The Real Kind--January 31, 2020

The Real Kind--January 31, 2020

"When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.  When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, 'Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?' But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village." [Luke 9:51-56]

Jesus is at his greatest when he chooses to limit his power.

Consider that for a moment, and let it sink in, because that is the key to everything else in the Mystery of Christ.  Jesus is at his greatest when he chooses not to exploit the full potential of his divine power for his own self-interest... even if someone could make a case that he is "allowed" to use his power that way.

The more I think about it, the more I think we church folks, we Respectable Religious people, need to be reminded of stories like this one, because we sometimes forget that Jesus' kind of greatness (which, we confess, is the true greatness, and not some phony knock-off covered in gold paint) is not primarily about shows of force.  We are all too tempted to sell out to whoever or whatever promises us a little more influence, or a little more access. We are tempted to believe that God will let us use any means we choose if it is in the service of furthering our agenda--because (of course) we assume that our agendas always line up with God's.

But then there's Jesus, who stops that thinking cold in its tracks.  Jesus chooses, over and over again, not to push the limits of his power--even for things you could argue would be "good" for him and his cause, or would expand the reach of the Kingdom.  And it is that self-restraint--in the choice NOT to call down fire from heaven (even though he "could")--that his true greatness is visible.

This is what James and John just don't get. (That seems to be a repeated issue for them, if the other stories about their conversations with Jesus are any indication.)  They see the rejection of these Samaritans as a threat to Jesus' reputation (and theirs, too!), and they think that the way to show "those Samaritans" that they have messed up royally is to call down shows of supernatural power, like old Elijah did centuries before, with a prayer for heavenly flames to burn up the people who said "No" to Jesus.  In their minds, the way to respond to the hostility of the townspeople is with more hostility.  And they believe that for the sake of furthering Jesus' glory, what the Kingdom really needs is a divine show of force like that.  It's about furthering the Kingdom (they would say)... and it's also about furthering their own reputations, too (after all, they don't want to "lose face" by being associated with a Messiah who gets run out of town by those rotten Samaritans, do they?).  So, with a fair amount of self-interest, and a smattering of thought for the good of the Kingdom, they think the appropriate response is to call down pyrotechnics of condemnation to zap the folks who rejected Jesus.

Now, in fairness to James and John, the conventional wisdom would have patted them on the back for their plan.  Even today, there are an awful lot of voices who think it's OK to act in your own self-interest if you also think it is in the service of your noble goal.  The ends justify the means, right?  And so long as James and John think that it is in Jesus' interest to be seen as a powerful guy, and that if Jesus is seen as a powerful guy, then more people will believe in him and his message about the Kingdom would gain popularity, too, then their plan to summon fiery judgment must be a good one. Right?

But Jesus says, "No."  

In fact, as your own Bible might note, some ancient manuscripts of this text include an additional sentence of Jesus, where he says to James and John, "You do not know what spirit you are of, for the Son of Man has not come to destroy the lives of human beings but to save them."  Jesus' response is that even if he, as the almighty Son of God, would have the power to call down fire from heaven to destroy his adversaries, that is not his way.  He has not come to destroy life but to restore life.  Jesus rejects the zapping option, not because he can't or doesn't have the authority, but because true greatness is most clearly revealed when it doesn't exploit all of its perks.  Jesus won't budge on this, even a little, because to him, it is simply not OK to use his position of divine authority for his own self-interest--not even if his right and left-hand guys James and John think it is acceptable as part of some greater good.

It is vitally important that we see and understand Jesus' choice here.  He is offered the chance to say, "Anything I do in my own self-interest is OK, because my self-interest is also good for the Kingdom of God," and from there to unleash fire and fury against the townspeople who rejected him.  He does not--not because his power isn't great enough to do it, but because his greatness is not revealed in destroying life, but in saving and restoring life.  Jesus will rise from the dead to reveal his glory, but he will not kill for the sake of his reputation.  Jesus will promise paradise to the dying and desperate thief on the cross next to him, but he will not climb down off the cross because it is in his self-interest not to die.

The question for us, then, if we take stories like this seriously, is whether we will trust Jesus' call on what we will--and will not--do for the sake of the Kingdom he brings.  Instead of just assuming anything we think will give "the church" more power, more prestige, more money, or more influence is automatically OK, maybe we will ask, "Is this the way of Jesus?"  Maybe instead of thinking our job is to smash down those who reject Jesus or to make life harder for those who do not share our faith, we will simply keep going on our way in love when we run into hostility.  Jesus and his troublemaking will go merrily on, as Andrew Greeley puts it.  We don't need to attack or destroy those who aren't interested in our message about Jesus--Jesus doesn't, anyway, and our mission is simply to represent Jesus to the world.

So today, keep offering the love of Jesus to the world around you.  Where people are eager to hear more, keep on offering it.  And where people reject the offer, it may be worth asking first, "Am I part of the problem here--am I being a jerk somehow rather than a faithful witness?" and even if we think we've done everything right, just to keep going on our way rather than to respond with rottenness.  

Jesus had the power and the authority to call down fire in his own self-interest when he met with opposition, but he didn't.  That was a choice of his, and he calls us to follow that same way of life.  He has come, not to destroy what opposes him, but to save what he loves.  He has come, not to rain down death on humanity, but to raise us to new life.

That's his kind of greatness--the only real kind there is.

Lord Jesus, let us follow your way even if it looks foolish or weak to others around us.  Let us embody your kind of greatness.

Because "The How" Matters--January 30, 2020

Because "The How" Matters--January 30, 2020

"Again, the devil took Jesus up to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, 'All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.' Jesus said to him, 'Away with you, Satan! for it is written, Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.' Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him." [Matthew 4:8-11]

It's not just the goal--it's how you get there that matters.

That shouldn't be a controversial thing to say, but sometimes it is just really helpful to see what Jesus makes so clear.  Jesus knows that the way to accomplish God's Reign is not to sell out, but to follow the path that leads to a cross.  He knows that just aiming to rule the world isn't satisfactory--he has come to bring God's reign through selfless suffering love rather than through cutting a seemingly sweet deal with Satan.

