How Can I Help?

“We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up.” – Romans 15:1-2 (NIV)

I was at a Bible study recently where someone shared the beginning of Romans 15 from Eugene Peterson’s The Message:

Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?”

Because The Message is a paraphrase and not a literal translation, Peterson was able to add layers of meaning to the Bible’s words—and I think this is one case where that really worked. To me, “Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up” doesn’t pack the same punch as “Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, ‘How can I help?’”

It’s completely natural to make decisions based on what would be most convenient or most pleasing to me. And yet, for Paul, following Jesus means taking the unnatural step of setting those considerations aside and, instead, asking ‘What would be best for the people around me’?

Maria Skobtsova

Maria Skobtsova was a Russian Orthodox missionary in France, who spent her life serving the poor, those with mental illnesses, addicts, and others in Paris, until the Nazis invaded and eventually murdered her in a concentration camp. “Mother Maria,” as people called her, knew a thing or two about caring for the people around her. She once wrote that, if we want to serve others, our attitude must be

… conscious renunciation of oneself, in a readiness always to follow the will of God, in a desire to become the fulfiller of God’s design in the world, a tool in His hands, a means and not an end.

This is what Paul’s talking about in Romans. A “conscious renunciation of oneself” means choosing not to pursue my own convenience or pleasure. A desire to become “a means and not an end” is a way of saying that my life—my words, my actions, my plans—my life is aimed at the good of others, rather than at myself.

When you do that, you become “the fulfiller of God’s design in the world.” In other words, you make the world look more like God always intended. Yes, you. Your selfless love makes, even just in small ways, the Kingdom come and God’s will be done on earth.

But that’s only possible when Jesus’s people begin to look at the world with new eyes, no longer asking “what’s most convenient for me?” but asking ourselves “How can I help?”

Listen to this week's devotional below!

A Part of the Solution

Do you know that really inconvenient line in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount about ‘turning the other cheek’? He says:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well… (Matt 5:38-40)

Paul says something similar in Romans chapter 12. He writes:

Do not repay anyone evil for evil… Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
    if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (12:17, 19-21)

Okay. We get it. When someone wrongs us, we aren’t supposed to try and get even or get payback. When we’re attacked, we don’t return fire or seek revenge. Message received.

But… why not? Clearly, that’s what Jesus expects from us, but why turn the other cheek instead of slapping theirs back?

I think that commands like this in scripture aren’t arbitrary. This isn’t just what Jesus expects from his followers, so deal with it. Our Lord actually has a good reason for saying something so seemingly crazy.

With Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this Monday, I thought I'd look back through Where Do We Go from Here, to see if Dr. King might have a word for us this week. And he, in a pretty famous passage, discusses this same topic. Only, he gets at the why: why on earth not slap back?

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it… Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. (64-65)

When you slap back, fire off that stinging retort, or somehow try to give them a taste of their own medicine, you’re only begetting more of the thing you sought to destroy. You’re contributing to the hurt and viciousness. Like Paul said, you’re adding to the evil: repaying more evil for the evil done to you.

But our aim as followers of Jesus is not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. Not to embrace hate, supposedly to drive out hatred, but to drive out hatred with love.

We’ll never heal the problems in our homes, churches, communities, or world by contributing to them. Christians should never be a part of the problem. We’re called to be a part of God’s solution.

Flee!

“Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace... Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.” - 2 Timothy 2:22-24

Two things occur to me as I read these verses from 2 Timothy.

First, he begins with an exhortation to flee the evil desires of youth or "youthful passions" (NRSV). Exactly what youthful desires and passions does he have in mind? At very least, the ones mentioned in the next verses: foolish and stupid arguments, quarrels. Flee these things.

What occurs to me when reading those verses is: We don’t flee this stuff. We actually invite it into our lives, every single day. You'd better cancel your cable subscription and delete your Facebook and Twitter accounts, if you don't want to have anything to do with "foolish and stupid arguments." Even if we're only watching, liking, or sharing those things we agree with, comfortably insulated from any other opinions by cable news biases and social media algorithms that feed us the content we prefer, we're still participating in those arguments. We're allowing one side to inform us and shape our perspectives (both of the topic and of any people who disagree), while we cheer them on in fighting the good fight. As long as we're interacting with partisan political or culture wars content online, we are very much having something to do with foolish and stupid arguments. And while some folks do their best to avoid that sort of content on social media, I imagine most of us join in with relish, running towards those youthful passions, rather than fleeing from them.

But there's something else I notice, while reading in 2 Timothy 2. He rejects, outright, any quarrelling among Christians. If your “faithfulness” leads you to be quarrelsome, it’s not faithfulness at all. Your convictions may be biblical and true, but the actions your convictions have resulted in are in defiance of scripture. If you find yourself getting into a heated argument anytime a certain topic comes up, it’s time to go back to the drawing board and rethink how your convictions need to be expressed and practiced in your life. That may be normal, acceptable behavior in our world today, but "it will not be so among you." (Matthew 20:26) Far from reflecting the normal, acceptable behaviors in our world, followers of Jesus are implored: "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Rom 12:2) If we sound just like everyone else, that's a pretty good indicator that our minds have not been renewed.

Of course, it's one thing to read 2 Timothy or read my words and think 'Yeah! It's time to stop all the fighting and quarreling'. It's another thing to take concrete steps to remove quarrelsome voices from your life. After all, one compelling Bible verse usually can't stand up to the tidal wave of media influences that crashes into our brains every day.

So what step do you need to take? What app do you need to open less often—or delete entirely? What show should you probably skip tonight? Who should you mute on your Facebook feed, because their posts always leave you hankering for a fight? 

Flee those who know how to stir up "the evil desires of youth" in you. Instead, find another voice or pastime that encourages you in the pursuit of righteousness, faith, love, and peace.

