Tag Archives: Jesus

Gospel Meditation

Looking Back at Yesterday’s Gospel

Old fig tree
Old fig tree (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 Readings:
Isaiah 55:1-9
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9 

Today’s gospel appears to be two unrelated stories. The first appears to ask why the innocent suffer. The second asks what can be done with unfruitful believers. Despite appearances, the two stories are related. It’s all about appearances. Does God care about the way things look, or does God care about the way things are?  

In the first story, Jesus is accosted with news of people who were executed (perhaps a better word is murdered) by Pontius Pilate, a man whose claim to fame is complicity in the murder of Jesus. Like people today, people of Jesus’ day wanted life to make sense. According to their logic, and according to many pious folk, “Everything happens for a reason.” The problem is that the people of Jesus’ day were no better at discerning the reason than we are. They jumped to conclusions, a universal human failing, and assumed that the dead had done something bad to deserve destruction. After each story, Jesus said, “Unless you repent, you will all perish, just as they did.” If those people did not earn destruction by evil deeds, then why did Jesus tell people to repent of evil or perish? Harper’s Bible Commentary tells us that “The final blow to the idea that any person suffering must have sinned is dealt at Golgotha.” 

After this conversation, Jesus told a parable, the second story. In the parable, an innocent fig tree is simply growing in a garden and bothering nobody. Sadly, in the eyes of the garden’s owner, the fig tree is no better than a thief. It is sucking up nutrients from the ground and making itself lush and beautiful, comfortable in its little corner of the world, but it is not doing the one thing that makes a fig tree uniquely valuable: it is not producing any figs. The owner allowed it three years to grow up and become an adult. The owner recognized the religious  (Pharisaical) rule that the fourth year, the first fruitful year, all the produce belonged to God. Well, there was no produce, but that was God’s problem. Then three more years passed. Three years. The fruit during these years belonged to the owner – well, after the tithe they belonged to the owner. The owner is indignant that the tree should receive the resources of the garden while remaining fruitless. As far as the owner is concerned, this tree is a fraud, living off larceny, perpetrating the long con. The gardener speaks up in apparent defense of the tree, offering to give it even more resources, suggesting that a little more investment will pay off in a year’s time. You might say that as a response to Jesus’ admonition to “repent, or you will all perish” the gardener says, “I think I know how to persuade this tree to stop stealing and start producing fruit.” If the gardener could make it happen, it would be a dramatic turnaround for that fig tree. And that is the point. 

The gardener offers to invest more in the tree, and it sounds at first as if he is offering to give the tree more freedom (cultivate the soil so it is looser for the roots to develop) and more food (fertilizer that will make it even more lush). If you read the words again, the gardener is offering to invest himself in that tree. He will dig around it. He will spread more fertilizer. By implication he says that he will do more for this tree without reducing his efforts for all the other plants in the garden. He will give more of himself in order to lead the tree to a place where the tree will give something – fruit. 

It takes us back to the stories of execution and accidental death. What was wrong with those people who died? In what way might they resemble the figless fig tree? In what way might anyone resemble the figless fig tree? If a fig can be reasonably expected to produce figs, and condemned if it doesn’t, in what way does that image compare to a human being? How does the failure of a fig tree to produce figs parallel a human being’s need for repentance?  

Answers to these questions can be found by digging a little deeper, to borrow the gardening metaphor, into the word repent.  

The Greek word that underlies the English word repent is metanoeo. The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged says of this word, “In general, what is meant is an about-face.” (page 640) Dr. Rick Carlson interprets the word much more dramatically, saying that repentance is radical reorientation. When we think of repentance that way, it sounds like the kind of response called for by radical injustice (autocratic execution of innocent people) or radical probability (the statistical likelihood that eighteen people would be near enough to die when gravity took its toll on that tower).  If you hear Jesus say, “unless you repent, you will all perish, just as they did,” it might sound like something you could put on tomorrow’s to-do list. It sounds more compelling when you hear Jesus say, “Unless you radically reorient your life, you are doomed!”

Which brings us to the fig tree. The whole problem with the fig tree is that the owner had a right to expect figs from that tree. It was his tree in his garden. He bought it, he planted it, he paid the gardener to give it the same care as everything else, but no figs. The problem is what Dr. Carlson calls “axiomatic.”