And yes, the means matters.  The "how" of accomplishing God's Reign makes a difference--if Jesus just decides it is in his self-interest to worship Satan in exchange for the rights to all the kingdoms of the world, that's not OK.  That doesn't save humanity.  That doesn't put things right in a world that has gone wrong. That doesn't bring our deathly places back to life.

In fact, I would say that the devil is clever enough to know that the most tempting, most persuasive strategy he can employ is to try and convince Jesus that it doesn't matter how he accomplishes God's Reign, as long as he gets what he's after.  As long as he gets to be king of the world, why should it matter if he has had to bow down for a moment to worship Satan?  After all, if Jesus would just play by Satan's rules, everybody would get something they want--Jesus would get to rule over the world (and without having to get killed on a cross, by the way), and God the Father would still get the long-awaited outcome of Jesus reigning over all creation, and the devil would get the ego-stroking he was after.  Win-win, right?

The key to that whole temptation is to try to convince Jesus that it doesn't matter how he accomplishes things, as long as he gets what he's after.  It's a matter of persuading Jesus that the end justifies the means, or that it doesn't matter what sort of a person he as long as he gets where he is aiming. And to be very honest, that argument--as old and seemingly tired as it is--still keeps coming back to persuade people today.

I have been truly disappointed--maybe not surprised any longer, but truly disillusioned--at how many regular, ordinary, everyday church-going folks I've heard lately parroting the train of thought that goes, "Look, it doesn't matter what sort of character a person has or what they have to do in order to get their job done--all that matters is that they reach the thing they've set their ambitions on!"  And what still is so jarring to me is that folks who talk like this seem to have no awareness at all that this is the very same logic the devil tries on Jesus.  The devil's whole strategy is to say to Jesus, "It doesn't matter if you are selling out by bowing down to worship me, or even whether you mean it in your heart or not when you bow down--just do it, so you can get the thing you want.  It doesn't matter if you sell your soul to get the thing you're after."  

Jesus' response, of course, is that it does matter.  He won't sell out.  He won't give his allegiance to anybody or anything other than the God who sent him.  And he won't take the path that is in his own personal self-interest (no crosses) if it comes at the cost of selling out.  The way Jesus lives out his role as Messiah matters.  If he had taken the devil's offer, put a crown on his own head, and said, "This is the Kingdom I've been sent to establish, and I'm the King," the world wouldn't have been saved.  The means matters, and so does the character of the one wearing the crown.  The whole Christian gospel hangs on the idea that it matters how Jesus fulfilled the role of Messiah, and that it was centered in the way of selfless suffering love rather than corner-cutting, deal-making self-interest brokered by the devil.

Look, anybody can slap on a firefighter's helmet on his head, show up at a fire scene, and try to tell the local news reporters covering the story that he was the hero who saved the day so he can start charging five bucks apiece for selfies and autographs, but that doesn't make him really the hero he claims to be.  The way to actually be the hero at the scene of the burning house is to be willing to choose the path of suffering love that risks putting yourself in danger and laying down your life for the sake of the other, rather than seeking your own self-interest.  If it is that obvious to us in a simple thought experiment like this, we should be able to see the same in the story of Jesus and in our stories, too.

The bottom line for all of us who follow after Jesus is to see that the way he brings life to the world is essential to actually bringing that life for us all.  Jesus won't just slap on a fire helmet and call himself a hero--he shows up and lays his life down for this whole dumpster fire of a world.  And if we are his disciples, then we will insist, too, that it matters how we act--not just if we reach our ambitions.  We'll insist that the way we get the job done matters as much as getting to say we "got it done."  We'll see that our character counts, because it is through self-giving love that Jesus saves the world, and not without that love.

So let this be my plea for the day: please, let us not accept the diabolical logic that says, "We don't care how you get it done or what sort of a personal character you have to get it done, as long as you get results!"  Please, let us not fall for the damnable lie that says accomplishing something out of greed and self-interest is just the same as accomplishing it out of self-giving love.  And please let us not delude ourselves into trusting what the devil would have us believe--that bowing down to him to gain the world's kingdoms is an acceptable way for bringing God's Kingdom on earth.  It matters not just that we "get results," but how we get them, as well.  At least it does to Jesus.

May it matter to us as well.

Lord Jesus, let us not settle for promised shortcuts or easy deals, but give us the courage to follow you where you lead, and to be shaped in the likeness of who you are.

Graceful Anger--January 29, 2020

Graceful Anger--January 29, 2020

"O LORD, you God of vengeance, you God of vengeance, shine forth!

 Rise up, O judge of the earth;

    give to the proud what they deserve!

 O LORD, how long shall the wicked,

    how long shall the wicked exult?

 They pour out their arrogant words;

    all the evildoers boast.

 They crush your people, O LORD,

    and afflict your heritage.

 They kill the widow and the stranger,

    they murder the orphan,

 and they say, 'The LORD does not see;

    the God of Jacob does not perceive'." [Psalm 94:1-7]

Do you ever watch the news and just get mad at the rottenness and suffering around us on this little blue planet?

Do you ever read the headlines of the day and feel something in you clench up, like a fist, or like a charley-horse in your soul?  Do you ever find yourself aching, like with a pain you can feel inside, over the frustration and helplessness and sadness of the suffering in the world... and in our own neighborhoods?  And do you find yourself ever sighing the words, "Doesn't anybody care about this?"

If you've ever been there, or if you are there on a regular basis, then there is a strange kind of hope in this psalm of lament and justice.  I will admit this is an odd choice for a devotional reflection.  I doubt these verses are anybody's specially chosen confirmation verses, or cross-stitched with hearts and angel wing designs on a wall-hanging or decorative pillow at your house.  In fact, when I was paging through the psalms earlier and happened upon these verses, I almost blushed at them. These are the sort of things we sometimes want to pretend aren't in the Bible... but here they are.  These are the sort of verses that make us uncomfortable, and so we don't want to think about what leads somebody to pray them.

Even more embarrassing for me, perhaps, is that I happened up on these verses just a short while after being steeped in Paul's words of abundant and overflowing grace from back in Romans from yesterday's devotion... and coming across these words at first feels like spiritual whiplash.  I have to admit, I almost wanted to keep on turning through the Bible to find something cheerier to write about.  But these words wouldn't let go of me.

