Like Christmas morning

Friday

Romans 3:19-28

There is no distinction, ²³since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; ²⁴they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

I was baptized in a Lutheran congregation as a child, in the church where my father had been raised. My mother was raised in a Lutheran congregation. Their parents were all from Scandinavia, so of course they belonged to Lutheran churches. I made my confirmation in a Lutheran church; I attended a Lutheran college; I went to a Lutheran Seminary. But it was in my fourth year of seminary that I became a Lutheran.

I was one of those students who would ask the provocative question. I was never content to take notes and regurgitate answers; I wanted to understand, to push through to the heart of the matter. So one day, when my required World Missions class had a guest speaker from the Lutheran Church in Thailand, I raised my hand and asked “Why do you, a person from (then) 20^th century Thailand, identify with a 16^th century German monk?”

Without being phased at all, he answered me: “I don’t identify with a 16^th century German monk; I identify with his understanding of the Gospel.”

In that moment all the light bulbs went off and I became a Lutheran. The Lutheran expression of Christian faith isn’t about the culture of church music, hymns, coffee and potluck suppers. It is about an idea. One central, unshakeable idea: God has come to make us his own for no reason but his own goodness. God has come to give salvation as a gift. God has come to heal a broken world, forgive an indebted world, deliver a captive world, redeem a world in bondage. God is the physician who does not ask whether her patient is worthy of her ministrations; she simply works to save the life of the patient before her. God is the lifeguard who does not ask what kind of idiot swims out beyond their depth. God is the fireman rushing up the World Trade Center without asking if its safe; there are people to be rescued and a fire to be extinguished.

Lutherans call it grace. The official phrase the 16^th century reformers used to summarize all this is: justification by grace through faith. We are brought into a right relationship with God by his free gift and favor, a relationship that is a relationship of faith, of trusting the gift that is given.

There are other things to talk about in Christian faith. What does it mean for us to live as sons and daughters of the Most High? What is our mission in the world? What does the scripture mean when it calls us to holiness of life? Lutherans can argue about all manner of things – and usually do: sexual ethics, capital punishment, worship and liturgy, gender neutral language, the authority of bishops, whether we should even call them bishops. But none of this defines us. What defines us – or should define us – is this idea of grace.   We defend that idea like a dog with a bone.

It’s not grace and works. It’s not grace and a certain spiritual experience. It’s not grace and a doctrine. It’s not grace and democracy or capitalism or liberalism or anything. It is just grace. Life is gift. Redemption is gift. Forgiveness is gift. The life of the age to come is a gift. It is not the only doctrine, but it is the font of all other doctrines.

Yes it’s a gift that is of no use unless you receive it. But the receiving of it is no credit to us. No one stands around on Christmas morning to say, “Oh, look how well you opened that gift!” They ooh and aah at the gift.

Sunday morning is, and should always be, a kind of Christmas morning, oohing and aahing at the gift.

And Christian life is living every day as Christmas day.

 

Photo: dkbonde

Ransomed

Watching for the Morning of October 18, 2015

Year B

The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost:
Proper 24 / Lectionary 29

The coming passion still dominates this section of Mark’s gospel as we hear for the third time that Jesus will be shamed and killed in Jerusalem, but “after three days he will rise.” The disciples are still uncomprehending that the Messiah could suffer, and James and John boldly make a play for the premier positions of power and honor at Jesus’ right and left hand “in his glory”. But we who hear this Gospel know that at Jesus’ right and left hand will be the two thieves.

So once again Jesus teaches his disciples about the shape of life in the kingdom. Those who would be great must be servants. Those who have the position of honor at the banquet of God are bearing to others the baskets of bread as if they were the slaves. And then comes the punch line: “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Suddenly we have this word ransom. When members of elite families are captured in war their families must purchase their freedom. Christ is come to purchase our freedom. Christ is come to free us to serve. Christ is come to free us for our true humanity. Christ has come to heal and redeem our world.

The idea of ransom reconnects us with the passion prediction that begins our Gospel reading. It also takes us into the first reading where we hear the prophet declare:

he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole.

‘Ransom’ is the heart of our reading from Hebrews where the author portrays Christ Jesus as the true and perfect High Priest, declaring: “he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”

And this theme of redemption is embodied in the rich and wonderful imagery of the psalm that promises God’s protection: “With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.” The language seems hyperbolic – ^“A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.” – until we remember that we are talking about the ransoming of the world and the dawning of the new creation.

