Tag: Luke

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The Sand of Self Reliance

Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. — Luke 6.47-48

Jesus presented his followers with a question: are you willing to build your house on a foundation that will cost you more, take you longer, and require more energy to build? Building a house on sand is quick and simple—the supports sink down easily, the shelter rises more quickly, and stasis is established more readily. Such is the way of legalism.

Humans are surprisingly resilient and wonderfully strong. We can overcome adversity and will ourselves into whatever we perceive as best. Yet external change without internal transformation is sinking sand.

In Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones’ Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure, the pastor warns:

To make it quite practical I have a very simple test. After I have explained the way of Christ to somebody I say “Now, are you ready to say that you are a Christian?” And they hesitate. And then I say, “What’s the matter? Why are you hesitating?” And so often people say, “I don’t feel like I’m good enough yet. I don’t think I’m ready to say I’m a Christian now.” And at once I know that I have been wasting my breath. They are still thinking in terms of themselves….

It sounds very modest to say, “Well, I don’t think I’m good enough,” but it’s a very denial of the faith. The very essence of the Christian faith is to say that He is good enough and I am in Him.

As long as you go on thinking about yourself like that and saying, “I’m not good enough; Oh, I’m not good enough,” you are denying God—you are denying the gospel—you are denying the very essence of the faith and you will never be happy. [You’ll] think you’re better at times, and then again you will find you are not as good at other times… You will be up and down forever.

“Therefore,” the author of Hebrews writes, “let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.” For though community is costly, though meditation, reflection and prayer take time, though it takes energy to live an examined life, it builds our future on an unshakable foundation.

Today’s Reading
Jonah 1 (Listen – 2:29)
Luke 6 (Listen – 6:46)

 

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Three Pictures of Christ

[Jesus said,] “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” — Luke 5.4

“Master,” Peter replied, “we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” The other masters of the world lorded their power over people like Simon Peter; he was a mere fisherman, dependent on what he pulled from the water for his well-being.

Christ revealed himself as a master worth following—a master who provided for the needs of the day while calling Peter to a life of sacrifice, service, and meaning beyond what he would have achieved on his own.

And when Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” — Luke 5.20

There were many then, and now, that Christ would not stand in front of to touch and heal, so in his healing he drew attention to something greater. Jesus taught it is sin that is our deepest and most debilitating pain. In healing pride and brokenness—which have paralyzed our true nature—Jesus shows himself as the true Lord and Healer.

Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” — Luke 5.31-32

Tax collectors were notoriously corrupt. Eating at Levi’s table is the equivalent of sipping wine from Bernie Madoff’s cellar—it’s offensive to even think of an upright person partaking in the fruit of corruption. Jesus wasn’t there to enjoy exquisite food and drink, he was there to give himself as a friend.

Jesus befriends outcasts to his own detriment—sacrificing reputation as the elite scorn him and offering his life as the proud reject him. Jesus is the living example that there is no greater love than a man laying down his life, even while we are yet sinners.

[Jesus said,] “And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’” —Luke 5.39

Instead of unapproachable power, Simon Peter found blessing. Instead of a God removed from the pain of life, the sick found intimacy and healing. Instead of judgment that precluded relationship, Levi found sacrifice that allowed for embrace.

Christ shows himself as our greatest provider, the solution to our deepest problem, and loving friend who lays down all to live in relationship with us.

Today’s Reading
Obadiah 1 (Listen – 3:28)
Luke 5 (Listen – 5:04)

 

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Giving Thanks :: Weekend Reading List

“I have been thinking of something that stifles thanksgiving,” wrote Elisabeth Elliot almost 30 years ago—and, though it was neither politics nor family struggles, her insight cuts right to the heart: “It is the spirit of greed—the greed of doing, being, and having.” Elliot explains:

When Satan came to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, his bait was intended to inspire the lust to do more than the Father meant for Him to do—to go farther, demonstrate more power, and act more dramatically.

This lifestyle of greed metastasizes in every corner of our soul—often expressing itself as we think of the worldly things for which we are thankful. But what if Thanksgiving was defined not by what we have accumulated but by rest from the demands of commerce and striving? Elliot continues:

The enemy comes to us in these days of frantic doing. We are ceaselessly summoned to activities: social, political, educational, athletic, and—yes—spiritual. Our “self-image” (deplorable word!) is dependent not on quiet and hidden “Do this for My sake,” but on the list the world hands us of what is “important.” It is a long list, and it is both foolish and impossible. If we fall for it, we neglect the short list.

Temptation comes also in the form of being. The snake in the garden struck at Eve with the promise of being something which had not been given. If she would eat the fruit forbidden to her, she could “upgrade her lifestyle” and become like God. She inferred that this was her right, and that God meant to cheat her of this.

Then there is the greed of having. There is no end to the spending, getting, having. We are insatiable consumers, dead-set on competing, upgrading, showing off (“If you’ve got it, flaunt it”). We simply cannot bear to miss something others deem necessary.

So the world ruins the peace and simplicity God would give us. Contentment with what He has chosen for us dissolves, along with godliness, while, instead of giving thanks, we lust and wail, teaching our children to lust and wail too.

Elliot’s soft rebuke reminds me of David Foster Wallace’s This is Water. Wallace, like Elliot, demands we question the “normal” and expand our thirst for what is possible when we give up the relentless pursuit of self.