Everyone who studied geometry, willingly or unwillingly, in high school, remembers the word axiom. Some will even remember that an axiom was a statement of truth which was self-evident and required no proof. An example of an axiom is the statement “things equal to the same thing are equal to each other.” That statement does not require to be proved the way the statement “all right angles are congruent” needs to be proved. Following this train of thought, it is axiomatic that figs come from fig trees, but somebody must prove that extra cultivation and fertilizer will compel a fruitless tree to produce fruit.

John the Baptist talked about this problem. Crowds of people came to hear him preach down by the Jordan River, and among the people in the crowds were Pharisees. The Pharisees were the masters of religious appearance. They looked exactly like the definition of religion just as that fruitless fig tree Jesus talked about looked exactly like the definition of fig tree. Sadly, in both cases, no fruit was being produced

John the Baptist looked at the Pharisees, who had the appearance of being God’s own people, but they showed none of the fruit of a relationship with God. He said, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” Actually, the text suggests that he probably shouted those words vehemently. He almost certainly shouted Aramaic words, which were written down in Greek gospels and have now been translated into English. Still, to get the meaning the way John shouted at them, we need to borrow Dr. Carlson’s language. In John’s eyes, those fruitless Pharisees needed something as radical as that figless fig tree needed. He shouted, “It is axiomatic that fruit trees bear fruit, and it is axiomatic that people who live in relationship with God show the evidence in their lives! You need to radically reorient your lives and start bearing fruit axiomatic with repentance!”

In Matthew’s gospel, the parallel between this message of John the Baptist and the message of Jesus is quite clear.

 Matthew 3:1 John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.
Matthew 4:17 Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Both John the Baptist and Jesus opened their messages with the same call Jesus gave to the people in Luke 13: “You need to make an about-face. You need to radically reorient your lives. And you need to start bearing fruit axiomatic of that radical reorientation.”

The people who came to Jesus with the stories of the murder of innocents, looking for some simple explanation for the evil in the world did not get off the hook. Jesus took them down the road to a place where mere appearances and easy answers no longer worked. It was fairly easy to say that Pilate perverted justice by murdering people who had not been convicted of anything. It appeared to be a perversion of justice. Jesus said that the murder by Pilate was no better or worse than the accidental death of people who simply happened to be standing by when a tower collapsed. In the cosmic sense, that appears to be a perversion of justice, too. People died without being convicted of any wrong-doing. So when a gardener jumps to the defense of a silly tree that refuses to produce the fruit that is axiomatic of fig trees, it almost sounds comical, until you think of what John the Baptist and Jesus both preached. Then you realize that Jesus simply wanted everyone to recognize that you can’t fool God. Nobody can produce the fruit of a radically reoriented life by simply looking religious. Only a person who makes the about face, turns away from the mere appearance of religiosity, and radically reorients his life to complete commitment to Christ will produce the fruit axiomatic of a relationship with God. If we don’t do that, we are as doomed as those innocent bystanders. Christ, our wonderful gardener, invested himself on the cross, invested everything in us on the cross. That fruitless fig tree that focused only on being leafy and comfortable was just like us when we are self-absorbed and self-worshiping and focused on “what’s in it for me.” If we want to produce the fruit axiomatic of a relationship with God, we need to turn around and radically reorient ourselves, do a complete about-face, and follow Christ to the cross.

Religion and Politics

Religious Liberty Means What the Government Says It Means

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Let every detail in your lives—words, actions,
whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus.

Colossians 3:17 (the Message) 

US citizens justifiably rejoice in the existence of the First Amendment to the Constitution. That amendment protects the right of every individual to express his chosen religion, or the lack thereof, in his daily life. Ongoing power struggles between government and believers have tested the meaning of the simple words of that amendment, but the fact remains that in the US, people have more freedom to live according to their faith teachings than anywhere else on earth.

There are many countries that declare that they enforce the principle of “freedom of religion” and many even specify that they enforce “separation of church and state.” However, as is the case with most legal language, even though many countries use the same words to describe the way they deal with religion, each country has a unique twist to the meanings of the words. If the government is dominated by secular thinking, then the twist of these words will be different than if the government is dominated by a religion.

Uzbekistan is a good example. Uzbekistan was part of the former USSR, and after the dissolution of that nation, it retained the predominately secular viewpoint in culture and government which had been fostered in the Communist state. Uzbekistan proclaims that it protects “freedom of religion” and “separation of church and state.” The Constitution of Uzbekistan says:

” Art. 18. All citizens of the Republic of Uzbekistan shall have equal rights and freedoms, and shall be equal before the law, without distinction by sex, race, nationality, language, religion, social origin, convictions, individual and social status.”

