Lent 2016, Day 35: March 15 (Luke 18:1-14)

The disciples – challenged by the command to forgive others without reservation – have just asked Jesus to increase their faith. It is appropriate that Jesus provides two quick parables on prayer here. However, they are for overlapping (if not concentric) audiences.

In His first parable about the widow and the judge, Jesus urges the disciples to pray with faith without fail. His brief story reminds us of Proverbs 30:8-9.

Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.

As a successful, prominent member of his community, the judge is clearly “full.” He professes no need for God. “Who is the Lord?” perfectly captures his attitude and serves as his life motto. The widow, on the other hand, has very few options available to her. She has no close relative to defend her (a goel), no income, no social standing. However, she is determined to stand up for herself and seek what is needful lest she be poor and take matters into her own hands, thus profaning the name of her God.

It’s almost as if Jesus is saying, get into the moment of your need and live with it for a while. Understand what it takes to struggle for something worthwhile, to strive for justice. God is not a genie. God is not an ATM. Stop expecting Him to grant your every whim and wish with the snap of His fingers. He has promised to deliver you. He is faithful. Pray persistently, knowing He will provide in His own time. Wait upon the Lord – He alone is sovereign!

In His second parable, Jesus singles out “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.” These individuals, too, are “full” and deny God by failing to acknowledge their need for Him. After all, they are oh so righteous – whatever would they need God for? We may think He is speaking to the Pharisees, but He is still speaking to the disciples. He is now calling out those within His own circle who believe God owes them blessing. It’s a poignant lesson in the proper attitude for prayer.

As we listen to the Pharisee pray on the steps of the temple (out loud and in public, mind you), do we see the disciples cringe? Where did Jesus get this righteous resumé? Wasn’t it from overhearing the disciples’ many arguments about who among them was the greatest and why?

Undoubtedly, the disciples are embarrassed. Their proud accomplishments – their pedigree, tithing and fasting – sound so petty because they are. Jesus gently chides them here as if to say, “If these things sound so flimsy to your ears, how do they sound to the Sovereign God of creation?”

Comparing ourselves to others is never a good idea, Jesus warns. And when we boast in the ways we seem to outpace them, it sets us up for a long, hard fall. We seldom compare ourselves to our betters. Instead, we zero in on those who do exactly what we do but to a different degree. 

When it comes to sin, Jesus warns, guilt has no degree. You must respect the fact that God is a catalyst: approach Him in humility and He will honor and exalt you. Approach Him with pride, with no need for His mercy, and you will be lost indeed. If you think you’ve encountered the Living God but come away unchanged, you never encountered Him at all.

Lent 2016, Day 34: March 14 (Luke 17:20-37)

Like a murder of crows, the Pharisees (did they all wear judges’ black?) continue to flock after and shadow Jesus and the disciples on their way to Jerusalem. Always listening, always probing, they are recording and speculating for one eventual purpose: to wrest control of the crowd from Jesus’ hands and use it to their own ends. 

Played correctly, they may parlay this fickle crowd into a force of Freedom Fighters and free Judea from Roman occupation. “We invited them in, we can kick them out,” they assure one another. How sad that their reasons for killing Jesus never rise above this empty (and doomed) quest for political power.

“Fine then,” say the Pharisees with all the exasperation they can muster, “if you know so much, tell us this: when will the Kingdom of God come?”

It’s a rude question on many levels, but the Pharisees have never split hairs about being nice or polite. It must have aggravated Jesus that they were so willfully, stubbornly blind to everything going on around them. Isaiah, were he here, would shout at them in recognition, “The blind see, the lame are healed, the poor have Good News preached to them!”

All of this leads us to wonder: Just what kind of Kingdom are the Pharisees waiting for anyway? Could it be that they are focused on creating a world where they have all the luxuries of Rome plus their religious and political independence – at any cost? 

Jesus, as the elephant in the room, tells the Pharisees: “Behold, the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

The Pharisees, for their part, simply scowl and go back to muttering among themselves.

This isn’t an unusual day by any means. In fact, all in all, it’s just another day at the office for Jesus. He and the disciples have this routine down pat. As a group, they have a genuine bond and real camaraderie and will, one day, look back at this time with genuine fondness and nostalgia.

“Get ready,” says Jesus, “because the days are coming when you’ll look back and wish you could relive a day like this – but I won’t be here. People will urge you to go here or look there in search of Me. But that’s completely unnecessary. When I return, it will be obvious to all – like a lightning strike across the sky (and just as swift).”

Jesus briefly returns to what is becoming a familiar theme: His death. The disciples (prevented by the Spirit from truly hearing and understanding) probably rolled their eyes at this, but there’s an important message here, one that helps set our expectations for the future.

Like the days of Noah and Lot, so shall the days of the Son of Man’s return be, Jesus tells the disciples.

