Daily Readings, August 13, 2004

Today's Readings

As I would normally have written this, I was busy trying to build plywood to cover the windows in my back yard. The yard has a wooden fence that could become a missile base in the winds that come with a category-four hurricane.

As I write this, we have been spared, but our brothers and sisters an hour south of here have not. Last Thanksgiving, we went camping at a site in Arcadia, Florida. Arcadia is a poor area, inland from the beaches and far enough from Orlando that it's not a tourist mecca. It is inhabited by the poor, including migrant farm workers during the winter. Downtown is attempting to come back. It includes a number of small businesses, including an Hispanic grocery that appeared to do a great business as I drove by.

If the limited pictures of downtown Arcadia are indicative of the entire force of Charley, the Hispanic grocery is gone. So is the pleasant-looking family restaurant. And the garage. And the Eckard's drug store whose modern architecture stood in such contrast to the rest of downtown. So are the one-story apartments further up the road. They appeared to be primarily made of wood.

Friday morning, before the storm turned, I wondered what it was like to be hunkered down as the wrath of God's nature unleashed itself on your house. I wondered how fragile the shell around us would feel as the world exploded outside. We never found out. And for that I am both thankful and sad. We had more time to prepare.

Still, the following passage rings true to me today...

God indeed is my savior;
I am confident and unafraid.
My strength and my courage is the LORD,
and he has been my savior.

My strength and courage is the Lord. That's what we have when nothing else is left. And for so many people Friday, that's all there was as the world exploded around them. The newspaper accounts talk of noise so loud that people didn't hear trees falling on their houses. Noises so loud that they had headaches from it when the storm subsided.

When you are wrapped around each other in fear that your shell will be yanked up from around you, leaving you to fend for yourself in the tumult, that's when all you have is God.

I can't imagine.

Daily Readings, August 12, 2004

Today's readings

The Gospel tells us that if we don't forgive the little things thare are done against us on earth, that the Lord, our Father, will not forgive the big things that we do against Him. It is for that reason that I try my hardest not to condemn others. I have been forgiven much.

So the Gospel has a lot of resonance. I still fail, of course, but my goal is not to be the slave in this parable.

But how does the parable relate to the first reading, which does not speak of God's forgiveness, but of a stern and unforgiving God, willing to punish His people when they fall short?

Well, in what way did they fall short? According to Scripture, they worshipped other gods, rather than the Father, who had treated them so well. But why is God jealous of their attention? After all, He is God. He doesn't need the Israelites. It is not loving and compassionate to turn someone's life to crap because they follow someone else.

But maybe it is not God who is turning their life to crap. Maybe it is them and the result of their free will. Maybe it is not God causing them to go into exile, maybe it is the result of their actions.

Maybe we have it all wrong. If we have free will, then we need to be allowed to exercise that free will and face its consequences. A God who continually follows us around and cleans up our messes is not God at all, but is a servant, someone we command to help us. But by God allowing us free will and allowing us its consequences, He allows us to face those consequences.

And maybe part of the consequence of not following God is, at least sometimes, not showing forgiveness to our brothers and sisters.

Now don't get me wrong, when we offer forgiveness, it has to be meaningful. That means that if someone does something the leaves substantial hurt, it is not realistic to expect the victim to turn around and pretend it never happened. All too often, we expect a cheap forgiveness given by the victim without allowing them to consider the circumstance and deal with their own grief and hurt first.

Real forgiveness comes from the heart and it comes with more than words. It comes with hugs and a restoration of affection for the target. It is a restoration of what was before. To make that real, the victim must be allowed to get to the point of forgiveness.

But we are required to do our best to get to that point. The call to forgiveness is not a call to dispense a quick feel-good response. It is a call for a change of heart from a righteous anger to a loving touch. Jesus did that. But He was Jesus. We are supposed to try to match that standard, but as much as Jesus was man, He was also God and God's standard is above ours and typically out of reach.

The main warning though, is against the hardness and bitterness that can come from nursing a long-time hurt. That doesn't help the person against which we hold our antogonism, but it also hurts us and prevents us from attaining the peace that God designed us to pursue and to sometimes attain.

Daily Readings, August 11, 2004

Today's readings

If you read the Bible from cover to cover and you really think about the material in there, some of it is pretty hard. The passages about social justice and selling all that you have to give to the poor are hard. And so are the posts about the angry, jealous God so often brought forth in the Old Testament.

