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This is Ministry…
Thoughts leading us to Jesus, and because of which, we adore Him:
1 Then this message came to me from the LORD: 2 “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds, the leaders of Israel. Give them this message from the Sovereign LORD: What sorrow awaits you shepherds who feed yourselves instead of your flocks. Shouldn’t shepherds feed their sheep? 3 You drink the milk, wear the wool, and butcher the best animals, but you let your flocks starve. 4 You have not taken care of the weak. You have not tended the sick or bound up the injured. You have not gone looking for those who have wandered away and are lost. Instead, you have ruled them with harshness and cruelty. 5 So my sheep have been scattered without a shepherd, and they are easy prey for any wild animal. 6 They have wandered through all the mountains and all the hills, across the face of the earth, yet no one has gone to search for them. Ezekiel 34:1-6 (NLT2)
The Christian minister, as someone has pointed out, is a descendant not of the Greek orator but of the Hebrew prophet.
The differences between the orator and the prophet are many and radical, the chief being that the orator speaks for himself while the prophet speaks for God. The orator originates his message and is responsible to himself for its content. The prophet originates nothing but delivers the message he has received from God who alone is responsible for it, the prophet being responsible to God for its delivery only. The prophet must hear the message clearly and deliver it faithfully, and that is indeed a grave responsibility; but it is to God alone, not to men.
In those cities and places, likewise, where the parish churches have no certain boundaries, neither have their rectors their own proper people to govern, but administer the sacraments to all promiscuously who seek it, the holy synod commands bishops, that for the more perfect security of the salvation of the souls committed to their charge, having divided the people into fixed and proper parishes, they shall assign to each its own perpetual and peculiar parish priest, who may know his own parishioners, and from whom alone they may lawfully receive the sacraments; or they shall make such other provision as may be more profitable, according as the character of the place may require
Someone reminded once again me that evangelists are also physicians for souls; new converts need a physician of the soul just as long time members. A lot of listening, consoling, absolving, praying, and blessing was just as important for Sonia, the zealous new convert, as it was for George, the patriarch of a family known as “pillars of the church” for generations.
As I read from the writings coming out of the Council of Trent this morning, those words in blue hit me hard. It wasn’t like resonated in a good way, but like play a guitar and one key is so far out of tune… it hurts. People who go to a church may not know the man who is preaching, if he is even in the same building and not located on another campus, and his picture live-streamed into that building. There is a disconnect there, and while thye have someone preaching at them, it is not the same as a conversation with them, know them and having the ability to call in a moment and have them pray.
It’s not just true in big churches, COVID has done this to many family sized (50-300 member churches) as our people have been spread out, and limited to digital contact or a phone call or two. As much as I like bringing my thoguhts together on this blog, I would rather have 4 or 20 people in a Bible study, or a dedicated prayer time. There is something about the people of God, gathered together, spending time in His presence together.
Tozer’s comment about the pastor being a descendant of the prophet fits in here. God has a message for a specific group of people, and has placed the pastor there to give it to them, in a way they can understnad it. That means you have to know them well enough to spek into their heart. That is scary for both the pastor and the people. But if it doesn’t happen., if this connection isn’t made, then people spread out, and begin to do what is right in their own eyes–and that includes the pastor.
We all need to be ministered to, the atheist, the person God is transforming from scratch, the person God’s been working on for decdes.
And the most needed and hardest ministry happens when the pastor and people are laughing and crying together. As souls are comforted…and healed by the same power which raised Christ Jesus from the grave.
A. W. Tozer, Tozer for the Christian Leader (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2015).
Theodore Alois Buckley, The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent (London: George Routledge and Co., 1851), 201–202.
Harold L. Senkbeil, The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 234.
Why Religion is the Relationship: A Call to Something Deeper than a Meme or Tweet
Devotional Thought of the Day:
20 We put our hope in the LORD. He is our help and our shield. 21 In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. 22 Let your unfailing love surround us, LORD, for our hope is in you alone.
