Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Psalm 135:13-21

Psalm 135:13-21
English Standard Version (ESV)

  It's been said that we start to resemble our spouses over a number a years.  In the same way, if you pour your attention into a certain hobby or passion, your life will eventually mold itself around that, so that you'll begin to reflect that hobby or passion in all that you do.  Our interests shape us.
  If we focus our lives around Christ, we will become more loving and selfless, more willing to sacrifice and more prepared to cling to the Truth.  If we choose to worship something else with our lives, our tendencies and habits will reflect that over time, and it will be clear to everyone what our priority is.
 
  May we choose wisely where to invest our energy -- our life will reflect our choices, and our choices will shape our future.

Monday, March 30, 2015

Psalm 135:1-12

Psalm 135:1-12
English Standard Version (ESV)

  At Christmas, it's usually easy to distinguish who gives a gift - we have little tags with pictures on them that have names written upon them to designate the sender and intended recipient.  When you're 6 years old and searching for presents under the tree, these tags are vitally important.  Sometimes, though, there are presents without tags, and while it's occasionally easy to distinguish who these are for and from, at times it can be difficult to recognize who sent it and who it is for.
  In the same manner, God sometimes does strikingly obvious things, such as part the Red Sea, but sometimes works in such subtle manners that unless you are paying close attention, you may fail to notice the giver of the gift and the gift that has been given.
  We are called to pay attention and to praise God, for often God is at work in ways and places we don't immediately recognize.  Let us be ready to praise, and to understand that God is doing things that may be evident later, but we have to trust now that God is at work, preparing us for what is to come.

May we invest ourselves in praising God for his works

Sunday, March 29, 2015

2015 Palm Sunday Sermon

2015 Palm Sunday Sermon
Mark 11:1-11
Isaiah 51:1-8

Life is different in the south.  For starters, it’s rarely 20 degrees outside in March.  I’ll be honest—I miss that.  I was away on spring break last week and returned late last Sunday night.  I was standing outside waiting for an airport shuttle at 11 pm in shorts while it was 30 degrees spending my time questioning the life choices I had made. 
There’s another important distinction, though, one that you don’t fully understand until you live in the south.  It’s called kudzu, and it’s everywhere.  I can’t overestimate this- it’s everywhere.  They don’t call it ‘the vine that ate the south’ without reason.  Most of the hillsides in the south are blanketed by this fast-growing invasive species that devours trees, power lines, hills, houses, and whatever gets in the way.  Kudzu is estimated to cover 7 million acres, an area roughly the size of New Mexico.  Most southern cities dedicate substantial resources to stopping it, but the best methods I heard about, involving gasoline and matches, were still not guaranteed to be successful.  Out of 12 known herbicides, 10 have no effect while the other 2 make it grow faster.  Chattanooga hired some goats to work on a hillside by a vital tunnel, but their chances of success were minimal, considering that kudzu can grow up to a foot in a day. 
The amazing part of all of this is that kudzu was actually planted by the US government in the 1930s in the hopes of preventing soil erosion.  Farmers were paid to plant kudzu in the hopes that such a program would save the soil.  The good news is that we still have the soil.  The bad news is that we can’t find it under the kudzu.
It’s not terribly uncommon for us to commit to something without understanding the full implications of it. 
Don’t tell my wife I said this, but it’s somewhat like having children.  Before kids, you think you have a pretty good handle on what it’s like to have children, as you imagine playing ball or encouraging your kid to try something new at school.  Later, as you read Go Dog Go for the10th straight time through bleary eyes and hearing damaged from constant screaming, you wonder at the fact that you were so wrong in what you imagined parenting would be like.