The Prayer for October 18, 2015

You are our refuge, O God, and our holy habitation.
Grant that, dwelling in you, our lives may honor him
who gave his life as our ransom:
your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Texts for October 18, 2015

First Reading: Isaiah 53:4-12
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” – In the 6^th century BCE, the prophet speaks of a servant of God who suffers on behalf of the people, and “by his stripes we are healed.”

Psalmody: Psalm 91 (appointed 91:9-16)
“You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.” – The poet sings of God’s faithfulness.

Second Reading: Hebrews 5:1-10
“You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” – Christ is our true high priest, appointed by God, who mediates our reconciliation.

Gospel: Mark 10:32-45 (appointed 10:35-45)
“Whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” – James and John approach Jesus looking for positions of honor in the new administration and Jesus has to once again explain that the kingdom of God inverts the values of the world.

 

Photo: By GO69 (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.  Page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abbatiale_Saint-Pierre_d’Orbais-l’Abbaye_%2851%29_Verri%C3%A8re_de_la_R%C3%A9demption2.jpg

No other name

Making up for Thursday

Acts 4:1-13

¹²There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.

Well there it is, that troubling sentiment expressed so poorly by some who assert or imply that everyone who isn’t a Christian (and usually, everyone who isn’t their kind of Christian) is going to hell.

Here we face the great challenge of rightly understanding the message of Jesus. Matthew, Mark and Luke are all quite clear that Jesus proclaimed that people should turn and show allegiance to the dawning reign of God. And even though the Gospel of John uses very different language to describe the reality of this life that has come in Jesus, yet the fundamental elements of the message are the same. For John, who uses the language of eternal life (in Greek the life of the ‘aeon’, the life of the age to come), this life is something we have now in Christ. It is not waiting for us in heaven after we die; it is a present reality he describes as abiding in the Father. What the other Gospels describe as ‘the kingdom of God’ is this same imperishable life, a transformed existence of a world – and our lives – that has been brought into the realm of God, brought under the gracious life-giving governance of God’s Spirit. All four Gospel bear witness to Jesus bringing a world restored, healed, transformed, resurrected.

If our fundamental narrative is that good people (good morally or good from good works or good from trusting Jesus) go ‘up’ to some place called ‘heaven’ and bad people (bad morally or bad because they did not trust/believe in Jesus) go ‘down’ to some place called ‘hell’ then this statement – “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved” – is going to sound very different than if our fundamental narrative is that God has come to heal the world in Jesus, to carry us from this broken age of sin and death into a new age of grace and life.

If Jesus is the only way to get into a place called heaven, and I don’t believe in Jesus, then we are stuck putting me and all those like me in hell. But if Jesus is the one who heals a dying world, who reconnects God and humanity that they might dwell together, then his ‘name’ is what heals. Regardless of your religious experience or behavior, regardless of your psychological health or moral history, his name, his power, his identity, is what heals.

It still leaves open, of course, the question whether I am going to show allegiance to and trust in that ‘name’, but it will not be my trust that gets me “into heaven”; it is Jesus who brings heaven to the world.

The Greek words ‘to save’ and ‘salvation’ mean to heal, to restore to a full life in your social context – to restore you to family and friends and fields and the religious life of the nation. Someone who has been ‘saved’ gets to return home. They get to return to the temple. They get to return to their life. Saving the world means restoring God’s creation so that we live in harmony with God and one another. God doesn’t want us to dwell in heaven (the heavens) with him, he wants to dwell on earth with us: the lion and the lamb, the new Jerusalem, the wedding banquet that has no end. The martyrs under the altar in Revelation 7 are waiting for God’s New Jerusalem on earth; they don’t want to stay under the altar.

It is Jesus who brings healing to the world. It is the crucified one, who did not wreak vengeance on his enemies but forgave them. It is the risen one, whom God declared as his true and righteous one. It is this one who would not be tempted to turn his power or authority to his own ends but remained the perfectly faithful son (the ‘son’ we have not been) that brings wholeness to all existence.

Power, War, Sex, or any of the governing powers and ideologies of our world will not do this. War can’t bring peace. It can crush an army, but it cannot bring peace. My mother can force me to share with my brother, but force cannot make me want to share. Only a boundless generosity and love can create me as a loving, generous person. Only the boundless love of God manifest in Jesus will heal the world. That is a far different claim than “believe in Jesus or go to hell.”