Everyone is equal before the law, a principle that we honor in the USA and portray by statues of Justice wearing a blindfold. That concept sounds wonderful. We would expect that article to assure that nobody in Uzbekistan would be harassed by the culture or the police for expressing and living according to his religious convictions. We would not expect a woman in Uzbekistan to be arrested as she stepped off a bus and be held in prison for days because she had a Bible and a Christian DVD in her purse, but it happened.

Uzbekistan’s Constitution also says:      

“Art. 31. Freedom of conscience is guaranteed to all. Everyone shall have the right to profess or not to profess any religion. Any compulsory imposition of religion shall be impermissible.”

This sounds like an elaborate way to say the same thing our First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” An American contemplating a visit to Uzbekistan might read the Uzbek Constitution and believe he would feel right at home there. In fact, the Constitution of Uzbekistan adds another comforting element, the separation of church and state:

“Art. 61. Religious organizations and associations shall be separated from the state and equal before the law. The state shall not interfere with the activity of religious associations.”

An American who reads these words could easily be lulled into a sense of brotherhood between the USA and Uzbekistan with regard to religious liberty, but it would be a mistake to jump to that conclusion. As we are learning in the USA, the Constitution is one thing; law is another. In both the USA and Uzbekistan, the law can and does run roughshod over the Constitution. In both countries, legislators and administrators proceed with their own agendas unless and until a court with the power of Constitutional review changes things. It remains to be seen what the Supreme Court of the USA will do with an issue such as the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act. The consequences of Constitutional review, or the lack thereof, in Uzbekistan are quite evident, and they provide a cautionary tale for those of us who think words in constitutions and laws have definite meanings that are generally agreed to. The growing dominance of secular thinking in the US federal government demonstrates some interesting parallels with Uzbekistan’s government practices.

When the government of Uzbekistan considered what needed to be done to assure the religious liberty of the citizens, government minds choked on a question that would not occur to you or me: how is the government to know if a group of people have a religion or just some private club? Most of us believe we know what a religion is. It is something people almost intuitively know the answer to. There have been attempts like that of my college professor who declared his dog to be a god and his household to be a church so he could deduct the price of dog food as a contribution to a church, but that sort of blatant fraud does not pass the test of common sense or plain language. (It did not pass muster with the IRS, either.) Only government needs thousands of pages of laws and more thousands of pages of regulations and forms to work out that Hinduism is a religion and therefore is protected by the Constitution.

In Uzbekistan, the Constitution notwithstanding, two laws define the government’s attitude toward religion, and one agency, the Committee on Religious Affairs, administers government policy toward religion. If all religion is “separated from the state and equal before the law,” most readers would believe that people of faith have nothing to worry about. However, the laws include many requirements that must be satisfied in order for any group to be considered a legitimate religion, entitled to religious freedom. Any religious group that is unwilling or unable to comply with all the government regulatory requirements for a legitimate religion is illegal in the eyes of the government. What does that mean?

For starters, every church must be registered, and legal religious worship must take place inside that registered location. That requirement all by itself prohibits prayer meetings and Bible studies in homes. Of course, such activities in the US can take place in parks and on street corners, too, none of which will happen without unpleasant consequences in Uzbekistan. Registration requires completion of a form designed by the government, and errors as small as a grammatical mistake in the native Uzbek language can result in the rejection of the form. The information on the form is the way the government determines if the applicant meets the government definition of a religion protected by the Uzbekistan Constitution. In fact, the form may never even be acknowledged. The seemingly simple act of registration is not so simple. Some groups balk at registration because the form requires the names of at least one hundred members, and some forms have been rejected for misspelled names or because one member or another is accused of association with criminals. It is not a simple matter for the government of Uzbekistan to be sure when to protect the liberty of a religion and the seemingly simple Constitutional protection of religious liberty does not automatically extend to every religious organization.

The government of the USA is just as easily flummoxed as the government of Uzbekistan when it tries to define what is and what is not protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. When the Affordable Care Act was passed, the Department of Health and Human Services began to write the regulations and design the forms that would implement this monstrous law. Mindful of complaints that the law trampled on the religious convictions of some Christians by requiring an employer to fund contraception, abortion and sterilization (yes, the morning-after pill absolutely qualifies as abortion), Americans were told that the Department took that problem into consideration. In a nation where religious liberty has been a highly valued protection for citizens, Americans certainly expected a conscience exemption for employers who religious convictions conflicted with the use of medications and devices that produced contraception, abortion and sterilization. They never expected that the US government, like the government of Uzbekistan, would choke on the very idea of religion. The US government looked at the situation and, just like the government in Uzbekistan, created a definition of the entity that would qualify for exemption from the ACA employer mandate to provide contraception, abortion and sterilization. This definition embodies the definition any secularist would use for religion.

