Oaks in Waiting--July 15, 2025

Oaks in Waiting--July 15, 2025

"...so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God." (Colossians 1:10)

Scientifically speaking, an acorn belongs to the category of oak trees. Sure, it's a seed, but all the DNA, all the instructions and blueprints for making an oak tree instead of, say, an orangutan, are there in the acorn already. An acorn doesn't "earn" the status of "oak-ness"--it already has it, before it's done a thing. In fact, to be precise, it is the already-given "oak-ness" in the acorn's DNA that enables it to take raw materials like oxygen, nitrogen, soil, and water, and to become a giant of a tree in the forest. It's all right there, waiting to become fully, in a sense, what it already is.  An acorn, you might say, is an oak in waiting.

You could also say that the acorn seems to be more fully itself when it finally sprouts leaves puts down roots, and grows into a tree (which in turn puts forth acorns), but it's not a matter of earning or achieving. It is a matter of becoming.

I want to suggest that this is what the Christian life looks like for us as disciples. It is a matter of becoming, not of earning. We aren't used to thinking like that, in a time and culture like ours that seems obsessed with how you impress, accomplish, and win things like status or belonging or some title or another. We have been taught to strive and struggle (and if necessary, step on people along the way) to get ourselves to the position of "winning," no matter the cost or what we have to do to get there, in order to achieve this elusive thing called success. And frankly, that impulse we have learned is destroying us--the terrible things we'll do to get that status of being seen as "winners," the ways folks will sell out their convictions or stoop to all sorts of crookedness rather than risk not "winning," they all reveal how deeply terrible that mindset really is. It is slowly killing us all, the more we give in to it. But it isn't the way the letter to the Colossians sees things. No--it's not about climbing and clawing our way up to the top, no matter how crooked that makes us. No, from the vantage point of this verse that many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, the life of discipleship is about becoming what God says we already are. It is about being made more fully ourselves, not vying for a lone spot on the top of the heap.

We are, you could say, acorn people.  To be a disciple is to be an oak in waiting.

So when the apostle calls his readers to lead lives that are "worthy of the Lord," it's not like we have to drum up votes to win a religious popularity contest, or impress God into accepting us, or earn our way into a status of being "worthy" by pretending to be the winners we really aren't. No, it's about becoming more fully what God says we already are. And in Christ (who is God's Beloved), God says you are beloved, too. In Christ (to whom we belong) God says you belong as well, forever. In Christ, who is God's Word through whom all the world was created, God says that you are good--just as God declared creation "good" in the beginning. We are acorns--given the "status" (if you can call it that) of belonging-to-the-oaks in our innermost selves. What we are called to is to become. Nothing more, and nothing less. We are called to become fully ourselves, to become what God has intended us to be, like an acorn becoming an oak tree patterned on the very same oak tree which produced it. We are called to become the embodied love that first embraced us in Christ himself.

That, of course, is very very different from the rat race our culture has tried to teach us, where we have to constantly impress, constantly try to convince others we are successful or acceptable or "winners," and constantly pretend to be something we are not, in the hopes of fooling someone into thinking we're the real deal. I mean, honestly, how embarrassing to get stuck in that mode of operating! How deeply sad, how truly pathetic we are when we try and earn the world's approval and and strive to make ourselves look like winners to do it. That is exhausting, and it never succeeds for very long. The truth eventually does come out, and the charlatans and fakers are revealed for what they really are, even if the trick worked for a bit. Eventually, if we have been playing that game, it will suck the life right out of us. It isn't worth playing.

But to live a life of becoming? Well, just the opposite--we actually become more fully alive the more it happens. When we can be done with pretending and preening and trying to impress--anybody--then we are free to come fully alive and to discover the good news that God has already said we are worthy, beloved, and accepted. The question is whether we will dare to believe these things are already given to us by grace--like an acorn is given DNA as a gift in its own creation--and whether we will let God's grace in Christ enable us to become what we are made to be. See how different that is? It's not play-acting at being a winner in the hopes of fooling the judge; it's growing to maturity with the gifts that are already in you, and trusting the status of belonging you already have.

That's the invitation in this day: not to try and force or pressure or cajole or fool or trick anybody into any particular impression of you, but simply let yourself believe what God says about you already in Christ... and to let that move you from acorn-oak-ness to full-grown-tree-oak-ness.

That's the adventure all of us disciples are on. We are, after all, acorn people... and oaks in waiting.

Lord God, bring us to maturity and help us to become fully what you say we already are in you.

A Long Obedience--July 14, 2025

A Long Obedience--July 14, 2025

"For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding..." [Colossians 1:9]

Okay, so here's the thing: your cell phone is not God (a statement I hope goes without saying), but neither is God like your cell phone, either.

