The Casual Evil of the World’s Powers

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Mark 6:14-29

John the Baptist Beheaded

     ¹⁴ King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”

     ¹⁵ Others said, “He is Elijah.”

     And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.”

     ¹⁶ But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!”

     ¹⁷ For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, whom he had married. ¹⁸ For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” ¹⁹ So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, ²⁰ because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him.

     ²¹ Finally the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. ²² When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests.

     The king said to the girl, “Ask me for anything you want, and I’ll give it to you.” ²³ And he promised her with an oath, “Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom.”

     ²⁴ She went out and said to her mother, “What shall I ask for?”

     “The head of John the Baptist,” she answered.

     ²⁵ At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: “I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”

     ²⁶ The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her.²⁷ So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, ²⁸ and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother. ²⁹ On hearing of this, John’s disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

It seems to me that we tend to assume that when people in the Bible do things, they do them for important and theological reasons. But when you really look closely at the stories in the Bible, a surprising number of them show people doing things for selfish, and even petty reasons. This story is an example – it’s a story of a powerful man indulging his girlfriend who had an axe to grind with someone who made her feel threatened.

This reading tells the story of the death of John the Baptist on the orders of Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great. It seems that Herod Antipas had stolen the wife of his brother. Herod wasn’t a Jew, so presumably he didn’t worry too much about obeying God’s laws about this kind of thing. But this adulterous behavior had drawn the public condemnation of John the Baptist, who was known to be pretty blunt in his criticism of the nation’s leaders. So Herod had John thrown in prison.

Herodias, the woman in the story, wanted John executed. But Mark reports that Herod “feared John,” because he understood him to be “a holy and righteous man.” And what’s more, although Herod found himself “greatly puzzled” by what John the Baptist had to say, he apparently found him fascinating and he “liked to listen to him.”

Which is really interesting, when you think about it. The Herods had a reputation for ruthlessness that bordered on bloodthirsty, but here we find Herod Antipas intrigued by a strange Jewish preacher who had actually denounced him in public. Instead of having John executed as his girlfriend wanted, Herod was keeping him alive and listening to him. Surprising behavior for someone like Herod. It probably speaks to the spiritual charisma that John had.

Eventually, though, Herodias got her way. Herod threw a birthday party for himself, and invited all of his friends and advisors. In the course of the evening, Herodias’ daughter came in and danced for the assembled party guests, and her dance impressed the men so much Herod offered her any reward she could name, even up to half his kingdom. (Apparently it was a pretty good dance.)

My assumption is that Herod and his friends must have been pretty drunk by this point. This is an absurdly extravagant gesture — offering a young girl any reward she wanted, even half his kingdom. Apparently Herod was feeling especially full of himself on the occasion, because as an appointed Roman official, he wasn’t really a king. So he had no kingdom to give away.

But in the story, the girl consults with her mother, and then demands the head of John the Baptist. Herod finds himself trapped. The birthday party must have fallen silent. Herod was faced with the choice of either murdering a holy man or being embarrassed in front of his friends and irritating his girlfriend. Tragically, but maybe not surprisingly, he chooses murder over embarrassment. And to preserve his own reputation as ‘Mister Big,’ Herod commits one of the most shameful crimes in all of the New Testament.

Of course, Herodias winds up with blood on her hands, too. And why? Because her resentment of John’s condemnation led to such cold-blooded hatred that she was willing to demand a murder to silence a voice that called her to account for her behavior. Some commentators portray Herodias as a victim in the story, but that seems pretty bogus. If she were just a helpless pawn in the story, the voice of John would have been a comfort and encouragement to her, not a cause for murderous hatred.

I guess from a certain perspective, we could see the death of John the Baptist as consistent with the rest of his ministry. John went before the Messiah when he came into the world, and he went before Jesus to his death at the hands of the powers of the world. Like Jesus himself, John stood in the face of the powerful and called them to account for their sins. Both were killed in part because those in power are usually perfectly willing to respond to the challenging word of God by killing the messenger.

It’s every bit as true today as it was in first-century Palestine: It takes a lot of courage to speak for God in the halls of power. But people of faith still name their children after John the Baptist, and Herod Antipas is a nobody on the trash-heap of history.

Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for the bold witness of John the Baptist as he called the world to repentance and prepared the way for Jesus. We pray for your strength for those followers of your Son who stand in the face of power as John did, calling it to account for its sins and often suffering for their faithfulness. Amen.

Blessings,
Henry

(The other readings for today are Psalms 57 and 145; II Samuel 2:1-11; and Acts 15:36 – 16:5.)

When the Teachings Get Strange

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John 6:60-69

Many Disciples Desert Jesus

60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and they are life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

67 “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.

68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

For people who have been raised in the Christian faith, one of the real challenges is trying to keep in mind how strange and disturbing many of the teachings of Jesus would have been to those who were hearing them for the first time. We’ve been hearing these things all our lives, so we sort of take them for granted. But some of the things Jesus said would have been shocking to people. And this reading from John points out just how shocking.

This passage comes at the end of a section of the Gospel of John where Jesus has been talking about himself as “the bread of life.” He reminds his Jewish listeners of the part of their history when their ancestors ate manna in the wilderness. And now, he says, God has sent a new kind of spiritual food – the body and blood of Jesus himself. And that food, he says, will nourish them for eternal life. Jesus has been telling his listeners that to have that eternal life, they will need to ‘eat his flesh and drink his blood.’

