When I was little my mother taught me to make my bed every morning. When I asked, "Why do I have to make it when I'm just going to crawl back in tonight and mess it up again?" Thus began a system of allowance and consequence. Every Friday evening when I'd made my bed all week, I was handed my allowance. Since I liked to buy candy with my allowance I learned to avoid the consequences. As an adult the external consequence has matured into the internal satisfaction I feel when I walk into an orderly bedroom with bedspread in place and clothes hung up. No matter the turmoil in my life, my bedroom is an intrinsic oasis of peace.
A literal or superficial reading of Mark 9: 38-50 looks as if Jesus is setting up a system of rewards and awful consequences: offer a cup of water to those who are thirsty, or else! Language of demons, hellfires, undying worms, and personal amputation of our limbs grabs our attention. Demons and the fires of hell are graphic descriptions that effectively describe our emotions or how we experience our situations of psychological assault or mental unrest or feeling lost, lonely, or abandoned. But if we focus too intently on demons we give them power over us and we forget that God created all creation and called it good. Demons pose no threat to Jesus! Remember his 40 days in the wilderness when he dismissed the power of demons and that he cast out demons from people as he healed them.
Instead I read this passage as Jesus trying to get our attention through hyperbole in order to emphasize our call to servant discipleship - to offer a cup of water to someone dying of literal thirst or the many who are parched for the presence of Jesus in their lives. There are many stumbling blocks, both internal and external, that keep us from acting as agents of healing on behalf of others. Just one of many obstacles is our belief that we do not have the gift of healing. WRONG!! As Jesus might say to us, "Get behind me, Satan!"
These stumbling blocks can quench the fires of our passions to serve. We are called to name them so that we can open our eyes to our own woundedness that equips us to be wounded healers (as Henri Nouwen points out). We are called to cast aside those stumbling blocks that would dilute our saltiness with shame or guilt or laziness or closed hearts, so that we are useless. Instead, Jesus says we are his agents of healing and we are to act as preservatives of peace, wellbeing, and shalom in the world. Those deeds which we do in the name of Jesus ally us with our Savior and Lord and are thus powerful far and wide.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Upside Down Hospitality According to Jesus
How are your hospitality credentials doing? Have you been as welcoming as Jesus would have us be? By reading Mark 9: 30-37 carefully, we might wonder why Jesus' 2nd prediction of his death and resurrection are immediately followed by a dispute among the disciples about "who is the greatest"? (Aren't the disciples paying attention?) And Jesus' answer might further confuse us: "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me" - ie. God (Mark 9: 37).
Welcoming the "other" (look at your "they" and "we" language to identify who is "other" to you) must be fairly important to Jesus. Yet if we take Jesus' response to welcome a child in a superficial way, we let ourselves off the hook for what is a more shocking and demanding call by Jesus. If we want to welcome Jesus and if we want to welcome God, it's easy to pull a child onto our lap and see Jesus in most children's innocence, delight with life, and love-ability. But this passage isn't about child-like sentimentality. For children, in Jesus' time, are without any status and aren't even considered as real persons. This isn't Jesus meek and mild! We mustn't domesticate Jesus, but see the difficult challenge in Jesus' words to ALL Christ followers.
If our lives are to mirror Jesus, then we're called to welcome/pay attention to/serve/care for the least, the lost, the lonely, and all who are invisible when we close our eyes to their presence among us. There's a huge contrast between our longings for wealth, wisdom, worldly things, influence, status and Jesus' longing for us to serve - to offer genuine, authentic hospitality. We can point to our service at Let's Help, Rescue Mission, Doorstep, VIDA, and other helping agencies if we want to justify our efforts in the eyes of God. But in this passage, the intimacy of Jesus with a child in his lap points to relationship with others on a first name basis more than the anonymity or distance of cooking for others in our own kitchens or sending money to these worthwhile agencies. Such efforts are valid ministry in the name of Jesus, but I wonder how transformative it is for us by keeping our distance from the differentness, the stench, and our fears because of the discomfort we feel.
Can you recall a time when you felt lonely or new or fearful and someone welcomed you and helped you feel at home and worthy again? Stand in that memory for a moment. Where is your opportunity to receive someone just as Jesus embraced the child? When will you throw your reservations about who is different, deficient, difficult away so that you too can welcome Jesus?