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How to Wait for God

“But you! Return to your God
        with faithful love and justice,
        and wait continually for your God.” – Hosea 12:6 CEB

Hosea is probably my favorite of the minor prophets in the Old Testament, and when I reread it recently, this verse caught my attention. What does it mean to “return to your God with faithful love and justice, and wait continually for your God”?

Some other translations, like the NIV or the NASB, make the first half of that sentence a little clearer: return to your God, “maintain” love and justice, they tell us. This is a call for God’s people to observe and hold fast to love and justice in their communal life. To me, that is sort of the “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31) dimension of this call to “return to your God.”

Then comes the “love the Lord your God” (Mark 12:30) dimension: “wait continually for your God.”

But what exactly does that look like? How are you supposed to go about ‘waiting for God’?

This is why the verse jumped out at me. When I hear “wait for God,” I’m immediately reminded of something that John Wesley said in his classic sermon, “The Means of Grace.” A means of grace, according to Wesley, is some action ordained by God to be a regular, consistent means of receiving God’s grace in your life. Prayer, for instance, is a means of grace: when we pray, we can be confident that God has made this activity a reliable way of receiving his grace. If you’re searching for the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, go to prayer and you will find it.

What does this have to do with waiting? Wesley says, “all who desire the grace of God are to wait for it in the means which he hath ordained.” If you desire grace, God’s unearned, loving action in your life, then you wait for it by using the means of grace. If you wait for God by praying, by studying scripture, by fasting, by worshipping, by engaging in holy conversations, then your wait is going to pay off. God has ordained these practices as dependable sources of his life-changing grace, so if you actively wait by using them, eventually they will yield the grace you’re after.

When Hosea calls the people to “wait for your God continually,” I don’t think that means sit around and kill time until God shows up. I think ‘wait continually’ is a challenge to wait actively, not just anticipating God’s arrival, but inviting God’s arrival. And that is what the means of grace do. ‘Here I am, God. You said that when we receive communion, you are here. So, meet me here’. By steadily using these spiritual practices, you invite God into your life, ringing the doorbell to heaven that the Lord’s given us. And when you knock, the door will be opened to you. (Matt 7:7)

Today, let’s listen to Hosea (and Wesley): Return to your God. Observe faithful love and justice. Wait continually for your God in the means which he hath ordained.

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On the Incarnation

“And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.” – Luke 2:6-7

Kenda Creasy Dean, a United Methodist minister and professor at Princeton Seminary, once described God simply as “the One who made us, who loves us too much to lose us.”

God loves you too much to lose you.

If you are ever tempted to doubt that central gospel truth, all you have to do is look at the manger. God became a baby. How ridiculous. But love makes you do ridiculous things sometimes.

And God was going to do whatever it took. The Creator of heaven and earth would spend years producing nothing but poopy diapers. The Word of God (John 1:1) would strain his little developing brain to understand the words his Momma and Daddy were saying. The One destined to put an end to pain and wipe the tears from our eyes (Rev 21:4) would cling to his mother, crying over scraped knees and singed fingers. In him was life, and that life was the light of all people (John 1:4)—and yet, far too young, his life would be taken from him, and his body laid in a dark grave. In the words of Hark! the Herald Angels Sing, “Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die.”

Because he would do whatever it took for us to be together, even live, even die. He just loves us too much to lose us.

That is the glorious message of the Incarnation, God's act of taking on humanity, becoming one of us to save all of us. Jesus, the Son of God, has eye lashes and ears, knuckles and two little toes, and all of it proclaims: “God so loved the world.”

This Sunday is Christmas, and I hope that your day is filled to the brim with joy and celebration. I hope you see loved ones you haven’t in a while. I hope you get some nice presents and eat something delicious. But more than anything, I hope you remember just how loved you are, that the sweet story of the child in the manger is the story of God’s powerful, relentless, bottomless love for you.

And may each of us respond to that love and be shaped by that love this Christmas and all the days of our lives.

The Gospel According to Hark!

The other day, I read (in one of Noah’s Christmas picture books, of all places) a verse from “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” that I don’t think I’ve ever heard before. Like so many of Charles Wesley’s lyrics, it’s dense with scriptural echoes and theological meaning:

Charles Wesley (1707-1788)

Come, Desire of nations, come!
  Fix in us Thy humble home:
Rise, the woman’s conqu’ring seed,
  Bruise in us the serpent’s head;
Adam’s likeness now efface,
  Stamp Thine image in its place:
Final Adam from above,
  Reinstate us in Thy love.

What is Wesley talking about? And what does it have to do with the birth of Christ?

This verse opens with a phrase from Haggai 2:7, which speaks of a day when “the desire of all nations will come.” The rest of the lines all connect to the story of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis and the way St. Paul applies that story to our lives in his letters.

First, Wesley alludes to Genesis 3:15. Immediately after discovering the deception that led humanity to sin, the Lord tells the serpent:

I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
    and you will strike his heel.

You can take that as a general statement about how much people hate snakes, but this verse has often been read as a reference to Jesus. He is the woman’s seed, her offspring, who will bruise the serpent’s head “in us,” who will conquer the devil’s influence in our lives.

Because of that influence, we need “Adam’s likeness,” the sin-wrecked inclinations and impulses that all humanity shares, to be ousted from our lives and replaced by the likeness of Jesus. He is the perfect image of God (Col 1:15), and he modeled for us what it would look like for human beings to reflect that image in our lives—like we were originally created to do (Gen 1:27). Jesus is the “Final Adam” (or, “last Adam,” 1 Cor 15:45) who established an alternative way to be descendants of Adam, trailblazing a new, holy path for humanity.