Psalm 33:20-22 (NLT2)
Among all worldviews it is the gospel alone that produces the beauty of the saints. Nothing else does. They are deeply converted, and therefore utterly in love with triune Beauty. Even though our surefire program is cast in contemporary thought patterns and terminology, it is pure gospel. As we have noted, this plan contains no gimmicks, no pop psychology. Clever phrases and shallow ideas do not, and cannot produce the splendor of profound intimacy with anyone, least of all with the radiance of Father, Son and Holy Spirit—our eternal enthrallment.
I have seen it on tweets, and on memes. Cute and clever sayings that are not unpacked, that do not consider the unintended consequences that actually considering what is said, means.
None more dangerous than the, “relationship not religion” concept that has been floating around for years…
If you have ever heard me teach or preach, you know how I refer to not just a relationship with God, but an intimate relationship with Him. Enough that with some folk, i just mention the I.R. because they don’t like that word intimate.
What leads us from just knowing God exists, to believing in Him, to being a disciple, the point where the relationship is becoming ever more and more intimate? Well that is where religion comes into play, that is where God’s revelation to us, the covenant with its blessings and curses, with its promised intimacy and its discipline come into play.
That is where we get to know (another IR word!) Him. It is where we find we can trust Him, where His faithful devotion to us becomes our hope, and our joy. It is in the midst of the religious frame of reference that we understand His love for us, the mercy and comfort He will show us.
This can’t be understood in a meme, or a tweet, or even in this WordPress post. Because it is more than the words on the screen. It is revealed in meditating (not reading or studying) His word. Letting the thoughts of God, revealed to us, sink beyond our mind into our heart, into our soul. Into the depth of our being, where the Spirit transforms us.
And as it does, those places that we once feared to go, the depth of our being, are converted by the Spirit, and it is there we begin to realize the splendour of having a God who wants to know us at the very depths of our being. And He wants us to know Him there, to know His faithfulness, His mercy, His comfort, His healing and His love.
That kind of work takes time, and sometimes, it is scary, and it hurts, for He cuts away what is not good and holy and right. So be patient with the process, and ask God to keep working, even as He comofrts you in the mist of it.
Have a relationship far deeper than a cute saying… have one based in the framework, the religion that is more intimate than anything else we know. For this is what God designed and created you for… to walk with Him!
Thomas Dubay, Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 121.
Don’t Ask, “What’s Important,” Ask, “Who should be Important!”
Devotional Thought of the Day:
12 Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors—for they will invite you back, and in this way you will be paid for what you did. 13 When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind; 14 and you will be blessed, because they are not able to pay you back. God will repay you on the day the good people rise from death.” Luke 14:12-14 GNT
656 It is through Love rather than study that one comes to understand the things of God. That is why you have to work, you have to study, you have to accept illness, you have to be sober—lovingly!
Far too often we define our faith by the set of doctrines we believe. As if we could ever completely understand the mysteries of God. As if our logic, through enough study, could transcend the gap between the human and the divine.
That isn’t how we were saved in the first place, (our small catechism reminds us that it isn’t “by our own reason or strength”) so why do we think it is the proper process for our growth in our dependence on God, on growing in our awe at the love of God.
Please here me, meditating on the word of God is important! Studying it with other believers is important as well. But it is not enough on its own, we simply cannot know enough.
We have to experience that love, we have ot come to know it, as Jesus does exactly what He tells us to do. He invites us to feast with Him. Not the angels and archangels, but the broken sinners, the ones who are not holy (yet), who are not just in how they deal with others, the ones who are weak, the spiritually blind, the ones everyone else writes off. He invites us to share in His body and blood, showing us the love, bringing us the experience that fills in all of the gaps where we simply can’t understand the mysteries of God.
It is that love as well, extended through us to others who are just as broken, just as blind, who also struggle with sin and its constant partners, guilt and shame. As we are conduits of that grace, as we reveal their need for God and God’s response to that need, we find our understanding of God’s mysteries growing. It is an amazing thing to witness the glory of God at work, to see the Holy Spirit bring to life the one who was spiritually dead.
That is why St. Josemaria says that understanding comes from love, not just from the study (though he mentions study again). It is seeing God’s care for the broken that we were to understand what we can’t, the incredible love, that is beyond our ability to understand but not to experience.
