Engaging Scripture

Examine how you love – Honest Advent Week 2, Part 3

Examine how you love. Do you know how to examine your love? Or do you just assume that you are good at loving? Have you ever thought about that?

As we continue studying Honest Advent, we are learning what gifts Jesus wants us to give him for Christmas. Last week we learned to give him the gift of vulnerability, and this week we are learning to give him the gift of love. We have been studying 1st John, written by the man who was perhaps Jesus’ closest friend (and maybe cousin!). John writes that, “We love him because he first loved us.”

Let’s start by looking at how John describes this love in 1st John 4, verse 18. I appreciate that John makes it very clear for us what this love looks like in real life. It is not just epithets, or statements about what we believe. God desire love that is evident by our actions. We show that God’s love is flowing through us by the actions of our lives. This is exactly how we see God’s love in action, right? God didn’t just say, “I love you,” and leave us stranded in our sins. He did something active about it. He embodied love, through the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. His love was a body broken and blood poured out for us, which is what we symbolize and remember every month when we celebrate communion. Communion is a re-enactment of the symbols pointing to God’s love.

But perhaps even more importantly we also re-enact God’s love through the actions of our lives. Our actions, John says, show us whether or not we have God’s love in us. He goes on to illustrate this to make sure there is no doubt we understand the kind of love he is talking about. Go backwards to verse 17, and read there how John describes what love in action looks like.

We may never need to give our lives to the point of physical death like Jesus did on the cross. Some may, and many have through the centuries. But we do all have the opportunity to be generous to those in need. I would like us to dwell on verse 17 for a moment longer.

Last week I mentioned that Christmas, as commonly practiced by Christians, can be very strange, because it is Jesus’ birthday party, but instead of giving him gifts, like you would at a normal birthday party, we give each other gifts. What John writes in verse 17 is that we can give Jesus the gift of our love by blessing other people with gifts, and Christmas is as good a time as any to do so. It is not wrong, therefore, to give gifts to people, in Jesus’ honor, at Christmas. Those of you accustomed to receiving gifts for Christmas might now be thinking, “Whew. Good. Thank you, because last week you kinda had me nervous, saying that at Christmas we should be focused on giving gifts to Jesus.”

Well, take a closer look at verse 17, and you might start getting nervous again. Who are the people in John’s illustration? There is the one person who has material possessions, and there is the other person who is need. At Christmas we tend to identify with the person in need. We want to receive gifts. In fact, our culture wants all of us to identify with the person in need. But the reality is that John asks us to consider if we are actually more like the person who has material possessions. He makes it a test case for how to evaluate if God’s love is resident and alive in us. Are you and I people who have material possessions? I ask this even of the younger people who are dependent on your parents to provide for you. I ask this even of the older people who are trying to make ends meet on a fixed income. I ask this even of the people working like crazy trying to pay the bills and wondering how you are going to make it through Christmas and all the extra expense. John wants all of us to try to identify with the person who has material possessions. If we seriously examine our lives, the vast majority of American Christians in 2020, young, old, and everyone in-between, will find they have material possessions.

And what does John say about the person with material possessions? He says we should be on the lookout for people who have need, and we should give of our possessions to help that person. That is what the gift of love at Christmas looks like. So when you think about Christmas, rather than thinking about what gifts you want to receive, think about who the people in need are, and how you can give them gifts.

I’m writing this in early December, and my family put our Christmas tree a few weeks ago. As a kid, I remember looking at the space under the tree, excitedly thinking about how the space would soon be filled with gifts for me and my siblings. A pile of gifts under the tree is such a deep part of our culture. It looks so beautiful.

What John is telling us is that we should perhaps think less about filling up the space under our Christmas trees, and instead we should be thinking about how our homes and closets and attics and garages and rental storage spaces are already full! A few weeks ago some friends mentioned to me that they were working on cleaning out their storage unit, hoping to downsize because there was a lot of stuff in there they haven’t touched in years. How many of us could say that same thing about our stuff? Many of us have loads of stuff that we rarely touch. How could we use those possessions to bless those in need? Could we downsize to bless people in need? Could we sell off our extras and use the money to help people in need? What if Christmas was focused on that?

Christmas, so often, is an exercise in the rich blessing the rich with more riches. Yes, kids, I’m talking to you. And all the adults as well. The likelihood is that you don’t need the vast majority of the gifts you’ll receive for Christmas. Quite frankly, if you do have a need throughout the year, you just go buy what you need then.

The gift of love, John says, is when we open our eyes and hearts to those in need and we bless them. While it is not wrong to bless our kids and family and friends with gifts, the real heart of love in the Christmas story is God reaching out in love to those in need, to those who cannot help themselves. We show that God’s love is alive and working through us, and thus we give the gift of love back to Jesus, when we give selflessly, sacrificially to those in need.

I saw this heart of sacrificial selfless love when my congregation Faith Church, decided to loan ourselves $10,000 from our Building Fund to our Care & Share Fund, making that money available to people and organizations in need during the pandemic. To date, we have given over $8000 away. Some of gifts were matching gifts, and for some of the gifts we invited other Ministerium churches to join us, and they generously gave too. That means our $10,000 has expanded to over $12000! I praise God for that kind of generosity.

How can that kind of selfless love continue? I ask that question to all of us. Choose to have different mindset about Christmas, moving your heart from a focus on what you will get for Christmas, to what you will lovingly give for Christmas. Who are the people in need in your life? Who are the people that don’t already have abundance, and who really have needs?

