Monthly Archives: September 2017
The Power of Words…to Wreck our Mission/Apostolate
Devotional Thought for our days:
Dt 19:16-20 — “If a malicious witness comes forward and accuses someone of a crime, 17 then both the accuser and accused must appear before the LORD by coming to the priests and judges in office at that time. 18 The judges must investigate the case thoroughly. If the accuser has brought false charges against his fellow Israelite, 19 you must impose on the accuser the sentence he intended for the other person. In this way, you will purge such evil from among you. 20 Then the rest of the people will hear about it and be afraid to do such an evil thing.
902 Acquire the habit of speaking about everyone and about everything they do in a friendly manner, especially when you are speaking of those who labour in God’s service. Whenever that is not possible, keep quiet. Sharp or irritated comment as well may border on gossip or slander.
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
16 What does this mean?
Answer: We should fear and love God, and so we should not tell lies about our neighbor, nor betray, slander, or defame him, but should apologize for him, speak well of him, and interpret charitably all that he does.
It is too easy to complain about other people.
Our neighbor, our co-workers, our family, our elected officials, even complaining about those who complain too much. it is all too easy to complain, to bicker, to criticize and condemn.
We might even believe our words, or at least believe the people who passed them on to us.
Too often our words poison our lives, causing us to be blind to what God is doing, cutting off our souls from the peace God would have us live in, the peace Christ died for, in order to bless us. These words can steal from us the hope of reconciliation, both the reconciliation of God, wherein God draws us into His mercy, and the reconciliation that happens there, as we realize we are His family. It is a serious thing – look at the warning God gives against the misuse of words.
Think of the damage that gossip, slander and the malicious words we utter do to the mission of Christ. For if our hearts are turned against those God has sent us to reach with his love, how can we? Why would we pray for those we speak evil above
We need to confess this and ask God for help, for the comfort of the Spirit, to remember the miraculous promise that happens in Christ. We need to be forgiven and to revel in the joy of that forgiveness and what it restores to us.
We need to hear Him call to us, even as broken as we are, and hear of the value He places on our lives.
He is our hope, HIs word is what matters, the word of life….Hear them, let your mind dwell on them and what they promise.
Amen.
Escriva, Josemaria. Furrow (Kindle Locations 3672-3675). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Tappert, Theodore G., ed. The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959. Print.
Do Not Pursue Virtue and Perfection. There is a better route…
DEvotional Thought for our Days:
7 So that I would not become too proud of the wonderful things that were shown to me, a painful physical problem n was given to me. This problem was a messenger from Satan, sent to beat me and keep me from being too proud. 8 I begged the Lord three times to take this problem away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is enough for you. When you are weak, my power is made perfect in you.” So I am very happy to brag about my weaknesses. Then Christ’s power can live in me. 10 For this reason I am happy when I have weaknesses, insults, hard times, sufferings, and all kinds of troubles for Christ. Because when I am weak, then I am truly strong. 2 Cor. 12:7-10
In a letter to Leonie, Therese writes,
I find perfection very easy to practise, because I have realised that all we have to do is take Jesus by the heart. Consider a child who has just upset his mother by losing his temper or disobeying her. If he goes and hides in a corner with a sullen look on his face and cries because he is afraid of being punished, his mother will certainly not pardon his fault. But if he comes to her and holds out his arms to her and smiles at her and says, “Give me a hug, I’ll never do it again,” how can his mother resist taking him fondly and pressing him to her heart, forgetting his childish wickedness? Yet she knows perfectly well that her dear child will do it again as soon as the occasion arises, but that makes no difference; if he takes her by the heart again, he will never be punished.
Tugwell informs us that “Therese had herself been tormented by scruples for more than a year” but later on came to a different conclusion about herself: Even if she committed every possible sin, she would still have exactly the same confidence in God. She no longer needed the assurance of her own virtue.
11 Likewise, faith does not ask if good works are to be done, but before one can ask, faith has already done them and is constantly active. Whoever does not perform such good works is a faithless man, blindly tapping around in search of faith and good works without knowing what either faith or good works are, and in the meantime he chatters and jabbers a great deal about faith and good works.