And now, after they have wrestled with me, I am glad of it.  There is an unexpected and life-giving grace here that I did not see at first.

This is what caught my attention:  the voice praying believes deeply that God cares about the rottenness and suffering of the world.  The psalmist calls for God's help, not for self-interest, and not in order to get things on his own wish list, but for the sake those who are most vulnerable.  This is a prayer of someone who deeply believes that God is angered by injustice, and who promises to act in order to restore life for those who are the most endangered.  The poet longs for God to be angry--he expects that God will be angry--but not randomly or capriciously or irrationally.  He prays trusting that God will be at work to show grace to the ones "with their backs against the wall," as Howard Thurman used to put it, and to deflate the puffed-up proud.

In other words, the psalmist has lived through days like we have lived through, where it is almost too much to read the day's news or watch the talking heads on television for all the rottenness and hurt around.  And maybe this praying poet has seen so much crookedness and callousness in the face of others' suffering that he feels like nobody else is paying attention, or maybe they just don't care.  And yet--there is God.  And yet--there is this hope that God has not fallen asleep or gone away, this hope that God is not on the side of the crooks and the schemers or the arrogant proud.  There is this hope that God will yet lift up the lowly and help the ones most threatened by the powerful--the ones referenced by the familiar set of "the widow, the stranger, and the orphan."

This is what I have come to love about this prayer I have been overlooking all my life: the psalmist is upset at how the vulnerable are endangered, and he assumes--he trusts!--that God will be upset over this, too.  These words come from a place of outrage, but not a selfish or cruel sort of outrage.  It is outrage that longs for justice in a time when it sure looks like powerful crooks are getting away with their crookedness ("pouring out arrogant words," as he puts it).  This prayer comes from a place of deep compassion for those who have been stepped on, and anger that everybody else around seems to just accept it as normal. 

So the poet calls on God, as if to say, "This isn't OK!  The vulnerable shouldn't be treated this way!  Those who have no safety net should not be put at risk!  Foreigners and children without parents and those who are trying to make a life on their own, they should all be treated with special regard and protection, but they are being treated like they are disposable!"  And the prayer calls on God to act so that those whose lives are most endangered are restored.  It is a prayer for justice to be done, and for tender care for those most at risk.

Prayers like this remind me that the world around us--and the loud voices in it--may not see the importance of caring for those most in need or most endangered.  But God does.  The God who heard the cries of enslaved Hebrews in Egypt hears the cries of the widow, the foreigner, and the orphan and raises them up. The God who put pompous old Pharaoh in his place will humble the arrogant and give the crooked their comeuppance.  Even if it feels like everyone else around is OK with things as they are, the living God promises to put things right...to raise up those who have been stepped on... and to restore life for those under the boot of death-dealing powers.

There is an anger here, to be sure, but it is a graceful anger--a passion for things to be put right, a yearning for justice to be done, and a cry for those most threatened to be cared for tenderly.  This is a prayer for God to be a Mama Bear, fiercely defending her cubs.  On the days when it seems like no one else is upset by the rottenness around, I need an urgent prayer like this, which takes as its starting point the trust that the living God cares about the ones with their backs against the wall.

That sort of God won't be co-opted by the proud who think they have "won" the game, but insists on standing beside the people on the margins: children without the protection of their parents, foreigners away from their homelands, single moms trying to make it in the world, and everybody else who has been told they were disposable.

I need to know that such a God yet lives, and that such a God can be called on to act.

Rise up, O God, and work your justice to lift up those who have been stepped on, and to deflate the arrogant and the crooked.  Rise up in your Mama Bear graceful anger for the sake of the ones with their backs against the wall.

"Life, for...All"--January 28, 2020

Life, for... All--January 28, 2020

"And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If, because of the one man's trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification for all. For just as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's disobedience the many will be made righteous." [Romans 5:16-19]

Let me propose a rule of thumb for our talk about God: if we are forced to choose between our tidy, systematized, and orderly theological categories and the Gospel, pick the Gospel.

Even if it that means it messes up our categories.  We'll have plenty of time to sort out the mess, but we had better not let go of the Gospel.

Or maybe, we'll discover, it is more a matter of God's insistence not to allow the Gospel to let go of us.

This passage is one of those times when systematic theologians get antsy.  You can tell it because they start squirming in their seats, or they start furrowing their brows and raising their hands to speak because they are so fast to want to insert some caveat or fine print. Paul's loose talk of free gifts that really are free gifts makes them sweat.  And Paul's cavalier way of saying that "all" will be justified makes them nervous, because they want to protest that it can't mean everybody is accepted by God.  

And so, over twenty centuries of history, we Christians have either avoided spending too much time on passages like this (lest people get the "wrong idea" that God is letting even <gasp!> the riff-raff into the party), or the systematicians with their tidy categories try and inoculate listeners from such pearl-clutching notions as a redemption that is bigger than we imagined possible.  You'll hear a lot of, "Well, I know it looks like Paul says that all are justified, but that clearly can't be what he means, because that messes up Bullet Points 1, 2, and 3 of my theology, and we can't let that happen!" or You'll hear, "Paul doesn't really mean that as many as were caught up in Adam's sin area also the same many who are now made righteous!  They must be different groups of 'many.' Yeah, that's it!"  

Or, again, you'll hear a bit of asterisked fine print to this "free gift*" notion that says, "Well, the *gift is *theoretically available to anybody, but in order to *claim your prize, here is the stack of theological paperwork you must do in order to receive the prize and have it applied to your account, including the proper prayer you must pray in order to activate it, the correct statement of faith and the evidence of sufficient intensity of your faith, possible financial records of how much you have given to the church to back up your faith, and of course, an adequate score on your theology exam to prove you believe the correct things about the free gift."

Some caveat like that has to be added by the neat-and-tidy-category people of the Respectable Religious Crowd in order to make Paul's claims here more palatable, or at least so they can be shoehorned into their existing boxes.  The effect of that, of course, is that it basically means you have to fudge one of the key words in Paul's sentence, "Just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all."  So, you'll either hear that "all" can't really mean "all," or "justification and life" can't really mean "justification and life." Something must be conditional!  And of course, that means the gift isn't really a free gift, either.

