What If Mom and Dad Were Right?

THIS MESSY LIFE: BECOMING AN ADULT - PART 4

WHAT IF MOM AND DAD WERE RIGHT?
Sunday, November 24, 2019
2 Kings 22:1-10 (14-20), 23:1-3

Go and ask the Lord on my behalf, and on behalf of the people, and on behalf of all Judah concerning the contents of this scroll that has been found. The Lord must be furious with us because our ancestors failed to obey the words of this scroll and do everything written in it about us…

…Because your heart was broken and you submitted before the Lord when you heard what I said about this place and its citizens—that they will become a horror and a curse—and because you ripped your clothes and cried before me, I have listened to you, declares the Lord. That’s why I will gather you to your ancestors, and you will go to your grave in peace. You won’t experience the disaster I am about to bring on this place.

2 Kings 22:13, 19-20

Sometimes you can’t outrun consequences. Sometimes we look at all the things we’ve done in life to try to make up for our mistakes, to repent, to seek forgiveness from those we’ve hurt, to make amends, and none of it seems to matter. We still have regrets. Some relationships are never fully reconciled. The things we have lost by our own poor choices may never be regained. We may let go and move forward having learned many valuable lessons, but the consequences stay with us no matter what.

By the time we get to King Josiah, the consequences of Israel’s sin were certain. Nothing could stop the coming disaster of exile they would face. The wheels were already in motion. Yet in 2 Kings 22:20 we read that Josiah will not experience the disaster that is coming. Somehow the consequences will be delayed and he will be spared. Why?

If we go back to verse 13 we see that Josiah’s priest came across a scroll in the process of renovating and cleaning out the temple. Some have said this is the scroll of Deuteronomy while others say it only includes a partial list of the God’s instructions, but either way, this scroll clearly contained the Word of the Lord. What’s more, Josiah quickly realizes that the people have not obeyed these particular instructions for quite some time. “The Lord must be furious with us,” he says, “because our ancestors failed to obey.”

Josiah’s reforms do not ultimately prevent the exile, but his faithfulness to this re-discovered law spared him and potentially his entire generation from suffering the worst of those consequences. At least for a short time, Josiah broke the cycle of sin and idolatry that previous generations had perpetuated.

Most of us have had moments in our adult lives when we look back and realize our parents were right about more than we care to admit. That doesn’t mean they were always right, and sometimes like Josiah, we may have to go back a few generations to find a faithful role model for our spiritual lives. We may even have to look to other families. Regardless of the source, Josiah reminds us that we are not the first generation trying to figure out how the Scriptures apply to our everyday lives. There are many lessons to be learned from the past, both in how to live and how not to live. For Josiah, the first lesson was how not to live. We cannot continue in the idolatry of our ancestors. And yet in the scroll he discovered the promises of God that dated back generations and he came to understand that those promises were just as real in his day as they ever had been. God is faithful in every generation.

We may not be able to stop the decline of a denomination or even a congregation. We may not be able to prevent the exile that is already in process. But we can choose how we will live in the face of these consequences. For ourselves, our families, our communities and our generation, we can choose life, so that our descendants might live faithfully in the place God has for them. No matter what consequences haunt us from our past, we can choose this day to serve the Lord.

I call heaven and earth as my witnesses against you right now: I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you. Now choose life—so that you and your descendants will live — by loving the Lord your God, by obeying his voice, and by clinging to him. That’s how you will survive and live long on the fertile land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors: to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20

So now, revere the Lord. Serve him honestly and faithfully. Put aside the gods that your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt and serve the Lord. But if it seems wrong in your opinion to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Choose the gods whom your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But my family and I will serve the Lord.

Joshua 24:14-15

Click here to listen to entire sermon series - “THIS MESSY LIFE: BECOMING AN ADULT”

Christ in Everyone

Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me…

The Lorica of Saint Patrick (St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer)

Long before I began seriously looking at this famous prayer, these lines stood out to me as among the most challenging. Christ is present everywhere and in everything, but now we pray to see Christ in every one. There are always great spiritual role-models in whom we clearly see the presence of Christ, but this prayer does not discriminate. It does not ask that we see Christ only in spiritual giants. It doesn’t ask us to see Christ only in Christians. It doesn’t even ask us to see Christ in only “good people”.