May Paul;’s prayer for the
17 and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots
Ephesians 3:17-19 (TEV)
Amen!
Escriva, Josemaria. Furrow (Kindle Locations 2753-2755). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
What are you looking for today? What are you chasing?
Devotional Thought of the Day:
take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:31-33 (KJV)
1 As a deer longs for a stream of cool water, so I long for you, O God. 2 I thirst for you, the living God. When can I go and worship in your presence? Psalm 42:1-2 (TEV)
316 You tell me: “Yes, I want to!” Good. But do you “want to” as a miser wants his gold, as a mother wants her child, as a worldling wants honors, or as a poor sensualist wants his pleasure? No? Then you don’t “want to”!
I look at St Josemaria’s words this morning, and they hit me with a lot of conviction
As I look at a very busy week, as I anticipate the struggles and the hard work, I wonder how I am going to make it through it all, and do everything well. The temptation is to expedite things, and the really big temptation is to cut short my time with God.
After all, I will be studying scripture, I will be praying with others, do I really need my own time with God.
Abso-freaking-lutely. (pardon the Bostonese)
And I know I need it, and I want it. But the question is how much I want it. Do I want it like the deer wants water, like a mom protecting her child, like those that crave attention or pleasure want it?
I need to, I need to seek first God’s kingdom, I need to seek first those times in His presence, where I am so aware of Him that I naturally respond in worship and adoration.
I know in the midst of this, this is where I have to be, this is where I find healing and life and comfort and peace. It is where I know I am loved, and so loved that I am cleansed, and my sin cut away from me with even more precision than a heart surgeon, or a rabbi/mohel doing a circumcision.
For what draws me to God is not my own strength, if so, as much as I desire it, I might desire other things more. What draws me to God is the Holy Spirit, lovingly, caringly, bringing me back, back to the word that reveals God’s love, back to the sacraments which demonstrate it in my life, back into prayer where I release all my burdens to the Lord who loves me.
Yeah, it’s Monday, and I have a huge week of appointments, tasks, work, ministry, to see accomplished…
But I need to seek Him first, otherwise, the rest is in vain, and the week will be a giant pain in the ass. But with Him, at His side, the week, the very same actions, thoughts, words… will be glorious.
and so we cry out… Lord have mercy on us, and on our week!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way (Kindle Locations 818-820). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Did they mean it? Can we?
Devotional Thought of the Day:
11 “I have spoken these things to you so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. 12 This is My command: Love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life o for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you slaves anymore, because a slave doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from My Father. 16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you. I appointed you that you should go out and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. 17 This is what I command you: Love one another. John 15:11-17 HCSB
It is the urgent wish of this Holy Council that the measures undertaken by the sons of the Catholic Church should develop in conjunction with those of our separated brethren so that no obstacle be put in the ways of divine Providence and no preconceived judgments impair the future inspirations of the Holy Spirit. The Council moreover professes its awareness that human powers and capacities cannot achieve this holy objective-the reconciling of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ. It is because of this that the Council rests all its hope on the prayer of Christ for the Church, on our Father’s love for us, and on the power of the Holy Spirit. “And hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us”.
During the early years of the Reformation Luther and others proposed again and again that a general council of the church be convened to discuss and arbitrate the questions of doctrine and practice that were in controversy…..
It is a hard thing tl o love people you do not know.
It is a harder thing to love those you think you know, and whom you think wish you ill, but whom you do not really know.
This doesn’t matter whether we are talking about large groups (i.e. the Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and Lutherans looking at each other) or whether we are talking about neighbors or “those” people.
if we are honest, each of us has people we think we understand, and whom we think we need to protect ourselves from, for we know they mean us evil.
Even so, we are called to love them, really love them. Even to the point of death…
Surely then, if that is the length we are to go, we could try to get rid of the preconceived judgments that Vatican II warns us of, trying to put no obstacle in the way of divine providence.
We know, as St. John’s gospel pointed out, the will, the desire of God to see us one. Surely indeed we could pray for that, and learn to love each other so that it would be possible? FOr is this not the fruit of Christ being at work in our lives?
