Lamentations

Do you want to drive home the crucifixion?  Do you dare to spend a moment on the cross with Jesus?  Then read through Lamentations but every line that refers to Israel, Judah or the people of God, change to Jesus.

"[You] sit on the ground,

    [Jesus is] silent.

[You] cast dust on [your] head,

     [you] have put on sackcloth;

the [beloved Son of Man]

    [has] bowed [his] head down to the ground.

My eyes have spent all their tears;

    my stomach is in torment,

my heart is poured out on the earth

    because of the destruction of the [Son of God],

because [Jesus] faint[s]

    in the public squares of a city.

To [his mother he says],

    “Where is the bread and wine?”

as [he] faint[s] like the wounded

    in the public squares of a city,

as [his] life is being poured out

    onto the bosom of [his mother].

What can I say for you? What can I compare to you,

    O [Son of the Most High]?

To what can I liken you so that I can comfort you,

    O [True Child of Zion]?

For your destruction is as vast as the sea;

    who can heal you?"

Thoughts on Psalm 17

Not profound or deep thoughts mind you but just something i had time to scribble out cuz i'm on vacation this week.  Hope it blesses.

“Rescue with your sword my life from the wicked,

from men by your hand, O YHWH, from men of this world.

Their share is in this life, and you fill their stomach with your treasure.

They are satisfied with children.

They bequeath their excess to their children.

By contrast, i in righteousness shall see your face.

Upon awakening i will be satisfied seeing your form.”

It’s a question of values.  It’s a question of desire.  The wicked seek life only here.  They seek only what they can see and touch and taste now.  They heap up what they can and when it finally occurs to them that they will die anyway, they try to assuage their fear with children.  With the idea that whatever they heap up and don’t consume themselves, they will leave to their sons and daughters.  They call that a legacy and they are satisfied with it.  With the temporary.

The righteous on the other hand cannot be satisfied with such things.  They are discontent.  They are thankful to have them but they are not satisfied with them.  The righteous can only be satisfied with what they were made for.  God himself.

Stay discontented my friends.

A confessional interlude

i will get back to the Christian Fatalism series (I HAVE TO NOW as you will see if you read this!)  But i thought this was worth sharing too and i can see how the two are tied together, woven like cancerous tumors around a spine.  This is just raw, unedited journal entry from this morning.  Use it if it's helpful, toss it if your sins are different than mine.

2018 05 28,

“But you were not willing to go up, and you rebelled against the command of Yahweh your God.  And you grumbled in your tents, and you said, “Because of the hatred of Yahweh toward us he has brought us out from the land of Egypt to give us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.  Where can we go up?”

“Dorothy Sayers defines “sloth” as “the sin which believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and only remains alive because there is nothing it would die for.”

Lazy people do not love life enough to work hard to enjoy more of it, and the don’t love people enough to work hard so they can—as the righteous can— give without sparing.”

…

“When we think of a lazy person, we think of someone who doesn’t start things.  But there is also a kind of person who is always making plans and always starting but never finishing any project.  They don’t stay at jobs long, and they always blame the job itself rather than their own lack of stick-to-it-iveness.  Either they lose interest because of a lack of inner passion for anything or they have failed to count the cost and so find themselves overwhelmed.”

Tim and Kathy Keller

Father, just when i thought i’d hit a foundational sin of mine with the cynicism you go and pull the cover back more and convict me, stab me with sloth.  Guilty!  i am guilty!  What more can i do!  How can i now change??  What does repentance look like?  Surrounded as i am by a rotting house i never finished, a broken family, sons which do not serve and love you, an ipad full of unfinished drawings, a laptop full of unfinished books, a blog with an unfinished series…!  i am my father’s son.  i am lazy!  i am sloth.  Lord have mercy on me a sinner!  No wonder i have longed for a cause!  No wonder i have longed for a purpose!  And yet Lord, i feel like you have stood in my way every time i did feel the fire to move, to act, to become!  Was i not ready?  Was i not true?  Was i just starting or trying to, another project that i would not finish?  

What can be done with me now?  Is there anything left?  The generation which cursed you in the desert and turned its back on you is still alive in me.  The generation which refused the good gifts you had for it and made excuses instead is alive and well in me.  How many more years must i languish?  Is there any Joshua or Caleb in me?  Or is there only some Moses, angry at myself, at my sin but sinning on top of it and not treating you as holy and therefore not worthy of your rest?

Am i still avoiding true repentance?

CF4: Calling it out

"Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you had known me, you would have known my Father also."  John 14

It's time.  Time to call out the lies.  Time to drag the monsters out from under the bed and into the Light of Truth.  We have languished here too long; it has festered; it is time to pull the splinter.  Scooby Doo and those meddling kids have yanked the polite, smiling hypocrisy off the Christian Fatalist and uncovered the bitter heart of the cynic pumping vitriol beneath.  We have two choices when God calls us out, there is still time, we are still only on the road, only on our way to the Judge, we can agree with our accuser, confession is just that, it is agreeing with what Jesus says about us.  Now mind you, it's going to be hard, it's going to hurt, this is heart surgery, not Bactine and a band-aid, but if you're ready to really, truly start changing, start healing, if you really want to know the Father, this is the only Way there is...

"But turning around and seeing his disciples, he rebuked [you] and said, "Get behind me, Satan, because you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but the things of people!"  Mark 8

Whoa now!  Whoa!  Satan?  i mean, i got a little anger management problem yeah but Satan?  That's hyperbole!  That's totally out of line!  Me?  Satan?

Yeah.  Jesus don't play.  i told you, this was serious.  This is foundational.  You can keep confessing your fatalism or your cynicism or your anger if you want, you can keep treating symptoms all your life, your self-medicating, your dissipation, your porn problem, your fantasy life, your drinking, your time wasting, fine.  Do it.  It certainly won't hurt and you may see some improvement.  But if you want to live and not just live but live abundantly, live on purpose, live on mission, have a real, honest-to-God reason for living, you're going to have to take Jesus' hand with a spike hole in it and follow him where you may not want to go.  And how are you going to do that if you don't even believe what he says?