That tells us, first and foremost, that things will be very grim indeed from the church’s point of view before Christ’s return. There will be very few righteous people on the earth, for one. And just as Noah and Lot were divinely delivered from sudden, complete destruction, so those few righteous will be snatched from the fire to come.

To the world, the end will be just another ordinary day. There will be no debates or saber rattling leading up to the event. There will be no build-up or anticipation – it will not be a foregone conclusion of current events. It will be swift and sudden. There will be no time to take stock or to consider what will be lost to the fire. Lot’s wife will stand at the resurrection to accuse us of looking back in longing at the things we left burning. Don’t look back, warns Jesus, leave that life behind and save your soul. It’s all you have anyway.

Lent 2016, Day 33: March 13 (Luke 17:1-19)

Having taught the crowd about the dangers of leading a singular life, Jesus goes on to caution the disciples about personal responsibility.

Everyone stumbles, Jesus warns, but be sure that you are not the cause. You would be better off drowning. And if your brother sins against you? Forgive him. Even if he continues to sin, confess and repent, you must forgive him.

This doesn’t sit well with the disciples (nor does it sit well with us).

“What? You’re kidding, right? Well, if that’s the way you want it, you’re going to have to give me more faith – more patience, more kindness, more grace,” insist the disciples (and quite a few of us). “Tell me: what's in it for me?"

But Jesus knows that God has already given us everything we need to do the task at hand. And, He wants us to do what is right – what He would do – without having to be bribed.

“You don’t need more faith,” Jesus says. “You just need faith. Do you expect a parade every time you do the right thing? You shouldn’t. Doing the right thing – the thing I ask you to do – should be the natural thing to do, the proper thing. As much as you might want to receive recognition or credit for it, you won’t. It’s simply your duty.”

As they walk together, a group of ten men are watching from a distance. Seeing they have caught Jesus’ eye, they cry out for His mercy. In a very matter of fact manner, Jesus simply tells them to show themselves to the priests. 

As they are en route they find they have been cleansed. Nine of the ten literally take it in stride and continue on their way. One – a Samaritan – praises God with a loud voice, returns, and falls on his face to worship at Jesus’ feet. 

It is an extravagant display made even more so by the fact that he is alone in his gratitude. Not only does his effusive praise make the other nine lepers look bad, it also makes the ungrateful, stubborn disciples (and us) just a touch uncomfortable.

Jesus, tongue firmly planted in cheek, asks, “Weren’t there ten of you? What happened to the nine? Was no one but this foreigner compelled to acknowledge the grace of God?”

Jesus shames the Jews (and the disciples and us) here. Once again He has found someone who should not “get it” (in this case, one of those nasty Samaritans) who has outpaced his Jewish counterparts. The nine proceeded to the priests healed but they expected to be so. As Jews, they felt that God had an obligation to heal them due to their status as children of Abraham (just as we often expect Him to heal us as the children of God).

The story of the 10 lepers is another lesson in singular living, but an uplifting one. There are times when you must go it alone, Jesus says, but the rewards will be worth it. It is your own personal faith that will make you well.

Lent 2016, Day 32: March 12 (Luke 16:19-31)

One of the hallmarks of Jesus’ ministry is His knack for turning our expectations upside down. At first glance, Lazarus and the rich man is a straightforward parable: poor man good, rich man bad. But, in His usual fashion, Jesus (and Luke as His biographer) manages to slip in a few things right under our noses.

The rich man is, well, rich. He’s pretty one-dimensional, and he does what we imagine rich men do: he dresses in the finest fabrics (linen) in a color that denotes his rank (royal purple) and “feasts sumptuously” every day. His is an empty, superficial and self-obsessed life. It is monotonous in its abundance. Then one small thing changes; it is, in itself, an opportunity. But does he even notice the man who is now living (just barely) at his gate?

The man at the gate is Lazarus. “Covered with sores,” he has possibly been abandoned by his family, left at the one place where he has the best chance of being fed and cared for: at the rich man’s gate – the place of opportunity. Someone has noticed that food is being tossed out here. If he can deal with the dogs, he stands a chance of eating well. The dogs, for their part, take Lazarus’ presence in stride. However, they do tend to make a habit of licking the sores that cover his body.

We shudder at this because we’re supposed to – it is intended to show us that a great chasm has been fixed between the two men. Jewish purity laws and social norms preclude the two from having any real interaction, and any assistance that Lazarus might possibly receive from the rich man will be administered through his servants. This artificial chasm can be bridged – Lazarus could be restored to a normal life –  but it will require some personal sacrifice from the rich man, whether of time, money or social status.

Both men die. Death, the great equalizer, comes for the rich man (who is buried) and Lazarus (who is carried by angels to Abraham’s side). The instant of death, however, is the only moment where the two are equal. Their roles are now reversed. Lazarus now “has his good things” while the rich man now “lives” in torment.

