Daily Lesson for April 2, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Mark 8 verses 23-25

23 And [Jesus] took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” 24 And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” 25 Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 

The Gospel of Mark is a surprisingly rich and complex story, with several subtle, yet persistent themes woven into the narrative. One of the primary themes in the book of Mark is blindness: namely the spiritual blindness of Jesus' own followers.

In the book of Mark there is something scholars call a "Markan sandwich" - it is a set of two similar stories which bookend other related stories, all put together to illustrate the same theme. Today's Lesson is the first piece of bread which precedes several stories of the disciples misunderstanding and even taking exception to Jesus' teachings and is then "sandwiched" by another story of Jesus healing a blind man in chapter 10. Mark's point throughout the section is to illustrate the disciples' need for clearer vision of what Jesus is about. They recognize he is messiah; but they think the messiah will come using might and power to establish God's kingdom. They do not understand the cross - the way of redemption which will come through suffering and shame. In other words, they do not see.

In today's lesson Jesus heals a man from the small town of Bethsaida - the same village where Peter and other major disciples are from. Jesus takes the man out of his village, symbolizing the necessity of the disciples to be taken out of their parochial, homeland thinking in order to see Jesus' mission with more global perspective. Jesus heals the man, yet his vision is only partially restored. Further healing is necessary. This foreshadows the next scene in Mark's Gospel when Jesus has a conversation with Peter - the man from Bethsaida - wherein Peter declares rightly that Jesus is messiah, yet then disagrees vehemently with Jesus when Jesus begins to teach that he must go to the cross and suffer before being raised in three days. Peter sees, but only partly.

Like Peter, I see Jesus as clearly a man from God.  Yet I struggle with the way of the cross - the way of selflessness, service, humility, pain, brokenness, loss, and death.  I struggle to see how this way can be the way of redemption.

In other words, I see people in my mind - Jesus and Peter and the other disciples, even me and my church - and they look like trees walking. But it's hard to make out that they're actually people carrying crosses. And when I do finally see it, I pretend to not see because it terrifies me what it might cost.

Daily Lesson for April 1, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Genesis chapter 50:

"Then Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him. 2 And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel. 3 Forty days were required for it, for that is how many are required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days."

Awhile back I was talking with a dear friend who lost his wife to cancer sometime ago. He said one of the most difficult things for him to deal with is the ways in which even some of his closest friends seem to so often forget that he is still in grief. He sees them at church and they say, "How are you?" in passing. "How am I?" he said he wondered, "I'm barely here, but I'm not going to tell you that in the church parlor over punch and cookies." Or they'll call and ask him to be on a committee without even mentioning his loss. "It's like the whole world has gone on, but I'm still stuck where I was."

The ancients knew that grief and mourning are hard work. They knew the processes of grief and mourning take time - months and sometimes even years. And they knew that the community's long-term support was an important part of helping the bereaved.

Do you know someone who lost someone dear a year or so ago? Chances are they are still mourning. Pray for them now; and then call them and let them know you're thinking of and praying for them.

I can't tell you how much your call will mean.

Daily Lesson for March 31, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Mark 7:

" 25 But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of [Jesus] and came and fell down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” 28 But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.”

This past weekend our church hosted a family conference and I attended two parenting sessions presented by educators from around the city. In each session the educators talked about what it means for a parent to be a good advocate for their children in the school system. They each said parenting means knowing your child's rights and sticking up for those rights, but also knowing that no one is perfect - neither the teachers not the administrators nor even your kids. 

Today's lesson is a great example of a woman being a good advocate for her child. First off, the child has a demon (imagine being her teacher) and her mother recognizes this. The mother is not in denial about the well being of her child. Nor is she too busy too or lazy to care. She is proactive. She has heard there is a Jewish man who can do something to help has come into her foreign city and so she goes to find him.

And here is where things get interesting. When the mother finds Jesus, Jesus says something I struggle with; it is something racially and ethnically charged. People in Jesus' day would sometimes call people of other races "dogs". It was an ugly and pejorative term and there were many proverbial sayings that included it - just as there are many proverbial sayings today which speak uglily of other races and cultures. "It is not right to take the food that belongs to the children and give it to the dogs," Jesus said.