So how do we deal with the tension in this passage, then, that sure sounds like it imagines God giving away restored relationship with him and life in Christ to everybody, all around?  Maybe we don't have to resolve it.  Maybe we don't have to make the tension go away, any more than you make the tension go away for the strings on a guitar or a piano.  Maybe the tension is how it makes music.

In other words, instead of trying some way to water down Paul's words or to make them say something he has not chosen to say here, what if we just let his message of sheer, undiluted Gospel sit with us... and do their work on us? What if we let them sing in us?  And what if we dared to be joyful at the prospect that God just might have it in mind to bring life to everybody, everywhere, just because that's the way God loves?  Paul, after all, seems to think that what he is saying is good news, not bad news, and certainly nothing to get our faces scowling and our hands fidgety about  Paul is convinced that all the world--even in the midst of our own hostility toward God and deadness in sins--has been loved by the God who raises the dead. And that is something worth celebrating, not running from.

What difference might it make then, today, if we look out at the world--starting on our block and radiating out to our town, our country, our little blue planet, and even the whole universe, too--and dare to imagine that God is intent on bringing life to every part of us that is dead, completely as a free gift?  How would we treat the strangers we meet, then?  How would we treat the people who we already know we disagree with or differ from? How would we care about their well-being, even if it didn't directly look like it affected our own?

What would happen if just steeped, like tea, in the hot water of the Gospel's claim that God in Christ has acted to bring "life for all"?

O God beyond our understanding, let us love you more than our theologies... and let us be ready to be stretched wide by the presence of your indwelling love.

Priceless and Free--January 24, 2020

Priceless and Free--January 24, 2020

"Now a certain man named Simon had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he was someone great. All of them, from the least to the greatest, listened to him eagerly, saying, ‘This man is the power of God that is called Great.’ And they listened eagerly to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. But when they believed Philip, who was proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon himself believed. After being baptized, he stayed constantly with Philip and was amazed when he saw the signs and great miracles that took place. Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, saying, ‘Give me also this power so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.’ But Peter said to him, ‘May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money! You have no part or share in this, for your heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the chains of wickedness.’ Simon answered, ‘Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may happen to me.’" [Acts 8:9-24]

Sometimes it cheapens something to put a price tag on it.

I know that sounds counter-intuitive at first.  But honestly, the things in life that are truly priceless have to be received and given as gifts, not as commodities, or else they lose their specialness.  And in a sense, that really does make perfect sense--after all, if something is of infinite worth, any price you name for it will come up short.

That is especially true when it comes to God's gifts that bring us to life.  Thinking you can buy God's gifts imagines that you can have a transactional relationship with God, while the God we meet throughout the Scriptures defies "this-for-that" kind of thinking at every turn.

And that's why I keep getting pulled back to this strange story from the book of Acts.  It's one that both inspires me and challenges me, as it unfolds.  For starters, the scene of the whole episode is set in Samaria--that whole geographic region that was filled it (wait for it) Samaritans, who were notoriously at odds with the Jewish residents of Galilee and Judea.  These were the hated ones, the unacceptable ones, and the dangerous foreigners across the border from Judea, and here the followers of Jesus are following the Spirit's lead in bringing the news and love of Jesus to them as well.  Right off the bat, this is a story of grace--of how God's life-giving power breaks down every wall, crosses every barrier, and welcomes the outsider without question.  Being Samaritan, after all, isn't something you can "repent" of--it is what you are if you are born in Samaria. And they can't stop being Samaritans once they are welcomed into the community of Christ--they keep their differences, their own identities, and their ways, while also becoming fully welcomed into the fellowship of Jesus' followers.  Two thousand years later, we still aren't very good at that--insisting on people having to fit out cookie cutter expectations before granting them "insider" status.  We still, in other words, try to attach a price to the gifts of Christ that God gives for free.

Well, against that backdrop, things get even more complicated when we are introduced to Simon.  Simon seems to relish being called "great," and he is also described as a "magician" (the same word used to describe the "Magi" who come visit the Christ-child by following the star, for what that is worth knowing).  Simon has had a career of wowing people and soaking in their praise as basically a showman, but when he sees these followers of Jesus who have the real deal, he wants a piece of it.  He sees the way the Holy Spirit is set loose among the followers of Jesus there in Samaria, and he wants to be able to do the same thing.  He wants the power they have.  

And this is where the story's turn becomes predictably tragic: Simon thinks that the Holy Spirit is a commodity for sale, rather than the infinite gift of God's own life-giving presence.  Simon treats the Spirit as something he can acquire in a transaction, and then once he has learned the apostles' tricks, that he'll be able to do the same kinds of wonders and signs that they do by this same Spirit.  He wants to use his money to leverage a way to get more power from the apostles, so that he will be seen as even greater than he thinks he is already.  And this is where it is crystal clear that Simon just doesn't get it.

Peter, the unofficial leader of the early church at this time, just calls Simon out on this and says that his whole mindset is unacceptable, indecent, and rotten through and through.  It doesn't matter that Simon's proposed deal doesn't go through--Peter, after all, isn't willing to sell access to the Spirit, since it's God's gift to give in the first place, and it is not Peter's right to withhold it.  But just the intention of Simon's proposed deal is corrupt through and through, and Peter will have none of it.  Even just asking to try and buy the power of the Spirit is completely opposed to the values of Christ, that it doesn't matter whether Simon's proposed deal happens or not. Just the request alone is outrageous to Peter and incompatible with the way of Jesus.

I'll tell you something--I used to be afraid and uncomfortable over this turn in the story. I didn't like the idea that Peter would be so harsh and so abrupt with Simon, who was clearly new to the faith and maybe still figuring out how much of his old way of thinking was going to be overturned by becoming a Christian.  It used to make me nervous that maybe I could find myself kicked out of God's good graces for some wrongheaded prayer request or some foolish petition.  But more and more, I am grateful that Peter wastes no time in saying a clear "No" to Simon Magus' corrupt and self-centered deal-making, and I am deeply glad for the clarity he brings to the moment in saying that even making the offer of a this-for-that with God is unacceptable.  It is refreshing in a time like ours when just about everything seems to be up for sale, and when integrity is so often on discount clearance.  It is a deeply hopeful thing for me to hear Peter say, "No! You just can't propose a deal like that--it is contrary to the character of God and anti-Christ!" because it means that Peter is wholly convinced that God operates entirely on the basis of gracious giving and has no room for petty deal-making.  The only way we can hear the "Yes!" of God's free gift of the Spirit who brings us to life is if we hear Peter's unequivocal "No!" to Simon's crooked and self-centered offer to buy what God only gives by grace.

