Week 6: 1^st Sunday in February (Romans 1:16, 17; 8:1-39 and Luke 4:1-15)

This is the season of entertainment awards. Oscar Awards Night has become a significant event the pagan calendar, along with only slightly lesser Golden Globe Awards, Emmy Awards, and various music awards. Throughout the year people have obsessed over the life struggles, relational roller coasters, and materialistic successes of their favorite pop stars. We worry more about what they will where, what they will drive, what they will say, to whom they will say it, and what relationship will change for them than world events that really do shape our lives.

Even those of us who do not “follow” the tribulations and celebrations of popular icons are nevertheless profoundly influenced by them. The experience of these popular gods and goddesses limit our choices in food, fashion, reading material, technologies, and career goals … and shape our decisions for relationships, personal priorities, and everyday behavior. Many will scoff at the silliness around Oscars Night … but few lifestyles lower in the “food chain” of culture have not been swayed by the big whales swimming on the surface.

Faith has little to do with belief, and everything to do with lifestyle. It is because we have “faith” in the goodness, beauty, and truth revealed through movies, that we shape our lifestyles, take the risks, and make the decisions in the way that we do. And when the results are not what the movie script led us to expect, we “lose faith”. The flip side of Oscar is despair.

But what if we have “faith” in Christ? Suppose we shape our lifestyle, take risks, and make decisions in a manner that imitates the goodness, beauty, and truth revealed in Jesus? We already now how that script ends … so to have “faith” necessarily requires that we leap beyond crucifixion and apparent failure to an unseen hope. Having already committed an irrational act, we can continue to hope in spite of the appearance of defeat. The flip side of Jesus is hope.

Team Meditation (Luke 4:1-15)

I am betraying my age when I say that as a young teenager I can still remember the first time I heard the refrain, “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, who are you, what have you sacrificed?” from the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. The memory came back again more recently when I watched the controversial movie “The Passion of Christ” in which several non-literal but very Biblical scenes were inserted of the personified devil tempting Jesus as various stages on the way to the cross.

Again and again, the personified Devil (looking mightily handsome, athletic, and for all the world like a movie star incognito on the streets of Jerusalem or Chicago) tempted Jesus by a look, a plea, a suggestion that he might have everything one could desire if he just stopped carrying that damned cross and stepped aside for a cappuccino. And Jesus chose the suffering instead. Every single time, I heard the refrain in my head again, “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, who are you, what have you sacrificed?”

The problem is that we are tempted as Jesus was … and we have nowhere near Jesus strength and resolve. After all, we aren’t sons or daughters of God. The best we can hope for is to be adopted.

Worship Theme (Romans 1:16, 17; 8:1-39)

I once asked a hotel clerk what “faith” was (oddly enough, it seemed to fit naturally in the middle of our conversation). He said, “I truly believe that one day my luck will change, my ship will come in, I will win the lottery, and I will have everything that my pop culture hero already has. That’s my faith.” I realized that it is not only the righteous that live by faith. Everybody lives by faith. Everybody has faith in something. Even the scientist and the mathematician have faith that tomorrow one plus one will still add up to two, and gravity will still pull people down to earth. The “odds” may be better than for the person who has faith in the lottery … but it is still a gamble.

When Paul talked about faith, he was talking about something categorically different. He was not talking about his relative confidence in gambling that, if he just played the odds long enough, he was bound to win sometime. He was talking about believing that something totally impossible could be absolutely certain. It’s called a “paradox”. Faith is not a matter of probabilities. It is a matter of paradoxes.  

• Moral failure is inevitable; our errors are unforgivable; yet we have been forgiven;
• Death is inevitable; we are all going to die; yet we shall live;
• Heaven is impossible; there is no hope; yet we can be united with God through Christ.
• Suffering will never end; we may as well give up now; yet we can experience joy always.

Christians are not really very optimistic. What they are is faithful. They are absolutely certain that God has done, can do, and will accomplish impossible things. And they are not just betting the odds. They are staking their lives.

