Daily Lesson for June 5, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Luke 10 verses 17 through 20:

17 The seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’ 18He said to them, ‘I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 19See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. 20Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’

Reinhold Niebuhr once wrote on this Scripture that Jesus’ admonition to the disciples was a warning about being too taken by the joy of success.  Niebuhr said Jesus was telling his disciples not to rejoice in success, but to rejoice rather in faithfulness. 

The church has made a god of so-called success. And it’s measured usually by the “Three Bs — Baptisms, Budgets, and Buildings”. Sad. 

But this Lesson isn’t a warning against crass metrics. This is actually a warning against pinning too much hope to even more noble success. “Rejoice not that the spirits submit to you,” means do not be too sanguine about your ability change things for good, to drive out darkness, to cast out evil, and fell Satan. “Rejoice not in these things . . . but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

By all worldly measures on Good Friday the ministry and mission of Jesus was an utter failure. His friends and followers had all abandoned him, his calls to God were unanswered, Pontius Pilate was still governor, Caiaphas still high priest, and Caesar still emperor.  And yet it was also the day when the name before all names was written in the holy book of heaven. 

So maybe our understanding of success has to be altered. Or maybe we have to give up our love affair with success altogether. Maybe we aren’t called so much to be successful as we are to be faithful.

I am reminded of the protestor, standing alone on a street corner with a placard in his hands calling for the end to the madness of war. He was confronted by a scoffing driver, "Do you think you can really change the politicians and generals?" He replied, "I'm not doing this to change the politicians and generals; I’m doing this so they won’t change me."

That’s something to think real hard on today as we’re about the business of casting out demons and trying to bring the kingdom come . . .