Those of us have been raised in the church, we read these words and we just think, “Well, sure, he’s talking about communion, he’s talking about the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.” The liturgy we use when we celebrate that sacrament specifically refers to the elements of communion as representing the body and blood of Jesus. We understand that the real point Jesus is making here is that his followers need to be ‘fed’ spiritually by his teaching. The words of the liturgy also point us toward his death on the cross, when his body would be broken and his blood shed as a sign of God’s great love for us.

So this is all pretty familiar ground to us. Hopefully it doesn’t get to be ‘old hat’ to us, but at least it’s a core belief of the faith that we’ve been raised with, so we don’t find what Jesus says to be particularly surprising.

But as for the people who heard Jesus saying these things for the first time – they would have found them startling. Maybe even shocking. They would have been shocked to hear this friendly, charismatic rabbi stating so matter-of-factly that he would soon be tortured to death by the nation’s religious leaders. In fact, it’s pretty clear that lots of those who heard Jesus say these things were freaked out by them. And if the things Jesus was foretelling weren’t shocking enough, the bit about eating his flesh and drinking his blood would have been like fingernails on a chalkboard. Almost all of those listening to Jesus were Jews, and Jews were strictly forbidden to consume blood. So all this talk about eating flesh and drinking blood was more than most of them could handle. The bottom line, this passage tells us, is that many of those who had been disciples just walked away. They stopped following Jesus.

Of course, Jesus doesn’t seem particularly phased by this development. In fact, John tells us that Jesus had also predicted that some of those following him would turn away.

There are Christians who insist that once you start following Jesus, everything becomes crystal-clear and the decisions of life all become black-and-white. But this passage, it seems to me, helps to illustrate the fact that the way of discipleship has never been easy, and it’s never been crystal-clear. Even among those who heard Jesus speak in person, some people have struggled to wrap their minds around his teachings. (Maybe if we’re really honest, all of us sometimes struggle to understand them clearly.) And some people give up in frustration.

But then Jesus turns to Peter and the other core disciples, and he asks if they’re going to leave, too. And Peter gives a great answer: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” It wasn’t that Peter and the others understood everything Jesus said. They got confused, too. They misunderstood Jesus all the time. But they saw one thing clearly: that Jesus was unique – that Jesus was a one-of-a-kind voice through whom God was speaking into the world. And clinging to that one simple belief would get them through all kinds of mistakes later.

This passage says that many left. But a few stayed. And that little remnant, empowered by the Holy Spirit and their belief that Jesus was “the Holy One of God,” would go on to become the most powerful movement in human history.

It’s pretty inspiring for people like us who still wrestle to wrap our heads around some of the teachings of our master, don’t you think?

Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for that faithful remnant who knew that Jesus alone had the words to eternal life, and who stayed with him when others were walking away. Let their example inspire and empower us to follow in faithful discipleship.

Amen.

Grace and Peace,
Henry

(The other readings for today are Psalms 54 and 146; Job 6:1-21; and Acts 9:32-43.)

 

A Reflection for Maundy Thursday

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Mark 14:12-25

 The Last Supper

     ¹² On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”

     ¹³ So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. ¹⁴ Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ ¹⁵ He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.”

     ¹⁶ The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.

     ¹⁷ When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. ¹⁸ While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me.”

     ¹⁹ They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, “Surely not I?”

     ²⁰ “It is one of the Twelve,” he replied, “one who dips bread into the bowl with me. ²¹ The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”

     ²² While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.”

     ²³ Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it.

     ²⁴ “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. ²⁵ “Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

This is Maundy Thursday, which is – or at least ought to be – one of the most important events on the calendar of the church. (‘Maundy,’ by the way is an old word that means ‘holy.’) On the evening of Maundy Thursday, followers of Jesus gather to remember together our Master’s Last Supper with his disciples, and to celebrate the sacrament he established on that night.

The other gospels add a number of details about that night. The Gospel of John gives an especially detailed account, complete with the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. But this account from Mark we’re reflecting on today is understood to have been reported personally by Peter, and also to be the one that was published closest to the time of the events it reports. So it seems important to look at what parts of the story seem most important to Mark and Peter.

First of all, it’s important for us to keep in mind that the Last Supper was a Passover gathering. So it was an observance at which Jesus and his disciples joined other Jews in remembering and celebrating the liberation of their people from slavery in Egypt. As you might be aware, the traditional Passover rituals have a bittersweet quality to them. The people ate bitter herbs to remember the bitterness of their bondage in Egypt. They ate bread without yeast to remember that they had to leave Egypt in a hurry – with no time to let bread rise. In fact, the Passover meal was always to be eaten with shoes on, for the same reason. And they ate lamb – a reminder of the lamb whose blood marked the homes of those who would be set free at the cost of its life.

For Jesus and his disciples, this Last Supper was also a bittersweet event. Not only were they remembering the ancient history of their people and its themes of bitterness and liberation through blood, but also it turned especially sinister when Jesus announced at dinner that one of them would betray him. And as his followers looked back in later years, they would remember these things about their final meal with Jesus before his arrest and trial and horrible death.