When we arrive at Palm Sunday, I can’t help but think of this celebration in the same light.  For centuries, Jews have waited for the Messiah to arrive.  When he arrived, he was to liberate Jerusalem and the Jewish people from under the rule of their oppressors.  He was to establish his kingdom in Jerusalem and rule from there.  The people had definite opinions about what this would be like, and when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a colt, they are certain that the kingdom they expect is about to begin.  Rome is soon to be defeated, and the earthly kingdom will begin momentarily.  All their expectations will be fulfilled.
Except, well, it didn’t work out quite like they had imagined.  Jesus didn’t defeat the Roman army.  Jerusalem was still occupied.  Jesus’ rule was very different than they had imagined it might be.  As a result, they turned on Jesus.  The crowd that was shouting Hosanna on Sunday was soon to be shouting ‘Crucify Him’.  The ones welcoming him with joy were condemning him in spite.  Because Jesus didn’t live up to their expectations, the crowds turned against him and rejected his very presence.  If he was not to be the Messiah they expected, they had no use for him.
The question for us, then, is why is there such a disconnect between reality and expectations?  And does such a disconnect still exist today?  If so, what can we do about it?

The answer to the first question is immensely complicated.  It’s rooted in the pages of the Old Testament, the history of the Israelites and how they came to Jerusalem.  The journey makes its way through Egypt and 40 years of wandering in the Promised Land, and soon the people take hold of the land, and they make their homes there. 
Unfortunately, they are not alone.  They are buffeted by the forces at work around their kingdom, and pretty soon they notice that they are the only kingdom without a king.  Now, they have the all-powerful God as their king, but this is not enough—they want a king they can see, a king they can touch, a king they can follow into battle.  So God agrees, and they get a king. 
As you may know, human kings aren’t perfect.  They make mistakes, sometimes small and sometimes grievous.   The kingdom is soon rocked and rolled from the inside as much as the outside, and turmoil chases the people through the centuries, until they find themselves as subjects of the Roman Empire, desperately waiting for the day when God will defeat the Romans and establish an earthly kingdom.  This is how they understand the promise—they read the Old Testament prophecies through the lens of what their hearts desire, which is an earthly kingdom.  The problem is that our hearts can deceive us.  Our hearts can be tricked, and the Father of Lies spends a lot of time leading our hearts astray, letting our eyes focus on worldly things, and when we base our desires here and read Scripture from that place, we make Scripture say whatever we want, and pretty soon our hopes are set on promises that are understood differently than how God intended them to be.
Thus, when God lives into the promises he made, we have invested such time and energy misunderstanding them and building a false theology around our wrong understandings that we see the promise and reject it, preferring something we can wrap our minds and hearts around instead.  We trade in the eternal for the mortal, and think we are happier.
In welcoming the Messiah on Palm Sunday, the first century Jews thought they were welcoming a conquering hero.  When he conquered the wrong kingdom, death instead of Rome, they rejected him, preferring instead to keep looking for someone who could deliver them from Rome, not recognizing the riches they were forgoing by opting out of deliverance from sin and death. 

Does this still happen today?  Are people ever led into Christianity thinking one thing, then discovering that the faithful life is actually very different?  You can certainly decide on your own.  I’d certainly say yes.
I’d say there are churches who proclaim that belief in God will deliver earthly riches, when in fact God promises to deliver riches that far surpass whatever gold and silver can buy.  I’d say there are churches who promise health and healing, when in fact sometimes prayers go unanswered, and sometimes healing only happens on the other side of death.  I’d say there are churches who promise that happiness will overwhelm them every day of their life, when the Bible portrays an early church that struggled with conflict and oppression despite their faithful witness.  I’d say there are churches who proclaim that Christianity is easy, when in fact our Savior asks that everything be given over to him, each and every day, and that faithful discipleship takes discipline and endurance.  I’d say there are churches who promise peace, but in fact our churches are often filled with discord and strife as we wrestle with big questions and difficult decisions.

If we try and sell the church as a place where everything is easy and we don’t ask much, then inevitably we will disappoint people when they recognize how challenging the faithful life is.
So I believe that we, in the church, have two primary responsibilities.

The first is to read the Scriptures on our own.  If we do this, then we gain knowledge of how God has worked in the past for ourselves.  We aren’t simply being spoonfed, and our knowledge of the faithful life is not dependent on someone else.  When we are reading for ourselves, we can recognize the common distortions of Christianity and work to help non-believers have a more accurate understanding of how the faithful life of discipleship isn’t an easy path to riches but a long, slow call to endurance that traverses peaks and valleys and reaches fullness only upon passing through the veil of death.  By knowing this for ourselves and communicating it to others, we lessen the chances of disappointing those with distorted understandings of what Christianity means.