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley
Welcoming the "other" (look at your "they" and "we" language to identify who is "other" to you) must be fairly important to Jesus. Yet if we take Jesus' response to welcome a child in a superficial way, we let ourselves off the hook for what is a more shocking and demanding call by Jesus. If we want to welcome Jesus and if we want to welcome God, it's easy to pull a child onto our lap and see Jesus in most children's innocence, delight with life, and love-ability. But this passage isn't about child-like sentimentality. For children, in Jesus' time, are without any status and aren't even considered as real persons. This isn't Jesus meek and mild! We mustn't domesticate Jesus, but see the difficult challenge in Jesus' words to ALL Christ followers.
If our lives are to mirror Jesus, then we're called to welcome/pay attention to/serve/care for the least, the lost, the lonely, and all who are invisible when we close our eyes to their presence among us. There's a huge contrast between our longings for wealth, wisdom, worldly things, influence, status and Jesus' longing for us to serve - to offer genuine, authentic hospitality. We can point to our service at Let's Help, Rescue Mission, Doorstep, VIDA, and other helping agencies if we want to justify our efforts in the eyes of God. But in this passage, the intimacy of Jesus with a child in his lap points to relationship with others on a first name basis more than the anonymity or distance of cooking for others in our own kitchens or sending money to these worthwhile agencies. Such efforts are valid ministry in the name of Jesus, but I wonder how transformative it is for us by keeping our distance from the differentness, the stench, and our fears because of the discomfort we feel.
Can you recall a time when you felt lonely or new or fearful and someone welcomed you and helped you feel at home and worthy again? Stand in that memory for a moment. Where is your opportunity to receive someone just as Jesus embraced the child? When will you throw your reservations about who is different, deficient, difficult away so that you too can welcome Jesus?
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Jesus for President
Let’s imagine that there’s a 3rd
candidate in this 2012 presidential election - a man relatively unknown til about 3 yrs ago.
His name is Jesus and there’s a groundswell of support from bluecollar
workers –union laborers –farmers & their families throughout the
country. The youth in particular are
intrigued with this man who dresses like them in sandals and do rags and dreadlocks and doesn’t travel in limousines. In
fact, he only has a security team of 12. But wherever he goes people flock to
him.
You can read more about him and his election platform in Mark 8: 27-38. He challenges us to get to know him better as he asks, "Not only do I want to know who the people say I am; but also I want to know who YOU say I am?" The confounding and paradoxical thing about this candidate is that people seem to love him or hate him.
I wonder if this tension arises from his platform: ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.' (Mark 8: 34b-38)
Could this man be elected president? Probably not. But can he be our Lord - our Savior - our King - our God? This is the real challenge of following him. Eugene Peterson (The Message) says we have to let Christ have the driver's seat and that we have to forget ourselves. Maybe our vote and our confession is that we commit to acting FOR others on behalf of the gospel - the good news that Jesus is NOT president - but a whole lot more.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley
You can read more about him and his election platform in Mark 8: 27-38. He challenges us to get to know him better as he asks, "Not only do I want to know who the people say I am; but also I want to know who YOU say I am?" The confounding and paradoxical thing about this candidate is that people seem to love him or hate him.
I wonder if this tension arises from his platform: ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.' (Mark 8: 34b-38)
Could this man be elected president? Probably not. But can he be our Lord - our Savior - our King - our God? This is the real challenge of following him. Eugene Peterson (The Message) says we have to let Christ have the driver's seat and that we have to forget ourselves. Maybe our vote and our confession is that we commit to acting FOR others on behalf of the gospel - the good news that Jesus is NOT president - but a whole lot more.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Favoritism is NOT a Failure of Faith
The NRSV translation of James 2: 1-10, 14-17 titles this scripture: "Warning Against Partiality" - a call to impartiality about how we treat others, whether rich or poor, or of different skin color or gender, or those with education or those who are uneducated. Pick any group that you call "they" (vs. "we) and you are challenged with partiality. "But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors" (James 2: 9).