So, Mary’s baby boy came to stomp heads, to defeat the power of the devil, creating a chance for us to be the people we were created to be, the image of God. If we—to quote the United Methodist Church’s baptismal vows—accept the freedom and power that God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression, then we can step out of the first Adam’s shadow, and begin new lives reflecting the Final Adam. We can abide in his love (John 15:9-10).

Wesley crammed all of that into a verse of a Christmas carol because he understood that Christmas, the Son of God becoming the Son of Mary, human like us, is the linchpin of all of these incredible, gospel promises of deliverance and new life. Jesus didn’t only come to die. He came to break the mold and reshape humanity. It’s because God became a man that we can hope to overcome sin. It’s because of the baby in the manger that we can “walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4).

Christmas means you can be free from sin’s power.

Christmas means your life can be different.

“Adam’s likeness now efface, Stamp Thine image in its place."

The Doubting Prophet

Every year it’s a little surprising when gospel readings in Advent (the season leading up to Christmas) focus on John the Baptist, who’s basically the antithesis of holly and jolly. But Advent isn’t Christmas, and who better to read about during this time of preparation than “one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord’”? (Matt 3:3)

Besides, in Luke’s gospel, John’s story overlaps with the story of Christ’s birth. In Luke 1, a pregnant Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, also pregnant, with John. When Mary arrives, Elizabeth tells her, “as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.” (1:44) John is already so attuned to the Holy Spirit that he recognizes the presence of Jesus in utero! Years later, John would have those feelings about Jesus confirmed emphatically when he baptized his cousin, and God the Father announced to everyone there: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matt 3:16-17)

To me, this history with Jesus adds some weight to a question John asks in Matthew chapter 11. He’s been arrested by King Herod, and he sends messengers to Jesus from his prison cell with a single question: “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” (11:3 NLT)

John, who called Jesus “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) and said he wasn’t worthy to untie Jesus’s sandals (1:27), is now not so sure. Is this really the king we’ve been waiting for, God’s anointed one?

The John the Baptist you meet in the gospels was a radically devoted servant of God, witnessed incredible things, and understood who Jesus was literally from the time he was in his mother’s womb. Yet, he still had questions and doubts in hard times, when reality didn’t match his expectations.

And Jesus doesn’t criticize him for that.

Jesus doesn’t express any exasperation or disappointment. He simply tries to answer John’s question and help him understand. “Go and tell John…” (11:4-6)

When I hear the Advent story of the bouncing baby in Luke 1, I think about the man that child grows into, and his skepticism and misgivings. And Jesus’s response reminds me that it’s okay to have doubts and questions. Almost everyone does at some point! But doubt isn’t the opposite of faith. Unbelief is the opposite of faith. If John no longer believed, he wouldn’t have bothered to ask his question. We want to know more and want to understand better because we want to keep holding on to Jesus, not because we’ve given up.

If you’re wrestling with questions right now, don’t think that Jesus is disappointed or angry. Jesus doesn’t want you to ‘just get over it’ or ‘just have more faith’. What Jesus wants is to try and answer your questions and help you understand who is he and what he’s up to, so that y’all can keep holding on to each other and doing this life together.

What Will Your Christmas Point To?

Photo by Olena Sergienko on Unsplash

I heard someone say once that, if aliens from another world observed life on earth and saw us walking around behind our dogs outside, picking up after them with little plastic bags, the aliens would naturally assume that on Earth dogs are the masters and human beings are their slaves.

Well, what if a flying saucer came and observed our Christmas celebrations? What would they see? What would they think?

Christians believe that actions are revealing. Jesus compares people to trees and says that “each tree is known by its own fruit… The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil.” (Luke 6:44 and 45) James, arguing that you cannot separate someone’s beliefs from their deeds, says, “Show me your faith apart from works, and I by my works will show you faith.” (2:18) Our actions reveal what’s in our hearts: the beliefs that we value, the convictions that we’ll actually implement in our lives.

What will your actions reveal about your priorities and beliefs this Christmas?

How much of your holiday spending and busyness will point unambiguously to Jesus? And how much of it will point unambiguously to our society’s addictions to consumerism and eating, drinking, and being merry?

I don’t think there’s a thing in the world wrong with buying Christmas gifts for the people you love—and for people you don’t even know, through programs like Operation Christmas Child or Toys for Tots. That’s great! Do that. Enjoy yourself. Make someone’s heart glad. And I don’t think there’s a thing in the world wrong with celebrating the holidays with eating, being merry, and even (gasp!) responsible drinking. The birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem for us and our salvation is worth celebrating in a big way.

But is that what you’re celebrating? Or is Christmas just a good time with family and friends?

I don’t want to shame anybody. I want to challenge everybody. Because we’re just getting into this season, and you have plenty of time to make sure this Christmas is about Jesus! So, what are you going to do to put Jesus at the center of your Christmas? Church folk talk a lot about 'keeping Christ in Christmas'. Usually, I think, that means we want stores and statehouses to make Jesus visible in their holiday practices. But what are you doing to make Jesus visible in yours?

What gift are you getting him for his birthday?

What will you be doing on Christmas day—a Sunday!—when church doors will be open for the faithful to “come let us adore him”?

What are you teaching your children and grandchildren that this season means, through your words and your example?

Christmas time is just getting started, so I want to challenge you, before the hectic holiday schedule takes over: decide now how you want to celebrate Jesus this year. Decide now what you want your Christmas spending and busyness to reveal.

The Anti-Anxiety

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” - Philippians 4:6

I’ve often thought of this verse as Paul’s strategy for fighting anxiety: the antidote to anxiety is thanksgiving.

Now, before I say anything else: I don’t mean the kind of anxiety that keeps you from functioning normally in everyday life and requires therapy and/or prescription medication. I’ve never experienced that, personally. I have seen it up close, though, and, as far as I’m concerned, professional medical help’s often necessary—and it’s a gift from God! Don’t hesitate to ask a health professional if you need help.

