Lent 2016, Day 36: March 16 (Luke 18:15-30)

As His inner circle, Peter, James, John and the rest of the 12 (the Apostles) have the unenviable task of serving as a human barrier between Jesus and the crowd. As His crew, they control who gets access to Him and who is turned away – and they frequently make mistakes (like now). The crowd is “bringing even infants” to Jesus to touch. Put off by their desire, the disciples turn them away – and are rebuked in turn by Jesus.

“Let the children come to Me, and do not hinder them,” says Jesus, “for to such belongs the Kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

It’s a radical statement, one that leaves us scratching our heads. How, we wonder, are we to be like helpless infants in receiving the Kingdom?

Into this moment of confusion steps the young ruler. Head of his class, bit of a brown-noser, he flashes his backstage pass (Judas sells them on the side) and tries to ingratiate himself with Jesus with little luck.

“Good teacher!” he says with a flourish (and probably a bow he practiced for the Renaissance Faire), “what must I do to be saved?”

Jesus is not about to encourage him. “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but God alone.”

In refusing “good” as a description of Himself, Jesus takes the word off the table for the young ruler as well. He does so because He knows exactly where this conversation is heading.

“You know the commandments,” Jesus says (and proceeds to rattle off half of the Big 10).

“All these,” says the smug young ruler with a flourish, “I have kept” (he places his hand on his heart) “from my youth” (again he bows though not as smoothly this time – he’s starting to become self-conscious; maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all?)

“One thing you still lack,” says Jesus.

The young ruler bolts upright. “I lack? What could I possibly lack?” he thinks to himself. “I have a righteousness I have crafted and defended from my youth. I have material blessings that testify to this. I have a beautiful home, full barns, family that loves me, I tithe, I pray – I had my act together long before I ever had my bar mitzvah. I am blameless. There is nothing I lack!”

“You have no treasure in heaven,” Jesus gently says as he rips way the wool that obscures the young ruler’s eyes.

The young man is in shock. It’s obvious he understands Jesus’ point because it stops him in his tracks. For all his conceit, the young ruler is completely honest (or is at least convinced of his honesty). He doesn’t refute Jesus’ observation, and he dreads what’s coming next. Because Jesus is always, truly, brutally honest.

“Do you want to acquire true wealth? Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

The young man walks away “very sad” because he was “very rich.” He may now wish he had never met Jesus. In a very personal yet public manner, the young man has been confronted with Jesus’ identity as the stumbling stone of the Kingdom of God. He cannot get around or get over Jesus. He only has two choices: to be broken and rebuild his life with Jesus as the cornerstone; or to be crushed and destroyed under the weight of His words.

The disciples are shocked. After all, they had vetted the guy – they thought he was a shoo-in! What is going on?

It’s only as the young man walks away in sadness that Jesus shows any empathy for him. “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”

We often get distracted here in trying to puzzle out how to thread a needle with a camel. In doing so, we miss the poignancy of this scene. Jesus is watching the young man – “an Israelite indeed” – walk away, deep in thought, shoulders slumped, head down, shuffling away as he visibly struggles with the implications of what he has just heard. He came to Jesus, confident of who and what (he thought) he was. He is leaving bruised and battered, his hands full of the fractured pieces of who and what he really is. As much as Jesus might want to go after him, to counsel and comfort him, He cannot. He will not.

As much as we would like God to take over our lives and “make us do” this, that or the other thing – even the “good” things, the “righteous” things – He will not. God may be a co-pilot, but He is not an auto-pilot nor is He a bus driver. We have to close the deal ourselves, make the call, take the step, sign on the dotted line. If we don’t exercise our free will to make the better – the best – choice, we will have no personal stake in our walk of faith. We will be spectators in our own lives – nameless faces hitching a ride on the Jesus bus as long as it's going our way. Jesus is headed for the cross. Are we going that way, too?

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.