Kingdom Hope for the Weak

Sunday 26-27

1 Kings 3:5-12     Ps 119:129-136   Romans 8:26-39   Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

We all remember Martha’s complaint to Jesus, “Tell my sister to help me.” Paul uses that same Greek word when he says. “The Spirit of God helps us in our weakness.” In Genesis 1, the wind of God hovers over the chaos in creation, and in Genesis 2 God breathes His breath into the dust to make a human. Wind, breath, Spirit—ruah in Hebrew—refers to the life-giving power of God. Humans were created to rule the earth, but sin and corruption have literally made us (asthenia) “not strong.” We are so weak that we do not even know how to pray. Paul uses the word “weak” to describe our human condition, more than any other author in the New Testament, but he has hope that the Helper, whom Jesus promised, has come. Paul says the Spirit sanctifies our groaning and makes it prayer! Think what that means!

Paul sees God’s redemption in the midst of—our sin, guilt and shame, the hardships, violence, poverty and persecutions, the material and spiritual powers which would destroy us—and he declares that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. The Kingdom will come.

Yet, the Kingdom of Heaven is already manifest among us and within us. Jesus says it like the tiny mustard seed, just a speck, yet it grows into a large bush. It is hidden, like leaven in fifty pounds of flour—a direct references to Abrahams huge lunch feast for the Three Visitors! Remember, that meal ended with a laughable promise of a son, but Sarah is the great-grandmother of the twelve tribes of Israel. The impossible happens in the Kingdom!

God is secretly ruling in places even now, while some stumble across it by accident, like a buried treasure, others seek and find it, like the man searching for the pearl. But it comes at the cost everything. Why? Because whatever is not given to God remains a servant of sin and death. Remember, our earth is ruled by rival monarchs. Jesus says, choose your King.

In Genesis 1, God creates by speaking and separating: light from dark, land from water, day from night… In the same manner, the Torah separates righteous from sinner, clean from unclean. Jesus says the final separation will be the last judgement, where God will divide out His friends from His foes.

Let us be the wise man, treasuring both the Ancient and the new. Learn the Scriptures and tradition even as you study the arts and sciences. Jesus contains all truth, and the Spirit will help us in our weakness to pray and live as His disciples each day.

7/5

zechariah 9:9-12     Psalm 145:8-15    Romans 7:15-25     Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30

zechariah 9:9-12     Psalm 145:8-15    Romans 7:15-25     Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30

When Jesus says, "to what can I compare this generation?," He uses the same verb (homoioo) which introduces numerous parables. Jesus points to the everyday reality to uncover the symbolic meaning of life and the patterns which reveal God’s Kingdom.

In a small, impoverished village, funerals and weddings were grand events, so children’s games would imitate the adults. Jesus says that the people of His time are like difficult children who cannot be satisfied. They reject John the Baptist and his ascetical lifestyle (the funeral) calling him possessed, in our time it would be called ‘crazy.’ But neither do they like the celebrative approach of Jesus, who describes the Kingdom as a wedding feast. How can Jesus be holy when is a drunkard and a glutton? As a result, that generation failed to recognize its visitation.

How could this happen? In Classical spirituality, there is a spirit called "acedia+." It is the passion of discontentment and dissatisfaction. Jesus' contemporaries had hard hearts because they were unmotivated to seek and embrace the things of God. This malady is the voice in your head asking “What’s the point?” When confronted with a prophet, or even the Messiah, it has us shrug and mumble “whatever…” Rather than repent and rejoice, the contemporaries of Jesus choose to find fault. Their murmuring kills their souls.

Jesus models the antidote for acedia. Rather than become disheartened and give up, Jesus turns to His Father and proclaims thanks and praise. The Apostle Paul famously said, “knowledge puffs up.” (I Corinthians 8:1) Jesus

Reinforces that idea with his claim that God has hidden from the wise what He has revealed to His little ones. This is no advocacy of intellectual laziness nor is it blessing ignorance. But it is a reminder that our riches are a barrier to the Kingdom of God and the arrogance of the self identified learned and wise is a huge barrier. Too often we remain sophomores our whole life (Sophia WISE and Morons Fools) Our highly educated elite are too often proudly atheistic, embacing science and disdaining faith.