Christians don’t have to – and shouldn’t – surrender and say there are many paths to heaven to avoid the ugliness of “believe like me or die.” We have to only understand that “heaven” is coming to us. Jesus is bringing to us the healing of the world.

And we are invited to show allegiance. We are invited to trust it. We are invited to live now the healing that awaits us. To forgive as we have been forgiven. To love as we have been loved. To open wide our hands and arms as God has opened wide his arms to us.

 

Image credit: By Florentinischer Meister um 1300 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Death, Resurrection

Watching for the Morning of March 22, 2015

The Fifth Sunday of Lent

Christ en croix, The Musee national du Moyen Age, (National Museum of the Middle Ages)

Shattered covenant, shattered world. New covenant, new world. A grain falling into the ground to die, yet bringing forth life. An exaltation upon a cross. A priest, like the cryptic figure of Melchizedek to whom Abraham gave a tithe, who is an eternal priest. A son made perfect through suffering. A priceless revelation of the heart of God come to abide in our hearts: ^“I treasure your word in my heart.” The way and will of God written on our hearts.

The mountain range that was far off when we began this journey towards the Paschal Triduum, the three-day celebration of the cross and resurrection, draws ever nearer. The cloud and thunder at the mountain peaks echo across the plains. We hear the dramatic and transforming sounds of the coming days.

Through Jeremiah, the prophet of doom, God promises a new beginning. That covenant created at Sinai, “I will be your God and you will be my people,” has been utterly and completely shattered. It lies on the ground like the broken walls of the city, the burnt cedar beams and collapsed stone of the temple, the gold and bronze and jewels stripped and added to the royal treasury of a foreign nation. Priesthood and Kingship ended. The people have betrayed the one who was a husband to them. Irredeemably. And yet: the promise of a new creation, a new covenant, a new day.

And Jesus, by all accounts betrayed and broken, stripped and shamed, crushed and dead upon the timbers of a cross, yet exalted for all the world to see. For all the world to believe. For all to enter the world of living bread and new wine and the broken made whole and the blind now seeing. To enter the world of imperishable life.

A high priest forever, writes the author of Hebrews, the source of eternal salvation. “With my whole heart I seek you,” sings the psalm.

For our daily Lent devotion from Los Altos Lutheran church, and for sermons and other information on Lent see our Lent site.

Our theme this Lent is Renewal, and for Lent 5: Renewing the World with Justice and Mercy

 

The Prayer for March 22, 2015

In your Son, O God, we see your face,
giving yourself to bring life to the world.
Watch over us,
renewing our lives and our world
that, your law of justice and mercy
may be written in our hearts,
and we prove faithful to you and to all;
through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever

The Texts for March 22, 2015

First Reading: Jeremiah 31:31-34
“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” – In the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, God promises to make a new covenant with crushed and scattered nations of Israel and Judah. Though they have betrayed and broken their covenant with God, God will start again, promising to write God’s commands on their hearts.

Psalmody: Psalm 119:9-16
“I treasure your word in my heart.” – A portion of the majestic hymn to the revelation of God’s will and way in the Torah, God’s word/law/teaching.

Second Reading: Hebrews 5:5-10
“He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.” – Jesus the faithful one has become our perfect high priest.

Gospel John 12:20-33
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” – When Greeks come to “see” Jesus (see with faith), Jesus knows that the hour is at hand for him to be exalted/lifted up on the cross. He will lay down his life like a grain of wheat – and his followers also – for the sake of a rich harvest that gathers all people into life.

 

Art: By Chatsam (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

For a world in rebellion

Watching for the Morning of March 15, 2015

The Fourth Sunday of Lent

The term ‘world’ is not morally neutral in John’s gospel. The world is the Judean society that has refused the invitation to be born from above. It is ‘the world’ that cannot see and denies what the blind man now sees. It is ‘the world’ that has decided that anyone who confesses Jesus is to be put out of the synagogue. It is ‘the world’ that ‘hates’, that shows no allegiance to, Jesus or to his followers. It is ‘the world’ that did not receive the Word made flesh, the true light that the darkness cannot extinguish. And yet, it is because God loved this rebellious world that he provided his only-begotten. Because of God’s steadfast love, his faithfulness to his promise, the Word came down from heaven that we might be born of heaven.

The author of Ephesians recognizes this. We were dead in our trespasses but have been made alive in Christ. We were following the powers of this age, we were driven by our passions, we were inheritors of wrath – but now, now God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ.

