Epiphany 8 (Matthew 6:24-34) Do not worry.
No one can serve two masters.
With these words Jesus continues his sermon on the mount. With these words Jesus clarifies yet another aspect of human nature. God created human beings for service.
God the Father created human beings to be in a dependent relationship with God the Son through the indwelling Presence of God the Holy Spirit. Another way of saying this is that the Triune God created us to live and move and have our being in the active, creative, dynamic , holy and unconditional love that is the very nature of God.
God created us to participate in the divine life of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity is a co-eternal relationship of the three persons whose love and holiness form the one God.
God the Father created human beings for relationship. Our primary relationship is in the service of worship we offer God. That is why the first commandment is the foundation for all of the commandments: love God with all of your heart, soul and mind.
The means by which we express love for God and participate in the eternal life of the Holy Trinity is through worship. Jesus reveals to us that for human beings worship and service are inextricably linked.
All means all. Not half. Not occasional. All.
Jesus introduces his teaching on worry by clarifying how God created us to live in peace and with courage. The problem comes when we make a real choice to live our lives from a different place and within a different context.
From his childhood in Egypt and Nazareth, Jesus observed how even the most religious of people cheat life on this one singular important point. In fact, even religious people do not love God with all of our heart and soul and mind.
Even the best of us, the most spiritual of us, have a divided mind that produces a divided loyalty and results in fear, anxiety and worry.
Jesus’ call to worship is a call to an exclusive love of God that produces an inclusive love of other people.
Jesus is not interested in religious debates about God. He is God.
Jesus is also not interested in philosophical debates about truth. He is truth.
Neither is Jesus interested in metaphysical speculations about the meaning of life, the universe and everything. He is life.
Jesus came into the world to reveal to us the problem that keeps us separated, divided and fearful. Jesus reveals to us that we are trying to live life by a wrong principle. That wrong principle is the belief that life is all about me. That principle produces a demand that says: me first. Do it my way. It is the voice of pride and it is the will to power.
That demand results in a terrible underlying fear that I will fail to get what I need and what I want. The fear is the recognition that despite my will to power I lack the actual power to command and control other people, the world around me, and God.
The fear of failure produces an attitude of worry. It is the tendency human beings have to view the rich abundance of this world and see only scarcity. Jesus names our worries: not enough food, not enough to drink, a lack of proper clothes.
Jesus also indicates that underlying our worry about things is a more profound anxiety. That more profound anxiety is that God does not really accept us and will not be there for us. And so, we hedge our bets. We serve God in the formal, occasional and minimal rules of religion. And, we serve wealth: the desire for possessions.
The terrible irony is that through our fear that God is distant and uncaring we distance ourselves from God. Through our desire to hedge our bets and serve the pursuit of material possessions, pleasure and power, we lose the one thing that has both immediate and eternal benefit.
Jesus very clearly warns us that as we live our lives with a divided mind about our priorities and our pursuits we enmesh ourselves in fear, anxiety and worry. Jesus knows this about us through observation. He knows this through original creation.
Jesus warns us that if we seek to serve two masters, God and wealth, we end up isolating God in very narrow categories of religion while we pursue what we believe is far more real and practical in the material world of food and drink and clothes. As we do that, we lose our very soul to the fear, anxiety and worry such a way of living produces.
Jesus reminds us that the first commandment is not an ethereal religious speculation but a fundamental and defining principle that has immediate and eternal consequences.
Jesus doesn’t recommend withdrawal from the world. Jesus tells us that we will enjoy our lives in this world more fully and completely as we choose to love God first and to love God with all of our heart and mind and will.
Jesus says: seek God first. Make the love of God your top priority. And then all of these other things you need and desire will be yours as well. Jesus also warns that the reverse is true. If we place God second to our pursuit of pleasure, possessions and power then we place God last. As we place God last we continue the process of separation from God. We live with ever increasing levels of frustration, demand, pride and despair.
Jesus came to find us where we are. And, he loves us where we are.
Jesus came to find a people lost in separation and confused by a divided mind about the best way to live our lives. He pours forth his own divine love into our lives to interrupt our habits and to confound our preconceived ideas. He does this to liberate us from fear, anxiety and worry.
How would your life be different if you simply took God at his word? How would your way of living change if you asked Jesus to help you make the unconditional holy love of God the most important principle and present reality for you?
What would life feel like when lived with the assurance that God is with you, God is for you, God is immediately and eternally present to you?
That assurance comes from the personal relationship God offers us in Jesus Christ. It can only become real as it becomes our first priority. We cannot say both yes and no to God. We cannot say I believe but I do not have the faith to act on that belief. We cannot keep God distant and hemmed in by narrow religious categories when God himself is far greater than those categories.
Where we direct our time and attention reveals who we acknowledge as our master, the Lord of our lives. Jesus says we need to choose. If we choose anything or any one other than God we also choose a way of living that will produce ever deepening levels of fear, anxiety and worry. If we choose God we choose a way of living that transforms us and liberates us into a life of joy, peace and courage.
Jesus Christ is the one by whom, through whom and for whom God the Father created us. As Jesus encourages us not to worry he offers us the means to live a life set free from worry. Seek God first.
God has already found us in Christ. Make a real choice to allow yourself to be immersed in his love. Make God’s holy unconditional love your first priority. And know that as you do this you will come to discover abundance in the midst of scarcity, faith in the midst of fear, and grace that will transform every worry into courage to live life fully here and now and forever.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Epiphany 6
Epiphany 6 (Matthew 5:21-37)
You have heard that it was said.
Much of our spiritual growth lies in the work of unlearning what we think we know.
Steven Covey in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” discusses this principle. The book lists the four levels of competency.
At the first level we don’t know what we don’t know. This is the level of unconscious incompetence. There is no shame or fault at this level. There is simply unawareness. It is the mind of an infant who has yet to experience the many possibilities in the world.
The second level is the level of conscious incompetence. At this level we know that we don’t know. This is the level of the beginner. The beginner practices the scales on the piano and suddenly realizes that it will take a lot of time and effort before he can play even the simplest tune. This is the level of effort. This is the level of deferred gratification. We give up some of our time and devote a portion of our energy to overcome our lack of knowledge and skill in order to accomplish our goal.
As we accomplish our goal we enter into the third level. It is the level of conscious competence. At this level we know that we know. This is the level of proficiency. We’ve mastered the basics. We know the scales backwards and forward. We are ready for the 4th and final level.
The 4th and final level is the place of unconscious competence. We can sit at the piano and play the music with grace and creativity. We don’t need to stop and think where middle C is. We just know. We know so well our mind is set free to be spontaneous and creative. This is the level of mastery This is the level of delight.
The Bible used history, poetry, symbol and metaphor to express the same concepts Steven Covey set forth in a more analytic mode in his book. The Biblical authors were interested in observing the barriers that emerge in these four levels of competency. And, the Biblical writers were interested in proposing a solution to the problem those barriers created.
The competency the Bible was most interested in is the competency of being human. Many people assume that the Bible is all about God and humanity’s search for God. This is only partially true. The Bible is about humanity evading God, rejecting God and rejecting who God has called us as to be.
The Bible is also about God seeking us and finding us in Jesus Christ. The purpose of Christ is not to answer religious questions. The purpose of Christ is to call humanity back to its true nature. The purpose of Christ is to restore what we lost.
The Bible sets forth the proposition that there are two basic ways of being human. There is the way of Adam. And, there is the way of Jesus Christ.
The way of Adam is the way of power. It is the exercise of real choice through the will to power. It is the way of demand backed by threat. It is also the subversion of love, the distortion of holiness and the corruption of grace. The way of Adam is the way of fear, self will and pride. It is the way of being human characterized and defined by sin and death.
The Bible observes that regardless of the level of competency we achieve in our lives we have all chosen to remain at the primary level of unconscious incompetence in terms of being human. The Bible also observes that we actually choose to remain at this level so that we never encounter a challenge to our unconscious incompetence. The choice of Adam to separate from God is the choice to abandon the next step in growth: the level of conscious incompetence. To use Covey’s vocabulary: we not only don’t know what we don’t know we assert self will to make an active choice not to know.
The barrier we erect to block our development is pride. Pride rejects the need to grow. Pride asserts: I’m OK just as I am. If there is a problem it lies with other people, the world, God.
Jesus challenged this pride in his teaching and in his person. Jesus challenged this pride because Jesus is the one by whom, through whom and for whom God the Father created each of us. Our heavenly Father designed us to be fully human in relationship with God the Son. There is no other model for being fully human.
God wants us to grow. God wants us to develop the amazing potential for love and holiness he has placed in our souls. The growth is what we now call spiritual growth. It is spiritual growth because it is rooted in the most fundamental level of our being- at the level of the soul.
The soul defines who we are as a species and who we may become as an individual. From the soul we mold our minds, hearts and wills to form our identity. With Christ we form a unique authentic personal identity. Apart from Christ we form a false ego based on the assumptions and demands of the surrounding culture. There is ultimately a dull tedious sameness to the false ego. It is a monotone of a single syllable: me.
The soul lost in separation is a soul that endlessly repeats me, me, me in order to drown out the authentic personal identity God has placed within us.