In the title, I asked whether the Roman Catholic Church in the 1960’s meant these words in blue above. If we ask that question, it has to be without the preconceived assumption that they do not. (Luther’s idea of best construction) We have to rely on God to move in that way, for it is our faith in God that
I believe many of the leaders did, they saw the need for the future. It has taken a generation for that to trickle down to the parish level, for the people of the church to know this was even possibly a desire. And I think, from the priests I know, that it will become more and more a desire for the church. (The last three popes made it an issue, and I think Francis will continue that!)
Do they all? It will take time, and teaching, by both example and instruction. But I believe it will grow.
Now the question becomes, can we mean it? Can we, like Luther, seek our, not compromise but community?
And if I can ask that of these huge groups… can I ask it of me and that person?
The answer if found in the same place. In the love of God, in know His will, and the providence He supplies to His people. For as Vatican II noted,
The Council moreover professes its awareness that human powers and capacities cannot achieve this holy objective-the reconciling of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ. It is because of this that the Council rests all its hope on the prayer of Christ for the Church, on our Father’s love for us, and on the power of the Holy Spirit.
So let us pray to the Lord of mercy. Amen!!
Catholic Church. “Decree on Ecumenism: Unitatis Redintegratio.” Vatican II Documents. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2011. Print.
Tappert, Theodore G., ed. The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press, 1959. Print.
You Need to Get Loosed!
Devotional Thought of the Day:
41 So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes and said, “Father, I thank d You that You heard Me. e 42 I know that You always hear Me, but because of the crowd standing here I said this, so they may believe You sent f Me.” 43 After He said this, He shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him and let him go.” John 11:41-44 HCSB
422 Jesus is your Friend—the friend—with a human heart, like yours, with most loving eyes that wept for Lazarus. And as much as he loved Lazarus, he loves you …
No, my blog hasn’t developed a Brooklyn accent, and no, I am not being rude.
I am not telling you to get lost, but indeed to be loosed, freed, from that which clings to you like the death wrappings clung to Lazarus.
Things like bitterness, resentment, envy, the need to gossip, the struggles with lust; you need to be free of these things.
We can add anxieties to this, for often these lead to temptation, and to doubt.
We can add sin as well, and all of the effects sin has on us, from the guilt and shame and fear of God’s wrath to the brokenness of injustice when we are the victim of sin.
We need to be freed from these things, to have them stripped from us, taken away, even as the burial wraps were unraveled, and he was free.
It starts with the Easter cry, “Come out” and our hearts souls, and minds follow Jesus out of the tomb, We have to hear His voice, and let it draw us past this other stuff that held as prisoners inside the tomb of our stone hearts (see Ezekiel 26:25ff)
As we hear His voice, the Holy Spirit breaks the power of death over us, and gives us life, the life He is Lord of, (this very thing we confess in the creeds! ) If the Spirit didn’t generate life in us, we couldn’t answer the call, He has, and this is something incredible.
A life lived in the presence of the Lord and Savior, who calls us His friends.
A life lived loosed of all the sin that so easily ensnares us.
A life lived loosed of all that is not of God’s love.
What are we waiting for?
Lord have mercy on us, and help us to live in your resurrection, for it is ours as well! AMEN!
What are the things you need to be freed from?
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way (Kindle Locations 1047-1049). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Walking with Jesus through the trials to the triumph! Part 7 The Mind for the Walk (on Easter)
Our Lenten Journey: Walking with Jesus through trials to the triumph
Part 7: The Mind for the Walk
Luke 24:13-35
† In Jesus Name †
May the grace, mercy, and peace of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ cause your hearts to burn, as His love for you is revealed!
Do we walk unaware?
This morning we finish a journey we started some 46 days ago, on Valentines Day.
We’ve walked with Jesus through trials, we talked about the different things we’ve encountered, and today we cover the last bit. It is a hard journey, as we walk in the steps of men who are in a steep decline; both physically as they walk down the steep decline to their home in Emmaus, and spiritually, as they struggle with despair, as they lost their hope, and descend into depression, and despair, oblivious to God’s work.
But it is only from their that they can finish the journey,
It’s a journey each of us makes, that each of us endures, unaware of the fact we don’t make it alone…..