For us, nearly 2,000 years later, this sacrament remains a bittersweet event, one that we will celebrate twice in the next three days. Each time we observe the Lord’s Supper, we are reminded that our salvation was bought at the price of Jesus’ death – that his own body was broken and his blood poured out for us.

But three days from now, we will observe the sacrament again, but then with a very different emotional and spiritual tone to the observance. Then, on Easter morning, we will be remembering that by Jesus’ death on the cross, we have been rescued from our sins and made members of God’s own family. As members of that family, we will gather around a table in celebration.

For us, as for the Hebrews, the sacrament is always a bittersweet event – the sweetness of our liberation from slavery to sin and death always calls us to remember the bitter price paid to set us free. The body of Jesus was broken for us, and his blood was shed to establish a new covenant for those who love and follow him.

Let’s pray. Lord, on this Maundy Thursday, we remember with thanks the night when Jesus established the blessed sacrament we share around your table, and we remember also the great promise that sacrament represents: that all who follow him are adopted as members of your own family, and welcomed at your table. In his name we pray. Amen.

Grace and Peace,
Henry

(The other readings for today are Psalms 70 and 93; Lamentations 2:10-18; and I Corinthians 10:14-17 and 11:27-32.)

John the Baptist’s Self Awareness

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John 1:19-27

John the Baptist Denies Being the Messiah

     ¹⁹ Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was.²⁰ He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Christ.”

     ²¹ They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”

      He said, “I am not.”

     “Are you the Prophet?”

      He answered, “No.”

     ²² Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

     ²³ John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”

     ²⁴ Now the Pharisees who had been sent ²⁵ questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

     ²⁶ “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. ²⁷ He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”

Like yesterday’s gospel reading, this one comes from the beginning of the Gospel of John. It follows the famous introduction, which opens with “In the beginning was the Word,” which we reflected on yesterday. Having set the scene with that well-known interpretation of the meaning of Jesus’ life and ministry, the gospel immediately goes on to recount the ministry of John the Baptist.

Actually, you might remember that John the Baptist is mentioned in that introduction, too. In verse 15, we’re told that John the Baptist ‘testified’ to Jesus, and that he said, “He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.” In other words, John acknowledged that Jesus was greater than he, which is something he might well have been hearing all his life, given that his mother and Mary were relatives. But in those opening verses John also said that Jesus had existed in some other realm before coming into this world. That’s a pretty startling insight, when you think about it.

Anyway, in today’s passage, John the Baptist has apparently started his ministry, and the Jewish religious authorities in Jerusalem send a delegation to ask John who he was. We’re told that John freely admitted that he was not the Christ. (Which means the same thing as “Messiah.”). Presumably the religious leaders wouldn’t have thought for a minute that this unkempt guy with bits of locusts and wild honey in his beard could actually be the Messiah. They expected a Messiah who resembled King David, a heroic warrior-king who would drive out the Romans. They probably just wanted to know if John the Baptist was delusional enough to have a “messiah complex.”

But when John “confessed freely, ‘I am not the Christ,’” the delegation from Jerusalem started trying to pin down exactly who he thought he was. First they asked him if he was Elijah, who had dressed and eaten in the same bizarre fashion – camel’s hair clothes and the bugs-and-honey diet. So it might seem reasonable that John the Baptist actually thought he was Elijah. But John denied that, too.

Then they asked him if he was “the prophet.” Jewish religious thought of the time understood that at some point a great and mysterious prophet would appear. But John said that wasn’t him, either.

And when they finally just asked, “Who are you?” John literally gave them a “straight answer” – he said he was the one sent to “make straight the way of the Lord.”

The gospel accounts describe a great movement of people in response to the ministry of John the Baptist – “all the people” coming out to confess their sins and repent and be baptized. It would be very easy under those circumstances, when there were thousands of people responding to your call, to have an inflated self-image. But John the Baptist seems to have had no illusion about his place in the great scheme of salvation history. He saw that he was just an ordinary man who had been given an extraordinary job to do. He was preparing the way of the Lord.

I sometimes wonder if the strange clothes and painful diet might not have been meant to present John the Baptist as the most humble figure imaginable. He must have been pretty gross, actually. John certainly described himself in humble terms, as not worthy to untie the sandals of Jesus. But God used this strange and humble man to call people to a new awareness that their way of being God’s people was missing the mark. And in bringing people to that new level of spiritual awareness, God used John to get the world ready to receive his Son.

I also wonder if John might not be intended as a message to people like us – a message about our own role in salvation history. Maybe our role has something very important in common with John’s. We’re also unworthy to untie the shoes of Jesus. Most of us couldn’t claim to be charismatic heroes, any more than John could. But we’ve also been given the task of preparing the way of the Lord into the hearts of the people around us. The Great Commission commands us to ‘go and make disciples,’ but the truth is that we can’t make disciples. Only Jesus can make disciples by the power of the Holy Spirit. But we can prepare the way for him into the lives of others.

We can prepare a way for him by living lives of discipleship that make others want to know why we do it. By opening our hearts to the Holy Spirit until the fruits of peace and joy and love are unmistakable in us. By forgiving others who don’t deserve it, because we know we don’t deserve the forgiveness we’ve received, either. By loving others until they ask why. If we can live that kind of lives, I don’t have much doubt that our master will use us to make straight his way into the hearts of people around us.

