inclusive Christianity

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/ JJS / Leave a comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 12; 146, 2 Chronicles 29:1-3, 30:1 (2-9) 10-27, 1 Corinthians 7:32-40, Matthew 7:1-12

Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye?

Jesus didn’t seem concerned with teaching us to identify flaws in other people – that job had too many people doing it already. Rather, Jesus invites you (and me) to repent and reflect, not to feel smug about telling others to do it. Yet somehow we manage to twist his words to point fingers and deflect criticism – Get the log out of your eye before you talk to me about my speck! – when confronted with our own failings. Repentance is something we embrace, not something we inflict.

While repentance is a personal pursuit, it has communal dimensions. Belonging to a specific community doesn’t make us responsible for the actions of every individual in the community, but … Paul’s letters are full of expectations that we hold our community – our body – accountable for its behavior. When one or a few people undermined the character of the Christian church, Paul didn’t accept “it wasn’t me” as an excuse to ignore the behavior.

In Paul’s case he was addressing a church, but community comes in many forms, sometimes with involuntary membership. Gender is an example of a community to which we belong but do not (generally) choose. While gender equality has made remarkable strides over the last century, there are still systemic injustices which need attention. When a topic like sexual harassment is broached, almost invariably some men respond with “not all men are like that.” It’s a defensive reaction meant to communicate, “Hey, I’m one of the good guys!” In reality, “not all men” derails the conversation; it prioritizes “my” comfort with being a man over problems women actually face. When the community has a plank in its left eye, what exactly is accomplished by pointing out how healthy the right one is?

Of course gender is just one example. Is it possible we are even more accountable for communities we join voluntarily? Not all Christians? Not all Democrats? Not all gun-owners? Not all police officers? Not all protesters? And none of these groups (and countless more) are mutually exclusive! The thread of our accountability runs through a series of knots where we’ve anchored ourselves to others.

Let us – individuals and communities – whittle away at those planks until they disappear. We might be surprised to discover how much we contribute to a problem and how much more we can contribute to a solution once we commit to seeing clearly.

Comfort: Community is a blessing.

Challenge: Let’s keep it that way.

Prayer: I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness, and sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High. (Psalm 7:17)

Discussion: Do you ever feel pressured to ignore problems of a group you belong to?

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Enough for today

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 62; 145, 2 Kings 17:24-41, 1 Corinthians 7:25-31, Matthew 6:25-34

Has anyone ever stopped worrying because someone said, “Stop worrying?”

When Jesus told his disciples not to worry about having enough food (God takes care of the birds!) or clothing (God dresses the grass itself in lilies!), or about life in general (can you add an hour to your life that way?) he knew this.  He had a bigger point to make.

No matter how well off we might be, we are still prone to worry. The impulse to get food on our table and have a roof to keep that table under, as well as the fear we could lose it all, drives our behavior in instinctual, inescapable ways. On some level we doubt that faith alone will provide for all our material needs; the history of humankind does more to confirm than to dispel that doubt.

But that’s not all Jesus was saying.

After the birds and the lilies, he says, “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” We can read this at least a couple ways. The first is the simpler: have faith and live righteously, and God will provide. The second is broader. In telling us to strive for the kingdom, it asks us to be the instruments of justice as described by citizenship in the kingdom. In the service of kingdom justice, we feed the hungry, tend to the sick, clothe the naked, and welcome the stranger. By being the last and by tending to the troubles of today – not just our troubles, but the troubles of our neighbor – we expand the kingdom in a way that begins to soothe that primal, hungry fear.

The end of worry is a long term endeavor. We still work toward it. Yes we are assured we can let go of individual worry for this particular day, but that process is inseparable from how we participate in the life of our greater community. When we sacrifice our lives to a kingdom free from worry, we will be freed in turn. We will not stop worrying because we are told to, but because we are told how.

Comfort: There is relief from worry.