When I came across the words of St Therese, (quoted by a Baptist) I was a little in shock.
The words resonate with me, I could have perhaps said them myself, for the value running to God when we see, and when we are tempted is beyond explanation. To know the comfort of God, the mercy, and peace that flows over us as we are in God’s arms,
Knowing that love of God is so powerful, so overwhelming that we dropped the carefully constructed facade of virtue that we create. His love makes us so confident we can drop the attitude of piety that we careful craft, and admit that we are simply poor, broken sinners. Sinners who have no confidence in our own strength, but instead learn to completely depend on Jesus. We can depend on God like the child running to his mother, rather than being punished in the corner.
This is when holiness, when sainthood is seen by others. When it is not contrived, when it is not planned, when it is no longer an act, but the natural life lived in the presence of Christ. It’s the life of faith that the reformers saw, one that doesn’t argue about faith and works, one doesn’t even contemplate how to do good works, but simply does them, constantly active. It doesn’t wait for the exegetical, historical and systematic explanation of loving God and therefore loving those around them, but faith does that, while searching the scriptures for God, find the promises delivered to them in and through Jesus.
That is true holiness, one that isn’t holier than thou but realizes that hope for its brokenness is found in the God we adore, and in finding in His heart, our life.
Dwell in peace… knowing the blessed life that is found in Christ! Amen!
Webber, Robert E. The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006. Print. Ancient-Futpietyeries.
Tappert, Theodore G., ed. The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959. Print.
Apologetics is Never, Ever, Defending the Faith!
The Good Shepherd, carrying His own.
Devotional Thought for our Days:
18 All this is from God. Through Christ, God made peace between us and himself, and God gave us the work of telling everyone about the peace we can have with him. 19 God was in Christ, making peace between the world and himself. In Christ, God did not hold the world guilty of its sins. And he gave us this message of peace. 20 So we have been sent to speak for Christ. It is as if God is calling to you through us. We speak for Christ when we beg you to be at peace with God. 21 Christ had no sin, but God made him become sin so that in Christ we could become right with God. 2 Corinthians 5:18-21 NCV
15 But respect Christ as the holy Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to answer everyone who asks you to explain about the hope you have, 16 but answer in a gentle way and with respect. 1 Peter 3:15b-16
870 Matters can rarely be resolved by aggressive polemics which humiliate people. And things are certainly never cleared up when among those arguing the case there is a fanatic.
In my high school freshman or sophomore yearbook, there is a note from an acquaintance with I used to argue with a lot. We were both interested in history and debate. She was a disciple of Engels and Marx, me, not so much. Her note was full of admiration, a salute to our ability to debate and still respect each other. (despite frustrating the hell out of each other – because we couldn’t understand the position of the other! )
As I read the words from St. Josemaria this morning, my heart brought back the memory of those words. And of many presentations, I have seen about “apologetics”. Usually, these include th idea that we are on a “crusade”, that we have to defeat our enemy, crushing their logic, unveiling their inconsistencies, doing battle and claiming the victory in Jesus name.
There was no call for respecting them as those Jesus died for, whom God created. No sense of love, or peace that would envelop the conversation, and rarely, any hope that was explained and explored. I encountered this as well when teaching world religions once, where several of my seminary level students wanted to know how to crush people who depended on false Gods. They chose the path of the fanatic and the aggressive polemics that leaves people broken and crushed.
Compare that to the verses above, the idea of being ready to explain the reason (this is where we get the word apologetic from btw) for the hope we have! Peter goes on to say, but do so with gentleness and respect. Look at how many times Paul mentions peace that God makes with us. Look at the idea that God is calling to those whom He would reconcile to Himself, to those He would give His peace to, through us. Reading that, does it seem that the tactic best suited to doing so is walking with them, exploring this hope we have, this incredible idea that God wants to live with us in peace. Helping them see that Jesus would walk with them, in all the ways described in the beautiful words of Psalm 23.