But for those every day worries, dreads, and hypothetical scenarios of doom, Paul seems to offer thanksgiving here as a way to fight back. Don’t be anxious: instead, pray with thanksgiving. Then peace from God will come in and guard your heart and your mind. (4:7)

Why would gratitude help us experience peace? Because thankfulness requires an awareness of God’s presence, help, and blessings in your life. When you pray with thanksgiving, naming those gifts, you are reminding yourself of God’s actual goodness and faithfulness. Remembering the very real gifts of God is a powerful counter to the baseless fears about life we often dwell on. You don’t know if any of your fears about the future will materialize, but you do know, from personal experience, that you’ll face the future alongside a loving Father.

I realized recently, though, while reading M. Robert Mulholland Jr.’s wonderful book, Invitation to a Journey, that there’s more going on in these verses. Thankfulness is not only an antidote to anxiety; it’s an inoculation against it.

What I noticed for the first time while reading Mulholland is that Paul doesn’t recommend gratitude as a response to anxiety. He envisions it as the abiding attitude of our hearts, in good times and bad. “Rejoice in the Lord always.” (4:4) “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (4:6) Paul challenges us to make acknowledging and celebrating God’s goodness in our lives our default—always, in everything.

If you do that, then thanksgiving isn’t a helpful response to anxiety. It’s the state of mind in which anxiety finds you. That’s why it’s an inoculation: when worries and dread come knocking, you are already in the habit of paying attention to the things that bring peace. That default attitude can serve as a defense against anxiety’s incursions, instead of those feelings finding you totally unprepared for their assault.

So, if you’re not kept up at night by fears and What if?s, then now is actually the perfect time to start fortifying your heart and mind with gratitude. Pay attention to the good things in your life. Name them. Give thanks for them. Taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps 34:8). If this is your regular approach to life and prayer, prior to feeling the first tinge of worry, then, when moments of anxiety do come, you’ll be more mentally and spiritually prepared for that battle.

A Roadblock to Discernment

Occasionally I will teach about discernment and some of the obstacles that roadblock our ability to discern God’s will for different situations in life. One of those obstacles is a phenomenon that psychologists call “confirmation bias.”

Even if you’ve never heard that term, I’d bet the farm that you’ve seen confirmation bias at work. One article defines it as “the tendency of people to favor information that confirms their existing beliefs.” If you’ve ever tried to convince someone that a wild story they read on Facebook is false, but they just didn’t seem to hear your reasons or evidence, you may have been banging your head against the wall of confirmation bias. They favored information that confirmed their views—and were more likely to reject your conflicting information.

This becomes an obstacle for Christian discernment the moment God tries to tell a person something that they don’t want to hear. Confirmation bias will lead you to favor your preferred (comfortable) take on a situation and downplay any hints the Lord is dropping about a new (uncomfortable) way of seeing or doing things.

We saw an example of this in Micah at a Bible study last week at Eastlawn. Micah delivers a harsh warning concerning the idolatry, greed, and injustice in Israel and Judah, and then he records this reply:

“Don’t say such things,”
    the people respond.
“Don’t prophesy like that.
    Such disasters will never come our way!” (2:6)

The prophet laid out his case and spoke with the authority of the Lord himself, and yet God’s people simply cannot hear the message he brings. They’re like the people 2 Timothy describes, who “look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear.” (4:3) They favor information that confirms their existing beliefs. They’re blinded by confirmation bias.

Of course, the real problem with confirmation bias is that is doesn’t just affect other people: it affects you and me, too. Though, naturally, we have a hard time seeing it. ‘I’m not biased! My beliefs are just correct, and yours are wrong!’ But confirmation bias is a part of the human condition. You and I have itching ears, too. We, too, are disinclined to hear what the prophets would preach to us.

There’s no easy way around this mental roadblock. I think that being aware of the phenomenon—and aware that it’s at work in my mind, too—is an important place to start, but there will still be a struggle ahead to overcome it. 

A struggle to listen more (James 1:19). 

A struggle to be open to correction (Prov 12:1). 

A struggle, perhaps, to loosen our grip on some firmly held opinions so that we can hold tighter to “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2)—maybe some of the things we argue about so vehemently shouldn’t take up so much of our time, attention, and energy in the first place.

But, Christian, do not bypass the struggle. “Taking up your cross” is not comfortable or easy, but it is how Jesus described discipleship (Luke 9:23). Doing this well will challenge us, but it will also make us more ready to hear what our neighbors are trying to tell us and to hear what our God is trying to tell us.

Good News for Animals

Something that I didn’t expect, when I started studying the Bible years ago, was how much scripture has to say about God’s care for animals.

Christ tells us that, when someone went to the market and bought five sparrows, not one of those birds was forgotten by God. (Luke 12:6)

The Lord asks Jonah why he shouldn’t spare Nineveh—after all, the city was filled with people and animals. (Jon 4:11)

The Old Testament describes God’s careful provision for the needs of all sorts of creatures, from ravens (Job 38:41), to donkeys (Ps 104:10-11), to lions (Ps 104:21), not to mention the praise these creatures offer back to God (Ps 96:11-13, 98:7-9).

We saw this Sunday at Eastlawn that Isaiah insists even eternity has a place and a promise for animals: no longer brutal hunters or frightened prey, but simply enjoying life in God’s new world (Isa 11:6-9, 65:25).

One of the most surprising verses about all of this comes straight from the mouth of Jesus.

A professor at my seminary, Norman Wirzba, once pointed out that, while Matthew’s great commission famously sends the disciples to “all nations,” Mark says that the mission is to all created things. In Mark 16:15, Jesus commands his followers to “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” That led Dr. Wirzba to ask: Is our presence on earth “good news” for all the other creatures living alongside us?

