(transl by Ron Roth)
Our Father, who is everywhere in the universe,
your name is sacred.
Your kingdom is come among us;
your will is throughout the earth as it is
throughout the universe.
You give us our needful bread from day to day,
and you forgive us our offenses even as we
forgive our offender.
You do not let us enter into materialism,
but you separate us from error.
For yours is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the song,
from ages to ages,
sealed in faithfulness.
We all have faith in something - even people who believe there is no God have faith in something or someone. For example, I think it takes faith in the goodness of others or in others' need for self-preservation simply to drive a car. If I didn't have faith that you would stay in your lane... The question Jesus is asking, I think, is "What is your faith in?" Is your faith in your self or is your faith in someone or something else? If you answered that your faith is in God, then I think Jesus next asks us "Is you faith persistent, or does it change with the wind?" Are you willing to let go and trust in God? Are you willing to live your life demonstrating that God is in control?
One way to do this is to make prayer and discernment of God's will a priority. What is God calling you to do? Are you doing it? What gifts and graces has God given you? Are you using them to the benefit of others or saving them for yourself? Am I willing to make myself vulnerable in front of others (like the woman in the story) in order to trust in God? ...sadly, I can't always answer that last one "yes"... how about you?
Looking further at this story - I have to ask myself how consistent I am in my prayer life. If I understand, as I stated in an earlier post, that my praying is in response to God's call, then do I pray during good times and bad? Or do I pray only when things aren't as I'd like them to be? How persistent am I in developing my relationship with God?
For Jesus, faith was not a thing, but a way of living, a way of being. Persistent faith will look different for each of us because we are each different. Some of us are quiet, some of us are timid, some of us are brash... and perhaps we are a little of each and more...
In what are you placing your faith?
How is that faith lived out?
Did your mother tell you as a child “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”? I remember my mother saying that to me – especially when my brothers and I would argue and name call. But for me her words carried a larger message than just those situations…and it wasn’t just my mother. School, the church, and society all teach us that we must “be polite”, “say nice things”, “don’t start an argument”… and I find myself as an adult still trying to live by those rules.
“Turn the other cheek,” Jesus said. But when I look at his life recorded in the gospel texts I find that Jesus didn’t always turn the other cheek. He didn’t respond or lash out as I am sometimes tempted to do, but he didn’t simply ignore wrong behavior, inappropriate comments, or injustice. I think too often we take “turn the other cheek” to mean ignoring what is wrong for the sake of being “polite”. But if I am living the questions, then I am seeking, like Jesus, to transform lives (beginning with my own). And this can’t be done if we don’t find a way to speak the truth in love with one another.
After worship Sunday, a member of our congregation said to me: “When the insult, injustice, abuse is directed at me, then I can choose to ‘turn the other cheek’; I have that choice. But I hadn’t thought about when it’s directed at someone else – someone who can’t defend themselves.”
So what do I do then? What is my responsibility? And when is it my responsibility? (I can hear Jesus now – first a story followed by a question… “who was a neighbor”) What I find difficult is walking the path between never saying a word that disrupts or confronts, and always being challenging and confrontational. It’s difficult to know when to confront and when to turn the other cheek. And it is especially difficult to know how to confront in ways that encourage the other person to continue listening, ways that aren’t disrespectful – and in ways that encourage me to continue listening to them, too. But if the path I am on calls me to share my truth, then I must be open to God’s leading, sharing the words I have been given when I am called to do so.
What about you? Have you learned how to speak truth in loving ways, or do you too readily turn the other cheek? Do you find it easier to speak out for someone else, or to speak out for yourself?
In today’s passage, Jesus tells us, as he told his disciples, that he came to turn the world rightside up and show us how God intended the world to be. I really like this phrasing – Jesus came to turn the world “rightside up”. I think sometimes our view is that Jesus came to turn the world upside down – but this would mean that the world as we know it is “right” – and we know it really isn’t. God intended humanity to be one people, one tribe, one nation. But Jesus’ response to our upside down world is different than what ours tends to be. As humans, we see a problem, a system that seems upside down for example, and we seek answers so that we can “fix” it. Jesus, on the other hand, is not looking to fix things but to transform lives.
When we live seeking answers, our lives and our vision are focused on the external – focused on others’ lives or on the world – rather than upon our own lives. Seeking answers allow us to focus on finding solutions so that we can change things. When we seek first to see and to accept or understand, then we begin to learn to see the world “rightside up”, to see as God sees. We become slowly transformed – and by our transformation we become empowered to “set the world afire”. When we walk through the questions, we become aligned with Christ and filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit. Living this way, our lives – our very actions, thoughts, words, and deeds – serve to confront and to disrupt. …We disrupt by not being willing to listen to gossip. …We confront by refusing to purchase the newest car when the one we have works just fine. …We confront when we refuse to return rudeness or harsh words, responding instead with love… When we choose to live this way, we choose Christ and the way of God over the way of family, or tribe, or society – and sometimes, as Jesus said, we find we are a house divided.