How to know if you a truly a follower of Jesus – Honest Advent Week 2, Part 2

I was recently talking with someone about their spiritual journey. They said that they grew up in a Christian family, and they didn’t remember having what some people call a “moment of decision,” which is a distinct memory of their willful choice to believe in and give their lives to Jesus. You might hear some Christians call it “getting saved,” or “being born again.” It is often a powerfully emotional experience, sometimes to the point where people can remember the exact day and time of the moment, like we might ask, “Do you remember where you were when you first heard about 9/11?,” and if you’re old enough, you can tell the story. That is the experience of many Christians, but by no means is it the experience of all. Instead for many others, being a follower of Jesus is just always what they have been, even from a young child. They have never known otherwise.

As the years go by, though, most Christians call the authenticity of their faith into question. Maybe God seems distant, and they wonder, “Shouldn’t a true Christian feel closer to God?” Or maybe they’ve allowed some bad habits into their lives, or they haven’t done much to grow a close relationship with God, and they wonder, “Am I really a Christian?” It is what John describes in 1st John 4, verses 19 and 20: hearts and minds that are not at rest, that condemn us. Do you ever feel that? Do you ever wonder what it means to truly be a follower of Jesus? Keep reading!

In yesterday’s post, we looked at how God, in his love for us, made it possible for us to become his children. How did God do this? Why did God do this? Read 1^st John 3, verses 4-10, because there John explains it for us.

There John tells us that “[Jesus] appeared so that he might take away our sins.” That vulnerable baby we celebrate every Christmas would grow up to be a man who would make himself even more vulnerable through his death. Jesus did that, John writes, to take away our sins. What, then, is sin? Sin is a multi-faceted concept that the Bible describes in a variety of ways. Missing God’s mark. Doing that which God does not want us to do, whether in our thoughts, words or actions. Conversely, sin is leaving undone what God wants us to do. Sin is contrived in the Bible as an evil power that we allow to take up residence in our lives and control us. Therefore sin is very much connected to our free will, such that we choose sin. Put together, I hope it is clear that our choice to sin or to enter into sin, is an affront to God. Sin results in a brokenness between ourselves and God.

Our sin needs to be taken away, therefore, because sin is like a barrier that makes it impossible for us to become God’s children. Praise God, then, that in his love for us, he so badly wanted us to be his children that he dealt with the problem of our sin through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Look at verse 8 where John describes this: Jesus appeared to destroy the work of the devil. Throughout the years on this blog, I have referred to Jesus’ death and resurrection like this, “Through his death and resurrection, Jesus defeated sin, death and the devil.” We know that from passages like this one in 1^st John 3. Jesus was victorious over sin, death and the devil.

Why? Most obviously, because Jesus is infinitely more powerful than sin, death and the devil. But also, and more importantly, because God is a God of love. Look at 1^st John 3:16: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”

Keep your finger there, and turn back to the Gospel of John, and look at chapter 3, verse 16. Many of you might have heard of this verse, as it is considered to be the most famous verse in the Bible. John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Isn’t that wild how John 3:16 and 1^st John 3:16 are so similar???

Not surprising, really, considering that they were both written by the same guy. Coincidence or not, the important point is the message that God is love, and God initiated this love for all of us, and he clearly demonstrates his love through the gift of Jesus. This is why we make such a big of Christmas and Easter. They are like bookends on the life of Jesus. Of course God’s love was clearly evident before Jesus’ birth and after his death. But the message John wants us hear and know is that God’s love is freely given. Love comes to us without us earning it. To be a Christian, John told us, is to receive love. We do not earn it. It is a gift.

How then do we receive this gift? John wants there to be no mistaking what he means. In his letter he repeats himself numerous times. Let’s look at a few of the ways John describes for us what it means to receive God’s gift of love in Jesus.

For example, notice what John says in the rest of 1^st John 3:16, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”

We receive God’s gift of love by believing in him and we show that we believe in him by doing what Jesus did. We know God loves us because Jesus laid down his life for us. Likewise, we will show that God’s love is alive and at work in us when we lay down our lives as well. Notice, particularly, how John describes the act of laying down our lives:

“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

This is a critical passage. John is saying that we can know that we belong to the truth. We can know, John is saying, whether or not we are truly children of God. I appreciate what he says here because sometimes people wonder if they are genuine Christians or not. Maybe you have had one or more of those moments where you wonder, too.

Remember the person I mentioned at the beginning of the post? They said that when they would be at a youth retreat or other church event where people would ask the question, “Are you sure you’re really a Christian?”, they would wonder and doubt the validity of their own relationship with the Lord. So they would pray immediately, “OK, God, I’m just making sure…I want you to know I really mean it; I believe in you!” But John says we can set our hearts at rest in God’s presence because God is greater than our hearts. That’s another way to say, “Our emotions do not always tell us the truth.” Just because you don’t feel close to God, or you are doubting that you are truly a child of God, it doesn’t mean that you are not a child of God. I’d like to suggest that John gives us a far better way to evaluate whether or not we are truly a child of God. John’s is a non-emotional way to know the truth: Examine how you love.

How do we examine our love? Check back in to tomorrow’s post, and we’ll begin to see what John has to say about loving the way God desires.

What it means that “God is Love” – Honest Advent Week 2, Part 1

During Honest Advent we are looking at what gifts we can give Jesus. Last week we learned that one of the gifts he wants is our vulnerability. What we are starting to find in this Advent series is that the gifts Jesus wants are gifts that he first gave us. Think about how Jesus gave us his vulnerability. He left the perfection of heaven to become human, and not just any human, but a baby human. A baby is completely vulnerable in this world, dependent on the care, the protection and the provision of other people, primarily the baby’s parents. But Jesus went even further, way further, to be vulnerable. As God he could have chosen to enter the human world from a position of power, such as being born into a really wealthy household, or a really influential household, like that of a King. Instead he entered our world in the household of lowly peasants, who were part of a people group that had almost no power or influence, the Jews in first-century Palestine. There he existed in obscurity, living a perfect life, and after three short years of ministry, he died a criminal’s death. Talk about vulnerability. The all-powerful God became a totally vulnerable baby, and then that same all-powerful God entered into death. Why? Love! Love is the next gift that we see God has given us, and that we, in turn, give back to him.