Secondly, we have a responsibility to wait patiently on God.  God has always done unexpected things, from the moment he freely created the universe from nothing to the time he entered into creation and took the punishment of death for guilty mankind.  God’s grace is unexpected and cannot be grasped by our minds.  When we live in a place of permanent dependence on God, we haven’t made up our minds beforehand, but we live with open minds and hearts about what God might be doing.  We wake each day with a renewed sense of amazement at what God might accomplish, and when we haven’t decided beforehand what God should do, we’re free to be amazed at all the ways God is at work around us, and our feet aren’t chained to a preset path—we can follow wherever God might lead, and worship as we go.  We won’t be disappointed when God calls us into something new.  We can only be amazed that the God who faithfully has lived up to every promise will continue to walk with us in the light of grace and renew us each and every day.

Let us pray

Friday, March 27, 2015

Psalm 134

Psalm 134 
English Standard Version (ESV)

  Bless the Lord.  Take a moment and recognize that Jesus is Lord, that he is the center of the universe, not us.  Set aside some time to acknowledge and praise God for who he is, for his goodness and his grace and his peace and his love and his mercy.  Bless the Lord, for he has shown himself to be faithful and will be forevermore!  Bless the Lord, and give thanks for the love he has shown and for the promises he has made, because we know he will be faithful to them.  Bless the Lord, and may the whole world join us.

Bless the Lord!

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Psalm 133

Psalm 133 
English Standard Version (ESV)

  When you have conflict in a relationship, it affects everything.  It stresses that relationship, it stresses your mind, it stresses other relationships.  When one facet of life is off, so many others are damaged until that piece is put right.
  So when we live in peace together, all aspects of life improve.  When we are of one mind, we are stronger, happier, and more content.  We are better able to be at peace, and we are more willing to serve one another.  We are working together, rather than separately.
 
May we strive for peace, that we may serve and glorify God together

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Psalm 132:11-18

Psalm 132:11-18
English Standard Version (ESV)

  When the Lord told David that one of his sons would sit on the throne, how long do you suppose David thought it would be before this came to pass?  Do you think he imagined it would be a few decades, or a few centuries?
  We often have very different ideas as to exactly when God should bring things to pass.  We think it should be a few days or weeks, when God is actually working over the course of all of human history.  Our lives, too, are long journeys from the cradle to eternity, and God is doing a work in us as we live here.  So be patient, and trust that God has an eternal mindset when it comes to our lives.  He has redeemed us and will restore us, and so may our prayers express supreme confidence in God's ability to do so.

May we pray with patience

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Psalm 132:1-10

Psalm 132:1-10
English Standard Version (ESV)

  What keeps you up?  What unfinished projects nag at your soul until you cannot rest?  I don't do many puzzles anymore -- not because I don't enjoy them, but I end up telling myself 'One more piece' hundreds of times until it's 3:30 in the morning.  The unfinished nature of the puzzle nags at me and I want to finish it.  If I'm within 75 pages of the end of a novel, I feel compelled to stay up and finish it, no matter what time it is.  Being that close makes it so hard for me to go to bed.
  Here, David feels compelled to find a home for the Ark of the Covenant.  He doesn't want to sleep until it's finished.
  In our own lives, does the sense of worship compel us to make time for God?  Do we feel driven to worship, to contemplate our beloved, to spend time before God?  Are we willing to put off anything so that we can have some space alone before God, or do we let any old thing break in and steal that time, and when it grows late, do we just talk about how we can do that tomorrow?

  May we be passionate, making worship a priority.


Monday, March 23, 2015

Psalm 131

Psalm 131
English Standard Version (ESV)

  131 O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
  2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. 3 O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

*************

 I love this Psalm.  It's short, sweet and easy to memorize, and in moments of distress it paints a beautiful image of a child resting on its mothers lap, the safest place in the world for any young child.  Young children trust their mothers completely, and anything in the world that seems to threaten their sense of security sends them fleeing to mom, where they are welcomed with love.
  May the same be true of us.  May we recognize that God's loving embrace is the place where our souls find their true rest, and though we cannot experience that on this side of heaven, we can spend our lives preparing for it, letting the love of God enfold us and remind us that nothing can tear us from God's embrace.