You may want to insist that those are both the same and both obvious, but it seems to me that we often have this unspoken assumption that God functions in our lives like a tool of technology--like our cell phones--and whose job is get us things we want. Honestly, we treat our faith sometimes (maybe quite often) like the role of having God in your life is to acquire things, to make things the way you want them in life, or at least to arrange things the way you want them in the afterlife. Our lists may be different--sometimes we wish for money, job, career, "winning" (whatever that means), our political party to be in charge, or romantic relational fulfillments. Sometimes the wishes are more "spiritual-sounding"--like "inner peace," or "contentment," or just the hope of going to heaven when we die. But however you or I would word it, we often operate like God is a service provider--like your cell phone network carrier--and that God's job is to get us access to the things we want.

Now that by itself is, in all honestly, theological garbage, but then here's the second layer of garbage we add on top of that: we often treat "faith" like it's the on-off setting on your cell phone that scans for available networks. We assume that if we are feeling unspiritual, disconnected from God, or out of sorts in our souls, then it just must be a matter of flipping the right switch, so to speak, to get out of "airplane mode" and to start picking up God's signal again. If we just do that--whether we imagine it's by going to church enough, praying the proper prayer, or having the right one-time come-to-Jesus moment, then we'll be instantly back in touch with God, we'll clearly see God's direction in our lives, and we'll be back on track to getting all the things we want God, our spiritual service provider, to give us access to.

If that sounds like a crude or unfair caricature of popular religion, listen closely to how so much of Respectable Religion out there sounds: "You didn't get what you wanted because you haven't been praying for it enough..." or "We all must put on a show of religious contrition and start up a revival to get our land and our society 'back' to some glorious time in the fog of our memories that we think actually happened" (but was probably a good deal imaginary). Or it's, "You must pray hard to get your candidate or party to win... and if your candidate or party doesn't win, it must be the devilish forces of darkness fighting against you getting the thing you want." Or even, "If you want that success in business, or your kid on the honor roll, or to meet that special someone who will make your life cookie-cutter complete, you have to "name it and claim it" in prayer, and then if you believe hard enough, God will give you want you have claimed in faith. Those aren't far-fetched--that's an awful lot of the pop theology floating around us all the time.

And to be clear, every one of those notions operates from the assumptions that (1) God is here to grant our wishes and provide a service to us like a cellular network carrier, and (2) getting in touch with God to make all that wish-granting happen is just a matter of some one-time religious action you must do. The voice we hear in the letter to the Colossians begs to differ.

In fact, this one verse from the passage in Colossians that many of us heard in worship this past Sunday challenges both assumptions, first by turning the tables on whose will is most central, ours or God's... and the second by reminding us that getting in tune with God's will is not a matter of a single one-time flipping of a switch, but an ongoing, daily seeking and striving for clarity.  In other words, the letter to the Colossians insists that this is a matter of discipleship.

Let's start with the first. Contrary to the religious thinking in our age that often treats God as a glorified vending machine or spiritual service provider, the apostle says that what's most important is that we be filled with knowledge of God's will--not some leverage to get God to do our will. Think about that for a moment. When the apostle prays for these Christians in Colossae, he doesn't ask for God necessarily to give them their list of wishes, but that their wants, thoughts, desires, and hopes would be brought into alignment with God's will. So if I've been yearning for a McMansion and a Lexus and haven't gotten it, maybe the problem isn't how to get God to do my bidding and cough up some keys--maybe what I need is for MY heart to be re-shaped, and MY will to be re-formed, in light of what God's good vision is. And maybe instead of me getting a bigger house and more expensive car, God's design is for me to use the resources I already have to help make sure someone else gets to eat and doesn't have to sleep in a bus stop kiosk to get out of the cold. If I've been praying (or selfishly wishing and dressing it up as prayer) for more stuff or for my political party to get more power, and it hasn't happened, maybe what I need is for God to change me so that my priorities become aligned with God's priorities of justice and mercy and enough for all.  In other words, maybe the Christian life isn't about how to more effectively get God to do what I want, and more about how God shapes my will and desire to align with what God wants.