"Why do you not understand my way of speaking?  Because you are not able to listen to my message.  You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father!  That one was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand firm in the truth, because the truth is not in him.  Whenever he speaks the lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies.  But because I am telling the truth, you do not believe me."  John 8

Cynicism is founded on two very fundamental lies which the cynic has most likely not thought out loud but has said in oh so many ways and built their lives upon:
     1. God is not God
     2. I am.
Even before we discuss how the cynic expresses them, can you not see how Jesus immediately recognizes his creation, Lucifer, Satan, the Serpent, the fallen angel in them?  Obdurate, outrageous pride!  How are we like that?

How are we not?  When we hoped for what we saw: the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes and the arrogance of material possessions; what we coveted, what we envied of the world around us and we asked God for it, whatever it was and we could make endless lists, God either steadfastly refused to give it to us or gave it to us for a season and then took it away or worse: gave us suffering we never asked for nor did it come into our minds to.  Then we got angry, we got hurt, we got upset and why?  Because we.  Deserved.  Better!  That is what our anger says.  That is what our self-pity says.  "I deserve better than this!"  "Why me?"  Oh, maybe at first we slapped the Christian platitudes on it, "God has a plan."  "God will never give you more than you can handle."  "Everything works for good for those who serve him."  But after a while... after five years, ten, twenty, do i hear forty?

The platitudes become parry and buckler and rote.  The smile a thin rigid mask.  The heart a stone.  Because if i deserved better, if i'm too good for this then God is either not good, not loving or not able to help.  And since God says he is all of those things then God would also have to be a liar.  God, therefore, couldn't possibly be the God he says he is.  The foundational lie: God is not God.  I am.  We have said with Sheba ben Bichri, "There is no share for us in David, and there is no inheritance for us in the son of Jesse...!"

Are your fists still clenched?  Are your teeth yet grinding?  Are your lips still tightly bound over a tongue which coils and rages to whip forth venom and cursing?  Do you stare daggers into the back of this Jesus who dares to name you, to judge you(!) as he turns from you toward Jerusalem?  Toward the Passover?  Toward betrayal?  Toward the Creator being tried by the creation?  Toward a beating?  A scourge?  A flail?  A cross?  If you do, then i have nothing for you but my pity, which i doubt you want.

But if it breaks you, if you're heart can still cry with the Spirit planted within you, "Abba Father!  Have mercy on me a sinner!"  If you can still cry at all, if you truly, deeply want to change no matter what it costs, then the next time we talk, we will speak of Good News!

CF3: the Cynic goes there

Fatalism, Pessimism and Cynicism all walk into a bar.  They order drinks, sit down at a booth and Fatalism holds his glass up, "What will be, will be!"
Pessimism clinks glasses with him and adds, "Yep, and it will most probably suck!"
Cynicism just takes a sip of his bitter drink and mutters, "You know why that is, don't ya."

"Man, who is born of woman,
Is short lived and full of turmoil.
Like a flower he comes forth and withers.
He also flees like a shadow and does not remain."  Job 14

Dreams.  Ambition.  Desire.  Hope.  To live is to live FOR something.  Whether one desires a quiet life or an epic one, one still has hopes and set requirements for those hopes.  A steady job, a loving family and a house in the burbs or a mission field, a backpack and a pocket English-to-Whuddeesay dictionary or a million dollars, a mansion and a yacht or a rented flat in a grimy city and an IBM selectric typewriter or a charming brownstone, an artist girlfriend and a good coffee shop down on the corner; the family farm; the military career; the next promotion; the next raise; the next game; the next diploma; the next kid; the next grandkid; the next acquisition; the next sale; retirement or acclaim; travel or finally settling down; the next thrill; the next church plant; the next rung up whatever ladder you thought your life was about whatever that thing may be, that's what you're living FOR.

But a mountain falls; it crumbles away,
and a rock moves from its place.
Water wears away stones;
its torrents wash away the soil of the earth;
so you destroy the hope of human beings.
You overpower him forever, and he passes away;
you change his countenance, then you send him away.
His children may come to honor, but he does not know it;
or they may become lowly, but he does not realize it.
He feels only the pain of his own body,
and he mourns only for himself."  Job 14

Or you're just surviving.  The stark contrast between the spark in one man's eyes or a thousand yard stare in another can be whether or not they still believe in their dreams, desires and ambitions.  Whether their hopes still seem attainable or something... or someone... has crushed them.  They might still have things to live for but those goals have a much different flavor than they once did: the next drink, the next card game, the next fishing trip, the next vacation, the next affair, the next chance alone in a dark room with their computer, the next hit, the next installment of their show, the next offering from Marvel or Marilyn Manson or Tim Keller, time alone in the garage, or in the library, or in the garden, or on the mower...

The Fatalist has given up but he hasn't really thought about why.  The Pessimist has a why but he hasn't really thought out the implications of that why.  He doesn't allow himself to.  The Cynic has.  The Cynic is a frustrated idealist.  At some point he sentimentally believed in the good, the way things could be, should be and would be if people really, really tried.  And if he's a Christian, then he thought he had every right to believe those things really could and would be!

But they did not.  They did not come true.  People didn't really try.  They didn't.  They were too busy, too important, too adamant, too weak, too interested in their own plans and dreams, too distracted, too fatalistic, too pessimistic, too cynical.  His dreams failed and he did too.  Whether he blames himself or not.  He has looked behind the frustrated dreams, the crushed hopes and he has seen that man, at his core is selfish and always only thinks of himself.  He's heard of Total Depravity and he buys it.  There is no one who does good, no not one.  All of humankind is a liar!

Man is just not good.  Therefore, Life is just not good.

And if he's honest, and if the drink is bitter enough, you might get him to admit what he's truly thinking.  What he's afraid to think out loud.  What he's even more terrified to commit to writing but is the underlying framework in which he lives, breathes and chooses to be angry, disgruntled and morose.