  In times of joy and times of struggle, may we seek the peace that only God can offer.


Friday, March 13, 2015

Psalm 130

Psalm 130 
English Standard Version (ESV)

  Know what the depths are like?
  We all do.  We know the depths of pain and hurt and suffering, whether it's through the consequences of our own poor choices or the seemingly random pain that inflicts us from time to time.  Life challenges us at times, and there are moments when we feel like the walls are closing in and the darkness will overwhelm the light, and hope shall drown in our tears.
  In these depths, we cry out, and we wait.  We wait with hope, because just as surely as the dawn follows the night, the Lord our God will deliver us through his steadfast love into the life eternal.  With the same confidence that the sun will rise, we can face the challenges before us knowing that God will redeem us, that God's forgiveness and grace are greater than our sin, and that the love of Jesus Christ knows no bounds.

  May you fall into Christ's love today

***

  Two things --
  1)  I'll be taking next week off.  (Spring break!)
  2)  So I'm riding in an event in Columbus called Pelotonia.  It's a massive fundraiser to raise funds to cure cancer.  100% of funds raised goes towards ending this awful disease that has touched the lives of everyone.  I'd appreciate your support in this cause.  You can check out my profile here.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Psalm 129

Psalm 129
English Standard Version (ESV)

  What will you focus on?  Will you invest your life and energy trying to get even with your enemies, or will you trust God for that?  Will you pour your faculties into devising schemes to make them pay, which will consume your life and turn you into someone no better than them?
  Or will you trust God to set things right, and rather than focus on trying to change the hearts of your enemies, will you focus on the love of God, and let your life be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, who alone can change the people around you?  Will you be a conduit of grace and forgiveness?

May we trust God to set things right and stop trying to be God ourselves

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Psalm 128

Psalm 128 
English Standard Version (ESV)

  I think this is a prayer more than it is a definitive statement.  We pray that those who fear the Lord will be richly blessed, that all will be well and the wife and kids will be a blessing.  Life doesn't always turn out like that, does it?
  The faithful life is one of twists and turns, of mountaintops and valleys, of joy and tears.  This is normal.  We aren't doing something wrong if we're struggling to get by each day.  We certainly pray for peace and prosperity, but part of being fully human means dwelling in a broken world surrounded by chaos and turbulence.  Just like any airplane flight, there are smooth sections and bumpy parts, and each flight is different--some feel like mostly smooth sailing while others leave you reaching for the airsick bag.
  Let us pray for peace and prosperity, for ourselves and for our neighbors, and strive to be faithful servants of God, trusting that the life he has prepared for us, as well as the life he calls us to lead, will be marked by deep peace and confidence in his overwhelming grace and power.

May you find God's peace today

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Psalm 127

Psalm 127 
English Standard Version (ESV)

  What does it depend on for your car to start in the morning?  A strong battery.  A working alternator.  A myriad of moving pieces that must all work together in concert for the car to start running to enable you to go about your day.
  What about your body?  Our hearts and brains must be functioning, as well as a number of other complicated systems.  If your brain takes the day off, you won't make it very far.
  When we build a life upon something other than God, we can still function in this world, but ultimately, it will be revealed that this was a poor choice, because one day chaos and turmoil will enfold us, and we'll discover that whatever we trusted in that was not God is not powerful enough to deliver us.  We'll go to start the car and nothing will happen, and only then will we realize how foolish we have been.
  When we trust in God, we may not see a difference in every moment of our lives.  But God is strengthening and preparing us for greater things ahead, and in the hours and moments that seem like trials, the seeds we have planted will come into their fullness and bear fruit that nourishes the souls and quenches the thirst.