Challenge: When you worry, ask yourself what you should be doing instead.

Prayer: Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you. (Psalm 73:25)

Discussion: What is the difference between worrying and preparing?

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Caught

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 108; 150, 2 Kings 17:1-18, Acts 9:36-43, Luke 5:1-11

Something a little different today: light meditation on Luke’s story of Jesus recruiting the first apostles.

[Jesus] got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.

Isn’t this often how we encounter God? Going about our daily business, generally aware that he’s around, but not focused on him until he steps up and asks something of us. That’s when we start paying attention; when we really listen for what he has to tell us.

“Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

How often do we put off turning to God until after we’ve exhausted all other options? We rely on our own plans, our own strength, and then even when we listen to him it’s more out of a sense of desperation or obligation than strong conviction.

When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats.

The rewards of following Christ are both personal and communal. When we let the Spirit fill us to bursting, we can’t help but share that bounty with our neighbors. When we overflow with love, those we help are also helping us.

But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

When we realize the magnitude of Christ’s gifts of love and forgiveness, we may not feel worthy. Yet Christ hasn’t asked our opinion on the matter; his sacrifice was for everyone. Choosing to accept it is not about whether we deserve it, but about loving him for making it.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

May we go and do likewise.

Amen.

Comfort: Christ’s invitation to follow is for everyone.

Challenge: Ask yourself if there’s anything you need to leave behind to follow Christ.

Prayer: Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name;
give to him glorious praise. (Psalm 66:1-2)

Discussion: How would you feel about Jesus showing up at your job?

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Whaddya know?

/ JJS / Leave a comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 122; 149, 2 Kings 11:1-20a, 1 Corinthians 7:10-24, Matthew 6:19-24

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul offers a teaching to men and women who have become followers of Christ, but whose spouses are unbelievers. He tells them not to divorce if the unbeliever still consents to stay together; indeed the unbelieving spouse is made holy by their union and may yet be saved. However if the unbelieving partner leaves, the believer is not bound by the marriage.

Paul makes clear to his audience an important distinction about this teaching and some of his others: it comes from him, not from God. Paul’s marriage advice was based on faithful conclusions he drew from his best understanding of Christ and the gospel, and undoubtedly he fully believed what he was saying, but he was still humble enough not to speak on behalf of God.

A lot of preachers – and for that matter a lot of lay people – fail to make that same distinction, even internally.

For example, we all know about television and radio evangelists, and local clergy as well, who just can’t seem to resist any opportunity to blame a natural disaster on some group of sinners. They will declare it the wrath of God or a message from Christ without any evidence beyond their own axe to grind. For purposes of this comparison it doesn’t even matter whether they are right: what matters is they don’t know whether they are or not, but claim it as if God told them personally. Talk about taking the Lord’s name in vain.

We can know better. More importantly, we can do better. Let’s never be so certain we know who God wants to punish that we don’t leave room for mercy. Remember Zoar? That’s the city God spared, but people who want us to remember (and misrepresent) only Sodom and Gomorrah don’t tend to bring it up. And then there’s Nineveh: God strong-armed his not-so-faithful servant Jonah into convincing them to repent when Jonah would rather have seen them destroyed.

Our national or cultural enemies – even the sinners we really think ought to – do not define God’s enemies. Our thoughts – even ones that seem soundly theological – are not God’s thoughts. We want to be very careful not to attribute our own words to God. Better to faithfully ponder and acknowledge how little we know for a lifetime than to try standing firm on nothing.

Comfort: Great faith doesn’t always have answers.

Challenge: Don’t try to make your biases into God’s biases.

Prayer: I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name. (Psalm 63:4)

Discussion: What’s the difference between admitting what we don’t know, and being the type of “lukewarm” believer Christ warns against?

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As we forgive…

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 88; 148, 2 Kings 9:17-37, 1 Corinthians 7:1-9, Matthew 6:7-15

If you found out you were going to die tomorrow, would you have time to forgive all the people who had wronged you?

When Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer, he included “forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Some translations of this prayer use the word “sin” or “trespass” instead of debt, but the meaning is pretty clear; Jesus explains the prayer by telling them they will be forgiven in the spirit which they forgive.

That’s bad news for grudge holders.

The good news is forgiveness in this sense is not about how we feel – which is something we can’t control – but about how we act, which is something we can control. Like loving our neighbors doesn’t require any actual affection, forgiving our debtors doesn’t involve resigning ourselves to whatever trespass they’ve committed against us. In the long run for our own peace of mind and mental health it’s probably preferable to get to emotionally better places, but we don’t have to be there yet to do what Christ has us pray. Does that sound hypocritical? Christ’s instructions are indifferent to our emotions, so acting on those instructions when we don’t feel like it is not so much disingenuous as it is a testament to faithfulness.

Forgiveness is a vital component of faith. Jesus speaks of it many times. If withholding forgiveness can keep us separated from God, it must be sinful. Yet we seem to spend so much more time preaching, talking about, and judging each other on a list of Dos-and-Don’ts we can’t even agree on. We’re happy to quote Paul and tell fornicators and the sexually immoral they won’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but we don’t say much to address the people in the pews who refuse to let go of a neighborhood feud over fence height.

We love because we are loved. We forgive because we are forgiven. How we feel about it while we do it is not the point. How we feel about it afterward  might just nudge our hearts even closer to God.

Comfort: You are forgiven.

Challenge: You must forgive.

Prayer: [Recite the Lord’s Prayer]

Discussion: Does your ability to forgive someone depend on whether they seem sorry?

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Pie(ty) in the Face

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 143; 147:12-20, 2 Kings 9:1-16, 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

If a Christian prays in a forest and nobody hears, does she or he make a sound?

Maybe the answer to that question is, “God hears either way.”

Jesus taught his disciples not to be flashy about their faith, unlike the people who fasted and made sure to look miserable, or the alms-givers who literally trumpeted about their gifts, or the people who offered long and loud prayers on street corners. Instead he instructed them pray privately, fast discreetly, and give secretly. Ostentatious faith gathers the reward of attention, but not a heavenly reward.

It’s once we leave the seclusion of the spiritual forest that we learn whether we’ve spent our time there wisely learning to live and spread the gospel, or simply trying to persuade God to notice us. Flamboyant demonstrations of faith move the spotlight off of Christ and onto us. The evidence of a heart transformed by Christ is in how we love people, regardless of whether anyone ever acknowledges or even knows we’ve loved them. Is it possible to spread a gospel containing the idea the last are first and the first are last if we always seem to be going for gold in the piety Olympics?

When Elisha dispatched a young prophet to tell Jehu in private that God had anointed him to depose King Joram and become the new king of Israel, Jehu played it down to his fellow commanders. He dismissed it by saying, “You know how those prophet types are!” but his colleagues forced a confession out of him. Though he died about 800 years before Christ was born, Jehu understood the power of spiritual humility.

In her song These Old Bones, Dolly Parton sings about a woman with a prophet-like gift for seeing the truth. The woman says, “But unless somebody just plain out and asked me, well, I just figured there ain’t no point goin’ around actin’ like you know everything, just ’cause you might.” Humble authenticity, not an overwhelming display, is the key to winning people over. Though our witness is certainly part of our evangelistic toolkit, the moral of our story is not “Christ saved me,” but “Christ’s sacrifice was for everyone.”

Comfort: You don’t have anything to prove to anyone.

Challenge: So stop trying.

Prayer: Lord where there is despair, let me sow hope. Amen.

Discussion: Where and how do you like to pray?