To understand this love, let’s open our Bibles. You might be familiar with the love chapter in the Bible, 1^st Corinthians 13. You know, the one that say, “Love is patient, love is kind…etc.” That love chapter gives us an amazing definition of love, but I want us to turn to the love book of the Bible because of how it focuses on God’s love. 1^st John.

So turn to 1^st John 1:1-4 and read what it says. There he writes to the Christians in his day, and all others who would read this, “I want you to know that what I am writing about, that what you have heard about from the beginning is the truth, because I saw it with my own eyes and I touched it with my own hands.” What was the author an eyewitness of?

To answer that, we need know who this writer is! From ancient times, Christians identified the writer of this letter as John who was one of Jesus’ 12 disciples. John wrote not only 1st John, but also the two other letters (epistles) that bear his name, 2^nd and 3^rd John, and the Gospel of John, as well as the book of Revelation. When he wrote, we believe he was the only one of 12 disciples still alive, and because life expectancy in the First Century was so much shorter than it is now, John was the rare man who might have been living into his 80s or 90s.

John has seen a lot in his years. The church has grown, but it has also faced persecution, false teachers, and the normal inner growth pains any organization faces. Furthermore, as the years go by, memories of Jesus fade. Imagine the weight of responsibility John might feel as the last of the original eyewitnesses of Jesus. What must it have been like to be the last person alive that actually walked with Jesus, talked with him, learned from him, saw his miracles, his death and resurrection? I can see John wanting to preserve the true memory and teaching of Jesus for future generations. So this is a letter about Jesus. In particular it is a letter about the love of God that John saw and felt in Jesus.

Look ahead to what he writes in 1 John 4:19, “We love because he first loved us.” God initiated this love. God’s love flows from who he is, John writes in chapter 4, verse 7. God’s love is entirely consistent with the kind of God he is. Love is God’s core. “God is love,” John writes in 1 John 4:16. All of God’s other characteristics are adjectives that describe his love. God is holy love. God is gracious love. God is merciful love. God is just love. God is truthful love, faithful love, and on and on we could go describing his love.

That love pours out of God. You cannot separate God or any part of God from love. It is who He is.

Here is what we read in 1^st John chapter 3, verse 1: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” This is an astounding truth. God has lavished his love on us to the point where we have the opportunity to be part of his family, to be his children!

But how do we become his children?

Keep your finger in 1^st John 3, and turn to John’s Gospel, chapter 1, verse 12, where we read a bit more about how God’s love made it possible for us to become his children. There we read, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children not born of natural descent, not of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” God did it. That’s how much he loves us. God made it possible for us to become his children, John says, for all humans to become his children, by receiving him, by believing in his name.

How did God do this? Why did God do this? And what does it mean to receive him and believe in his name? Check back in to the next post as we’ll seek to answer these questions.

Show vulnerability when you feel like an outsider – Honest Advent Week 1, Part 5

Being The Tall Guy At Concerts - We All Want Someone To Shout For

There’s one more story of vulnerability that I want us to learn from. Turn to Luke 19:1-9. At this point in the story of Jesus, he is on the way to Jerusalem where he will face his destiny. But Jesus is not quite there yet. He is passing through the nearby city of Jericho. Crowds continue to follow him, and on the outskirts of the crowd a man is watching. Like the other characters we’ve met, Nicodemus, the centurion and the sick woman, this man is captivated by Jesus. All three of those previous characters brought their vulnerability to Jesus, because in him they identified one who was the answer to their longings.

This man standing in the back of the crowd trying to get a glimpse of Jesus is no different. Deep down he has an emptiness, something is missing. That’s ironic because if you look at his life from the outside, he seems to have it made. He is a tax collector, in fact a chief tax collector, and that was a job in first century Palestine that could make you wealthy, as it did for this man. But it wasn’t like everyone in their school days was studying to be a tax collector in hopes of striking it rich. It wasn’t like there were so many people trying to become tax collectors that competition for the job was tough. No. Tax collectors were despised. Yeah, you could get rich as a tax collector, but it would cost you. It wouldn’t cost you financially, it would cost you relationally. Why?

Because you had to sell you soul to the Roman overlords, and at the same time you had to sell out your fellow Jews. How? The tax collectors were Jews who overtaxed their own countrymen, in cahoots with the Romans. The Romans forcibly received whatever tax they wanted, and the tax collectors profited off any additional inflated amount they charged. They could get away with it because Rome was in charge, and as long as the tax collector kept the Romans paid up and happy, the Romans were quite willing to provide personal protective services for the tax collectors while the tax collectors ripped off their fellow Jews. So as the tax collectors got rich, their friends and family hated them, calling them traitors. You know what this meant? This guy’s insides were rotting out. He probably had few friends and family, and was essentially an outsider to his own family.

He was also short. You might have heard of him: Zacchaeus.

I can see the crowd of Jews saying to him, “Get out of here you wee little man. Go enjoy your nice house and food that you stole from us.” Have you ever felt the emptiness Zacchaeus is feeling? Maybe you’ve tasted success in life, filled with things, but there is some deadness in your insides. You’ve made choices, and they turned out way different than you hoped. Or maybe you knew what you were getting into, and you knew it was wrong, but you did it anyway. It was fun for a time, but now you’re stuck in it, you hate it, you know it was a mistake, and you want out. You want a different life. But you’ve offended so many people in the process, they don’t want you back.