In his sermon on the mount Jesus provides a corrective commentary on the Law of Moses. Jesus does not reinvent the law or abolish the Law. He does challenge us to discern how human pride subverts divine principle and keeps us locked and lost in the Adamic nature of sin and death. That is the level of willful unconscious incompetence. That is the level of the monotonous “me”.
Jesus introduces his corrective commentary on the Law by acknowledging where we are stuck. “You have heard it said.”
You have heard it said that murder is a violation of the Law. That is true. But it is incomplete. Wake up. Pay attention. Ask yourselves the questions that lead to understanding and wisdom. Ask: what is the underlying principle that forms the reality of this law?
You have heard it said that if a man wants to divorce his wife he can follow a certain legal procedure and end the marriage. That is true. It is also incomplete. Wake up. Pay attention. Question. Discern the principles that define marriage before you apply the Law to dissolve marriage.
You have heard it said to keep your vows. That is true. Can you by an act of will alone do this? Does the vow give you power over your sin nature? Is there a better way? Ask: where am I stuck in the false ego? Where do I exist and choose by not choosing, by default? How can I live by conscious intent?
When Jesus states: “you have heard it said” he is asking us to examine our assumptions and our habits. He is offering us a way through unconscious incompetence by encouraging us to question . And, he is offering himself as the guide on the path to spiritual growth and maturity.
There are currently two ways of being human. There is the way of Adam. That way rejects the plan and purpose of God for our souls. That way creates and sustains and defends a false ego based in the will to power. That way keeps us locked and lost at the level of unconscious incompetence. It is the way of the surrounding culture. It seems right and it seems normal because it is the way our educational system, entertainment, academic and political system instructs us to think. It is the way the soul remains lost and it is the way we choose not to choose.
The Bible describes this way of being human as the sin nature and the way of death. In order to remain on this way we need to ignore, suppress and distort the image and likeness of God in our souls. As we follow this way, the way of Adam, we in fact kill our authentic self in order to create and sustain a false ego.
It may seem esoteric and complicated. Fortunately, the Bible approaches the issue in a very simple and straightforward manner. The Bible encourages us to examine our assumptions about life and our actions in life.
Jesus gives us the model in his sermon on the mount. You have heard it said. But- is it true? Is what you have learned consistent with divine principles revealed in the Bible? Is the way you set your priorities and achieve you goals grounded in the love and holiness of God? Or, is it grounded in the individual will to power?
The primary purpose of the church Christ founded on the day of Pentecost is the salvation and sanctification of souls. It is the restoration of the image and likeness of God in each of us. It is the invitation to wake up and make a conscious choice to grow and to mature into the nature of the second Adam, Jesus Christ.
To accomplish this great and wonderful purpose we need to ask ourselves: are we willing to move from unconscious incompetence into conscious incompetence? Are will willing to admit that we don’t know what we don’t know but we want to grow? Are we willing to trust God that the best way of being human is through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?
God does not just give us a book and leave us alone to try to figure it out. God gives us his Son, Jesus Christ, to be our constant companion and guide on this path of spiritual growth and maturity. God gives us the Holy Spirit to offer advice and strength and courage to wake up, ask questions, and make changes. God places us in a community of faith to encourage each other and to support each other.
As we approach Lent, ask the Holy Spirit to help you examine one assumption you have about life. Ask: is this true? Don’t get mad- get even. Is this true? Everybody is against me and if I don’t demand my rights I will never get what I want. Is this true? Other people exist to serve me. Is this true? If some one pushes me I will push back even harder. Is this true?
The call to self examination is not the call to self obsession. It is the call to wake up into a new and wonderful process of effortless effort. It is the call to see where the false ego covers the true self. It is the opportunity to wake up and to live life fully and joyfully by conscious intent.
Jesus teaches: you have heard it said. Jesus encourage us to take next step and ask the question: is it true?
You have heard that it was said.
Much of our spiritual growth lies in the work of unlearning what we think we know.
Steven Covey in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” discusses this principle. The book lists the four levels of competency.
At the first level we don’t know what we don’t know. This is the level of unconscious incompetence. There is no shame or fault at this level. There is simply unawareness. It is the mind of an infant who has yet to experience the many possibilities in the world.
The second level is the level of conscious incompetence. At this level we know that we don’t know. This is the level of the beginner. The beginner practices the scales on the piano and suddenly realizes that it will take a lot of time and effort before he can play even the simplest tune. This is the level of effort. This is the level of deferred gratification. We give up some of our time and devote a portion of our energy to overcome our lack of knowledge and skill in order to accomplish our goal.
As we accomplish our goal we enter into the third level. It is the level of conscious competence. At this level we know that we know. This is the level of proficiency. We’ve mastered the basics. We know the scales backwards and forward. We are ready for the 4th and final level.
The 4th and final level is the place of unconscious competence. We can sit at the piano and play the music with grace and creativity. We don’t need to stop and think where middle C is. We just know. We know so well our mind is set free to be spontaneous and creative. This is the level of mastery This is the level of delight.
The Bible used history, poetry, symbol and metaphor to express the same concepts Steven Covey set forth in a more analytic mode in his book. The Biblical authors were interested in observing the barriers that emerge in these four levels of competency. And, the Biblical writers were interested in proposing a solution to the problem those barriers created.
The competency the Bible was most interested in is the competency of being human. Many people assume that the Bible is all about God and humanity’s search for God. This is only partially true. The Bible is about humanity evading God, rejecting God and rejecting who God has called us as to be.
The Bible is also about God seeking us and finding us in Jesus Christ. The purpose of Christ is not to answer religious questions. The purpose of Christ is to call humanity back to its true nature. The purpose of Christ is to restore what we lost.
The Bible sets forth the proposition that there are two basic ways of being human. There is the way of Adam. And, there is the way of Jesus Christ.
The way of Adam is the way of power. It is the exercise of real choice through the will to power. It is the way of demand backed by threat. It is also the subversion of love, the distortion of holiness and the corruption of grace. The way of Adam is the way of fear, self will and pride. It is the way of being human characterized and defined by sin and death.
The Bible observes that regardless of the level of competency we achieve in our lives we have all chosen to remain at the primary level of unconscious incompetence in terms of being human. The Bible also observes that we actually choose to remain at this level so that we never encounter a challenge to our unconscious incompetence. The choice of Adam to separate from God is the choice to abandon the next step in growth: the level of conscious incompetence. To use Covey’s vocabulary: we not only don’t know what we don’t know we assert self will to make an active choice not to know.
The barrier we erect to block our development is pride. Pride rejects the need to grow. Pride asserts: I’m OK just as I am. If there is a problem it lies with other people, the world, God.
Jesus challenged this pride in his teaching and in his person. Jesus challenged this pride because Jesus is the one by whom, through whom and for whom God the Father created each of us. Our heavenly Father designed us to be fully human in relationship with God the Son. There is no other model for being fully human.
God wants us to grow. God wants us to develop the amazing potential for love and holiness he has placed in our souls. The growth is what we now call spiritual growth. It is spiritual growth because it is rooted in the most fundamental level of our being- at the level of the soul.
The soul defines who we are as a species and who we may become as an individual. From the soul we mold our minds, hearts and wills to form our identity. With Christ we form a unique authentic personal identity. Apart from Christ we form a false ego based on the assumptions and demands of the surrounding culture. There is ultimately a dull tedious sameness to the false ego. It is a monotone of a single syllable: me.
The soul lost in separation is a soul that endlessly repeats me, me, me in order to drown out the authentic personal identity God has placed within us.
In his sermon on the mount Jesus provides a corrective commentary on the Law of Moses. Jesus does not reinvent the law or abolish the Law. He does challenge us to discern how human pride subverts divine principle and keeps us locked and lost in the Adamic nature of sin and death. That is the level of willful unconscious incompetence. That is the level of the monotonous “me”.
Jesus introduces his corrective commentary on the Law by acknowledging where we are stuck. “You have heard it said.”
You have heard it said that murder is a violation of the Law. That is true. But it is incomplete. Wake up. Pay attention. Ask yourselves the questions that lead to understanding and wisdom. Ask: what is the underlying principle that forms the reality of this law?
You have heard it said that if a man wants to divorce his wife he can follow a certain legal procedure and end the marriage. That is true. It is also incomplete. Wake up. Pay attention. Question. Discern the principles that define marriage before you apply the Law to dissolve marriage.
You have heard it said to keep your vows. That is true. Can you by an act of will alone do this? Does the vow give you power over your sin nature? Is there a better way? Ask: where am I stuck in the false ego? Where do I exist and choose by not choosing, by default? How can I live by conscious intent?
When Jesus states: “you have heard it said” he is asking us to examine our assumptions and our habits. He is offering us a way through unconscious incompetence by encouraging us to question . And, he is offering himself as the guide on the path to spiritual growth and maturity.
There are currently two ways of being human. There is the way of Adam. That way rejects the plan and purpose of God for our souls. That way creates and sustains and defends a false ego based in the will to power. That way keeps us locked and lost at the level of unconscious incompetence. It is the way of the surrounding culture. It seems right and it seems normal because it is the way our educational system, entertainment, academic and political system instructs us to think. It is the way the soul remains lost and it is the way we choose not to choose.
