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Advent Take-Aways: Fears and Anxieties A sermon based on Zephaniah 3:14-203
Advent Take-Aways:
Fears and Anxieties
Zephaniah 3:14-203
† I.H.S. †
May the peace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Chirst drive away all the fears and anxieties in your life, that tell you that you don’t belong in God’s presence… for you do, you are His child!
Introduction
I had to have been fourteen or fifteen at the time, and if I was normally extremely self-consicous, that evening I was that times 100. I don’t even remember the event, it could have been one of the dances my folks, or a wedding of one of my aunts, or my grampie De’Luca’s seventy-fifth birthday, but I had to get dressed up… in a tuxedo.
I remember feeling so anxious and nervous, and afraid that I couldn’t eat or drink. I didn’t belong in a tux, in a fancy hotel ballroom, surround by al these adults all dressed up. I kept on thinking someone was going to come over and tell me, “Kid – go home, you don’t belong here…”
To be honest, there are a lot of times I geel like I don’t belong—especially at celebrations, and especially if I am considered one of the V.I.P.’s.
I imagine the shepherds would feel that same way, as they were buzzed by ten of thousands and tens of thosands of Angels, and sent to witness Jesus laying in the manger – what me? I can hear the shepherds voice, eerily echoing the attitude of Moses as he encountered the burning bush,
6 I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” When Moses heard this, he covered his face because he was afraid to look at God. Exodus 3:6 (NLT2)
Or Isaiah’s cry, 5 Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.”
Isaiah 6:5 (NLT2)
To use the words of Zephaniah, they “felt the hand of God’s judgment,” and because of that, were more uncomfortable in the presnce of God that I was in a tuxedo….
And the reason for joy is that, hand, that discomfort would be removed!
- LAW – the hand to be removed
Of all the impact of sin described by Zephaniah, the one that strikes me as the harshest is seen in verse 18—as people mourned over the high feasts…they were a disgrace
So great was idolatry and immorality among the people of God that there was no joy, heck there was no desire to hear the incredible words that God accepted the sacrifice, that they were forgiven.
The temple went through the motions, and the ceremonies became boring, just a ritual, without any faith, without any expectation of God’s mercy in the eyes of those who were participating in the sacrifices.
Let me explain it this way, imagine that we are having church, and during the words of confession and absolution, we had a football game up on the screens, or a cartoon, or a soap opera. And then during communion a numch of people went up in the choir area and started dancing while in the back in that corner a poker game was going on and that side a wineand cheese tasting event…
Or maybe that is just where our minds and hearts are…
What good would absolution do, if no one really heard it? What good would it be? How could we share in the blessing of Chirst’s body that was shed, and theblood that was spilled if we don’t take it and eat in faith….
We don’t have to imagine it, the Apostle Paul addresses it clearly.
“That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking the cup. For if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God’s judgment upon yourself. That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died.” (1 Corinthians 11:28–30, NLT)
That sounds like a disgraced feast, one to grieve over! One that brings no joy, just a box we checked off on some list of obligations.
The concept is the same, as we sin, as we do not look for God’s grace to cover or make excuses for our sin, we neglect God’s love, and what He would give us…
Just to make sure we all understand, the idea of examining oneself is not about passing or failing and examination, or having to look at yourself and anazlyzin every little detail. It is about looking at the tux in the mirror and realizing it isn’t right, and crying out to the One that Zephaniah and all the other prophets spoke of,
- Gospel – The hand is on the cross – where al are gathered – where all are named
Let’s go back to Zephaniah’s prophecy and the hand of Judgement… hear the promise again,
14 Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! 15 For the LORD will remove his hand of judgment…
I lovethe picture of the Lord removing His hand of judgment from us, for I know that hand’s next movement, to stretch itself out on the harsh wood of the cross, and for this we shouldsing praie and shout We should rejoice with all our heart, because knowing what happened on the cross enables us to experience the feast of God, to make our time at the altar more than just an empty ritual.
It becomes the place of joy, for until we are in heaven, this is the fulfilment Zephaniah’s words, “I will bring together those who were chased away. I will give glory and fame to my former exiles, wherever they have been mocked and shamed. 20 On that day I will gather you together and bring you home again.”
