desire what he desires and to ask in faith for the things he wants us to ask.

thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

The word that goes forth from the mouth of God will not return to him void. It is given to us through the Jesus who is the will of the Father. As the prayer we know as the Our Father this word has its effect in our hearts and in the world. It achieves the end for which it was sent.

We often underestimate the power of the Our Father. This is perhaps because we've gotten used to rushing through it, to simply babbling like the pagans. But there is immense power when we pray it attentively and with perseverance. The Father who gives good gifts to his children (see Matthew 7:11) is waiting to answer us.

I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears. 

11 March 2019 - the least of these

Today's Readings

(Audio)

When the Son of Man comes in his glory,
and all the angels with him,
he will sit upon his glorious throne,
and all the nations will be assembled before him.

This image of the Son of Man coming in glory should be something to which we look forward. It should give us joy to imagine it. No longer shall the glory of the Son of Man be hidden or only revealed partially and hidden as during his transfiguration. Rather, all the nations shall behold him. Yet rather than giving us joy, this imagine sometimes makes us fearful.

And he will separate them one from another,
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

If we are made fearful by the coming judgment it may be because that day will strip us of our pretenses. We will no longer be able to pretend that a merely abstract religion means anything.

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen (see First John 4:20).

God increasingly identifies himself with the poor and needy of his people. When we deny, ignore, or mistreat them we are in effect denying something of God's identity as love itself (see First John 4:7). This identity is why Jesus himself is persecuted when Saul persecutes his people.

And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting (see Acts 9:4-5).

For Jesus to recognize us at his coming we need to allow his love in us to reach out to his presence in our brothers and sisters.

You shall not act dishonestly in rendering judgment.
Show neither partiality to the weak nor deference to the mighty,
but judge your fellow men justly.
You shall not go about spreading slander among your kin;
nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor's life is at stake. 
I am the LORD.

Jesus wants us to recognize his presence in others so that the seed of love placed within our hearts can reach out and grow and embrace them.

Amen, I say to you, whatever you did
for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.

These may seem like nice words of a pleasant metaphor. But there is a fearsome truth in Jesus' words of self-identification with those who suffer. If we embrace that truth we can have confidence on the day of judgment because he will not be a stranger to us. We will recognize him and he will know us as his own.

Come, you who are blessed by my Father.
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

10 March 2019 - the word is near us

Today's Readings

(Audio)

For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

We tend to have a whole list of things we try before calling on the LORD's name. The Jewish people thought that their covenant of circumcision was all they needed to worry about. We tend to think more of our health and our bank accounts. What is the problem that each of these approaches share? They cannot save us. Only in the people of the New Covenant of God, the people with no distinction between Jew and Greek, under the same LORD, only there can we find salvation. 

the same Lord is Lord of all,
enriching all who call upon him.

We can only approach God through the redemptive work of his Son Jesus. We come to him through faith. But we do not stop there. If we want to abide in him we must continue to walk in faith. We must begin not just once with him, not just once a day, but moment to moment we should make faith our foundation.

The word is near you,
in your mouth and in your heart
—that is, the word of faith that we preach—, 
for, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord 
and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, 
you will be saved.

This sounds, perhaps, like a one and done situation. Believe, confess, and then chill, because everything is settled. But this is not correct. Rather, the faith to which we are called is a faith that can shape each moment of our lives.

For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin (see Romans 14:23).

To clarify, this doesn't mean we need a conscious thought of faith every time we act. But it does mean that we need a strong coherence between even the seemingly small aspects of our daily life and the faith which our lips profess. Only such faith can sustain us in the desert of temptation. The one and done, once saved always saved approach will fail us in the desert. It will be too distant of our word to keep our trust in God alive.

Jesus said to him in reply,
"It is written:
You shall worship the Lord, your God,
and him alone shall you serve."