Depending on your frame of mind, reading some of the prophecy books of the Old Testament can be positively disheartening. After all, the Isrealites were screw-ups...just like us, and God passed down upon them harsh punishment, sometimes after a seemingly small amount of chance to seek forgiveness.

This is one such example. In the first reading, God is striking down everyone who does not grieve at the abominations done by their countrymen. They didn't have to actually participate in the abomination, all they had to do is to not grieve over it.

Sometimes, we get this reading in the Old Testament, but it is balanced by the New Testament or Gospel reading. Not today.

Today, Jesus tells the disciples that they can bind peoples' sins to them on earth and they will be bound in heaven. He is saying that your brother has three chances to clean up his act, then you can shun him. He is saying that if two of you agree on something, it shall be done.

Those are scary passages, particularly in light of the Old Testament reading, which includes the order to not "look on them with pity nor show any mercy!"

If anyone is deserving of such punishment, it is I. Not currently, but in the past. I have been a stiff-necked person, and fortunately for me, I have had a lot of chances to put it right and I have finally--more or less--started to move in the right direction.

But the Old Testament tells us that those who did not were to be struck down, even if they were children!

So how do you reconcile this with Abba, Father?

I don't know how. God is not safe, but He is good. And He requires that we seek forgiveness, and then live according to our heritage as His children, or at least to do our best. I believe (and this is not a universal belief) that you can lose your salvation. I also believe that God will give you every opportunity. I mean, if He is God and nothing is impossible for Him, perhaps we even get more opportunities at the moment of death or even after.

But the key to this passage is that we just don't know. And as a result, we need to treat our salvation relatively seriously.

That is not to say the fear should be the primary motivator. For me, it was just the fact that nothing else worked. And that fact has been re-enforced year after year since I realized it. But coming to the conclusion is an important thing. It is important because, at least in my experience, a life lived seeking what God wants is a life of higher quality. It is also important because it is likely that not everyone will be there in Heaven.

But while this can be a bitter pill for a believer to swallow, it can be an absolute barrier to any additional consideration for a non-believer. That's why, at least in my opinion, you need to use such a message sparingly with non-believers.

Evangelism is marketing. You are trying to get consumers in the spiritual marketplace to buy what you are selling. And you cannot do that with threats of eternal damnation.

So while the Bible does say the things in today's readings, it might be wise not to lead when them when we address people searching for a spiritual answer.

Daily Readings, August 10, 2004

Today's Readings

Whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly. In many ways, this is a statement about stinginess and greed, and that is certainly a valid and appropriate interpretation for this reading. A couple Sundays ago, the Gospel was about a man who built a new barn so he could store away more than what he needed for himself...then died. He did not benefit from his hoarding and neither did anyone else.

But as much as this is about material things, it can also be interpreted more broadly and be more of a metaphor for how we live life. We all know people who are able to live to the fullest...who have a great attitude and are always figuring out a way to accomplish something new and fantastic. They are the ones who, when they die, have wakes filled both with sorrow, but with laughter and appreciation at what they have done in life.

They are the ones who are with you when it is hard to be and who are always willing to take on the challenges, even the though ones, when God calls them forward. They reap generously and their lives are generously adorned in return.

The Bible is pretty clear on how we are supposed to behave: we are supposed to rejoice! Rejoice in the Lord; I say it again, rejoice! This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.

It doesn't say that we should rejoice in the Lord unless we are having a crappy day. Or that this is the day that the Lord has made unless something bad happens. And the people who live to sow generously know this. They don't have to work at knowing it; they just know it.

These people do what they are supposed to without sadness or compulsion. They are cheeful givers not because they have to be, but because that is who they are. And in their giving, they receive as much as they give and more because God has graced them with the peace that exceeds all understanding.

In the Gospel reading, Jesus says something that seems to be unrelated...that unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it will not produce fruit. This is obviously a prophecy about Him. But it is also a prophecy about us.

If you think about it, what is the willingness to take on what the Lord has given to us and do so while rejoicing, if it is not dying to self? That phrase gets used a lot and it often reads like a description of Lent. I don't want to give up chocolate, but I have to because it is Lent, so similarly, I have to give up everything I like and live miserably.

