Lent 2009 – Journey to the Cross, Part III

March 19, 2009

Continues to be an interesting journey….

March 13 – Friday

What’s the most important thing for you to do this Lent? What’s the most important thing for you to avoid? Maybe you’ve already asked yourself this when you made Lenten vows, but spend some time this week reflecting on priorities: what’s absolutely critical, as opposed to merely important?

I need to reach out. That’s it, pure and simple. I need to heed the tug of God on my feet, get up, and go. No excuses.

Mark 10:41-45
When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Don’t seek greatness. Don’t seek recognition. How directly antithetical to the core of my very being. How unlike the church today. I love my brothers and sisters, but how many of us out there serve willingly – regardless if anyone takes notice or not? I sure don’t.

It’s very American to want to be number one, to get your name on the news and in the record books. Not much like Jesus, though. “Whoever wants to be number one must be everybody’s slave,” he says.
Suppose Jesus had been on the winning team. He certainly wouldn’t have said, “Let’s set a record tonight!” But he might have said, “This isn’t right. We know we can win; let’s see if we can teach them how to play better. Coach, you talk to their coach, and let’s make this good for both sides.”

To extend the analogy a little farther: we know the winning plays. Let’s share them liberally, without deceit, guilt, or pressure.

O God, help me to love you more than winning, and to love others more than winning, too. Amen.

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart/naught be all else to me, save that thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night/Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.
Ancient Irish Hymn

March 14 – Saturday

I think something that I would like to avoid is secular magazines. I feel bad about myself after I read them, and I feel very discontent with my life. On one page, “Be happy with who you are!” on the next, “Lose weight!” Talk about mixed messages. I need to focus on the right message – and the right Messenger.

Mark 10:46-52
They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

When someone reaches out to God, do I shut them down if they don’t do it in the way I think best? Or do I pick them up and carry them right to Him? What’s more important – the road you take to get to the truth, or the truth itself?

Earlier in Mark, the disciples are mostly roadblocks. They won’t accept how Jesus is going to die. They keep arguing over who’s number one. They told a man casting out demons in Jesus’ name to quit, they try to keep little babies from Jesus, and now, when Bart hollers for help, they join the crowds telling him to stuff it. They are following Jesus but only reluctantly, and they are not helping others find Jesus.
Does that bother Bart? Not a lick; he hollers and keeps hollering until Jesus asks him over. Jesus responds — not “OK, I’ll heal you” but “Your faith made you well.” Bart was determined to follow Jesus, and not even a blind performance by Jesus’ disciples would stop him.

I don’t want to be a roadblock!

O God, I want to follow you, and ain’t nobody going to turn me around. Amen.

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart/naught be all else to me, save that thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night/Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.
Ancient Irish Hymn

March 15 – Sunday

By this point in Lent, you’ve maybe had to struggle a bit with your vows. Have you had to argue with yourself about what’s important? Have you needed to defend your choices to somebody who thought they were stupid? This week, watch Jesus maneuver through some confrontations. Get ready to be confronted yourself — your Lord is always surprising!

I really DID NOT want to hear about loving my enemies in church today. Cause enemies can mean people who bug the crud out of me, and why the heck do I have to even be nice to them, let alone love them? I have rights, after all. But…maybe I bug the crud out of someone, but they’ve never said so. Maybe they’ve just tried to be genuinely nice to me, and I’ll never know. Would it kill me to extend a little kindness? I doubt it.

Mark 11:2-11
..and [Jesus] said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

The Triumphal Entry. I don’t want to think about the things that are coming next.

Does Jesus want to be king? Nope — the donkey was his idea, but the coats and palms and songs were not. And as soon as he rolls into Jerusalem, he just takes a look around the Temple and leaves. What, are you scared, Jesus? Nope; he knows he’ll die in Jerusalem, and he comes anyway. Don’t you care about how your people suffer? Yep. He’s been the one curing folks, feeding folks and setting them free from demons. But he knows you don’t defeat evil with armies. God’s way is the way of the cross.
Jesus, you’re challenging me, right? Do I want to accept you as you came, or try to morph you into GI Joe or Superman?

Jesus already was and is King. He didn’t have to prove that to anyone. As God Incarnate, He had the fullness of divinity, and could have had the whole earth swallowed up in a black hole in a second. And He’d have been perfectly justified in doing so. Instead, He just kept going. He was and is King, but not a King like we think of. Will I accept Him as He is?

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, even when the road to peace is the way of the cross. Amen.

May the living God, the risen Lord, and the life-giving Spirit make you strong and brave and hopeful enough to walk where you’re led.

March 16 – Monday

Defending my choices…I’m wondering why I ever even feel that way. Why do I think I have to “defend my faith?” I think that someone who is confident in their God and their faith doesn’t have to defend it. It simply is. It’s as natural as breathing. It’s not in your face and offensive. It isn’t spoiling for a fight. It just knows. It knows why it knows. And that’s enough. No need to get het up about it.