That maybe God isn't good either.

No, i won't leave it here, this is a terrible place to leave it off for now but sometimes... we have to sit in a terrible place... to be continued.

CF2: We begin to wonder...

"Hope that is deferred makes the heart sick..."  Prov 13
"The spirit of a man will endure his sickness,
     but as for a broken spirit who can bear it?"  Prov 18

Fatalism is giving up, it's a crushed spirit.  It's the logical outcome to crushed hopes.  It's learned helplessness: an experiment some sadist did with dogs years ago where they electrified the cage, not enough to kill, just enough to hurt, and watched to see what happened.  At first the dog tries to fight and flee but eventually it figures out there is nothing it can do, so it just lies down.  To my mind a Christian, a Bible believing follower of Christ is actually more susceptible to it, not less than a pagan.  Pagans can surely have it, the human heart is a hope factory.  We want, we desire but time and resources often mean we have to put off what we want, work for it, wait for it and despite what Disney tells us, dreams don't often come true nor when they do are they all we thought they'd be.  But a Christian has promises!  A Christian has the Bible and the Bible is chock full of wonderful things we hope for.  A Christian has REASONS to hope!  Proofs!  A God who can do all things!  Who has plans for us to prosper us and not harm, to give us a future and a hope!  We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us!  Let's go win the world for Christ!  Go Team!

But time and resources...  we live a little, we see disappointments, honeymoons become work-a-day, seasons pass, seasons come and nothing much seems to change under the sun.  We learn other verses, we learn that in this life we will have affliction, we learn that those whom God loves, he also chastens, we learn that the Potter has every right to do with the clay what He wants.  Despite all our prayers: she leaves; he never comes home; we lose the house; the child dies; the verdict does come back, 'cancer'; that friend rejects Jesus..and us; we hear of wars and rumors of wars and atrocities and sexual bondage; and oh by the way, we never seem to get a handle on that sin either do we and we begin to wonder...

But no, we're too good of Christians to wonder that!  We keep getting up and doing our duty.  We keep on keeping on.  The son becomes a soldier.  The soldier becomes a servant.  The servant becomes a slave.  We go to church.  We tithe.  We go to Bible study and fellowship and read the word and can even debate it.  We pay our taxes.  We take care of our families.  We endeavor to live quiet lives.  We sing the songs...

But why does that one make us cry?  Why when our coworker is really, truly suffering apart from Christ do we say, "I wish there was something I could do to help, something I could say."?  Why do some verses in the Bible make us angry?  Heck, we're angry all the time!  Why is that?  And we begin to wonder....

But no, there's stuff to do.  Work, work, work.  Come home tired enough to crash on the couch and lose ourselves in some binge-watching, ballgame, a good book, porn...or run, run, run, this kid has to go there, that kid has to go here, whose kid is that?  Crap!  We have more kids?  Why the heck did we have so many kids?  Work called, gotta go, go, go, the guys called, i need some time with them, play some golf, have a beer and b***h about our lives, our wives, our work, and talk about the old days, before, when we were young and life looked big and amazing and we had such...

hope.

(to be continued)

Christian Fatalism

"Whatever is--it was already determined,
   what will be--it has already been decided.
As for man, he cannot argue
   against what is more powerful than him.
Increasing words only multiplies futility,
   how does that profit anyone?

For who knows what is good for a man in his life during the few days of his fleeting life, which are fleeting as a shadow?  For who can tell anyone what will happen in the future under the sun?"  (Ecc 6)

Christian fatalism summed up in a few verses.  If God is God then nothing we do matters.  Predestination means we had no real choice in the matter (thank God!!).  God is all knowing, all seeing and all powerful, what does he need us to pray and ask for things?  He already knows.  He's going to do what he wants anyway, right? 

You know, before i go and tell you what i think about this, i'd be curious to hear what y'all think.  What's wrong with thinking this way?  Are there fallacies we are holding on to?  What scriptures refute this way of thinking?  What does thinking this way do to our heart?  Our faith?  Our testimony?

And there'll be no knives there...

i freely admit, i don't exactly know what it means, but it struck me today while reading Leviticus that in all of the ancient worship, whether Tabernacle or Temple, where everything was based on the pattern of worship in heaven itself, where all of the tools and the trappings are mentioned in great detail, where slaughter is the business and sacrifice is the labor...

The knives and saws which MUST be present, are NEVER mentioned. Not once. They are not holy. They are not important. They a vitally necessary but never mentioned. Anywhere. Ever. And then i thought, the images of heaven include a Lamb who was slain and Christ carries his scars on his new body but nowhere is the cross sighted in any revelation of heaven.

God is very concerned with the called which come humbly bringing their sacrifice, their heart, their confession, their salvation; He is very concerned with every image of Jesus: the priest who slaughters, the clothes he wears, the ephod, amulet, shoulder boards of the priest, the animal who is slaughtered, the blood of the covenant, the flesh of the sacrifice, the altar, the forks and shovels of the altar, the curtain, the tent, the temple, the lamp, the oil in the lamp, the table, the bowls, the utensils, the bread, the altar of incense, the incense on the altar, the oil of anointing, the veil, the mercy seat, the ark, the law within, the staff of Aaron which budded, the manna, the gold, the silver, the bronze, the yarn, the linen, the wood...

He just doesn't seem to give a hoot about the implements of slaughter. Any old knife will do. Any old chunk of wood is good. Ain't gonna last long anyway.

"And I did not see a temple in it, for the Lord God All-Powerful is its temple, and the Lamb. And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon, that they shine on it, for the glory of God illuminates it, and its lamp is the Lamb. And the nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. And its gates will never be shut by day (for there will be no night [or knives?] there), and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. And every unclean thing and one who practices detestable things and falsehood will never enter into it, except those who are written in the book of life of the Lamb."

Up jumped the devil.

Every cynic is a frustrated idealist.  We don't look at the world as it is, we look at it as it should be and then lament how it is.  When people tell us, "cheer up!  It could be worse!"  We grumble, no, it is worse, what it could have been was a lot better!  