Here in this verse from Colossians, that's basically the move that the apostle makes: instead of fervently praying that his readers would get what they want necessarily, he prays that God would shape what they want to be in line with what matters in the Reign of God. And I've got to tell you , sometimes it's hard for each of us--myself included--to admit that my wish lists and personal priorities are out of whack with the vision of God's Reign as we see it in Jesus. Sometimes I want my pet hatreds reinforced, or I want to only see good things happen for Me-and-My-Group-First. Sometimes I can only think in terms of my immediate comfort or convenience, rather than what people far away from me might need--and how their needs might need to come first before my privilege. Sometimes I don't want to admit that God loves people that I can't stand, and I don't want to allow the possibility that God not only loves them fiercely, but is doing good in their lives in ways that will shape them to be more like Christ as well, even if I can't see it yet. All of that is hard, and Colossians reminds us here that this is happening all the time--God is at work (in answer to prayers like Paul's) changing each of us from the inside, so that what-I-want is slowly being brought more fully into alignment with what-God-wants. Admitting I'm out of step with that is hard. But then realizing that someone else might be praying for ME to be brought back in line with God's will and values is even more humbling.

And that's the second piece we need to spend a moment talking about here, too: getting aligned with what matters to God--what we sometimes call discerning God's will--isn't some instantaneous flip of a switch or speaking of a prayer. It's something that grows and deepens over time (and yes, sometimes we take steps backward between steps forward, too). That's why you can't just read a pamphlet once pray a prayer, or take a correspondence course in discipleship. It's about a lifelong journey--what the late Eugene Peterson (riffing on a phrase of Nietzsche) referred to as "a long obedience in the same direction." We want our religion to be reducible to a one-time prayer or an easy, oversimplified set of propositions (like, "God always wants this political party to win, so always vote for them," or "God always sides with this nation of the world, so nothing they do can ever be wrong," or "God is always aligned with policies that lower your taxes... or help your business make more money... or maximize your personal freedoms" or "God's will is to make you more comfortable and privileged, and who cares about people who are outside your group"). But Colossians suggests (and I would add that I believe the whole of the Biblical witness backs Colossians up on this) that discerning God's will is often a lot messier, foggier to figure out, and interconnected with all of us. And that means it's not simply a switch you can turn on. It's not just a matter of asking one time, "Dear God, show me your will" and then assuming that every gut impulse you have after that is the word of God or the nudging of the Holy Spirit.

It means that seeking God's will in our lives is going to require patience, wisdom, humility, and the presence of other people. That's what it means to be disciples, of course. We need others who will pray for us, sure, but also people who will be checks and balances in our lives and hold us accountable. We need people to tell us when our gut impulses are really just our own wishful thinking rather than direction from God. We need people who can tell us when our actions or priorities don't line up with the way of Jesus, and who can call us out on them. And we need the patience and grace with ourselves to keep muddling through on the days when God's will or direction doesn't seem clear yet.

All of that mean that the Christian faith is a lot less like paying for a spiritual service provider (where I am the customer who is always right), and a lot more like a daily walk in which we need the voices of companions on the journey--and a map and compass, too--to keep leading us in a good direction. There are no switches to flip, and no simple setting buttons to toggle, to make God connect up to us. There is instead the step by step adventure of a journey, shared with other sojourners along the way, on which God's voice becomes clearer as we go.

It's a long road, but it's worth giving your whole life to traveling it. Let's go.

Lord God, help us. Re-align our wishes and wants to the shape of your Reign of justice and mercy. And speak to us in ways that get through to us, so that we will recognize the sound of your voice leading us onward.

The Backside of the Kingdom--July 11, 2025

The Backside of the Kingdom--July 11, 2025

[Jesus instructed the seventy:] "Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.' But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 'Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near'." (Luke 10:8-11)

No matter what, the kingdom comes near.

Did you catch that?  In this passage that many of us heard on Sunday, as Jesus commissioned seventy disciples to go ahead of him, the Reign of God becomes visible either way, no matter how the people of any town or village respond.  In fact, in part of God's cosmic genius, even when people explicitly reject Jesus' messengers and message, the kingdom becomes evident.

Here's what I mean about the brilliance of Jesus' instructions.  When two of these missionaries (they are traveling in pairs, you'll recall) get to a town and are welcomed, they are directed to heal the sick and share tables with the people there. And in that breaking of bread and healing of sickness, there is a glimpse of the Kingdom.  When Jesus directs these disciples to say, "The kingdom of God has come near to you," it's not a sales pitch to sign up for a new religion or a spiritual country club--it's a description of what the people will have just witnessed.  Where God reigns, bread is broken and shared, strangers become friends, and diseased bodies are restored to health.  The message the missionaries bring is simply to explain what will have happened among them.  How do they explain their ability to heal? How are people supposed to interpret the arrival of these strangers to town?  Ah--this is what it looks like where God reigns.  The healing, the shared meal, the giving and receiving of hospitality--these are what the kingdom of God looks like.  In other words, these traveling disciples are not going from town to town as mere event promoters ginning up interest and ticket sales for Jesus' traveling road show.  Rather, they are bringing the Reign of God in their very own presence, because they bring the message and power of Jesus with them.