Some might say this doesn’t allow us to properly deal with their sin, but I don’t agree. Sin is brokenness, and whether we will admit that everything we do is sin ( and Christians play this game too!) we do recognize the brokenness it causes in our lives. Sin is not just our deliberate rebellion in this action or that, but those sins are the symptoms of the brokenness of sin, something every religion deals with, mostly through threats and punishment, of being cut off and sent away.
Christianity meets that brokenness offering hope, offering peace with God, because of the cross and the empty grave. A completely novel way not just to scare people away from future sin, but to bring comfort to the shame, the guilt, and despair that we all live with because of our pasts.
This is the apologia, the hope, the peace, knowing the love of God who comes to us.It’s not something we have to defend or hit people over the head with. It is something offered with great love, with mercy consistent to God.
It is what we depend upon, what we hope for… it is Jesus….with us.
Escriva, Josemaria. Furrow (Kindle Locations 3559-3560). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Who am I? A simple answer that leaves you saying OMG!
Devotional Thought for our days…..
19 If our hope in Christ is for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone else in the world. 1 Corinthians 15:19 NCV
18 We all show the Lord’s glory, and we are being changed to be like him. This change in us brings ever greater glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18b NCV
Paradoxically, a widespread decline in traditional religious practice in the West runs parallel with an ever-increasing hunger for spirituality. The question at the forefront of most of the great spiritual classics used to be “What or who is God?” Nowadays the characteristic question of the contemporary spiritual seeker is more likely to be “Who am I?” Great Christian teachers of the past such as Julian of Norwich understood quite clearly that these two questions are inextricably linked.
And I saw very certain that we must necessarily be in longing and in penance until the time we are led so deeply into God that we verily and truly know our own soul. (a quote from Phillip Sheldrake’s Spirituality and Theology in Webber’s text The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life) (1)
850 In your heart and soul, in your intelligence and in your will, implant a spirit of trust and abandonment to the loving Will of your heavenly Father… From this will arise the interior peace you desire. (2)
Who Am I?
I’ve been trying to answer that question for as long as I can remember. I see som many others trying to answer it as well.
Who is God?
Most people don’t bother to ask this, and those who do pursue it with an academic passion that is absolute, and yet nearly impossible to communicate to others simply. (this is why we develop creeds and confessions, statements of belief and doctrinal texts, and then wonder why they don’t sell as well as novels and religious fluff)
Some might even try to describe this in general terms as Webber’s citation seems to above. The older folk are more concerned with proving beyond a shadow of a doubt who God is (or isn’t) and the younger (gen X and Millennials ) struggling with who we are.
And without both questions being asked, neither is ever truly answered.
And in asking both at the same time, as Julian of Norwich and Augustine and Luther did, as Webber is trying to ask, we find the answer. In that answer is the hope and peace that we so need.
We can only define God in terms of His relationship to us, as our Creator, Redeemer, the One who makes us Holy, the One who loves us and is our Father, Brother, Friend, Counselor, Encourager, Comforter.
We only find out who we really are when we are defined by God, as He ministers to us. We may not like to hear it, but we have no identity outside of our identity to Him, our identity in Him.
it is in that definition of “who am I” that I find out I am loved, cared for, guided, That GOd is transforming us into the very image of Jesus, to be like Him, yet to be ourselves. And yet this definition, this transformation is far more than we know, for it is an eternal transformation.
Paul isn’t joking when He says without the resurrection we are a hopeless group of people. For a life trusting in God is not just about this life, and the change takes our entire life to begin to see. It may mean we live in hardship, it will mean that we deny ourselves, abandoning ourselves into the hands of the Lord whose love for us is seen in the scars on His hands.
Spend some time there, at the cross. Spend some more time there, at the altar, examining yourself and knowing how desperately you need Him, and the fact, HE IS HERE! And we will be with Him Forever! Everything we are in life flows from Him, and it is glorious and real, and now, and yet even more to come!
The answer to Who is God?
He is your God
Who are you?
You are His!
So live life, based on these words: He is our God, we are His People! AMEN!