And that's why this is essential: if decency matters, we need to hear that indecency is unacceptable.  If integrity counts for anything, we need to see that it is not for sale.  If God's grace is grace, then it cannot be purchased, commodified, or exchanged in a this-for-that deal. That's why, as much as Peter's harshness to Simon Magus might make me squirm, it is good news to hear Peter say, "No!  This is NOT the way we do things among the people of God!"  It is the "No" that clears the way for the "Yes" of the God who brings us to life by the Spirit.

Part of what it means for Jesus to raise what is dead in us is Jesus' insistence on rooting out from us all the old deathly ways of self-interest and crookedness in our hearts.  And we should be ready, in all honesty, that if we allow Jesus to bring us to fullness of life, it will mean pruning away all that deadness so that we can thrive in all the ways that are good and right.  It will mean that Jesus leads us to say "No" to things that the world around us may thing are "just business as usual," and it will mean that we refuse to sell our integrity, even when the conventional wisdom things it's a great deal.

But that's what happens when Jesus brings you to life: you see, all of a sudden, how a thing is cheapened when you put a price tag on it... and how the most infinitely precious gifts of all turn out to be free.

Lord Jesus, speak your No over all the crookedness within us and around us, so that we can hear the Yes of your freely given Spirit of life.

The Mission--January 23, 2020

The Mission--January 23, 2020

[Jesus said:] "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." [John 10:10]

Well, there it is: Jesus' mission statement, of sorts.

Why has Jesus come?  To hear him tell it here in John's Gospel, Jesus has come to bring life in overflowing abundance.  Jesus has come so that we might live fully.

I wonder what would happen if we who live in the communities called "church" thought of our purpose in those terms: what if we said that our reason for existence were "letting Jesus bring life to us and through us"?  

I suggest that because honestly, I think we who care about churchy things often think only in terms of self-preservation, rather than how Jesus would use us so that others "may have life abundantly."  And it shows. Our neighbors can sniff it out.  Self-interest reeks from a mile away, and it doesn't smell pretty.  

And when our logic in churchy circles is reduced to, "How can we get more people to join our church... so that we can keep existing?" or "How can we get more high-giving members?" or "What can we do to get the church into more positions of power and influence and privilege?" the world can tell.  Nobody wants to be invited to church if they can tell they are being viewed simply as a means of keeping the church going.  Nobody wants to belong to a community whose mission is simply, "We're here to keep propping ourselves up."  And nobody wants to be involved in a gathering of people that never looks outside its own doors or walls.  Because--again, to hear Jesus tell it--that ain't what Jesus has come for.

When the conversation among churchy folks is, "How do we get more people... or more money... or more resources... just to keep our own little group going?" we reveal that we aren't in line with Jesus' mission.  Jesus hasn't come to benefit himself.  Jesus hasn't come just to perpetuate his own life.  He has deliberately come to give life to those who need it--and he isn't stingy with it.  The arrows flow out from Jesus, and that means the arrows will flow from Jesus through us and out beyond us to the world around us.

You'll notice, too, that in a way, Jesus' mission statement doesn't sound all that "religious," either.  There's not a mention here of achieving sufficient holiness in people that they will then earn their place in the afterlife. There's not a discussion of creating an institution that will have leverage to influence public policy with its heft as a voting bloc.  There's not any mention of getting people to pray a certain prayer in order to activate Jesus' saving power for them.  There is simply the sentence, "I have come that they may have life... abundantly."  

That tells me anything and everything we do that brings people to fuller life--inside and outside our doors--is a part of Jesus' mission.  When we tell people the news that they are beloved and precious of God and can leave behind the burdens of guilt and shame they have been carrying, that brings people to life.  And when we feed people around tables and actually share conversation with them, treating one another like actual human beings rather than mere objects of our pity, that brings people to life, too.  And when we create space in our church classrooms for homeless families to sleep at night while they get themselves back on their feet, guess what--that brings people to life, too. And when we make room for people who look different from us, or who have been told somewhere along the way that they are unacceptable and unworthy, quite often we discover that their presence among us is Jesus, come to bring you and me to life, too.

All of a sudden, we see that the life Jesus calls us to is so much wider, so much more expansive, than just preserving a religion club for the sake of members who already belong to it.  And that's the great wonder: when we open ourselves up to the bigger vision of "letting Jesus bring life through us to others around us," Jesus simultaneously brings us to a deeper and richer life than we had settled for.

Maybe all that work and effort spent with focus groups and marketing firms crafting catchy slogans and inspiring mission statements can be set aside... if we dare simply to listen to Jesus' mission: I have come to bring life abundantly all around.

I could see myself spending a lifetime doing that.

Lord Jesus, bring us to life and then bring life through us to all.

Without Favors in Return--January 22, 2020

Without Favors In Return--January 22, 2020

"Then [Jesus] came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, 'Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.' The official said to him, 'Sir, come down before my little boy dies.' Jesus said to him, 'Go; your son will live.' The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, 'Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.' The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, 'Your son will live.' So he himself believed, along with his whole household." [John 4:46-53]

You know what Jesus needs in order to bring someone back to life?

Nothin'.  Absolutely nothing.

Jesus charges no price, makes no transaction, and requires no raw materials in order to restore someone to life.  Just that by itself is amazing, and frankly countercultural.  Ours is a time where everything--everything--is framed by somebody as a deal to be made or a transaction to be brokered.  "What will I get for my trouble?" it is sometimes asked.  Or, it's "Why should we help <gasp> those people, when they haven't done anything for us and have nothing to offer us in return?"  Maybe it is phrased, "People who give their resources to others and don't get anything in return, well, they're losers."  Or maybe it's, "We would be happy to do something for you--but first... we're going to need you to do us a favor."  We have become so used to accepting the terms of deal-making and exchanging favors that it sounds impossible to our ears that there could be a genuinely free gift with no strings, no conditions, and no fine print.  Maybe we have forgotten that we once assumed it was a sign of decency when someone could do the right thing or offer help without a catch.  But Jesus never forgot.