The word of faith is meant to remain near us, not just in our hearts, but on our lips. We confess it for salvation not just once, but often, especially when we experience temptation. Just as the descendants of Moses stayed connected to their salvation history by faith so too do we. Just as that faith enabled them to generously offer themselves to God, so too for us this Lent.

Therefore, I have now brought you the firstfruits
of the products of the soil 
which you, O LORD, have given me.

The word of faith is not far from us unless we allow it to be so. Rather, let us pray with the psalmist, "Be with me Lord, when I am in trouble."

9 March 2019 - unencumbered

Today's Readings

(Audio)

He said to him, "Follow me."
And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.

Lent gives us a time to lay down encumbrances which keep us from following Jesus. What keeps us from moving at his word? What stifles the good impulses he inspires in our hearts? To this end, some soul searching is necessary.

"Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.
I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners."

We need a physician who is able to show us the path to life. This is the way Jesus alone can lead as we follow after him.. When we abandon possessions or habits or comforts it is not simply a negation, nor even for the sake of an abstract good. We do these things so that we can remain near to Jesus Christ.

Following Jesus ultimately means becoming like him. It means learning that we get more joy out of loving and serving than we do from receiving for ourselves.

If you remove from your midst oppression,
false accusation and malicious speech;
If you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
Then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday;
Then the LORD will guide you always
and give you plenty even on the parched land.

This is not an easy lesson. But Jesus shows it to us first hand. He came not to be served but to serve. He came to lay down his life as a ransom for many. Even though he emptied himself and took the form of a slave to die for us while we were yet sinners he did not lead a life of self-loathing. Rather, no one was ever more joyful and secure in the Father's love.

We are invited to put Jesus absolutely first in our lives this Lent. If we hedge our bets we will miss the whole point.

If you hold back your foot on the sabbath
from following your own pursuits on my holy day;
If you call the sabbath a delight,
and the LORD's holy day honorable;
If you honor it by not following your ways,
seeking your own interests, or speaking with maliceB
Then you shall delight in the LORD,

When we choose to follow Jesus and to learn to love as he loves we begin to experience the same joy and peace he has in the Father's love for him. We become for others a sign of his presence.

He will renew your strength,
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring whose water never fails.
The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake,
and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up;
"Repairer of the breach," they shall call you,
"Restorer of ruined homesteads."

So, with the psalmist, we pray "Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth."

8 March 2019 - heard on high

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Can the wedding guests mourn
as long as the bridegroom is with them?

It is true that the LORD is with us always, even unto the end of the age (see Matthew 28:20). We do "not grieve as others do who have no hope" (see First Thessalonians 4:13). Yet even though Jesus is present and available to his people we do not always avail ourselves of his presence. We allow the fallen world to distract us and in doing so there is a sense in which the bridegroom is taken from us.

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast.

The cross is our refuge when the bridegroom seems far from us. Carrying it is our path to find Jesus again. Fasting and carrying our cross help us to learn to put Jesus first and to unite our suffering in the world with his own. Jesus, it turns out, was taken from us, but never gone so completely that we could not follow. We simply refused, preferring instead to hide. We lied to bystanders in the outer courts about our relationship with Jesus because to be honest meant sharing in his fate.

The way of the cross is not self-hatred or suffering to no purpose. The way of the cross is the way of love. 

Is this the manner of fasting I wish,
of keeping a day of penance:
That a man bow his head like a reed
and lie in sackcloth and ashes?

Embracing the cross shows our love for Jesus and our refusal to let any earthly thing separate us from him. It shows our love of neighbor for the suffering we bear is made infinitely valuable by Jesus for their sakes.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church (see Colossians 1:24).

Fasting so as to make our voice heard on high frees us to love in practical ways.

This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking every yoke;
Sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own.

Yet, though fasting is in this sense practical, there is something more than mere good deeds here. There is the paschal mystery at work.

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your wound shall quickly be healed;
Your vindication shall go before you,
and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer,
you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!