(1) Webber, Robert E. The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006. Print. Ancient-Future Series.
(2) Escriva, Josemaria. Furrow (Kindle Locations 3487-3489). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Who Will We Help?
God, who am I?
Devotional Thought for our Days
14 What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? 15 Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, 16 and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? 17 So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. James 2:14-17 (NLT)
827 A friend of ours used to say: “The poor are my best spiritual book and the main motive of my prayers. It pains me to see them, and in each one of them, Christ. And because it hurts, I realise I love him and love them.”
Article VI Of New Obedience: Also they teach that this faith is bound to bring forth good fruits, and that it is necessary to do good works commanded by God, because of God’s will, but that we should not rely on those works to merit justification before God. For remission of sins and justification is apprehended by faith, as also the voice of Christ attests: When ye shall have done all these things, say: We are unprofitable servants. Luke 17:10. The same is also taught by the Fathers. For Ambrose says: It is ordained of God that he who believes in Christ is saved, freely receiving remission of sins, without works, by faith alone.
A number of issues seem to be addressed by today’s readings, (and the quote from the Augsburg Confession)
We could start with the devastation of Houston, or Northwest and the fires that plague them. This week adds the Carribean, and possibly all of Florida as Irma draws close.
We can add to that those around us who are stressed by the changes brought about by the end of DACA. And the growing homeless along the Santa Ana and other river trails.
There are others I think of, as next week I will do a memorial service of a young man who left behind his father (who is my age) and a neighborhood of friends still in shock Or other friends battling health issues. Including them, our prayer list is over 150 different people and the friends and family that walk with them.
How do we help so many? We start on our knees, we ask God to bless them, to strengthen their faith, to strengthen ours as we pray, depending on God not only for the ability to help where we can…. but for the wisdom to know who to help.
And then we live out our lives, knowing God is faithful.
That is how we do it, looking to a God who so loves us, who so gives to us, who is with us.
We may end up giving more than we thought we could, we may end up having to make tough decisions between a lot of people in need, a lot of people who do not just need our money, but our time.
With confidence built up the promises of God, promises delivered through His word and the sacraments, we can do this… we can love, for that is who we become in Christ Jesus.
Amen
Escriva, Josemaria. Furrow (Kindle Locations 3401-3404). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
— Augsburg Confession, The
Creeds, Declarations and Spiritual Warfare.
A Devotional Thought for our Days:
The truth is that, although of course we lead normal human lives, the battle we are fighting is on the spiritual level. The very weapons we use are not those of human warfare but powerful in God’s warfare for the destruction of the enemy’s strongholds. Our battle is to bring down every deceptive fantasy and every imposing defence that men erect against the true knowledge of God. We even fight to capture every thought until it acknowledges the authority of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10: 4-5(Phillips NT)
824 Do you feel as if goodness and absolute truth have been deposited with you, and therefore that you have been invested with a personal title or right to uproot evil at all costs? You will never solve anything like that, but only through Love and with love, remembering that Love has forgiven you and still forgives you so much!
It seems in the last week another religious crusade has erupted. On one side there are those who are signing a creed that defines proper marriage and marital relationships. On the other side a creed that defends people who don’t seem to fit within those relationships. Both have proponents that say unless you support their new creed, you really aren’t a Christian. And that is definitely true if you do support the opponents Creed.
Thousands have proudly affixed their names to one or the other creeds. They call them declarations, but when you define your understanding of the Christian faith by them when you say this is what you believe or what you condemn, they are creeds or confessions. ( Ironically, a lot of those signing these documents come from church brotherhoods or denominations that were against having formal creeds!)
Which is why I will sign neither.
Simply put, I want a creed and confession that gives me hope. I want one that promises reconciliation, one that isn’t condescending or treats those with other beliefs like their enemy. I want one that talks of God’s work in our lives.
Paul says it clearly, our weapons are spiritual, they pull down Satan’s strongholds, revealing to people the true knowledge of God. It doesn’t tear them down but rather reveals God in such a way that people’s thoughts are about Him.