Are you like the traitorous Zacchaeus who doesn’t know how to get back into the family?

Do what Zacchaeus does! What does he do? He runs ahead, noticing a tree with limbs hanging out over the road, seeing that Jesus will be walking right under those branches. He climbs the tree and places himself directly above Jesus’ path.

Talk about being vulnerable. He put himself right out in the wide open, in view of everyone. For the people from Jericho who knew and hated Zacchaeus, he was low-hanging fruit for the picking, easy to make fun, to revile, or yell at: “What are you doing up there, traitor? Can’t see because you’re so short?”

Right then, under the tree, Jesus stops and looks up at Zacchaeus. I wonder if anyone in the crowd hoped Jesus was going to confront Zacchaeus, like they were. I wonder if they thought Jesus should confront the traitor! Instead Jesus shocks them. If they knew Jesus, this probably didn’t surprise them, as Jesus previously invited a tax collector (Matthew) into his group of 12 disciples. Jesus says, “Hey Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” Zacchaeus is elated! But the crowd? Not so much, muttering about Jesus hanging out with sinners.

For Zacchaeus, that bit of making himself vulnerable was all it took. Jesus noticed him. Jesus saw his vulnerability. Jesus knew Zacchaeus was empty, an outsider, and Jesus brought Zacchaeus back into the family. Just like that Zacchaeus responds with transformation, embodying a saved live.

Jesus says that Zacchaeus is a son of Abraham too. Jesus is saying to the crowd, “Zacchaeus is part of the family!” Jesus then describes one of the many phrases that emphasize his mission: the Son of man came to seek and save what was lost.

“Lost” describes the emptiness that Zacchaeus felt inside. “Lost” describes the emptiness many of us feel inside. “Lost” describes the way we feel like outsiders. When we bring that vulnerability to Jesus, he wants to save us, to bring us back into the family.

Jesus meets us at the lost point of our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses, the places where we aren’t enough or not doing it right. There he says, “Reach out to me, return to me, and there you can find what you’re looking for.”

Notice how Zacchaeus responds. He doesn’t say “I choose to believe in you.” He makes a change. He gives half of his possessions to the poor, and he pays back four times the amount of those he has cheated! When Zacchaeus brings his vulnerability to Jesus, he realizes that he has all he needs, and he can part ways with the false promises he hoped would bring him a full life. That’s what salvation in Jesus does. It brings an inward change that leads to outward change.

So one of the best gifts you can give to Jesus is your vulnerability. He is the only place we will find the true satisfaction we long for. As we begin Advent, what will it look like for you to spend time being vulnerable with Jesus? Being vulnerable can be scary, but in his loving kindness he will treat us just like he did the four people we met this week, with grace and mercy and hope. Pour out your heart to him. Be honest with yourself and with him about what is going on in your heart. Go to him in Faith. In the knowledge that he is good. That you are loved by him. That he desires to be known by you. How can you be more vulnerable, more teachable, more open with Jesus?

How to reach out when you are helpless – Honest Advent Week 1, Part 4

Know the feeling? If you’ve ever had a battle with a medical situation, maybe a mental health situation, maybe a difficult relationship, the story of this lady might resonate with you. If you’ve ever struggled financially, wondering why it seems that you can never get ahead of the bills, or your car or house breaking down, and you’re sick of reaching out for help, you know what the lady is feeling. It is a feeling of being vulnerable all the time. Feeling like you are just open and wounded, and often not by your own choice. It is a forced vulnerability, where life has pushed you to a place that you didn’t choose, and yet you don’t have any other option than to place your broken, hurting self in the hands of others. It gets old doesn’t it?

Turn to Mark 5:24, and we read another story that is quite similar to the story of the centurion. In fact, many of the miracle stories of Jesus feature a person who is helpless, reaching out to Jesus for rescue. I mention this particular story because the power dynamic is almost the opposite of the power dynamic in the centurion story. It could be that you read the previous post and don’t identify with the powerful centurion. Maybe the person we meet in this post will speak to you.

In Mark 5:25, we meet a sick woman who has no power to heal her body. She has tried so many different remedies, and nothing is working. She has clearly been in the down position for years. Talk about vulnerability. Her whole life has been one of vulnerability. Imagine how tired, how depressed, how frustrated she must be feeling. Look at verses 25-26. The constant suffering, the repeated cycle of seeking a new hope, only to have every single option result in a dead end. On top of that, the large expenditure of money has left her penniless. She suffered a great deal, and yet her life just got worse.

The woman has not given up hope, though, has she? There’s a light breaking in the darkness of the land, as there is word on the street of a healer, a miracle-worker. Verses 27-28 are astounding to me: 12 years of pain and emptiness and failure, and yet this woman hears about Jesus and he awakens hope within her. It’s not a jaded hope, either. You know what I mean by jaded hope? It’s that feeling you get after years of fruitless struggle, maybe in trying to find a relationship, or maybe in trying to improve your finances, maybe in trying to get healthy, and it has been one episode of bad news after the other. You are utterly defeated, and then a friend comes to you with yet another idea. You know your friend cares about you, but they have no idea how you feel, how you’re just done with it, and so you humor them, saying, “Yeah, thanks, let’s try it,” but inside you’re really thinking, “Whatever, this isn’t going to work.” When I read verses 27-28, even after 12 years of deep struggle, this woman still has faith! She knows. She is convinced. She believes. She knows that if she brings her vulnerability to Jesus, he can heal her. I love the hope that is blazing in her eyes.