Even though we think we do…
The Struggle of our minds
As I look at the story of the two men, what amazes me is how oblivious they were.
First, they made the typical mistake that men make, they heard but didn’t listen to the women in their lives. They heard that they came back with an amazing report, that Jesus was gone. Did they listen?
Yes.
Did they really hear what was being said?
Nah.
Luke tells us as they were struggling with everything, as they tried to toss around answers to all the question ripping them apart they stopped and sadness and gloom were written across their face.
That gloom wouldn’t leave, even while Jesus took them through all of scripture, as Jesus explained to them every scripture that testified about Him.
We have days like that, when all the knowledge we have about Jesus, when all the information passed onto us doesn’t compute when we remain oblivious of God’s presence, and all the while there He is, teaching us, guiding us, walking with us.
Yet we remain oblivious, too worried about how we interpret what’s going on around us. Just like these two guys who followed Jesus were oblivious.
At least their minds were. Their hearts were a different story…. The hearts were on fire!
The Heart and Soul Knew Better.
Here’s a question to consider. If they were still struggling if they still didn’t understand, then why did they beg him to stay the night?
It wasn’t until a little later that their eyes would be open, so why was it so important to stay with this person they had just met? What made them want to do this?
Again, we go back to their hearts afire, the work of the Holy Spirit bringing them comfort and peace through the word of God that was being explained to them. They couldn’t let Him go, they needed Him there in their lives, they needed the Holy Spirit working through the word!
They couldn’t let God go, even though they didn’t know it was Him
And some days, we need to do that, and knowing this story, we see that God is still with us, that He still is guiding us, just as He promised. Even when we are struggling in a downward slide. The Lord who is Risen, is with you indeed!
As He broke the bread!
As they hit bottom, as they get to their home, something happens that changes their mind about where they belong. Enough so that they climb back up the mountain without thinking.
I mean, what kind of attitude do you have to have to run 8 miles, uphill, in less than an hour. I don’t know about you, but I can’t run that fast, anymore.!
He broke bread with them, He blessed it, he consecrated, just as He had in the upper room, and He gave it to them… and they recognized him the scripture tells us.
But recognized doesn’t tell us the entire picture. The word there is epiginosko – they knew Him. They deeply and completely knew Him. This is the word for the level of intimacy a couple has for each other, not just the physical stuff we think of as intimacy, but the level intimacy when people can finish each other’s sentences, where they can communicate with just looks, without words, where they know what each other is thinking.
This is what happens when God opens their minds, their hearts as He gave thanks to God and broke the bread. What they knew in their hearts becomes revealed in their mind, and the road they traveled in despair becomes somehow different, less challenging as they know He is with them, as they know they can trust Him, depend on Him
That’s why the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper means so much to so many of us, as we realize that God has not left us alone, that He who is risen, is risen indeed, Praise God!
And because He is… we are risen indeed, ALLELUIA!
And because we are risen, because He has opened our minds, we intimately and completely know Him, and we are loved. AMEN!
An Everlasting Sign: A sermon on Isaiah 55
An Everlasting Sign
Isaiah 55:10-13
† I.H.S. †
As we walk though this life, may we continually see the everlasting signs of God’s power and love, at work in our lives, and in the lives of those around us.
Walking by the lake… you can’t take it all in…
Walking by the side of Lake Ossipee in New Hampshire, I learned a lesson about photography, and perhaps about life.
Simply put, the camera can’t take all that we experience with our eyes. They can’t take in the gentles waves, little more than ripples, and the beautiful homes across the lake, never mind the mountains that are visible on the horizon. You can’t take in a 360-degree panorama of beauty, never mind the feeling that occurs when you walk down a road with your son, that you and your dad walked down before.
Likewise, even our eyes can’t focus on everything at once.
There is so much more than we can see and hear, never mind the stories that give the story more depth, and the experience that goes beyond words.
Either because the experience is so full of joy, or so full of the pain of being broken, or sometimes, because the experience is both, and how do you concentrate on the joy, when you are struggling with tears?
And if that is simply trying to process a vacation, how do we catch what is really important about life?