That’s what the historic creeds and confessions do, they bring people to Jesus, and leave them in awe, knowing they are loved, that their sin is forgiven, and that the Holy Spirit is renewing and reconciling them, transforming them into the image of God.
St. Josemaria states it so well if we think our job is defending God’s truth that has been deposited with us (as if He left the building ). Apologists are to give the reason we have hope, not wield a rushing and condemning offense. Our job is to love, knowing the mercy of God, and treasuring is so much we want everyone to have it revealed to them.
Yes, we need to show them the need for it, but we need to do so with love, not with anger, or with statements made without the chance for conversation and revealing God’s grace. That is why there is a call to remember our own brokenness, and how Jesus addressed that with mercy, and do likewise. From out of our brokenness, we approach others differently than if we were the self-appointed morality police. From out of our brokenness, we realize the blessed truth found in creeds and confessions that talk of God’s love and redemption, of His works through one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.
Love them, pray for them, ask God to bless them, and do battle for them, with the intent of saving their souls. This is spiritual warfare, this is the hope our creeds give us!
That the Lord is with us! AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. Furrow (Kindle Locations 3390-3393). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
What Are We Teaching our Children?
Does it make you a better king if you build houses of cedar, finer than those of others? Your father enjoyed a full life. He was always just and fair, and he prospered in everything he did. 16 He gave the poor a fair trial, and all went well with him. That is what it means to know the LORD. 17 But you can only see your selfish interests; you kill the innocent and violently oppress your people. The LORD has spoken. Jeremiah 22:15-17 TEV
Our educational work should have a purpose: to elicit a change in our students, to make them grow in wisdom, to help them undergo a transformation, to provide them with knowledge, with new feelings and, at the same time, achievable ideals. Many institutions promote the formation of wolves more than of brothers and sisters by educating their students to compete and succeed at the expense of others, with only a few weak ethical standards.
As I finally got to reading my devotions today (actually tonight) I was struck by the words of Pope Francis.
It doesn’t help that as we were cleaning our garage, I found one of my old report cards, in fact, the same grade my son is entering. I showed it to him, and was amazed at the pressure he felt to live up to my standards. (I should have shown him my sophomore year of High School) Then I read Pope Francis’s words, shortly after seeing a picture of my dad and son, one of the last taken of them together.
My dad had a unique challenge – my brother was the star athlete, I was somewhat of a brain, at least by small town standards. Getting us to work together was a challenge, and competitively, we were fierce. How he got us to play and work together was a remarkable challenge, especially as he was somewhat competitive as well! Our schools weren’t so good at the task, firing us up to compete, playing on our pride and baser instincts. (My one exception was St. Francis for junior high – they taught us to work together…and those 15 kids mean the world to me still!)
My wife is a teacher, our church has a preschool and once had an elementary school. We have a lot of friends who are teachers as well. (If you are reading this, please drop the red pens for a moment!) And in a sense, I teach others, a little (and a significant amount) older than my wife and friends, but none the less, teach.
Which gets me back to Pope Francis, and his words about educating people. Are we encouraging a competitive factor in them? Are we encouraging them to be successful by standards that leave others behind? Or are we teaching them to work together, to forgive each other, to lift up each other? Are we hearing the prophet Jeremiah speaking for God as he takes on our selfish natures, as we have no problem oppressing people, or allowing them to be oppressed so we can live in peace?
We need to learn to teach like Jesus did, who though He was God, knelt down with a basin and towel and washed the feet of some pretty stubborn, argumentative and rebellious students. We need to teach them to serve each other, and those around them, whether we teach them Math, English, Geography, Computer Information Systems, World Religions or 1, 2, 3 John.
It’s a challenge, whether in preschool, middle school, college or a simple Bible Study. For what we are teaching them is to love one another…which means we need to learn to love them. As Paul says in Romans 12, really love them. For God loves them, and wants to walk with them all.
Pope Francis. A Year with Pope Francis: Daily Reflections from His Writings. Ed. Alberto Rossa. New York; Mahwah, NJ; Toronto, ON: Paulist Press; Novalis, 2013. Print.
