Help in Haiti

Bible says Christ is within us. Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me.” If you want to take anything literal in the Bible, take this literally: Christ lives within us. 2 Cor. 13:5, “Examine yourselves. Do you not know that Christ Jesus is really in you? If not, you have failed the test.”

One chief action of Jesus was the laying down of his life for the sake of others. He did it regularly, not just once at the very end of his life. He lived to help and heal people and to point to the joy and abundance of God’s real presence in life.


This has been a devastating week – to watch the horror of the earthquake in Haiti and how it is affecting the lives of people already struggling to survive. We in western KY know what struggles natural disasters can bring. 50 weeks ago we struggled through our own natural disaster in the ice storm of 2009. And we know the joy of receiving aid from people who lived in other parts of our synod. We knew we were not forgotten in our need.

We have the same opportunity to follow the law of love for our neighbor in the people of Haiti, to show them that there is a God and a people who care about them. There is an immediate way we can be Christ Jesus and his hands of healing to a people in great need. Cash today will bring them clean water, food, medicine for survival. Send cash with your prayers.

In the 10th century, there was a saint and mystic known as Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022) who wrote some words that point to the embodiment of Christ Jesus, created by God’s grace, in this force we call the body of Christ. It’s hymn 15 in his Hymns of Divine Love, and goes like this:

We awaken in Christ’s body,
As Christ awakens our bodies.
There I look down and my poor hand is Christ,
He enters my foot and is infinitely me.
I move my hand and wonderfully
My hand becomes Christ,
Becomes all of Him.
I move my foot and at once
He appears in a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous to you?
- Then open your heart to him,
And let yourself receive the one
Who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him,
We wake up inside Christ’s body
Where all our body all over,
Every most hidden part of it,
Is realized in joy as Him,
And He makes us utterly real.
And everything that is hurt, everything
That seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably damaged,
Is in Him transformed.
And in Him, recognized as whole, as lovely,
And radiant in His light,
We awaken as the beloved
In every last part of our body.

I found this in Richard Rohr's book, Hidden Things: Scripture as Spirituality, St. : St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2008.
Be Christ’s hands in the world today.

Peace - PWM

Matthew 22:34-46 The Greatest Commandments

Christians only need two commandments. If we’d work on following these two – love God and love neighbor – we, too, could fulfill the Law. There would be far less fighting in the church. And more people would be running to the church, as if to – imagine this – Jesus. There would be no one left hungry, no one homeless, no one cast out or forgotten.

Martin Luther said the purpose of the law is show us we cannot keep it, to reveal our sin and our need for a savior. That’s a good theological explanation for why the law was given to Moses. I think it was also given as practical evidence of God’s wisdom and love for humanity, created in God’s image. The law is a blessing that guides people in living together in harmony and peace, as well as protects them from the consequences of actions done without love or regard for the wellbeing of others.

When people don’t act in accordance with love, bad things happen. Not because God is mad and punishes them but because there are negative consequences when we don’t act in love. The law is given to serve love, like Jesus said about the Sabbath – it was given for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Here’s a quote from Luther than will turn some socks inside out: “The works of the law are not commanded merely for the purpose of performing them, God would not want us to keep them to the injury and destruction of love. If any commandment opposes the love of neighbor, [God] wants us to renounce and annul them.” (Vol. 5, 169-195)

We’ve renounced many laws already that have proven they don’t serve the good of our neighbor. Women can wear men’s style clothing, men can have long hair, women can serve in leadership/preaching positions in the church, we can eat pork and shrimp, divorced persons can remarry and serve their Lord. Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matt. 9:37-38).

All the Law and Prophets hang on the laws of loving God and our neighbor. Every law must pass through the filter of love. If it does not pass the test of bringing good will to our neighbor, then, like Jesus stepping over the Sabbath law to heal a man’s withered hand, that law doesn’t fit for that circumstance. I don’t go a far as Luther to say we should throw out a particular law if it doesn't meet an isolated case that goes against love. Jesus didn't throw out the Sabbath law. Why throw out a blessing from God? We follow the law when it blesses us or our neighbor. Yet in Christ, we can set it aside when it does not serve the welfare of ourselves or our neighbor.

I like to compare the biblical instructions to lines on a parking lot. They guide and bring order to many people coexisting in a confined area. Yet, uniform parking spaces don’t fit every kind of vehicle. Drive an 18-wheeler into a parking lot and it’s not going to fit between the lines. Some adjustments and flexibility must be present if that vehicle is to coexist with all the others. You can welcome the 18-wheeler into the community with all it has to offer, or you can try to force it to fit between the lines. As impossible as that is, religious legalists insist it is God’s will that everyone fit between the lines. They place the law above love. But God’s will is love, not law.

