God Comes Closer

This past Sunday was one of my favorite days of the year: Pentecost. Pentecost is the day when Christians celebrate the events of Acts chapter 2, when, after Jesus ascends back to heaven, the Holy Spirit is first poured out on the Church. In John’s gospel, Jesus tells the disciples about this impending arrival of the Spirit, and he says a couple of things there that may sound pretty unbelievable.

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. (14:12)

What is that supposed to mean? “Even greater things” than turning water into wine, restoring a man’s ability to walk, raising Lazarus from the dead? How are believers supposed to top that?

But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. (16:7)

It’s for our good? Why on earth would it be a good thing that Jesus leaves?

To me, these two verses go hand in hand. The reason Jesus’s going away to the Father results in his disciples surpassing the works he did (14:12) is that Jesus’s going away results in the arrival of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit (16:7).

But how can the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives rival having Jesus here, walking with us, working his miracles, changing lives?

Because Jesus walked with us, but the Holy Spirit dwells within us, closer than even Jesus could come.

That’s a theme in the story of scripture. After the first couple ate the fruit in Eden, they were expelled from the garden, creating a physical separation between themselves and their Maker. When the Lord took up residence among the Israelites in the tabernacle and then in the Temple, though, suddenly God was near again. Not many people could come very close to God’s presence in the inner sanctuary, but it was a first step in bridging that physical separation. With Jesus, God came even closer: now he was close enough to touch, to eat with, to cry on. And then came the Spirit: as close to us as God has ever been before.

Jason Byassee, who was teaching at Duke when I was in seminary, writes about this in his book Trinity: The God We Don’t Know.

There are two sendings of God into human history to give life and save—the Son and the Spirit (John 6:63). And each is better than the previous. Religious communities do have a tendency to look back to a golden era and romanticize a lost time. The church should not. We know greater things are yet to come. God not only grants us knowledge about himself, God progressively comes closer to us, fills us and our world with more of himself. First Son, then Spirit. With God, the best is always yet to come. (pp. 38-39)

Pentecost is the story of God coming closer, doing greater things in our lives than ever before, and—if we'll cooperate with the Spirit—doing greater things through us than this world has ever seen before.

You can listen to this week's devotional here:

Friend of Tax Collectors and Sinners

This week I’m going to upset someone. Hopefully, that’s not because I’m trying to be shocking or controversial, but because I’m trying to answer the question, What would Jesus do?

After all, Jesus upset people.

In fact, a lot of people seemed to find him downright scandalous. After Christ called Levi (Matthew) the tax collector to join the disciples, Levi threw a big party at his place to celebrate:

… and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:29-32)

In that time, tax collectors were viewed as collaborators with the pagan Romans who’d conquered the Promised Land, and they were despised by most of their neighbors. Seeing Jesus fellowship with them (and some other, unspecified “sinners”) around a meal—a pretty intimate setting in their culture—shocked the Pharisees and scribes.

And this wasn’t just a one-time complaint. Later, in chapter 7, Jesus reveals what some people have been saying about him: “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” (7:34) Clearly this was meant as a criticism. ‘He’s a drunk. He’s a glutton. And he keeps shameful company!’

Jesus’s devout observers were scandalized.

Now, I’m sure no one’s upset yet.

But. Have you ever wondered: If Jesus were walking the Earth today, who could he spend time with that would scandalize devout observers? You know, observers like you and me. Which “tax collectors and sinners” would be over the line and upset you?

Jesus grabbing lunch with some pro-choice advocates who just finished demonstrating at the court house?

Maybe if he was joking with an anti-vax crusader, someone who ridicules others on social media for getting their COVID shots?

Or Jesus hanging out with some fellows from the Pride Parade?

What if Christ had a pen pal on death row? Say, a mom who’d killed her kids?

Are you scandalized yet?

But if Jesus did that in his day, wouldn’t he today?