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Week 7: 2^nd Sunday in February 6 (Deuteronomy 5:1-21, 6:1-9 and Luke 12:35-13:5)

What exactly are pagan people seeking? I read a full page advertisement this week for a book entitled “Salam: Divine Revelations from the Actual God” by Shyam D. Buxani. It is a masterpiece of marketing. Can you guess what periodical published the ad?

“For true thinkers, scholars, professors, students, priests, and all interested in religion. [Salam is) the faithful and diligent compilation of an ongoing enlightenment that began 19 years ago, and explains comprehensively the truths that underlie the workings of the universe: 

• The precise reason why the teachings of different religions differ.
• The true cause of all suffering and the divine solution for eliminating it forever.
• The true purpose of life.
• The true nature of God.
• That true religion cannot conflict with the divine gift of reason and instincts for freedom.
• That God justly ordained, without discrimination, only one universal and eternal mode of worship for all humankind – and not incongruent modes of worship of other entities.
• That there cannot be disparate conditions for different people to achieve the same goal – salvation in Heaven.
• That God does not take incarnations, nor sends so-called sons or messengers.
• That prophets are not the chosen few, but the divine enlightenment of God is attainable by anyone who satisfies the conditions for achieve it.
• That such a priceless, eternal issue as salvation calls for using your wisdom, intelligence, and logical reasoning to follow the correct path of God.

Unconnected to any previously existing religion or following, Salam is a universal book for all humanity. It is a book for those who believe in God and are genuinely seeking their Creator. It is equally a book for the scientist, philosopher, atheist, agnostic, theologian, layperson and all those who hold the misconception that religion and rationality can never meet.”

Wow! All that in one book! Our ancient Christian ancestors would probably have described this as “Gnosticism” (God attainable through human insight, heaven attainable through enlightenment, suffering explainable through mystery, and unity and peace attainable through worship). No incarnations necessary. No judgment required. No leaps of faith. No surrender of self.

Perhaps what is most interesting is that the ad did not appear in a popular magazine, but in the “Religious Studies News” of the American Academy of Religion (January 2005, Vol. 20, No. 1). The AAR rightly describes itself as the “preeminent scholarly and professional society in the field of religion” and is the one of the largest and most inclusive conventions of theological professors and teachers of religion in the world. But that academy is not so diverse, with so many points of view, that the marketing strategy for this ad assumes this book would gain an excellent hearing. Maybe it will and maybe it won’t. Academic professors of religion are a skeptical bunch. But if anyone had any doubts that Christianity is just one option in a million competing for the hearts of the public, guess again.

Team Meditation (Luke 12:35-13:5)

The Christian faith is really annoying. As soon as you think you’re safe, you’re in peril for your life. As soon as you think you’ve made it, you further from heaven than ever. As soon as you think you have all the answers, you’re left with only questions. As soon as you think you have everybody pegged, nobody fits the stereotype. As soon as you’ve got the liturgy down like clockwork, the clock stops. As soon as you’ve got the sermon perfect, some crazy 10 year old throws a wrench in the logic. As soon as the salvation seems within your grasp, it slips between your fingers. As soon as you think you are lost forever, God snatches you out of the fire.

God always seems to do the unexpected; and we are never as smart, insightful, competent, or in control as we like to think. That’s annoying to modern people … especially if they were educated in public school, graduated from university, climbed the career path, nurtured their families in the best psychologies of the day, nurtured their health with the best diets of the day, toned their bodies with the best fitness programs of the day, and filled their minds with the best books of the day. Bottom line: life should make sense, salvation should be deserved, God should be intelligible, and the triumph of the good should be feasible through an excellent strategic plan.

But it ain’t so. It seems to me that worship leaders … like everyone else … need to “gird their loins and keep their lamps lighted” just in case the Holy Spirit breaks into the world and the liturgy with the unexpected. The harmony is shattered, and suddenly people are forced to debate, contend, and explore their faith.

Worship Theme (Deuteronomy 5:1-21, 6:1-9)

You shall love the Lord with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your might. The Ten Commandments spell that out through a few key executive limitations on our actions … but the essence of the message is that God alone should have ALL you love.

Life, on the other hand, is largely a process through which people invent better and better ways not to do it. That’s call sin. Sin is the constant temptation to put something, somebody, some relationship, some goal, some personal preference in the place of God.