And she goes to where he is, weaving through the crowd, and she reaches out, touching his cloak. In that one act of amazing faithful vulnerability, she is healed.

Isn’t it wild that Jesus knows that power went out of him? It’s not like he saw her coming and the crowd parted, and it was just Jesus and the woman, and he reaches out and heals her. No. He didn’t reach out to her. He didn’t even see her coming. She came to him. At the moment she touched his cloak, he felt something shift in the power of the Spirit that was working through him, and he knew someone had touched him. Interestingly, there were maybe a bunch of people touching him. Look at verse 24 where we read that a large crowd pressed against him. Despite this, when the woman touches his clothes, Jesus says, “Who touched me?” I can see his disciple Peter, who tended to speak the obvious, say, “Uh, Jesus, there are like 5 people touching you. What do you mean?”

What Jesus meant was this: in the middle of the crowd, when the woman, whose life was defined by painful vulnerability, brought her vulnerability to Jesus, her faith tapped into his healing power.

I find it fascinating that Jesus doesn’t seem to have made a choice to heal the woman! It wasn’t like he had to decide, “Should I heal her, or not?” Instead we can presume that God the Father, through the power of the Spirit resident in Jesus, allowed the healing because of the woman’s faith.

That is how we bring our vulnerability to Jesus, in faith that he is powerful! This doesn’t mean that we will automatically get what we want. Numerous people were touching Jesus, but it was only this woman who was healed. Perhaps none of the people touching needed any kind of healing, yet it seems that power would be constantly flowing from him considering how many people actually need healing in their lives! But in this case, at least, Jesus only refers to the healing that occurred in this one woman’s life. Why? Because she made herself vulnerable. She is for us an example of faithful vulnerability.

Check back to tomorrow’s post, as there is one more story of vulnerability that we will learn from.

How to find power when you feel powerless – Honest Advent Week 1, Part 3

Being powerless is a terrible feeling, isn’t it? Do you know what I mean? It’s that helpless feeling when life is bulldozing you and there’s nothing you can do about it. In today’s post we find out a very powerful man became powerless in order to access true power, and how we can learn from him to practice the same in our lives.

As we continue studying Honest Advent, week one is about vulnerability, and how it is a gift that Jesus really wants for Christmas. In the previous post, we met the powerful religious leader, Nicodemus, who allowed himself to be vulnerable to Jesus.

Turn to Matthew 8:5-13 where we meet another powerful person, but instead of an elite religious leader, this time it is a Roman centurion. At the time Jesus was alive, the Romans had a military vice-grip of control over Palestine. The Jews, therefore, were an occupied people, with Roman soldiers patrolling their streets and towns. They were forced to pay taxes to the Romans, to follow Roman law, to do basically whatever that Romans wanted them to do.

As you can imagine, the Jews did not like being subservient to the Romans. They hated the Romans, and they pleaded with God to keep his promise and send the promised Messiah to deliver them. Many Jews tried to be that Messiah. They raised up underground armies who would rebel and fight the Romans. Sometimes it worked, but never for long. The Romans were too strong.

When this Roman centurion comes to Jesus, therefore, an emotional cultural clash is taking place. Jesus, his friends and followers are Jews. The centurion is Roman. They are enemies of each other. Furthermore, the Roman centurion is in the position of power. At his command, soldiers could kick people out of their homes, steal their possessions, demand the people to do pretty much whatever they want. In power dynamics, we would call this the up position. The Roman centurion has all the power and position to do what he wants.

But this particular centurion has a problem that has placed him in the down position. His highly valued servant is on his deathbed. The powerful Roman centurion has no power to heal his servant. Or maybe he tried and failed at that. Maybe he sought out doctors and remedies, and nothing was working. All the benefits of being a centurion in the up position in that society have turned out to be meaningless when it comes to saving his friend.

So what does the centurion do? He can not longer rely on the power of his up position. Instead he embraces the reality of his situation by evaluating himself realistically. When it comes to saving his friend, the centurion is powerless, in the down position. He admits this, and he reaches out to one he knows is in the up position. Jesus.

See what the centurion has done? He has made himself vulnerable. Making yourself vulnerable is really hard to do when you are used to being in charge, when you are used to using your power to get what you want. It takes humility and teachability to lower yourself, to make yourself vulnerable and reach out saying, “I can’t do this. I need help.”

But that is exactly what Jesus taught us to say in John 15:4, when he told his disciples, “Apart from me, you can do nothing, so remain in me, and I will remain in you, and you will bear much fruit.” When we express our vulnerability to Jesus we are showing that we have a healthy evaluation of ourselves, that we’re not too proud or arrogant to reach out for Jesus’ help. It shows that we recognize who we are in Christ, and who he is.

Notice Jesus’ response to the Roman centurion in Matthew 8:5-13. Jesus is elated! The centurion has given Jesus the gift of vulnerability, and Jesus loves it. In fact Jesus says he has not seen faith like this in all of Israel! That’s a bold statement considering what I mentioned above, that the Jews and Romans were enemies. Clearly, this centurion was not your typical Roman centurion, which Luke describes for us in his version of the account (Luke 7:1-10). There we read that not only was the centurion faithful in the moment of his powerlessness, but he had also, long before this moment, established a reputation for helping the Jewish community, including the building of their synagogue. Still, this powerful man correctly evaluated himself as powerless to help his servant, and when he reached out in vulnerable faith to Jesus, the centurion is a model for how we can give Jesus the gift of our vulnerability.