I was also reminded of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s work The Sabbath. The rabbi parses the spiritual life in the realms of space and time—drawing us beyond the materialism that defines our modern world. “The solution of mankind’s most vexing problem will not be found in renouncing technical civilization, but in attaining some degree of independence of it,” Heschel challenges. He explains:

Technical civilization is man’s conquest of space. It is a triumph frequently achieved by sacrificing an essential ingredient of existence, namely, time. In technical civilization, we expend time to gain space. To enhance our power in the world of space is our main objective. Yet to have more does not mean to be more. The power we attain in the world of space terminates abruptly at the borderline of time. But time is the heart of existence.

The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments. In a religious experience, for example, it is not a thing that imposes itself on man but a spiritual presence. What is retained in the soul is the moment of insight rather than the place where the act came to pass. A moment of insight is a fortune, transporting us beyond the confines of measured time.

So as we prepare to give thanks this week, may we find space. In the midst of travel, of difficult conversations, of the joys of friendship and family—may we find the holy moments where we can experience the power of the divine.

In this way we will experience Thanksgiving as an extension of eternity—a taste of the holy rest that awaits us. “Unless one learns how to relish the taste of Sabbath,” Heschel cautions, “one will be unable to enjoy the taste of eternity in the world to come.”

Weekend Reading List

Today’s Reading
Amos 7 (Listen – 2:45)
Luke 2 (Listen – 6:11)

This Weekend’s Readings
Amos 8 (Listen – 2:16) Luke 3 (Listen – 5:24)
Amos 9 (Listen – 3:08) Luke 4 (Listen – 5:27)

 

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Christ—Ruler of Political Leaders

By N.T. Wright

You shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” — Luke 1.31-33

In trying to understand that present reign of Jesus, though, we have seen two apparently quite different strands. On the one hand, we have seen that all the powers and authorities in the universe are now, in some sense or other, subject to Jesus. This doesn’t mean that they all do what he wants all the time, only that Jesus intends that there should be social and political structures of governance.

Jesus himself pointed out to Pilate that the authority that the Roman governor had over him and been given to him “from above.” Once that has been said, we should not only be shy about recognizing—however paradoxical it seems to our black and white minds—the God-givenness of structures of authority, even when they are tyrannical and violent.

Part of what we say when we say that a structure is God-given is also that God will hold it to account. We have trained ourselves to think of political legitimacy simply in terms of the method or mode of appointment (e.g., if you’ve won an election). The ancient Jews and early Christians were far more interested in holding rulers to account with regard to what they were actually doing. God wants rulers, but God will call them to account.

Where does Jesus come into all this? From his own perspective, he was himself both upstaging the power structures of his day and also calling them to account, then and there. That’s what his action in the Temple was all about. But his death, resurrection, and ascension were the demonstration that he was Lord and they were not.

The calling to account has, in other words, already begun—and will be completed at the second coming. The church’s work of speaking the truth to power means what it means because it is based on the first of these and anticipates the second.

What the church does, in the power of the Spirit, is rooted in the achievement of Jesus and looks ahead to the final completion of his work. This is how Jesus is running the world in the present.

*Excerpt from Simply Jesus by N.T. Wright.

Today’s Reading
Amos 5 (Listen – 3:44)
Luke 1:1-38 (Listen – 9:26)

 

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The Reality of the Resurrection

Luke 24.17-19
They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

“What things?” he asked. 

I worked as a paramedic for five years while going to school for my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. One of the idiosyncrasies found in the wake of trauma is the way an injured person’s mind preoccupies itself with inconsequential details. The stress of trauma tricked more than one patient’s brain into looking over a severe injury only to fixate on the loss of a shoelace to my trauma shears. 

Poor decision making is, of course, not limited to trauma patients.

Leaders make bad decisions, in part, because of “inappropriate self-interest or distorting attachments,” writes Andrew Campbell in the Harvard Business Review. “Our brains can cause us to think we understand [situations] when we don’t.”

The final chapter of Luke shares the story of Jesus walking the road to Emmaus with two of his followers. They are unaware of his resurrection. It takes a seven mile walk and part of a meal for them to recognize to whom they are speaking. 

They show their dismay when Jesus asks, “What things?” in reference to the previous days’ events. The trauma of the crucifixion consumes them (rightly so). Yet their reply to Christ also reveals their own self-interest and distorting attachments. 

“We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel,” they lament. For many in Jesus’ day, “redeem Israel” had clear and immediate geo-political ramifications which were unmet. Jesus’ response reorients them.

God’s love did not deny or diminish Jesus’ suffering on earth. Yet Jesus’ words after the resurrection are almost exclusively focused on the meaning of the crucifixion rather than the pain of the event itself.

The reality of the resurrection gave Jesus’ suffering a meaning that could not be taken and a restoration of all that was lost. The reality of the kingdom took what must have felt like a thousand years of pain and eclipsed it with eternal glory.

Prayer
Lord we long for you. Today we hurt and suffer under the weight of a world which is not our home. Come quickly, Lord. Return what has been lost. Restore what has been taken. Heal the brokenhearted. Resurrect the dead. Quench every longing with your presence, Lord Jesus.

Hope in the Darkness
Part 2 of 5, read more on TheParkForum.org

Today’s Readings
Exodus 21 (Listen – 4:44)
Luke 24 (Listen – 6:16)

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