The Bible describes this way of being human as the sin nature and the way of death. In order to remain on this way we need to ignore, suppress and distort the image and likeness of God in our souls. As we follow this way, the way of Adam, we in fact kill our authentic self in order to create and sustain a false ego.
It may seem esoteric and complicated. Fortunately, the Bible approaches the issue in a very simple and straightforward manner. The Bible encourages us to examine our assumptions about life and our actions in life.
Jesus gives us the model in his sermon on the mount. You have heard it said. But- is it true? Is what you have learned consistent with divine principles revealed in the Bible? Is the way you set your priorities and achieve you goals grounded in the love and holiness of God? Or, is it grounded in the individual will to power?
The primary purpose of the church Christ founded on the day of Pentecost is the salvation and sanctification of souls. It is the restoration of the image and likeness of God in each of us. It is the invitation to wake up and make a conscious choice to grow and to mature into the nature of the second Adam, Jesus Christ.
To accomplish this great and wonderful purpose we need to ask ourselves: are we willing to move from unconscious incompetence into conscious incompetence? Are will willing to admit that we don’t know what we don’t know but we want to grow? Are we willing to trust God that the best way of being human is through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?
God does not just give us a book and leave us alone to try to figure it out. God gives us his Son, Jesus Christ, to be our constant companion and guide on this path of spiritual growth and maturity. God gives us the Holy Spirit to offer advice and strength and courage to wake up, ask questions, and make changes. God places us in a community of faith to encourage each other and to support each other.
As we approach Lent, ask the Holy Spirit to help you examine one assumption you have about life. Ask: is this true? Don’t get mad- get even. Is this true? Everybody is against me and if I don’t demand my rights I will never get what I want. Is this true? Other people exist to serve me. Is this true? If some one pushes me I will push back even harder. Is this true?
The call to self examination is not the call to self obsession. It is the call to wake up into a new and wonderful process of effortless effort. It is the call to see where the false ego covers the true self. It is the opportunity to wake up and to live life fully and joyfully by conscious intent.
Jesus teaches: you have heard it said. Jesus encourage us to take next step and ask the question: is it true?
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Epiphany 5
Epiphany 5 (Matthew 5: 13-20) Let your light shine
Jesus is the light of the world.
Jesus is the light of the world reaching out to all people everywhere through us. The light reveals the truth. The truth is Jesus Christ.
The truth that Jesus reveals is that God is real. By Jesus’ time Abraham and Moses were already faded memories of a distant past. People read in the Bible how God spoke to Abraham and Moses audibly. Yet, it had been almost five hundred years since God had spoken even indirectly through a prophet.
People read in the Bible about the mighty miracles God had performed during the time of Moses. Yet, there was no evidence of such miracles for many centuries.
If people thought of God at all they thought of a distant, transcendent and silent Divine Principle that no longer spoke and no longer acted in the world of human events. Perhaps the stories were indeed just stories. Perhaps the history was allegory and not literal fact. Perhaps the history of the Patriarchs and the Prophets was similar to the pagan myths- not to be taken literally but to be understood for the moral content.
Religious people thought of God as the Lawgiver who had revealed the Law to Moses then vanished from human experience. The Law was the focus of the religion. The religion was the Law.
Jesus came into the world to reveal the reality of God. Jesus came into the world to reaffirm that God is real and God is personal. The purpose of religion is not to impose Law. The purpose of religion is to facilitate relationship.
Jesus was very careful not to suggest that he had come to abolish the Law. In fact, Jesus teaches that the Law is immutable in all of its parts. And, Jesus taught that righteousness is more than assent to certain beliefs or the fulfillment of certain actions.
The apostle James clarifies Jesus teaching when he declares that the Law, all 616 Laws, is a seamless whole. If you break one law even once you have broken the entire law and forfeited any claim to righteousness under the law.
The apostle Paul clarifies Jesus’ teaching by stating that the Law is holy and good but no human being can keep the Law. Only Jesus can and did keep the law. He kept the law by the power of his relationship with his Heavenly Father.
Jesus came into the world to reveal that God is love: steadfast, holy, unconditional love. The relationship God offers us is the relationship Jesus reveals is the defining nature of Divinity. It is One God eternally manifesting in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is the One God eternally manifesting as a community of love. In that community each person is distinct and each person holds the essential unity of the One God.
Jesus came into the world to reveal that in his own person God unites Divinity with humanity. God finds all people in Jesus Christ as Jesus unites humanity with divinity. God offers all people everywhere the gift of reunification and transformation in Jesus Christ.
As God freely chose to unite divinity with humanity in Jesus Christ so in Jesus God offers us the choice to unite with him as we place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. It is in that call to unity, which is the invitation to salvation, that Jesus becomes for all who receive him the light of truth, the light of love, the light of holiness.
In the new relationship God offers us in Jesus Christ we see where we fall short and we see the new person we may become.
Jesus is the light who reveals to each of us who God created us to be, where we have rejected that creation, and how we can restore what we rejected. As we follow the light into the light we become light to others. We model in our own lives by our choices and priorities the pattern, plan and purpose of God for the human race.
Our righteousness can only exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees in the process of personal transformation. The Law can be a guide but the transformation can only take place within the relationship.
It is the relationship that produces the faith.
Righteousness apart from the relationship always looks for the loophole in the Law. It is salt mingled with sand that still looks like salt but is less that salt. Unscrupulous merchants in the ancient world mingled a little sand with salt to stretch the inventory and make more money. If the salt passed through several merchants before the end user received it there might be very little actual salt left. It would have lost its saltiness as the merchants diluted it to make more money.
Righteousness apart from relationship is like the diluted salt. It has mixed and mingled with the base and the secular until it no longer retains its distinctive flavor and its unique identity.
The relationship purifies righteousness through faith. Legalism dilutes faith with compromise. The compromise is always the dilution of faith with fear, self will and pride.
Fear casts doubt that the way of faith will produce desired results. Self will asserts the human will to power that insists each of us is the master of our fate and the captain of our souls. Pride redefines God as religion, religion as law, and law as subject to human opinion. Sadly, fear, self will and pride erode faith and lead to despair.
Jesus is not about religion. Jesus is the Way of life, the pattern of life, God has designed for each of us. Jesus is the truth, the guiding principle that underlies all existence. Jesus is life. He is the source of life, the giver of life and the very essence of life. His life is eternal.
Faith in Jesus Christ is not just a set of beliefs. Faith in Jesus Christ is trust in a person who invites us to follow him into a new life and a new way of living. Faith in Jesus Christ is not an abstract or arbitrary assembly of facts and ideas. Faith in Jesus Christ is an ongoing friendship with a real person who cares for us and offers not only guidance but the strength and courage to change how we make choices and set priorities.
It is the dynamic of the personal relationship activated by faith that transforms us into the light of Christ for our generation.
Our Heavenly Father invites us to walk in the light of Jesus Christ through our personal relationship with Christ. He gives us the Holy Spirit to enable us to make this choice and to live this choice by faith. As we make this choice, the Holy Spirit fills our soul with light so we can fulfill Jesus’ command: let your light shine.
Jesus is the light of the world.
Jesus is the light of the world reaching out to all people everywhere through us. The light reveals the truth. The truth is Jesus Christ.
The truth that Jesus reveals is that God is real. By Jesus’ time Abraham and Moses were already faded memories of a distant past. People read in the Bible how God spoke to Abraham and Moses audibly. Yet, it had been almost five hundred years since God had spoken even indirectly through a prophet.
People read in the Bible about the mighty miracles God had performed during the time of Moses. Yet, there was no evidence of such miracles for many centuries.
If people thought of God at all they thought of a distant, transcendent and silent Divine Principle that no longer spoke and no longer acted in the world of human events. Perhaps the stories were indeed just stories. Perhaps the history was allegory and not literal fact. Perhaps the history of the Patriarchs and the Prophets was similar to the pagan myths- not to be taken literally but to be understood for the moral content.
Religious people thought of God as the Lawgiver who had revealed the Law to Moses then vanished from human experience. The Law was the focus of the religion. The religion was the Law.
Jesus came into the world to reveal the reality of God. Jesus came into the world to reaffirm that God is real and God is personal. The purpose of religion is not to impose Law. The purpose of religion is to facilitate relationship.
Jesus was very careful not to suggest that he had come to abolish the Law. In fact, Jesus teaches that the Law is immutable in all of its parts. And, Jesus taught that righteousness is more than assent to certain beliefs or the fulfillment of certain actions.
The apostle James clarifies Jesus teaching when he declares that the Law, all 616 Laws, is a seamless whole. If you break one law even once you have broken the entire law and forfeited any claim to righteousness under the law.
The apostle Paul clarifies Jesus’ teaching by stating that the Law is holy and good but no human being can keep the Law. Only Jesus can and did keep the law. He kept the law by the power of his relationship with his Heavenly Father.
Jesus came into the world to reveal that God is love: steadfast, holy, unconditional love. The relationship God offers us is the relationship Jesus reveals is the defining nature of Divinity. It is One God eternally manifesting in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is the One God eternally manifesting as a community of love. In that community each person is distinct and each person holds the essential unity of the One God.