The people of Israel in the wilderness were in open rebellion from God – refusing to take the land (there are giants there!) and then, when they hear that message about forty years, they rebel again and try to take the land without God. Beaten down they are headed back towards the Red Sea, mouths full of bitter, poisonous words. And then there are poisonous snakes. But God in his mercy offers them healing – if they will trust and obey. God in his mercy delivers them, as he delivered the sick in our psalm.

Faithful to a world in rebellion. Merciful to a world without mercy. Light for a world in darkness. Love for a world enmeshed in hate and hardness of heart. Jesus didn’t come to judge – we are already in the realm of wrath. Jesus came to heal, to save, to grant us birth from above.

For our daily Lent devotion from Los Altos Lutheran church, and for sermons and other information on Lent see our Lent site.

Our theme this Lent is Renewal, and for Lent 4: Renewing Communities of Faith

 

The Prayer for March 15, 2015

In the lifting up of your Son, O God,
you revealed your glory
to bring your imperishable life to all.
Watch over us,
renewing our lives and our communities of faith
that, rooted in Christ, our trust in you may be deepened,
and we prove faithful to you and to all;
through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever

The Texts for March 15, 2015

First Reading: Numbers 21:4-9
“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.’” – Having failed to trust God in God’s first attempt to lead them into the land of Canaan, the Israelites must turn back towards the Red Sea to come to the land by another way. Their words become poisonous as they turn against God and against Moses. Met by poisonous snakes, they cry out to God and God answers – and in trusting God’s word (to look upon the bronze serpent) they are saved.

Psalmody: Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22
“Some were sick through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities endured affliction… Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress.” – A psalm of praise for God’s faithfulness to his covenant, shown in his acts of deliverance.

Second Reading: Ephesians 2:1-10
“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.” – By God’s Grace we have been brought from death into life.

Gospel John 3:7-21 (appointed, verses 14-21)
“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” – Jesus speaks with Nicodemus about being born “from above” and testifies that he alone has come from above (the heavens, the realm of God) and returns there. Just as seeing the bronze serpent “lifted up” brought healing and life to the Israelites in the wilderness, looking to Jesus “lifted up” grants the life of the age to come.

 

Photo: By National Photo Company [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

“Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

Thursday

Matthew 2

Rembrandt, The Rest on The Flight into Egypt

¹⁵“Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

These are profound words. Frightful words. Tragic and exulting words.

The people of Israel were God’s ‘son’. He fathered them through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He gathered them out from Egypt. He made a covenant with them at Sinai. He led them through the wilderness into a new land. He guided them through the prophets. He delivered them through the judges and the kingship of Saul and David. The people of Israel were God’s first born.

“Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

Matthew is quoting Hosea 11. There God speaks his anguish over his faithless son, his rebellious people, who constantly look to the gods of Canaan, who put their trust in the gods of fertility and abundance, who give their allegiance to money, sex and power.

“Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

It is not only Israel that wanders from the path. It is, indeed, the whole human story. But the people of Israel were God’s ‘son’, God’s adopted, the heirs of all God’s promises through whom God would bring blessing and life to his whole rebelling creation. How shall salvation enter into the creation if God’s people are faithless? How shall the earth be healed? How shall the wars and greeds that are the painful norms come to an end if there is no faithful son?

The flight of the holy family to Egypt is not just a dramatic plot twist in the narrative, or a fulfillment of ancient prophecy; it is a profound declaration. The one who is before us, the one from the line of David whose birth was announced by angels, the stars, and holy writ – the one who is before us is the faithful son. He embodies the story of Israel, but to a different ending. Kings seek to destroy him as Pharaoh sought to destroy Israel. He goes down into Egypt and is led back by God just as the people of Israel went down and were brought back. But this Jesus will be faithful. He will be God’s agent of healing and redemption. He will place his trust in God and not his own wisdom and understanding. When tested in the wilderness he will remain faithful to God’s word. When tested before the cross, he will seek God’s will not his own.

“Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

Jesus travels the path we have not traveled. He has loved with a complete love. He has forgiven even his tormentors. He has done justice and mercy to the least of these. He has regarded all as members of his own household.

“Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

With this simple line all Matthew’s readers hear the sermon Haggai spoke. They know the charge against them – and they recognize what is being said of Jesus. He is the faithful son; in him blessing comes to the world; in him the universe is healed.

And we are healed.