Let’s pray: Lord, help us to be more like John the Baptist – move us to lay aside our own egos so we can do the work you’ve given us to do – to make a straight way for you into the hearts of the people around us. With every day we live, let our lives be more about you and less about ourselves. Amen.

 Blessings,
Henry

(The other readings for today are Psalms 42 and 133; Genesis 3:1-24; and Hebrews 2:1-10.)

Why John the Baptist Matters

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Luke 1:5-17

The Birth of John the Baptist Foretold

     ⁵ In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. ⁶ Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. ⁷ But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren; and they were both well along in years.

     ⁸ Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, ⁹ he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. ¹⁰ And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

     ¹¹ Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. ¹² When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. ¹³ But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. ¹⁴ He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, ¹⁵ for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. ¹⁶ Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. ¹⁷ And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Starting today, our readings are the gospel accounts of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus. The passage that’s listed for today includes verses 1 to 25, but the first few verses are an introduction to the whole Gospel of Luke. So let’s just think together about the part of the reading in which an angel foretells the birth of John the Baptist.

The first thing we should say about this passage is that the Holy Spirit wants us to understand that the story of Jesus isn’t complete without John the Baptist. All four gospels make a point to tell us that John’s ministry set the stage for the ministry of Jesus. We might not include John the Baptist in our nativity sets, but clearly God considers John to have played a crucial role in preparing his way into the world.

Church tradition says that Luke, as he was doing research for his gospel, interviewed Mary. Some scholars believe it might have been other members of Mary’s family who actually passed along her story. But in any case, Luke was inspired to let us know that John the Baptist went before Jesus in a way we might not always think about: Like Jesus, John arrived in the world by a mysterious and maybe miraculous birth.

Just as Mary would give birth Jesus ‘before her time’ – before she was married – Elizabeth would give birth to John the Baptist ‘after her time’ – at a point in her life when she was thought to be past childbearing age. It seems possible that we might be intended to see that as a kind of sign – that John was being born out of the older tradition of the priests and the prophets, while Jesus himself was the firstborn of a new covenant God was establishing through him. The angel tells Zechariah in this passage that John would come “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” which clearly establishes his connection to the prophets.

We might tend to see John the Baptist as a scary sort of guy, but the angel foretells that he would be “a joy and delight” to his parents, and that many others would “rejoice because of his birth.” Like the angels who would appear to the shepherds, John would come as a herald of great joy.

We might think of him as scary because he came preaching “a baptism of repentance,” and we tend to think of that as angrily confronting people and demanding that they repent of their sins. But the word translated as “repent” actually means ‘have a new mind.’ So it’s possible that he was offering people a new way to understand what God was doing in the world, and that people could see that they had been going about the life of faith all wrong, so John might not have needed to confront most people with angry condemnation. (The exception seems to be some religious bigshots who seem to have come to him with questionable motivations.)

Anyway, the angel tells Zechariah that his coming son John was not to consume strong drink, that instead John would be “filled with the Holy Spirit.” As you might remember from the story of Pentecost, being filled with the Holy Spirit could sometimes be confused with being drunk. So maybe that’s the reason John was to refrain from alcohol altogether – to prevent that kind of confusion.

Then the angel tells Zechariah about the impact John’s ministry would have. According to the angel, John would do three things: First, he would bring people back to the Lord, serving as an instrument of spiritual revival among his people. Second, he would “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children” – he would play a role in God’s work to restore proper relations within the lives of his people. Third, John would turn “the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous” and in doing that, he would “make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” By preaching his “baptism of repentance,” by getting people to change their minds about what God wanted from them, John was getting the world ready to receive Jesus.

It seems to me that as we look forward to celebrating the birth of the Messiah in the coming days, stopping to think a little about the ministry of the John the Baptist offers us some guidance on how we can really ‘get ready for Christmas’ in a way that’s more significant than shopping or baking. First, we can open ourselves to the joy of being in a renewed and deeper relationship with God. Second, we can take advantage of the opportunity the season offers to be renewed in our relationships with those who matter in our lives, and to be intentional about reconciling with those from whom we are estranged. And third, we can examine our lives to see if there’s anything that comes between us and God, anything about our relationship with God that we need to think about differently so we can embrace “the wisdom of the righteous.”

Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for your servant John’s role in preparing the world for the coming of Jesus, and we pray that you will use his story as a way of preparing us to celebrate that coming, and as a way of giving us changed minds that are ready to receive him anew in this holy season. Amen.

Grace and Peace,
Henry

(The other readings for today are Psalms 94 and 146; Zephaniah 3:14-20; Titus 1:1-16.)

 

Jesus Talks about Judgment and Light

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John 3:16-21

     ^16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. ¹⁹ This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done through God.”

This famous passage is part of a longer conversation Jesus had with the Pharisee Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish high council. It begins with one of the best-known verses in the whole Bible, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The remaining verses of this reading cover two topics – the nature of God’s judgment and Jesus as ‘the light of the world.’

But before we think about those ideas, we should probably stop and think a little about the Gospel of John in general. I say that because for the rest of this last week before Christmas, our readings will come from the Gospel of Luke, and only today’s is taken from John.