May we learn to filter all our interpretations of law through the lens of Love.

Peace and Love - PWM

Updating - changing - reinventing

As I look at previous posts, I have one thing to say --- BORING. Too intellectual. Too impersonal. A change is coming.

Matthew 18:23-35 Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor

This parable comes in response to Peter’s question about how many times should we forgive our brother. Jesus answers by showing that the kingdom of heaven is about forgiveness. Some people know they have much that needs to be forgiven. When standing before God, they recognize they have a greater debt to pay than they can ever pay back. The law shows us the enormity of our debt, and that we deserve punishment. Since you can’t earn much money in prison, there’s no way you can pay it back. Such is the case with sin. The little that we can do on our own efforts won’t make a dent in the amount of harm we have done by our actions. All one can do is to plead for mercy.

God is gracious and loving, forgiving not only the debt but the punishment as well. Justice involves payment for debt. Mercy can only be given to someone who cannot pay the debt. So is God just or is God merciful? I get the impression most Christians want a just God. They want to see punishment meted out for the crime. And justice excludes mercy. An interesting dilemma.

Quotes by Martin Luther: “The Gospel, or the kingdom of God, is nothing else than a state in which there is nothing but the forgiveness of sin. Wherever there is no forgiveness, there is no kingdom of God.” Civil law and rights are not abolished with the forgiveness of sin, for civil government is found in the kingdom of the world, which must administer its laws and punishments to keep people in line. Whereas forgiveness is in the spiritual world.

The story continues when the man who couldn’t pay his own debt, pleaded for and received mercy, was unwilling to show mercy to someone who owed a small debt. The kingdom of God exists only when forgiveness flows through us and we let go of the debt someone is unable to pay us. When we can’t forgive, we are tormented, i.e., tortured by the jailers. Unforgiveness is a self-inflicted gift that keeps on giving to the one who holds it.

Forgiveness is not given in lip-service only. True forgiveness means a letting go of the debt and the punishment we would like to see the other person experience. Can anyone ever live in the kingdom of God? Narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it (Matt. 7:14) Forgiveness is one of the keys.

Blessings,
PWM

Matt. 15:21-28 Jesus Tests a Canaanite Woman’s Faith

It’s nice to know the details about the historical witness of this and every other story in the Bible, but if it doesn’t impact me and my life for the better, what value is it? How does this story impact MY life? And how does it impact YOUR life?

The Canaanite woman was considered an outcast in the eyes of the children of Israel, a Gentile. Since most Christians today are not converted Jews, she represents us. And still, most Christians think that WE are now the chosen people of God. Chosen by God in our baptism to be God’s children. We’ve effectively displaced the Jews, we Christians are the new chosen of God. Now that we are the true children who have the Bread to ourselves, the story fits us even better.

But Jesus leaves the homeland and ventures into the land of the outcasts. Why does he do that? Why does he leave the hallowed halls of our tradition to be around outcasts? I thought he said he would be with us always. Yet we find him among the outcasts.

Who are the outcasts in the eyes of Christians today?
(1) Unbelievers - who reject traditional understanding of the biblical narrative and reject blind adherence to scriptural demands. (2) The poor - if you can’t pull yourself up with self-discipline and will power, there must be something wrong with you. No free lunches are served these days. (3) Sinners – who the righteous determine are not following specific rules of the Bible. Maybe these are the outcasts today. If they don’t meet our rights of initiation, and conform to our rules, they don’t deserve our Jesus.

And yet, Jesus goes to where the outcasts live. The only advertising Jesus needs is word of mouth. People heard he was kind. He was able to help them. He was willing to help them. Imagine how churches might look on Sunday mornings today if sinners in need of healing, forgiveness, heard that the church was kind, and able to help, and willing to help…without conditions attached.

Three times the woman approached Jesus. She trusted the witness of others who had told her that Jesus was kind, and willing to help. She trusted and desired it so much that she endured his silence, his timing that wasn’t her timing, and even being told that she was not one of the chosen – not one of the original children set aside to receive God’s blessing and promise. She still trusted the testimony of others that he was good, and desired to help people in need regardless that she didn’t qualify by the religious rules. She claimed the goodness of God she heard was in him. And she was not disappointed.

Trust the witness of the New Testament that tells us God is love – kind, able, and willing to help us if we call in Jesus’ name. This changes my life. How can I not serve him? How can I live in ways that do not please him? I work harder at it if I trust the goodness of the One who loves me.