Like I said, Jesus is elated at the man’s vulnerable faith, responding by healing the servant instantly! This is not saying that if we are vulnerable to Jesus in our moment of weakness that he is somehow duty-bound to do whatever we wish. Displaying our vulnerability is not like saying, “I wish…” to a genie. But know this: even if we don’t receive the resolution to the situation that caused our vulnerability, our posture of faithful vulnerability is the gift Jesus delights in.

Consider what Jesus himself taught about this kind of vulnerability in his parable of the woman and the stubborn judge. Read Luke 18:1-17, where Jesus says we should pray and not give up, like a woman with a problem who keeps taking her problem to a judge, over and over, day after day, but the judge never wants to be bothered by her. Finally, though, the woman’s persistence pays off, and she gains a hearing before the judge. Jesus is not saying that God is like the judge, as if God doesn’t really want to hear from us, until we wear him down and he gives in. Jesus’ point is that we should bring our vulnerability to God, persistently, consistently, and we should not give up. Rather than being grumpy about this, Jesus reminds us that this delights him!

Vulnerability means saying, “I don’t get it.” – Honest Advent Week 1, Part 2

For Advent 2020, we are following the themes in the book Honest Advent as we think about the gifts we can give Jesus in celebration of his birthday. As we saw in the previous post, in Week 1, we are giving him the gift of our vulnerability. To understand what vulnerability looks like, and how we can give Jesus the gift of our vulnerability, we’re going to take a look at Jesus’ encounters with four people.

To read about the first one, open a Bible to John 3:1-10.

There we meet Nicodemus who is a member of one of Israel’s religious ruling parties called the Pharisees. Nicodemus is very curious about Jesus, and wants to have a private meeting with Jesus under cover of night. Why at night? Because of the track record of the Pharisees interaction with Jesus. The relationship was not good. Normally the air between Jesus and the Pharisees was ice cold because the Pharisees were constantly trying to trip Jesus up so they could accuse him of blasphemy or treachery. They were super jealous of Jesus’ popularity, and wanted to take him down. What was worse was that Jesus would confront them, point out their hypocrisy, and he always got the upper hand in their debates with him. So they hated him.

But not all of them. Some Pharisees were curious, like Nicodemus. He thought there was something genuine, something different about Jesus, and Nicodemus’ wondered if his Pharisee buddies were wrong about this guy. But there’s no way Nicodemus was going to risk his reputation by challenging his friends directly, or by getting sighted in public with Jesus. So a covert meeting is what it will take for Nicodemus to have a real conversation with Jesus.

The conversation is…well…weird. Jesus is characteristically mysterious, teaching in parables and metaphors, talking about people being born a second time, pushing Nicodemus to think deeply and figuratively. Pushing Nicodemus outside the box of the typical religious thought of the day.

You know what Nicodemus says? “I don’t get it”. “I don’t understand.”

Those are amazing words coming from him. Nicodemus is a Pharisee! That means he went through years of biblical and theological training. He is a scholar. In that society of first-century Palestine, think about how upside-down this is. The peasant turned prophet, Jesus, is schooling the Bible professor, Nicodemus. Look at verse 10 where Jesus boldly says to Nicodemus, “You’re Israel’s teacher, and do you not understand these things?” That’s a burn. Many people would hear that and start seething angrily inside, thinking “This peon is trying to make fun of me? No way!” Many people would shoot back at Jesus with a burn of their own and walk out of there. Even if they truly didn’t understand Jesus.

But rather than be embarrassed, rather than save face, rather than get angry, Nicodemus is an example for us of vulnerability. No matter if think we are spiritually advanced and biblically literate, we need to be vulnerable before God. We need to be teachable, remembering that we don’t have him all figured out. There is always more to learn. And we should take the posture of learners! Are you showing vulnerability by being a learner? What a gift that is to the people you interact with. What a gift that is to Jesus.

The Weirdness of Christmas – Honest Advent Week 1, Part 1

Last-Minute Ideas for Celebrating Jesus' Birthday - ROOTED FAMILY

Have you heard that Christmas is Jesus’ birthday party? We use that idea often with children. It’s not wrong, but it always seemed slightly off to me. First of all, the biblical Gospels say nothing about the day on which Jesus was born. The Gospels don’t mention the year, month, or the day of week. Scholars have done loads of research to discover how it came to be that the ancient Christians selected December 25^th to celebrate Jesus’ birth, but even that research is very undecided. It might have something to do with Christians wanting to provide an alternative to pagan religions celebrating the winter solstice, but it might also connect with Judaism. The scholars are just not sure. Then again maybe it’s not all that strange that we celebrate Jesus’ birthday when we don’t know the actual day, because it is a good thing to celebrate no matter the day.

But I still think the idea of Christmas as Jesus’ birthday party does have some oddness to it. Not only do we not know if we have the date right, but we also don’t seem to have the concept of birthday parties right, at least when it comes to Jesus’ birthday party. What do I mean? Think about it. At birthday parties we give gifts to the one whose birthday it is, but for Jesus’ birthday, we give gifts to each other! In fact, many of us give ourselves gifts from Christmas.

I think it gets even weirder still. If Christmas is Jesus’ birthday, then we should not only be giving him gifts, but we should also be giving him gifts that he wants. When you think of a person’s birthday, you think, “Hmmm…now what would they want?” We can rack our brains wondering what they might want, trying to remember if they’ve mentioned anything that they would like.

Are you the kind of person who gives hints all the time? Or are you the person who is reserved about parties and gifts, and they make you uncomfortable, and people never know what to get you? What I’m getting at is this: if we are to celebrate Jesus’ birthday by giving him gifts, what does he want? Is he like the person who gives us a list of ideas? Or is he like the person who doesn’t tell us what he wants? Keep reading, as I’ll get to that. But first, there’s another Christmas issue we need to think about.