This is home, this is the family feast., this is the place to rejoice that God has given us the chance to be his, This is the place where God takes away our fears and anxieities, making us comfrotable in His presence, because Christ has taken his hand of judgment away, and clothed in His righteousness – and comfortable in those clothes…
And then Paul’s words to the church in Phillipi will describe you,
6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT2)
AMEN!
The Necessity of Being and Enthralled Disciple…A different type of slavery…
Thoughts which carry this broken pastor to Jesus and the Cross:
“‘Tell Joseph this: Please forgive the sin of your brothers and the wrong they did when they treated you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sin of the servants of the God of your father.” When this message was reported to him, Joseph wept.Then his brothers also came and threw themselves down before him; they said, “Here we are; we are your slaves.”” (Genesis 50:17–18, NET)
“But if the servant should declare, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ then his master must bring him to the judges, and he will bring him to the door or the doorposts, and his master will pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.” (Exodus 21:5–6, NET)
At the outset, to be mystical the liturgy must be enthralling, and this is less comfortable than we think. To enthrall means to make a person a thrall: to put someone into bondage, to reduce someone to the condition of a captive, to enslave, to subjugate and make subservient.
Once, when the brothers asked him whether he was pleased that the learned men, who, by that time, had been received into the Order, were devoting themselves to the study of Sacred Scripture, he replied: “I am indeed pleased, as long as, after the example of Christ, of whom we read that he prayed more than he read, they do not neglect zeal for prayer; and, as long as they study, not to know what they should say, but to practise what they have heard and, once they have put it into practice, propose it to others.
This tipping point in Ignatius’ conversion and the shift in attitude it brings is notable. All the more so in light of his prior manifest determination to conquer his sinfulness by force of his own will. His Autobiography’s terse narrative hides the magnitude of the spiritual and psychological transformation in Ignatius. The transformation is stark. Ignatius moves from managing his spiritual growth with the same swagger that he waged the Pamplona battle, and becomes a man of much greater humility, willing to be led like a boy at the hands of a schoolmaster.
It took me a moment to make Fagerberg’s connected between being enthralled and in thrall, in bondage. As a amateur wordsmith, I was a little annoyed at myself, I should have seen it, but the concept was… well enthralling. It took me captive, and even as I copied these quotes from my devotional reading some 10 hours back, I had to process it this evening.
I want the liturgy, the worship of my congregation to be enthralling, so that our walk with God proceeds from it. I want it to be captivated by it, to be addicted to the presence of God experienced there. To be enslaved to the freedom that comes as we are cleansed of our sin, as burdens are removed, as we begin to understand what it means to be the children of God.
But we are enslaved, addicted, captivated and in thrall in a very blessed way.
Far too often we see being servants of God and of His people as a negative, as something that not only requires being humble, but being humiliated, debased, neglected and even abused. We picture slaved in chains, and being whipped, as Jean Val Jean is in the opening scene of Les Mis, or as the many movies about slavery in the south, or n Africa. The kind of slavery Joseph’s brothers offered themselves and their families to enter, rather than face the wrath of Joseph–the brother they sold into slavery.
“God, I will do anything if you rescue me from…” type of slavery. (the reason btw, many of us (including Luther) entered into studying for the ministry and why we justify the “sacrifices” we make and are expected to make. A sense of slavery and sacrifice based in guilt, shame and a desire to “payback”–as if we could! We see this in Ignatius of Loyola as well, as he would confess and confess and confess, and never find the absolution he needed.
What that results in, concerns a pastor like St. Francis, who saw men enslaving themselves to an academic pursuit of theology. men who studied the word, and neglected prayer (and therefore worship that is the reaction to experiencing the love of God.) This is not the pursuit of Theology, it is the pursuit of religious philosophy. A kind of knowledge that neither enjoys and lives in faith, nor proposes that life to others.