How much love will we sidetrack from God today? 10%? 6 days out of 7? 75%?  Will we siphon off some love toward our families, our church, our career, or are own well being? What wonderful, self-congratulatory, and charitable excuses will we invent to justify this lessening of our love for God? Perhaps we will agree to love God with all our might … if Viking berserkers break into our church and threaten to kill us unless we recant … but maybe not if capitalist advertisers break into our television time and threaten to ignore us unless we buy their new automobiles?

The demand to love God with all we’ve got is unequivocal. It runs counter to the “inner child” within every person, and like children we are really very, very good at inventing excuses. Perhaps this is why the Old Testament encourages us to teach them to our children, write our promises on our doorposts, bind our commitment on our foreheads, and maybe tattoo our faith on your biceps. Anything to drum it into our selfish selves.

The trouble is that even zealotry can become a god, and we can love how we look in uniform even more than the cause for which we fight. Who is to save us from this endless temptation to sidetrack our love for God? Jesus. Only Jesus ever really did it completely … and the closer we get to Jesus, the more faithful we will become. That is the reason baptism in the New Testament is the only hopeful response to the Great Commandment in the Old Testament. Basically … we can’t do it … unless God helps.

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Week 8: 3^rd Sunday in February (Luke 15:11-32 and Luke 19:1-10)

“Tell me the stories of Jesus, I love to hear …” These are words from an old Christian campfire song that still resonate in my life. Jesus was a terrific story teller and he told a lot of them. He never wrote an essay or dogmatic treatise. His sermons were less than ten minutes (the Sermon on the Mount is really a compilation of a whole bunch of them). He could probably communicate more grace in a single conversation at the fast food restaurant, and provide more practical coaching about life in a single commuter ride into the city than anyone in history. And he told stories with layers and layers of meaning.

His life was a story in itself, filled with drama, emotion, conviction, and hope. It intersects with our life stories, with similar content, and similar result. The intersection of his story and our story is yet another story … that really ought to be told to our children, and work associates, and anyone we meet.

My problem with Reality TV is that it is not a story. It is simply a chronicle … an observation … a neutral, meaningless, summary of data that is seen and overheard … without any sense or purpose. Jesus makes meaningful sense of these life experiences, and in such a way as to give us hope for tomorrow. “Tell me the stories of Jesus, I love to hear …”

Team Meditation (Luke 19:1-10)

Luke 19:26-27  ²⁶ `I tell you, that to every one who has will more be given; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.  ²⁷ But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them before me.'"

In our world today, the contractual relationship between an employer and employee has become the standard of fairness. If a worker does not do the work he/she was hired to do, the employer has every right to fire them. If an employer does not pay the wage the worker deserves, the worker has every right to sue the company. However, once the employer and the employee have settled their account, each walks away to their own home and their own private lives.

We tend to read this modern point of view into our relationship with God. There is “God’s time” (usually Sundays) and God’s money (a tithe) … and there is “private time” (the rest of the week) and “our money” (whatever is left after tithe and taxes). The same attitude is extended among many clergy. There is “church time” (anywhere from 40 – 75 hours a week) and “church work” (an extensive task list in which preaching, worship, visitation, and social service figure prominently). And there is “my time” (usually Mondays) and “my life” (an extensive wish list of family and personal desires). Any breach of the contract deserves to be challenged by either party, but if the contract is fulfilled God, people, clergy, and laity each walk away to their own home and their own private lives.

However, the contractual relationship between employer and employee is not the standard of fairness in pre-modern relationships. Throughout most of history (including Bible times) that standard was the relationship between “lord” and “client”. I would describe this relationship as “mission aligned productivity”. There was no distinction between “obligation time” and “private time”. All the client’s time and energy belonged to the lord, to be expended wholeheartedly upon request; and all the lord’s time and energy was promised to the client, to extend protection and prosperity to his/her clientele.

This primary relationship is the background to Jesus’ parable, and helps make understandable what (to modern ears) seems so unfair. God requires “mission aligned productivity” from the entire life of the clients toward whom God extends protection and prosperity. There no distinction between sacred tasks and private life. There is no division of wealth in which a portion “belongs” to the God and a portion “belongs” to me. It ALL belongs to the Lord; and the Lord gives it ALL to me; so that, in turn, I can reinvest what is the Lord’s; and the Lord and all God’s clients will prosper.