However, respectfully, I disagree with this perspective. I believe James accuses us of being partial incorrectly. James accuses disciples such as us as showing favoritism to those who are most like us or for those whom we emulate and admire for having qualities (money, wisdom, status, education, etc) that we yearn for ourselves. From my perspective, James challenges us for not sharing God's own partiality for the lost, the lonely, the least, and the last. Eugene Peterson paraphrases God's choices: "Isn't it clear by now that God operates quite differently? He chose the world's down-and-out as the kingdom's first citizens, with full rights and privileges" (The Message, James 2: 5b).
So, how do we move into being more in sync with God and God's partiality? Verses 14-17 point us toward our actions resulting from our faith: "Faith without works is dead" (James 2: 17). Being very careful to stay Reformed - ie. justification by faith - James argues that a RESULT or OUTCOME of our faith can't help but be working to meet the needs of those with special needs. Faith that issues in acts of compassion is an alive and lively faith. James nails the coffin shut on faith without works by arguing that we will be judged by how we meet the bodily and physical needs of others. His pointed example is: "If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?" (James 2: 15).
How much easier it is to bless the homeless, hungry, and hopeless with our words of encouragement rather than walking alongside them in the difficulties of their journey. A ministry of presence is the first step of coming into someone's situation, listening carefully to their travails, and seeing their lives through their eyes. When we, as people of faith, do this, we can see the huge gap between their experiences and the kingdom of God - a kingdom of wellbeing and shalom that God intends for them. When our hearts are opened to another's heart, compassion wells up in us. Kingdom love is responding with loving actions. We can see this kind of movement from indifference to caring, in Jesus' response to the Syrophoenician, Gentile woman in Mark 7: 24-30. Being confronted by her request for her daughter's healing, Jesus first repudiates her as a "dog." Even Jesus seems to be challenged with partiality for his own kind - the Jews. But in listening to her and taking her words to heart, Jesus responds with healing: "For saying that, you may go - the demon has left your daughter" (Mark 7: 29).
Where are you complacent or settled with your partialities and your prejudices? Where and how does God desire for you to choose other partialities and then act upon them?
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley
However, respectfully, I disagree with this perspective. I believe James accuses us of being partial incorrectly. James accuses disciples such as us as showing favoritism to those who are most like us or for those whom we emulate and admire for having qualities (money, wisdom, status, education, etc) that we yearn for ourselves. From my perspective, James challenges us for not sharing God's own partiality for the lost, the lonely, the least, and the last. Eugene Peterson paraphrases God's choices: "Isn't it clear by now that God operates quite differently? He chose the world's down-and-out as the kingdom's first citizens, with full rights and privileges" (The Message, James 2: 5b).
So, how do we move into being more in sync with God and God's partiality? Verses 14-17 point us toward our actions resulting from our faith: "Faith without works is dead" (James 2: 17). Being very careful to stay Reformed - ie. justification by faith - James argues that a RESULT or OUTCOME of our faith can't help but be working to meet the needs of those with special needs. Faith that issues in acts of compassion is an alive and lively faith. James nails the coffin shut on faith without works by arguing that we will be judged by how we meet the bodily and physical needs of others. His pointed example is: "If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?" (James 2: 15).
How much easier it is to bless the homeless, hungry, and hopeless with our words of encouragement rather than walking alongside them in the difficulties of their journey. A ministry of presence is the first step of coming into someone's situation, listening carefully to their travails, and seeing their lives through their eyes. When we, as people of faith, do this, we can see the huge gap between their experiences and the kingdom of God - a kingdom of wellbeing and shalom that God intends for them. When our hearts are opened to another's heart, compassion wells up in us. Kingdom love is responding with loving actions. We can see this kind of movement from indifference to caring, in Jesus' response to the Syrophoenician, Gentile woman in Mark 7: 24-30. Being confronted by her request for her daughter's healing, Jesus first repudiates her as a "dog." Even Jesus seems to be challenged with partiality for his own kind - the Jews. But in listening to her and taking her words to heart, Jesus responds with healing: "For saying that, you may go - the demon has left your daughter" (Mark 7: 29).
Where are you complacent or settled with your partialities and your prejudices? Where and how does God desire for you to choose other partialities and then act upon them?
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley
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