Live in Harmony/Concordia: A sermon on Romans 12:9-21
Live in Harmony/Concordia
Romans 12:9-21
† Jesus, Son, Savior †
May you realize the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ enables and empowers you to live in harmony with each other, as God intended!
Live in Concord
When I originally put a title to this sermon, it was missing one of the words you see up on the screen right now.
Anyone want to guess?
The original title read this way, Live in Concordia.
But I was afraid that some people might start moving their bedroom furniture into the Multi-Purpose Room this week, and Hank and Loreen would sell the furniture at next week’s yard sale!
Seriously, Concordia was the Latin name of the goddess the ancient Greeks called Harmonia – the two words are interchangeable, one simply finds it roots in Latin, the other in Greek. So to live in harmony, as Paul tells us, is to live in Concordia.
We are to blend together, with one heart and mind. Not to be copies or clones of each other, but rather to have our lives be together working together as one, as beautiful as any symphony.
For that is who God is transforming us to be, a people who love other, who really love them, with genuine affection.
Even if it isn’t easy, even if we struggle to do so, for in that struggle we learn to depend on the God who changes us!
The challenges
Love each other, challenging at times.
Love the stranger – that’s what the word hospitality means – literally to love the alien like a brother.
Ask God to bless those who try to crush you.
This isn’t exactly easy stuff!
It’s going to be very difficult at times, it is going to take effort that we don’t want to put into it, that we are not sure is worth it.
It is very different from who society has tried to make us become.
This is love without bounds, being ready to help them at all times, without any hypocrisy, as we serve God by loving others.
It’s a lot of work, we can’t be slackers about it, it takes dedication, and hearing God and obeying Him, even when we don’t want to love them.
Let’s be honest, though they may be different for each of us, there are people that it is hard to love. Maybe it’s a neighbor, or a family member, or a person on the road that cut you off, or maybe even a pastor or deacon.
If this was simple and natural, Paul wouldn’t be writing it, covering every loophole he does.
We have to love each other, we have to love others, even those who aren’t like us… we have to love our enemies enough that we plead with God to bless them. As Jeremiah says, we have to influence them on God’s behalf, rather than let them influence us by their persecution, by their hatred.
We have to love our enemy!
To do otherwise, to not do so is sin….
The righteous anger of God….
Paul gives us a way to deal with our tension, our frustration with those who are our enemies, those who persecute us, and try to crush us.
He says not to take revenge, to not personally seek our own brand of justice.
Let God handle it, let God’s righteous anger work itself out. For God will do what is ultimately righteous, what sees sin paid for fully, which wreaks havoc on the guilty.
God promises this!
Even if the one who pays the price is Jesus.
Actually, that is His glorious preference, that all sinners would be united to Jesus at the cross. All sinners. All those others, all those strangers all those aliens and even you and I.
So rest assured, what we plead for if we hear God, is fully within His will.
And that changes everything, as God saves you and me, uniting us to Jesus, demonstrating His grace and mercy to us in that cross where His blood was spilled where hopefully they will be united as well, for Jesus paid the price for all our sin.
Which is why I find the greatest place for reconciling people to be here, at this altar, at this place where God’s love is poured out on us
Our confident Hope.
I want to back track from God’s wrath being poured out on Jesus for a moment, to verse 12,
Let’s read it together,
12 Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.
Rejoice in our confident hope, the hope we find at the cross, the hope we find in the resurrection, reaffirmed every time we unite with Christ’ in communion, even as we did in baptism.
Be patient and longsuffering. Don’t think a life lived loving others will be easy, but suffer through it, depending on God not only for the strength and power but to help you stand firm.
Which is why you keep on praying, pleading with God for them, and to help you remember His love for you. Prayer is more than just asking God, it’s talking to Him, realizing His love, letting Him take the weight off your shoulders. It is keeping your eyes on Him, knowing that enemies can’t crush you.
You see, that’s the key, to keep your eyes on God, to keep in His presence, to find yourself loved and safe in His peace. AMEN!