For me, these lines feel more like questions than declarations. Lord, can I really see you in everyone? Let us consider together some of the people in whom we might be asked to seek the presence of Christ.

Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me?

• What about those who think negatively of me?

• What about those who only think of ways to do me harm?

• What about those who think very little of me, dismissing me as though I do not matter?

• What about those who think only of how to use me or take advantage of me?

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me?

• What about those who speak poorly of me, who spread gossip and slander my name?

• What about those who speak lies about me?

• What about those who speak behind my back?

• What about those who speak to me in hurtful or manipulative ways?

Christ in the every eye that sees me?

• What about those who only see me from a distance but would never recognize me?

• What about those who only see what they want to see, but are unwilling to see the “real me”?

• What about those who only see the worst in me?

• What about those who see too much and who know me more than I want to be known?

Christ in every ear that hears me?

• What about those who hear only what they want to hear?

• What about those who misinterpret what they hear?

• What about those who hear, but have no interest in actually listening?

• What about those who only hear what others say about me but don’t really hear me?

We could go on but I think the point is clear. There are just some people, whether we call them strangers or enemies or something in between, who do not seem to reflect the light of Christ in their lives. Can we really see Christ in these people?

I don’t know if we can see Christ in everyone or not. For some, it will certainly be harder than others. Yet if everyone is truly created in the image of God, then don’t we at least owe it to them and to ourselves to keep looking until we find even a spark of God’s love which might be kindled by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit?

Reflections:

1. Who are the people in whom I can clearly see the face of Christ and why?

2. Who are the people in whom I struggle to see even a glimpse of Christ’s presence and why?

3. What will I do this week to intentionally look for Christ in someone’s life where God’s loving presence appears entirely absent?

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Our journey through St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer concludes next week:

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity
Through belief in the Threeness
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation. Amen.

I Arise Today

A 40 Day Devotional Journey Through St. Patrick’s Breastplate Prayer. Now available in Kindle and Paperback at Amazon.com

Pray along with the full text of St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer

Starting Over

THIS MESSY LIFE: BECOMING AN ADULT - PART 3

STARTING OVER
Sunday, November 17, 2019
Isaiah 5:1-7, 11:1-5; Mark 12:1-3

What more was there to do for my vineyard that I haven’t done for it? When I expected it to grow good grapes, why did it grow rotten grapes?

Isaiah 5:4

Let’s start this week with a reality check. We have all produced rotten grapes.

Now that that is out of the way, we can deal with the real issues around this beautiful and yet painful song of God’s vineyard. The question in verse 4 is the crux. The owner of the vineyard asks, “What more could I have done?”

There is no answer.

If we don’t begin with the confession that we have produced rotten grapes, it becomes very easy to look out all of those “other people” outside of the church and pose this question to them. To the atheist we may ask, “What more could God do to make you believe?” To the criminal we can ask, “What more could God do to make you repent?” To the younger generation who appears to have bailed on church and who we love to use as a scapegoat for all the problems of the world, we might ask, “What more could God do to get you to appreciate how good you have it and come back to church?”

If we want to use the Bible as a weapon, this is a great question to start with. It can be framed in so many different ways but no matter what we end up with the same conclusion. In summary, it goes something like this.

1. In Christ, God did everything possible to show us how much we are loved.

2. We, the good “Christian” people, responded appropriately to that love by “believing in the name of Jesus” and “getting saved.”

3. All of those “unsaved” people have rejected God’s love and there is no excuse. They deserve whatever they get.

We probably would not say it so bluntly, but think about the implications of the way we live our lives. Do we spend more time showing love to those outside the church or complaining about the way we think they live? After we “got saved,” how have we actually taken up our crosses and followed Christ as his disciples? How are we making disciples of others and fulfilling the Great Commission?

