Monthly Archives: December 2014
It’s Monday, and I Don’t Want to Be a Holy or a Hypocrite, so ….
Devotional thought of the day:
4 “Israel, remember this! The LORD—and the LORD alone—is our God. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (TEV)
1 So then, my friends, because of God’s great mercy to us I appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer. 2 Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God—what is good and is pleasing to him and is perfect. Romans 12:1-2 (TEV)
485 At times, someone has told me: “Father, I feel tired and cold; when I pray or fulfil some other norm of piety, I seem to be acting out a farce…” To that friend, and to you, if you are in the same boat, I answer: A farce?—What an excellent thing, my child! Act out that farce! The Lord is your audience—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Blessed Trinity is contemplating us in those moments when we are “acting out a farce”. Acting like that in front of God, out of love, in order to please him, when our whole life goes against the grain: how splendid, to be God’s juggler! How marvellous it is to play one’s part for Love, with sacrifice, without any personal satisfaction, just in order to please Our Lord! That indeed is to live for Love. (1)
It is Monday, the day after a long work day. Church was phenomenal, but then a meeting at another church drained me, and knowing that this week is booked absolutely full, I started on my research for this week’s sermons. One of my best friends I woke up early to pray with, as he faces surgery, and I am concerned for several others facing trials. I also have some pounding going on above me, and other issues of frustration.
It’s monday, and my devotional time is dragging. Let me be honest, I am to tired emotionally, I am to anxiety laden, I am overwhelmed and I don’t really feel like writing this blog, or spending time in prayer, or doing my devotional reading. (which happened to be on confession and absolution…. gee thanks God!) I don’t really feel like being holy today. I don’t want to just go through the motions either, and pray, and read and worship. If I don’t feel like being holy, setting apart my time and my life to God, I really don’t want to just fake it.
Maybe I should skip it my devotional time. After all, it’s only one day. I’ll be in a better mood on Wednesday, or maybe Friday. My blog hasn’t been read much anyways (writing this is part of my discipline ), and I’ve got a ton of work to do. Three extra services, picking up some of the work my friend would do, people recovering that I need to visit. I could so easily justify skipping this once….
Then of course, as I drag through my devotions, I found the above quote from St Josemaria. Tell you something – sometimes I really dislike how much a Catholic Saint who died nearly 40 years ago knows me. I feel like a farce, a fraud a hypocrite, even as I highlight things in my reading, and the meditative thoughts the word of God kicks into motion. I warm to some of it – but Leviticus? Really? And the part about worship was awesome, but the paragraph upon paragraph that drudged on through the book of concord…. sigh
Escriva notes that there is an option between doing this enthusiastically, and doing it as a hypocrite. It is doing it, admitting the struggle, but knowing the love and mercy of God the Father that will become more and more apparent. Being a living sacrifice is an act of love, even when I am not sure why I keep going. To strive to keep interested, to strive to see how Christ is revealed, to wait and the blessing He has for us.
To adore Him enough to trust Him that this time together will be cleansing, refreshing, empowering, but most of all peace-filled, glorious rest in His presence. To drink deeply of His love.
it is in the dead times, even perhaps more than the rebellious times, that I need to offer myself to God and keep moving with Him. That I need to realize His presence, His promises, His comfort. The kind of things that are apparent in His word, that the saints who’ve gone before us lived and died to pass down to.
It is such time when saints are made…. and sustained.
So cry out Lord, I trust you, help me to trust you!
And know His answer… come, follow me.
Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 1858-1866). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Prepare! Clear the Way for Jesus!
Prepare! Clear the Way for Jesus!
Mark 1:1-8
† IHS †
My friends, my desire for us for this Advent Season is this: that from us is cleared away everything that divides us from God. From knowing His Love, from adoring Him. That is what God’s grace and mercy does, leaving us in His peace.
Preparing for Christmas Shopping – Rent a pastor!
It’s time for a Pastor Parker Parable, Advent edition. As we prepare for the Christmas holidays, for the party’s, and as we buy gifts for people we love, I have an idea that might provide some insight into how the gospel works, using the idea of surviving the shopping, and the incredible crowds. Here it is:
For a small donation to the elder’s benevolence fund, I will go shopping with you.
