Monday March 3. 2008

 

Hebrews 5:8:
"Although he was a Son, he learned

obedience through what he suffered;

And being made perfect he became the

the source of eternal salvation to all who

obey him..."

 

C.S. Lewis wrote "it is perfectly obvious that every human being is going to spend a great deal of life in obeying."  But obeying whom?  We will always need to avoid blind obedience in things of this world and pray for God's gifts of intelligence, knowledge, and, ultimately, discernment.

 

When Paul had his experience of redemption on the road to Damascus, he had to obey and so did Ananias.  God really gave them no choice and made it very clear what the Almight wanted done.  In reading the story in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 9, I was moved again by the quick and loving obedience of Ananias.  Despite his misgivings and suspicions, he ministers to Paul, heals him, and introduces him to the community of Christ.  Paul also becomes very quickly the eloquent apostle to the Gentiles and never has a moment of doubt that he is obeying God.

 

The agony of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane shows another kind of experience of obedience where the suffering involved seems far to great to a human will.  Our Lord prays that maybe he will not have to go through with  events after all, that the cup will pass, that the hard part he knows to be inevitable really isn't inevitable.  Through loving obedience, Jesus came to know that God will not ask what is beyond our doing. 

 

For years now, I still struggle to pray with Dag Hammarskjold the prayer he wrote in his journal: :For all that has been, thank you.  For all that is to be-YES!"    

 

 

Tuesday March 4, 2008

Romans 5:19:
For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

In the creation and garden narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures, we read how Adam ate the fruit from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  This was the only tree that God told Adam not to eat from and Adam ate from it.  He disobeyed.  It was the only tree out of all the trees to avoid.  Why did he do it?  And all of his descendants (that includes all of us) have been disobeying God ever since.  We have partaken of so many “forbidden fruits” and may have sought to test God in the same way, failing to consider the consequences of our disobedience.

 

Lent can be a time for self-flagellation over our incessant delving into the sins of commission – doing things that we think God would not want us to do.  And no doubt that is a lengthy list.  There are all those trees out there to enjoy, but time after time we go back to the one that can hurt us, even destroy us.  At times it seems an unholy sort of satisfaction comes over us as we glean through the list and shake out the dirty laundry in order to get ready for the next round of doing all those things that we think God would not want us to do. 

 

Is it indeed a fact that God someone knows us?  Gets the fact that we really can’t seem to help ourselves when it comes to remaining sin-free?  That despite the warning, we still want what’s over the line and on the other side of the fence?

 

That seems likely to me.  It seems that God considered the consequences of Adam’s actions long before he did them.  God knew the consequence for our disobedience would be our own death and destruction, if left to our own devices.  So God decided to do something about it.  God decided to send us his Son, Jesus.  This one man’s total and complete obedience would cover over all the disobedience against God that had taken place from the beginning.  Jesus suffered the consequences that we should deserve, if God was looking at it in that way.  But God’s ways are not our ways.  And Jesus suffered death, so that we might have life.

 

I’m not excusing our sinfulness.  I am saying that God understands and has provided a cover for our humanity.  Now, let’s do our best to follow the example of Jesus in faithfulness and obedience to the God who loves us that much.

 

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, we thank and praise you for sparing us from our self-destructive tendencies.  You make us righteous through your amazing obedience and unfathomable grace.      Amen.

Wednesday March 5, 2008

 

Matthew 26:39:

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

 

 

Have you also thought about the very special relationship which existed between Jesus and God the Father, Mother, or Creator of us all……and wondered what it was like?

 

In reading the New Testament, it is hard to miss the frequent references to Jesus’ trademark discipline of prayer and the many instances when he left his disciples to spend time praying. Although, it is hard to imagine the nature of those conversations, Jesus did provide an example known as the Lord’s Prayer which may give us some insight! Isn’t it interesting that both Matthew 26:39 and the Lord’s Prayer use similar phrases, “…not as I will, but as you will” and “…thy will be done…”

 

Perhaps Jesus’ frequent times apart and his responses to God’s will help illuminate the relationship He was modeling for us! How often do we spend time apart communing with God to listen, discern, and reply? How often do we faithfully respond, “not as I will, but as You will!” How often do we model and teach these practices to others?

 

In my own life, personal retreats have been opportunities of particularly rich two way communications with God characterized by deep spiritual insights, refreshing renewal, and significant responses to God’s leading! But, we don’t have to leave home to experience highly meaningful interactions during daily devotions, worship, scripture study, etc.  

       

Lord, this Lenten season, teach us to relate to You more intimately and to respond more faithfully to all Your leading! In Christ we pray. Amen.

 

                                       

 

Thursday March 6, 2008

 

Luke 11:28:

He replied, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."