Jesus came into the world to reveal that in his own person God unites Divinity with humanity. God finds all people in Jesus Christ as Jesus unites humanity with divinity. God offers all people everywhere the gift of reunification and transformation in Jesus Christ.
As God freely chose to unite divinity with humanity in Jesus Christ so in Jesus God offers us the choice to unite with him as we place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. It is in that call to unity, which is the invitation to salvation, that Jesus becomes for all who receive him the light of truth, the light of love, the light of holiness.
In the new relationship God offers us in Jesus Christ we see where we fall short and we see the new person we may become.
Jesus is the light who reveals to each of us who God created us to be, where we have rejected that creation, and how we can restore what we rejected. As we follow the light into the light we become light to others. We model in our own lives by our choices and priorities the pattern, plan and purpose of God for the human race.
Our righteousness can only exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees in the process of personal transformation. The Law can be a guide but the transformation can only take place within the relationship.
It is the relationship that produces the faith.
Righteousness apart from the relationship always looks for the loophole in the Law. It is salt mingled with sand that still looks like salt but is less that salt. Unscrupulous merchants in the ancient world mingled a little sand with salt to stretch the inventory and make more money. If the salt passed through several merchants before the end user received it there might be very little actual salt left. It would have lost its saltiness as the merchants diluted it to make more money.
Righteousness apart from relationship is like the diluted salt. It has mixed and mingled with the base and the secular until it no longer retains its distinctive flavor and its unique identity.
The relationship purifies righteousness through faith. Legalism dilutes faith with compromise. The compromise is always the dilution of faith with fear, self will and pride.
Fear casts doubt that the way of faith will produce desired results. Self will asserts the human will to power that insists each of us is the master of our fate and the captain of our souls. Pride redefines God as religion, religion as law, and law as subject to human opinion. Sadly, fear, self will and pride erode faith and lead to despair.
Jesus is not about religion. Jesus is the Way of life, the pattern of life, God has designed for each of us. Jesus is the truth, the guiding principle that underlies all existence. Jesus is life. He is the source of life, the giver of life and the very essence of life. His life is eternal.
Faith in Jesus Christ is not just a set of beliefs. Faith in Jesus Christ is trust in a person who invites us to follow him into a new life and a new way of living. Faith in Jesus Christ is not an abstract or arbitrary assembly of facts and ideas. Faith in Jesus Christ is an ongoing friendship with a real person who cares for us and offers not only guidance but the strength and courage to change how we make choices and set priorities.
It is the dynamic of the personal relationship activated by faith that transforms us into the light of Christ for our generation.
Our Heavenly Father invites us to walk in the light of Jesus Christ through our personal relationship with Christ. He gives us the Holy Spirit to enable us to make this choice and to live this choice by faith. As we make this choice, the Holy Spirit fills our soul with light so we can fulfill Jesus’ command: let your light shine.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Epiphany 4
Epiphany 4 Blessed are you (Matthew 5: 1-12)
The blessing is always in the relationship.
Many of us, perhaps most of us, miss the blessing as we look for the reward. We look for the blessing in pleasure, power, possessions, prestige and pride. If we are religious, we consider these things rewards from God for our right behavior or right belief. If we are religious, we understand the absence of these things as divine punishment for some transgression we committed.
Popular religious belief in Jesus’ day taught that the poor are poor because they sinned against God. Poverty is God’s punishment for sin. The rich are rich because they performed right actions and held right belief. Wealth is God’s reward for the righteous.
The world is not so simple and direct. Many agnostics and atheists reject a belief in God because they identify religion with reward and punishment. Clearly the world does not work this way. Consequently, God cannot exist.
Jesus never taught that God is a God of rewards and punishments- at least in the very crude expression of law based religion. Jesus knew the story of Job. Jesus knew that some time - perhaps many times- bad things happen to good people.
Jesus rejects the religious assumptions of his day. He teaches that the
righteous are not those who perform right acts- for no human being can achieve the standard of perfection demanded by the law. Jesus also rejects the idea that the righteous hold right belief. No one, with the possible exception of His blessed Mother, held a right belief about Jesus. Yet, Jesus reached out to everyone regardless of their wrong belief or even at times their unbelief.
And so, when Jesus gives his sermon on the mount he chooses the subject of blessing.
A religious person of the time would have said something like; Blessed are the rich for God has rewarded their righteousness.
Blessed are the happy for God has protected them from sadness.
Blessed are the proud for God has recognized their accomplishments.
Blessed are those who perform right actions and hold right beliefs for God is impressed by their perfection
Blessed are those who condemn the sinful and punish them.
Blessed are the strong for God has delivered their enemies into their hands.
Blessed are the victorious for God has destroyed their opponents.
Blessed are those who persecute the unrighteous and drive them out of the land so that they alone will inherit the Kingdom.
The religious then and the religious now tend to believe the blessing of God is God giving me what I want when I want it. If I get what I want I am blessed and I reward God with my worship. If I do not get what I want then I am either cursed or I reject the very concept of God and declare the universe is meaningless.
Jesus came to proclaim: the blessing is in the relationship. The relationship is God reaching out to all people in Jesus Christ.
That is why Jesus could proclaim that the blessed are the poor, the meek, the mournful, the merciful, the pure, the peace makers and the persecuted.
The blessing is not the reward. Wealth is not the blessing. Poverty of itself is neithera reward or a punishment. Poverty can be an open invitation for God to fill the hungry with the goodness of Jesus Christ.
The rich often miss the blessing as they focus on their possessions. The poor with fewer distractions can often recognize that the blessing is the personal presence of God in Jesus Christ.
Where is the relationship?
The relationship is preeminently in worship. It is in worship that God meets us, greets us, fills us and immerses us in the infinite and eternal love that is God.
The relationship is in service to others. The rich often ask the question about other people: what’s in it for me. The rich often answer the question with the words: there is never enough for two. The rich turn abundance into scarcity and fear there will never be enough.
The poor frequently have the amazing ability to ask: how may I help? The poor often are willing to share their meager resources with family members and friends and even strangers. The poor see even the most modest of resources as abundance to be shared with others.
There are exceptions of course. Jesus neither condemns wealth nor endorses poverty. Both wealth and poverty can corrupt and shatter the soul. What Jesus teaches is that the blessing of God in is in God’s relationship with us.
The poor in spirit may have wealth but they recognize the fleeting nature of material possessions to bring meaning and purpose. The poor in spirit are rich in their relationship with God and so are not possessed by their possessions, their pleasures, prestige or pride.
The relationship sets the rich free to share their abundance with the poor. The relationship sets the rich free to become the blessing to the poor. The relationship comforts the poor with the assurance that God is with them. God comforts them. God has declared that it is they who will inherit the kingdom. The relationship sets the poor free from their material poverty to become the blessing to the rich.
Most of us are neither rich or poor. We are somewhere in between. The challenge for us in this Sermon on the Mount is to hear the message and embrace the principle. The blessing is not in the things we have or even in our skills and accomplishments. The blessing is in the relationship God offers us in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
That relationship sets us free from the fear of scarcity, the lack of purpose, and the void of meaninglessness. That relationship sets us free to use all of the gifts God has given us to His glory and for the benefit of others. The relationship sets us free to live the abundant life of meaning and purpose in the knowledge and love of God.
Jesus declares we are already blessed. We are already blessed because God has sought us out and found us in His co-eternal Son. Jesus clarifies for us that the blessing is in the relationship. That relationship is holy. That relationship is eternal. That relationship is the unconditional love of God made flesh in Jesus Christ. It is the blessing we already have as we hear Jesus proclaim: Blessed are you.
The blessing is always in the relationship.
Many of us, perhaps most of us, miss the blessing as we look for the reward. We look for the blessing in pleasure, power, possessions, prestige and pride. If we are religious, we consider these things rewards from God for our right behavior or right belief. If we are religious, we understand the absence of these things as divine punishment for some transgression we committed.
Popular religious belief in Jesus’ day taught that the poor are poor because they sinned against God. Poverty is God’s punishment for sin. The rich are rich because they performed right actions and held right belief. Wealth is God’s reward for the righteous.
The world is not so simple and direct. Many agnostics and atheists reject a belief in God because they identify religion with reward and punishment. Clearly the world does not work this way. Consequently, God cannot exist.
Jesus never taught that God is a God of rewards and punishments- at least in the very crude expression of law based religion. Jesus knew the story of Job. Jesus knew that some time - perhaps many times- bad things happen to good people.
Jesus rejects the religious assumptions of his day. He teaches that the
righteous are not those who perform right acts- for no human being can achieve the standard of perfection demanded by the law. Jesus also rejects the idea that the righteous hold right belief. No one, with the possible exception of His blessed Mother, held a right belief about Jesus. Yet, Jesus reached out to everyone regardless of their wrong belief or even at times their unbelief.
And so, when Jesus gives his sermon on the mount he chooses the subject of blessing.
A religious person of the time would have said something like; Blessed are the rich for God has rewarded their righteousness.
Blessed are the happy for God has protected them from sadness.
Blessed are the proud for God has recognized their accomplishments.
Blessed are those who perform right actions and hold right beliefs for God is impressed by their perfection
Blessed are those who condemn the sinful and punish them.
Blessed are the strong for God has delivered their enemies into their hands.