Why did Jesus say this? It seems so very un-Jesus. Apparently, he was trying to make the point that he had not come to do ministry with foreigners - not yet anyway, not until his ministry was brought to his own Jewish people first. But did he not know how ugly it is to call someone a dog? Was he just kidding? Was he a racist? These questions trouble me.

But apparently they trouble me more than they troubled the mother. Instead of taking offense at Jesus' words, she actually uses them to her advantage. "Yes," she says, "we may be dogs - but even dogs get the scraps which belong to their master's table."

I love that. She is the perfect advocate for her child. Honest about her child's imperfections. Involved. Gracious toward others - even to the point of be willing to suffer a slight indignity. And absolutely aware of her rights as a parent and those of her baby.

We need more parents like her.

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Sight for World Vision

On Monday many of us in the evangelical Christian world were surprised to hear that World Vision had decided to change its policy and allow the hiring of persons in same-sex marriages.  After reading World Vision U.S. president Richard Stearns's explanation of the reason behind the policy change, I was personally gladdened by World Vision's honest acknowledgement that there are faithful Christians on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate.  Stearns said the decision came as a carefully-considered response to the growing number of Christian denominations and churches and individuals now recognizing same-sex marriage.  His reasoning reminded me of the old church maxim, In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas meaning, "In necessary things unity, in doubtful things freedom, and in all things love."  The World Vision decision seemed to me to be an appropriate step toward freedom in what is no-doubt an uneasy, and many would argue, increasingly unsettled, issue.  Needless to say, I was taken aback on Wednesday when I read that World Vision had reversed its decision due to intense pushback from Christian conservatives.

It was obvious from Monday's policy change announcement forward that World Vision would be in a storm.  Facebook lit up with reactions from conservative critics and counter-reactions from liberal Christians alike.  In a strangely ironic twist both sides were using the same points to argue for opposite outcomes.  Presuming many evangelical Christians would begin pulling their sponsorship dollars, conservatives asked why World Vision would risk the lives it serves in the developing world?  Presuming the conservatives were right about the sponsorship dollars being pulled, progressives asked why the conservatives would do the same thing.  Both groups marshalled the authority of Scriptures - one pointing to the Bible's injunctions against homosexuality, and the other to its commandments to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, and clothe the naked.  In the end, the conservatives won out - speedily.

Even those most committed to the full inclusion of gays in society and in church would have a hard time faulting World Vision for its waffling.  When I first saw that World Vision had backtracked on its policy change I thought of Henlee Barnette, who was professor of Christian ethics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary during the height of the civil rights movement.  Barnette had a standard reply for those who said his invitation to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak on Southern's campus had cost the seminary hundreds of thousands of dollars.  "Money well spent," he said.  There could be no Henlee Barnette among the World Vision ranks.  No one would have said "money well spent" had the organization gone through with its policy change and large numbers of conservative Christians withdrew their donations.  The real threat of loss of money resulting in the loss of life would be enough to make World Vision reconsider - and the rest of us to understand.

But in the end I don't think it was ultimately money that decided the matter.  It was not so much the threat of economic boycott that resulted in the World Vision retraction, but rather the ongoing theological uncertainty over human sexuality more generally.  Within Christianity itself, there is now a deep ambivalence about how we are to treat gays, lesbians, and transgendered persons.  We as a church have come a long way toward recognizing and respecting the human dignity of sexual minorities and doing so has now created a great divide within Western Christianity - not so much between conservatives and liberals, but within the soul of people in both camps - which is seen to pit necessariis unitas and dubiis libertas against one another.  The policy change and the policy change change (I'm underscoring the double-mindedness of the week) each happened as a result of the tremendous pressures now pulling at the heart of not only World Vision, but also North American Christianity as a whole, and many individual Christians within their very selves.  We have sought to be in all things and ways loving and that has created a tension within us about what is absolutely fundamental about Christian conviction and what is up to individual conscience.

Stearns is a case in point.  On Monday he announced the World Vision decision and couched it in the same context as other issues such as divorce and the ordination of women, which individual churches are divided on.  Stearns said World Vision would approach same-sex marriage as it does these other matters - by allowing its hiring policies to be reflective of the broad constituency of Christians who make up World Vision.  The change was to be "symbolic not of compromise but of [Christian] unity."  This was one theological place - the place of dubiis libertas.  But then on Wednesday when Stearns announced the reversal he spoke from a very different theological place - the place of necessariis unitas.  "What we are affirming today is there are certain beliefs that are so core to our Trinitarian faith that we must take a strong stand on those beliefs," Stearns said.  "We cannot defer to a small minority of churches and denominations that have taken a different position."