Do you remember Watership Down, the novel about a group of rabbit refugees trying to find a new home? (Or maybe the cartoon version, that’s been traumatizing children since 1978?) In the first chapter of the book, two rabbits see a sign some humans have recently erected. They can’t read it, but it’s ominous and prompts them to flee their warren and set out for new lands. The sign, as it turns out, was advertising a subdivision that's coming soon.

Later, a rabbit who escaped that day describes the horror that unfolded when construction began: their warren pumped full of poison, rabbits that fled being shot. Reflecting on the carnage, one rabbit said that the men hated them for stealing from their gardens and fields. But another answered him, “That wasn’t why they destroyed the warren. It was just because we were in their way. They killed us to suit themselves.” 

Watership Down is fiction (if the talking bunnies didn't give that away), but the sort of disregard for and destruction of habitats and animal populations it depicts can be all too real—not to mention countless smaller, everyday acts of cruelty or neglect. If Christians are going to “proclaim the good news to the whole creation,” if our presence on earth is going to be good news for all the other creations living here, then I believe we need to be intentional about how our lives impact the animals whom we share this world with, from the dog on your couch to the rabbits in the woods behind your home. 

At very least, no creature ought to be able to say of us, “They killed us to suit themselves.”

A Civil War Good Samaritan

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in 1861

Lately I’ve been reading (okay, listening to) book called A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation, by John Matteson. It follows a couple of remarkable individuals through the wartime years leading up to Fredericksburg. One of these individuals is future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who served in the US army in the war in his 20s.

During the Battle of Antietam in 1862, Holmes was shot in the neck, though, miraculously, the bullet missed every vital part of his neck, and he would recover. As he lay on the ground bleeding that day, however, his fate wasn't at all certain. Matteson describes the scene:

As he fluttered on the edge of consciousness, a man sauntered up to him and spoke: “You’re a Christian, aren’t you?” Holmes’s eyelids flickered. “Well, then, that’s alright,” the man said with satisfaction, and wandered off. There followed a span of time whose length Holmes had no way to measure. At the end of it came a second man, who, fortunately, cared more about Holmes’s prospects in this life than in the next. William Le Duc, a regimental quartermaster, saw the prostrate captain and called for a surgeon.

Even when the surgeon saw the neck wound and dismissed Holmes as a hopeless case, Le Duc didn’t give up. He gave the injured man a sip of brandy to rouse him, helped him walk to a home nearby where he could get shelter and care, and finally sent a telegraph to Holmes’s family in Boston, letting them know what had happened.

I couldn’t hear this story without being reminded of Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. A traveler is beaten by robbers and left for dead by the road. A priest comes along and sees him there but “passed by on the other side.” Then a Levite, who also served in the Jerusalem Temple, approaches, and he, too, “passed by on the other side.” Finally, a Samaritan, universally despised by Jews, arrives, but when he sees the wounded man, “he took pity on him,” bandaged his wounds, put him on his donkey, and carried the man to an inn where someone could care for him. (10:30-35)

Preachers and teachers like to speculate about why the priest and Levite ignored the man in need. Maybe they were afraid for their own lives. Maybe they were more concerned with their own religious purity—that man looks unclean! Maybe they were too focused on their Temple duties and didn’t have time to bother with him.

This story about the good Samaritan who saved Oliver Wendell Holmes’s life (and the first man, who left him for dead) made me wonder, though: How often do we overlook the material needs around us because, “You’re a Christian, aren’t you?... Well, then, that’s alright.” How often to we prioritize spiritual needs to the extent of disregarding someone’s earthly condition, as if that’s unimportant?

Meanwhile, Jesus spent his ministry going around healing and restoring people’s earthly conditions. Jesus spent his ministry telling stories like the parable of the Good Samaritan—which, don’t forget, he ends with a question:

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” (10:36-37)

Which man was a neighbor to Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. that day?

It wasn’t the man who piously inquired about his soul. It was William Le Duc.

Go and do likewise.

The Place Where We Are

On Sunday I preached on the Lord’s Prayer and mentioned how, for me, the words “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” challenge us to see every interaction and every moment as an opportunity for the Kingdom to show up. They make us ask, throughout the day, ‘What could I do right here, right now, to help the people around me experience the power and wonder of God’s kingdom and God’s dreams for our lives?’

A few weeks back I read the book of Esther in the Wesley Study Bible, which is full of notes and comments about different passages of scripture from John Wesley’s preaching and writings, and I was struck by Wesley’s remark on the most famous verse in the book: Esther 4:14. The ruthless, narcissistic royal official, Haman, has convinced King Ahasuerus to sign off on a plan to annihilate the Jews living in the kingdom of Persia. Queen Esther, secretly a Jew herself, is pressed by her uncle, Mordecai, to plead for her people before the king. But Esther’s reluctant to go to Ahasuerus—and with good reason:

“All the royal officials and the people of the royal provinces know that one law applies to every man or woman who approaches the king in the inner courtyard and who has not been summoned—the death penalty. Only if the king extends the gold scepter will that person live. I have not been summoned to appear before the king for the last 30 days.” (4:11)

If Esther approaches the king to beg for the Jews to be spared, she may simply end up the first Jew to die in the coming holocaust.

But Mordecai is unmoved, and here comes to famous line:

“If you keep silent at this time, liberation and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father's house will be destroyed. Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this." (4:14)

Who knows? Maybe this is the reason you were chosen as queen of Persia, out of all the beautiful young women in the running. Maybe you ascended to the throne just for this moment, “for such a time as this.”

Wesley’s comment here was simple but, I think, vital: “We should every one of us consider, for what end God has put us in the place where we are?”