Now, that's the easy part, I think.  What floors me about this scenario is that Jesus has designed it so that even when his disciples are rejected, there will be a glimpse of a different side of the Reign of God, but a true one all the same.  If (or honest, when) there comes a village that rejects Jesus' visiting disciples and they will not open their doors to them, they have strict instructions not to seek revenge, not to make threats, not to insult or belittle the residents, and not to call down fire from heaven. (There had been a moment, just a few paragraphs earlier in Luke's gospel, where a village of Samaritans didn't want to welcome Jesus, and James and John offered to Jesus that they call down divine retribution in the form of firebolts from the sky, and Jesus rolled his eyes and rebuked them for even suggesting such a thing--see Luke 9:51-56).  In other words, Jesus is telling his disciples to take seriously his earlier teaching not to return evil for evil, and not to answer meanness with more meanness.  Why is that important?  Because that's also what the Reign of God is like.  Jesus famously teaches (see the Sermon on the Mount especially) that God's way of ruling the world is not to answer hatred with more hatred or evil with more evil. Rather, Jesus insists, God sends the good gifts of sun and rain on both the good and the bad, the righteous and the unrighteous, the thankful and the ungrateful alike.  This is not a bug in the code--this is a feature.  This is what it looks like where God reigns.  This is how the Kingdom comes--not by coercion, not by heavy-handed intimidation, not by steamrolling over people or invading like an empire, but in vulnerability and non-retaliation.  So when Jesus' disciples are rejected, their refusal to answer that hostility with more hostility is itself a glimpse of what God's Reign is like.  They show a different side--perhaps the backside, like the famous story of Moses' glimpsing God from behind--of the kingdom, but they show it all the same.  Even in the act of rejecting the kingdom, the townspeople will inadvertently catch a glimpse of the kingdom because the visiting disciples will not seek revenge or unleash wrath on them for rejecting it.  They will simply declare, "This was the Kingdom of God that had come to your door. This was a chance given to you to share the life of God's Reign."  Like someone who turns away from the sunset in anger but still catches a reflection of the oranges and purples of the sky in a window or a mirror, you can't help but still see signs of the Kingdom of God even when you are turned dead set against it.  That's part of God's genius.

All of this is to say that whatever "the kingdom of God" means, it's bigger than just a show of power. Sometimes we misunderstand that. If we focus only on the scene of disciples curing the sick or casting out evil spirits as they go from town to town, we can end up thinking that God's Reign is just a euphemism for divine firepower, or spectacles that dazzle people into believing in God. But Jesus seems to think differently.  He is convinced that God's Reign can be glimpsed in healing, but also in a shared meal between strangers who become friends, and in the courage it takes to welcome a newcomer and open your door to them.  And beyond that, Jesus believes that God's Reign is evident every time his people answer hostility with grace and non-retaliation.  Every time they meet up with rejection and do not give in to the impulse for revenge or threats, the vulnerable self-giving nature of God's Kingdom becomes clear, even if for just a moment before the parade moves to the next town.

This is the real revolution of understanding Jesus brings about the reality we call the "kingdom of God." It is terribly easy to hear that phrase and think we are talking about an empire that conquers, a nation that expands with invading armies and overwhelming force, or a posture that threatens, arrests, or kills anyone who disagrees with it.  That's how other kingdoms operate, after all. But Jesus makes it clear that God's Reign is never advanced by dropping bombs or killing enemies. God's presence is never revealed by taking away food from a hungry stranger to keep the resources hoarded for yourself.  God's Kingdom is never advanced by threatening wrath on those who disagree with you. Rather, you see the Reign of God in self-giving vulnerable love... love that is brave enough to risk rejection without retaliation.

Sometimes I hear Respectable Religious Folks who sound convinced that what Christians need to do is to wield more political power, to enforce their ways and their thinking on everybody else, and to get rid of anybody who stands in their way.  That is the perennial lure to do things according to the rules of every other kingdom and to follow the playbook of every empire in history.  But it is not the way God's Reign works--full stop.  Jesus shows us instead that God's Reign is strong enough to bear being rejected. God's Reign is gracious enough to love even in the face of hostility.  God's Reign makes us brave enough to risk meeting new people as well as being turned away by those people.  The Kingdom of God isn't merely about flashy shows of divine power--it is about the kind of self-giving love we see in the face of Jesus.

How will we put ourselves out there in the world today--risking both the presence of strangers and the possibility of rejection as well--in order that God's Reign might be seen in us either way?

Lord Jesus, let your kingdom be seen in us today, and give us the direction to know how to respond to this day's encounters in ways that show your face to the world.