“Holy moly it’s hot,” says the rich man as he tries to find a comfortable spot on the naked steel hood of a 1976 Trans Am in a Death Valley high noon sun. “Oi! Abba Abe! Cut me some slack and send Lazarus down here to slip me a little water. I’m dyin’ all over again here.”

It turns out that the rich man did notice Lazarus at his gate – he knows his name. However, his attitude towards Lazarus is suspect. He clearly sees Lazarus as someone who exists to support and serve him – to further his comfort. His request for token assistance (it will do nothing to alter the rich man’s true state) may be his way of asking for Lazarus to remember the table scraps the rich man let fall his way once.

“Sorry Bernie,” says Abraham (though we don’t really know the man’s name, it’s just funny), “but this is the way things are now. You had your good things while alive. In the same manner, Lazarus received bad things. Now Lazarus is comforted here, and you are in anguish. Besides, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you to prevent any commerce between us.”

Stymied by the lack of opportunity here in the afterlife to bridge the chasm, the rich man makes a seemingly noble request, “Then send him to my father’s house to warn my family lest they come here also.”

Abraham returns the volley, “Let them hear Moses and the prophets.”

“No, abba Abe, but if someone were to rise from the dead, they will repent.”

Jesus, in a moment of double prescience, tells the Pharisees and crowd that Abraham (their father) said, “No, if they don’t hear what Moses and the prophets have to say, they will not be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”

In his book “Luke: The Gospel of Amazement,” Michael Card points out the raw power of this statement. There are two people who will soon famously rise from the dead and, curiously, one of them is named Lazarus.

Throughout the story, Jesus is nipping at the heels of our expectations and our perceptions. Does the rich man do anything for Lazarus? He might. It’s said that Lazarus is simply hoping to be fed with what falls from the rich man’s table, and he may very well have been. But, it did nothing to change his true state. Lazarus died among the dogs at the gate where the rich man’s brothers walked past him at least once (how else would they have recognized a risen Lazarus?). How much benefit then did the rich man’s charity (if any) provide? None. The rich man did not go far enough.

The rich man clearly has not made enough effort to make a difference in the lives of the people around him – including Lazarus, his father and his five brothers. Why, for example, is the rich man not caring for his father? Or his brothers? Why does he live alone in luxury? His singular life is held up by our society as an admirable goal on the one hand and made suspect and tawdry in the other.

Jesus also gives a subtle dig at the Pharisees by flaunting a little Greek culture in their faces. Instead of Gehenna or Sheol, he uses the Greek word “Hades” to describe the rich man’s eternal destination. It’s almost as if Jesus is saying, “The Gentiles are convinced there’s an afterlife, why aren’t you?” 

Perhaps it would be better to state that Jesus is telling the Pharisees and the crowd that Hell is something that ought to be completely foreign to them. After all, these are not literal descriptions of the next life. He is simply playing with our expectations, myths and beliefs. But not for long. He will stop playing and completely destroy them when He rises – three days after He is murdered.

Lent 2016, Day 31: March 11 (Luke 16:1-18)

Jesus is continuing to teach – presumably to a mixed, divisive crowd. He turns from a powerful parable about grace to lessons about proper stewardship while keeping a wary eye fixed on the Pharisees (I see you Rabbi Feldman!), many of whom are audibly scoffing at His words (I can hear you, too!).

The rich man’s steward has a really sweet gig. As manager of his master’s estate, he has a lot of responsibility and autonomy. He’s practically a member of the family. He’s got a good setup, and he knows it. Sadly, that doesn’t prevent him from betraying his master by using his autonomy and authority to set up a little side action.

The steward has been cooking the books by padding the invoices and skimming off the top. It’s taken a while but somebody has finally gotten fed up with paying more than he should and has ratted him out – turned him in.

The jig is up, the news is out. The sweet ride grinds to a halt.

Now what?

The man doesn’t take responsibility for the situation (he blames his master for “taking away” the stewardship). To him, it’s a new variable to his life equation – a new constant. “I’m too fat to dig and too fat to proud to beg,” he thinks, “so what should I do?”

It occurs to him to use his imminent departure from his master’s house to speed him on his way to a new home. Under the guise of wrapping up a few loose ends, he shrewdly calls each of the master’s clients in for a heart to heart about their outstanding invoices. He works with each client to remove the obvious evidence of his embezzlement – each invoice is restored to its original state.

This, of course, ingratiates him to his master’s clients and may very well open a few doors for him and lead to his next long-term opportunity – or not. After all, he’s been shaking down these clients for months if not years. Just how grateful will they be to save 20% off just one invoice? Probably not much.

Jesus uses this parable to teach us about faithfulness and character. True faithfulness, He says, is about doing what the Master wants and giving Him His due – without worrying about what’s in it for you. True character, He notes, will always come out. Like a bad tree with bad fruit, bad character produces bad actions. The steward may have learned his lesson, but the likelihood is that he’s only learned not to get caught.