Despite the fact that Christmas features us giving each other gifts on Jesus’ birthday, I think we actually do give Jesus gifts on his birthday. Are you wondering what gifts we give him? Maybe we could say that we give Jesus the gift of worship through Christmas carols and special worship services. We give him the gift of praise.

While that is true, and it could be considered a gift, I wonder if that’s what he really wants for his birthday. If you are Jesus, and your followers are celebrating your birthday, like they do every year on Christmas, how would you respond to that kind of gift? If it were me, I wouldn’t be too happy about that. But thankfully, it isn’t up to me. Maybe Jesus really loves our carols and Advent candles and Christmas Eve services. Or does he?

Obviously, we don’t know for sure. But we know enough about Jesus, especially through the accounts of his life and teaching in the four Gospels to have a pretty good idea of what he wants from his followers. So what does he want? What did he say he wants? Did Jesus ask for us to hold worship services in his honor?

Years ago I read the book Jim & Casper Go To Church, and I found it very helpful. Jim is a Christian, and Casper is an atheist, and together they travel around the USA, visiting churches of all shapes and sizes. They attend worship services together, and then they discuss what they experienced. Over and over, Casper says to Jim, “Did Jesus really tell you to do this?” It is a very thought-provoking comment. Did Jesus tell us he wants us to have worship services?

It’s not wrong to have Sunday worship. But we have to face the fact that Jesus did not tell his followers to have Sunday worship. His apostles do teach us to gather together regularly. But while Jesus taught his followers many things that he wanted them to do, have worship services was never one of his commands. Again, it is not wrong to have Sunday worship or Christmas Eve worship, as long as we are clear about what Jesus definitely did say he wanted. So for Christmas, for Jesus’ birthday, we would do well to think about want Jesus wants. What gift should we get him? This Advent, we’re going to learn what gifts Jesus himself told us he wanted us to give him.

To help us learn the gifts we are to give Jesus, this year for Advent we are studying Honest Advent. The writer of Honest Advent, Scott Erickson says this: “The Word of God was incarnated through human vulnerability, and we can connect with Jesus through that same human vulnerability.” Jesus wants to connect with each one of us, and this connection happens through vulnerability on our part.

Jesus wants us to give him the gift of our vulnerability. What is vulnerability? To understand what vulnerability looks like, and how we can give Jesus the gift of our vulnerability, we’re going to take a look at Jesus’ encounters with four people. All four are vulnerable with Jesus. What we will learn from these encounters is that our vulnerability is one of the most important gifts we can give Jesus.

So please check back in to the next post, as we meet the first person who gives Jesus the gift of vulnerability.

How to avoid your boss getting angry at you – Ecclesiastes 9:11-10:20, Part 5

One of the worst feelings is when your boss is angry at you. Here’s how to avoid it.

In our final section of Ecclesiastes 9:11-10:20, the Teacher (the author of Ecclesiastes) writes a proverb in verses 18-19 that is connected to the illustration he previously used of to help us determine if a leader is wise or foolish. In the previous post, we read the Teacher’s proverb in verses 16-17 that an immature leader is one who parties early in the morning, which is when work is supposed to start. The immature leader is, in other words, lazy. Here’s how my Old Testament seminary professor David Dorsey translates the Teacher’s continuation of that thought in verse 18: “18 Laziness causes the rafters to sag; idle hands cause the house to fall down. 19 Bread brings laughter and wine brings merriment, but money is needed to provide these things.”

That applies to all of us, doesn’t it? We should avoid laziness, and we should be people who work diligently. Of course there is a time to relax and enjoy life, as the Teacher clearly said previously in verse 17. Enjoy life, but with dignity and not shamefully, but only after we have worked diligently.

Wisdom, then, says that we should be people who work diligently. How would your boss describe your work ethic? How would your coach evaluate your practice? How would your parents say you are helping with chores? These are great questions for all of us to keep in mind as we seek to be wiser. Again, as with all proverbs they don’t tell us the whole story, because it would not be wise to be a workaholic who does not remember that life is fleeting, and who does not take time to relax and have joy in all things.

Finally, the Teacher concludes with one more proverb in verse 20. Here’s how Dorsey translates it: “20 Do not revile the king even to an intimate friend, or curse an influential person even in the privacy of your bedroom, because a bird of the air may carry your words, and a bird on the wing may report what you say.”

This reminded me of The Hunger Games or some dystopian future where robotic birds have microphones and are listening to what we say, reporting them to the government. Then I thought, our phones and computers and smart speakers and cars are already listening! How many of you have had the freaky experience of talking about something, only to have an ad for that very thing pop up in your social media feed in a matter of minutes?

But that’s not what the Teacher is talking about here. He is talking a bit more about gossip. How many of you have had the experience of talking negatively about a boss or a leader, just to have them or one of their friends walk by in the hallway and possibly overhear it? Or you accidentally sent a negative email or text to the whole company about the boss? Or maybe you share with person A, in confidence, your negative opinion about person B, only to find out that person A actually is friends with person B, and your negative opinion got back to person B, and now there are hurt feelings, misunderstandings, and your reputation is damaged a bit, not to mention that you are hurt that person A broke confidentiality!

Confidentiality is a messy thing. We absolutely need people in our lives that we can speak confidentially with about anything and everything. Spouses. Best friends. Usually those conversations stay in the privacy of our homes, and no word gets out, contrary to what the Teacher says. Remember these are proverbs, not promises. What, then, is the proverb here? That if you don’t want to break confidentiality, don’t share anything confidential. Wisdom suggests that we should be very careful and guarded about our words and who we confide in. Another way to put it: loose lips sink ships.