Let me explain how this is of a benefit. I need four volunteers…. One lady and let’s say Dane and Bob and Chuck. Did I say volunteers? Well – you’re here, so you volunteered. You three stand here, and pretend you are talking about football, or guns or even politics, and completely oblivious to what’s going on around you… Oh you are in the middle of a busy store…say Sears or Walmart
Now, over here we have Debbie, tired and weary of trying to find Tom just the right present. She sees it over there, on the other side of the three guys talking, and there is no way to get through them. You are out of luck.
But with the Pastor Shopping Assistant, this is problem is no problem at all. There is an advantage to having a 6’2” pastor dressed in black with his collar. You point out where you want to go in the store and I walk there, with you following behind. I navigate through the three men, who aren’t sure they are moving because of the collar, because I am big, or because I look mean and ready to send them to hades, or to the woman’s lingerie section. But move they do…. And you get what you desired.
This is how a pastor can benefit you in your shopping, and the same benefit you get from time in God’s word, whether in a sermon, or Bible Study or personal time reading God’s word! It’s the same thing we see as John preaches to the people of God and baptizes them as a sign of their repentance.
So the parable is this; pastoral assistance prepares for the appearance of Jesus the Christ! The way is clear, there is a path to the goal
Getting through that which would separate you from Christ
In our lives, there is much to be cleared out, much that slows us down, junks that stops us from living life in the peace God has given us. It’s the stuff that in Peter’s reading will burn up in the end.
Very few of us are the John the Baptist types, who live off the most basic of things.
I mean, how many of us are willing to take cast-offs to wear, for that’s what he wore for clothes. Or to eat whatever we came across, as we lived out in the field? We probably can’t find that much raw honey, but there is a good source of protein out there! His life was pretty well prepared. The way for him has few obstacles…
John preached the message about clearing the crap that gets in the way of our relationship with God. About clearing the way, making ready the path. He’s not talking about re-tarring the driveway at church, but getting rid of things like bitterness, resentment, anxiety, fears, and sin. He talked getting rid of our idea that we are right, and God just doesn’t know what life today is like.
We do that, when we don’t repent of sin, or when we allow others to think their sin isn’t a major one. We do it when we make personal comfort our goal, rather than knowing we find our comfort in Christ. We do it when we criticize others and gossip about them, rather than pray for their soul. We do it, when we don’t help those in need, or when our help is more to soothe our consciousness, rather than actually help them. This is the sin and unrighteousness that we hang on to, we protect, and we are don’t want to give up. Though that makes very little sense.
All these things need to be cleared away. Anxiety, fear, sin takes a straight road and turns into the spiritual version of Malibu Canyon road or trying to get one of the Black Friday super-specials. On our own we stand a better chance of winning three consecutive state lotteries, than in being prepared for Jesus’ second coming.
We need to hear the word of God, we need to hear the John the Baptist, and be cleansed of our sins, of our idols, of the crap that blocks our way to Jesus. We need to see His promises, we need to have the comfort He has promised, we need to know we are loved.
But there is so much that blocks us from Jesus, so much sin, so much anxiety, just so much!
How will we get it done in time?
Or will we give up and cling to the very things that poison our lives? The things that stop us from being close to Jesus?
This is the stuff we need to get through, but it is so hard!
Is He there?
That’s where the word of God and the sacraments come into play. Where a sermon or Bible Study that we are part of reveals Christ’s presence. When we hear the gospel crushes that which stops us from our time with God. Where it clears away the things that would block our access to God. That’s how God’s word works, that is how the Holy Spirit uses it…to ready us for Jesus’s coming
Why else would people treasure it enough to wander out to the desert to hear him? Why would they listen, what moved their hearts so much they admitted their sin?, Why would they run into the water, demonstrating that the Holy Spirit was at work in their lives, bringing them to repentance?
They gave up the game of being self-righteous, about pointing out the sins of others. They acknowledged they needed God’s presence, and their lives were cluttered and blocked. The crud washed away as promised, for and the word of God broke through, much as the 6’2’ 315 pound pastor can break through a crowd in a mall at Christmastime.