 

 

 O Organize your life so that you can listen for God

 

B Be with others who love God

 

E Every person is a blessed child of God

 

Y You will hear God if you open a space for it to happen

 

 

G Give thanks to God                              O

 

O Offer your service to God                            B

 

DDraw closer to God with prayer                                E

 

 Y

 

Try choosing your own words.  What does it mean to you to OBEY GOD?                                                

G 

O

D

Friday March 7, 2008

 

Luke 15:20

So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

 

 

 

As a child, the parable of the prodigal son seemed outrageous to me. What? The bad kid is welcomed home? Dad takes sides? Of course the loyal son is bitter!

 

Now I have two children, and I manage their jealousy on matters such as whose turn it is to push the elevator button and who gets the last popsicle (justice usually requires me to eat it).

 

But as God surely knows, fairness is impossible in parenting. I choose what is least likely to invoke my son’s tantrums. I allow my daughter to do activities that her younger brother can’t handle. And sometimes one child’s needs – for food, for a special consideration, for a hug -- are greater than the other’s. The one suffering the most gets the most attention. It’s a fact of parenthood.

 

My children aren’t old enough yet to be lost in the world. But I know that drugs, unwise friendships, and downright bad behavior are all possibilities when they get older. I will do everything in my mommy power to keep them on the righteous, healthy path. But if one should stray and later make his or her way back home, I will be running toward the lost one with welcoming, embracing arms, just like the father in the parable. Just like God does for us – and I say “us” because the prodigal son is in all of us. And the bitter children of the world will just have to deal with it.

 

 

 

 

Saturday March 8, 2008

 

Matthew 21:28-31:The Parable of the Two Sons

"What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.' " 'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. "Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go. "Which of the two did what his father wanted?"
      "The first," they answered.

 

 

 

 

Several years ago, I saw a teenaged boy in my office whose mother wanted a referral to a therapist.  Her son had been caught plagiarizing a term paper, and she was livid about the matter.  She noted that she and her husband were upstanding members of their community, active in their church, and well respected in their professional lives.  How could their son have brought such shame upon their family?  When she had finished, the boy glared at her and spoke the only sentence he uttered during the entire visit…”You and Dad cheat on your taxes.”  His accusation provided a stark example of actions that spoke louder than words, especially when the two were diametrically opposed. 

 

 

Prayer:

 

 Lord, help us to understand that true obedience includes what we do as well as what we say.  Let us learn to listen so that we will know Your will.

 

Children’s Prayer: 

 

God, help me obey You and do what You want me to do.

 

 

                                                                                      


Sunday March 9, 2008

Matthew 20:18:
"We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death

This passage seems to be a straightforward statement made by Jesus to his disciples, warning them of what is to come after they arrive in Jerusalem for the Passover.  But as I contemplated writing about this passage, a metaphorical reading came immediately to my mind.

How often have human beings through the centuries, and no less so today, betrayed Jesus, and God’s message and gift of salvation imparted through Jesus, “to the chief priests and the teachers of the law.”  We crucify Jesus again and again and betray him, his message and his example, to our ecclesiastical hierarchies and church politics, to our doctrines and dogmas.  Think of all the blood and tears that have been spilled over whether we should be baptized as infants or adults, over whether transubstantiation occurs during the breaking of the Communion bread, over whether Mary was a virgin, and on and on.  When we lose sight of the message of love and reconciliation borne from God to us through Jesus, in favor of preservation of some establishment that we call “church” and abandon what faith, reason, experience and love tell us in favor of a misguided tradition or the pronouncements of a institution that has failed to operate itself in accordance with the core teachings of Jesus, we are condemning Jesus to death in our own lives.  He ceases to exist for us.  When we set up detailed doctrines and rules and use them to destroy and embitter lives rather than to guide and enrich lives or to isolate ourselves from our brothers and sisters, and when we demand that the letter of what we perceive to be some moral law be followed while ignoring its true spirit, we again condemn Jesus to death in our lives.

In predicting his passion, Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man.  This term echoes (whether intentionally or not) many passages in the Old Testament (Num. 23:19; Is. 51:11-13; Job 25:1-6; Ps. 8:4-6; Ps. 144; Ps. 146, for example), where the term is used to refer to the frailty of humans and their vulnerability, especially in relation to God.  In our reading for today, we see how God has made God’s own message, God’s own Word made flesh, vulnerable to man.  God offers us truth and salvation, a radical new way of living in harmony with each other and in communion with God.  Ours is the choice to receive this gift and nourish it or to put it to death in our lives.

 

Lord, we devise or systems and we become arrogant in our thinking.  We allow these flawed creations of our own imaginations to distract us from the living example of your kingdom, as revealed in Jesus. Forgive us and guide us back to the way, the truth and the life.  Amen.