My readings today were from Genesis 4, Matthew 4, Ezra 4 and Acts 4.  Not every day do my readings seem to be so thematically linked as these four chapters do.  Each and every one seems hotly focused on one thing: Opposition.  It took Moses only three chapters to introduce the antagonist and inciting incident which will be the conflict of the rest of the Bible.  And in Chapter 4, Yahweh summarizes that conflict succinctly to Cain, 

"...sin is crouching at the door.  And its desire is for you,"

Ezra describes the "enemies of Judah and Benjamin" who use all the wiles and tools of the Serpent to confound and frustrate and cow the fledgling nation of Israel, freshly returned from exile and eager to rebuild the Temple.  In Acts Peter and John are dragged before the Sanhedrin for teaching and healing a lame man in the name of Jesus.  In each of these chapters there is someone who wants to do well and offer right sacrifices; someone who is rebuilding a house for our God as they were ordered to by God and king; someone who is listening to God and not refraining from speaking about what they have seen and heard.  And in each of these chapters, there is someone opposed to it and them.

We enlightened and rationalistic Christians can often lose sight of this, i think.  We are more likely to look at humanistic reasons for the way the world is.  Psychological ones.  Historical ones.  We can very nearly explain sin itself away by citing the troubled childhood of a sinner and their need for education and medication.  The answers are within our grasp because the problem is.  We can fix it.  If only...  Cain was disenfranchised by a flawed religious system which devalued his contribution and a nebulous moral code which had not yet conceived of murder and therefore not banned it either.  The other nations and peoples around Israel during the time of Ezra had as much claim and right to the land as the Israelites and had probably even suffered when Judah had previously provoked Babylon into conquering the land.  They were unfairly rebuffed when they offered to help with the building plan by the ethno-centric racism of a group of interlopers who would not accept a two-state solution.  The Sanhedrin of Pete and Jack's day were the proper authorities both in government and Judaism and acting in the nation's best interests as they saw fit, could only be in place by God's will and deliberately provoked by religious extremists in their own capital and holiest site.

And Satan, well, he's just a metaphorical device to explain the presence of evil and the psycho-emotional construct of an "enemy" in a "war" to help us understand the duality of living, light vs. dark, good vs. evil, republican vs. democrat, Jedi and Sith, balance.

But that's not what the Bible teaches.  The Bible teaches there is a WILL behind the war.  There is a malice, an animus, which feels and desires and hates.  Why is the world the way it is?  Sin.  Yes.  And sin has a name... and kids.  From three chapters into Genesis to his ultimate eternal destruction with three chapters left to go in Revelations 20, there is an enemy who hates God because he wants to BE God.  And his offspring will be like him.  They cannot kill what they hate, the one who has the audacity to oppose THEIR will, so they oppose His children with all the wiles and tools of their father.  If they cannot lie and sow the seeds of doubt about His goodness and love and seduce them away from Him, they will kill them.  

And so we see in Matthew 4 the ultimate battle.  Jesus is led by the Spirit of His Father into the wilderness where he is tempted for forty days and forty nights by Satan himself.  "If you are the Son of God..." doubt.  Most telling of all, when Satan offers the kingdoms of the world, it is no empty boast.  John quotes Jesus as calling Satan the "ruler of this world".  Daniel was told by Gabriel that the "Prince of Persia" fought against Michael and he.  The temporal kingdoms of this world are a beast which resemble the dragon himself.  Satan was offering to give them back if only Christ would change sides.  He doesn't.  Satan kills him.

This is no "devil made me do it" defense.  Cain is told, "And it's desire is for you, but you must rule over it."  And it's not a plea to try and fight the battle as if we were Jesus ourselves.  The "word that comes from the mouth of God" upon which we live and rely on IS Jesus himself!  The church in Acts 4 prays, "And now Lord, concern yourself with their threats and grant your slaves to speak with your message with all boldness, as you extend your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus."  We do not test God, we trust Him.  We do not worship Satan, no matter what he offers us.  Even if it looks good or we think we could do good with it.  No, this is me reminding myself that it's not just the way it is.  It's not C'est la vie.  Que sera, sera.  i must not let cynicism become fatalism.  We must "be strong in the Lord and in the might of His strength.  Put on the full armor of God, so that [we] may be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil, because our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places."  For though we are and will be opposed whenever and most of all when we try to do good and to obey God, from leading a church or mission to just trying to do the right thing, to writing a devotional to loving our spouse, the nail that sticks up gets pounded down the hardest, though they may hurt us, imprison us, take from us what we cherish, and even kill us, above all remember that though the battle rages on, the war is already won.  

"And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying,

“Now the salvation and the power
    and the kingdom of our God
    and the authority of his Christ have come,
because the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down,
    the one who accuses them before our God day and night.
And they conquered him by the blood of the Lamb
    and by the word of their testimony,
and they did not love their lives until death.

Because of this, rejoice, you heavens,
    and those who live in them!
Woe to the earth and to the sea,
    because the devil has come down to you,
having great anger,
    because he knows that he has little time!”"

Do you hear what i hear?

For this one the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. Whenever he sends out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. And they will never follow a stranger, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus told them this parable, but they did not understand what it was that he was saying to them.  John 10

And Yahweh said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and, indeed, they are a stiff-necked people.  Ex 32

But Yahweh has not given to you a heart to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear, even to this day.  Deut 29

And he said, “Go and say to this people,

‘Keep on listening and do not comprehend!
    And keep on looking and do not understand!’
Make the heart of this people insensitive,
    and make its ears unresponsive,
    and shut its eyes
so that it may not look with its eyes
    and listen with its ears
    and comprehend with its mind
    and turn back, and it may be healed for him.”

Isa 6

‘Hear this please, O foolish and senseless people,

    who have eyes but do not see,

    who have ears but do not hear.’