Jesus has come to reveal the Father to  us. It is His choice. We must fight the urges of acedia and battle the boredom and disinterest. We must also be loving, humble servants. Keenly aware that we are a little one and avoid the arrogance of the wise.

Jesus is Here with us now. Offering us the Father. Let us rejoice in the kingdom wedding feast in ourt hearts

+ see below for insights
http://www.centerforbaptistrenewal.com/blog/2020/3/6/the-desert-fathers-on-dissatisfaction-and-sorrow

7/12

Isaiah 55:10-13
psalm 65
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9,  18-23

Isaiah 55* contains many memorable verses as it expresses God's saving will for His people.
Are you thirsty? Come to the water!
Have no money? eat for free!
Worldly things cannot satisfy us, yet wear ourselves out to fill our belly and ignore the greater promise of covenant with God. 

God declares that His covenant with David will transcend Israel, that the nations of the world will run to join His people.

We know in the Gospels that Jesus multiplies the loaves and feeds the people with bread, but more importantly with His word. We know Jesus, the Son of David, will draw the nations to His cross at Jerusalem and form a New Israel from all the tribes of the earth.

Isaiah 55:6-11 are Canticle 10 in the Morning Prayer Office. It is a beautiful song inviting us to seek the Lord while there is time, to call Him now. Isaiah, like all the  great spokesmen for God, requires our repentance "let the wicked forsake their ways, and the evil ones their thoughts and let them return to the  Lord so He can have mercy." Always, always, the offer of salvation has a sense of urgency. The Day of Doom approaches.

The mind of the God of Isaiah is far above us. As the sky is far from the earth, or better, as heaven (the abode of God) is far above the fallen earth--so far away is He. The gap is unbridgeable, unless He comes to us. And so He speaks His word.

It is like precipitation falling from the clouds, the  life giving waters which produce life on the earth. God is firm, His word does not return empty. He will accomplish His goal.

That Word is incarnate in Jesus Christ. Jesus is God's Self-communication to each and all of us. Jesus is the  revelation of GOd in flesh and blood. Today Jesus speaks of His own ministry as throwing  seed. The seed will grow, it will produce; but woe to those who  are  barren land.

Those who are owned by the passions and sin cannot even hear the word of Christ. Those of shallow spirit engage the Lord briefly for a season, but then quickly move on to other concerns when the price of discipleship becomes too great. The affluent and worldly have the word choked away. It is hard to receive the Lord and embrace His word.

There is abundance of fruit for any who do. this is the good news of GOd's salvation. we are of the earth, far below and far away from our maker. yet he turns to us and pours His own life into us. The connection of water and the SPirit in the Scriptures leads one to see the same possibility in Isaiah. Jesus sowing the seed of His word also echo with John 1. Our only task is to be attentive and receptive. To be aware that our Father wants us to receive His life--the Son and SPirit. He wants us to be united to Him and in this union the fruits of a holy life are automatically going to flow. Trust God will do this.












*they are also found in Canticle 10, which we recite each Friday at Morning Prayer. 

Good Seed, Bad Seed

July 18-19, 2020

Isaiah 44:6-8   Ps 86:11-17   Romans 8:12-25   Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

One of the most important revelations in the Bible are from this section of Isaiah where YHWH declares: “I am God. I am the only God. There is no other God. I alone am God.” I guess this raises the question, if there is only one God, what is the source of evil in the world?

The recurring theme of judgement comes through strongly in this parable. The simplistic and erroneous contrast of a NT God of Love and OT God of judgement could not be more wrong. The Kingdom of Heaven is a dividing process.

Jesus tell us about the Kingdom of Heaven over fifty times in Matthew’s Gospel. He tells us to pray “Father…your kingdom come, your will be done.” In today’s parable He says that an enemy’s hand is at work in our world. Right now, God is not ruling, His dominion is being opposed. In Mt 11:12, Jesus told us “that the violent take the kingdom by force”—probably a reference to worldly powers.  Jesus says that the Kingdom belongs to the weak and poor, to the simple believers and mere children; those are trampled by the powerful. The kingdom is found in the hearts of those who do God’s will and obey. We follow the Crucified, but other masters seek our allegiance.    