On The Kindness of Strangers--July 10, 2025

On The Kindness of Strangers--July 10, 2025

[Jesus told the seventy:] "Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you...." (Luke 10:5-8)

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers," Blanche DuBois famously says in the classic line from A Streetcar Named Desire.  Of course, in the play, she's not necessarily held up as a role model, and her sentiment isn't exactly meant to be taken as the moral of the story.  There is something reckless, something risky, maybe even scandalous, about living one's life dependent on the hope that someone will show up on the scene to provide for your needs.  Every time you and I drive past someone standing at a street corner with a cardboard sign asking for help, we give ourselves a lesson on just how difficult it can be to live your life relying on "the kindness of strangers."  When we are the strangers on whom someone else depends, we have a way of being remarkably unkind, or at least indifferent, sometimes.  We are the evidence, sadly, that it can be a precarious thing indeed to depend upon the kindness of strangers.

And yet, that is precisely what Jesus calls these seventy disciples to do as he sends them out to introduce his movement and message to the towns and villages of Galilee.  They are sent in utter dependence, learning how to be good guests and how to share the lives of the people they encounter, from the living space of those who host them to the food that is set before them. Now, that might well make these traveling missionaries uncomfortable--after all, it can be hard to learn to try new foods and to be grateful even if you don't particularly care for the dish they have prepared, or to sleep on whatever pull-out sofa or futon (or the first-century equivalents) they have available. And beyond that, it can feel awkward to be in someone else's social debt by being their guest--there is always the fear you are imposing, or worrying whether you are putting your hosts to too much trouble, or adapting to the time they like to eat supper or when they go to bed.  But part of how you earn the right to be heard when you have a message to share is to break bread together, to share ordinary life together, and to learn to listen to the people you would also like to have listen to you.  Part of how you gain the credibility for someone to hear what you have to say is that you have first invested the time to hear people where they are, to accept them as they are, and to honor the good gifts they have to offer. After all, you're much less likely to believe the sales-pitch of a traveling peddler at your door or the paid announcer on a TV informercial, but if your good friend who has shared many a cup of coffee at your kitchen table with you tells you about some great new book, you're more likely to take their recommendation.

What Jesus calls these traveling disciples to do, then, is to take the risk of getting to know people on their own terms--to share their lives, to break the same bread, and to see the world from the vantage point of their front door--before they start telling others about how great Jesus is or announcing the that Kingdom of God has come near.  That means they will have to slow down enough to get to know the places and people they are visiting, and they will have to come to care for the people in each town rather than just seeing them as statistics of new members for their club or new streams of income for their venture.  All too often in our day, so-called church grown "experts" focus on numbers rather than faces, on how many interchangeable people in crowds show up in interchangeable amphitheater-style worship spaces, and focus only on Sunday attendance, livestream views, or follows on social media--none of which require you to get to know people where they are, as they are.  Jesus, on the other hand, begins with a model in which we take the take to get to know one another, to care about the stakes of each other's lives, and only then once trust is earned, to talk about the itinerant rabbi we follow.

In fact, maybe once we are guests at someone else's table or welcomed into someone else's life, we come to see that they are the face of Christ for us, as much as we were sent to be the face of Christ for them.  Maybe the people who extend hospitality to us have been sent by God into our lives, just as truly as we have been sent by God to share the news and love of Jesus.  At the very least, by meeting people where they are, sharing a table with people as they are, and listening to their stories over food and drink as Jesus instructs, we are less likely to come off as condescending religious know-it-alls who blow into town, make a quick buck, and catch the midnight train to the next place.  

Maybe the takeaway for us as disciples today, then, is that the best way to share our faith in Jesus with others is to listen to the same ones we want to introduce to Jesus. Maybe the way to convince people that Jesus cares about their lives... is for us to actually care about their lives.  And maybe the way to show someone that God's love is for them, just as they are, is for us to love them, too, just as they are.

What would it look like for us to do that today?  Where would we go? Who would we meet?  What sort of adventure might be in store if we dared to depend on the kindness of strangers as our way of introducing people to the Kingdom of God?

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to listen, to meet people where they are, and to trust that you will provide hospitality as we bring your love to the world.

The Virtue of Vulnerability--July 9, 2025

The Virtue of Vulnerability--July 9, 2025

[Jesus said to the seventy:] "Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road..." (Luke 10:3-4)

It is always a safe bet that Jesus knows what he is doing.

That is true, not just at the times when his words or actions make perfect sense to us (whichever those times might be), but even when Jesus seems to be violating all common sense and flouting all conventional wisdom.

You know, a case like this one.