Do you not revere me?” declares Yahweh,

    “Do you not tremble before me?  Jer 5

And the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, “Son of man, you are dwelling in the midst of the house of rebellion who has eyes to see and they do not see; they have ears to hear, and they do not hear, for they are a house of rebellion.   Ezek 2

But they refused to listen, and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears from listening. They made their hearts adamant in order not to hear the law and the words that Yahweh of hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets;  Zech 7

And Jesus said,]] “For judgment I have come into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind!” Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things and said to him, “We are not also blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.  John 9

Today, if you hear his voice, give glory and honor and thanks because you do not know what a miracle of grace that alone is!

On Rocks and Scorpions and Snakes

“What portion is there for us in David?  We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse.”  

Quick, whose quote is that?  Who said it?  Have you?  When you have asked God for a piece of bread and he has given to you a stone?  A snake for a fish?  When you asked him for an egg, did he give you a scorpion?  No?  Never happened?  

i know people who asked God for a baby and they got a stillborn and miscarriages.  There are people who have asked God to save their addicted child and they got an overdose.  There are those who ask for reconciliation and renewal and get divorce.  There are those who ask for years and years for healing and are told, my grace is sufficient for you.  People whose lives seemed fine until they gave it to Christ.  Families torn apart.  And that’s not to even mention those whose suffering is unto death because we don’t go to those parts of the world.  We stay here, where it’s safe.  Where it’s normal.  Where it’s sane.  Where our money and our culture can keep at bay most of the evil and suffering that the rest of the world thinks of as normal.  A world of paid sick days and all night groceries and medicines for sniffles and delivery on Sunday by Amazon and on demand television and tinder and alcohol and legalized marijuana and pets we don’t keep to eat and the right to keep and bear arms against anyone who would try and take any of those God-given rights away from us and cry out whenever these things do come to our shores like an unwanted intruder.

The Pope wants to change the words of the Lord’s prayer.  He doesn’t like the part where it says, “Lead us not into temptation.”  He says a loving father doesn’t do that.  He wants it to read, “Do not let us fall into temptation.”  i reckon he would cite James 1, “No one who is being tempted should say, “I am being tempted by God,” for God is without temptation by evil, and he himself tempts no one.”  Sounds pretty straight forward.  But then a lot of things do when you cut and paste them out of their context.  Context here to mean “the whole Bible.”  

From the very beginning, God placed two perfect people in a perfect garden and still he put in the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.  He didn’t need to do that.  He could have left it out.  He knew the Serpent was in the garden.  He was not somewhere else when Eve had her conversation with the snake.  He wasn’t sleeping.  Even the immediate context of the quote in James is, “Blessed is the person who endures TESTING…” Even the next line of the Lord’s prayer is “but deliver us FROM evil.

God does not tempt, no.  But He does test.  He tests to show you what is in your heart: idols, pride, selfishness, disobedience, even when i want to do good, i do not.  He tests to show you what you truly believe about Him.  Is He good even in this?  Will you accept good from His hand and not evil?  When you with Habakkuk ask God how long will we cry for help and you will not listen?  How long will we cry out to you, “Violence!” and you will not save?  And God answers, You think you know violence?  You ain’t seen the half of it!  Can you still say, “Not my will but yours be done?  Is He still God?  Is he allowed to do what He wants?  When He wants?  How He wants?  And when He does, is He still good?

For i would be doing you a great disservice if i left you here.  Because God tests to show you what is in your heart AND what is in HIS!  And what is in His is His Glory and your good.  God is good!  God does bless!  God does love you!  More than life itself!  And that is the point!  Fat, dumb and happy doesn’t seek God.  Doesn’t long for him!  Doesn’t ache for him!  It gets those two things reversed: we thing God is good when he works for our glory.

Sometimes when you ask for bread, God will give you rocks.  But to show you that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God!

Sometimes when you ask for a fish, the Father will give you a scorpion.  But fear not!  For Behold, He has given you the authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy and nothing will ever harm you.  Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are inscribed in heaven!

And there it is?  Where is your inheritance?  Where is your treasure?  If it’s here, you will only see the rocks, the scorpions and the snake.  If it’s Jesus, then your treasure is untouchable and unable to be measured!  Is He truly worth everything you must endure here?  Do you honestly and heart-deep believe that He is leading you to something so much better?  Do you really believe that this life is just the set up for Eternity?  That every loss and lack and trial and test are only shaping your inheritance, your consolation, your place that Christ is preparing for you even as we speak and making you hate even the garment stained by our sin?  The cross you pick up every day is only making you love your Jesus more?  Is He Yours?  Do you trust him?

On the third day, the son of David answered the Israelites who had asked for a lightening of their burden harshly, “I will make your yoke heavy, and I myself will add to it.  My father disciplined you with whips, but I will do so with scorpions.”  And the Israelites answered the king saying, “What portion is there for us in David?  We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse.”  And it turned out to be true.  They did not endure, they did not trust Yahweh their God.  They saw a snake and they ran and trusted in their own strength, their own king.  They went their own way and were scattered ultimately by the Assyrians to not be a people any longer.

Jesus is the better Son of David.  The Son of Eve who on the third day crushed the head of the serpent.  Who has thrown him down and says his time is short.  Do you believe him.  Will you wait for him to come and lead you where He says He will?  A time of testing is coming, not just on you personally but on the church and the whole earth, of that you can be sure, He promised it would but that on the other side, good awaited.  Our inheritance awaits.  He awaits.  But will He find faith when He comes?

(for those who do such things, you could do worse to meditate on Deut 8.)

Plow some ground

Parallels.  Associations.  This post will begin where it ends.  Asking the question, what is the work involved in seeking Yahweh now?  When we read the Bible (we do read the Bible, right?) do we just walk over it, picking what we want out of it when we feel the need or do we put our necks into the traces and pull and dig the plow deeper, break it, sweat over it, grunt and groan with the Master trying to understand it?  

i don't know which one i do.  Probably depends on the day and my tiredness.  But here is a passage i read this morning and the raw excerpt from my journal on it.  If it edifies, use it; if not, leave it alone.  Nothing to see here.  Move along, move along....