Blessings - PWM

Matthew 13:24-30 The Wheat and the Tares

After many forms of teaching and miracle stories in the first twelve chapters of Matthew, the gospel writer fills this chapter with parables. The first parable is the Sower and the Seed, after which the disciples ask Jesus why he teaches in parables. Jesus speaks, “I do it to show you that people can hear and see something without understanding it” and “it fulfills the prophecy in Isaiah.” Then Jesus explains the parable of the Sower.


The second parable is a literary duplicate of the first. Jesus tells a parable of the wheat and tares. Matthew then tells us another place in the Old Testament (Psalm 78) where the Messiah will speak in parables. Then Jesus explains the meaning of the parable to the disciples.

Why? Why would Matthew want to show us that those who met Jesus face to face, who heard his teachings and saw his miracles, didn’t understand what Jesus was trying to teach them? If people who had direct physical interaction with Jesus didn’t understand, then why do we think we can understand at all? Maybe the point is found in the follow up to each parable. Only Jesus can help us to understand his teachings.

I think this might encourage us to go away with Jesus to a quiet place. To be alone with him. To sit at his feet. To let the Word himself enter our thoughts and imagination. As we read the story in Scripture, to place ourselves within it, then he can teach us what he wants each of us to learn. That doesn’t mean we will come away with the same learning points. He will teach me something applicable to my life today, and he will teach you what you need to hear. This is the mystery and wisdom of the parables, one tree can yield many fruits.

I can give one example of hearing without hearing. For six years, in sermons and in Bible studies, I’ve been sharing my understanding of the kingdom of heaven. To make a long story short: the words ‘kingdom of heaven’ can be replaced with the words, the ‘reign of God.’ The kingdom of heaven is is a current state of being – allowing God to reign in your life today. The KOH in these parables is not teaching about where you and I are going to go when we die. I’ve been teaching these replacement words for six years, and last week, when we were analyzing this parable, the initial focus was ‘how is this like heaven?’

So what is the reign of God in the current day like? The seeds of trust in God are sown by Jesus himself. When they are placed in fertile ground, trust grows well. Yet, life is not all roses. There will be weeds and obstacles that get in the way of growing trust. There will be people and teachings (or fear and distrust) that interfere with the ability for trust to grow. Not to worry. Let it all develop together. Who are we to be able to separate out the good from the bad (people, teachings, feelings) when they all look alike. Leave it up to God to sort things out at the end. Just do your best to continue growing in trust for God, and the kingdom, the reign of God in you, will grow.

And get into the habit of going away with Jesus to be alone. Let him teach you.

Blessings - PWM

Matt. 11:2-11 Evidence that Jesus is the Messiah

I’m going to change the way in which I blog these gospel texts. In the past, I’ve been more academic, more religious, more exegetical about the text, letting Martin Luther contribute to the discussion. I’m feeling a little blogged down by this format. Rather than cover a whole text, or be limited by one text a week, I plan to blog about a text from Luther's Church Postil that we are studying for the week, and a possibly another text from the lectionary for Sunday. I might focus on the entire text or just one thought. My primary goal is to identify what each text might be able to teach us for the present day rather than simply analyze what happened in the past.

This text in Matthew 11 shows Jesus’ answer to John the Baptist’s question (from prison) as to whether or not Jesus is the promised messiah, or should they expect someone else. Jesus said, “Look at what I do – that should tell you who I am.” Can our denominations say the same thing? If people want to know if we are the Body of Christ in the world today, can they look at what we do and determine if we are like Jesus? The same applies to me as an individual. If people want to know if I am a follower of Jesus Christ, can they look at what I do and be convinced?

Is my religious work focused on protecting the word of God, or the dogma and doctrines of my particular church theologians? Or are we clinging to our denominational loyalties (Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Wesley, Aquinas, etc.) today like Luther said the church of his day clung to their saints and popes?

What did Jesus do to show he was the Christ? He said, “Report what you hear and see. The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” Where there are good works, there is Christ. Where there is good news, there is Christ. The odd phrase Jesus added was this: “Blessed are those who do not fall away on account of me.” Why would Christians today fall away from Jesus who was a healer, a forgiver, a servant, a witness to the goodness of God? Maybe because Jesus wasn’t a condemner or a punisher. Maybe because Jesus did not match the tradition's image of God from the Old Testament…a God of law rather than a God of love. Many people desire a God who will make bad people (which never includes them) pay for their sins for eternity, rather than accept that the Son received the punishment to himself.

The Christian life consists of placing one’s complete trust in God as revealed in Jesus, and acting in love toward our neighbors in need. I am the blind, the lame, the leprous, the deaf, the poor person who is totally dependent upon Jesus Christ to make me whole; I cannot do this on my own effort. Christ alone heals my spirit, and frees me to experience peace, joy, love, and hope as I live to please Him.

Blessings - PWM