I want you to think about the ways Christ’s birth is declared in scripture. A people living in utter darkness have seen a great life. A time of healing a time of death being shattered by life, A day of the greatest rejoicing.
If that was true at Christ’s first coming to us, how much more will it be when He returns?
Hear again how Peter said in ( 2 Peter 3:8-14)
We are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness.
14 And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.
It is the same concept, know that your life, your vitality is found in Jesus. That His word reveals all that you need to see that the way is prepared, it has been planned, and for us, the way made sure at the cross, when Jesus died. It is the blessing of having the gift of the Holy Spirit, given to us in our baptism. It is the blessing of having God’s word tell us of this, over and over again.
For the Spirit grants us repentance, and brings us comfort, and testifies to the promise of the death, burial, resurrection, ascension and return of Christ.
We need to know we have access to God the Father, that there is nothing that blocks us, no amount of crud, nor a temple curtain. We’ve been invited to His feast, and He’s made sure we can know we are welcome.
Knowing that, we can have the peaceful, pure and blameless lives Peter encourages us to live in, for we dwell in Christ, He has claimed us, and He will get us home.
AMEN.
An Odd Addiction…
Devotional Discussion THought of the Day:
9 O God, we meditate on your unfailing love as we worship in your Temple. Psalm 48:9 (NLT)
7 Yet no one calls on your name or pleads with you for mercy. Therefore, you have turned away from us and turned us over to our sins. Isaiah 64:7 (NLT) \
436 God’s love for his creatures is so boundless and our response to it should be so great that, when Holy Mass is being said, time ought to stand still.
Without question, it is the high point of my week. It is where time does seem to stand still, where the struggles of life seem to be of absolutely no matter. It is an experience that is “otherworldly”. It is definitely beyond logic or reason, and it’s beauty and peace cannot be explained. Right now, because it is more frequent, I rejoice, my days seem brighter. Because of that, I would say I am addicted to it….
A simple move, my hand placing in another’s hand Something so precious, and words softly spoken, that change everything.
“Take and eat, the Body of Christ, broken for YOU.”
As I say these words, some hear them so well their body’s change, the relax, they smile, some even weep with joy.
It is that moment, as they receive the gift of the Sacrament, that life makes sense. The presence of God is made clear, and that changes everything.
It is not that discussing God’s presence and praying with near strangers over breakfast is less, or praying at the bedside of someone having surgery, or helping two at great odds with each other know God’s peace isn’t as great of a moment. All of ministry, all of life is filled with the presence of God. We come to know peace in all things, in all places. His grace is needed in all those places.
But those are moments in this world, and there is something about the sacraments, about baptism and absolution and the Lord’s Supper that gives us a moment of heaven. It is, as St. Josemaria says, the moment time stands still. A moment of clear communion with God. It’s the time where our pleas and cries for God’s loving mercy are answered. What is a brief second becomes without measure.
Over the last week, I’ve come across a word a number of times, kenosis. It means the “emptying”. The moment where everything in life is shed. It is the description of Christ, emptying himself in order to become a servant. As we receive the Body of Christ, that happens to us as well, all is stripped away, save Him. Except His love. His mercy, His peace. It is the stripping away of sin, of all unrighteousness, It is the reliving of our baptism, of our being united, forged to Jesus Christ.
Emptied of all that isn’t God, we find out how we have been united to Him, How He makes us whole.
God’s glory, revealed to us as love conquers it all. All our sin, all our brokenness, all our rebellion and trauma. It is pictured in the Old Testament, where God gathered the leaders into His presence, having lefft Egypt far behind… and as they feast in His presence.
Receiving the Body of Christ is a great joy, as is see those who God called to that moment. The meditation and thought of that moment… that alone should compel us to know Him more deeply, to hear the stories of those He’s sustained, especially those in scripture. The sacraments do that, they help us realize our dependence, our need on the presence of God, and reveal to us that He is here.