Maybe we need a sign or two to help us along the way, to help us focus on what we need?
Do we see the fruit God’s word accomplishes?
One of the things I don’t often see is what Isaiah recorded God telling us,
10 “The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. 11 It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.
This illustration might be harder for us to understand here in California than it is sitting beside a lake in New Hampshire. After all, like looks little different at first today than it did a year ago when we are in a drought. Yet there is still snow in the high Sierras, the depleted reservoirs are again full.
We can’t see those signs, but we do know of the snow and rain from the crops that provide us food, from the grain that gives us bread to the grapes that provide us wine!
But like the camera view that cannot pick up everything, sometimes it is hard to see the blessings of God. They are there, just like the water that sits up in the High Sierras and the reservoirs. We may not regularly note the benefits of the blessings, but the blessings sustain us, none the less.
Again, do we see the rain and snow here? Not so much, but the evidence of that blessing we share see in a moment, just as we do every we eat, and with every sip we drink. His work is there, providing for us, even if all we can “see” are the end results of the blessings.
It is the same way spiritually, as God works through means, and delivers us grace and comfort, as He reveals His compassion and peace.
It will accomplish what God desires it to accomplish, and that is an incredible blessing.
The change is real – let’s see it!
So if in the physical life we see the end product, the food and drink that nourishes us, is there something similar spiritually.
Is there an eternal sign that proves God is at work, that He is blessing us?
Is there something that changes dramatically as a land that was once filled with thorns and weeds being filled with towering cypress and abundant colored myrtle trees, as verse 13 describes?
Yes indeed, we can see the effect of the blessing of God’s word, for the growth and change it does cause. The lives that do change, the lives that hear and know God’s peace in the midst of trauma, the lives that are reconciled.
I started this sermon by talking about the pictures that can’t take in everything the eye can see, and the eyes that can’t take in everything we experience.
Bu those eyes can take in a cross, and contemplate it’s meaning as we are joined to Christ’s death on the cross in our baptism. Those eyes can rejoice as we are welcome to feast on Christ’s body and blood, even as we try to meditate on that incredible feast. Our ears can celebrate as we heard our sin is forgiven, and rejoice as we hear that God is with us.
And as we know this peace, and share it, for so many need to know God’s gift of peace, given through His Son. That peace is the sign of His everlasting power and love, a peace bought for us at the cross and delivered to us in word and the sacraments. The word and sacraments used by the Holy Spirit to change us, for God is with us! AMEN!
The Art of Negotiating not needed here.
Devotional Thought of the Day:
18 When Jesus noticed the crowd around him, he ordered his disciples to go to the other side of the lake. 19 A teacher of the Law came to him. “Teacher,” he said, “I am ready to go with you wherever you go.” 20 Jesus answered him, “Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lie down and rest.” 21 Another man, who was a disciple, said, “Sir, first let me go back and bury my father.” 22 “Follow me,” Jesus answered, “and let the dead bury their own dead.” Matthew 8:18-22 (TEV)
9 When they talked to him about committing himself personally, his reaction was to reason in the following manner: “If I did, I could do that…, I would have to do this other… “ The answer he got was: “Here, we don’t bargain with the Lord. The law of God, the invitation of the Lord, is something you either take or leave, just as it is. You need to make up your mind: go forward, fully decided and without holding back; otherwise, go away. Qui non est mecum…— whoever is not with Me, is against Me.”
Our culture seems in love with negotiating, or at least the idea that if we negotiate we can get a better bargain. We negotiate for our homes, our cars, computers, vacations, our pay, never mind the fun of going to a swap meet or yard sale and negotiating to pay 3 dollars instead of 4 for something we don’t need or have room for in our garage.
We even try to negotiate with God.
This is not something new, people have been trying to negotiate with God for since the beginning. Or at least they imagine they are negotiating. They take his lack of a counteroffer as a kind of approval, or simply don’t listen to what God has already told them.