The parable begins with the simple words, “someone sowed seed in a field.” The word “fields” is connected to human troubles in the bible. Adam sins and the earth is cursed; human toil will produce thorns and thistles. The serpent is a symbol of the hand of the enemy sowing bad seeds.

Rabbi Friedman enumerates connection of fields to family conflicts. Cain slays Abel in a field. Jacob tricks his brother, when Esau comes in from a field. Joseph irritates his brothers with a dream that they were sheaves in a field which bow to him. In Judges 20, Israel slaughters the tribe of Benjamin, and the word field appears twice. A wise woman tells King David a parable about a man killing his brother in a field. Thorns and thistle in the fields is a metaphor for fratricide and violent conflict.

The greatest fruit of the Kingdom is the divine love humans have for one another, and Jesus’s parable reminds us that the failure to love is the work of an enemy’s hand. Injustice, cruelty, and war, racism, crime, and indifference are all the evil seed among us. Too many families are filled with suffering and pain, too often the weak suffer at the hands of those who oppose the Kingdom of Heaven.    

The world is filled with evil because the Kingdom of Heaven is not fully among us. God did not plant the bad seed, it is an enemy’s work. Sadly, sometimes the enemy’s hand is at the end of my arm, or yours. Sometimes, we are part of the problem. This is why we must repent, and why we cannot judge others.

We live in the troubled times, with the probability that more troubles lie ahead. Weed and wheat grow together, but God will not act until the harvest. We need not speculate on the source of evil, we need to trust Jesus and follow Him. Every day, all day.

Death leads to life

June 20—21

Jeremiah 20:7--13            Ps 88:1-10, 16-17              Romans 6:1-11                   Matthew 10:24-39

The prophet Jeremiah reveals the heavy burden of the prophet. His intimate relationship with God has left him helpless to resist. He speaks a hard word to Israel and suffers greatly for it: repent or die.

Ironically, Paul tells us that death is an escape from the power of sin. Through baptism, he says, we enter into Christ, making Him the center. So union with Jesus, means that we have died to sin. It is the death of our ego, that false self which isolates from God. This death begins at baptism, but dying is also the beginning of the resurrection life in Christ. It begins here and now, but it is not completed. It is a beautiful theology of baptism, but the existential reality is a daily struggle. Our wounds, passions and sinfulness continue to draw us from God. The material world, which should be a sacrament of God among us, is more often a veil which hides God, and distracts us. Like ancient Israel, we must hear the prophet Jeremiah remind us, repent or the earthly city will fall to ruin.

The problem is, there is no Jeremiah among us. The church requires us to wear masks at church, but where is the prophet who warns us to shield our heart from sin? We stand six feet apart for physical health, but where is the prophet who cries out to keep away from the near occasion of sin? Church  folks declare “stay home to save lives” but do they take the command to go into the world and proclaim the Gospel just as seriously? If Jeremiah was among us would he feel any less distressed that we seem to more of our attention and energy to almost anything other than the things of God.

Death is the fruit of sin. Sin, our separation from God, makes us vulnerable. Like ancient Jerusalem, we are spiritual wasteland. Our society is splitting. Hopelessness and death threaten us.



We must turn to Jesus, who offers us a covenant relationship with God. Jesus promises that we claim Him before men, He will do the same before the Father. If we deny Him, He will deny us. Jesus must take precedence over everything, particularly our own selves. Jesus has come to save us from the sin which kills our true self. But the false self must die if the true self will rise. Only those who have carried their own cross can receive the Crucified into their hearts. If we die, then we can mediate the resurrection life of Jesus to a world of sin and death, injustice and chaos. We cannot let the fear of death keep us from the love of Jesus Christ. We cannot let the fear of death keep us from union with the Holy Three God. Let us die to our sin and rise to eternal life in Jesus!

june 13-14

Matthew'

Jesus' proclaimed the Good News of the Kingdom by teaching people, healing them and casting out Satan. He combats ignorance of God and misunderstanding of His will, and the human brokenness caused by sin. Jesus attacks the spiritual forces at work within us. The human condition evokes compassion from Jesus. He sees them as "harassed and helpless." It could be paraphrased as “mangled and thrown away.”