Such is why i love to dwell on the Eucharist, and why such a little thing is such a tremendous blessing to me. tO see this happen to 50, 60, 100 people, is amazing. ( If there is a reason I am envious of those with larger churches, it is perhaps this!)
The promises of God, delivered to us, that we dwell in peace.
(and we who serve are blessed to deliver it!)
Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 1681-1682). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
An Advent Lesson: The Desperate Need for Spiritual Growth
Devotional Thought of the Day:
18 Write down for the coming generation what the LORD has done, so that people not yet bo
rn will praise him. Psalm 102:18 (TEV)
1 That is why we must hold on all the more firmly to the truths we have heard, so that we will not be carried away. 2 The message given to our ancestors by the angels was shown to be true, and those who did not follow it or obey it received the punishment they deserved. 3 How, then, shall we escape if we pay no attention to such a great salvation? The Lord himself first announced this salvation, and those who heard him proved to us that it is true. Hebrews 2:1-3 (TEV)
16 I ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves, 17 and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, 18 so that you, together with all God’s people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ’s love. 19 Yes, may you come to know his love—although it can never be fully known—and so be completely filled with the very nature of God. Ephesians 3:16-19 (TEV)
136 Therefore we also hold that the keeping of the law should begin in us and increase more and more. But we mean to include both elements, namely, the inward spiritual impulses and the outward good works. Our opponents slanderously claim that we do not require good works, whereas we not only require them but show how they can be done.
450 You need interior life and doctrinal formation. Be demanding on yourself! As a Christian man or woman, you have to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, for you are obliged to give good example with holy shamelessness. The charity of Christ should compel you. Feeling and knowing yourself to be another Christ from the moment you told him that you would follow him, you must not separate yourself from your equals—your relatives, friends and colleagues—any more than you would separate salt from the food it is seasoning. Your interior life and your formation include the piety and the principles a child of God must have, to give flavour to everything by his active presence there. Ask the Lord that you may always be that good seasoning in the lives of others. (1)
The Psalm that starts off this devotion has been ingraining itself into my brain for the last few days.
We’ve been given this great treasure, the gospel that we have been entrusted with, this promise of salvation, this revelation of the love of God.
Not heeding the warning in Hebrew, we neglect it. Sometimes we avoid it, we don’t spend time reading it, we think that the church service on Sunday is enough, even though that 10-45 minutes sermon barely scratches the surface. It is one of our greatest treasures, as it reveals that which should mean the absolute most in our lives, the love God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, has for us.
Maybe we neglect it because we are to busy with theology, too busy doing ministry, to busy being evangelists (or at least pretending we are on-line) We as pastors study it, but sometimes all it is, is studying it. We don’t become part of it, and therefore our people do not as well.
The keeping/treasuring of the law that Melancthon speaks of, results in spiritual growth. Growth in both the desire deep in our hearts and it becomes visible in our actions. St Josemaria describes the same things as interior life and doctrinal formation. Of knowing we are with Christ, that in our baptism, that relationship that unity is there. It may sound odd to be “another Christ”, but that is what we are, called into a relationship and sent into the world, appointed and yes anointed bearers of the Holy Spirit.
But missions, or our apostolates cannot happen without the relationship with God, without the time treasuring the height, depth, width and breadth of His love for us. Without growing deeply, not by academic study or memorization for its own sake., but by learning by exploration of His love, walking with Him, losing ourselves in the relationship so that our ministry is our lives.
This isn’t a Lutheran thing, or a Catholic thing. I could add quotes from Wesley, from Spurgeon, from Lewis, from pentecostals and charismatics and baptists. I included them because of recent conversations.
We need to grow, and the way we do it, is not by exercising the body or mind, but the heart. By learning of God’s promises and faithfulness, of experiencing His love. That very love causes a hunger, a desire, and an appreciation for the very means of grace.
this is what it means to be a disciple – and it is what we need to be doing as His body.
Godspeed!
(1) Tappert, T. G. (Ed.). (1959). The Book of Concord the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (p. 126). Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.
(2) Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 1722-1730). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
We pray….Lord, Rip Open the Heavens and Come!
We pray….Lord, Rip Open the Heavens and Come!