The way of God, experienced in Jesus Christ, asks us to choose, and often sets humans one against the other. Do you think Jesus came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Yes, sometimes we do, at least I know I do – I want Jesus’ message to be one that is nice to hear. Anything for anyone. But the problem is that if we see Jesus as a peacemaker, then we believe that Jesus would promote peace at any cost – and so we don’t speak out against the structures and systems; our leaders and friends, and even our family. In the name of peace, we lose the Christian message of love and equality, justice and mercy, and unity.
From the Scriptures, we know that if we follow Jesus’ teachings we will be confronted. We will be confronted internally – our conscience will challenge us – and we will be confronted with one another, both with fellow Christians and with non-Christians. However, if we are to truly be followers of Jesus Christ, then we must take responsibility for our Christian walk – we must take ownership of our faith.
I used to live for peace at any cost. For a long time I confused the peace of Christ with an image of Jesus as peacemaker. I have learned through the years that peace is not the absence of conflict. Peace is having within you a central core of stillness despite the chaos that is swirling around you. And for me, that central core, that centeredness, comes from my connectedness to God through Jesus Christ. Jesus promised us peace if we would trust in him – he did not ask us to become peacemakers seeking peace at all costs. I have learned the call of Christ is to live the truth we understand. So, although I don’t regularly seek out conflict, I work harder at speaking my words of truth even when I know they might confront or disturb or create conflict; I work harder at not sitting quietly just to keep things nice…
Where, in your life, are you staying comfortable when Jesus calls you to confront? …Where is God calling you to live the questions of Christ more deeply?
Ask…Seek…Knock… It sounds so easy, but I don’t always find it to be so. What do we ask for? Do we ask for the little things, or is that pestering God too much? Do we ask for the big things, or does that seem too presumptuous?
I think perhaps these are the wrong questions. Instead, I want to ask “why?” Why do we ask? Eugene Peterson (Working with Angles) reminds us that when we pray we are not the initiators. Prayer begins for us with the call of Christ – the call of Jesus on our hearts and in our lives. When I remember this, I understand that prayer is not a tool but a channel for entering into the sacred Mystery.
I don’t (or at least I’m not supposed to) pray in order to “get” something from God. I pray out of response to God’s love showered upon me and my yearning to commune with the God of Love. My faith is not in prayer; my faith is in God. That may seem obvious, but do we live as if our faith is in prayer or in God?
I believe that we are interconnected with others – all others. When I pray for someone else, I open a channel for the Divine Spirit to touch human spirits. When we pray, something happens at this deepest interconnected level – where our lives are like wicks dipped into the same bowl of oil. Through this unseen channel, love and grace flow from one to another. When I pray, I allow myself to become sensitized to God’s caring heart. That means that the more I pray for myself, a person or a situation, the more I begin to understand about me/them/situations…
In short, we don’t initiate prayer; God calls us. And God calls us into prayer to come to know God, to come to know ourselves, to grow in Spirit, and to move with love into the world. …Ask…Seek…Knock… God is already calling you to come, won’t God give you the Holy Spirit when you ask?
Jesus said, "If the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal." But I know that if I truly understand the sin I commit, then I must understand that the forgiveness God offers is not "minimal." I stand unholy before a holy God - a God of love and grace who forgives all my sin. How could I ever regard this as "minimal"?
So if it isn't minimal, then why don't I respond with extravagance or exuberant gratefulness? If Jesus were to come to Jacksonville tomorrow, would I respond like the woman in this story? Could I? Could you?
So, instead of presenting the passages that I found meaningful, I present to you my trouble spots.
Luke 7:47: If the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal.
From Mere Spirituality, by Mike Yaconelli: "Messy spirituality is a good term for the place where desperation meets Jesus.... 'Church people' often label 'desperate people' as strange and unbalanced.... People who are desperate for spirituality very seldom worry about the mess they make on their way to be with Jesus."
From Between Noon and Three, by Robert Farrar Capon: "Whenever someone attempts to introduce a radically different insight to people whose minds have been formed by an old and well-worked-out way of thinking, he or she is up against an obstacle. As Jesus said, their taste for the old wine is so well established that they invariably prefer it to the new.... 'precluding the conversion of species in an argument' will do for a name for this teaching technique that Jesus uses in healing on the Sabbath, and that I have used in presenting you with grace in the context of an adultery.... they (the Pharisees) would have envisioned Jesus as the kind of Messiah they were ready for (a victorious and immortal one) and not as the kind he knew himself to be (a suffering and dying one)."