All of that doesn’t tell you the first thing about Jesus’s views of abortion or same-sex relationships or vaccines. But it says everything about his views of people who advocate for abortions, or are in same-sex relationships, or condemn vaccines: he loves them, and he wants them. That’s Jesus’s view of anyone you can think of: he loves them, and he wants them. Everyone. Always.

And it’s precisely the people whom we might consider most spiritually sick and lost—whoever that is to you—those are the people Jesus sees as most deserving of his time and attention.

But he doesn’t come at them like John the Baptist, berating and warning and “scaring the hell out of” sinners, like an old-time revival preacher. Jesus comes offering friendship—a relationship that’ll change your life, if you let it.

And shouldn’t we go and do likewise?

Shouldn’t we go after the people whom we are sure God wouldn't associate with? People who may be sure themselves that God wouldn’t associate with them? Shouldn’t we go after them and show them just how wrong we all were and just how much Jesus loves them and wants them?

Because the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10).

Listen to this week's devotional right here:

That's Not What I Meant!

“I didn’t mean to!”

“Well that’s not what I meant.”

“I wasn’t trying to upset anyone.”

How often do you find yourself saying something like that? You opened your mouth, or you made a decision that affected others, and you had good intentions (or, at least, not bad ones)—but now you’re finding out that things didn’t go like you thought or weren’t received the way you expected, and you’re feeling defensive. I am not the problem here! you’re trying to explain. You just took things the wrong way. Or, How could I have known it would cause all of that??

If you are a human being who interacts with other human beings, you’ve experienced this.

There’s a long discussion in the book of Romans that can sound a little odd to us today. It’s in chapter 14 (and the beginning of 15), where Paul addresses whether or not Christians should eat meat. Now, this wasn’t about veganism or vegetarianism versus diets that include meat. The real issue here is idolatry. So much of the meat available to the Christians in Rome came from pagan temples and had been offered to pagan gods in their ceremonies. What the believers in the church were unsure about was whether it was permissible for Christians to eat meat that had been involved in idolatrous religious rituals. Some were eating it, while some weren’t, and this was creating tension within their congregation.

What does all of that have to do with anything? Stay with me.

Paul doesn’t give the Romans a direct answer on this, like ‘Yes, you can eat that meat’ or ‘No, stay away from that.’ Instead, his guidance is more situational:

Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother or sister… If your brother or sister is distressed by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love… Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding… it is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother or sister stumble. (14:13, 15, 19, 21)

His primary concern wasn’t their food. It was their neighbors. To Paul, it doesn’t matter where the meat came from; you can eat it (14:14). But, if your neighbor’s faith was unsettled because they saw you, a fellow Christian, eating meat sacrificed to an idol, then you shouldn’t be eating it. The question guiding him wasn't Am I right, or wrong? but Am I helping or harming others?

The backbone of Paul’s teaching here is his conviction that Christians must consider the impact their choices have on others, not just the intentions behind those choices. You may act with very pure motives, without any desire to cause harm (physical, spiritual, or otherwise) to another person—but if that harm nevertheless occurs, your good intentions no longer matter. All that matters is the effect your actions had on others.

Sometimes you will be misunderstood, and you may even be unfairly accused of intentional harm.

But instead of getting defensive, what if, in those moments, we kept our neighbors as our primary concern and worried more about the effects of our actions on others than about how we're perceived by others?

What if, instead of rushing to your own defense, you rushed to apologize or make amends?

What if, instead of trying to help them understand you and your intentions better, you tried to understand them and their reaction better?

What if, rather than arguing to show them our innocence, we reached out to show them our love?

You can listen to this devotional right here!

Check Your Blind Spots

Lately our Sunday school class has been doing a video study based on Sharon Hodde Miller's book Nice: Why We Love to Be Liked and How God Calls Us to More. I've been reading through the book as we watch the videos each week, and I want to share with y'all something that she talks about in there that really jumped out at me.