Isaiah 64:1-9 Psalm 102:18-22
† IHS †
As you grow to know God’s mercy, may you find your prayers sustained by the Spirit’s presence, even as you pray for Christ’s return!
Rip’em open Lord
There are days where Isaiah’s cry I hear with great anger, and other times I hear it with great heartache. As we look out into this world, with its wars, with it massacres. When we see people causing division, rather than trying to bring reconciliation, when we see people struggle with the political games, with broken relationships, when they get played by extremism, or self-centeredness. When we look around us, and all we see is sin. There is a frustration that results in anger, and in tears. There is a desperation to our prayers, to connect to God!
Lord, come quickly, come so quickly you rip the sky’s open, and bring it to and end1
Isaiah certainly didn’t mean this as a casual invitation, but it was a cry born of pain, he pleaded with God to not hold back, but to come down with all His power, and set things straight.
To make things the way they are supposed to be.
Why can’t people love God, and love each other?
We can get so frustrated, there are times where we aren’t sure whether to be angry, or crushed. For that matter, we aren’t even sure which we are, at the moment.
The World Deserves it….
The cries for God to fulfill His promises resound throughout the Old Testament. For God promises, as he does in our reading tonight, to come with all of the angels and fix it. To come and destroy all that is Holy, to shake it up the way He did in the Old Testament, to deal with those who do things that are unrighteous.
You see it in all of the prophets, they pray for God to come and fix it all that is broken.
To take care of evil once and for all.
Even as Christ came the first time to save us, we know He is coming back to judge the quick and the dead. He will reign, He will fix everything, and that will go one forever.
They plead with God to return, they can’t stand living amid the brokenness any longer, so they turn to God and cry for help. The God the psalmist notes is looking down, listening to the cries of those in bondage, and will come to release them.
We deserve it
Back in Isaiah, even as the prophet cries for God to rip open the heavens, there is a realization, a hesitation. For Isaiah realizes how much the people of God have wandered away. He realizes that God isn’t just angry at them, but at us as well. That our desire to do good, is worthless, that we are dried up by sin,
What is alarming is verse 7,
No one prays to you or makes the effort to reach out to you….
I have to ask, how much is prayer a part of our lives. Whether it is taking the psalms and praying through them, or whether it is just pouring out our heart to God. How often do we think of Him, talk to Him, find our selves concerned with what He is concerned with in our lives, in our world?
How often do we follow what He tells us to do? Or do we justify our sin, not caring if it breaks God’s heart?
We get frustrated by the very thing that in others we want to condemn. We need to learn to hate this sin, this failure, in our own lives. We need to call out to God to cleanse us, heal us, forgive us.
As Isaiah says, we cry for Him to remember we are His people. The people He poured water upon in baptism, the people He feeds and nourishes the souls of during the Lord’s Supper.
We are people that the psalm was recorded for, so that we could praise the Lord with angels and archangels and all the hosts of heaven.
For He has promised to look down and release those for whom Christ died. To free them from their sins…. He promised that to us.
Advent makes Christmas something special, for it takes it from something historical, and we realize that it was to us He came. Because we needed Him To save us, and eventually, to return and bring us home to the Father.
Where we will dwell for eternity, in His presence. A day we should long for, even as God gives us His peace, until we return.
AMEN? AMEN!
Without Advent, Christmas is Just History….
Devotional Thought of the Day:
18 Let this be recorded for future generations, so that a people not yet born will praise the LORD. 19 Tell them the LORD looked down from his heavenly sanctuary. He looked down to earth from heaven 20 to hear the groans of the prisoners, to release those condemned to die. 21 And so the LORD’s fame will be celebrated in Zion, his praises in Jerusalem, 22 when multitudes gather together and kingdoms come to worship the LORD. Psalm 102:18-22 (NLT)
419 It seems an excellent idea to me that you should tell the Lord often about your great and ardent desire to be a saint, even though you see yourself filled with wretchedness… Tell him, precisely because of this! (1)
This evening, we take up our advent journey, a journey I hope to be one of intense prayer. We are going to look at different prayers in the Bible, where people cried out for the presence of God, Prayers that plead, Come Lord Jesus!