"Ephraim was a trained heifer,

    that loved to thresh grain,

and I myself spared

    the fairness of her neck;

I will make Ephraim break the ground,

    Judah will plow,

    Jacob must till for himself.

Sow for yourselves righteousness;

    reap loyal love.

Break up for yourself fallow ground;

    it is time to seek Yahweh

so he will come and rain

    righteousness upon you.

You have plowed wickedness,

    you have reaped injustice,

you have eaten the fruit of lies,

    because you have trusted in your strength,

    in the multitude of your warriors."  Hosea 10

Threshing grain for a cow is easy work.  You merely walk around on it.  And if you’re not muzzled, you can even eat when you want to.  Pick from what you are threshing.  A joy to work.  Easy work.  Work,  yes, but rewarding and peaceful.  Not so plowing.  The ground is hard and full of rocks and there is nothing to eat.  The yoke is hard upon the neck and your straining which the whip and the goad keep you at, is back breaking and exhausting.  You go to the stall spent, sweating and heaving and aching and there is no immediate reward which would matter to an ox.  

Adam worked for his meals in the garden.  He chose and picked them.  But it grew on its own.  It was there to be had.  The work was pleasant.  The reward instant.  The joy present.  He was cast out and the ground was cursed and no more would it yield for him.  No more would he dig with his hand and plant with his foot.  No more would the birds leave his scattered seed upon the surface.  No more would the weeds keep their place and obey their boundaries.  No more would the mist come in the morning faithful and gentle and kind and refresh the land.  Now the rains came when they willed and they were hard and the mud was as much impediment as useful.  Work is work now.  And there is little joy in it.  

The passage draws a parallel from working the ground to working the heart.  Is it harder to believe now?  Is it harder not to sin now?  Is it harder to obey?  Is it more work to serve Yahweh than it was before?  

Words.

"I still have many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them now. But when he—the Spirit of truth—comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will proclaim to you the things to come. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and will proclaim it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he takes from what is mine and will proclaim it to you."  John 16

Context can be everything.  If your wife gave you a grocery list of items to get on your way home from work.  You would read it only as a list of things to get.  A duty.  Perhaps even a despised one.  Maybe you hate the grocery store.  Maybe you're tired and just want to go home.  Maybe you don't really like the vegetable-to-red-meat ratio of the list.  Maybe you don't mind but even so, it's just a list.  You probably crumple it up and throw it away when you're done with it.

But what if she died that day?  What if that note became the last thing you ever got from her?  Would you fish it out of the trash?  Would you pore over it in the days to come just to see her handwriting?  Would you savor every loop?  The way she misspelled 'brocolli'?  Did she put a little heart on it?  Write, 'thanks!' at the bottom?  

A love letter from your spouse is a precious thing.  When you are with your spouse every day you may take it for granted.  Put it in a drawer intending to do something with it later.  Pin it up in the cubicle where it becomes background to your day in the life but not vital to it.  Wallpaper.  But to a soldier far from home who hasn't seen their loved ones in months, it is life!  It is carried about in the breast pocket.  Pulled out at every opportunity.  Pored over for every detail, read and re-read.  An agonizing reminder of the world where they belong.  A reminder of something better somewhere.  A reminder that someone loves them.  Cares what happens to them.  It becomes their reason for living!  For surviving.  For being something the writer of the love letter can be proud of.

The Bible is a lot of things.  Poetry.  Story.  Wisdom literature.  Prophecy.  Commandments and guidebook.  But in one very real sense, it is a love letter to us.  It is God inviting us to know Him.  To know what He's done for us.  To let him remind us of who we are to Him.  How we feel about Him, about ourselves and our situation, colors how we read it.  It can be just words on a page... a grocery list.... wallpaper.

Or it can be life.

Promises, promises

God takes covenant pretty seriously.

Nebuchadnezzar had come and conquered Judah.  He had dragged off the best and the brightest to Babylon as prizes and hostages and as a way of pacifying the land and keeping it subject.  He had allowed the nation of Judah to remain, even allowed a branch of David to remain upon the throne in Zedekiah.  As the conquered, the surrendered, as terms, they would have had to swear fealty to King Nebby.  They entered into covenant with him.  They may have even had a ceremony where some animals were torn in two and Zedekiah, as the vassal king, would have walked between them while swearing his oath to obey and pay tribute to Babylon or be cut to pieces as these creatures have been.  Cutting a covenant it's called.  Very visceral, very visual, very memorable process, i'm thinking.

And here's the thing.  God heard and witnessed it.  Zed may have even invoked Yahweh's name as part of the ritual.  To him it was in vain, for as we see, he neither knows nor fears God but God held him accountable all the same.

God had whistled for Nebby.  He had brought the Assyrians and then the Babylonians in to punish and discipline his people.  God.  Yahweh.  Not some angry god of the old testament who has nothing to do with the hippie god of the new one.  God is consistent, God is one.  Jesus as God would have done this.  He had long warned them he would, beginning with Moses.  The children of God disobeyed and disregarded the covenant of Sinai where God married himself to his people.  And now, because of their disobedience and spiritual adultery, he had forced them into covenant with a pagan king.

And he expected them to honor that covenant.

They don't.  Despite more dire and very specific warnings from Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and others, Zed looks for a way out of God's justice, God's holy arrangement designed for their good and humbling.  He looks to Egypt.  He looks to another pagan regional superpower.  He allies himself with one devil over another.

The effects are devastating.  Total annihilation.  The sacking and burning of Jerusalem.  Zed's last sight on earth is of his sons, his seed, murdered before his eyes so he will know his line is cut off from the earth, his wives given to others as slaves.  Then his eyes are torn out.

So don't break your word... to anyone.... ever.

But as good advice as that is, that's not the point of the story really and you don't have the power to do it in yourself.  Which IS the point!  Because the Bible isn't a series of moral lessons to make you your better self now.  It's the story of God pursuing his wayward bride.  Ezekiel 17 which tells this story in parable form, doesn't end with the devastation of our sin upon our own heads, but with God showing how He's going to magnanimously and extravagantly keep His side of the Covenant we broke!