Blessed are the victorious for God has destroyed their opponents.
Blessed are those who persecute the unrighteous and drive them out of the land so that they alone will inherit the Kingdom.
The religious then and the religious now tend to believe the blessing of God is God giving me what I want when I want it. If I get what I want I am blessed and I reward God with my worship. If I do not get what I want then I am either cursed or I reject the very concept of God and declare the universe is meaningless.
Jesus came to proclaim: the blessing is in the relationship. The relationship is God reaching out to all people in Jesus Christ.
That is why Jesus could proclaim that the blessed are the poor, the meek, the mournful, the merciful, the pure, the peace makers and the persecuted.
The blessing is not the reward. Wealth is not the blessing. Poverty of itself is neithera reward or a punishment. Poverty can be an open invitation for God to fill the hungry with the goodness of Jesus Christ.
The rich often miss the blessing as they focus on their possessions. The poor with fewer distractions can often recognize that the blessing is the personal presence of God in Jesus Christ.
Where is the relationship?
The relationship is preeminently in worship. It is in worship that God meets us, greets us, fills us and immerses us in the infinite and eternal love that is God.
The relationship is in service to others. The rich often ask the question about other people: what’s in it for me. The rich often answer the question with the words: there is never enough for two. The rich turn abundance into scarcity and fear there will never be enough.
The poor frequently have the amazing ability to ask: how may I help? The poor often are willing to share their meager resources with family members and friends and even strangers. The poor see even the most modest of resources as abundance to be shared with others.
There are exceptions of course. Jesus neither condemns wealth nor endorses poverty. Both wealth and poverty can corrupt and shatter the soul. What Jesus teaches is that the blessing of God in is in God’s relationship with us.
The poor in spirit may have wealth but they recognize the fleeting nature of material possessions to bring meaning and purpose. The poor in spirit are rich in their relationship with God and so are not possessed by their possessions, their pleasures, prestige or pride.
The relationship sets the rich free to share their abundance with the poor. The relationship sets the rich free to become the blessing to the poor. The relationship comforts the poor with the assurance that God is with them. God comforts them. God has declared that it is they who will inherit the kingdom. The relationship sets the poor free from their material poverty to become the blessing to the rich.
Most of us are neither rich or poor. We are somewhere in between. The challenge for us in this Sermon on the Mount is to hear the message and embrace the principle. The blessing is not in the things we have or even in our skills and accomplishments. The blessing is in the relationship God offers us in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
That relationship sets us free from the fear of scarcity, the lack of purpose, and the void of meaninglessness. That relationship sets us free to use all of the gifts God has given us to His glory and for the benefit of others. The relationship sets us free to live the abundant life of meaning and purpose in the knowledge and love of God.
Jesus declares we are already blessed. We are already blessed because God has sought us out and found us in His co-eternal Son. Jesus clarifies for us that the blessing is in the relationship. That relationship is holy. That relationship is eternal. That relationship is the unconditional love of God made flesh in Jesus Christ. It is the blessing we already have as we hear Jesus proclaim: Blessed are you.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Eiphany 3
Epiphany 3 Repent. Follow me. I will make you fish for people. (Matthew 4:17 & 19)
Where John the Baptist had preached: repent and prepare, Jesus preached repent, follow, become.
John preached a call to prepare. Jesus preached a call to action.
The call to action is threefold. The first part of the call to action is the call to repent. The call to repentance is the call to stop, pay attention, measure, change.
Stop right where you are and pay attention to how you live. Pay attention to how you speak to other people. Pay attention to where you spend your time, your money and you life’s energy.
As you stop and pay attention then measure what you observe about your life by the perfect mirror of love. That perfect mirror is Jesus Christ. He is the ideal form, plan and pattern for human nature. Anything less than the original pattern is broken, distorted, lost. Anything less than the original pattern is sin.
That sin corrupts and destroys our life. Sin promises pleasure and power. It delivers frustration, fear and despair. The call to repentance is the call to the abundant life.
As you measure your life against the life of Christ you will fall short. Where you fall short is where God is inviting you to change. Repentance is incomplete if there is no transformation. This transformation cannot come as an act of the will. It can only come as we make a real choice to immerse ourselves in the steadfast, holy, eternal love of God made flesh in Jesus Christ.
The call to repentance is the call to healing, the call to wholeness, the call to holiness. It is a never ending process of choice and transformation. It has the threefold purpose of opening our souls to the unconditional love of God, our hearts to the sacrificial love of other people, and our spirit to the transforming love of our true nature.
The call to repentance is the call to follow Jesus Christ. We cannot follow Christ by our own will. We cannot follow Christ from the place of self will, fear and pride. We follow Christ in the many various choices we make every day of our lives.
Christ himself provides the power we need to make the changes we need to grow in love. That power is the personal presence of God the Holy Spirit.
The 12 apostles needed three years to understand repentance. They needed to hear God’s truth and to experience God’s truth. They needed to hear their own resistance to God, experience their own rebellion, and unlearn the values and priorities of their time and culture that kept them separate from God.
The apostles experienced faith as a journey. They started well. They left their old lives and followed Jesus. They moved slowly. They left their old lives but not their old way of living. Their three year journey with Jesus was a slow and sometimes tedious journey from fear into faith.
The fear comes from separation. We claim the right to define God as we chose then live with the fear that if we created God does God have his own existence. Jesus is the reality of God who he is to enter into a personal relationship with him.
If we make that choice, to enter into a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, we enter into a journey of faith. The faith comes as we surrender our demand to define God, the world, other people, even ourselves according to our own self will.
The faith develops as we walk the paths of our individual lives in communion with the co-eternal Son of God.
It took three years for the apo
stles to comprehend that the prayer of faith is: Heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done.
It took three years before the apostles were ready to accept the call to evangelize, to fish for people. They were never perfect. They never completely agreed with each other on even the basics. What made their mission possible was the transformation of their understanding of God. In that transformed understanding came a commitment to personal loyalty and personal transformation.
They learned who God is by spending time with Jesus Christ. They learned where sin corrupted human nature by observing the sinless life of Christ. They learned about their own selfishness and pride as they interacted with each other and as Jesus asked them to pay attention to their attitude and actions.
Jesus is the new life God offers us. The three years Jesus spent with the 12 apostles is representative of the new way of living God invites us to experience. Every Sunday we hear a reading from the gospel. That reading is God’s call to us to repent, follow and become.
A fundamental principle of the Kingdom of God is that we are not yet who we can become. Each moment of our lives is a moment of real choice to hear the invitation to faith. That is why each moment of our lives here and now is an eternal moment with eternal consequences.
Jesus does not expect us to be perfect in this life. He does expect us to transform. He does not expect us to transform by our own will. He supplies to us the indwelling personal presence of God the Holy Spirit to accomplish this.
Where do you need to repent? The answer starts by paying attention to where you live life from the place of demand, threat and reaction. That is your place of grace. That is your invitation to transformation.
Where is Jesus asking you to follow him? Many people have the mistaken idea that Jesus will lead us into places we don’t want to go. Jesus never leads any place that he has not prepared us to embrace and enjoy. The principle by which we can discern the will of God is the steadfast holy love of God.
The principle manifests in our lives in three ways: worship, service, personal transformation. Jesus asks us to follow him into a more joyful and profound self offering in worship, a more self sacrificing experience of service to others, and an amazing adventure of transforming all of our shortcomings and sins back into their original blessings.
Where is Jesus inviting you to follow him in worship, service and transformation?
Where is Jesus inviting you in evangelism? For the first four apostles, all of whom were fishermen, Jesus used the phrase: to fish for people. You have been focused on fishing for your life’s work. Now I will refocus your work to a different kind of life, a different way of living.
Jesus came into the world to seek the lost, to find the lost, to reunite the lost to God, and to transform the lost by the power of divine love.
Those who heed the invitation to repent and to follow are those whom Jesus transforms for evangelism. The particularity of evangelism is unique for each of us. The pre condition for evangelism is consistent. The universality of evangelism is the same: as you experience God’s blessing so share God’s blessing.
The reality of evangelism is in the words Jesus speaks to us today: Repent. Follow me. I will make you fish for people.
Where John the Baptist had preached: repent and prepare, Jesus preached repent, follow, become.
John preached a call to prepare. Jesus preached a call to action.
The call to action is threefold. The first part of the call to action is the call to repent. The call to repentance is the call to stop, pay attention, measure, change.
Stop right where you are and pay attention to how you live. Pay attention to how you speak to other people. Pay attention to where you spend your time, your money and you life’s energy.
As you stop and pay attention then measure what you observe about your life by the perfect mirror of love. That perfect mirror is Jesus Christ. He is the ideal form, plan and pattern for human nature. Anything less than the original pattern is broken, distorted, lost. Anything less than the original pattern is sin.
That sin corrupts and destroys our life. Sin promises pleasure and power. It delivers frustration, fear and despair. The call to repentance is the call to the abundant life.
As you measure your life against the life of Christ you will fall short. Where you fall short is where God is inviting you to change. Repentance is incomplete if there is no transformation. This transformation cannot come as an act of the will. It can only come as we make a real choice to immerse ourselves in the steadfast, holy, eternal love of God made flesh in Jesus Christ.