Stearns spoke accurately when he said the majority of Christians do not support gay marriage.  Nevertheless, the context of the week's events contradicted his broader point.  World Vision had already deferred to the minority of Christians and did so, as Stearns himself said on Monday, not as an act of compromise on a matter of doctrinal essentiality, but rather as recognition of the good faith of the many (there are are still many in the minority) Christians who have come to see gays in a new and different light.

I use the words "see" and "light "intentionality as this coming Sunday's Gospel lesson in the Revised Common Lectionary is the story of a man born blind in Jerusalem whom Jesus gives new eyes.  Jesus' disciples see his blindness as a condition resulting from his own sins or that of some other person.  But Jesus sees it otherwise.  Jesus sees it as an opportunity for the works of God to be revealed through the man.  Jesus heals the man and for the first time in his life he sees light.  But the Pharisees are not happy when the learn of this.  This healing did not take place according to the dictates of their sanctions and did not conform to their understanding of the world.  They do not believe God could be revealed through the life of such a "sinner" and so they throw the man out of the Temple.  Jesus then defends the man, saying that this is why he - Jesus - came into the world, "For judgement, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."  Indignant, the Pharisees then say, "What?  Are we blind?"  To which Jesus responds, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains."

By now anyone reading this will probably expect me to draw a parallel between the blind man and our gay brothers and sisters.  And indeed, one can be made.  Like the blind man, our gay brothers and sisters are born different and have that difference attributed to moral sin and are therefore barred from participation in the religious institutions.  But it is not really gays that I am thinking of as those who are represented in the story of the blind man.  Rather, it is that "small minority of churches and denominations" Stearns spoke of on Wednesday  - those who have come to see things in a new light, and for that have now been told they do not toe the orthodox line well enough - who are best represented by the blind man.  And it is the authoritarian Christians - those who demand that their own understanding of the orthodox line must be toed - who in my understanding are best represented by the Pharisees.  It seems to me, what Jesus said to the Pharisees that day in Jerusalem is a good and cautionary word for all us still 2,000 years later.  It is a word about humility - a reminder that what we know to be true might turn out not be the true at all when greater light is revealed.  And the only real way to escape judgement is to admit that we may be wrong.  "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains."

We see through a glass darkly and from different angles.  We need to admit that.  There is probably a much greater need for dubiis libertas within Christianity than we might be comfortable with.  Yet, beyond what we see differently, we still share necessariis unitas in the heart of our faith - more so than some would have us believe.  There are many faithful, Trinitarian Christians on both sides of the gay marriage issue.  And what Lincoln said about the two sides of the debate over slavery and the Civil War in the 19th century, is well said of our own battles today - one side must surely be wrong; and both sides may be wrong.  Because we may both be wrong, the true necessariis unitas of the Christian faith is not to stand on being right, but rather to confess we are blind and in need of God's vision.

May that kind of vision come to World Vision and to each of our own eyes as well.

Daily Lesson for March 28, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Mark 6:

"47 And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. 48 And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea."

After feeding the 5,000 Jesus sent his disciples in the boat ahead of him to a place called the other side of the Sea of Galilee. He stayed behind to dismiss the crowd and then pray alone.

But the disciples had a hard time getting making it across the lake to Bethsaida. An adverse wind rose up and drove their little fishing boat in the wrong direction. The disciples strained at the oars all night but could not regain their coarse.

Then Jesus came to them. The Bible says he had intended to pass them by and meet them on the other side in Bethsaida, but seeing that the disciples would not make it to Bethsaida, he came to them late in the night, walking on the water, saying unto them, "It is I; be not afraid."

Many of us feel like we are constantly struggling against an adverse wind. We set out for one destination but the winds kicked up and blew our career or our business or our church completely off course. Where we are is not where we hoped to be - not by this time in our lives anyway. We have floundered too long and at some point it becomes clear that we will never make it to the other side.

The good news about this story is that this is the exact point where Jesus comes to us. He comes walking to meet us not where we set out for but where we are - floundering and off course and very, very late. He comes to us saying, "It is I. I am here with you. Right here with you. Do not fear."

Suddenly the tension is released. The disciples anxieties are eased and so is the reader's. everyone expects the next verse to say something like, "And then they came ashore at Bethsaida." But it doesn't. Instead it says, "Then they came ashore at a place called Gennesaret."

I love that part. They don't make it to Bethsaida - not now anyway. They don't make it to where they were going. They couldn't make. But in the end it doesn't matter because Jesus has come to them and is with them, right where they are. And coming to Genneseret, the Bible says they moored their boat and stepped ashore - not consumed with where they didn't land, but ready to make the most of where they did.

Daily Lesson for March 27, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Mark 6 verse 38:

"And he said to them, 'How many loaves do you have? Go and see.'"

The Feeding of the 5,000.

On one level this is the story of what Jesus the miracle chef can cook up with next to nothing. But to read it that way, to make it all about what Jesus can do with nothing is to miss the deeper and more piercing point the story is trying to make - that Jesus can do a little with a little, but it has to be our little that he does it with.

There is a multitude of people - 5,000 according to the scriptures, and that wasn't even counting women and children some traditions say. They are hungry and the hour is late and the disciples fear the crowd will become agitated and perhaps even riot. So the disciples ask Jesus to dismiss the crowd so the people can go and buy food before its too late. But Jesus says to them, "You give them something to eat.” The disciples are incredulous. Twelve guys foot the bill for 5,000 people? "Where are we to get the money to buy food for a crowd this large?" they ask. And then Jesus asks the question of them he also asks of us, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.”

Do you see what is going on? The disciples see scarcity while Jesus sees abundance. The disciples are asking about buying and Jesus is asking about giving. The disciples are thinking about the people's need to fend for themselves, but Jesus is thinking of the disciples need to share with others. In other words, the disciples think about what should be hoarded for personal consumption in a world of scarcity, but Jesus sees what can be taken and blessed and broken and given in order to turn that world of scarcity into a world of abundance.

It's a miracle story indeed. But it's a miracle story with a sharp and piercing edge. It's not just about the 5,000, it's also about the 12. And it's also about you and me and what God can do through us when we have the courage to think of the common good and not just our own.

So, how many loaves do you have? Go and see.

Daily Lesson for March 25, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Psalm 81:

"11 “But my people did not listen to my voice;

Israel would not submit to me.

12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,

to follow their own counsels."

I have a friend who is the father of a teenage boy. The other day we were talking about parenting and to what degree we need to give our kids freedom to make their own choices - even the wrong choices. Then he used a metaphor that I thought was pretty good. He said that at this point in life, "I am no longer a manager. I am now primarily a consultant."

Psalm 81 tells us basically the same thing about God. It starts off by talking about how God intervened in Egypt to rescue the Israelites from the yoke of Pharaoh, and how God brought them into the wilderness to be tested by hunger and by thirst so they would learn obedience. Then God brought them into the Promised Land.

But then God got out of the management business. He let go; and He let the people make their own choices and go their own way - even though the choices were not always good and more often than not the way was wrong. Nevertheless, God was not interested in micro managing. It was for the sake of freedom that God set the Israelites free; and once they were free God decided that they and He would have to live with the consequences of that freedom.

So how about you? What are you doing with your freedom? Is your life working the way you are living it? If it's not working and you're hoping management might step in and change a bunch of things to make it better don't count on it. If your looking for a manager so you can complain then you're pretty much out of luck also. The life you are living now really can't be blamed on anyone beside you; and if changes are going to be made then you have to decide to make them. God is not going to do anything for you that you can't do for yourself - that's just part of the whole freedom deal. As we have often heard, with freedom comes responsibility.

This is a hard truth, but one we must all come to terms with. Most of us grew up with a juvenile image of a slot machine God - a God of whom you asked and He delivered. We have to grow out of that image, we have to learn that God is not the great slot machine, fixer, or rescuer. God is not even a great miracle worker - at least not when anything less than a miracle will do and should be done. What God is is a faithful friend, companion, and voice of wisdom, and encourager, and empowerer, who gently calls us back into the right way when we go astray and gives us the courage and ability to come back under our own power. But He will not, He cannot, force us not to go astray, nor will He force us to come back if without our consent. That would defeat the whole purpose of our freedom.

God stopped being a manager in our lives a long time ago; but He is still available for consultation whenever we might need Him, which is pretty much every day - and He doesn't charge a thing.