Every minute of every day … and every erg of all our energy … is supposed to be productive for the mission of the Lord. The more productive we are for the Lord, the more the Lord blesses the client with prosperity. We are neither employees of the church, nor are we employees of the Lord. We do not have “private time” and “private money”. It is the Lord’s, and we are required to be productive with it in the Lord’s mission. This is simply the classical relationship of lord and client that is the paradigm of fairness in the ancient and postmodern world.

Now here is a lingering question. We know in the parable what happened to the client who invested 10 or 5 pounds and made as much more. But what would the Lord have said if the client reported, “Lord, you gave me ten pounds and I lost it all trying to multiply your investment?” In our world, the employer would have fired this person. In the ancient and postmodern world, the Lord would have still said “Well done, good and faithful servant!” and done all he good to train him to be successful the next time.

The greatest sin is not to fail, but to do nothing. Failure means that you are still missionally aligned to the Lord and trying hard to be productive in his service. Doing nothing means that you are no longer aligned to the Lord and are more preoccupied with yourself.

Is every moment of your time … and every erg of your energy … missionally aligned to be productive for the Lord?

Worship Theme (Luke 15:11-32)

The parable of the prodigal son is one of the best known stories in Christianity … and indeed in the history of literature. It is so easy for us to identify with any of the three main characters, and to identify with the eternal internal struggle of the family. Our heart goes out to the prodigal younger son, because we have all been young, foolhardy, selfish, impatient, and made a total wreck of our lives. Our heart goes out to the father, because we have all failed to be the parent we want to be, watched helplessly as our children hurt themselves, yearned desperately for their return, and worked tirelessly for the wellbeing of the whole family. And our heart goes out to the older son, because we have all felt unappreciated for our dedication, deserving of more than that which we have received, and jealous of the success of others.

With whom do you identify right now? With whom will you identify several years from now? Prodigal children grow up to be older brothers … and older brothers grow up to be worried fathers … and even worried fathers are tempted to chuck it all, divorce their wives, and run off to Vegas where they will squander their living and eventually end up in a pig sty.  And yes, the same thing can be said of younger prodigal sisters, older sisters who stay at home to take care of the family, and their mothers.

This is a different kind of love triangle than you see in the movies or the soap operas … and certainly a more profound one. The resolution is going to require more than therapy, or some coaching on basic ethical behavior, or three people learning to suck it up and behave like adults for a change. In this love triangle, the resolution literally requires a miracle.

Somebody is morally, ethically, even literally “dead” … and becomes morally, ethically, and even literally “alive” again. Somebody else is relationally, emotionally, and even literally dying … and becomes relationally, emotionally, and literally hopeful again. Somebody else is selfishly, angrily, resentfully about to die … and is rescued for compassion, forgiveness, and love just on the brink of losing it forever. So it’s no wonder that they kill the fatted calf and rejoice.

Of course, this is a parable about God and the two basic kinds of people who make up God’s family. There are the strangers to grace who “unchurched”, having either walked away from the community of faith or never entered the community of faith, and wallow in selfishness and sin. Would that they found their way home! And there are the strangers to grace who are “churched”, having remained in the community of faith out of habit or duty, and wallow in self-righteousness and sin. Would that they found their way to selfless compassion for others! And there is God, perhaps more “human” in this story than in any other, who weeps for both the sinful unchurched and the sinful churched, because they are all sinful and lost, and would that they were found and alive again!

Something is needed to bring this family together again … some tangible, touchable, miracle. If only we could find a fatted calf to slay … in whose body and blood we might all be reunited … one who could stand in absolute identity with God and both kinds of wayward humanity … and bring us all together again.

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Week 9: 4^th Sunday in February (Hosea 4 and 14, Luke 7:36-50)

More people commit suicide in late February and early March than any other time of the year … at least in the Northern hemisphere. Maybe it’s the weather … the lack of light, or the rain. Maybe it is the depression settling in after the happy holidays and the failure of our New Year’s resolutions. Maybe it is the increased pressure of career and family, or the impending threat of April taxes. Whatever the reason, hopelessness always seems to peak at this time of year.