Today we move a little bit further in the passage many of us heard this past Sunday from Luke's Gospel, as Jesus tapped seventy people in the wider group of his followers beyond the official "Twelve Apostles" and sent them to go to all the places he intended to go so they could announce that the Reign of God had come near.  If that weren't a challenging enough mission, here Jesus makes it clear that these seventy disciples are putting themselves at risk in a world that may well be downright hostile toward them.  And Jesus seems to be aware both of the danger and the way he is making their situation even more precarious by limiting what they are supposed to take on the journey.  Instead of equipping these novice missionaries with supplies, resources, or weapons, Jesus makes a virtue out of their vulnerability.  It is not a bug, but a feature.  They are to go out into the world empty-handed and unarmed, not because Jesus hadn't thought head to get them equipment, but because their open-handed presence in the world is a part of the message.  In other words, Jesus knows exactly what he is doing by sending these six dozen or so disciples out without money, food, or ammunition, even if it seems outrageous to the people they are sent to (or to us, twenty centuries later).

Why would Jesus deliberately send people out like this, as "sheep into the midst of wolves"?  Why wouldn't he at least have them bring some wolf repellant or a good ol' fashioned shepherd's "rod and staff" to keep potential predators and threats at bay?  I am convinced it is because of the very mission itself: these seventy are meant to embody what the Reign of God is like.  Their message to the people wherever they go is "The Reign of God has come near," and the work Jesus has authorized them to do is to represent what it looks like where God's Reign, or God's "kingdom" if you like, breaks into our lives. That means healing for sickness, restoration for those who are hurting, setting people free from captivity to evil spirits, and also the kind of non-dominating, non-coercive presence that Jesus brings when he steps into a room.  Jesus himself trusts God so profoundly that he knows whatever he needs for any situation will be provided when the time is right, and Jesus himself doesn't have the need to bring along sacks of money or an arsenal of weapons to protect himself.  For Jesus, it is possible to engage with the world with hands that are completely empty, so that they are freed up to touch the sick and heal them, to embrace the outcast and welcome them, to hold the hand of the dead and raise them.  That's why Jesus sends out his representatives the same way: that's what the Reign of God is like.

To take it even further, I am convinced that Jesus deliberately sends his disciples out "as sheep into the midst of wolves" because of how he himself ultimately accomplishes God's victory over evil, sin, and death--not as the conquering Lion or the ravenous Wolf, but as the slain but risen Lamb.  Jesus' way of bringing God's Reign is not to conquer people and subdue them, not to seize the reins of power and build and empire, and not to stockpile money or resources for himself (at the expense of other people getting enough).  Therefore he sends his representatives out to model his own way of being in the world--with faith in God's provision, with generosity and goodwill toward all people, and with the virtue of vulnerability.  A messiah who saves the world through a cross cannot introduce himself to the world through messengers who rely on wealth, power, or violence to make their way in that world.  So Jesus sends those seventy--and us today--as reflections of his own deliberately vulnerable way of being in the world.  

And from that perspective, it only makes sense.  Other would-be kings and their emissaries would introduce themselves in the terms of their own empires, of course.  Whenever Caesar sent his legions to conquer some territory, they came marching in classic Roman formations, bearing the insignia of the Empire and clad in imperial armor and weapons.  They would show the people they were meeting what sort of "encounter" they had in mind as they marched into town, claimed the territory for the Empire, and pointed their swords at anybody who dared to protest.  Jesus brings a kingdom of his own, so it is only fitting that he introduce the Reign of God on God's terms--it's just that God's terms are so completely contrary to the ways of human empires and regimes.  Jesus brings the Reign of the God who is kind to the ungrateful and the sinful, the God who lifts up the lowly and fills the hungry with good things, the God whose way of defeating evil is to absorb it without spewing more evil back in return.  Jesus brings the Reign of the God who welcomes "sinners and tax collectors" to the table as beloved guests, the God who heals enemy army officers like Naaman the Syrian and helps foreign widows like the woman of Zarephath to whom Elijah was sent, as both were fed with a miraculous jar of flour and oil that didn't run out even in the famine.  In other words, Jesus actually believes that God will both provide for his needs and enable him to care for others, without needing other protection or provisions--and so Jesus sends his followers out in the same way.  That's how this works.

For us, then, as people sent by Jesus into the world today, we are called to go with the same empty hands so that we will be unencumbered with accessories and free to embrace, to pray, to support, and to help.  We are sent, not to impress the watching world with all our cool "stuff" or with tools for our own security, but trusting that God will provide what we need just as surely as we keep praying, "Give us today our daily bread."  That's how our witness in the world works.

Who do you suppose Jesus might send your way today?  Where do you imagine you might go to bring a glimpse of God's Kingdom today?  How might we have our hands open and empty, even if that makes us look vulnerable (or "weak" or like "losers") in the eyes of the world? And how might our presence like "sheep in the midst of wolves" point people to the One we confess as Lord, who is the Lamb of God?