That crowd of people was angry about Roman oppression. The Jews often rioted and were considered unruly by the Emperor. Jesus warned them to choose another way. He told them that, because they failed to embrace Him as Messiah, the Temple would be destroyed and people would flee for their lives. [Mt 23:37—24:44]. In 70 A.D., Rome destroyed the Temple and the surviving Jews lost their land.

We often see the compassion of Jesus. He is deeply moved because He thinks of them as sheep without a shepherd. When He sends out the apostles, He will call them lost sheep. Yet He also warns His disciples that they will go out as sheep among wolves. We do well to recall that a crowd will demand He is crucified [Mt 27:15--26]. Crowds are notoriously unstable. In large groups, people are prone to scapegoating and mindless violence.

Jesus still sends His church out to heal, exorcise and teach in His name. Proclaiming the Gospel—the Kingship of God and the need to have a new mind and reformed heart—is our duty bound, even if we will often fail. Judgement Day is coming, but not in our life time. We are to be sheep among wolves. We are destined to be taken before their tribunals, betrayed by those nearest and dearest to us. In the last month, I have come to see that it could be soon.

It is hard to see the world as a harvest field, to care more about their needs and brokenness than we do our own safety. Self- preservation is a powerful passion at work in my sinful soul. We seek a group identity for protection, rather than the ministry of Jesus which embraces everyone. Too often we are shaped more by our politics than our faith. I often hear erudite opinions about societal issues, but they rarely include an adequate grasp of the church’s mission. To be clear: My own failure to grasp the fullness of Jesus’ teachings and to live in accordance with His words weighs more heavily upon me each day.

It hard to look at the crowds and see lost sheep in need of love and healing. It is hard to be a shepherd when the need is so great.

It is also hard to be a sheep walking among the wolves. It is hard to love those who would gladly devour us with their sharp teeth.

Our destiny is to be hated by all because of Jesus’ name. Our duty is to love all in Jesus’ name. He is with to the end.

Back Together! Trinity Sunday

Genesis 1:1-2:4
Psalm 8
2 Corinthians  13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20

The world has changed quite a bit in three months: Corona virus, business failure and unemployment, protests, murders and riots. The great divide within our society threatens the fabric of every church. Who can you trust? Who tells the truth? What should we do?

We are told to stay six feet apart and wear masks, so we do, but we can worship together! It is the feast of the Holy Trinity: The One and Only God is Three Persons! The Three Divine Persons are One God! Each and every one of us is made in the image of the Triune God and so we were created for community. This is why we need to come together!

Each human is unique. We are all different, yet despite our diversity we share a common human nature. There is a great power at work in all the things which divide us. We separate into our various “tribes,” but the power of God is greater. God created us with one human nature in His image. So, if God is love, we, too, must become love.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians ends with some wonderful imperatives. The first word "farewell," chairete, also means "rejoice," (which I prefer). Joy is a function of hope and gratitude. Friends we must rejoice in all circumstances, even in dark days.

“Mend your ways,” Paul says next. This word first appears in the Gospels, where the apostles were mending their nets. This is deep symbolism. Christians must constantly mend our ways. We mend both our lives and the world. This mending is a healing work, a holy work; but mending requires patience and gentleness. God must dwell in our heart to mend us if we are to mend anything else.

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The next Greek word is 'mind,' to agree is to have one mind. The Holy Three God has one mind. We are many diverse believers sharing one mind. But be clear, our agreement is not the goal. Nazis and communists, racists and anarchists share a single mind, but they pursue evil. Even the shared mind of more benign groups like a sports team or a business are not what we need. We must have the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ is the one mind which we share. His mind is our unity.

Paul ends with the beautiful promise that “the God of Love and Peace will be with you.” We know that "God is love." The Trinity is a communion of love—the love of the Father, Son and Spirit which is poured into us. Human nature is love; we love God and we love others who are made in God's image. The reality is, the cost of love is always death, figuratively, and sometimes literally. If God suffers the incarnation and dies on the cross to redeem us, so, too, must we die in love to cooperate in the work of redemption and enter the Kingdom Peace of God.

Fear not friends. Trust God. Love God. Unite with God.