In the other gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke – the teachings of Jesus are reported in fairly brief and straightforward sections. But in John, quite a bit of the material is related in the form of long conversations between Jesus and others. And in these cases, Jesus actually explains things to his listeners is some detail. He doesn’t just give a brief summary of an idea; Jesus seems to go out of his way to make sure his listeners understand the point he’s trying to make.

In the case of this passage, Jesus is presenting the idea of judgment in a way that’s a little different from the way we normally think of it. Jesus says that although he himself is the instrument of God’s judgment, he hasn’t come into the world to condemn anyone. Instead, Jesus says, he is the way by which people can escape condemnation. And what’s more, he says that people sort of ‘judge themselves.’ People either embrace him as their savior – and accept the offer of eternal life he came to bring – or they reject that eternal life by not ‘believing in him.’

And it’s important to note that when Jesus talks about ‘believing’ in him, he’s thinking about something that goes ‘way beyond just saying, “Yeah, OK, he’s the Messiah, I get it.” Jesus’ vision of ‘believing in him’ seems to mean genuinely committing your life to following and serving him. Committing your life to discipleship. And the vision of discipleship that’s expressed in the Gospel of John is one that includes a commitment to learning from Jesus – learning in a way that’s life-changing. This vision of discipleship seems to include thankful worship in appreciation of your new life, and being regular in prayer, and being committed to serving others in his name.

Every one of us (myself included) needs to be challenging ourselves to embody these aspects of discipleship more and more with every passing day. If we’re not, we should be praying that the Holy Spirit might be at work in our hearts to move us to ‘believe’ as Jesus intends it.

The other subject Jesus talks about here in this passage is the idea that he is “the light.” We know we live in a world that can be pretty dark. But in Jesus, as the prophet foretold, “The people who live in darkness have seen a great light.” Some people hide in fear of that light, because they are ashamed to have their actions made known. But those who are trying to open themselves more and more to Jesus become increasingly willing for their lives to be examined by his light. That’s not because we’re sinless – we never reach that state in this world – but rather because the light of Christ becomes a healing force in our lives. That light shows us his way, and it helps us see the things about our own lives that need to be changed to make us more like him – and more useful to the building of the kingdom he came to establish.

Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for the great love you showed the world by coming into it in the form of Jesus, and we thank you for the chance to escape condemnation for our sins by following him. Move us daily to hunger for a life of more and more devoted discipleship, so that others come to encounter Jesus in us. Amen.

Every Blessing,
Henry

(The other readings for today are Psalms 40 and 122; Genesis 3:8-15; and Revelation 12:1-10.)

Remembering to Build the Temple

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Haggai 1:1-15

 A Call to Build the House of the Lord

     ¹In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest:

     ² This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come for the Lord’s house to be rebuilt.’”

     ³ Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: ⁴ “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”

     ⁵ Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. ⁶ You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”

     ⁷ This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. ⁸ Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. ⁹ “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house. ¹⁰ Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. ¹¹ I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”

     ¹² Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the message of the prophet Haggai, because the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord.

     ¹³ Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, gave this message of the Lord to the people: “I am with you,” declares the Lord. ¹⁴ So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the Lord Almighty, their God, ¹⁵ on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius.

For my money, the Book of the Prophet Haggai might just be the most under-appreciated book in the whole Bible. In fact, I’ve only heard one other guy preach a sermon on Haggai, and he joked about how obscure the book is. Haggai only has two chapters, both of which involve the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem after the return from the Babylonian exile. Today’s passage is a little longer than our usual readings, so I’ll be a little briefer in my comments.

Haggai tells about the time after the king of Persia had issued a decree that the people of Jerusalem and the surrounding Judean countryside, who had been dragged off into exile by the Babylonians, could now go home. (The Persians had subsequently conquered the Babylonians.) Some portion of the exiled Jews made the trip back to rebuild Jerusalem, which had been in ruins for about sixty years.

When they got back to the ruined city, the exiles set about rebuilding. And it seems that their first priority for rebuilding was to rebuild the city wall. That makes sense, since there were enemies all around them trying to stop the rebuilding of the city. Apparently their second priority was to rebuild their homes. From this passage, it seems that when they rebuilt their homes, they didn’t just throw up simple shelters, but rather constructed “paneled houses.” The scholars say that means houses that were nicely built and fairly luxurious.

The problem was that the people never got around to rebuilding the temple. They were living in nice houses, but the temple was still lying in ruins. So God sent the prophet Haggai to complain.

Now, obviously, it wasn’t that God needed the temple to live in. This is a God who has created a universe that’s run on schedule for 13.8 billion years. He didn’t have to worry about being homeless. And in the minds of the ancient Hebrew people, the temple of Jerusalem didn’t really represent God’s ‘home,’ so to speak, as much as it represented God’s ‘throne room.’ The Hebrew people understood that God reigned over the universe from that structure. So by leaving the temple in ruins, the people were expressing a lack of respect for God’s role as Lord of their lives. That’s the point God sent Haggai to raise with them.

One of the things about this passage is that God wasn’t threatening to punish them with some great catastrophe, like a flood or an earthquake or another foreign invader. Instead, the people would experience a general withholding of God’s full blessing. The chosen people would not really flourish as they might have. They would get by, but not really do that well. The message was pretty clear: If you fail to honor God by acknowledging him as Lord and by keeping his reign at the center of national life, then you will not know the full blessing he has in mind for you.