From The Wild Man's Journey, by Richard Rohr and Joseph Martos: "There are two ways of being a prophet. One is to tell the enslaved they can be free. It is the difficult path of Moses. The second is to tell those who think they are free that they are in fact enslaved. This is the even more difficult path of Jesus."
…If I am to answer this question honestly, I’d have to say “yes”, “Yes, I sometimes do expect a pat on the back for loving the loveable.” I mean, when we do things well – if we are especially kind, loving, generous, and gracious – isn’t there within us a hope that what we do will be noticed? Does it matter that it was “easy” to help, share, give? The challenge, for me at least, is to respond with love regardless of the situation – to respond with love and a gentle word to the person who is rude to me in the store… to respond with love and a prayer for safety for the person who cuts me off in traffic… to respond with love and compassion to the person who seeks to harm me or my family… What does this kind of love look like? and How do I live it?
Today’s scripture says it is a generous love, a grace-full love – the same kind of love that God showers upon me. I think the difficulty begins with our categorizing everyone. Now this isn’t always a bad thing – for example, categorizing helps us remember people we’ve met, helps us remember things about them. But often we carry this categorizing business too far and categorize people as worthy or unworthy, loveable or unloveable. If someone does or says the right thing – “right” being whatever I agree with, of course – then I find it’s easier to be kind and generous… God doesn’t ask that we believe a certain way before God loves us – God simply loves… The difficulty, I believe, is that we live in a place between the world we see each day – the world of hurt and cruelty and abuse – and the World of God that is not as easy to see with our eyes – the world where we are called to respond to one another with the grace and love of God. It is God’s love for each person that gives them value, makes them loveable – yes, even me. So how can I find others loveable? …By seeking to see them through the eyes of Jesus…
In my humanity, I am humbled by the love of Jesus Christ – by the way he loved each person as they needed to be loved… so in faith I seek once again to live the question, “How is God calling me to love this person?”…
From the book Living the Questions in Luke, I have pulled the passages that lept off of the page. Someone else reading the same material will find other passages more meaningful. I hope you share them with us.
From the scripture: "Polularity contests are not truth contests .... Your task is to be true, not popular.... Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! ....Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back -- given back with bonus and blessing."
In this lesson from Living the Questions in Luke, the authors quote from In the Presence of Fear, by Wendell Berry. Berry's words were written after September 11, 2001: "The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, neither by job-training nor by industrial-subsidized research. Its proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or "accessing" what we now call "information" -- which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first."
The authors also present a passage from The Clown in the Belfry, By Frederick Buechner. Here, Buechner quotes the author Henry James giving advice to his young nephew:
"'There are three things that are important in human life. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.'"
Buechner continues:
"Be kind because although kindness is not by a long shot that same thing as holiness, kindness is one of the doors that holiness enters the world through, enters us through -- not just gently kind but sometimes fiercely kind....
Be kind enough to others to listen, beneath all the words they speak, for that usually unspoken hunger for holiness which I believe is part of even the unlikeliest of us because by listening to it and cherishing it maybe we can help bring it to birth both in them and in ourselves."
I wonder how often I approach life and faith believing “only God” can do a certain thing? …or believing “God wouldn’t/couldn’t” – like, God wouldn’t heal…? We want miracles to happen but we don’t expect them to. How often, like the Pharisees, do I decide for God what God will and won’t do…? When I do this, I know I am making God after my own image thinking God sees justice and right/wrong the same way I do. When I do this, putting God in my box, it sure makes me more comfortable… but it limits the Spirit of God working through me. How often do I bypass “bold belief” and settle instead for the limits I’m comfortable with? …Which is simpler? Which is Christ calling me to live?
I wonder, also, when Jesus said to me “come along with me”, did I “walk away from everything” to follow Jesus as Levi did? On this journey of faith, am I following Christ with the best that I have to offer, or am I settling for doing or being “good enough”? To answer honestly is to confess that too often I offer God comfort-faith not bold-belief. And I know that means that instead of walking this journey with God – dependent upon God and allowing God to lead – in those times of “comfort-faith” I am asking God to walk with me, to let me dictate the path… God calls all of us to live not out of a sense of scarcity, but to live in the abundance of God’s love – so how do I move from comfort-faith to living bold-belief? …Which is simpler? Which is Christ calling me to live?
What do you think? In what ways did this passage of Scripture speak to you?
The study series that we are using during Lent this year uses The Message translation of the Bible. If you don’t have a copy, you can read the passage each week at http://www.biblegateway.com/ On that site, you can type in the Bible verse or verses and select the translation you wish to use. It is sometimes helpful to read familiar passages in new words to see deeper meaning, so I encourage you to read The Message version as we journey together seeking to deepen our relationship with God.