The US government’s definition of a religious employer:

(1)   has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose;

(2)   primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets;

(3)   primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets;

(4)   is a non-profit organization    

With regard to point 4, the government has stated in court documents that “for-profit secular employers generally do not engage in any exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment.” In plain language, the government has determined that personal religious convictions do not apply in the operation of a business for profit. This comes as a shock to Christians who have spent a lifetime expressing their religious convictions in the way they operate their businesses.

The government of Uzbekistan has its definition of religion, and it uses its definition to create a process by which will suppress the religious freedom of some people and allow the religious freedom of others. In the same manner, the US government has created a definition of religion that feeds a process by which it will suppress the religious freedom of some people and allow the religious freedom of others. Everything depends on what definition of the word “religion” the government uses.

In Uzbekistan, the problem grows bigger under the legal requirement that the government must authorize every religious publication. This law is a partial response to the problem of freedom of religious expression. How can the government know what written expressions constitute legitimate religious expression unless it verifies first that the material is produced by a legally identified religion and second that the words are in compliance with the definition of the religion in question as identified on its registration form. Religions are free to print and distribute legally approved documents, but it is no mean trick to obtain that approval. The government retains for itself the power to declare what is and is not approved reading for followers of any religion. Religions, legal or not, may not import documents, such as Bibles, tracts or theology books. Those documents will not have the approval of the Committee on Religious Affairs, and is government authorities discover them in anyone’s possession, that individual will be arrested. To date, the US government has not gone down this path. That is something to be thankful for.

A major hurdle for any religion in Uzbekistan is the prohibition on proselytizing. In fact, the hurdle is raised another notch by a law prohibiting religious instruction of a minor without parental consent, even in a registered church using authorized literature. The government and the culture cooperate in suppressing freedom to speak about religion in ordinary conversation or to make any attempt to persuade anyone to change his chosen religion. Christians are called by Christ to make disciples of all nations, but it is actually dangerous to try to make a disciple of anyone in Uzbekistan. In the US, prohibitions on prayer in schools and on the display of the Ten Commandments have arisen due to the same kind of thinking that shapes Uzbekistan’s version of freedom of religion. Court documents show that a fear of even the hint of a “proselytizing” outcome is enough to drive a judge to squelch all sorts of religious activities, the First Amendment notwithstanding.

The training of church leaders in Uzbekistan is also inhibited by government. No religion can have a “central office” if it does not have registered churches in 8 of the 13 districts of Uzbekistan, and only a religion with a “central office” can have a school of any kind to train leaders such as pastors. In the US, the government has expressed no interest in controlling the training of religious leaders. However, in China, a country with which the US has increasingly close ties in the financial realm, the expression of religious freedom is heavily shaped by religious leaders educated in schools where the government controls the curriculum and the faculty. Could it happen in the US? Who knows?

In Uzbekistan, the simple statements that religion is no part of government and that all religions are equal before the law have given birth to a bureaucratic nightmare which threatens the religious liberty of Uzbek citizens the way the Affordable Care Act threatens the religious liberty of American citizens.

The parallel is uncanny. In order to protect religion in Uzbek, the government had to define what that means. In order to protect religion in the USA, after more than two hundred years of religious liberty, the government felt that it needed to define what religion is in order not to protect anything that does not meet the definition. Just as Uzbek citizens find it challenging to understand how their government decides what a religion is, US citizens are puzzling over the same question.

Recently a pastor in Uzbekistan was arrested and charged with possessing and distributing unauthorized documents. He was tried, convicted, and fined 100 times the average monthly wage in Uzbekistan. Before 2005, the fine was only 10 times the average monthly wage, but in 2005, the government increased the fine dramatically. It is a very costly offense to possess unauthorized religious documents. The pastor has appealed this conviction, but the prospects of reversal are very slim. Courts in Uzbekistan take a dim view of someone possessing documents that the Committee on Religious Affairs has not approved. It isn’t clear if these documents are unapproved because the words were not approved, or if the documents were printed in an unauthorized location. It is hard to sort out all the laws and regulations that may apply to this situation. Citizens in the US should read this story attentively as they follow the path of court cases that dispute the US government’s definition of “religion” and the implications of that definition for all citizens. It is not a big leap from government definition of religion to government definition of religious documents.