Wrong! That is not rejoicing. It is not necessarily sin to have air conditioning or a second TV or high-speed internet. But you need to do the work and go through the discernment process and make sure that's what God wants for you.

The bottom line is that the Father, the Author of the universe, will honor us if we serve Him. Imagine that! Imagine God honoring us! Even better, imagine the hope and honor that we can bring to others just by being what He wants us to be.

Daily Readings, August 9, 2004

Today's Readings

There are a lot of visions of God in the Bible. Many of them, like the one in today's reading from Ezekiel, are filled with light and fury, like something out of the X-Files or Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And then some, like the time God was in the whisper, rather than the storm and tumult.

God is magnificent. He is truly beyond our ability to comprehend...too big and too multi-dimensional for us to fit in our minds. One of the reasons that there are so many arguments about God is that we tend to take our own view, which could be true, but is almost definitely not complete, and use it to discredit the views of others. The bottom line is that we just don't know. We are seeing God from around the corner, and anyone who has gone around the corner cannot come back to validate our views.

So we have a set of vague glimpses of God.

So which is He? Is He the God of special effects and dazzling light shows or the God or a quiet springtime shower in the wooded glade? Is He the God of the roaring surf or the surreal quiet of a heavy snow storm in the woods? Is He the God of love, a warm Daddy who wants us to sit in His lap or is He the angry and jealous God who demands our attention?

Maybe He is none of these things, or all of them.

When Moses gave the law to the people, one of the things he was recorded as having said is that you are supposed to talk about these things when you get up or sit down or go in or go out, in short, we are supposed to think about them and talk about them, because they are supposed to matter. And each of us will see God from our own unique position in the world. I have often thought that our vision of God will drive the type of person we become as we go through time.

A Bible teacher that I sometimes listen to is fond of quoting Aslan the lion from C. S. Lewis. Aslan is asked by one of the other characters if he is safe. "No," he answers, "but I am good."

God is not safe. But He is good. And that is a scary thing for us because we are not good. We try and maybe have good intentions, but we are also flawed, and the goodness that we seem to have a firm hold on one second, has turned to vapor by the next. So the comtemplation of God...His sheer size and goodness...ought to be intimidating. He is like nothing we have ever seen.

But in the end, when we need him, when our hearts are broken and it feels that we will explode if we go on one more step, He will be there. We may not see it at the time. We may be blinded by our anguish or worry or pain or anger, but He is there, never leaving us alone. And He loves us, as He has told us.

So maybe it doesn't matter if He is the God of special effects or the God of a whisper, as long as He is our God and we are His people.

Daily Readings, August 8, 2004

Today's Readings

I am not educated in doing this, so when I get to readings like todays', I am reluctant, because I may do harm with them rather than good.

Today's readings are a call to a radical change and to a potentially difficult and unrewarding life. Abraham trusted in God and spent the vast majority of his life thirsting for a child. He got one in the end, and then was told by God to kill him. (It should be noted that child sacrifice was a pretty common thing in those days and the real message of the sacrifice of Isaac was to not sacrifice your children.)

Both the reading from the Letter to the Hebrews and the Gospel offer a hard message, as well. Sell all your belongings, the Gospel says. I wonder why, if the Gospel is to be believed as literal truth, why certain types of believers do not take that literally.

Are we supposed to literally do that? Or is their a figurative meaning here? The reading is pretty clear about what is expected, but again, it must be taken into context. If you have children, it is not appropriate for you to sell all your goods and be destitute. For the Bible also says that someone who believes and does not provide for his family is worse than a non-believer.

But the meaning of this Gospel reading cannot be dismissed. It's kind of like Survivor. We have certain gifts and things that we are given and it is up to use to make good use of them. Sure, we can build a giant mansion and a big fence and have parties and invite all of our friends and have fun. But what is left after that? Will the Master be happy when He comes back and finds that's what we've done?

Or, we could be like Mother Theresa and denounce our worldly possessions and move to the poorest part of the poorest city and minister to the poor by being one of them. So is that what we are all supposed to do?

The easy answer would be 'Yes!', but if we did that, who would produce the goods that are used to minister with? Who would provide the jobs to help the poor not to be poor again? Who would develop the medicines that help us prevent poverty by striking down so many of the diseases that formerly caused pandemics? Who would teach our children and protect us from those who wish to do us harm?