Jesus not only doesn't use his healing power as leverage to get something from the surely influential "royal official" who has come to him for help, but he doesn't even need anything from the father to be the ingredients to power the healing.  Not even faith.

Seriously.  I know that might run counter to our assumptions about the "right religious answers," but notice in the story that Jesus declares healing that restores this young child back to life before anybody believes him.  The young child, of course, is never even on the scene with Jesus, and so doesn't have the chance to believe in Jesus first... and the father only begs.  We don't hear that he trusts Jesus or believes his word until after Jesus has granted the healing.  And as John the narrator recounts the story, he connects the end of the fever with the timing of Jesus saying, "Your son will live," not any sufficient amount of believing from the father.

In fact, it seems that it is Jesus' word that creates faith, rather than faith that powers Jesus' healing.  That's huge.  So much of what passes for Christianity in our culture treats faith as a sort of fuel that God needs in order to make things happen.  We are drowning in prosperity preachers' messages and social media memes that all say variations on, "If you believe hard enough, God will then be able to do X or Y or Z for you."  But the clear assumption that goes unspoken is, "And, of course, if the thing you want doesn't happen, it is because you didn't supply God with enough faith to charge up the ol' divine batteries."

It's really all just a variation on transactional thinking: that God needs us to do some part in order to move the hand of the divine, or that Jesus is just as corrupt as some back-room deal-maker insisting on favors before we get what we are desperate for.  But that isn't how this story goes.  And in fact, it's not really how any story from the Gospels goes.  What the begging father and the dying son bring to the situation is their desperation... which is another way of saying they bring a big plate of hot, steaming nothin'.  And Jesus takes their nothing, their need, their desperation, and has compassion to bring the boy to life exactly on those terms--a restored life in exchange for nothing.  A free gift.  Grace.

Jesus seems to think that the desperation of this father to help his son to live is, by itself, enough reason to help.  He doesn't need to get credit, payment, or appreciation.  The healing that restores the boy to life is sheer unmerited grace--it hasn't even been powered by strong faith, but at best, has been granted alongside of the father's weak and wobbly desperate plea.  

That is good news for us, because if God's action is dependent on the sturdiness of our faith, nothing will ever happen.  Our faith is unsteady and easily misdirected, and we never have anything we can offer God if all of a sudden there were "favors" to be required.  But once we realize that this is how the God we meet in Jesus acts, it will change how we see the whole world, too.  And maybe we will stop insisting on "getting something in return" in our own lives.  Once we see that Jesus conducts his affairs wholly in an economy of grace, maybe we will be able to let go of our insistence that we only ever do something for others if they will do something in return.  Maybe we will finally see that it is not "losing" to give something to someone else without getting paid back, but just the opposite--that the most pathetic thing of all is to keep angling for something in return for helping another person.

Jesus leads us beyond that.  Jesus calls us to life beyond the deathliness of deal-making and transactional thinking.  Maybe we weren't ready for that before today.  Maybe we didn't have the faith to make that move on our own.  That's ok. Jesus didn't need our faith to bring us to life--it's the other way around.  Jesus is bringing us to fuller life than we had been settling for, and his power creates the faith that allows us to get up and walk on his way.

Lord Jesus, our faith is feeble, but you can raise us to wholeness of life when all we bring is empty hands.  Here they are.

What We're Getting Into--January 21, 2020

“What We’re Getting Into”—January 21, 2020

“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God…” [Mark 1:14]
You can’t make a victim out of Jesus.

You might try, but in the end, the story of Jesus resists any attempts to make him a hapless fall-guy who stumbled into trouble with the religious authorities and the imperial power-brokers. That’s not to say people haven’t tried to make Jesus sound like just a poor, misunderstood rabbi who naively got caught up in the royal mess of first century Roman and Judean politics. But these people have to pretend that verses like today’s aren’t there. To hear Mark tell it, Jesus didn’t start his public ministry until after John—his predecessor in holy troublemaking, you could say—had been arrested.

In other words, Jesus knew the stakes. In other words, Jesus did not start out on a public career in ministry thinking it would make him a respectable figure in the community. He knew that if he was going to walk the same road as John, there would at least be jail time in store for him, and most likely worse. Jesus didn’t start out thinking that he would win a popularity contest by announcing the Reign of God, only to be surprised when the religious professionals made him a public enemy. There is no honest version of Jesus that never upsets the powers of the day, and there is no truthful picture of Jesus that doesn't knowingly provoke and unsettle the Respectable Religious Crowd. He knew from the beginning that there would be costs—and he was prepared, from day one, to give everything.  And for the sake of bringing the world to life in God's kind of justice and mercy, Jesus decided it was worth the costs.

Now, this brings up what I have come to believe is a very helpful rule-of-thumb when thinking about Jesus: if your picture of Jesus is of someone who would never have said anything controversial enough to get him arrested, or if your picture of Jesus is of someone whose words, actions, or social company never would have gotten him crucified, then check your picture again: you have got someone else’s photo in your frame. That’s not Jesus. If he didn’t do and say things provocative enough to get himself publicly executed by the authorities or lynched by a crowd of smiling religious people, you’ve got the wrong Messiah.

The thing of it is, Jesus knew all that was in store for him. He knew the costs head, because he had seen them in John’s life, all played out. It’s much as theologian Walter Wink says about martyrs—they are not helpless victims, but fearless hunters who stalk evil out into the open by offering their bodies as bait. Jesus knew the costs and was prepared to pay them—for the sake of the Kingdom he announced, and for the sake of all of us who would get to be a part of it.