The call to repentance is the call to healing, the call to wholeness, the call to holiness. It is a never ending process of choice and transformation. It has the threefold purpose of opening our souls to the unconditional love of God, our hearts to the sacrificial love of other people, and our spirit to the transforming love of our true nature.
The call to repentance is the call to follow Jesus Christ. We cannot follow Christ by our own will. We cannot follow Christ from the place of self will, fear and pride. We follow Christ in the many various choices we make every day of our lives.
Christ himself provides the power we need to make the changes we need to grow in love. That power is the personal presence of God the Holy Spirit.
The 12 apostles needed three years to understand repentance. They needed to hear God’s truth and to experience God’s truth. They needed to hear their own resistance to God, experience their own rebellion, and unlearn the values and priorities of their time and culture that kept them separate from God.
The apostles experienced faith as a journey. They started well. They left their old lives and followed Jesus. They moved slowly. They left their old lives but not their old way of living. Their three year journey with Jesus was a slow and sometimes tedious journey from fear into faith.
The fear comes from separation. We claim the right to define God as we chose then live with the fear that if we created God does God have his own existence. Jesus is the reality of God who he is to enter into a personal relationship with him.
If we make that choice, to enter into a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, we enter into a journey of faith. The faith comes as we surrender our demand to define God, the world, other people, even ourselves according to our own self will.
The faith develops as we walk the paths of our individual lives in communion with the co-eternal Son of God.
It took three years for the apo
stles to comprehend that the prayer of faith is: Heavenly Father, not my will but your will be done.
It took three years before the apostles were ready to accept the call to evangelize, to fish for people. They were never perfect. They never completely agreed with each other on even the basics. What made their mission possible was the transformation of their understanding of God. In that transformed understanding came a commitment to personal loyalty and personal transformation.
They learned who God is by spending time with Jesus Christ. They learned where sin corrupted human nature by observing the sinless life of Christ. They learned about their own selfishness and pride as they interacted with each other and as Jesus asked them to pay attention to their attitude and actions.
Jesus is the new life God offers us. The three years Jesus spent with the 12 apostles is representative of the new way of living God invites us to experience. Every Sunday we hear a reading from the gospel. That reading is God’s call to us to repent, follow and become.
A fundamental principle of the Kingdom of God is that we are not yet who we can become. Each moment of our lives is a moment of real choice to hear the invitation to faith. That is why each moment of our lives here and now is an eternal moment with eternal consequences.
Jesus does not expect us to be perfect in this life. He does expect us to transform. He does not expect us to transform by our own will. He supplies to us the indwelling personal presence of God the Holy Spirit to accomplish this.
Where do you need to repent? The answer starts by paying attention to where you live life from the place of demand, threat and reaction. That is your place of grace. That is your invitation to transformation.
Where is Jesus asking you to follow him? Many people have the mistaken idea that Jesus will lead us into places we don’t want to go. Jesus never leads any place that he has not prepared us to embrace and enjoy. The principle by which we can discern the will of God is the steadfast holy love of God.
The principle manifests in our lives in three ways: worship, service, personal transformation. Jesus asks us to follow him into a more joyful and profound self offering in worship, a more self sacrificing experience of service to others, and an amazing adventure of transforming all of our shortcomings and sins back into their original blessings.
Where is Jesus inviting you to follow him in worship, service and transformation?
Where is Jesus inviting you in evangelism? For the first four apostles, all of whom were fishermen, Jesus used the phrase: to fish for people. You have been focused on fishing for your life’s work. Now I will refocus your work to a different kind of life, a different way of living.
Jesus came into the world to seek the lost, to find the lost, to reunite the lost to God, and to transform the lost by the power of divine love.
Those who heed the invitation to repent and to follow are those whom Jesus transforms for evangelism. The particularity of evangelism is unique for each of us. The pre condition for evangelism is consistent. The universality of evangelism is the same: as you experience God’s blessing so share God’s blessing.
The reality of evangelism is in the words Jesus speaks to us today: Repent. Follow me. I will make you fish for people.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Epiphany 2
Epiphany 2 (John 1: 29-42) Behold the Lamb of God
Command and control is not the way of salvation.
The Messiah is the anointed of God. He is anointed by the Holy Spirit to be the Lamb of God. The Lamb of God is the one pure perfect and final sacrifice for original sin.
This was not what anyone expected of the Messiah. Despite the long centuries of preparation from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to the prophets, from the kings and priests- people heard the word of God clearly and explicitly declared. They heard the word, they ignored the word, and they rejected the word.
This is the experience of Moses and the prophets. And, this is the consistent observation of the Biblical writers. This was the experience of the last of the prophets, John the Baptist. This was the reason the Messiah had to be the one pure perfect and sacrifice for original sin.
The people expected God to send a Messiah who would save them from their enemies. They did not expect a Messiah who would save them from their sin. They did not accept the message of Moses and the prophets that actual sin is a consequence of a broken relationship. They did not accept the message that righteousness means right relationship.
It is all there in the Passover story. It is all there in the life and witness of the prophets.
The chosen are not chosen to rule but to serve. The Messiah is not anointed to conquer nations but to conquer sin and death.
The Lamb of God is the perfect sacrifice that seals the breach between humanity and God. It is the human race that creates and sustains the breach, the separation. It is God in Jesus Christ who seals the breach, offers healing and promises a total transformation of sin and death through eternal love and eternal life.
It is clear from the gospels that even those who followed Jesus ignored John’s prophetic witness that Jesus is the Messiah who conquers sin and death. This should not be a surprise. For if the Bible is correct in its assessment of the human condition, then humanity is of itself incapable of helping itself.
From the moment Jesus arose from the waters of his baptism he knew he was on the road to the cross. He knew this because of all people he knew the terrible spiritual pain that human beings live with. That terrible spiritual pain produces distortions in the way we think, feel and make choices.
Human beings in Jesus day understood there was a problem. They observed the world and concluded the problem was a lack of right knowledge, right behavior and right power. In Israel, the people believed that God would anoint a man with that right knowledge to impose the right religion on the world. They believed God would anoint a man to live according the standards of right behavior and then impose those standards on everyone else. They believed God would anoint a man with the office and authority of Kingship to lead the righteous into battle against the unrighteous and to impose God’ s rule over all the nations.
They believed these things despite the teaching of Moses and the prophets about the nature of sin.
John the Baptist testifies that he only recognized the Messiah by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit revealed to John that Jesus was the Messiah as He anointed Jesus visibly in his baptism. The Holy Spirit also revealed to John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, that the Messiah is the Lamb of God who conquers sin by leading a perfect life and who conquers death by experiencing death and transforming it back into life.
Command and control is not the way of salvation. Command and control is not the way of abundant life.
The rightful ruler of Israel is the Messiah whom God sent into the world to seal the breach human beings created. The true Messiah, the one anointed by the Holy Spirit offered himself to the Father in his daily prayer: heavenly Father not my will but your will be done.
The Messiah is anointed for service. The Messiah is anointed to bring reconciliation and healing. He does this by fulfilling the plan and pattern and purpose of sacrificial worship God revealed to Abraham on Mt. Moriah and God revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai.
Jesus the Messiah is anointed as the sacrifice God revealed to Abraham and Moses. Jesus is the lamb whose sacrificial death completes and fulfills all of the sacrifices embedded in the Law. Jesus is the Lamb whose death transforms death back into life. And, because Jesus is the one pure perfect and final sacrifice, the life he gives us is eternal.
It is a new life. It is a new way of living. It is a way of living Moses and the prophets proclaimed but could not accomplish. It is a way of living characterized by love and holiness in sharp contrast to the way of command and control.
This is not a way that is self evident to anyone. It certainly was not self evident to the last of the prophets. The Holy Spirit revealed to John that the Messiah would be anointed for service not for command and control. It is also not self evident to us.
God reveals his nature to us in the person of His Son. That is why it is so important we read the Bible and receive the sacraments. It the Bible God tells us who he is in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ God holds a perfect mirror to our souls and reveals to us how we exist from the place of demand. In the sacrament of baptism God reunites our separated and lost human nature with his divine nature. In the sacrament of Holy Communion God infuses the eternal love and eternal life of Jesus Christ into our souls.
The principles of the new life in Christ and the new way of living in the Holy Spirit are contradictory to the principles of the old life of sin and death. The principles of the old life of sin and death are the principles of command and control. They are echoed every time we issue demands to impose our will and threats to retaliate if we do not get our will
Demand and threat killed Jesus as he knew they would. That is why he came as the Lamb of God and not the Warlord of God.
Demand and threat kill the soul that lives by the principles of command and control. This is what Jesus wants to save us from. He wants to save us from the corruption of the soul that distorts love into the will to dominate and corrupts life into the desire to possess.
Jesus as the lamb of God is himself the salvation from the old life of self will. It is self will that leads to sin and death. It is as we offer ourselves, our souls and bodies at the altar of sacrifice in union with the one pure perfect and final sacrifice of Jesus Christ that our heavenly Father sets us free from the slavery of self will into the perfect love that produces free will. Free will is a will set free in love to bring forth love and to live from the place of eternal life.