Thanks be to God!

the walking wounded

i've heard it said that the Word and those who speak it should afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.  Truth and Grace. 

i think i've pretty well established which one i'm better at. 

Sadly, it's also pretty well established that there are folks who will use the Word as a weapon for their own purposes.  Twist its meaning to fit their agendas.  Justify themselves with indulgent edits.  Often the Word gets blamed for this.  As if God should have been more careful with the words He chose.  Or put some kind of disclaimer on the Holy Scriptures.  (There is one, and we'll get to that.)  Often the church, Christ's very Bride gets blamed en masse for the corruption of some who claim membership in her.  Make no mistake, all are sinners so there is no perfect church nor perfect church goer but taken as a whole, the Church is Christ's Body and therefore good.  To speak ill of her is to speak ill of her husband who loves her. 

That said, Christ warned us wolves would sneak in from the Synagogue of Satan to corrupt her from within if they could as they always have.  They lure away those whose faith and knowledge are incomplete.  They are thieves who steal for power, for material gain or just for the hell of it.  Read the Word and you will see the over arching story of the Son of Man wooing and wanting His wayward wife.  From Serpent in the Garden to the Scarlet Dragon in final act, Satan hates God so he hates His Bride too.  He cannot touch God, so he attacks mercilessly and with cunning the one God loves.  He has been a liar and murderer from the beginning and we are the prey.

Many have been hurt in this war.  Many have real wounds.  i acknowledge this.  Do you, afflicted beloved, acknowledge that none of this happened without the express knowledge and approval and even ordination of your loving Husband God? 
"Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
    I have tried you in the furnace of affliction." (Is 48)
That's just one verse.  If i were to post all the ones that state this, express or implied, i would pretty much have to repost the Bible here.  Don't take my word for it, just do a quick search for "affliction", take The Word for it.  Affliction is not random.  It, like all of creation, serves a purpose, His.  To refine, to burn away what is not good, to turn us back to our source of Life and away from the Death we were choosing instead.  

To bring us home, to bring us to our senses, to bring us back to our loving husband and Father.

But that's not the way we use it anymore.  We use it now to justify our therapeutic self-indulgence.  We weave our hurts and our wounds into a stifling comforter from under which we hide from the outside world, from the monsters, from the scariness, from our responsibility, from the Light.  We muffle the words we don't want to hear.  We think ourselves warm and safe and untouchable and all we are is smothered.  We have buried the Talent of God for we have found him a hard man who reaps where he does not sow and gathering where he did not scatter seed.  'i have been hurt so i am only protecting myself.'  We justify silencing those who speak truth, we slap sentimental bumperstickers all over the hard parts of the Word so we don't have to use or hear words like "obey" and "listen" and "sin" and "confess" and "commandment."  God loves me, this i know, for the Bible tells me so and God is love so he doesn't want me to do anything hard or scary or where i might possibly get hurt.  He cannot possibly ask me to forgive because of what happened to me.  He cannot ask me to obey because of what i've been through.  i know i shouldn't do this but you don't know where i've been.  i need this!

We are justified.  Righteous.  Not even God can ask us to do anything anymore because we have been afflicted!  We are the Comfortable IN our Affliction.

That's enough for today.  Please pray and listen and let's just see where that takes us for a while.

My Beloved (because Seamus seems to confuse some folk :)

[i read the Bible through every year and have since 2010.  That's not a brag, it's a confession.  Because even though i do that and therefore have read Jeremiah 11 at least seven times in the last seven years, Saturday was the first time this line struck me and it struck me as new.  As if i was reading it for the very first time.  That happens to me a lot.  God reveals to you what He wants to reveal when He wants to reveal it.  That's just one of the reasons we keep coming back to the well each and every day as often as we can.  i'm told the line by itself out of context is dangerous and possibly harmful.  i'll deal with that thought another day.  For now though, i've included the raw response i had to it in my journal.  No spit, no polish, just what came out of me when i read it.  Hope its helpful.  At least more helpful than any of Seamus' musings.]

“What rights has my beloved in my house
    when she has done many wicked things?”

There is so much here, Yahweh God.  First, that she is your beloved.  Second that she is unfaithful.  That you wish to bring her into your house or she is in it already doing her wickedness.  Father, we are your bride and yes, we have done, are doing and will do many wicked things and we have no rights in your house much less to be in your house at all.  None.  Yet!  But!  You are the Bridegroom!  You have come for your bride anyway!  You made her clean!  You washed away her iniquity!  You have rescued us, saved us, bought us out of our slavery!  Off the slave block!  You took us home.  You restored us to our children.  You make us part of yourself again.  You join yourself to us!  You are amazing! 