Why does God have you in the place where you are? In the community you’re in, in the workplace, the congregation, the club, the class that you’re in? I don’t believe that the Lord orchestrates all of our activities and involvements in life, but I do believe the Lord has a purpose for us, wherever we are. Have you stopped to wonder what that purpose might be?

After all, in each of those circumstances, you have the chance to make God’s Kingdom come and God’s will be done, right here on earth, just like it is in heaven. So what purpose does God have for you, right where you are? What opportunity has God given you, here and now, to show someone the grace, fellowship, peace, and love of the Kingdom?

Not Politics, But Hope

You may know the story of Naaman, the Syrian general suffering from leprosy who traveled to Israel to find Elisha and, hopefully, healing.

But do you remember the rocky start that Naaman got off to on his trip to see the prophet?

Naaman had heard, from an Israelite slave in his home, that there was a prophet in her land who could bring healing to this painful, isolating condition that had likely left his life in ruins. So, the general, who I assume had exhausted every hope of recovery in his own land, decided to give strange, foreign prophets a try.

So far, so good.

The trouble began when Naaman’s lord, the king of Syria, sent a letter to the king of Israel. It read, “With this letter I present my servant Naaman. I want you to heal him of his leprosy.” (2 Kings 5:6 NLT) The letter didn’t have the desired effect:

When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes in dismay and said, “Am I God, that I can give life and take it away? Why is this man asking me to heal someone with leprosy? I can see that he’s just trying to pick a fight with me.” (5:7)

When the king of Israel read that letter, he assumed the Syrian king was engaged in deceitful geopolitical maneuvering, trying to spark an international incident. Obviously, he thought, this was a ploy to start a war. The king’s kneejerk reaction was to label this as politics and attribute insidious motives to the king of Syria.

But he was wrong.

The reality was, the other king was simply staring at some of the world’s brokenness and asking God’s people to confront that brokenness with the goodness and power of the Lord. He’s hoping that Israel can accomplish the healing that the world’s pain cries out for, that God’s people can make his servant Naaman clean again. This wasn’t politics at all—Israel’s king was looking at the world through the wrong lens entirely. This was hope: that hurts can be healed, that ruins can be restored, that miracles from God can still be performed.

Every now and then, there’s something in the news that many preachers feel compelled to address (with fear and trembling) from the pulpit.

Moments that capture the eyes of the nation.

Movements that unite some in a common cause and unite others against them.

Let me suggest that, when you hear these things named in church on Sunday morning, maybe the preacher isn’t talking about “politics” instead of the Bible. Maybe the preacher isn’t just trying to be “relevant.” Maybe your preacher brings this up because the Bible is relevant to how Jesus’s people respond to these moments and movements.

Like the king of Israel, our kneejerk reaction may be to label this as politics and attribute insidious motives to the preacher. But maybe the reality is, he or she is simply staring at some of the world’s brokenness and asking God’s people to confront that brokenness with the goodness and power of the Lord.

Maybe this isn't politics. Maybe it's hope.

Who Is Rich?

There are a handful of really unnerving stories about rich people in the gospel of Luke.

In chapter 12, Jesus tells a parable about a rich man whose crops have an incredibly fruitful yield one season, and he decides to build bigger barns, store the surplus, and “eat, drink and be merry” (12:16-19). But that very night he dies, and the Lord asks him, “Now who will get the things you have prepared for yourself?” Then Jesus makes an ominous declaration: “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” (12:20-21)

In chapter 16, we get another parable. This time, a rich man lives a life of comfort and indulgence, while a poor man named Lazarus wastes away outside the gate to his home. Both men die, and Lazarus is carried to a paradise with Abraham, while the rich man is taken to Hades, where he’s tormented. Abraham tells the rich man, “in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.” (16:25) Jesus, apparently, doesn’t think any explanation is necessary this time.

Chapter 18 recounts the story of the “very wealthy” ruler who asks Jesus what he must do to have eternal life. He has meticulously followed the law all his life, but he still lacks one thing. Jesus tells him, “Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Instead, the man walks away, prompting Jesus to say, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!” (18:22-24)

I am not what most people would call “rich” or “very wealthy.” By modern American standards, I’m solidly “middle class.” And so, it’s easy for me to read these stories with some detachment: Jesus is clearly talking about someone else here, someone in higher income bracket than my own.

And yet.

And yet the average middle class American today is surrounded by luxuries and comforts beyond these rich men’s wildest dreams. I’m not talking about anything extravagant here.

Vacuum cleaners.

Mosquito repellant.

Ice makers.

Cameras.

The Weather Channel.

I read about these men and think, ‘but I’m not rich.’ Meanwhile these men would take one look at my life and say to themselves ‘I’m not rich’. Maybe I’m wealthier than I think.

When we’re reading the New Testament, we probably shouldn’t think of “rich” in terms of status, someone fit for Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Instead, think of “rich” in terms of the potential for instant gratification and unlimited purchasing possibilities. That describes the rich in Jesus’s day, but it describes middle class America in 2022 even more.

I need to realize just how much Jesus’s words apply to me.

I need to recognize how the temptations these men faced—storing up things for themselves, living in comfort while others lack life’s basic necessities, desiring my possessions more than I desire my Savior—these are all temptations that I face, too.

I need to take seriously Jesus’s call to be rich toward God, store up treasure in heaven, and give to those in need.

Because I’m wealthier than I think.

The Battle for Faithfulness Is Won or Lost in an Instant

photo by krakenimages on Unsplash

We’ve been studying Proverbs in Sunday school lately, and a few weeks back we were talking about all the teachings in the book that have to do with curbing our reactivity.

For instance, Proverbs 15:28:

The righteous heart reflects before answering,
    but the wicked mouth blurts out evil.