Obviously, we live in a very different kind of society. In spite of what some people might mistakenly think, we Americans are not God’s new chosen people. We live in a pluralistic democracy that accepts people of different faiths and people of no faith. (Or at least, we usually accept people of different faiths.)

Our understanding is that it’s the followers of Jesus who are, in a sense, God’s new chosen people. So the challenge to us – whatever country we may live in – is to honor God by keeping him at the center of our lives. Not to be consumed with ‘building our own houses’ – with advancing our own interests and our own agendas. But rather to be focused on helping God build his kingdom, in which peace and justice will rule, in which the needs of the poor will be met, in which the hungry will be fed and the sick will be healed, in which those of us who claim to be his people will hold ourselves to the highest standards of personal integrity, will honor our marriage vows and not exploit others for our own pleasure or enrichment.

And it might seem obvious, but I would say that’s true of our life together as well as our individual lives. Sometimes decisions we make as churches can be driven by worldly concerns instead of genuine commitment to God’s kingdom. Bigger membership, growing budgets and nice meeting houses are of less interest to God, I’m pretty sure, than congregations who are genuinely making spiritual growth, bearing witness to outsiders and service to others the central principles of their life together.

That, I think, is probably the 21^st century equivalent of rebuilding the temple of God in the center of our lives, and of our life together.

Let’s pray. Lord, move in our hearts to cause us to make your reign the center of our lives as individual believers, and of our life together as congregations of followers of your Son. Amen.

Have a great weekend, and worship God joyfully on Sunday!
Henry

 

(The other readings for today are Psalms 130 and 148; Revelation 2:18-29; and Matthew 23:27-39.)

Loving Neighbor, Because We Love God

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Matthew 22:34-40

The Greatest Commandment

     ³⁴ Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. ³⁵ One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ³⁶ “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

     ³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

It’s hard to imagine a question that would be more important for people who are claiming to follow Jesus. Think about it: If Jesus was God in human form, as we understand him to have been, and if God was the source of all the commandments handed down to humankind throughout history and recorded in the scriptures, then what could be more important than asking Jesus the question in this passage: What is the greatest commandment?

It’s probably important that we stop and glance back at yesterday’s reading, because today’s starts out by saying that when the Pharisees heard how Jesus answered a question from their rivals, the Sadducees, they put their heads together to come up with a question of their own. The Sadducees had asked a complicated question about marriage in heaven, but the Pharisees asked this simple one about the most important commandment.

I suppose lots of people who are followers of Jesus might remember how Jesus answered the Pharisees’ question. Love God with your heart and soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. But when you actually stop and think about what it is that we’re being commanded to do, it seems like Jesus’ answer requires a little more thought than we usually give it.

It seems pretty obvious when we read this passage that in Jesus’ mind (and we understand that to mean in the mind of God), love of God and love of our neighbor are ‘alike.’ Jesus is asked for one “greatest commandment in the law,” but his answer winds up having two parts. What do you make of that?

I guess I’d have to conclude that in God’s mind, love for him can’t be separated from love for other people. For all other people – because the Parable of the Good Samaritan seems to say that every other person is my ‘neighbor.’ This reminds me of a quote from the famous Roman Catholic social activist Dorothy Day, who once said, “I can’t claim to love God more than I love the person I love the least.”

I don’t know about you, but I think she might be right, and I find that a really scary standard. There are some people in this world that I think very badly of. Terrorists. Dictators. Guys who beat their wives. People who abuse or neglect their children. Leaders of militias in Africa, who kidnap kids and give them drugs and assault rifles and use them to terrorize their enemies. Or racists and bigots in our own country.

Maybe you struggle with some of this, too. So what are we supposed to do? Does God actually expect us to love people like that?

Well, I would say, ‘Yes,’ but we probably need to keep in mind the meaning of the word ‘love’ as it’s used in the New Testament. Because the word that’s translated “love” here doesn’t really mean the same thing most of us think about when we read the English word ‘love.’ It’s not so much about warm feelings of romance or affection. Instead, it refers to a commitment to the welfare of another person. So, hard as it may be, it’s possible to love someone even if you don’t like them. I think that’s why Jesus can tell us with a straight face to love our enemies.

Because the core idea of the word love as Jesus uses it here is not feelings, but rather commitment. Love as it’s used here is a commitment to the welfare of another person. The challenge for us is to allow God to foster within us a genuine commitment to doing whatever we can to promote the welfare of every single person we interact with.

Which is easier – sort of. It’s at least easier to wrap your head around. But maybe not that much easier to do. How do you love – even in that sense – someone who has sworn to destroy you, your culture, and everything you stand for? Or even the gossip who’s saying bad things about you? Or the next-door neighbor who seems determined to irritate you?

Maybe loving those people can start with praying that the Holy Spirit might soften those peoples’ hearts to peace and reconciliation. Or that the Holy Spirit might make peace in the parts of the world where child soldiers are being recruited. Or that it will heal the greed that causes one person to exploit the needs of another for their own enrichment. Or heal relationships between us and those we’re estranged from for any reason.