Read more news about religious persecution in Uzbekistan at Living on Tilt the newspaper

Citizens in the United States read our Constitution and its amendments, and they believe that the plain sense of the language protects their religious liberty. Citizens of Uzbekistan might believe the same thing if they read their Constitution. Developments in Uzbekistan should at the least make us aware that without citizen vigilance, the plain language of the US Constitution could easily be reinterpreted by law and policy to mean something very different from our understanding of the words. In both countries it can safely be said that all citizens lose liberty if one citizen loses liberty.

Every Christian knows that we are called by Christ to be “little Christs” in the world around us. Most of us sang about being sunbeams when we were children – “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam at home, at school, at play.” It seemed easier to do that when all of us sang that song together as children than it seems now when powerful public figures say that no rational person would pretend that anything religious happens in a for-profit enterprise. Yet Jesus still calls us to be light in a dark world – at home, at work, at play. We are expressing our faith when we shine our light. If we let our government suppress the light in one place, the government can then feel free to suppress it anywhere else. If we let the government put out somebody else’s light today, we will have nobody to help when the government comes for our light tomorrow. Pray. Speak. Shine. In the name of Christ. 

Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:16

 

Gospel Meditation

Looking Back at Sunday’s Gospel

Gospel Reading: Luke 4:21-30

People gathering at the synagogue that Sabbath Day must have been full of anticipation. The home town boy who had gone out into the world, about whom the most outrageous stories were circulating, had finally come home. The president of Nazareth’s synagogue probably wished he could drum up this much excitement every week. It was probably noisy, too, as people whispered and pointed to the family and to Jesus. But eventually, they quieted down and the worship began.

During the preliminaries to the reading of Scripture, people were undoubtedly well-behaved and respectful. As Jesus took his place in front and the scroll was unrolled with great reverence, there may have been a little more whispering. He read. He spoke. He said,

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Many people in the crowd may have been so taken aback by this statement that they heard nothing else. In the gospel record, no other words were saved. Only these.

When it was all over, the crowd departed. Even though the NRSV translates the crowd’s reaction by saying first that “all spoke well of him,” it also records that they asked, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” As Pastor Huber was able to explain with more substance from the Greek, there was a rising murmur.

We know this guy. He lived here for thirty years, and we didn’t see anything exceptional. Now we hear all these rumors about sick people getting well, lame people walking, blind people seeing, but he isn’t doing anything like that for us. What about our sick and lame and blind? He comes back from his medicine show, but we don’t see any of it. When is he going to do a few miracles for us? Who does he think he is, anyway. The fulfillment of Scripture? He just looks like the same carpenter’s apprentice he always was. Where does he get off playing the holy man?

Luke records that Jesus responded by saying that a prophet is without honor in his home town. That was not a nice thing to say. It almost sounds like a zing we might think was unworthy of Jesus. He didn’t help his case when he further pointed out that God practices inequality. Miracle disparity. Miracles do not roll off a production line to be distributed equally to all. In fact, to illustrate the point, Jesus reminded them of two times when God skipped the chosen nation of Israel altogether and did his miracles for Gentiles.

This bit of wisdom enraged the already sullen crowd. The local upstart not only refused to give them a good show. He also demonstrated that he was bigoted against his own home town. Why, next thing you knew he might suggest they hang around with Samaritans.

The people had had enough. Luke says they were filled with rage. The very idea. There were ways to deal with arrogant, manic, vagabond preachers. The crowd pushed and shoved till they reached the edge of a precipice overlooking the town. They intended to throw Jesus over, but he escaped. How did he do that?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his small book on Psalms points out that the book of psalms was Jesus’ prayer book. With that in mind, it isn’t a big stretch to imagine Jesus praying Psalm 71, the psalm we read today, as he slipped through the crowd and out of their clutches.

Peter and John, and the other disciples who had been called already, were with Jesus that day. Over and over through the gospels we hear that even though Jesus told them important things, they really did not understand or remember those lessons till after he had ascended to heaven. Peter apparently forgot this lesson even longer than that. If he had remembered how Jesus said that God loved Gentiles and gave some of his miracles to them even long ago in the Old Testament, Peter would not have been so startled when God gave the Holy Spirit to new Gentile believers in Cornelius’ house.

The day Jesus spoke in the synagogue in Nazareth, the people of his home town probably thought he was going to do something special for them as the select of the select for his campaign team. They thought he would give his most special miracles and his most special appointments to the local guys. They thought they were the ones who had made him, and they thought he should ‘give back’ to the ones responsible for his success. Instead, Jesus demonstrated forcibly that his work was bigger than anything they could even imagine, and his calling did not develop out of his connections in Nazareth.

We can learn something important from this story: don’t try to box the Christ up in our limited expectations. When he asks something of me or you or anyone, we don’t need to worry that we can’t imagine it will work; Christ is not limited by our vision. When we face challenges because of our faithfulness to Christ, we don’t need to worry that we won’t be able to weather the storm; Christ is not limited by our perceptions of our abilities. When it appears to us that the church is being destroyed and disintegrated by satanic powers that seem to triumph before we even know they are there, we don’t need to worry that God’s plan for the triumph of his church is being derailed; Christ is not limited by our lack of understanding.

Jesus in Nazareth is a great metaphor for our daily lives. One minute Jesus was on top of the world. Next minute he was dirt. But the way Jesus slipped away and ultimately accomplished all that he came to earth to accomplish teaches us that we can trust him and we must trust him. We must not try to hang on and survive; we must hang on to Christ, and he will take care of everything else.

I read a blog post this week written by a woman who travels around the world for Voice of the Martyrs. She takes Bibles and books and personal items to people in danger for their faith, and most of all she delivers encouragement and prayers. In the places she visits, it is often dangerous simply to be a Christian, and the danger is increased by helping another Christian or by simply being in the company of a local Christian. She says that her friends all tell her they will pray for her safe return, but she asks them not to do that. She asks that they pray she will do what Christ has sent her to do, that she will accomplish Christ’s purpose for her. That long-ago day in Nazareth, Christ’s purpose in coming to earth could have been derailed if Christ had relied on his human strength or persuasiveness to save the day. We know he didn’t do that. There is no evidence that he even tried to defend himself. Just as he stood silent during his final trial, he did not defend himself in Nazareth, either. He trusted himself to God and God’s sovereignty. For God’s purposes he was rescued from the crowd. The woman who travels for VOM says that she knows God has a purpose for every minute of her life. She says that if she lives, she serves Christ on earth, and if she dies, she serves Christ in heaven. Wherever she goes she serves Christ.

Jesus showed us in Nazareth that we can and we must trust ourselves to God’s purposes at all times. The prayer of Psalm 71 is a good way for us to pray: “You have been my strength; my praise shall be always of you.”

Faith Practice, the Exercise

A Verse for Meditation

For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.  Mark 10:45

  • In books that teach career advancement, one of the common mantras is, “It’s not what you know; it’s who.” The disciples clearly thought they knew the right person to advance them to special celebrity status. (See Mark 10:35-40) What was wrong with this idea?
  • Do you want career advancement? What good thing would happen if you were promoted? What bad thing might accompany career advancement? What if you didn’t care either way? 
  • Did you ever consider that you are 100% responsible for the success of your employer? What would you need to differently if this is true? Do you know what your employer thinks it means for him/her to be successful? Do you think Jesus cares if your employer is successful? If you are successful?
  • If you decided that your call is to be a servant, whom would you serve?
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Faith Practice, the Exercise

A Verse for Meditation

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English: A sheet form Bach's cantata #59
English: A sheet form Bach’s cantata #59 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.    Luke 10:27

  • Jesus said that these commandments sum up all the Law. Look at the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:1-17. Can you find all ten in the summary above?
  • J. S. Bach wrote a cantata about this text. In the cantata, one singer says, “God wants your heart by itself.” Why did Bach include these words? 
  • Secular humanists assert that God does not exist, and therefore they reject the authority of God’s revealed Law in the Bible. They consider human happiness and social justice to be the goals of human ethics, which they believe to have evolved through millennia of human experience. What is a fundamental difference between Law as revealed in the Bible and ethics as the evolutionary result of human experience? (You might find more than one difference.) 
  • In Bach’s cantata, one singer cries out, “Give me … a Samaritan heart.” What does the singer mean by this prayer?
  • In the cantata, the alto sings an aria about a problem we all have. She sings, “Though I often have the will to fulfill what God says, yet I lack the ability.” When you are faced with this problem, what do you do?