Do you know someone (maybe it's you!) with a wicked habit of just blurting things out, without pausing to consider how their words might be harsh, hurtful, or inappropriate? "Before answering" indicates that this proverbs is about how we respond to others. Righteousness means resisting that sort of unbridled reaction to the words and actions of others.

Or, think about Proverbs 14:17:

A quick-tempered person does foolish things,
    and the one who devises evil schemes is hated.

Other sayings, like Proverbs 15:18 or 22:24, describe a “hot-tempered” person, but 14:17 (and 14:29) singles out the quick-tempered, those with short fuses, who rapidly react to any provocation with anger. That kind of reactivity results in foolish acts. I’m sure we’ve all experienced that.

Proverbs like these made me realize something. The battle for faithfulness is often won or lost in the instant between someone else’s words or actions and my response. And the briefer that moment is, the more likely that my worst impulses will carry the day. If I’m quick-tempered, if I blurt something out without first pausing to reflect, foolishness and evil will inevitably result. But if I can just restrain my reactivity for a second, that creates an opportunity for my better judgment, my convictions, and the Holy Spirit to have some input. Then there’s a chance that I’ll overlook an insult (12:16) and offer a gentle answer (15:1), or even bless those who curse me (Luke 6:28).

All that to say, one of the greatest victories a Christian can win on the road to holiness and loving a neighbor is developing the ability to bite your tongue. If you can just restrain the knee-jerk reaction, a world of holy possibilities opens up. Sure, after a pause you may still offer a (now carefully considered) vicious retort. The goal is to blurt out kindness, understanding, encouragement, and forgiveness, for such things to become your knee-jerk reaction, but developing new habits like these takes time and a lot of practice. And learning a new way, retraining your tongue to respond with grace and gentleness, is only possible after reactivity is taken out of the equation.

So, practice biting your tongue today. Stretch out that instant before your response. It might not sound like much, but that’s a real victory. Reactivity breeds sinful speech: we’ve all been on the receiving end of it, and we’ve all perpetrated it. But if we focus our efforts on that instant when our reactions erupt, maybe we can open the door to a different kind of speech, that’s “gracious, seasoned with salt.” (Col 4:6) Maybe we can begin to bless the people around us with the thoughtful responses of a righteous heart. 

Go to the Source

A while back, I was in a Bible study where we discussed 2 Samuel chapter 16. King David’s son Absalom has just seized the throne, and the aging king suddenly finds himself on the run. Before he escaped Jerusalem, however, David deployed a double agent: his faithful confidant Hushai will offer to serve Absalom and undermine the wise counsel of Absalom’s other advisors (15:32-37).

Chapter 16 opens with another report of treachery: Mephibosheth, the grandson of King Saul, to whom David had shown much kindness, has supposedly abandoned the king in hopes of seizing power for himself —a report Mephibosheth will later deny, in chapter 19.

We then meet Shimei, a supporter of the house of Saul, who’s hurling curses and rocks at the fugitive monarch (16:5-6). Some of his troops are ready to remove Shimei’s head for the offense, but David tells them to leave him be. Maybe, the king speculates, these curses are from the Lord.

The whole scene is clouded with uncertainty: What’s true, and what’s a lie? Who can you trust? What is God up to? Which side is the Lord really on here? The characters grope through the uncertainty by relying on messengers and counsellors, or by just making their best guesses.

One thing that no one does is consult the Lord. There are no prayers offered, no prophets called in. No one goes to the source. David is navigating uncharted waters, but he’s trying to do it without his Compass.

So often, uncertainty is the water we swim in. Your health, your finances, your relationships, your job, your plans and dreams—all of it can change in a moment. When it does, how do you navigate those uncharted waters?

Do you fall back on familiar habits and old assumptions?

Do you ask a friend or family member for advice?

Do you go with your gut, rely on instinct, and act decisively without much consideration?

Do you go to the source and consult your Compass?

No doubt David was preoccupied and flustered while he abandoned his capitol and fled for his life. That’s understandable! And the demands of the moment are often all you can see. What David didn’t realize, however, is that these moments demand prayer. They demand the guidance of God’s Spirit, inquiring of the scriptures, and searching for divine wisdom.

When you find yourself unsure of what’s ahead or where to turn, I hope you’ll remember that we have a Lord who, as David wrote, leads us beside still waters and in the paths of righteousness (Ps 23:2-3). If you’re uncertain of the right way to go or how to find peace in the midst of life’s conflicts and chaos, don’t forget, in the bustle and stress of the moment, to turn to your Shepherd. Go to the source. You may not immediately see a way through the confusion or feel like you’re relaxing in green pastures, but, then again, you might.

And if you don’t pause to seek God in those moments, how are you expecting to hear the “still small voice” over the hubbub?

The Faith to Forgive

“Faith like a mustard seed.”

It’s a famous phrase. It’s an encouraging image: you don’t have to have faith like a boulder or a Mack truck or a redwood. A mustard seed will do—and mustard seeds are about the size of the round head on a straight pin.

You see that phrase pop up twice in the gospels, in Matthew 17 and in Luke 17. Matthew tells the story of a demon-possessed boy whom the disciples weren’t able to heal. When Jesus is told, he promptly exorcizes the fiend, leading the disciples to ask him: “Why could we not cast it out?” Jesus replies:

“Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” (17:20-21)

With just a tiny amount of faith, one can accomplish incredible things, move mountains.

That’s Matthew.

I noticed recently that the way the phrase shows up in Luke is very different. Jesus’s actual words are pretty similar, though he goes for a more modest illustration:

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” (17:5-6)

The big difference in Luke is the context of the teaching. In Matthew, the disciples didn’t have enough faith to perform an exorcism, and I can’t say that I blame them. But what leads them to plead “Increase our faith” in Luke’s version?

It's Jesus’s teaching on forgiveness.