This brings us back to what we talked about in the previous section of Ecclesiastes, that what we allow our hearts and minds to dwell on will take root in our lives, and can be very difficult to uproot! So if you are spending lots of time reviling the king or those in leadership, that is where your heart will stay focused. And that is not where wisdom will grow from.

Consider that the things you talk about frequently are the things your minds and hearts are focusing on. So are you focusing on that which will bring good and noble character, on wisdom?

This week in our five-part series on Ecclesiastes 9:11-10:20, we’ve studied numerous proverbs, all around the theme of seeking wisdom and avoiding folly. Have you heard any proverbs that you sense God is saying you need to apply to your life? How can you pursue wisdom in a new area?

How to discover the character of a leader (and why it matters) – Ecclesiastes 9:11-10:20

*Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash*

Does a leader’s character matter? Just about everyone would say, “Yes,” but what if their character is sketchy, and maybe their personality and tone really rubs you the wrong way, but you agree with their policies, or at least some of their policies? Is it okay, then, to overlook their character? These are difficult questions to answer. And thankfully, in today’s post, we have some help.

This week we’ve been searching for proverbs that The Teacher (the writer of Ecclesiastes) gives us about the difference between wisdom and foolishness. Once again, here is my seminary Old Testament professor David Dorsey’s translation of Ecclesiastes 10:16-17:

“16 How unfortunate are you, O land whose king is immature and whose princes feast in the morning. 17 How fortunate are you, O land whose king is noble and whose princes feast at appropriate times—and in dignity rather than shamefully.”

The Teacher really wants us to think about leadership doesn’t he? He’s at it again, talking about the difference between a wise and foolish king. The NIV describes the foolish king as a “servant” or a “lad.” This Hebrew word is used a variety of ways in the Old Testament, all of which point to someone who has no business being king because of their immaturity. It is why in the USA a person has to be at least 35 years old to be a presidential candidate. So notice above in Dorsey’s translation, how the Teacher calls the foolish king immature, and he calls the wise king noble. In the context of the ancient near east, the Teacher is referring to something very similar to what he said earlier in verses 6-7, when he wrote about slaves riding horses while princes were walking. In his world, the Teacher is saying that servants and children shouldn’t be kings and only nobility should be. Dorsey catches the gist of the passage very well. It is not wise to have leaders who are immature or haven’t learned how to lead a country.

This proverb becomes very clear in how the Teacher refers to the Land. In the Old Testament, the Land was a common way to talk about Israel. It was the Promised Land. God gave the people a land. While it was a geographical region on a map, it carried a greater significance than that. The land was a dwelling place of protection and provision. The land could be blessed, and the land could be cursed. The land, therefore, took on a life and character somewhat of its own.

In this proverb the land is either fortunate or unfortunate based on the character and actions of its leaders. If the leader is immature, the land becomes unfortunate, which is quite similar to the idea of being cursed. But if the leader is noble, the land is fortunate, and the land is in a position of blessing.

The Teacher is saying that leadership matters, and even more precisely, the Teacher is saying that the maturity and character of the leader matters. In fact, the Teacher is saying that the maturity of the leader can have far-reaching implications for the land. Gardeners, you have seen that right? It is unwise to let weeds and disorganization take over the land. There is wisdom in how you care for things; how you tend the garden has repercussions on the actual land. My mind also goes to Genesis where we are told we will have dominion over the land. How we care for the earth matters. There are wise ways and foolish ways to care for the land and they will both have significant impact.

How do we know, though, if a leader is mature or immature? Notice the word the Teacher uses as the contrast to immature: noble. That means maturity and nobleness are connected. It also means that immaturity and lack of nobleness are connected. If you want to know if a leader is mature or not, one way to discern is to look at their lives for evidence of nobleness or lack of nobleness. Also look at how the Teacher describes the noble leader, with dignity, rather than shamefully. How a person carries themselves and how they treat others can be with dignity or with shamefulness, and that is one way know if they are mature or immature. Dictionaries define noble character as “someone who has high morals and ideas – someone who is honest and charitable. Being of great courage, generosity and honorable.”

But again, these are proverbs that are generally true. If you look hard enough, you’ll find an exception. Clearly there are men and women of noble birth, who have had education and training for leadership, but who are foolish, and they should not be leading, no matter what family they came from or where they went to college.

We should actively pursue putting mature leaders in positions of leadership. Their lives, actions and choices will tell us if they are mature. They are noble, living and speaking with dignity, and thus have no or little shame, and they will lead toward fortune and blessing to the land. If we see people attempting to become leaders who live a lifestyle of ignobility, of indignity, who are shameful, we should not support them, as they will lead toward misfortune and cursing of the land.

This means we should examine our leaders. I am not just referring to political leaders here. Given the events in the news, of course that is where our minds naturally go. Political leaders are precisely who the Teacher in Ecclesiastes is talking about. But the wisdom in his proverbs applies to all kinds of leaders. The leaders of our community. The coaches on our sports team. Church leaders. Pastors!

Look closely at their lives. How they treat their families and their coworkers. Examine how they live their lives. Their actions will reveal their character, and when it comes to leadership, the Teacher clearly tells us, character matters. It is indispensable. Remember the story of the poor man with wisdom? His wisdom bested the loud-mouthed king with the military force. He is telling us that we should search out wise leadership.

Whether it is a national leader or a local leader, whether it is a coach of a major league sports team or of a little league team, whether it is a CEO of an international corporation or a pastor of a community church, we should seek leaders who have demonstrated wisdom by the choices in their lives. As Jesus once taught, “By their fruits you will know them.”