Let's see where the adventure takes us...

Lord Jesus, open our hands to be ready to serve, love, and help those to whom you are sending us today.

More Than Spectators--July 8, 2025

More Than Spectators--July 8, 2025

"After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest'." (Luke 10:1-2)

Turns out there is no option of being merely spectators of Jesus.  He has a way of pulling the crowd of listeners into the action and sending them out to find other listening ears, too.

That is, of course, rather different from the expected protocol of a rock concert or a performance at the symphony.  You don't expect the concertmaster to run out into the sixth row and pull audience members up to add them to the French horn section, and you don't expect the drummer of your favorite band to pull random fans up on stage to take the drum solo of the encore.  We are used to being observers, watchers, and passive audience members.  We know how to clap in the right spots (at the end of the piece but not in between movements!). We know how to hold up lit cell phones the way they used to hold up lighters for the big ballads. We are used to sitting (or standing, depending on the music) and taking it all in without ever being asked to do anything on our part.

And that means we are also used to the posture of control and judgment you get to have when you are just a ticket-holding audience member.  When you have paid money to attend a show, you are the customer--and the customer, as they say, is always right.  You find yourself criticizing the performers: things like "Ooh, those clarinets were FLAT--and they were half a beat late!" or "I don't like this particular staging of Hamlet--why didn't they set it the way I wanted it to be?" or "Why are they playing songs off their new album?  We only came for the greatest hits!"  And you can enjoy that posture of superiority because you know you won't be called up on stage to play a single arpeggio or recite a solitary line in iambic pentameter.  When you are only an audience member, you can stay safe, avoid risk, and not put yourself out there.  And from the perspective of those cushioned seats in the dress circle, you can watch without any effort or exertion.

But, as these verses from Luke's gospel remind us (since many of us heard them this past Sunday), Jesus doesn't leave us as mere spectators. He doesn't draw us into his presence merely to entertain or amuse us, and he isn't bound to playing on the fan favorite greatest hits.  Instead, Jesus calls the people who have been listening to him to join the band and play along--in fact, he sends us out to get new listeners ready for the tune Jesus will sing to them when his tour comes to town. That's what happens with these seventy followers whom Jesus commissions to go to every time and village he planned to visit: they are sent as forerunners and tour promoters, getting new places ready to hear from Jesus... so that they, too, can be drawn into the music and will play along.

This scene is important because in it, we see Jesus widening his circle to include seventy people, not just the more familiar inner circle of twelve disciples.  Maybe if this was only a mission for the twelve--the people who made following Jesus their full time livelihood--we might think that most of us are off the hook for joining the work.  We could tell ourselves, "Well, of course Simon Peter and James and John were sent out to join in Jesus' work--that's what they signed up for when he called them and made them apostles!  They get to be the big names in stained glass, so they have to do the heavy lifting now!"  But this isn't a story about those well-known apostles like Andrew, Thomas, and Philip.  This scene is about seventy "others" whom Jesus apparently chose from the wider circle of the larger crowds who followed and listened to Jesus.  They weren't safe from being summoned by Jesus.  They might have thought they had just come to listen to a traveling rabbi tell some fun stories one day when they had a few hours to spare, but Jesus doesn't see himself as a performer playing to an audience.  He is a coach preparing the starting line-up for the tip off, a conductor warming up the choir for their first anthem, a master teaching the apprentices how to do the work.  Jesus doesn't only call the twelve disciples to be his witnesses and announce the coming of God's Reign--he calls all of us.  

All too often in our culture, we treat Christianity like a professional baseball game: a pastime that we watch for a while, until we get bored or hot or hungry, and which leaves us essentially unchanged.  Jesus, however, reserves the right to make us participants--to toss us a glove and say, "I need you at shortstop.  And you, you'll be up to bat next at the top of the bottom of the inning." We are more than spectators--we are disciples.  Jesus is not particularly interested in our critique of his performance, and he is not only going to do the fan requests (a great many of us would only want to hear Jesus say, "Ask and it will be given to you" or "I have come to give abundant life," but never want to hear the deep cut tracks like, "Sell your possessions and give the proceeds to the poor so you can follow me," or "Love your enemies").  Jesus is training us to join the song, to play with the team, and to share in the work he has already begun.  There is no version of Christianity (at least that has anything to do with the actual Jesus) in which we sit on our hands in passive amusement.  There is only the call of discipleship.

Today, then, what could it look like for us to get up out of our seats and join in what Jesus is doing?  What criticisms might we keep to ourselves? What patterns of passivity might we leave back in our padded seats in order to pick up and instrument and play?  What risks might Jesus dare us to take, and what people might he send us to spend time with?  And what if Sunday mornings weren't pastimes to while away an hour or so until lunch time, but the conversation with the coach before we run the next play?