“If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.”

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” (17:3-5)

If forgiving someone—especially a repeat offender—feels like a small miracle to you, almost like moving a mountain, you’re not alone. The disciples felt the same way. And according to the Great Physician, the prescription is the same for forgiving someone as for driving out demons: you need a mustard seed of faith.

If forgiveness is a struggle for you, I think Jesus, Peter, and the rest understand.

But, at the same time, if forgiveness is a struggle for you, don’t think that it’s insurmountable. You don’t need a boulder or Mack truck or redwood of faith to do this. You don’t. All you need is a mustard seed. Maybe just enough faith to say ‘Lord, help me at least want to want to forgive him’. Or the faith to pray, ‘Lord, I hate her, but bless her family today.’ 

That’s a tiny start. 

But a mustard seed’s a tiny seed. The whole point of the phrase is that God can do much when we can only do very little.

So what tiny, mustard-seed-sized step can you take towards forgiveness today? Because Jesus assures us that the Lord can make miracles out of that.

Salvation Starts Now

If I have time in the mornings before two precious little girls wake up and demand Daddy’s attention, I sometimes will pray through a morning prayer service on an app on my phone. These services always include readings from the Psalms, and so recently I found myself, in the quiet of early morning in the living room, reading Psalm 56. I was trying to listen, to let the scriptures tell me what God wanted me to hear, instead of what Nance wanted to hear. I don’t know how successful I was, though, because the verse that jumped out at me reminded me of one of my favorite gospel truths.

Unto you, O God, will I pay my vows;

   unto you will I give thanks.

For you have delivered my soul from death

   and my feet from stumbling,

that I may walk before God

   in the light of the living. (56:12-13)

The promises of the gospel are vast. Typically, however, in my experience, churches squeeze this vast good news into one, inadequate headline: forgiveness of sins means you can have eternal life. In the words of the psalm, “you have delivered my soul from death.”

What’s inadequate about that message?

It’s gloriously true, but it’s tragically incomplete.

Just look at the rest of Psalm 56:13: “you have delivered my soul from death and my feet from stumbling.” We are very familiar with the gospel truth that Jesus wants to save people from the consequences of their sins. But Jesus doesn’t only save us from sin’s consequences: he also saves us from sin’s power over our lives. He keeps our feet from stumbling.

In other words, the gospel isn’t just good news about a happy ending when this life is over. It’s also good news about a new beginning right here, right now. Jesus can give us eternal life hereafter, but he can also give us new life in the present. The Lord’s saving power doesn’t finally kick in when you die: you can walk before God in the light of the living. You can be saved from sin today.

That’s good news because it means your life doesn’t have to be this way. The hurtful routines you’ve gotten into with your family, the secret habits you can’t seem to kick, that unwise financial decision you just keep making, that grudge you can’t seem to let go of, those gaslighting denials you instinctively issue at work or at home—your life doesn’t have to be this way. Jesus can save you from sin’s grip. He can make you new.

Don’t settle for a partial gospel. Don’t wait until you’re dead to look to the grace of God to save you.

Jesus wants to deliver you from sin today. Salvation can start now.

Here’s a prayer for today:

Lord Jesus, I don’t think I can save myself from my rotten thoughts, self-serving routines, and serrated words. By the power of your Holy Spirit, rescue me from the attitudes and behaviors that I can’t get rid of on my own. Jump start some new, holier habits in my life today. Guide me into a life that’s healthier for my heart and soul and a greater blessing to the people around me. Save me, Jesus. Amen.

The Gift of Rest

This past Sunday I preached on keeping the Sabbath, and, as I was prepping the sermon, I kept going back to a fantastic chapter in pastor Rich Villodas’s book, The Deeply Formed Life: Five Transformative Values to Root Us in the Way of Jesus.

I kept going back to that chapter… but I didn’t use any of it in the sermon. So, I thought I’d share a couple of things from the cutting room floor with y’all.

I mentioned Sunday that, for me, the key to Jesus’s understanding of the Sabbath comes in Mark 2:27, when he says, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Or, like the NLT puts it, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.” One of those needs is the rest that Jesus offers in Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

And Rich Villodas does a wonderful job describing Sabbath practices that are aimed at meeting the needs of people and creating opportunities for rest.

He starts with a definition: “Sabbath keeping is a weekly twenty-four hour period of unhurried delight with no have-tos or ought-tos, resulting in deep rest and renewal.” (29)

Do you know that feeling of calm that comes when you mark the last thing off your to-do list? When you realize that there are no more responsibilities or deadlines looming over you? If Sabbath time is going to be restful, renewing, a time of unhurried delight, then it must be time when the to-do list is blank or at least set aside. Jesus cannot give us rest if we aren’t willing to set down the things that have us so weary and burdened.

Now, imagine you go to lunch with an old friend, and before you know it, they’ve told the waitress to bring them the ticket. You weren’t looking for this kindness, you tell them that you’ll pay for your own meal, but they insist. At that point, you know there’s no use arguing, and you just accept their gift and say “Thank you.” I’m sure you’ve been in a situation like that before, where you finally had to give up and accept someone’s gift.

Sometimes we’re reluctant to let go of the busyness and our have-tos and ought-tos. Maybe you take pride in your busyness and like to brag about your overloaded schedule. Maybe you feel a tinge of guilt if you find yourself relaxing when there are still things that you could be working on. But there will always be more you could have done or another thing you could get a head start on. There will always be some argument against resting.

But Jesus says, “I insist.”

There’s no use arguing with him. It’s time to accept the gift of rest he has for you and just say “Thank you.”

When’s the last time you didn’t have a to-do list hanging over your head?

Do you ever spend a day resting, when you aren't trying to accomplish anything?

What can you do to make space for “unhurried delight” in your schedule this week?