The Holy Spirit lives within us to ask us where we still live from the place of self will. Where do we still reject the true Messiah anointed for service and seek a false Messiah who says: have it your way? Where do we still bring forth a demand to impose our will on others and a threat to retaliate if we others do not submit to our will? Where do we still harbor the desire for God to be on our side so we can dominate other people?
The Messiah is anointed by love, in love and through love for service. In that service the Messiah sacrifices self will to live life fully and completely free from sin and from the fear of death. This is the way of salvation in Jesus Christ. This is the revelation of God to the last of the prophets and to each of us when the Holy Spirit makes the Messiah known in Jesus Christ as the perfect sacrifice of perfect love- the Lamb of God.
Command and control is not the way of salvation.
The Messiah is the anointed of God. He is anointed by the Holy Spirit to be the Lamb of God. The Lamb of God is the one pure perfect and final sacrifice for original sin.
This was not what anyone expected of the Messiah. Despite the long centuries of preparation from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to the prophets, from the kings and priests- people heard the word of God clearly and explicitly declared. They heard the word, they ignored the word, and they rejected the word.
This is the experience of Moses and the prophets. And, this is the consistent observation of the Biblical writers. This was the experience of the last of the prophets, John the Baptist. This was the reason the Messiah had to be the one pure perfect and sacrifice for original sin.
The people expected God to send a Messiah who would save them from their enemies. They did not expect a Messiah who would save them from their sin. They did not accept the message of Moses and the prophets that actual sin is a consequence of a broken relationship. They did not accept the message that righteousness means right relationship.
It is all there in the Passover story. It is all there in the life and witness of the prophets.
The chosen are not chosen to rule but to serve. The Messiah is not anointed to conquer nations but to conquer sin and death.
The Lamb of God is the perfect sacrifice that seals the breach between humanity and God. It is the human race that creates and sustains the breach, the separation. It is God in Jesus Christ who seals the breach, offers healing and promises a total transformation of sin and death through eternal love and eternal life.
It is clear from the gospels that even those who followed Jesus ignored John’s prophetic witness that Jesus is the Messiah who conquers sin and death. This should not be a surprise. For if the Bible is correct in its assessment of the human condition, then humanity is of itself incapable of helping itself.
From the moment Jesus arose from the waters of his baptism he knew he was on the road to the cross. He knew this because of all people he knew the terrible spiritual pain that human beings live with. That terrible spiritual pain produces distortions in the way we think, feel and make choices.
Human beings in Jesus day understood there was a problem. They observed the world and concluded the problem was a lack of right knowledge, right behavior and right power. In Israel, the people believed that God would anoint a man with that right knowledge to impose the right religion on the world. They believed God would anoint a man to live according the standards of right behavior and then impose those standards on everyone else. They believed God would anoint a man with the office and authority of Kingship to lead the righteous into battle against the unrighteous and to impose God’ s rule over all the nations.
They believed these things despite the teaching of Moses and the prophets about the nature of sin.
John the Baptist testifies that he only recognized the Messiah by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit revealed to John that Jesus was the Messiah as He anointed Jesus visibly in his baptism. The Holy Spirit also revealed to John the Baptist, the last of the prophets, that the Messiah is the Lamb of God who conquers sin by leading a perfect life and who conquers death by experiencing death and transforming it back into life.
Command and control is not the way of salvation. Command and control is not the way of abundant life.
The rightful ruler of Israel is the Messiah whom God sent into the world to seal the breach human beings created. The true Messiah, the one anointed by the Holy Spirit offered himself to the Father in his daily prayer: heavenly Father not my will but your will be done.
The Messiah is anointed for service. The Messiah is anointed to bring reconciliation and healing. He does this by fulfilling the plan and pattern and purpose of sacrificial worship God revealed to Abraham on Mt. Moriah and God revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai.
Jesus the Messiah is anointed as the sacrifice God revealed to Abraham and Moses. Jesus is the lamb whose sacrificial death completes and fulfills all of the sacrifices embedded in the Law. Jesus is the Lamb whose death transforms death back into life. And, because Jesus is the one pure perfect and final sacrifice, the life he gives us is eternal.
It is a new life. It is a new way of living. It is a way of living Moses and the prophets proclaimed but could not accomplish. It is a way of living characterized by love and holiness in sharp contrast to the way of command and control.
This is not a way that is self evident to anyone. It certainly was not self evident to the last of the prophets. The Holy Spirit revealed to John that the Messiah would be anointed for service not for command and control. It is also not self evident to us.
God reveals his nature to us in the person of His Son. That is why it is so important we read the Bible and receive the sacraments. It the Bible God tells us who he is in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ God holds a perfect mirror to our souls and reveals to us how we exist from the place of demand. In the sacrament of baptism God reunites our separated and lost human nature with his divine nature. In the sacrament of Holy Communion God infuses the eternal love and eternal life of Jesus Christ into our souls.
The principles of the new life in Christ and the new way of living in the Holy Spirit are contradictory to the principles of the old life of sin and death. The principles of the old life of sin and death are the principles of command and control. They are echoed every time we issue demands to impose our will and threats to retaliate if we do not get our will
Demand and threat killed Jesus as he knew they would. That is why he came as the Lamb of God and not the Warlord of God.
Demand and threat kill the soul that lives by the principles of command and control. This is what Jesus wants to save us from. He wants to save us from the corruption of the soul that distorts love into the will to dominate and corrupts life into the desire to possess.
Jesus as the lamb of God is himself the salvation from the old life of self will. It is self will that leads to sin and death. It is as we offer ourselves, our souls and bodies at the altar of sacrifice in union with the one pure perfect and final sacrifice of Jesus Christ that our heavenly Father sets us free from the slavery of self will into the perfect love that produces free will. Free will is a will set free in love to bring forth love and to live from the place of eternal life.
The Holy Spirit lives within us to ask us where we still live from the place of self will. Where do we still reject the true Messiah anointed for service and seek a false Messiah who says: have it your way? Where do we still bring forth a demand to impose our will on others and a threat to retaliate if we others do not submit to our will? Where do we still harbor the desire for God to be on our side so we can dominate other people?
The Messiah is anointed by love, in love and through love for service. In that service the Messiah sacrifices self will to live life fully and completely free from sin and from the fear of death. This is the way of salvation in Jesus Christ. This is the revelation of God to the last of the prophets and to each of us when the Holy Spirit makes the Messiah known in Jesus Christ as the perfect sacrifice of perfect love- the Lamb of God.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Epiphany I
Epiphany I The Baptism of Jesus (Matthew 3:13-17)
Let it be… to fulfill all righteousness.
The essence of the Plan of Salvation is revealed in Jesus’ baptism.
In only a few verses, Matthew records an immense treasure of divine revelation. He reveals the reality of the Trinity, the incarnation, the fatal problem with human nature, and the divine solution to that flaw. All of these themes are interwoven in the person of Jesus Christ.
As the last of the prophets of God, John proclaimed the true prophetic message: prepare and repent. There is no true prophet where there is no true message. Prophets call people to repent of sin and to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. John did both and lived to see the Messiah approach him.
The Holy Spirit had revealed to John that Jesus was the Messiah. So, when Jesus came to John for baptism John was amazed and bewildered.
Baptism is a sign of repentance. The penitent sinner enters the waters, the prophet holds him tightly then plunges him under the water. The total immersion in the river water is a symbol of death. The prophet then lifts the penitent into the light to take in a breath of air, a breath of life. In that emergence into the light and in that first breath there is the symbol of a new life and a new way of living.
Many people entered into the waters of John’s baptism. They did so for many reasons. They did so with various levels of sincerity and hypocrisy. But, they were all sinners. They had all separated from God. They had all habitually broken God’s Law.
The Bible teaches a unique understanding of sin. Sin is an act of disobedience to Divine Law. What the Bible teaches is that sin is a result of separation. Human beings as a species chose to separate from God in order to be like God. More specifically, humanity chose to separate from God in order to be God’s equals in knowledge and power.
There are two fundamental problems with that original choice that the Christian Faith terms original sin. God is not power and knowledge. God has power and knowledge. God is steadfast holy love. The second problem is that God and God alone is life.
To become like God is to grow in holiness and love. Separation from God kills the soul, confuses the mind, corrupts the heart and enslaves the will. The condition of separation produces a nature of fear and a character of pride and despair.
Having separated from God people no longer have clarity of thought. We miss the obvious. We employ reason to justify desire. We divide ourselves from each other, from the natural world, and from God.
We can test these assertions. The Bible is grounded in human experience. God invites us to pay attention to the world around us and to observe how people behave and misbehave. What is the problem? What is the pattern in the problem? What is the process in the pattern? What is the habitual action and reaction in the process? What is the underlying cause?
The Bible gives us its conclusion and it is unique. The problem is separation. We commit sin because we have chosen to separate from God. We commit sin because we are lost in fear, anger and pride.
If this conclusion is correct then the solution can only be one thing. If this conclusion is correction, that separation is the underlying problem that results in sin and death, then reunification with God is the only solution. Only God himself can be the solution.
John knew that Jesus had never sinned. He knew Jesus did not need to enter into the waters as a sign of his repentance. John knew that Jesus never sinned because he knew that Jesus never separated from the Father.