Now, that means two things for us as we step into the new day. For starters, there is a whole new depth to Jesus’ love for us—or at least one that maybe we haven’t spent much time thinking about. It means that Jesus was not merely “hypothetically willing” to die for us, or that Jesus was ignorant of the potential costs of being God’s Messiah. We often end up making sacrifices in our lives that we had been playing the odds on never really having to face. A couple promises in their wedding vows, “For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health…” but in the intoxicating fog of optimism and flowers, chances are they are both just hoping it will never come to the sickness or the poorness parts. Or they just aren’t thinking about what it will be like to have been married for 40 or 50 years and to go through a lifetime of lost sleep, tired muscles, belt-tightening, and the rest. We are not bad at making promises, so long as we don’t have to think much about the costs of keeping them, or we think that the odds are in our favor about ever having to pay the piper. Jesus, however, is under no such illusions. He has seen John get arrested from the get-go, and yet he suits up and goes off to do the same nevertheless. Jesus isn’t playing the odds or just crossing his fingers and hoping he’ll be lucky as a messenger of the Kingdom and maybe not get pinched. He knows what’s in store, and he does it anyway—for you and for me. Jesus won’t be made a victim by anybody else—he knew what he was getting into. He still does.

And he decided it was worth it anyway.  Hold that thought for a moment.  That means--YOU--were worth it anyway.  You, dear one.  You, beloved.  You were worth all that holy troublemaking.

But now that also means there’s a second conclusion for us, too: we cannot help but be aware of what we have gotten ourselves into as Jesus’ followers. Being Jesus’ followers is going to mean—by definition!—going where Jesus has gone. And Jesus has headed right into a life of holy troublemaking, same way as John before him. Maybe John could have pled ignorance and that he didn’t know being a prophet of the living God would get him thrown in jail (he seems to have had such doubts and frustrations in Matthew 11:2-6), but Jesus knows, and now so do we, that being a part of the Kingdom may well shake things up and turn us into holy troublemakers, too. 

We will be called to sacrifice our comfort and our routine, to risk looking foolish, to associate with the nobodies, the anybodies, and the not-very-respectables, all to invite them into the Kingdom, too, the way Jesus did, no matter who is upset by it. We will be called to speak up and to stand with others. We will be called into waiting rooms in moments of holy silence to shed holy tears. There will be a cost.  There could be marches and jail cells, and even bullets, like there were for Dr. King whose legacy we have just recalled as a nation once again. There could be the loss of friendships of folks who simply can't imagine why you, as a follower of Jesus, care so much about "those people" when they have a long list of reasons not to.  There may be a loss of Facebook-friend and social-media-follower popularity when folks don't want to be challenged by your insistence on going where Jesus leads you, and loving the people Jesus leads you to love.  And there may be a frightening loss of familiar idols as the way of Jesus leads you to let go of the false gods of prosperity, of reputation, of nationalism, of political party, or even of "the American dream."  As a wise older brother in the faith, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, says, the grace of following Jesus will cost us our lives, but it will give us the only true life there really is. 

And there it is again: following Jesus means a death of sorts--but the kind of death that makes resurrection possible, too.

At least, we can say, we know what we’re getting into.

Dear Jesus, to be honest, following you sometimes feels like the first hill on a roller coaster. Hold onto us tightly and do not let us go as we stare down the adventure before us.

Back to Life--January 17, 2020

Back to Life--January 17, 2020

"Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, 'Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.' So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him." [Luke 8:35-39]

Jesus is always bringing people back to life.  

This is simply what he does everywhere he goes, for whatever people cross his path.  Deeply devout people, and people with wavering and weak faith.  Fellow children of Israel who spoke his language and shared his God... and foreigners across the sea like this Gentile man who had been possessed by a "legion" of demons.  Respectable, well-dressed, and dignified community leaders in the privacy of their own homes, and even people who are stark naked out in public rambling through the graveyard.  Wherever Jesus goes, he brings people back to life.  Even if they weren't physically dead.

That's the key to seeing what happens with this man we remember as "the Gerasene demoniac."  He isn't physically dead, but he sure ain't really alive... until Jesus comes into his world and gives him his life back.  However we conceive of the evil spirts that have control of his life at the start of the story, this poor guy has been cut off from his old life because of them.  His wife and kids haven't seen in him in who knows how long, both because he is impossible to be around, but also for their own safety.  His neighbors don't go out to visit him in the graveyard, and the spirits made him unwilling to live in a regular house.  He can't even have a normal human conversation, because the demons keep interrupting, and they won't allow him to wear clothes, either.  I don't know what you call that kind of existence, but it's hardly a life.  And all the things and people who made up his old life have been taken from him, and he has been plucked up out of the familiar streets and home routines like he was erased.  In a way it's even worse than dying, because he really is conscious somewhere out in the graveyards, aware that he's missing his old life and family, and they all know that he's somewhere unwell and without them, too.

That's why I think it is so important to see this moment at the end of the story as something of an act of resurrection.  After all, what else do you call it when Jesus gives you your life back?  And because that is Jesus' intention, that sheds a whole new light on why Jesus doesn't allow the man, healed and in his right mind, to come along with Jesus.  The whole point of this miracle was to give him his life back--now he gets to go back to see his kids and kiss his wife.  Now he gets to sit on his front porch with his morning coffee. He gets to sit and listen to his neighbors ramble on about the good old days. He gets all the little things that make up a life handed back to him. What other word for that is there than resurrection?

I have been thinking this week a lot about what we miss even by just missing a Sunday's gathering with our church families in worship.  I felt it when we took a Sunday off after Christmas to visit family, and we feel it when someone is sick and can't get out to worship on a Sunday, or when others for whatever other reason miss being in church any given week.  (And I hear echoing the wise voices of older saints from my memory who earned the right to ask their younger counterparts, "Missed you in church this weekend... everything all right?" with just the right edge of convicting seriousness and good-natured ribbing.) Even for missing one Sunday, we miss out on these little, beautiful details from one another's lives--the person who shares about a sick relative, the moment that someone else is brought to tears by a hymn they loved and could really use a comforting friend, the reminder about the potluck next week, or the celebration of who won a blue ribbon for their painting at the art fair last week.  

There are so many chances to be present with each other, sharing our lives with one another, and my goodness, that's just thinking about a single Sunday morning we miss!  Here in Luke's Gospel, the healed man has been pulled out of all the details of his whole life for a long time.  Who knows how long it's been since he's been able to hug his kids or talk to his best friend?  All of those things are what Jesus gives back to this man by telling him to go back to his home, where he can tell people about what God has done for him there.