Being enthralled, be in thrall is less like Joseph’s brothers offer and more like the slave whose ear is pierced. Who knows he is loved, who responds to that love with a desire to be in no other place, in no other relationship with His master, This is where worship is spontaneously embraced and savored. The slave’s attitude is not based in fear of wrath, or any kind of fear at all, it is made from a love that is responding to love! Itis what drives the academic to his knees in prayer, what drives the soldier to seek peace, and the pilgrim to find they are, finally at their destination.
This is what changes Luther, apparently changes Ignatius, can change our churches, can change our communities, this revealed love of our Lord, Jesus. This is the connection we find in our gatherings, as we realize the presence of the Lord, as He reveals Himself through the word and the sacrament, a love so powerful, a fellowship so full of joy and peace, so sustaining, so much a breath of heaven, that we continue to seek to serve and to introduce it to others.
Fagerberg, D. W. (2019). Liturgical Mysticism (p. 11). Emmaus Academic.
Pasquale, G., ed. (2011). Day by Day with Saint Francis: 365 Meditations (pp. 336–337). New City Press.
Watson, W. (2012). Sacred Story: An Ignatian Examen for the Third Millennium (p. 25). Sacred Story Press.
Saul, David and the American Political Season
Devotional Thought of the Day:
3 At the place where the road passes some sheepfolds, Saul went into a cave to relieve himself. But as it happened, David and his men were hiding farther back in that very cave! 4 “Now’s your opportunity!” David’s men whispered to him. “Today the LORD is telling you, ‘I will certainly put your enemy into your power, to do with as you wish.’” So David crept forward and cut off a piece of the hem of Saul’s robe. 5 But then David’s conscience began bothering him because he had cut Saul’s robe. 6 “The LORD knows I shouldn’t have done that to my lord the king,” he said to his men. “The LORD forbid that I should do this to my lord the king and attack the LORD’s anointed one, for the LORD himself has chosen him.” 7 So David restrained his men and did not let them kill Saul. After Saul had left the cave and gone on his way, 1 Samuel 24:3-7 (NLT2)
You became a bit frightened when you saw so much light, so bright that you thought it would be difficult to look, or even to see. Disregard your obvious weaknesses, and open the eyes of your soul to faith, to hope and to love. Carry on, allowing yourself to be guided by God through whoever directs your soul.
I have to admit that I am more than a little hesitant writing this blog this morning. Yet I have seen to many people who believe in God who struggle to live in the peace God has given them.
Fear, anxiety, anger, even hatred have done this damage to people’s souls. And as I see those emotions pouted out on social media, my heard aches. People look for scapegoats to blame for hurt they even struggle to identify. We look for that one person, or that one group that causes our pain.
David knew that pain. Heck, it wasn’t just projecting his problems on King Saul, Saul was out to kill him. He was hunting him down, and David had to live off the land, and dwell in caves. People who helped him were punished, and rewards were out for his life, and those who served beside him.
And yet, as he tweaks the king, (when he could have assassinated him) he feels guilt. He knows the pain, the betrayal, and et, part of him knows he should not have even tweaked the king….
As I read this, I wondered what it would be like, if we had that much respect for our leaders, that we bathed them in prayer rather than mocked them, or critiqued them and spewed hatred at them behind their back? What would happen if we treated them as we wanted them to treat us? If we didn’t use their actions to justify our own.
What would happen if we loved them as Christ loves us?
This is the kind of light we struggle with entering , this glorious love of God that takes away sin… This is the glory that realizes God’s at work, somehow, in all of this. This is the kind of trust, that comes from knowing God. Not just knowing about Him, knowing Him.
That will change us, even a it impacts the country.
For if we enter into a time of revival, it will not matter who wins the election.
Lord, reveal the work of the Holy Spirit in this world, Help us to trust you more than we fear, more than we are hurting, more than we have learned to hate…and heal us . AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Forge . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Helping others Deal with Brokenness, Stress, Anxiety, ( like teaching them to drive a stick)
The church, is always in the midst of a storm… but safe in Him
Devotional Thought of the Day:
God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble.