God’s forgiveness is all that really stands between any of us and despair. Yet God’s forgiveness is absolutely reliable and sure. In the end, it will be OK. God will redeem … pay our debts, cancel our obligations, heal our brokenness, free us from our addictions, and rescue us from our captors. Guaranteed. How do we know? Because God gave himself … sacrificed is Son … shackled us to Jesus. As Jesus goes, so go we. Jesus lives. Jesus suffered. So do we. Jesus has experienced hell. So do we. Jesus is raised and lives blessed of God. So do we. There is hope for tomorrow.

Team Meditation (Luke 7:36-50)

I’m never sure of the precise moment when duty turns to guilt, but I know it happens on a regular basis. Worship teams know that their goal is to transform lives, and motivated seekers and disciples into every-deepening spiritual growth. The problem is that it often does not happen. Some are transformed … some deepen their faith walk with Jesus. And many do not.

To be sure, worship team leaders remind themselves that they only sow the seeds, and the Holy Spirit actually gives the grace. Sometimes that grace takes a long, long time to work. Sometimes that grace never seems to succeed. All too many people come and go from worship, untransformed, still resistant to growth, strangers to grace, distant from Christ. It’s hard to take. Worship leaders want it so much. They work so hard to make it happen. They feel the obligation deeply. It is very easy to feel like a failure.

We all knew that God forgives. The scripture from Luke takes us further. Jesus forgives. Jesus speaks for God … is God … and offers forgiveness to the least worthy of people. Now it’s doubly personal. It’s not just that God forgives us in person … but that God in person forgives us in person. It’s as if in former days sinners received an email from God telling us we are forgiven … and in these latter days God delivers the forgiveness in person. God shows up in person at our front door and says “I forgive you”. Does that make the forgiveness more effective? Perhaps not. Does that make the forgiveness more powerful” Absolutely.

People on the worship team need to feel that Jesus is on the team alongside of them. God is not far off. God is right there. The importance of the story from Luke is that the woman was absolutely committed to Christ. It was not success that earned her forgiveness, nor even a perfect life. It was simply God’s grace. It is not success that earns us forgiveness. God just loves us. Tell people about it.

Worship Theme (Hosea 4 and 14)

One of the great stories of extravagant, radical love is the story of Hosea’s relationship with his wife. Simply stated, Hosea was a good, ordinary, faithful husband, whose wife was consistently unfaithful. In fact, she was what people used to describe as “notoriously” unfaithful. Hosea complained, ranted, railed, and felt enormous pain … and yet he continually took her back. That kind of behavior is pretty unthinkable today, when people divorce at the drop of a hat or the hint of imperfection.

Hosea’s story alone is remarkable, but God made his story a metaphor for God’s love for Israel. Remember now … Israel is God’s chosen people. Their covenant with God was as binding and profound as the covenant between husband and wife. Israel pretty consistently “cheated” on God, worshipping in liturgy or behavior any number of “sacred cows”, “tempting sidetracks”, and “selfish ambitions”. God ranted and railed and often punished … but in the end, God always took Israel back. That’s the promise in Hosea 14:

“Hosea 14:4-8  ⁴ I will heal their faithlessness; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.  ⁵ I will be as the dew to Israel; he shall blossom as the lily, he shall strike root as the poplar;  ⁶ his shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive, and his fragrance like Lebanon.  ⁷ They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow, they shall flourish as a garden; they shall blossom as the vine, their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon.  ⁸ O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress, from me comes your fruit.”

We like to think of God’s forgiveness as unconditional, but in reality forgiveness and repentance go hand in hand. Sometimes repentance comes first, and forgiveness follows; but sometimes forgiveness comes first, and repentance follows. This is not unconditional love in the way that modern prodigals think of it. It’s not a blank check, or inevitable pardon in spite of awful sin. When God forgives you, there is still a price to be paid. It is your inevitable surrender, your inevitable repentance, and your inevitable collapse into God’s loving arms. It may be embarrassing, or humiliating, or downright painful. But it is the most blessed suffering you will ever experience.

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