This is what Jesus is doing all the time, of course. I almost want to suggest that there's really only one kind of miracle Jesus ever performs: resurrection and restoring life--it's just he plays it like a song in different key signatures over and over in different situations.  He restores life to the leper begging on the roadside by curing the leprosy.  He restores life to the woman at the well by treating her like a person rather than a pariah.  He restores life to the man possessed by a legion of demons by sending away the spirits so he can go back to his life and his home.  And yeah, sometimes, he just plain raises the dead for Lazarus and Jairus' daughter and others, too.  But in each situation, Jesus brings people to fuller life than they had before--not just restoring breath and heartbeat, but giving us back the things that make a life... life.

It saddens and convicts me that so often we all settle for less than life--choosing to miss out on those connections with people's lives because we've got other "more important" things to do, when we take the presence of those God has put in our lives for granted so easily.  Maybe this man's story will remind me in the future that it is a shame to miss out on those chances to "show up" for one another--at church, with family, with the friends who count on us, or even with the stranger whom God sends across our paths. And maybe I'll be able to see, too, how many dark powers I am tempted to give control over to in my life that would keep me from being a part of those beautifully ordinary details of other people's lives.  Maybe it will just help me to see my priorities clearly, so that I will better know how and where to spend my time.  But in any case, we all need this kind of resurrection that can pull us out of the foolish and rotten ways we've let ourselves be cut off from others in our lives, and that can bring us back to each other, and to what life is all about.

And that is the good news for us on this day, too: Jesus doesn't have to wait until our hearts stop beating to bring us to fuller life.  God's mission is not just to resuscitate our bodies and then leave us wasting our lives on making more bucks, climbing the corporate ladder, burying our heads in screens, or chasing after a more "fun" crowd to spend our days with.  Jesus calls us to life again, and quite often he sends us right back into those ordinary places to live our everyday lives again as new people.  Maybe it starts quietly, without anybody noticing at all, while you and I take an honest look at the things we have missed out on while we were busy chasing after other "more important" things that really aren't so important.  Maybe it starts as Jesus helps us get back into our right minds and remember the gift it is simply to be given our own lives back.

For whatever ways we have settled for a life that is less-than, may the living Jesus resurrect us.

Lord Jesus, call us back to life, and send us back into the wondrously ordinary details of our daily lives as new people.

"Always Farther"--January 16, 2020

Always Farther--January 16, 2020

"And now the LORD says, 

    who formed me in the womb to be his servant,

to bring Jacob back to him,

    and that Israel might be gathered to him,

for I am honored in the sight of the LORD,

    and my God has become my strength--

 he says,

 'It is too light a thing that you should be my servant

     to raise up the tribes of Jacob

     and to restore the survivors of Israel;

 I will give you as a light to the nations,

     that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth'." [Isaiah 49:5-6]

It is not enough to be focused only on "our own."  It is simply not enough--not as far as God is concerned.  God, it turns out, always has a wider view than just looking out for "Me and My Group First."  God has a plan to bring light to ALL the world and life to ALL people... and has been saying so for a very long time.  If we have missed it, it's because our ears didn't want to hear it, not that God hasn't been saying it.

Hearing that shouldn't be a surprise to us, at least not really. The book of Isaiah has been saying it to us for about two and a half millennia, and it's not at all the only book of the Hebrew Scriptures to make the same point.  But maybe nobody puts it quite so clearly as these words from Isaiah 49 in one of the so-called "servant songs" peppered throughout what we call chapters 40-55 of Isaiah.  Other passages might be more ambiguous, or harder to interpret, but these verses from Isaiah 49 blow the doors open.  The prophetic voice just comes out and says, "It's not enough only to care about people-like-us: God is committed to bringing salvation to the end of the earth!"  God is even quoted here, as the prophet's imagination gets rolling, saying that YHWH is raising up this "servant" person (Christians tend to say, excitedly, "It's Jesus! It's Jesus! It's Jesus!" here) not just for returning home the scattered outcasts of Israel and Judah, but to reach out to all the people who don't belong to that family tree as well.  "It is too light a thing that you should... restore the survivors of Israel," God says; "I will give you as a light to the nations," as well.  In other words, just in case we thought that God is only interested in "people who already belong," or "people like us Respectable Religious folk," Isaiah says that's not enough.  That's not going far enough.  

Isaiah dares to say that this is how wide God's view is, when it's all but certain that many of the people around him were shouting, "Our People First! Our Interests First!"  Against that backdrop, it was a radical--and quite frankly dangerous--thing for Isaiah 49 to say that God's chosen servant, God's anointed Messiah, was sent in order to bring rescue and help and life for all peoples, even beyond the margins of the map.  Light to "the nations," not just for those within the boundaries of one.  Salvation "to the end of the earth," not just for the people like me, or those who think like me, or those whose skin has the same amount of melanin as mine.  It is a radical thought because it presumes that God cares as much about people who are unlike me as God cares about me... which also means that God isn't in my back pocket like my own personal lucky charm or rabbit's foot.

And this, dear ones, is what the Bible says.  God's aim is to bring light all around, and to bring life and healing and salvation everywhere.  It is simply "too light a thing," too small a vision, and too narrow a hope, to think that God only cares about "me and my group first," much less "me and my group ALONE." That kind of shrinkage of the Gospel is theological malpractice. And when our theology settles for believing that God wants us only to look out for our own interests (because, we may say, "everybody acts that way"), or pursuing our own little group's comfort at the expense of others' mere survival, we are running counter to the calling God gave to YHWH's chosen servant.  That is to say, we are make ourselves out to be anti-Christ.

The beauty of these words from Isaiah 49 is that they remain, even over all the noise of the Respectable Religious Folk who don't like that vision of God's care for all.  They endure, even when other, lesser, voices try and co-opt God for a "Me-and-My-Group-First" agenda.  They persist, even when our selfishness wants to wish them away.  And they resound, even though we have spent much of the last 2,500 years trying to cover our ears or pretending they are not there speaking from the pages of Scripture.  God has made the divine position clear: it is simply not enough to seek after our own self-interest.  God's chosen servant has come to bring life to every corner of God's green earth. 

No matter how we try and corral or contain it, God's design reaches always farther, wider, bigger than we imagined--big enough to include outsiders, outcasts, and oddballs like you and me.

Lord God, don't let us settle for a vision too small or a mission too light for your big designs to reach all the ends of the earth with your life and light and love.