2 So we will not fear when earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. 3 Let the oceans roar and foam. Let the mountains tremble as the waters surge! Psalm 46:1-3 CEV
The best of God’s saints must drink the wormwood; the dearest of his children must bear the cross. No Christian has enjoyed perpetual prosperity; no believer can always keep his harp from the willows. Perhaps the Lord allotted you at first a smooth and unclouded path, because you were weak and timid. He tempered the wind to the shorn lamb, but now that you are stronger in the spiritual life, you must enter upon the riper and rougher experience of God’s full-grown children. We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to tear off the rotten bough of self-dependence, and to root us more firmly in Christ. The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope.
COMFORT WHEN FACING GRAVE TEMPTATIONS
First, such a person1 must by no means rely on himself, nor must he be guided by his own feelings. Rather, he must lay hold of the words offered to him in God’s name, cling to them, place his trust in them, and direct all the thoughts and feelings of his heart to them.
Second, he must not imagine that he is the only one assailed about his salvation, but he must be aware (as St. Peter declares) that there are many more people in the world passing through the same trials [1 Pet. 5:9]. How often does David lament and cry out in the Psalms, “O God, I am driven far from thy sight” [31:22], and, “I became like those who go into hell” [28:1]. These trials are not rare among the godly. They hurt, to be sure, but that is also in order, etc.
As I was trying to care for someone yesterday, who was worried and anxious, part of my prayer was a reaction similar to the title of this blog.
Actually, it was said to him with a bit more colorful language, and with, I must admit some anger.
Over my lifetime, I have needed to vent in more than once… and I know God can handle me, much as He did the Prophet, Jeremiah. (See Jeremiah 20:7) Yet, knowing I can vent it, knowing I can get past it, it is not easy to teach this.
Teaching others this, and helping them be patient with themselves as they wait on God’s action, is like teaching someone to drive a manual transmission. YOu have to let them do it, you have to let them drop the clutch at the wrong times, you have ot encourage, and help them make the tiniest of corrections until they feel the shift until it becomes intuitive until it becomes natural.
When we learn to drive a stick until we realize the moments of high anxiety and stress will resolve, as God does what God does, and as we learn to trust Him, life s like those early times of driving a stick. We get jerked all over the place, stall a lot (and still do on occasion), and make very little progress. But then it all comes together, and we can begin to move, as we sop thinking of on it, and simply focus on where we are going.
Spurgeon and Luther help us realize this, as help us realize that struggles don’t necessarily diminish as we mature, as we grow more dependent on our Lord, and on the presence of the Holy Spirit. How I wish it was the case that life gets easier!
Yet because it doesn’t, we can sit beside those trying to deal with the clutch, trying to learn, or absorb the challenges, and still keep their eyes focused on God. We can encourage them, and comfort them, and smile as they start to move smoothly again, as they resonate with the love of Christ.
This is our mission… this is who we are..
C. H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening: Daily Readings (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896).
Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 42: Devotional Writings I, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 42 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 183.
Why Was the Door Still Locked? A sermon on John 20:19-31
Why Was the Door Still Locked?
John 20:19-31
† I.H.S. †
May the grace of God our Father, and the Lord Jesus cast a shadow on your doubt, as you dwell in Their Presence!
The Little Details
One of my professors used to talk about the fact that everything in scripture is there for a reason, that there are some small details that are there for a reason.
His goal was to stop us from reading through the scriptures, to slow down, take time, and savor the words.
It took me about 20 years to realize how right Doug Dickey was!
It does cause some interesting observations when you slow down and try to savor each phrase and word. Those observations, in turn, make you realize some incredible things about God, and how He loves you.
Today’s insight comes from pondering a question form something I noticed in verse 26.
“The doors were locked, but suddenly, as before… “
Wait, did you say the doors were locked, the second time Jesus appeared without entering them?
Hence the title of the sermon, “Why was the door still locked?”
But they already encountered Jesus!
The first time they were locked, they were locked because they were afraid of the Jews,
But they had Jesus bless them with peace, not once but twice!
They had been given the Holy Spirit, as the entire church would be on Pentecost.
They had been given divine authority, DIVINE authority to forgive sins, or determine that people in bondage to the sins they would not abandon…
They had an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, who had been crucified, and his side pierced with a spear….and had crushed death…walking out of the grave…
They were witnesses of this…and they were still afraid, hiding behind a locked and barred door like…. Cowards? Like those whose doubts got the better of them?
They still struggled with doubt, in fact, on the day of the ascension they still struggled with it.
In the scene where Jesus ascends, right before the Great Commission is given, Matthew records, “17 When they saw him, they worshiped him—but some of them doubted! “Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.” Matthew 28:17-18 (NLT2)
You see, we talk about Thomas as being the one who was labeled as the doubter. But he wasn’t the only one hiding behind locked doors.
Just like some of us struggle with things going on in our lives today. We might doubt, we might struggle, and while we need to grow, that is not something we should hide, or feel guilty and ashamed about.
That is important in times like this when we struggle to figure out what God is doing, or not doing in this pandemic. We don’t have to hide our struggle. It isn’t sin to struggle, it isn’t sin to doubt, it is sin to hide the doubt, or deny it, to pretend we understand it all.
Were the words only for Thomas?
When Jesus says, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.” I don’t think he is talking just to Thomas, but to all the believers in the room.
For even though they see him, they are struggling with putting it all together. They are like the young father, who asked by Jesus if he believed, he had to say “yes, but help me in my unbelief!”
That should be our attitude – going to the very God we don’t always understand, or even when we do, we struggle with, and ask for His help.
We have to remember that He is there, that He loves us, and cares for us.
There are written that YOU may continue to believe!
That is the very reason that what Jesus did was written, here it again,
30 The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.
The entire scripture is a history of God acting in the lives of His people. From providing Adam and Eve a sacrifice to help them cover the evidence of their sin, to the second coming that God promised will happen.
Notice that it doesn’t say the doctrine is written, but the actual things Jesus has done. Not that doctrine isn’t important, but believing that He is risen, that He has the power to do all he did, enables us to believe that because He is risen, we are risen indeed.
And we can believe that, even when struggling behind locked doors, and trying to figure out what is going on, for Jesus Loves you.
He is risen! He is risen indeed! And therefore… you are risen indeed.
How We Will Survive This Fear-filled Time!
Devotional Thought of the Day:
When the disciples had rowed for three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the water. He kept coming closer to the boat, and they were terrified. 20 But he said, “I am Jesus! Don’t be afraid!” 21 The disciples wanted to take him into the boat, but suddenly the boat reached the shore where they were headed. John 6:19-21 CEV
855 Spiritual childhood is not spiritual foolishness or softness; it is a sane and forceful way which, due to its difficult easiness, the soul must begin and then continue, led by the hand of God.
As I read this passage from John’s gospel this morning, I saw something I had never seen in the event. At first, I thought it might have been something that was a translation specific idea. But I checked all the ones in my digital library, and they all chimed in, in fact, the word was even stronger in the others>
Instead of “suddenly”, the word was “immediately”
They got to where they were going so fast they didn’t even realize it was happening.
One moment they were terrified.
Scared out of their wits,
Panicked, unable to make sense of what was going on, overwhelmed by what their senses told them.
The next moment, they pulled their boat up on the beach, got out, and life returned to normal.
In the presence of Jesus, everything became different. God was with them, their fears were minimized. They were being led by the hand of God, and their faith was profoundly simple. He is there, that was enough.
This isn’t foolishness or weakness, as St Josemaria describes. It seems to easy to do, this idea of becoming childlike in our faith. So easy we often reject it, and the comfort it brings. Our logic tells us to find the solution, to search diligently out the truth from the thousands of self-proclaimed experts, to take action, even if we don’t know what to do.
In the back of our minds we hear the psalm, “Be still and know…” and we think to remind ourselves to make time for that, later.
We need to hear his voice, now. We need to allow Him to comfort us, now.
Then, realizing He is guiding us, we can begin to walk with Him through the crisis – and soon arrive on the other side of it. That is where our soul needs to begin, where our hearts have found rest, where our minds have put everything on pause
Soon we will be through this crisis, and it will seem like it happens as suddenly as it started. Led by Jesus, the author, and perfector of our lives Look to Him, Let His love cast out the fear…
He is with You! AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
How Do You See God Working in “Them?” How does that affect your own faith?
The Good Shepherd, carrying His own.
Devotional Thought of the Day:
10 Now there was a believer in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord spoke to him in a vision, calling, “Ananias!” “Yes, Lord!” he replied. 11 The Lord said, “Go over to Straight Street, to the house of Judas. When you get there, ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is praying to me right now. 12 I have shown him a vision of a man named Ananias coming in and laying hands on him so he can see again.” 13 “But Lord,” exclaimed Ananias, “I’ve heard many people talk about the terrible things this man has done to the believers in Jerusalem! 14 And he is authorized by the leading priests to arrest everyone who calls upon your name.” 15 But the Lord said, “Go, for Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings, as well as to the people of Israel. 16 And I will show him how much he must suffer for my name’s sake.” 17 So Ananias went and found Saul. He laid his hands on him and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road, has sent me so that you might regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Instantly something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he got up and was baptized. 19 Afterward he ate some food and regained his strength. Saul stayed with the believers in Damascus for a few days.
Acts 9:10-19 (NLT2)
675 It’s true that he was a sinner. But don’t pass so final a judgment. Have pity in your heart and don’t forget that he may yet be an Augustine, while you remain just another mediocrity.
How can we hate people as much as we do? Just a glimpse on social media this morning, I see people attacking homeless, immigrants, the President, the House of Representatives (both sides), athletes, Muslims, conservative Christians, those who have had abortions, those who are pro-life, Hollywood and Netflix, people who liked the new Star wars, and those that found major issues with it.
It is spiritually exhausting, all this hatred.
We not only judge their actions, but we also condemn them and assume they are and will always be demonic.
It is as if we don’t believe God is capable of turning them as if God has never had to deal with sinners before, and is incapable of transforming them into saints.
Ananias needed to be converted as much as Saul did. His reluctance shows it, as his faith wasn’t in the God who was transforming him. Did he think God didn’t know who He was sending him to baptize?
Do we believe God does not desire these people we hate to come to faith, to repent, to be transformed?
If we did believe their salvation was possible, would we spew our hatred out on Facebook and Twitter the way we do? Would we try to justify it when we are challenged on our words and actions?
I would imagine this affects us more than we know, go if we realized God could save them, then perhaps we wouldn’t hesitate to go to God, confessing our own sins, our own darkness, our own doubts.
We need to be cleansed of all sin, and all unrighteousness, including our doubt that God can save all people, that the cross paid for all sin. That in Christ, all can be considered holy. The more we trust in HIm to save and transform others, the more we will see what He is doing in us.
Trust Him, He is at work, seeking to save the lost, all of us.
Amen!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
I can’t do this! (God says, “Here, I will hold your beer”)
Devotional Thought of the Day:
12 My dear friends, you always obeyed when I was with you. Now that I am away, you should obey even more. So work with fear and trembling to discover what it really means to be saved. 13 God is working in you to make you willing and able to obey him. 14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing. 15 Then you will be the pure and innocent children of God. You live among people who are crooked and evil, but you must not do anything that they can say is wrong. Try to shine as lights among the people of this world, 16 as you hold firmly to the message that gives life. Philippians 2:12-16 (CEV)
That false humility is laziness. Such a “humbleness” leads you to give up rights that really are duties.
I could come up with 1000 parables about this, the Marine Recruit who doesn’t think he can climb the wall, the student who doesn’t think they can handle algebra, the new employee who is convinced they can’t do the job on their own, the pastor who…
O wait, I can’t make this too personal.
I can’t direct it towards me, after all, I am nobody.
( I say this, despite reading Exodus for the last couple of weeks… )
St. Josemaria’s words cut me deeply, as I think of all the things I claim I can’t do. After all, I have a load of ready-made excuses. Genetic ones, you know, the kind I don’t want pity for, but heck, I will take a lesser burden if you want to help a poor guy out. And then there is this lack and that lack. And then there is the fact that I am a sinner. I obviously cannot do this. A man has got to know his limitations, at least what the theologian Clint Eastwood said. And I know mine, and I am not capable. I know this.
In fact, I don’t know that.
But is my focus on my inability a sign of laziness? If not, what if I am just afraid of what God might require?
Either is a possibility if I am honest.
For what I forget when I do my self-evaluation is the work God is doing in my life, and in yours. God has saved us, and we need to realize that means we are changing. That we can listen to God and hear His vision, what He wants us to do, whom to forgive, whom to love, who to reach out to, in sharing that love.
He gives us even, the desire and the ability to do what pleases Him, what He has created us to do, what He has called us to do, what the Holy Spirit has equipped us to do.
Maybe it is time to stop procrastinating, stop finding excuses, and simply let God lead us, as He builds His Church.
Lord God, Heavenly Father, remind us that You are the potter, that even as Jesus obeyed and went to the cross we can bear our crosses with the joy You have set before us, knowing that You will be with us all the way! Thank you Lord for not giving up, but calling us and working in us, giving us the desire and ability to be Your faithful children. AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Do We Realize What is Going On Around Us?
Devotional Thought of the Day:
11 Inside the Tent of Meeting, the LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Afterward Moses would return to the camp, but the young man who assisted him, Joshua son of Nun, would remain behind in the Tent of Meeting. Exodus 33:11 (NLT2)
We might even venture to say that what God does is always an answer to this kind of appeal from someone who prays. This does not mean that God is like the potentates of this world who want to be asked before they bestow a favor. No—it is so because it must be so by the very nature of things, because it is only when we pray, when we transcend ourselves, when we surrender ourselves, when we recognize God as a reality, when we open ourselves to him, only then that the door of the world is open for God and that space is created in which he can act for and on us men. God is, it is true, always with us, but we are not always with him, says Saint Augustine. It is only when we accept his presence by opening our being to him in prayer that God’s activity can truly become an action on and for us men.
THE SECOND PETITION (of the Lord’s prayer)
“Thy kingdom come.”
7 What does this mean?
Answer: To be sure, the kingdom of God comes of itself, without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may also come to us
One of my favorite stories in scripture is found in 2 Kings 6, where Elisha’s servant had no clue what is going on around him. He sees what the prophet and he will face, and not realizing the power of God, falls into despair.
We do this often, for our faith is weak, and our memory of God’s presence is not so good. We struggle in the face of the problems, the trauma, and the self-doubt that is caused by sin and temptation. We may not want to admit it, but everyone struggles with that self-doubt. For if we can’t do what we want to do, what is right, and we can’t stop the self-defeating sin that has ensnares us, we end up living in a world that is broken, and we can’t find a way to cope with it. Deny it, get distracted from it by our addictions, we just keep going.
Elisha’s servant hadn’t learned what to do yet, but Elisha did. He simply prayed. The servant then saw the truth, and what was real! He found out what was really going on, and it was a different story.
THat’s why Luther and Pope Benedict talk about prayer the way they do. If we don’t pray, it is not that God isn’t active, for He is. What is missing is our awareness of what God is doing.
It is impossible to know what is going on around us, if we don’t see what God is doing.
Prayer is the beginning of that, as we talk with God, much as Moses did, or Enoch or even David. Blunt conversations, face to face, as we would have with a friend. Allowing God to, with all His wisdom and power, to intervene in our lives, as He reveals His love and the mercy which forgives and heals us. That is what Benedict XVI is talking about, as we transcend ourselves in prayer, and meet with God and talk. It is what LUther referred to when he talked of God’s kingdom coming among us.
We see His reality then, as it is revealed at the speed and fullness He knows we can take. We see His love, His concern, we see the power of God at work reforming us into a masterpiece.
Lord, help us to talk with You, as Moses did. Not just face to face, but as a friend talks to a friend. Lord Jesus, help us depend on You, not neglecting You and talking with You. Open our eyes to the work of the Holy Spirit. We pray this in Jesus’ Name. AMEN!
Joseph Ratzinger, 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), 286–287.
Theodore G. Tappert, ed., The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959), 346.