Yet, Jesus asks John to baptize him in order to fulfill all righteousness.
As sin is a consequence of a broken relationship so righteousness is the restoration of a right relationship. Righteousness is not just right thought or right action. These things evolve from right relationship.
Jesus had come to reunify a separated humanity with God by offering us a right relationship with God. Jesus is God reaching out to all people everywhere with the unconditional invitation to regain the original blessing of love, holiness and life.
The Bible observes very carefully that those who choose separation are lost. We are not only lost we do not want to be found. We are trapped in self will and enslaved by our own will to power. Jesus is the way God seeks the lost, finds the lost and restores the lost to God’s eternal life and God’s eternal love.
This is the second part of Jesus’ baptism. The first part is the clarification of the problem facing humanity. The second part is God’s solution.
In the solution God manifests the Divine Mystery of the Trinity and the Incarnation. At Jesus’ baptism, in the presence of the last of the prophets and a crowd of thousands who had come to listen to John, God the Father speaks audibly and God the Holy Spirit reveals himself visibly.
It is the moment when Jesus leaves his life of quiet obscurity as a carpenter. It is the moment when Jesus enters into his public life of preaching, teaching and healing. And, it is the first moment in history when God explicitly reveals that the one God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is the moment when God publically declares Jesus to be The Beloved, his Son.
“The Beloved” is a title we seldom hear attributed to Jesus. Yet, it is the descriptive name the Father uses twice in Jesus’ life. It is the reality nearly everyone in that generation missed. And, it the reality so many people today struggle to understand.
As the Father is love so Jesus is The Beloved. In his divinity Jesus is co-eternal with the Father just as The Beloved is co-eternal with Love. It is that Great Mystery of an active dynamic eternal unconditional holy Love in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that is made manifest in Jesus at his baptism.
In the baptism of the Beloved, God assures us that he wants to be known. God pledges to us that he will make himself known. God reveals to us and to all people that he is fully present to us and with us in Jesus Christ.
Jesus fulfills all righteousness, all right relationship, in the manifestation of divine love and holiness. The Father audibly declares Jesus to be the coeternal Beloved. The Holy Spirit takes visible form to alight upon Jesus.
Jesus enters the waters as an obscure carpenter. He emerges from the waters to manifest the Great Mystery of the Eternal Trinity and the Incarnation.
In Jesus Christ God promises to us that we, all of us- each of us, are the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved. You are he, you are she, whom God the Father specifically and uniquely created by the personal presence and power of God the Holy Spirit to be the forever friend and companion of God the Beloved Son.
As the Triune God manifests his glory in the outward visible and audible circumstances of Jesus baptism so he reveals the inward and spiritual reality of human existence. You are not a mistake. You are not an accident. You are uniquely who God created you to be. God himself has given you a meaning and a purpose to your life.
At his baptism, Jesus fulfills the meaning and purpose we abandoned and lost. Jesus fulfills all righteousness, all right relationship. Jesus fulfills this relationship and now offers it back to us as a gift. The gift is the truth of a new life. The gift is a new way of living. It is life in the Great Mystery of the Triune God here and now and now and forever.
It is in that Great Mystery that God offers to restore the relationship we rejected. It is in that Great Mystery that God invites us to receive a new life and a new way of living as the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved, Jesus Christ.
Let it be… to fulfill all righteousness.
The essence of the Plan of Salvation is revealed in Jesus’ baptism.
In only a few verses, Matthew records an immense treasure of divine revelation. He reveals the reality of the Trinity, the incarnation, the fatal problem with human nature, and the divine solution to that flaw. All of these themes are interwoven in the person of Jesus Christ.
As the last of the prophets of God, John proclaimed the true prophetic message: prepare and repent. There is no true prophet where there is no true message. Prophets call people to repent of sin and to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. John did both and lived to see the Messiah approach him.
The Holy Spirit had revealed to John that Jesus was the Messiah. So, when Jesus came to John for baptism John was amazed and bewildered.
Baptism is a sign of repentance. The penitent sinner enters the waters, the prophet holds him tightly then plunges him under the water. The total immersion in the river water is a symbol of death. The prophet then lifts the penitent into the light to take in a breath of air, a breath of life. In that emergence into the light and in that first breath there is the symbol of a new life and a new way of living.
Many people entered into the waters of John’s baptism. They did so for many reasons. They did so with various levels of sincerity and hypocrisy. But, they were all sinners. They had all separated from God. They had all habitually broken God’s Law.
The Bible teaches a unique understanding of sin. Sin is an act of disobedience to Divine Law. What the Bible teaches is that sin is a result of separation. Human beings as a species chose to separate from God in order to be like God. More specifically, humanity chose to separate from God in order to be God’s equals in knowledge and power.
There are two fundamental problems with that original choice that the Christian Faith terms original sin. God is not power and knowledge. God has power and knowledge. God is steadfast holy love. The second problem is that God and God alone is life.
To become like God is to grow in holiness and love. Separation from God kills the soul, confuses the mind, corrupts the heart and enslaves the will. The condition of separation produces a nature of fear and a character of pride and despair.
Having separated from God people no longer have clarity of thought. We miss the obvious. We employ reason to justify desire. We divide ourselves from each other, from the natural world, and from God.
We can test these assertions. The Bible is grounded in human experience. God invites us to pay attention to the world around us and to observe how people behave and misbehave. What is the problem? What is the pattern in the problem? What is the process in the pattern? What is the habitual action and reaction in the process? What is the underlying cause?
The Bible gives us its conclusion and it is unique. The problem is separation. We commit sin because we have chosen to separate from God. We commit sin because we are lost in fear, anger and pride.
If this conclusion is correct then the solution can only be one thing. If this conclusion is correction, that separation is the underlying problem that results in sin and death, then reunification with God is the only solution. Only God himself can be the solution.
John knew that Jesus had never sinned. He knew Jesus did not need to enter into the waters as a sign of his repentance. John knew that Jesus never sinned because he knew that Jesus never separated from the Father.
Yet, Jesus asks John to baptize him in order to fulfill all righteousness.
As sin is a consequence of a broken relationship so righteousness is the restoration of a right relationship. Righteousness is not just right thought or right action. These things evolve from right relationship.
Jesus had come to reunify a separated humanity with God by offering us a right relationship with God. Jesus is God reaching out to all people everywhere with the unconditional invitation to regain the original blessing of love, holiness and life.
The Bible observes very carefully that those who choose separation are lost. We are not only lost we do not want to be found. We are trapped in self will and enslaved by our own will to power. Jesus is the way God seeks the lost, finds the lost and restores the lost to God’s eternal life and God’s eternal love.
This is the second part of Jesus’ baptism. The first part is the clarification of the problem facing humanity. The second part is God’s solution.
In the solution God manifests the Divine Mystery of the Trinity and the Incarnation. At Jesus’ baptism, in the presence of the last of the prophets and a crowd of thousands who had come to listen to John, God the Father speaks audibly and God the Holy Spirit reveals himself visibly.
It is the moment when Jesus leaves his life of quiet obscurity as a carpenter. It is the moment when Jesus enters into his public life of preaching, teaching and healing. And, it is the first moment in history when God explicitly reveals that the one God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is the moment when God publically declares Jesus to be The Beloved, his Son.
“The Beloved” is a title we seldom hear attributed to Jesus. Yet, it is the descriptive name the Father uses twice in Jesus’ life. It is the reality nearly everyone in that generation missed. And, it the reality so many people today struggle to understand.
As the Father is love so Jesus is The Beloved. In his divinity Jesus is co-eternal with the Father just as The Beloved is co-eternal with Love. It is that Great Mystery of an active dynamic eternal unconditional holy Love in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that is made manifest in Jesus at his baptism.
In the baptism of the Beloved, God assures us that he wants to be known. God pledges to us that he will make himself known. God reveals to us and to all people that he is fully present to us and with us in Jesus Christ.
Jesus fulfills all righteousness, all right relationship, in the manifestation of divine love and holiness. The Father audibly declares Jesus to be the coeternal Beloved. The Holy Spirit takes visible form to alight upon Jesus.
Jesus enters the waters as an obscure carpenter. He emerges from the waters to manifest the Great Mystery of the Eternal Trinity and the Incarnation.
In Jesus Christ God promises to us that we, all of us- each of us, are the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved. You are he, you are she, whom God the Father specifically and uniquely created by the personal presence and power of God the Holy Spirit to be the forever friend and companion of God the Beloved Son.
As the Triune God manifests his glory in the outward visible and audible circumstances of Jesus baptism so he reveals the inward and spiritual reality of human existence. You are not a mistake. You are not an accident. You are uniquely who God created you to be. God himself has given you a meaning and a purpose to your life.
At his baptism, Jesus fulfills the meaning and purpose we abandoned and lost. Jesus fulfills all righteousness, all right relationship. Jesus fulfills this relationship and now offers it back to us as a gift. The gift is the truth of a new life. The gift is a new way of living. It is life in the Great Mystery of the Triune God here and now and now and forever.
It is in that Great Mystery that God offers to restore the relationship we rejected. It is in that Great Mystery that God invites us to receive a new life and a new way of living as the beloved of the co-eternal Beloved, Jesus Christ.
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