No Man is an Island. Neither is the Church.
Devotional thought for the day:
5 Then the LORD said to me, 6“Haven’t I the right to do with you people of Israel what the potter did with the clay? You are in my hands just like clay in the potter’s hands. 7If at any time I say that I am going to uproot, break down, or destroy any nation or kingdom, 8but then that nation turns from its evil, I will not do what I said I would. 9On the other hand, if I say that I am going to plant or build up any nation or kingdom, 10but then that nation disobeys me and does evil, I will not do what I said I would. 11Now then, tell the people of Judah and of Jerusalem that I am making plans against them and getting ready to punish them. Tell them to stop living sinful lives—to change their ways and the things they are doing. Jeremiah 18:5-11 TEV
9 I wrote you in my earlier letter not to associate with those who sin sexually. 10 But I did not mean you should not associate with those of this world who sin sexually, or with the greedy, or robbers, or those who worship idols. To get away from them you would have to leave this world. 11 I am writing to tell you that you must not associate with those who call themselves believers in Christ but who sin sexually, or are greedy, or worship idols, or abuse others with words, or get drunk, or cheat people. Do not even eat with people like that.
12–13 It is not my business to judge those who are not part of the church. God will judge them. But you must judge the people who are part of the church. The Scripture says, “You must get rid of the evil person among you.” 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 NCV
Our goal is not to form islands of peace in the midst of a disintegrated society but to educate people with the ability to transform this society. Therefore, “fruits and results.”
I often hear people misquoting the Book of the Revelation (often mispronounced revelations) advising people to withdraw from society, to come out of Babylon as if somehow they could live a life separate from their neighbors, their family, and friends who do not know that they can depend on God.
Some Christian schools started with that purpose, and there are Christian groups to offer an option to joining secular fraternal organizations like the Boy Scouts, Lions, or Elks. There are now even coffee shops on church campuses, that some people use so they don’t have to go to that evil Starbucks and grab their venti triple cappuccino with fancy whipped cream and pumpkin froth.
It is as if we want to form special communities within communities, just for those who are good and pure and holy. It is as we need to create safe islands for believers so that they are not tempted to sin the rest of the evil world.
Will we recognize the gospel there in the midst of Jeremiah’s prophecy, that God will welcome anyone back? Not just any person, but any people group, any nation. What a blessed hope! What an incredible promise!
Will we recognize the wisdom that inspired Paul to make sure we understood that it was sin among the people of God that concerned him, not the sins of the world? That we aren’t to avoid interaction with normal sinners, but rather to deal with those in the church that struggle with sin first. Those others, yes they need to be saved, far more than they need us judging them.
Will we hear Pope Francis plea, not to segregate ourselves, withdraw to our own safe places? Rather, as the Holy Spirit works within us, to educate people to have the ability to transform society, to share the hope and peace found in Jesus which will do that very thing.
We have to have more trust in God than we fear the world’s sin. We have to have more confidence in His love and care than anxiety about somehow being separated from the love of God ( AN impossibility Dontcha know!)
With our eyes focused on Jesus, we need to go to the same places he did. To those broken by sin, to those blinded by greed, to those who do not understand that God loves them. To those who are broken, just like we’ve been broken. We’ve got to invite them into our homes, our churches, into the place of peace and healing we find as we dwell in GOd.
This is who we are in Christ. people’s who work and message is one of reconciling people to God, and therefore to another. We can’t do that from pristine protected islands where we pretend all is perfect.
So go out there, live and help someone know that God loves them. AMEN!
Pope Francis. A Year with Pope Francis: Daily Reflections from His Writings. Ed. Alberto Rossa. New York; Mahwah, NJ; Toronto, Paulist Press; Novalis, 2013. Print.
How Closely Should We Cling to God? You Will Not Believe What Scripture says!
The Good Shepherd, carrying His own.