The Struggle of Being Holy….and How it Accomplished!
Devotional Thought of the Day
15 So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” 16 For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. 17 And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. Romans 8:15-17 (NLT2)
6. We also believe, teach, and confess that, although the genuinely believing and truly regenerated persons retain much weakness and many shortcomings down to their graves, they still have no reason to doubt either the righteousness which is reckoned to them through faith or the salvation of their souls, but they must regard it as certain that for Christ’s sake, on the basis of the promises and the Word of the holy Gospel, they have a gracious God.
Men expect redemption from themselves, and they seem quite prepared to provide it. Thus there is linked to the primacy of the future the primacy of practice, the primacy of human activity above all other activities. Theology, too, shows itself more and more open to this concept—orthopraxis replaces orthodoxy. “Eschatopraxis” seems more important than eschatology. If in earlier days it was left to popular enlightenment to tell the lower class that artificial fertilizer was more effective than prayer, now, after a suitable interval, we can read similar commentaries in the kind of “religious” literature that strives to reflect the contemporary Zeitgeist; we can even find voiced there the argument that under certain circumstances prayer itself will have to be “refunctioned”: it can hardly be considered any longer an appeal for divine assistance; on the contrary, it must be regarded as a period of quiet composure in preparation for the practice of human self-help.
Benedict XVI’s words about orthopraxy replacing orthodoxy (right practice replacing right praise) seem eerily prophetic. Written in 1971, these words I believe talk of the church today. For the focus on doing things correctly, doing things in a way that seems holy to man dominate both traditional and contemporary Christianity, It can be seen in both conservative and liberal voices.
As he notes, even prayer becomes the preparation for doing things correctly,
As I look at this, I think I see a tie into the quote from the Lutheran Confessions in green. I think that we struggle with the fact that while we believe, the weakness and shortcoming we have (which is simply a fancy way of saying we still sin). We don’t know how to deal with our own frailty, our own brokenness. We are impatient with the healing we are experiencing in Christ, and so we seek to fast track our own sanctification.
If only we can do everything right, if only our performance reveals how much faith we have, then maybe others will see us as holy, and then, based on our testimony, we can believe we are holy. So we look for the masters, the life coaches, the pastors who will show us the way to worship, how to live, how to raise our kids, and be a bastion or moral and religious perfection.
And instead of being an imitator of Christ, we try to become a clone of those who we follow. Driven by the fear of being revealed to be something less than faithful, we take on the mannerisms, while leaving a soul behind that is empty, broken, and struggling with the sin that so easily ensnares us.
Prior to the passage from Romans above, we see Paul going from the joys of rising with Christ in baptism, to the absolute low of discovering he still can’t get things right. Orthopraxis is impossible, He can’t do what is right, he can’t help but do what is wrong. In this moment of shame and self-pity, he finds in Romans 8:1 that there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. That despite his struggle with sin, God sees Paul as righteous, holy, a son of God.
This discovery changes things, it changes our fear of our sin being discovered into a cry for help, Daddy! Daddy! HELP! We realize that our hope is not found in our attempts to be holy, but in hearing His voice tell us we are His children. In hearing His promise to complete everything in the day of Jesus. We find our transformation not by our work in ministry, not in our perfection of word and sacrament, but from being there, broken, and finding healing.
Nothing I can do will bring you the level of holiness you will be satisfied with, in this age. For satisfaction means you want to judge if you have made it, or rely on the judgment of others. That desire for satisfaction will drain you, ripping out from you the core of your heart and soul.
But allowing God to minister to us, allowing His grace, His mercy and love to pour into us, living life being drawn to Him, sometimes in tears, this is our hope. Not starting with prayer, but a life lived in Him, allowing Him to recreate us.
This is our hope of wholeness, of holiness. Letting God be God, as we realize we are His.
Tappert, T. G. (Ed.). (1959). The Book of Concord the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (p. 474). Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.
Ratzinger, J. (1992). Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year. (I. Grassl, Ed., M. F. McCarthy & L. Krauth, Trans.) (pp. 242–243). San Francisco: Ignatius Press.