As I was thinking through the service this morning, it became apparent that we need this time of Advent. THe title above declares why. Without Advent, Christmas is a celebration of a historical event. An incredible one for sure, as Eternal God become mortal man, and dwelt among us. As the angels and shepherds sing God’s praises, as the glory of God was experienced in a way that even Abraham and Moses, David and Elijah never experienced.
Immanuel! God with us!
But what needs to be said is that life prior to the incarnation was in desperate need fo that incarnation. THat is what Advent services, the readings, the music, the devotions, should cause us to understand. To see the Incarnation, Christ living amongst us, not just as a historical exercise, but as an answer.
An answer to a prayer uttered in despair. In despair because of evil oppression, in despair because of the darkness of our own sin, in despair because without the presence of God, life is hopeless. An answer to those groaning souls imprisoned by guilt and shame, battered, downcast, broken.
it is the prayer that St. Josemaria encourages us to utter, even in the midst of knowing our own failure. A prayer that acknowledges our desire to live life worthy of Christ’s love, but unable to. It is the prayer cry of despair, depression, submission, and one that is made with the inkling of hope. The hope as we realize what is needed, is promised. The hope that expects the answer deep in our hearts, even while our minds struggle with the possibility of it.
Knowing this despair is answered is the nature of Christmas -advent simply identifies what life is, without God. It brings Christmas’s meaning beyond history into the present, and affects us here… and now. It provides hope for us who are broken.
For Advent shows a pattern to God’s love. It is why it was recorded for us. To know that God looks down. He sees our lives, lived in bondage, He hears our cries, and answers, freeing us, comforting us, cleansing and healing us. Without realizing the desperate need for God’s presence, Christmas just becomes a time of celebrating what happened. With the realizations of Advent, it becomes much more… Christmas becomes a celebration of our hope, because our Lord God is with us.
Knowing this, may our lives be lived in the praises of His people, as we wait again for His coming.
AMEN
Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 1616-1618). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Why Preaching Is/Should Be Different
Devotional Thought of the Day:
23 The LORD says, “The wise should not boast of their wisdom, nor the strong of their strength, nor the rich of their wealth. 24 If any want to boast, they should boast that they know and understand me, because my love is constant, and I do what is just and right. These are the things that please me. I, the LORD, have spoken.“ Jeremiah 9:23-24 (TEV)
Christian preaching does not proclaim “words”, but the Word, and the proclamation coincides with the very Person of Christ, ontologically open to the relationship with the Father and obedient to his will. Thus, an authentic service to the Word requires of the priest that he strive for deeper self-denial, to the point that he can say, with the Apostle, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”. The priest cannot consider himself “master” of the Word, but its servant. He is not the Word but, as John the Baptist, whose birth we are celebrating precisely today, proclaimed, he is the “voice” of the Word: “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” (Mk 1:3).
For the priest, then, being the “voice” of the Word is not merely a functional aspect. On the contrary, it implies a substantial “losing of himself” in Christ, participating with his whole being in the mystery of Christ’s death and Resurrection: his understanding, his freedom, his will and the offering of his body as a living sacrifice (cf. Rm 12:1–2). Only participation in Christ’s sacrifice, in his kenosis, makes preaching authentic! (1)
As I was doing research about the passage I am preaching from in Mark’s gospel on Sunday, I came across the above quotes. I suppose it is odd for a Lutheran pastor to be quoting a Roman Catholic pope, but I will acknowledge the truth in his words about pastoral authenticity.
One of my mentors once told me that preaching is different than public speaking, That a pastor/priest who is a skilled at crafting a sermon may be a horrible public speaker. And just because someone is a skilled public speaker, doesn’t mean that he will have the same effectiveness in a sanctuary that he does speaking at a conference or convention.
This is why, a speaker’s effectiveness depends on his strengths. His practiced skill, his personal charisma, his training to control his audience. It is a craft that can be sharpened and honed like a find knife blade. While a pastor also needs to develop, our strength is found not in our skill and perfection, but from our brokenness, our despair, our desperate need for hope.