Seamus rides again

"So what's necessary for an authoritarian regime to gain and hold power?"  Seamus asked.
"Historically speaking?" i shrugged.  "Abolish free press and take all the guns.  After that, abolish free elections... umm, i dunno, religion?  Guess they should hold sway over that too."
"Aye, that's the kinda thing we usually worry aboot, right?  First two amendments.  Framers musta worried aboot it too.  That's why this is so brilliant!"
"Um... what is?"
"This regime."
"This... You think...?"
"Oh don't get me wrong, I dinna know who's in charge.  The fat man doesn't seem swift enough for my thenkin' but he's certainly got the ego fer it, ferdamshuir.  But you gotta admire what they've doon."
"You think they've abolished the free press and taken all the guns?"
"Fook no!  And tha's the beauty of it!  They dinna have to!  They gotta lil' help, okay, a lotta help.  First off, the innernet," he held up a pretzel stick, i guess that was his visual representation of the internet, "Tis flooded with news sources nough.  (To this day, i don't know how to spell how he pronounces words like how, now, flew, spew!)   Ever' twit wit'a twitta is a goddumm journalist nough."  He smashed his pretzel all over the bar.  He flicked the pieces this way and that.  "Alt facts, fake facts, their facts, yer facts, dunna know how anyone tells wha's goddumm goin' on anymuir!  Then ye got these lefties," he picked up the largest piece left, "whoo'r so keen to take'm down, so goddum anxious to get a shot inna 'im, they go  and go off half cocked.  They goddumm shoot their loads into their own goddumm foot anna ye git the whole world laughin' at'm, all you gotta do is let the rope out anna watch'm hang themselves," he ate the lefties.  Dusted off his hands, "So there ye are, no need to abolish free press, just flood the market fer the easily swayed to pick ther favorite and ignore the rest and discredit them all to the point where no thinkin' man troosts'm and it amoonts to the same theng."
"Okay, i can see that.  But what about the guns?  How are they going to take over and not deal with armed revolt?"
"What armed revolt?"
"Americans are never gonna let them take our guns, we have more now than ever!"
"Aye, ye do, but again, why would they come for thum?"
"To.. stop an armed revolt?"
"Wha armed revolt?"  He smirked at me.  i hate when he smirks at me. 
"There's not going to be an armed revolt..."
"There's no gonna be no armed revolt, lad, and that's the best part, cuz all his rhetoric is aimed at winnin' o'er one group anna one group only...
"The ones with the guns." 
"Ye catch on late, but ye do catch on. When the revolt comes lad, his owen will police all the rest.  All 'is life, he's made a large livin' onna gettin' others to do his dirty work for 'im and he ain't changed his tune a bit.  'N why should 'e?  Its workin'."

The heartbeat.

As a protestant who grew up in denominations marked by the space they put between themselves and their Catholic forebears, i have never had a great trust of liturgy.  Liturgy becomes rote.  Rote is faith in the freezer.  Hard.  Inflexible.  Cold.  Dead.

As i seeped and simmered, i came to equate rote with religion.  i learned no matter who we are, no matter what we believe about God, we all have faith in something.  We all have a religion.  We are all worshiping something or someone.  We cannot help it.  It's how we're made.

Like a good protestant, i came to understand and say (with no small amount of smugness) it's not religion, it's relationship.  Faith is not in what i do, rote, it's in what HE's done.  i cherished my freedom from all forms of rigidity, i celebrated in a casual style of worship service.  Not quite hippie love-in or quaker meeting, we weren't deconstructionalists or anarchists, we were more libertarian, i guess.

A few more years in the crockpot however and i've come to understand that even as we all must worship, even as we all have faith in something, we all have liturgy.  No, maybe we don't follow a dictum laid down in edicts from Rome, and maybe we don't have a board at the front of the sanctuary telling us what number hymns we will sing in what order and a bulletin that we don't even really need to look at anymore because we know the order of worship by heart, can recite it in unison (a term here meaning that dead, flat, monotone we all speak in during a service as if we were reading the fine print on a legal document instead of the Living Word) but we all follow patterns.  We all have systems.  We all make plans.

We were made for Rhythm.

Even someone like me, as painfully Northern Occidental and genetically, environmentally rhythmically-impaired as i am, have and live and was made for rhythms.  i wake up at a certain time, i eat at certain times, i work at designated times.  Lives, like songs, have frameworks.  Sometimes the beat is fast, driving, energetic.  Other days have a more languid tempo, relaxed, slow, contemplative.  Some days are speed metal, some days are dirges, others yet are reggae, polkas, waltzes, dubstep, hip-hop, country, ballads, blues and even jazz but each day, each year, each life, has a rhythm.  As if there is some outrageously hip angel of God in dark glasses, a pipe hanging from his lips, a soft hat cocked on his bobbing head and the mother of all upright basses in his long, steady fingers, tap, tap, tapping out the sound that was the first sound we became conscious of in the womb.  Life has rhythm.

And so does faith.  God built us for rhythms.  Seasons.  Tempos.  Beats.  Spiritual disciplines, creeds, liturgies are training.  Like soldiers, warriors, drilling certain steps into ourselves until our bodies can react correctly in times of stress and fear and chaos without prompting or conscious thought.  Like sages, we are so deep in Scripture we have the Word for every season, situation and praise.  So our days are not idle, our minds not bored, our worship not empty, our prayers not prattle, our hearts not tempted by desires unfit for our natures as Priests and Kings and Sons of the Living God.  For in our hearts and heads we hear the drums and basses and cymbals and guitars pounding out the steady rhythm to which the kingdom of the God of All Rhythms marches and dances.

What is the church? Resurrected!

What is the church according to this Day?

"Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, live in him, firmly rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding with thankfulness. Beware lest anyone take you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ, because in him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you are filled in him, who is the head over every ruler and authority, in whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, by the removal of the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which also you were raised together with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. And although you were dead in the trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having destroyed the certificate of indebtedness in ordinances against us, which was hostile to us, and removed it out of the way by nailing it to the cross. When he had disarmed the rulers and the authorities, he made a display of them in public, triumphing over them by it."

What is the church in the time between? Working, watching and waiting...

What is the church in the time between?

"“A little while and you will see me no more, and again a little while and you will see me. So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he is saying to us, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going away to the Father’?” So they kept on saying, “What is this that he is saying, ‘A little while’? We do not understand what he is speaking about!”
Jesus knew that they were wanting to ask him, and he said to them, “Are you deliberating with one another about this—that I said, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? Truly, truly I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will change to joy. A woman, when she gives birth, experiences pain because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the affliction, on account of the joy that a human being has been born into the world. So you also are experiencing sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy from you."  John 16


“You must be prepared for action and your lamps burning. And you, be like people who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that when he comes back and knocks, they can open the door for him immediately. Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he returns! Truly I say to you that he will dress himself for service and have them recline at the table and will come by and serve them. Even if he should come back in the second or in the third watch of the night and find them like this, blessed are they! But understand this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not think he will come.”
And Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us, or also for everyone?” And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful wise manager whom the master will put in charge over his servants to give them their food allowance at the right time? Blessed is that slave whom his master will find so doing when he comes back. Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions."  Luke 12