What if we were more than spectators... starting today?

Lord Jesus, call us up from our comfortable positions, and make of us what you will.

Abandoning Our Agendas--July 7, 2025

Abandoning Our Agenda--July 7, 2025

"[Jesus] was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.' He said to them, 'When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial'." (Luke 11:1-4)

I don't know for certain what question the disciples were really asking, but I know what question Jesus intends to answer.  Jesus has it in mind to change our hearts by his model of praying, not to offer some magical technique to get what we want from God like a cosmic vending machine.  That makes all the difference.

Now, like I say, I can't be sure what the disciples really have in mind when they ask, "Lord, teach us to pray." It is possible that they really want to know from Jesus what things they should pray for, or what words to use, or even the proper way to address God.  Maybe they have intentionally left their question open-ended, so that Jesus can run with it however he chooses (that is at least what Jesus ends up doing anyway).  But I also have this sneaking suspicion that some part of the question is about technique--that is, I think at some level all of us wish that there were some secret wording or formula to make God more likely to give us what we want in our prayer.  I think some part of the disciple's question has the undertone of asking, "How do I get God to give me what I am asking for?"  And to be sure, twenty centuries later, lots of Respectable Religious folks seem to approach prayer as a means to the end of getting God's endorsement for our agendas, when Jesus seems more interested in allowing prayer to reorient our agendas to align with God's.

You see it all the time in the public arena: from the football team huddling on the field praying for their team to win as though God has a stake in the outcome of the local homecoming game, to politicians huddling in front of cameras as they loudly invoke God's name over their agendas so they can claim a victory on a vote as proof of divine endorsement.  But both of those make the mistake of starting with our own wish-lists and thinking that prayer is a means of getting God to do what we want.  Jesus sees things very differently in his model for prayer.  Instead, in these words which Christians around the world offer up at least every week in worship if not daily in our own live, Jesus teaches us to see prayer as a way of dethroning our own agendas or assumptions about what God's will "must mean," so that God's Reign can come more fully into our reality.  For Jesus, prayer is not about getting to claim God's backing of your selfish scheme, no matter how loudly and publicly you invoke God's name on camera or on the field.  For Jesus, prayer is about realigning our lives to learn to want what God wants, and to love like God loves. Being Jesus' disciples will mean acknowledging that God is not our genie, here to fulfill our desires so long as we get the formula right, but rather it is our desires that need to be brought in alignment with what matters to God.

That recognition, rather like Copernicus' discovery that the Earth is not the center of the universe, but rather goes around the sun, can be disorienting for us, and certainly make us uncomfortable.  We want to believe that our wishes and will is already righteous and good, and therefore that God should pleasantly acquiesce and give us what we pray for.  We tell ourselves that we already know what God should do in the world, and therefore we are happy to give God further direction for how to make the world as we want it.  But if we actually pay attention at all to Jesus' way of praying, it pushes our agendas out of the center and puts God's goodness at the heart of everything.

And that's just it: when Jesus gets around to describing what God's kingdom actually looks like in this prayer, it is utterly good... for all.  For God's kingdom to come, it will mean that everybody gets their daily bread.  For God's Reign to happen, it will mean the forgiveness of debts all around.  For God's will to be done will mean that our lives will be kept away from crookedness and steered toward justice and neighborliness.  God's kingdom is good--and in fact, it is good for all, all around.

The real abuse of prayer comes when we try and invoke God's authority over some narrowly self-serving agenda that is only good for "Me and My Group First." The real blasphemy is when we try to attach God's name to any scheme that would make others go hungry while we claim blessing on our well-fed little enclaves. By contrast, to pray as Jesus teaches us will lead us to see that all are welcomed to the table, and none are sent away as "undeserving" within God's Reign. If we are ready to stop using prayer as a photo-op or empty show of public piety (which the prophets regularly warn against), then we might actually learn from Jesus how to let prayer reorient our hearts and open up our will to God's vision where all have enough and all receive mercy.

If you have caught yourself lately mouthing these words which we call the Lord's Prayer and not giving their meaning any real thought, maybe today is a day for us to allow Jesus to teach us again--not to teach us the same old words to memorize and recite without thinking, but to teach us the meaning of his kind of prayer. Maybe today is a day to allow our prayer to see God at the center, rather than our own wants, and to allow Jesus to reshape our hearts in the direction of God's will.

Maybe it will take a lifetime for us to do that well.  But it's worth starting today.

Lord Jesus, let your ways of goodness and mercy shape our hearts so that come to seek what you seek, to want what you want, and to love as you love.  Let your Reign and your will take shape among us.