Maybe in God’s mind, our willingness to pray for that kind of peace and reconciliation represents the seeds of love being planted in our minds and hearts. I hope so. Cause for the time being, that’s probably the best I can do.

The other part of this passage that I wonder about is having the same word used to describe our relationship with God – love – that’s used to describe our relationship with others. I have a growing sense that God hopes that our feelings for him actually will include warmth and affection. God has made a great sacrifice for us, and given us a gift of incredible worth. So our love for God shouldn’t be about doing what he says so he won’t punish us by sending us to hell. That’s not love – that’s fear. I’m coming more and more to think that God wants our feelings toward him to be colored with gratitude for our blessings and for his grace in our lives. And for his patience and forgiveness. Sometimes our love of neighbor just isn’t going to be like that.

Maybe that’s where love of God and love of neighbor merge – in our commitment to advancing the interests of each, no matter how difficult that might seem. Maybe because of our deep love and affectionate appreciation for our God, we can learn to make a genuine commitment to doing whatever we can do to advance the welfare of others, because doing that is also advance his interests – helping him to bring about his kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven.

Let’s pray. Lord, open our hearts to love you more and more, not just as an authority figure who holds our fates in your hands, but also as a loving Father who has paid a great price to bring us to yourself. And because we know that you care about others – our neighbors and even our enemies – move us to make their welfare our concern as an expression of our love for you. Amen.

Every Blessing,
Henry

(The other readings for today are Psalms 33 and 85; Amos 7:10-17; and Revelation 1:9-16.)

On Being Invited, but Expected to Clean Up

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Matthew 22:1-14

The Parable of the Wedding Banquet

     ¹Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: ² “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. ³ He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

     ⁴ “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

     ⁵ “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. ⁶ The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. ⁷ The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

     ⁸ “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. ⁹ So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ ¹⁰ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

     ¹¹ “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ¹² ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.

     ¹³ “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

     ¹⁴ “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Today’s gospel passage is one that preachers and teachers sort of shy away from, because it’s a little confusing and some explanation is required to get at the real point Jesus is making here. But we should probably make the effort, because there are actually two important lessons in this passage. Related lessons, actually. So let’s see what we have here.

In the gospel readings for the last few days, Jesus has been involved in disputes with the religious leadership of the Hebrew people, and he’s been using a series of parables to level some criticism at them. Today’s reading is another parable that starts out offering more criticism of the religious leaders. But then this parable takes a turn in another direction, and has something to say to those of us who follow him.

In this parable, a King invites people to his son’s wedding banquet. These are people he has known for some time, and he has let them know about the banquet he is planning. But when the day of the banquet arrives, the invited guests don’t come. They’re too busy doing other things.

Then we come to a part of the parable that gets confusing. In verses 6 and 7, we’re told that some of the invited guests seize the king’s messengers and kill them, so the king sends soldiers to exact revenge. However, many New Testament scholars believe that when Matthew was compiling his gospel, he plugged these two verses into the parable after the fact. These scholars point out that the same parable appears in Luke 14, but there’s no mention of this deal about the murder of the messengers and the king’s revenge. The scholars say Jesus probably said these things – and they point out that it’s like a part of the Parable of the Tenants, which was our reading for yesterday – but that he probably said them on another occasion.

Anyway, back to main part of this parable. When the invited guests refuse to come, the king sends his servants to invite others, including “both good and bad,” and the feast goes on as scheduled.

The scholars say Jesus’ point here was that the Israelites and their leaders had refused God’s invitation to the kingdom he was establishing through Jesus – a kingdom that has traditionally been symbolized as ‘the wedding feast of the Son.’ But God had invited others to his feast – some of them gentiles from outside Israel, others outcasts who were considered notorious sinners by the religious folks of their day. And those people, symbolizing those who came to follow Jesus, accepted God’s invitation to the banquet – to his kingdom.

That pretty much makes sense with our common understanding of God’s gracious gift of new life in Jesus.

But then we come to another confusing part, which is this bit about the guest in the wrong clothes, who gets tied up and thrown “into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” After bringing in the good and bad alike, why did this one guy get tossed?

Well, the Bible scholars say that this man is meant to represent those who want the salvation that comes from God’s grace, but don’t want to ‘change their clothes for the banquet,’ so to speak. People who want to be saved, but who want to go on living the way they always have. God’s gracious offer of forgiveness and new life in Jesus doesn’t mean we can just go on doing whatever we want and expect that it will be alright with God. That attitude is called expecting “cheap grace.”

As followers of Jesus, we’re asked to accept two ideas that might at first seem contradictory: God accepts us as we are, but expects that we won’t stay as we are. God accepts us and forgives our sins, but expects that as we follow Jesus, our lives will be transformed so that we sin less – so that we become more and more Christ-like in our living. It may happen little by little (and for most of us it does), and it requires a lifelong process of opening our hearts to let the Holy Spirit work in us. That’s a process our theology refers to as “sanctification.”

And by the way, this isn’t understood as a “self-improvement project.” We’re taught that we don’t really have the power to transform ourselves into genuinely Christ-like people. That requires the participation of the Holy Spirit. But we have to be willing to open ourselves to that Spirit, and to respond to the nudges it gives us as it serves as God’s agent of transformation in our lives.