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War and Peas

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 65; 147:1-11, 2 Kings 6:1-23, 1 Corinthians 5:9-6:11, Matthew 5:38-48

The Arameans and the Israelites were frequently at war. Because the prophet Elisha seemed to always be one step ahead of the king of Aram, the king sent an army of Arameans to surround the city of Dothan, where Elishah was dwelling. As the army approached, Elishah prayed the Lord would strike them blind, and they were blinded. Then Elisha tricked them into believing he would lead them to the man they sought, but instead led them back to Samaria and the king of the Israelites. The Lord opened the army’s eyes and they realized the tables had turned and they were surrounded in the heart of enemy territory. The king would have been happy to kill the Arameans, but instead Elishah directed the king to unleash the full fury of … soup and salad.

That’s right, Elisha had the king invite the Arameans to a feast, and then release them to return home. Afterward “the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel’s territories.”

Could this be the sort of thing Jesus was thinking of when he told his disciples, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you?” In Luke’s gospel, it’s even expanded to doing good to them and lending to them without expecting a return. When’s the last time you lent something to an enemy?

Whether our enemies are personal, political, or global, one sure way to keep them enemies is to keep treating them as enemies. Elishah’s example, and Jesus’s words, are also echoed in Proverbs and other scriptures: “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.” Humanizing our enemies leaves them vulnerable to humanizing us in return, and that’s probably the last thing they want. Yet it’s the first step toward loving them.

Enmity may be forced on us by circumstances beyond our control, but how we treat our enemies is up to us. Whether you’re more motivated by burning coals or cooling tensions, loving our enemies is the path to eliminating them.

Comfort: You don’t have to return hate for hate.

Challenge: Invite an enemy to dinner.

Prayer: O divine master grant that I may not so much seek to be loved as to love. Amen.

Discussion: Have you ever been shown kindness or love by someone you considered an enemy? Did it change you?

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Fair or Foul

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 54; 146, 2 Kings 5:19-27, 1 Corinthians 5:1-8, Matthew 5:27-37

Do you ever second-guess God?

Gehazi, the servant of the prophet Elishah, was not happy when Elijah accepted no gifts or payment for curing Naaman of leprosy.  “My master has let that Aramean Naaman off too lightly by not accepting from him what he offered. As the LORD lives, I will run after him and get something out of him.” Gehazi followed Naaman and pretended his master had asked for a tenant of silver and two sets of clothes to give to visiting prophets. A grateful Naaman threw in an extra talent and two servants. Gehazi hid away his loot, but Elishah knew what had happened. The displeased prophet declared Gehazi and his descendants would carry forever the leprosy that had afflicted Naaman.

We can become disgruntled when we think someone has gotten off too lightly. When success comes to someone who hasn’t paid the same dues we have, when punishment for wrongdoing is not as severe as we’d like, or when it feels like someone has “jumped line” and gotten something we “deserved” more, we may resent them, disparage them, or even try to sabotage them. Like Gehazi, we don’t always like the way our master shows mercy, and also like Gehazi we often think it’s our job to even the score when God has dropped the ball. Fair is fair, right?

Except Christ never teaches us to insist on fairness for ourselves, and certainly not to exact it at the expense of someone else. How God works in another person’s life is not the benchmark to which we should compare how God works in our lives. After all, some people have it worse than we do too, and we never seem to think fairness might involve moving downward toward those we believe have it worse instead of upward toward those we think have it better.

Mercy, by definition, is not fair. But if we claim to follow Christ, we must believe mercy is just – not only the mercy offered to us, but also the mercy offered to others, even mercy we would not ourselves bestow. When we accept that Christ has already redeemed us through the ultimate act of mercy, it becomes something we seek more to share than to acquire.

Comfort: You have been offered the ultimate mercy.

Challenge: When in doubt, ask.

Prayer: O divine master grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console. Amen.

Discussion: How do you react to being treated unfairly?

