Month: July 2016

Holy Underdog!

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 108; 150, Judges 6:1-24, 2 Corinthians 9:6-15, Mark 3:20-30

Like many heroes of Israel, Gideon had a humble beginning. Because the Israelites had begun to worship foreign gods, for seven years the Lord allowed the Midianites and other peoples to raze the crops and livestock of Israel: “They and their livestock would come up […] as thick as locusts; neither they nor their camels could be counted; so they wasted the land as they came in.” Gideon’s family threshed their wheat in a wine press to hide it from the Midianites. When the angel of the Lord appeared and told him he would be Israel’s new champion, Gideon was skeptical: “But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” The Lord assured Gideon that – with the Lord at his side – he would be victorious.

Gideon came from a long tradition of underdogs chosen by God (Abraham, Joseph, and Moses to name a few) and many more would follow. What is it God loves about an underdog?

Underdogs are humble. Life has taught them personal strength isn’t always enough. It takes real humility to submit ourselves to God’s will; a person who is used to success on their own terms can find that submission difficult. We have to recognize and admit to our “weaknesses” before they can really become opportunities for God’s strength to shine.

The victory of an underdog is a real testament to faith in God’s power. Had the roles of David and Goliath been reversed, and Goliath been Israel’s giant champion, it would have been just another story of might makes right. When we follow God, right makes might.

Over and over scripture teaches us God has a love of the disenfranchised. The Mosaic Law has numerous rules about treating widows, orphans, and foreigners with compassion. Jesus taught constantly about loving the poor. The prophets tell us Israel fell from God’s favor when the people became satisfied with themselves and ignored the needy. Holy underdogs are a continuous reminder that God’s justice is not about acquiring what we deserve, but about serving others in need.

Comfort: Whether you feel like a champion or not, God loves you as one.

Challenge: In the coming week, watch the news for examples of true underdogs who have accomplished something important of noble. Can you see the Lord’s influence in their lives?

Prayer: Lord, I thank you for the strength that sustains me even when I am weary and afraid. Amen.

Discussion: Do you have a favorite underdog story?

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Double Standards

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monsters

Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 122; 149, Judges 5:19-31, Acts 2:22-36, Matthew 28:11-20

Have you heard of Jael? She played a pivotal role in the book of Judges. Israel was battling the Canaanite army, whose captain was Sisera. When he realized his cause was lost, Sisera sought refuge at the home of Heber and Jael, Kenites who had no conflict with the Canaanites. Home alone, Jael offered Sisera milk, food, and a place to sleep. As he slept, Jael hammered a tent spike through his skull until it stuck in the ground. Jael’s deed is celebrated in The Song of Deborah, a judge of Israel who prophesied a woman would kill Sisera. Yet Jael remains a controversial figure: she violated the hospitality code of her culture by harming a guest in her home. Normally the Israelites would have judged this type of infraction quite negatively, but since it was to their benefit, they interpreted it as the will of God.

After Jesus had risen from the grave, the chief priests and elders offered a large bribe to Roman guards to say his body had been stolen while they slept. They further offered to run interference with the governor, should word of the missing body get back to him. These chiefs and elders were the supposed spiritual leaders of the Jewish people. Among the laws they represented was a prohibition on bearing false witness. To do so warranted punishment equal to whatever the wronged party would have suffered. Yet because they convinced themselves they were doing right, the hypocrisy did not matter to them.

Double standards are pernicious, especially when we believe our cause is just. It’s natural to overlook flaws in the people and institutions we favor, and exaggerate them in those we don’t. Doing so, however, undermines our integrity, our credibility, and ultimately the cause we serve. For people of integrity, good ends do not justify bad means. The righteous who resort to unrighteous tactics destroy the thing they hope to preserve. Consciously hold your friends, your enemies, and yourself to the same standards. Let us be less concerned with whether we “win” … and more with whether we witness to Christ.

Comfort: Losing is no shame if you lose with integrity.

Challenge: Over the next week, pay to attention to the double standards of your own views, especially around religion and politics.

Prayer: God of Justice, open my eyes to my own short sightedness. Amen.

Discussion: What double standards bother you the most?