Devotional Thought for our days:
11 Just as shorts fit tightly round the waist, so I intended all the people of Israel and Judah to hold tightly to me. I did this so that they would be my people and would bring praise and honour to my name, but they would not obey me.” Jeremiah 13:11 TEV
Loneliness is indubitably one of the basic roots from which man’s encounter with God grew up. Where man experiences his solitariness, he experiences at the same time how much his whole existence is a cry for the thou and how ill-adapted he is to be only an I in himself. This loneliness can become apparent to man on various levels. To start with it can be comforted by the discovery of a human thou. But then there is the paradox that, as Claudel says, every thou found by man finally turns out to be an unfulfilled and unfulfillable promise; that every thou is at bottom another disappointment and that there comes a point when no encounter can surmount the final loneliness: the very process of finding and of having found thus becomes a pointer back to the loneliness, a call to the absolute thou that really descends into the depths of one’s own I. But even here it remains true that it is not only the need born of loneliness, the experience that no sense of community fills up all our longing, which leads to the experience of God; it can just as well proceed from the joy of security. The very fulfillment of love, of finding one another, can cause man to experience the gift of what he could neither call up nor create and make him recognize that in it he receives more than either of the two could contribute. The brightness and joy of finding one another can point to the proximity of absolute joy and of the simple fact of being found which stands behind every human encounter.
“I weep when the Enneagram or the Myers-Briggs analysis replaces the almost erotic intimacy with Christ described by John the Cross in his “Dark night of the soul,” or the stunning challenge to discipleship and companionship presented in some of the great Ignatian meditations on the mystery of Christ. The psychological tools are fun and even helpful, but they create a fascination with oneself and in the end, leave us alone with that fascination. I grow very sad when the paradoxical wisdom of our heroines and heroes is replaced by the strategies and stages of the psychological paradigm. A language that was once very large and awesomely beautiful has been transformed into a language that is very self-centered and very small.)
How closely does God want us to cling to Him?
According to Jeremiah – as tightly as shrunken old underwear clings! (Gulp! How is that for a picture! No object lessons about this in a sermon – please!)
Gosh, that is close, very close!
That is what he always intended, a relationship that is that intimate, that close. That deep, that powerfully intimate and life changing. Nothing is going to get closer!
That is why Webber’s quote in green needs to be understood. There are a lot of great tools for helping people, but ultimately, it comes down to knowing Jesus. That is what sustained saints recognized and unrecognized by the church throughout the ages. This level of intimacy with God that simply leaves us adoring Him with all that we are. The level of intimacy we find in the sacraments, the intimacy that does fill the emptiness that no community can quench on its own.
Look at the way people have chased that kind of commitment, that kind of bond. Of course is our madness with sex and the sensual. But also the many fraternal organizations ( Kiwanis, Lions, KofC, even the Masons) and each tries to create those kinds of bonds and falls short. The same thing for religious groups and orders, they come close and show this intimacy we need can exist, but they ultimately can’t replace a relationship with God.
Oddly, the Jesus movement started by promising this kind of intimacy, then as it morphed over the decades, it dropped that aside in favor of behavior modification and political power and influence. This is why mountaintop experiences like prayer retreats and groups like Cursillo are so effective – they introduce that level of relationship, in a corporate environment. They force us into it, but often fail to demonstrate that relationship is in our everyday life, and in our home church’s worship. It’s there, but we have to learn to see it!
Ultimately, we are talking about a relationship sustained as we interact with God. In the sacraments, in our time of prayer, (remember the ACTS outline – do we take enough time to ADORE Him? We are talking about a relationship where He is allowed and welcomed into our lives, and we understand we are welcome to share in His glory.
The more we experience it, the more we realize our need for it and hunger for it. The more that happens, the more we cling to Him!
Even cling to Him like a pair of old torn shrunken underwear….
He is our God, we are His people. We need Him in our lives, and He wants to be there. This is how it was meant to be….
So go, spend some time with God… think about His love.
AMEN!
Ratzinger, Joseph. Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year. Ed. Irene Grassl. Trans. Mary Frances McCarthy and Lothar Krauth. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992. Print.
Webber, Robert E. The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006. Print. Ancient-Future Series. ( Dr. Webber was quoting Fr. Peter Fink in this passage)