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Inference Interference

/ JJS / Leave a comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 57; 145, 2 Kings 5:1-19, 1 Corinthians 4:8-21, Matthew 5:21-26

Naaman was an Aramean warrior who suffered from leprosy. One of his wife’s servants was an Israeli captive. This girl told Naaman that a prophet in her land could cure his illness. With a letter and the good wishes from his own king, Naaman took “ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments” to the king of Israel. Did this generous tribute and simple request touch the heart of the king? Not quite.

When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.”

And that sometimes seems to be the entirety of foreign relations in a nutshell. Personal relations, too.

Inference is a dangerous habit, but we do it all the time. Asking someone directly for clarification of their meaning or intentions should be simple, but we are uncomfortable asking and defensive when asked. Often we would rather just work off assumptions … which we’re not especially good at making. From being offended at unintended “tone” we’ve erroneously read into emails, to completely misreading the motives of foreign governments, inferences cause no end of unnecessary problems.

The prophet Elisha advised the king of Israel to take a breath; he would cure the Aramean commander’s leprosy. Then is was Naaman’s turn to be paranoid. When Elisha instructed him to bathe in the Jordan River, Naaman protested that the cure could not be so simple and prepared to leave. His servants asked him why he would have been willing to do something difficult, and rejected something easy.

If we would like transparency and trust from others, we must be willing to offer them first. Christ tells us before we offer a gift at the altar, we should reconcile ourselves to any brother or sister who has something against us. That’s not the same as forgiving something we have against them – the onus is on each of us to initiate peace whether or not we believe we are in the wrong. If we don’t know how, we can start by asking.

Comfort: Making yourself vulnerable is not a weakness.

Challenge: When in doubt, ask.

Prayer: Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts. (Psalm 85:8)

Discussion: Have you ever made an assumption which led to unnecessary conflict?

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!

Gift Receipts

/ JJS / Leave a comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 67; 150, 2 Kings 4:8-37, Acts 9:10-31, Luke 3:7-18

Have you ever received a gift you didn’t request or want, but which you didn’t feel comfortable returning? Something like a piece of art which you really don’t care for, but made especially for you by a loved one. Or maybe you’ve been given a pet you weren’t ready for. Suddenly we have to decide whether that sculpture has to be on the coffee table all the time or just when Aunt Molly visits, and whether we can afford next month’s planned vacation and a pet sitter.

The prophet Elisha gave an unexpected gift to a Shunnamite woman who had prepared a place for him to stay when he traveled. The childless woman was past the age when she expected to bear children, but through the power of God Elisha told her she would conceive. When her son was older he one day returned from the field with a mysterious headache, and died sitting on his mother’s lap. The woman was left with anger and grief over the loss of something she had never expected to have. Fortunately, Elisha was able to restore the son to life.

A disciple named Ananias was given an unexpected vision from God. Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor of Christians, was laid up blind and Ananias was to visit him so his sight could be restored. Ananias’s response was basically, “Really Lord? This guy?” but God reassured him Paul was to be an instrument of great evangelism. Sight restored, Paul started with a bang and so angered the Jews with his preaching that they plotted to kill him. The disciples had to sneak Paul out of town in a basket lowered through a hole in the city wall. Paul would turn out to be a difficult gift to wrangle for years to come.

The more strongly we feel about respecting the giver, the tougher it is to deny a gift we didn’t want in the first place. Isn’t God the giver we respect the most? Not every gift we have from God will be one we desire. It may be inconvenient. Burdensome. Painful even. We need to figure out what to do with it anyway.

Making room for the unwelcome gifts along with the welcome teaches you not every gift is about you, but might be about the grace that is found in sacrificial love. If you’re not going to go out and get it for yourself, somebody has to give it to you.

Comfort: Every gift from God, even an unwelcome one, is a treasure.

Challenge: Ask yourself which of your gifts you are not using, and why.

Prayer: May God continue to bless us; let all the ends of the earth revere him. (Psalm 67:7)

Discussion: What’s the worst gift you’ve given? How did you find out it was a bad idea?

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!