Again, the Bible must be taken into context. In other places, it speaks of the Christian community as the body of Christ and says that the body cannot all the be same part, or it stops being the body and starts being a six-foot tall, 240 pound armpit.

Each person is born into a different situation with different gifts. We have different experiences and different approaches. And when the day of judgement comes for us, the key will be how effective a steward we have been with that situation, those gifts, those experiences, and that approach. And not all of us are expected to be Mother Theresa.

Instead, we are expected to love God and our neighbors, do our best with what we have, and try again tomorrow.

But, there is a very clear warning to put our hearts in the right places. All too often, particularly in this country, our hearts become distracted. We hunger for things. I have done so myself. I hungered for a better car, one with air conditioning, one that was not leaky around the roof...both important things in Florida. It was reasonable for me to want those things.

But, my focus should not have been on trying to figure out how I could afford them, but on the One who provides without fail. He provided without fail for 19 months of my unemployment. And within a few months of our being employed again, he provided a way for us to replace my car.

But, if our hearts are in heaven, we will remember that the car is maybe not the primary thing. Helping others through the travails is more important.

A few weeks ago, Martha was getting upset because she was doing the work while Mary was sitting with Jesus. Jesus told her that Mary had chosen the more important thing, and it would not be taken from her.

Choosing the more important thing might be hard. It takes perserverence and discipline, and above all, a lot of prayer. I haven't mastered it yet.

Daily Readings, August 7, 2004

Readings for August 7, 2004

Nothing will be impossible for you.

Then why do we have war, famine, disease, divorce, pain, abuse, people treating each other like crap, and all the garbage that we have in life?

If we take the reading at face value, it is because we don't believe and have enough faith. But that can't be right, because then the right answer would be to go out and force other people to have enough faith.

It also can't be right because there are people of tremendous faith who have all that crap going on in their lives. So why is it that we struggle so? I mean, if nothing is impossible for the chosen, elite of God, why can that be?

This reading, like the rest of the Bible has to be taken in the context of the entire work. For instance, a reading a couple weeks ago said that if you ask you will receive. Well, I asked to win the lottery, to easily and quickly lose weight on the Friendly's Ice Cream diet, and to have the Mets pummel the Braves in every meeting. I haven't won the lottery, they don't even have Friendly's Ice Cream in Tampa, and the Braves swept the Mets last weekend.

But in context, the reading said that if you ask, you will receive the Holy Spirit. It doesn't mean that God is Santa Claus and each day will be like Christmas morning. And that reading has to be used as context for this one.

Sure, nothing will be impossible, as long as it conforms to God's will. God does not seem to will that I have a vertical jump of more than a couple inches. However, if I worked at it, I probably would. I have discerned, however, that God has other things for me to work on.

That is where the prayer comes in. Jesus says in another versionof this reading that things like this happen only with prayer, and prayer is necessary to build your faith. Prayer is the key to discernment. After all, how can you discern what God wants from you unless you talk to Him?

And you also need to keep in mind that when you discern what God wants for you, it may not be what you want for yourself. Last year, I discerned that God wanted me to participate in a social justice ministry. I am politically conservative and the social justice ministry was a real stretch for me. It was agonizing at times, but I am glad that I did it, as my heart is in continual need of softening and this allowed me to have a softer heart. I didn't enjoy the process, but now that it is done, I am glad that it happened.

In a similar way, as we face struggles on a daily basis, we cannot assume that they are counter to our wishes. I wanted a softer heart. God used that ministry to help give me one. If we are serious about our wishes, then we need to accept the fact that some of the routes to achieving them will be difficult.

And if our wish is truly to do God's will, then God's will, ultimately, is that we are with Him at His home. And the route between the place where we put ourselves, and where He ultimately wants us to be is likely to include some really bumpy spots. Seriously bumpy. Life-changing bumpy. Financial problems, tests of faith, rejection, emotional struggles, all that.

Add to that the fact that stuff sometimes just happens. God is not the puppetmaster. He has given us free will and respects that free will. As a result, stuff happens. God never promises us that we will be spared the difficulties of life, just that He will be with us through all of it and that in the end, when we are home with Him, it will be worthwhile.

As trite as it may seem, that is the key. With that knowledge comes a peace that surpasses all understanding.