To the author of life, all life belongs

Watching for the morning of October 19

Year A

The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost:
Proper 24 / Lectionary 29

“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”

Jesus gives a brilliant answer to those who would trap him into open rebellion from Rome. But his answer is more than a clever dodge – it transforms their attack into the central question of human life: to whom do we belong? Whose image is upon us? What do we owe to the one who fashioned us and breathed into us the breath of life.

The texts vibrate with the notion that the LORD alone is God. The prophet declares that it is the LORD who has raised up the Persian king Cyrus and acclaimed him to be God’s anointed! (God’s ‘Messiah’ in Hebrew, God’s ‘Christ’ in Greek) God is the creator of all, and through Cyrus and his deliverance of Israel all the earth shall know “I am the LORD, and there is no other.”

The psalmist calls for us to “declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all peoples” for God alone made the heavens and all belong to him.

Paul’s thanksgiving for the believers in Thessalonica describes how they turned “from idols, to serve a living and true God.”

To the author of life, all life belongs.

But vibrating through our texts is much more than God’s claim over all life. It is God’s loving claim over all life. “He will judge the peoples with equity,” says the psalmist. He “rescues us from the wrath that is coming,” says Paul. God will go before Cyrus to “break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron,” declares the prophet. To God all life belongs – to the God who saves and delivers and draws all creation to “sing a new song” and “tell of his salvation from day to day.”

The Prayer for October 19, 2014

O God of all creation,
you formed us in your image
from the dust of the earth and the breath of your Spirit,
knitting each of us together in our mother’s womb,
and setting us to the task of caring for your world.
Help us to live as your faithful people,
serving you by serving our neighbor;
through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Texts for October 19, 2014

First Reading: Isaiah 45:1-7
“Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped.” – The prophet declares that the Persian king Cyrus is God’s anointed whom God raises to power for the sake of Israel and so that all the world may know that God alone is God.

Psalmody: Psalm 96:1-10
“For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be revered above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.” – The psalmist calls upon all nations to acknowledge the LORD alone as God.

Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
“The people of those regions [Macedonia and Achaia] report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God.” – Paul begins his letter to the believers in Thessalonica giving thanks for their open reception of Paul and his message.

Gospel: Matthew 22:15-22
“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” – The leaders of Jerusalem seek to trap Jesus into declaring rebellion from Rome or alienating his followers, but Jesus turns their attack upon them, declaring that we who are made in the image of God must render our lives to God.

 

In praise of confusion

Friday

John 10

Map of Jericho in 14c Farhi Bible by Elisha ben Avraham Crescas

⁶Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

Jesus doesn’t very often say things plainly. We should take warning that the disciples did not understand what Jesus was talking about. It’s not only John that utilizes this narrative element – the disciples come off poorly in all the gospels. Part of this, of course, is that we cannot understand Jesus until we have seen the cross and resurrection. The crucifixion is the interpretive center of everything Jesus says and does. Words like redemption, which generally meant throwing the Romans out, gain an entirely new meaning in light of Jesus’ death. The meaning of loving our enemies is missed if it’s only seen as a method of getting rid of them or living peaceably with them.

We should not imagine that we understand. Too often we laugh at the thick-headed disciples as if we were clear-headed. Jesus is and should be a puzzle. What he asks of us isn’t naturally obvious. Loving our enemies is widely acknowledged but rarely accepted. And we have substituted one false notion of salvation for another: we think salvation is a prize waiting for us beyond death rather than living now under the reign of God.

People sometimes complain that they don’t understand the Bible – and I want to say, “Good.” The Bible isn’t meant to be understood; it’s meant to change us. Confronted with the puzzle of Jesus’ words, in the struggle to understand, we are changed.

So Jesus talks in parables and metaphors and allusions. He makes us wrestle with who are the thieves and robbers and whether we are sheep and to whose voice we listen. Whose voice do I follow? Does it lead me “in and out”? Does it lead me to good pasture? Does it lead me to life? Does it shape my daily going forth? What is good pasture? What is the pasture to which Jesus leads me? Does he lead me to happiness? Service? Religious ecstasy? Assurance? Peace? Communion with God? A spirit of compassion and mercy? Do I recognize his voice or am I listening to robbers? Am I a robber, plundering other sheep?

Listening to Jesus is not a simple process. He is not transmitting facts. Knowing that the earth is the third rock from the Sun is a different thing than seeing that image of the earthrise on the moon and recognizing what it means that we all inhabit that one small blue marble in a sea of darkness.