While offering some tips on how to cultivate discernment, Miller brings up James 1:19: "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry." This, she says, is "our greatest resource for practicing discernment." But why does James insist (along with the book of Proverbs) that God's people need to be good listeners?

Think about a driver's blind spots in the car, the little gaps in your vision that even the mirrors don't show you. She writes,

The interesting thing about blind spots is that everyone else on the road can see what you cannot. If you try to change lanes and a car in in your blind spot, the driver will likely blare their horn. In that instance, your greatest help is the vision and warning of others.

Followers of Jesus must be good listeners because other people will see things that we don't, things that we may desperately need to be aware of.

But she doesn't stop there. Miller goes on to bring up Paul's picture of the church as the Body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12. He writes that "the body is not made up of one part but of many... The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!' And the head cannot say to the feet, 'I don't need you!'" (12:14, 21) Paul wanted the Corinthians to understand that every member of the body (the church) has a role to play, and the members that seem "weaker" to you are in fact indispensable. (12:22)

When you think about certain members of your church, you may not feel like they’re particularly “indispensable” for your faith journey. In fact, you might imagine you’d get along just fine without them. And, sure enough, when disputes arise between Christians, often our impulse is to separate ourselves from each other. But Miller (who is not Methodist, if you were wondering) worries that these divisions ultimately harm the Church, because homogenous groups of believers can’t see their own blind spots. “We cannot see our blind spots without the help of people who are standing in a totally different place with a totally different point of view.” Sometimes the only thing between us and a theological or ethical wreck is the vision and warning of others. Their different point of view is indispensable.

What Sharon Hodde Miller's saying here is pretty counter-cultural, and I think she leaves us with a couple of important questions to ponder:

• Are you “quick to listen” to people with very different perspectives than yours, or do you mostly listen to those you agree with?
• Are you surrounding yourself with people who can see your blind spots? Or are you surrounding yourself with people who share the same blind spots you do?

Listen to this week's devotional right here!

Love Filling the Heart

Photo by Nicola Fioravanti on Unsplash

“I have hidden your word in my heart
    that I might not sin against you.” - Psalm 119:11

Sometimes scripture describes our hearts as a sort of receptacle that you can fill with, well, whatever you choose. On the one hand, you can hide God’s word in your heart, like the psalmist. On the other hand, Jesus warns us to be mindful of what we put into our hearts, or they may end up filled with evil thoughts, murder, greed, lustful desires, envy, and more (Mark 7:20-23).

John Wesley, one of the fathers of the Methodist movement, talked about our hearts, too. In his preaching and teaching, Wesley challenged Christians to strive for perfection—like Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matt 5:48 KJV) To our ears, that probably sounds a little lofty and unrealistic. But I’ve always loved how Wesley explained “perfection.”

But what is perfection? … it means perfect love. It is love excluding sin; love filling the heart, taking up the whole capacity of the soul… For as long as love takes up the whole heart, what room is there for sin therein? (“The Scripture Way of Salvation,” I.9, III.14)

He doesn’t describe someone who perfectly keeps every rule or perfectly avoids every pitfall. He describes a heart that’s been filled up with love—what Paul wrote about in Romans 5:5: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” If your heart is filled to the brim with God’s love, Wesley figured, there won’t be any room left for sin in there.

Following Jesus faithfully isn’t about checking all the right boxes. It’s about filling your heart with the right things. If we are careful and deliberate with our hearts, our lives will be transformed, because everything we do flows from there (Prov 4:23).

So… what have you been filling your heart with lately?

What things have you been dwelling on? What things have you been treasuring, with your thoughts, your money, or your time? What do you give pride of place in your schedule every day? What are you sure to make time for, and never, ever neglect?

Things that give the Holy Spirit an opportunity to pour God’s love into your heart?

Scripture, that you’re carefully hiding away in your heart, as an internal compass and an anchor for resisting sin’s pull?

Things that feed your envy, your pride, your lust, your rage?

What are you filling your heart with?

And what do you need to begin to fill your heart with today?

Listen to this week's devotional right here!