The songwriter in Isaiah does not explicitly say that the owner of the vineyard is God. The first explicit hint we get comes at the end of verse 6 when the owner commands the clouds not to rain on the vineyard. Only God has authority over the rain. Until this point, it would be easy to accuse anybody else of bearing rotten grapes and offending such an incredible caretaker.

But by verse 7 we see that this vineyard which fails to bear good fruit is not the “other.” It is the house of Israel and the people of Judah in whom God delighted. Let us not become so overconfident in our own privileged position as “God’s children” that we forget to take responsibility for our own failures before God.

Perhaps we as a church should spend less time criticizing everyone else’s vineyard and start realizing that God has allowed the thorns and thistles to grow up and choke out our own branches.

What more could God do indeed?

What more can God do to convince us that we are the ones failing to produce the good fruit he has for us to bear for the sake of the world?

Click here to listen to entire sermon series - “THIS MESSY LIFE: BECOMING AN ADULT”

Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise

Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise…

The Lorica of Saint Patrick (St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer)

Much of this prayer begins with the refrain, “I arise today.” It is an active prayer, seeking God’s presence in every part of our day, no matter where we go and what we may experience. It is vital that when we arise, we arise with God. But there is more to life than “arising.” As some have said, there are times when our “get up and go,” simply “got up and went.” We have nothing left. We just have to stop.

Most of the time in our culture this “stopping” comes in the form of crashing or burnout. Yellow lights mean speed up and red lights mean slam on your breaks, but there is no such thing as slowing down. And yet we acknowledge today that we not only arise with Christ, but we also sit down and even lie down with Christ. Turns out that resting or even napping may not be a “sin” after all.

When reflecting on the poetic structure of Genesis 1, we find that on each day of creation, there was “evening and there was morning,” and it was good. Perhaps the writer of St. Patrick’s Prayer understood this pattern inherent within creation… evening and then morning, rest and then work, lying down, sitting up, and then arising to the day that God has already prepared for us.

Consider the implications of such a reversal. Rather than jumping out of bed to the obnoxious sounds of an “alarm” that sends our brains into immediate alert or crisis mode, we are invited to sit up slowly and breathe in the mercies of God which are new every morning. The day is not dependent on our urgency to begin. The day began in the evening as we went to bed and God has handled it quite well all night long without our help. Rather than working all day until we crash and fall into bed at night, we are invited to begin our day lying down and resting so that we might enter our work refreshed and renewed. When evening comes, we are not simply trying to unwind from the day or squeeze in a few more hours of toil. Rather, a new day has already begun and we are invited spend the first third of this new day sitting and lying down to rest deeply in the peace of Christ.

This is not a call to be lazy. Work is as much a gift as rest. But work is not the driving force of our life. What we do when we arise does not define us. Who we are when we arise should be the same as who we are when we sit down and when we lie down. Christ is every bit as present in our rest as in our activity.

This is the meaning of Sabbath. The Sabbath is not something else we must fit into our schedule to please God. It is a gift from God so that we might remember who we are. Rest is God’s way of remind us that we do not have to be in control 24/7. The world does not spin on our axis. While God invites us to participate in the work of caring for creation and restoring God’s Kingdom on earth, that work depends far more on Christ with us than on what we “do for Christ.”

It is easy to get fidgety and uncomfortable when we sit down or when we lie down. We feel restless, especially if circumstances such as poor health or an accident prevents us from rising up and being active. Healthy or not, able or not, God invites us to rest first and then work. Evening and then morning.

Lie down in Christ.

Sit up in Christ.

Then arise in Christ, and welcome the day God has already made for you.

Reflections:

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being mostly refreshed and 1 being anxious and weary, how do you feel when you arise on the average morning? What factors might contribute to your answer?

2. In what ways might your experience of God throughout the day be different if you thought of the day beginning in the evening?

3. How important is the Sabbath in your life? Do you practice regular rhythms of rest and work? How hard is it for you to slow down? Why?

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Our journey through St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer continues next week:

Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me…

Pray along with the full text of St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer