Daily Lesson for April 30, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Exodus chapter 16 verse 4:

"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.'"

When the LORD brought the Israelites out of Egypt He had to teach them how to think and live as free people. For 400 years they had lived in a state of absolute dependency upon the provision of Pharaoh.  They had to relearn dependence.  They had to learn to depend upon God, rather than Pharaoh.

God's intention was to not only make them free in body, but also free in mind.  To be free in mind they had to learn to be free from the worries and anxieties that lead to overwork, hoarding, and ultimately the breakup of the family, and the destruction of community.  Pharaoh's apparatus of control rested on fears of scarcity, deprivation and punishment.  That kept people working themselves to death.  God's vision for the Israelites was an economy based trust in God's abundant provision, the dignity of work, the dignity of the worker, and rest.

Here are some principles in God's economy:

1. Work is inherently dignified, good, and necessary for all able families in order to avoid laziness and self-loathing.
2. Enough really is enough, but too much never is.
3. Overwork really is a sin.
4. A day of Sabbath was commanded us so we might not be slaves to our work.  And I presume that means church work also.

In this same chapter in the book of Exodus, Moses tells the Israelites that at evening they would know it was the LORD who provided for them that day and in the morning they would behold His glory in the meat and bread He would put on their table.  

That's pretty much an everyday thing in God's economy.

The Church Must Love the Racist

With the verdict in on Donald Sterling, I thought of Baptist prophet, civil rights icon, and KKK lover Will Campbell's quote:

 "I have seen and known the resentment of the racist, his hostility, his frustration, his need for someone upon whom to lay blame and to punish. With the same love that we are commanded to shower upon the innocent victim, the church must love the racist."

Daily Lesson for April 29, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from John 14 verse 23:

"Jesus answered him, 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.'

Not very long ago, I was talking with a friend who is taking the first spiritual steps toward new life. He has been an addict for years and his life has all the wounds to show for it. Using has cost him more than he even knows.

He called wanting help with step 3 in the 12 steps. It is the step where one turns one's self and will completely over to God. My friend called me because he said he was having trouble. He said he just wasn't "feeling it". 

 The "it" my friend wasn't I supposed to be God, or perhaps some perverted sense of God. I spoke honestly with my friend and told him that I really didn't think God was all that interested in him "feeling it" right now. For one thing, I told him his feelings are out of whack. After years of using, how would he know if and what he's feeling? But on an even deeper level, I told my friend that maybe God isn't interested in him "feeling it" because that's exactly what he's been chasing after all his life - a feeling, a high, some ecstatic, spiritual experience.

I told my friend was I didn't think God was going to let him "feel it" - not now anyway. What I think is that right now God is not even there to be felt. God has left my friend's body; God has not left my friend, but God has left my friend's body. And what God is waiting on is for my friend to make a decision to act, not on a feeling or the hope for one, but rather to act out of sheer obedience to God's command. It is then, and only then, that God will come back into my friend's body and perhaps give him something of a spiritual experience.

This is all clear in today's Lesson from Jesus. Jesus teaches that it is only after the act of obedience - after obedience to the Word - that God the Father then comes back to live inside of us. The Temple must be cleansed, before the glory of God comes to dwell. Until then, God may be with us, but God refuses to come inside us so that we can "feel it".

And what does obedience to the Word look like? Well, I told my friend it looks like this for him. "Here is where you will find the spiritual experience you are looking for," I said. "Do what your sponsor says. Period. Don't go where trouble can find you. Stay clean and sober - today. That's it." 

"That's it?" he asked.

"That's it," I said. "That's the spiritual experience you are looking for."

When we hung up the phone he sounded surprised, but not altogether disappointed.

Daily Lesson for April 28, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from John 14 verses 6 and 7:

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.4 From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

There are many ideas about God - who God is, what God is like, and what God has done. There are ideas about God which say He is like a clock maker who wound up the world and then let it go completely on its own. There are other ideas about God which say He is an angry and vengeful God - a God full of rage, wrath, and destruction.

I listen to Jesus. Jesus says if you want to know what God is like then look at Him - Jesus. Jesus said that not in an arrogant way, but rather in the context of the last supper on His last night. He had just washed his friends feet. Get that, the master bent down and washed His disciples' feet. And He had also just taken bread and broken it, saying, "This is my body - broken for you," and taken a cup of wine, saying, "This is my blood - shed for you." It was just after that that Jesus told his disciples that they knew what God was like, for they had seen Him. It was Jesus' way of saying God looks like service and self-sacrifice.

The Bible says Jesus was "the image of the invisible God." That means that if you want to know what God is like then look to Jesus. Look at His heart, look at His compassion, look at His service and self-sacrifice. If your God does not look like these things then you have taken a false image. 

Elton Trueblood used to say, the really radical thing is not that Jesus was like God, but rather that God is like Jesus. Think about what that means.

Daily Lesson for April 25, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Psalm 118 verses 22 and 23:
 

"22 The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone.

23 This is the Lord's doing;

it is marvelous in our eyes."

In her book The Whisper Test, Mary Ann Bird tells of the day that changed her life. Mary Ann was born with multiple birth defects: deaf in one ear, a cleft palate, a disfigured face, a crooked nose, lopsided feet. As a child, Mary Ann suffered not only from these physical deformities but also from the emotional damage other children inflicted upon her with their cruel insults. “Oh, Mary Ann,” her classmates would say, “what happened to your lip?”

“I cut it on a piece of glass,” she would lie.

One of the most dreaded experiences at school for Mary Ann was the annual hearing test. The teacher would call each child to her desk, and the child would cover their ears one at a time. The teacher then whispered something to the child like “The sky is blue” or “You have new shoes.” Thus, "the whisper test”; if what the teacher said was heard and repeated by the child, the child passed. In order to avoid the humiliation of failure, Mary Ann figured out a way to cheat on the test, cupping her hand over her one good ear so that she was able to make out what the teacher said.

One year Mary Ann was in the class of Miss Leonard, one of the most beloved and popular teachers in the school. All the students, including Mary Ann, wanted to be noticed by Ms. Leonard. That year, on the day of the dreaded hearing test, Mary Ann took her turn at Ms. Leonard's desk. Mary Ann cupped her hand over her good ear and waited for Ms. Leonard's whisper. “I waited for those words,” Mary Ann wrote, “that God must have put into her mouth, those seven words that changed my life.” Ms. Leonard did not say to Mary Ann, “The sky is blue” or “You have new shoes.” What she whispered was, “I wish you were my little girl.”

Psalm 118 says, "The stone the builders rejected had become the cornerstone." It's the Bible's way of saying that the Mary Ann Birds of this world, rejected and ridiculed, have been chosen by God's little girls.

And it is marvelous in our eyes - and ears!

Daily Lesson for April 24, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Matthew 28 verses 17 through 19:

"17 And when they saw him they worshipped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations . . ."

On Easter Sunday we had a full house of people in church, many of whom I did not know. What I did know, however, is that there were some there who doubted. They were there on Easter Sunday, but they did not believe this whole tale about Resurrection. That's how it always is Easter Sunday. People there for whatever reason, but doubting. I knew that. And so I decided to share this story.

After Jesus arose from the tomb that first Easter morning, Jesus came and appeared to the disciples in Galilee. The Bible says they worshiped Him, but some doubted. I read that and chuckle, it was the same mix of people who are always there at Easter.

What's interesting about the story is that Jesus does not scold those who doubt. He doesn't say, "I can't believe you see me face to face here, yet still doubt." He does not shame them for their unbelief. What He says to them instead, is, "Go and make disciples."

We think that seeing is believing. And maybe it was for some of those disciples. But seeing was not believing for all of them. And even if the risen Jesus were to appear to us in flesh and in blood today, there are some of us who would still have doubts also. We would think we saw an apparition or were dreaming or something. But what the story is trying to tell us is that while seeing is not always believing, going is.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once reflected on faith, doubt, and obedience. He said that though we may be full of doubt, it is the act of obedience - saying yes to the summons of the Word of God on our lives - that in fact liberates us to be able to believe. In other words, we come to believe by first going.

The life of faith is not certainty. As the book of Hebrews says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for - yet unseen." For those first doubting disciples, the proof of the resurrection was not in Jesus appearing to them in flesh and in blood. Rather, proof came when they went out and started making disciples. Yes, they doubted at first; yet they went. And in going out and teaching others to follow in the way of Jesus' life - by seeking to live out what He stood for and inviting others to do the same - those doubting disciples discovered, lo and behold, that Jesus was indeed risen and that He had authority in this world - authority to change hearts, and minds and bring down powers and lift up lowly people - and that He had given that authority to them also. Wow.

And that's the same way we doubters still discover that He is indeed risen today also. We hear the summons of God on our lives and we go. And we find that going really is believing. 

That'll preach.

Daily Lesson for April 23, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians chapter 15:

"32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'"

I want to talk today about the Resurrection. Sometimes we miss out the deep and most profound implications of the Resurrection and settle for only part of its meaning.

When we think of the hope of Resurrection we probably usually think of the hope we have to see and be reunited with loved ones who have passed away. Perhaps some of us, more conscious of the injustices of the world, also think of the Resurrection as the time to come when God shall right all wrongs.

These are not incorrect ideas about the Resurrection. They are indeed true and part of our deepest hope. Yet, by deferring all the meaning of the Resurrection into the age to come, we miss out on what it means for us here and now.

When Paul and the other Apostles saw that Jesus had been risen from the dead they did not see it and say, "Great, I can't wait to get to heaven when I can finally be with grandma." In other words, they did not defer the meaning of the resurrection to God's kingdom in some other unforeseen time and place called heaven. No, what they saw in the Resurrection instead gave them the hope, courage, and driving force to begin working toward bringing God's kingdom "on earth just as it is in heaven."

The Resurrection empowered Paul and the other Apostles to change the world as they knew it. The Resurrection fueled their drive to begin leveling distinctions between slaves and free people, Jew and Gentile, male and female. Because of the Resurrection the Apostles sought peace and pursued it. They stood in the market square and demanded justice. They spoke boldly in the marketplace and in the courtroom. And for these things they left comfortable lives, left mothers and fathers and houses and fields, set sail for distant lands, got themselves in hot water with the authorities, were arrested - over and over again - were made to wrestle wild beasts, and were many times martyred. They were accused of "turning the world upside down". What they were doing was turning it right side up.

When Jesus appeared to the Apostles, crucified, dead, buried, but raised up, it was vindication. God had raised Jesus because He really was the way, the truth and the life and His dreams for this world were God's dreams. When the Apostles saw Jesus alive again, it gave them the courage to go out their and start making that dream a reality.

Karl Marx critiqued religion saying it is the "opiate of the masses" - something designed by the bourgeoise to control the lower, oppressed social classes. The idea is that the master essentially invented religion to say to his slave, "You wait till heaven, and everything will be better then."

Let me tell you, that is not the Resurrection of Jesus Christ or His Church. 

Don't let it be yours.