So you see, in spite of a couple of confusing parts, this parable really does present some important teaching for us to think about. There’s the good news of God’s grace, but also a reminder of God’s expectation that we’ll make an effort to ‘clean up’ for the banquet he’s invited us to.

Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for the great gift you’re given us – to people who would have been considered outsiders and sinners by the covenant people. We thank you that you have invited us to the wedding feast of your Son. Move our hearts to allow your Spirit to work within us day by day, so we always show up for that banquet ‘cleaned up’ for that feast. Amen.

Have a great weekend, and worship God joyfully on Sunday!
Henry

(The other readings for today are Psalms 16 and 102; Amos 5:1-17; and Jude 1-16.)

The Spiritual Impediment of Wealth

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Matthew 19:16-30

The Rich Young Man

     ¹⁶ Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
     ¹⁷ “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
     ¹⁸ “Which ones?” he inquired.
     Jesus replied, “‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, ¹⁹ honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
     ²⁰ “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
     ²¹ Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
     ²² When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
     ²³ Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. ²⁴ Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
     ²⁵ When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
     ²⁶ Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
     ²⁷ Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”
     ²⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. ²⁹ And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. ³⁰ But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

The first half of Matthew’s account of the conversation between Jesus and the rich man was yesterday’s gospel reading, and the second half is today’s. But it seems to me that you need to read the whole thing together to get the point of what’s being said here, so we’re combining it in one day’s reflection. That will make this Reflection a little longer than usual, so thanks for your patience with that.

A wealthy young man approaches Jesus to ask about the way to eternal life. He asks about “what good thing” he needs to do, and Jesus points out that only God is good, apparently meaning that the way to eternal life is obeying the commandments God has handed down.

We might read those words with some puzzlement, because Christian theology teaches us that we can’t earn eternal life by being good enough to deserve it. That’s one of the reasons I wanted us to read the whole passage together, because in the second half of the story (in verse 26), Jesus says, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

And just how impossible it is for us to live up to God’s standards is illustrated by the rest of Jesus’ conversation with the rich young man. When the man says he has kept the commandments all his life, Jesus calls him on it. One of the commandments the man claims to have kept is “Love you neighbor as yourself.” So Jesus tells the man to go and liquidate his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor. The man’s reaction shows that he has not, in fact, kept that commandment, because he wants to keep his wealth rather than share it with his poor ‘neighbors.’

After the disappointed rich man goes off, Jesus turns to his disciples and speaks the famous line about it being easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven.

In saying this, the scholars say, Jesus was using the same kind of Semitic humor as his comment about getting a speck out of someone else’s eye while you have a log in your own. Actually, scholars in the Aramaic language Jesus spoke point out that in that language, the word for ‘camel’ was also the word for ‘rope.’ So the image Jesus was expressing here might have been one of trying to get a rope through the eye of a needle, which seems to me to make more sense than the ‘camel’ translation.

But in either case, Jesus was using a ridiculous word picture to make a point: that great wealth is more often an impediment than a help in the life of faith.

It seems to me one part of this passage that’s usually overlooked – but shouldn’t be – is the disciples’ shock at what Jesus said. In the Hebrew way of seeing things, wealth was a sign of God’s favor. If a person was materially blessed, it was assumed that God regarded that person as especially virtuous. So when the disciples heard Jesus say it was impossible for the rich to enter the heavenly kingdom, they were stunned. Jesus had turned their whole understanding of the nature of salvation upside down.

There’s still a lot of thinking among people of faith that connects material blessing with spiritual health and righteousness. The whole “prosperity gospel” movement is based on promoting that connection. But there are some real problems with that kind of theology.

First of all, that outlook tends to promote a sense of entitlement on the part of people who think of themselves as “good Christians.” People who worship regularly, study the Bible, pray faithfully, etc., can convince themselves that since they’re doing all these things, they can expect to be materially blessed. They can even come to think that God owes them prosperity, so to speak.

And if they’re not materially prosperous, folks who embrace this sort of theology can come to resent God for failing to keep his part of the bargain they think they’ve made. Or conversely, that their poverty is punishment for some great sin they’ve failed to confess and repent of.

And if you regard righteousness and material blessing as going together, then it’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that any person who’s poor in material things must be spiritually poor, as well – that their poverty must be some sort of punishment from God. And if you allow yourself to think that way, it’s a short step to concluding that you don’t have to help the needy, because their poverty is ‘their own fault.’

But we’re not guaranteed a prosperous life if we follow Jesus, and those of us who are materially blessed have no justification for judging ourselves as morally superior to the poor. In fact, many of the needy have a strength of faith that those of us who are comfortable could learn something from. The poorest segment of the American population is African-American, and statistically African-Americans pray, worship and study the Bible more than white Americans.

But our hope should not rest in the things of this world, anyway. Rather, our hope should rest in Jesus – in following him as faithfully as possible, and in trusting that in his kingdom, the need for material things will be a thing of the past and all we will need will be the eternal presence of our God.

Let’s pray. Lord, set us free from our attachment to the things of this world, and from the thought that our blessings are a sign of our spiritual superiority. Move us to express our love of neighbor, as well as our true discipleship, by sharing generously with your needy children. Amen.

Grace and Peace,
Henry

(The other readings for today are Psalms 96 and 134, Obadiah 15-21; and I Peter 2:1-10.)