Believing the notion that God created the world in six days is far easier than seeing and understanding what it means that I and everything around me arises from the hand of God. I was startled by a spider yesterday and immediately crushed it. My primal instincts asserted themselves – fear and revulsion lead to violence. But I did apologize to the to spider as I tossed the tissue bearing his crushed carcass into the toilet; I am still struggling with the notion that all life is from God.

But these words with which I struggle lead to good pasture. They lead to Life.

For you and for all

Friday

Acts 2

³⁹For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away,

English grammar drops the ‘and’ in a series and replaces it with a comma. But I prefer the more literal translation that says, “the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off.” It’s a little thing. A silly thing. But somehow that latter construction suggests to me the wide sweeping arms of grace rather than a simple pointing out of you, you and you.

We tend to hear the scripture as if it were addressed to us as individuals, but the world of the Bible is a world where people thought of themselves first as part of a community. We celebrate the individual; they celebrated the people, the tribe, the family. The promise is to me. The voice of God addresses me, summons me, calls me to enter into the life of God’s kingdom, to walk the walk, to be a disciple/student of Jesus. But the promise is not to me alone. It is to me and to my children and to all who are far off. It is to us, to a community, to a world. The promise is to me but it doesn’t make me a believer on my own; it makes me part of a new world, a member of the body of Christ, a living stone in a living temple. Peter doesn’t say, “once you were nobody,” he says “once you were not a people.”

“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. ¹⁰Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9-10)

English no longer discriminates between ‘you’ singular and ‘you’ plural. ‘Thou’, ‘thee’, ‘thy’ and ‘thine’ have dropped from use and ‘you’ has taken over their meaning. But our culture has also changed, so when we hear ‘you’ in the Biblical text we tend to think ‘me’ rather than ‘us’.

The promise is to me and to us. To me and to my children. To me and to my children and all the scattered children of God. To me and my neighbor. To me and my enemy. The promise is to all God will gather – not those I would gather. And God would gather all.

Where we love to draw lines about who is in and who is out, God wipes them away. God fishes with a net not a line. God pours out his Spirit on a crowd of 120 on Pentecost – not just on one (or twelve) – and people from every nation are called. We are members one of another. If one suffers all suffer. My neighbor’s hunger is my hunger. The Good Samaritan is a pattern, not a noble exception. The destiny of the earth is new creation, not a lifeboat with a few souls making it to the shores of heaven.

And so Paul will write, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” We stand now in the light of that dawn when earth is restored, the realm of death unbarred, and the sword that guarded paradise has been sheathed.

³⁹For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away,

Release

Saturday

Matthew 1

The national debt clock outside the IRS office in NYC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

²¹She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

I can still remember the window I broke.  On the lower left of a French door in a small passageway between the house and the garage.  I am sure there is an architectural name for this walkway, open on the one side to the back yard and closed by windows and a door to the front, but it eludes me.  My memory is also not so clear about how I broke the window.  I have a nagging suspicion I kicked it because the door stuck and didn’t open quickly enough.

Of course I had to pay for it.  Of course my stepfather was angry and discoursed on my carelessness.  Mother just seemed disappointed, or perhaps sorrowful that it added to the conflict in the family.

Mom’s response bothered me more.  It was not enough to pay the price for the window; I needed somehow to make it up to her.

The debt of sin is not the price of the window; it is that obligation to the one you have failed, that sense that you owe him or her – though we should note that the debt is there whether you feel it or not.

All our brokenness betrays and dishonors God.  Every body shattered by our wars and violence is a body God formed in the womb.  Every life taken is a life God gave.  Every joy stolen betrays the one who gave us a world of joy and delight.  Every hungry child dishonors the one who names it his own.  Every greed, every slander, every anger an offense against the harmony God intends.

It is an unpayable debt, a burden that makes us flee God or live in denial – adding still further to our debt.  Imagine such a ‘debt clock’ spinning wildly on.

How shall we make our way back into the presence of one we owe so deeply?  How do you restore a union betrayed so profoundly?  Only the one to whom the debt is owed can release us.

The angel tells Joseph that the child of Mary “will save his people from their sins.”  He will release them from their debt.  We should not miss how profound an act of reconciliation this is.  It seems unthinkable to us for a betrayed spouse to release their partner from such a debt.  We remember.  It haunts the relationship.  This is why God must say to us through the prophet “My ways are not your ways.”

But this simple sentence, “He will save his people from their sins,” also means he will releases us from the further indebting of ourselves.  He will lead us into true faithfulness.  This we must also not miss.