Mark 11:12-19
On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.

Think about it: do the really mean people or the really poor people come to your church? Not if it’s like my church. The folks who come are mostly people like me – not perfect, but pretty good; not rich, but not street people. If a homeless kid or a druggie or a thuggie came into our Sunday School class, we’d all feel pretty strange. OK, Jesus: so my church isn’t as welcoming as I wish it were. What can I do about it?

Fling open the doors of my stingy heart and let His love come pouring through. Then open the doors of the building – and let ANYONE come in.

Lord, help me open my heart, my house, my groups, and my church to everybody who needs you. Amen.

May the living God, the risen Lord, and the life-giving Spirit make you strong and brave and hopeful enough to walk where you’re led.

March 17 – Tuesday, St. Patrick’s Day

Today it feels important to sleep. I don’t want to go to work. At the same time, I know that I should be supremely thankful for the fact that I have a job as the world goes crazy around me. It’s so hard to focus on what’s right and true and important when so many other things clamor for my attention…

Mark 11:20-25
In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

“Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”

Forgive. Let go the desire to seek vengeance. How many lessons are found in that one simple world? Surely a lifetime’s worth. I have yet to fully grasp the importance of forgiveness. I am stingy with it, set limitations on it. Thank God that He was and is not like me.

Jesus, do you mean that if I’ve been praying to become more forgiving, but I can’t see any change, it’s because I don’t really trust God? My nasty thoughts, my secret angers, and my bad attitudes are more like mountains than trees. Do I really want to get rid of them? How serious am I about following you?

I want to want to be serious. I want to want to be devoted. I want to want to seek nothing else. I need a heart-ectomy. Get rid of mine and replace it with Yours, Father.

O Lord, I want to believe. Help me to let go of what keeps me from being closer to you. Help me to trust you to change me. Amen.

May the living God, the risen Lord, and the life-giving Spirit make you strong and brave and hopeful enough to walk where you’re led.

March 18 – Wednesday

Sometimes I think that being a Christian is all about being confronted. Of course God loves us, and desires relationship with us, but we can’t experience His love or have that relationship without Him confronting things in our lives. Habits. Patterns. Walls that separate. I know He’s been confronting me lately over my desire to do His job. I want to convict, challenge, and transform people. I’m arrogant like that. Oh, if the world would but listen to me…

Mark 11:27-33
Again they came to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him and said, “By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?” Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin? Answer me.” They argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’?” — they were afraid of the crowd, for all regarded John as truly a prophet. So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”

Prayer comes to my mind right now. We are fond of saying that God always answers prayer. Sometimes He says “no” or “wait,” but He answers. I do think that’s true – to a point. Yet there are also times when the answer is so blatantly obvious that God doesn’t have to say a word. The above passage seems to me to be one of those times. The leaders, I believe, knew exactly by what authority Jesus did these things.

Do I ask because I want an answer, or because I don’t like the answer I already have?

That afternoon, the pastor discusses alternatives with the deacons and the board of trustees. They decide not to lock Jesus up right away, but to ask him what in the Sam Hill he thinks he’s doing. “Who told you to come in here acting like that?” They guess that he’ll say “God,” and they’ll go, “Nope, God put us in charge. Look here in Leviticus!”

So right back at them: “Tell me, who told Dr. King to act like he did?”

Oh. I guess I’m not very good at spotting where God is at work. So where are you now, Jesus?

Where are You now? I think that’s a good question. How arrogant am I to say that I “bring God’s presence” somewhere? My job is to go where He already is.

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord, so that I can see where you are at work and follow you there. Amen.

May the living God, the risen Lord, and the life-giving Spirit make you strong and brave and hopeful enough to walk where you’re led.

March 19 – Thursday

Where is my compassion today? It seems to have flown out the door. I am so full of me, God has no room to move.

Mark 12:1-10, 12
Then he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. But they seized him, and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others….” When they realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd. So they left him and went away.

In yesterday’s passage, the Temple leaders asked who Jesus thinks he is. What gives him the right to meddle in Temple business? Today’s passage is his counter-argument, a little story with a big wallop at the end…

You know I wouldn’t do that, right, Jesus? Well, maybe I don’t give God everything I should. And yeah, I ignore things like “sell your stuff,” “forgive your enemies” and “take up your cross.” But you know I love you, right?

Ouch. Replace the name “Jesus” in that sentence and you can see what kind of trouble we have. “You know I love you, husband. Yeah, I don’t spend any time with you, and I think this other guy is cute, and I’m really unhappy with where we live, and I wish we had more money, and I wish you’d gone to school, and I don’t think you’re very attractive anymore…but you know I love you. Right?”

O God, sometimes I fall really short of giving you what you ask. Sometimes I resist those who try to get me to change. I’m sorry; help me to do better. Amen.

May the living God, the risen Lord, and the life-giving Spirit make you strong and brave and hopeful enough to walk where you’re led.

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