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We All Bleed The Same

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“We don’t have it all together, but together we have it all.”

A Thing of Horror?

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 88; 148, Judges 5:1-18, Acts 2:1-21, Matthew 28:1-10

“You have caused my companions to shun me;
     you have made me a thing of horror to them.”  – Psalm 88:8

What a jarring statement, to declare oneself a horror to companions and neighbors. Sadly, we can all relate. When we experience an extended personal crisis – a divorce, a job loss, an illness – most of us reach a point where we suspect family and friends must be weary of hearing about it. We notice (or imagine) that people have begun to avoid us. Whatever the situation, even when we feel most alone, God is with us. Like the psalmist, we may feel God’s face is hidden. When that happens, we may need to use prayers like sledgehammers to batter down the barrier a crisis erects between us and God.

And when the tables are turned? Do our neighbors in crisis ever become horrors to us? We grow tired of hearing the minutia of Bill’s family court drama. We have to drag ourselves to the bedside of a formerly vivacious friend we weep to see wasting away. Some days we simply aren’t up to the task. But on better days we honor the Christ of the cross – who had become a physical and social horror to his friends and loved ones – by seeing his face where people suffer. We all know someone who lends the ear, takes someone to chemotherapy, or bakes the casserole. Maybe we are that someone.

If you are that someone, let people who still struggle to serve others know you don’t have superpowers – you rely on the Lord for strength. If you are not that someone and find yourself struggling to serve, understand that you are more capable than you realize. None of us wants to share disease or loss any more than we want to experience it, but we do so because love calls us to. When we serve each other with love, no one – no matter how awful their situation – is a “thing of horror” to God. Each of us is a child of God in need. Let’s not be put off by a matter of degree.

Comfort: God loves us as a child, regardless of circumstance.

Challenge: If you find it easy to serve others, offer to help someone who struggles. If you struggle, find and work with someone who finds it easy.

Prayer: God of strength, I will serve you by serving others. Amen.

Discussion: Have you ever felt like a “thing of horror?”

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Burying the Body

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):

Psalms 143; 147:12-20; Judges 4:4-23; Acts 1:15-26; Matthew 27:55-66

Jesus was dead. His disciples, not understanding he would return, were scattered and gutted because their revolution had ended in crucifixion. The Messiah had been killed by enemies among the occupier and the occupied. The evidence of failure was his own lifeless body, hanging on a cross as the Sabbath drew near.

“What now?” they whispered. “What do we do now?”

Joseph of Arimathea and the Marys knew the simple yet devastating answer: bury the body.

Life can go so drastically wrong that we literally don’t know what to do. At these times, the best thing is often to attend to the practical. When life smashes our expectations beyond recovery, the loss can be too overwhelming to process all at once. When this is true, the momentum of responsibilities like a job, cooking dinner, and showering can keep us moving like a bicycle that will topple if it stops. Such distractions help us swallow grief in bite-sized chunks rather than a choking whole. Though we don’t want to turn these responsibilities into a form of denial, engaging in them can help us throttle the grieving process to a manageable pace. Funeral arrangements, for instance, while not routine, serve an important psychological purpose of engaging the grieving parties in activity. They draw us back into the decisions and actions of the living. While it is inevitable that we will have moments when breaking down is the right and necessary thing to do, we need a purpose to rise back up.

Short of clinical issues like depression, we all have the capacity to move on. Parents who care for children with severe disabilities are often asked, “How do you do it?” When the disability is unexpected, a parent may, in a sense, have to bury the body of hopes once held for that child. The future may hold resurrection, or an altered set of expectations, or further disappointment; in any case, these parents pull the extraordinary from the ordinary. Like Joseph and the Marys, they know the enormous healing power of being able to honestly say, “We did what we had to.”

Comfort:  In our greatest losses, God grieves with us.

Challenge: Make a list of the tasks you perform each day. Turn this into a litany of thanks: “God, thank you for the opportunity to …”

Prayer: Merciful and loving God, give me the strength to do what needs doing. Amen.

Discussion: Have you ever been immobilized by grief? What got you moving again?

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Forsaken

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 65; 147:1-11, Judges 3:12-30, Acts 1:1-14, Matthew 27:45-54

“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” That is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Every year during the Passion narrative, this verse moves me more than any other. Although the Gospels tells us Jesus suffered and was tempted like any other person, he seems so wise, so confident, and just so plain good it can be hard to believe. These words, though, contain every bit of despair and doubt I’ve ever felt – and then some. If Jesus, of all beings in creation, can feel abandoned by God, our own doubts and fears condemn us not at all.

All of us sometimes feel forsaken by God. In times of illness, financial hardship, failing relationships, and many other situations, we can feel let down or deserted by God. The last thing we need is a clichéd assurance us of God’s loving presence. Reason tells us everyone suffers, but our distressed hearts may be difficult to convince. We can dispassionately dispense platitudes about someone else’s problem, but our own problems are somehow different.

Doubt, disbelief, and anger at God are almost inevitable. Knowing Jesus felt the same way (at least once) puts us in good company. The psalmists were able to feel faithful and forsaken at the same time. Psalm 119:82 says “My eyes fail with watching for your promise; I ask ‘When will you comfort me?’” How poignant! We must not confuse doubt with the absence or end of faith. Classics of Christian writing like The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross help us understand the ways doubt and darkness can transform our faith. While our instinct is often to reject doubt, we need to embrace and explore it. Burying it beneath denial or easy answers undermines the development of true, enduring faith. When we see someone struggling with doubt, offering easy reassurance can actually be a terrible disservice. Better to be present for our struggling friends, and let them reap the benefits of working through their own spiritual struggles.

A moment of doubt did not thwart Jesus’ triumph, and it doesn’t have to destroy our faith.

Comfort: Doubt can be the turn in the road that leads us to new understanding.

Challenge: Invite someone you trust to discuss each other’s doubts.

Prayer: Merciful and loving God, thank you for being bigger than my doubt. Amen.

Discussion: What do you do when you experience doubt?

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Maybe next time…

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 54; 146, Judges 2:1–5, 11–23, Romans 16:17–27, Matthew 27:32–44

The book of Judges recounts the history of Israel between the time of Joshua’s death and the reign of Saul, Israel’s first king. The second chapter begins a cycle that repeats several times: Israel prospers, then grows lax and disobedient and God withdraws his favor; eventually the plight of the Israelites softens his heart and he sends a judge to set them back on the right track. Over a dozen times. We may or may not experience our fortunes and misfortunes proportional to God’s favor, but we can all find lessons in these stories.

One simple, yet important lesson: learn from your mistakes. For two centuries, the Israelites teetered on the brink of ruin multiple times, always for the same reason. It is easy to shake our heads at their stubborn foolishness, but we’ve all been there. Maybe relationship after relationship sours because we can’t change our ways. Maybe our weight boomerangs in a cycle of diet and despair. Maybe we repeatedly sabotage our job or education or finances because we cling to a particular mindset. Everyone has some story of an attitude or habit they had difficulty changing (or still need to). Most of us have more than one. Not everyone needs a twelve step program, but sometimes we all need to surrender to the higher power integral to success.

Another related lesson: neglecting our relationship with God has consequences. Perhaps not direct punishment, but consequences intrinsic to our behavior – a sort of “built-in” system of moral checks and balances. Christ and the prophets teach us to put God and our neighbor above materialistic concerns, yet advertising and other influential aspects of our culture tell us exactly the opposite. However, our novels and films abound with morality tales about the dangers of prioritizing wealth, popularity, vanity, etc. In these tales, people nearly always either arrive at a bad end or save themselves by repenting. Could these stories be popular because they strike a chord of truth within us? By nurturing our relationship with God, we can focus on priorities that deliver a true abundance, an abundance of the spirit.

Comfort: Like the north star, God helps our path stay true if we follow him.

Challenge: Change one part of your routine today and observe the effects.

Prayer: Merciful and loving God, my heart is set on you. Amen.

Discussion: What habits have you found hard to break?

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Flavor of the Weak

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 56, 57, 58; 145, Joshua 24:16-33, Romans 16:1-16, Matthew 27:24-31

What is it about humiliating others that appeals to so many? Words that should be bitter on the tongue are savored like sweets. We see or hear examples every day: children (and adults) bullying each other, politicians launching personal attacks, reality television, petty vindictiveness as couples separate, and on and on. On the world stage, terrorism aims not simply to overcome the enemy, but to demoralize and spiritually destroy it. In Matthew’s gospel, after Jesus is sentenced, soldiers make sport of him by dressing him in a mockery of royal attire, including a bloody crown of thorns. Yet at no point does Jesus so much as belittle those who persecute him. To the end of his life, he prays for them and asks God to forgive them (Luke 23:34). People truly working for justice and righteousness do not stoop to humiliation as a tactic. Without oversimplifying the psychology of such behavior, can we see a correlation between the need to humiliate an enemy, and an awareness on some level that one’s cause is unjust?

People of faith are not immune to desires for humiliation or vengeance. The author of Psalm 58 uses such vicious imagery it has been dropped from most recent lectionaries. The psalmist wants God, among other things, to: break the enemies teeth in their mouths, let them be trodden down like grass, and let them dissolve into slime. He yearns for the righteous to bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked. These examples are specific and extreme, but modern equivalents exist. Fortunately God is not obligated to grant everything we – or the psalmists – wish for.

A desire to see one’s enemies humiliated may be part of the human experience, but Christians are called to a higher path of resisting such temptation, and following the example set by Jesus. Owning up to our own vindictive tendencies can be enough to give us pause before we act on them. Perhaps such temptation may indicate our own motives are less than noble. While humiliation is a tool of the weak and immoral, love and justice are always positions of strength.

Comfort: Humiliation is rendered powerless in the light of God’s love.

Challenge: As you go through the week, watch for examples of humiliation or vindictiveness. When you see or hear them, reflect on what these tools say about the cause or person using them.

Prayer: Merciful and loving God, may my words and actions be worthy of you. Amen.

Discussion: Has anyone humiliated you? Have you humiliated anyone else? What were the effects?

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Hear to Understand

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 67; 150, Joshua 24:1-15, Acts 28:23-31, Mark 2:23-28

We all like to think we are open-minded – that our beliefs and attitudes are the result of well-informed reasoning and thoughtful consideration. Unfortunately there are at least a dozen types of cognitive bias to which we are prone, and another three dozen types of logical fallacy which our biases urge us to ignore. Since human beings are largely irrational creatures, being an expert in bias and logic is no guarantee of solid reasoning; actually the smarter we are, the more easily we can justify our own biases by manipulating those very laws of logic.

When Paul went to Rome, many Jewish leaders there were willing to hear him out regarding the teachings of Jesus. He talked with them an entire day, into the evening, and when he was finished some believed and some did not. For those who did not, he shared these words from the Holy Spirit:

“You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.”

These leaders were not evil, or – like the ones in Jerusalem who had driven him to seek sanctuary in Rome – even hostile. They simply felt no compelling reason to change their minds. What was the difference between those who believed Paul and those who didn’t? One possibility: they couldn’t imagine being wrong about the faith they had been taught and known all their lives.

Flash forward two thousand years, and people are basically the same. We believe God is moving among us, but in ways tradition has taught us to expect. When the Holy Spirit inspires prophets to declare Christians must grow to be more inclusive and just … some people believe and some do not. Few people today justify racial, gender, or ethnic discrimination on religious grounds, but once it was more common than not. Forces seeking justice and inclusion endure, and those that focus on condemnation and exclusion are judged unfavorably by history. When we consider such divisions in the church today, we must prayerfully consider whether we are biased toward merely hearing and seeing, or whether we are truly open to understanding and perceiving.

Comfort: The Spirit is still moving us toward justice.

Challenge: Follow the links in the first paragraph of today’s post – they may just teach you to be a better thinker.

Prayer: Lord of Truth and Light, teach me to be humble and bold enough to hear your word anew, even when I think I already understand it. Amen.

Discussion: When is the last time you changed you mind about something important to you? What prompted the change?

Join the discussion! If you enjoyed this post, feel free to join an extended discussion as part of the C+C Facebook group. You’ll be notified of new posts through FB, and have the opportunity to share your thoughts with some lovely people. Or feel free to comment here on WordPress, or even re-blog – the more the merrier!