Why am I saying “them”, I am just as guilty of trying to make deals with God. Though we can couch this in pious prayers, offering God what we should already have given Him, what is His by right, if only he would bless us in this way or that, or remove this or that. I
I am not saying we shouldn’t pray, but prayer isn’t a negotiation. Neither is salvation or sanctification. And to try and make a deal, or to set the conditions means that we need to go back and examine what the word faith means.
It means trust, it means to depend upon, rely upon.
We don’t bargain with God just out of respect or fear. We learn not to bargain with Him because we’ve learned to trust Him, to know that He has our best interest at heart. That His love, His patience, His desire is to make all things work for good. We can’t negotiate a better deal that He offers in the New Covenant.
That is what God being Lord is all about, it is what being in the Kingdom of God is all about, knowing the Lord who loves us, and calls us to be His special people.
Rejoice, the best is already yours. AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. Furrow (Kindle Locations 274-279). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
What Sex Can Teach us About our Relationship with God.
Devotional Thought for the Day:
5 And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” 6 The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to [this] mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. Luke 17:5-6NAB-RE
Men experience the preciousness of things, and experience it fully, only in the company of those who share their enjoyment; in this way, they become aware of the festive quality of an existence that is so often hostile and ill-humored in their regard but is present at a meal, as it were, with open hands, with a gesture of lavish generosity, of unrestrained joy. This liberality of existence, which is rich and bestows itself freely, is an intrinsic part of a meal. The same is true of a wedding. In it, the elevation of the biological process of sexual attraction to a fundamental spiritual act of Eros, of the human being’s loving transcendence of self, is crystallized, epitomized, and confirmed. Here, too, we experience the liberal graciousness of existence, which grants us the festive wonder of a love we cannot force but that comes to us of its own accord, takes us by surprise and overwhelms us, transforms our life, gives us a new inner center, and even, in moments of ecstatic bliss, confers on us a foretaste of a life that is brighter and fuller than our everyday life. (1)
I’ve been known to use the phrase “intimate relationship with God” more than once, and more than in one setting. Reactions are often very strong and very polarized to it. Some feel it is too common, to base, even too perverted, or it could be taken that way. Some understand it, even though they might struggle with the implications of a God that desires that we should be His people.
The words in blue above come from a man whose took an oath to remain celibate for the rest of his life. His words describe it well thought – the transcendence, the even spiritual act of eros – of giving and being given, or experiencing a level of transcendence, and even “confers on us a foretaste of a life that is bright and fuller than our everyday life”.
The physical act is not contrary to God’s purposes – he established it as something two should share. two that committed before God and man to each other, as a way of testifying to the love. It is as much spiritual as it is physical, and in that sense gives us a look at what our spiritual relationship with God is like, and what it will be like in heaven.
Please hear this – we aren’t saying eternity is sexual – that our relationship with God is simply physical – but rather – that the spiritual aspect gives us an insight into what it means to truly commit to another – to love them, to seek our their best interest. Love means losing yourself, the awareness of yourself, as you care for the other person – and as you do that – there is something overwhelming, something that transforms us, something that is more than life, alone, abandoned, broken. It is intimate in it reveals the innermost parts of us, the part that is being recreated in Christ Jesus – the most intimate, deep, definition who we are – defined in relationship to God – the I AM.
You see this a little earlier – as a father reacts to his beloved son’s return,
While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. – Luke 15:20
The father doesn’t care about his dignity, he doesn’t care about his prestige or reputation. He doesn’t care about people (including his other son) thinking he is fool who will be taken advantage of. All that is set aside – this is a son, whom he loves, and the answer to many a night without sleep. THIS IS HIS SON!!!
It is that transcendent moment, the moment the I become I-Thou, the moment we realize how deeply God loves us, and how it transforms us, as we learn to love in return, as He teaches us. As we are united to Him in baptism, reunited as He forgives our sins and cleanses us of all unrighteousness, as we celebrate this relationship – this holy relationship as He gives us His body and blood.
Bringing us back to the original quote of scripture. They ask fo more faith, and what they are really asking for is to trust God more, that God would draw us closer to Him, make Himself more real, defeat our defenses – and show us His complete love for us.
That is, of course, the answer to another prayer as well…
Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.
And it is answered, and we see it when we are in union with Christ Jesus.
(1) 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.