It’s not about how much Hebrew or Greek we know, or how much of the Bible we have memorized. It’s about knowing God, and being so in awe of Him that we cannot help sharing that awe. We lose our “self” in His glory, in the healing that He brings into our lives, in the answer to our prayer to rip open heaven and come show us the mercy we need.
We find our lives and our message in our baptism, that incredible sacrament, where we first die with Christ, that we might live with Him. We need to recall this repeatedly, daily, seeing that baptismal promise of God renewed, strengthening us. We know and understand this first and foremost, this life He has given us, this journey we make with Him.
That is what causes the fire in our preaching, it is what must empower the message we share, that we know God does this, because He does it here. in our lives. It is the blessing we have, that we can say with Paul,
“15 This is a true saying, to be completely accepted and believed: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. I am the worst of them, 16 but God was merciful to me in order that Christ Jesus might show his full patience in dealing with me, the worst of sinners, as an example for all those who would later believe in him and receive eternal life. 17 To the eternal King, immortal and invisible, the only God—to him be honor and glory forever and ever! Amen! 1 Timothy 1:15-17 (TEV)
May our need for Jesus’ presence, and His answering that cry be revealed to those who we serve, in order that they will know He will answer their cries as well. May that authenticity not frighten those who preach, but may they embrace it, that their people would know God’s faithfulness…to them.
AMEN.
(1) Benedict XVI. (2013). General Audiences of Benedict XVI (English). Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
Mission, Vocation, and our Neighbor
Devotional Thought of the Day:
25 A teacher of the Law came up and tried to trap Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to receive eternal life?” 26 Jesus answered him, “What do the Scriptures say? How do you interpret them?” 27 The man answered, ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind’; and ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ ” 28 “You are right,” Jesus replied; “do this and you will live.” 29 But the teacher of the Law wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Luke 10:25-29 (TEV)
20 If we say we love God, but hate others, we are liars. For we cannot love God, whom we have not seen, if we do not love others, whom we have seen. 21 The command that Christ has given us is this: whoever loves God must love others also. 1 John 4:20-21 (TEV)
16 No longer, then, do we judge anyone by human standards. Even if at one time we judged Christ according to human standards, we no longer do so. 17 Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come. 18 All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also. 19 Our message is that God was making all human beings his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends. 2 Corinthians 5:16-19 (TEV)
Does a believer have a responsibility to be missional? To go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and teach them to treasure all God has commissioned?
To speak theologically, is this one of our vocations, along with being spouses, parents, employees, employers and good church members? Are we all missionaries? Do I have a responsibility as a believer in Jesus to those around me, who still are lost in darkness?
In a recent discussion, I put forth the first passage – the story behind the story of the Good Samaritan for a reason. Notice that that our relationship with our neighbor (whether they are our spouse, kids, actual neighbor, co-worker, or whomever) comes right after our relationship with God. Being a loving neighbor is our vocation.
Our relationship with God and our relationship with our neighbors is inseparably intertwined. The quote from 1 John makes this clear – our love for Him is seen in that love we have for our neighbor. That’s why the teacher of the law combines the two. We can’t love God if we fail to love those He calls us to love.
Loving them isn’t easy, it requires that we know.. no, that we dwell in the love and peace of God. That His mercy so resonates with our life, that we don’t have to think about the ministry of reconciliation being given to us, we simply work in that ministry. We seek to free people from the darkness of sin, the oppression of satan, and break the grip that death has on them.
Loving them means inviting them into the relationship where God reconciles them, where He makes us His friends, where we understand what He is about is bringing us home to the Father. That is what being missional is about, or what some others call our apostolate. It is in loving our neighbors as God does, not because we have to fulfill some quota, but that’s what we do as we walk with Him. (He describes it clearly for us, but we hear it…. like a duty, not as an invitation to spend time with Him)
We are missionaries, for our Lord is, and we walk with Him. It is His mission – and we live and breathe in Him! Therefore we work with Him in seeing His desire come to being.
We love our neighbors, we desire to see them reconciled, to become friends with God, because He has done this with us.
May we rejoice in every baptism, and may we teach them to rejoice and treasure this life He has given us!