May we trust in God to lead us down the right paths that lead to eternal life, rooted in Christ

Monday, March 9, 2015

Psalm 126

Psalm 126 
English Standard Version (ESV)

  The long night eventually cedes the way to dawn.  It begins as a pink sliver on the horizon, a subtle reminder that change is coming, that the darkness will not last, and colors begin to burst forth on the scene, yellows and reds and oranges that offer hope that a new day is near, that the darkness shall not last forever, and soon the sun peaks its head above the horizon, bursting forth in a glorious new day that is a gift from God, and the night passes into memory while the day is fully present.
  God grants us this transition freely in Jesus Christ.  He pours out his love for us--even in the midst of our self-created and chosen darkness, God points us towards hope, orients us toward the horizon, and soon every pain and misery we wallow in will be turned into laughing as we celebrate our redemption at the hands of Christ.  We shall sing and dance and be merry forever, because of the power of the Risen One, who has conquered the night and grants us the eternal morning.

May you look to the horizon

Friday, March 6, 2015

Psalm 125

Psalm 125 
English Standard Version (ESV)

 The hour to hour weather is hard to predict, especially here in Ohio.  The sun will be shining, and an hour later it will be snowing.  Soon after that, the rain will start, and when we're about to wrap ourselves in total misery, the sun will come out again.  It flattens out a bit from day to day, but it can still change a lot.  The predictability of San Diego leaves us jealous.
  If you set your mood according to the weather, or according to how people around you act, or according to the world news crisis of the day, you'll be in constant turmoil, seeking affirmation or steadiness from forces unable to provide it.
  If, however, we trust in the Lord, who is eternal and never changes, we aren't like a tree that is buffeted by the forces around us, but rather we stand tall and confidant like a mountain, able to withstand the forces of nature and the changes in people around us, because the Lord carries us in his hand and will never let us go.  This is the blessing of discipleship--it centers us and gives us confidence to live into our calling, to go forth and serve, faithfully.

May you know that God will always be with you

Thursday, March 5, 2015

Psalm 124

Psalm 124
  English Standard Version (ESV)


  There is a current fundraising campaign for Ohio State called 'But for Ohio State'.  The idea is that you wonder how life might have been different if you hadn't attended Ohio State.  I, for one, would be much warmer without all the snow, but I suspect that I am gaining more from this experience than toughness against adverse weather.
  Think of the most important people in your life.  How would your life be different without them?  Do you express your gratitude and your joy to them?  Do you give thanks that they wander this path of life with you?  They add immeasurable depth and wonder to our daily walk.
  If it were not for God, we would not have made it this far.  Darkness and chaos would have snatched us up, and we would have no hope, no light in the night, no confidence that a path leads out of the valley of the shadow of death.  Desolation would circle, and we would wait and hope for a merciful end.
  But God is here, and he is with us, and we shall not fail!

May we go forth today with confidence in the power and joy of God

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Psalm 123

Psalm 123 
English Standard Version (ESV)

  We have a choice about where we look.  We can look up to the Lord, focusing our attention on God.  Or we can look down, at ourselves, wondering why things aren't perfect in our lives, confused about where God is.  Where we fix our vision will determine much about our lives.
  If we choose to focus on ourselves, our quality of life will be determined by how we feel and what's happening to us.  When things go wrong, we can't look beyond ourselves, because we will shrink the world down to our size.
  If we focus on God, we see endless light and peace and love.  We see forgiveness, and we see a God reaching out to us in Jesus Christ.  We see his mercy, and we can be at peace.  We see his love, and we see God redirecting our vision to the needs of the world around us, causing us to be grateful and giving us a mission, a way to spend our lives loving others as we have been loved.
  It's your choice.

Let us fix our eyes upon the one who freely chooses to save.


Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Psalm 122

Psalm 122 
English Standard Version (ESV) 

  Peace.
  What's it mean to you?
  Spend a moment contemplating what it would mean for peace to break out.
  We all have different images.  For some it's personal, the sense of calm that happens when everything is in its place.  For others it's relational, the unity that results when everyone is on the same page and no conflict is causing strife.  For others it's global, the lack of war and the image of people working together in unity.  For most of us it's some combination.
  We pray for peace.  I don't know exactly what peace looks like, because turmoil and conflict have been surrounding us since Eden, but we trust that God's peace will be greater than we could ever possibly imagine.  It will reign, and there will be no more war.

May we pray for peace

Monday, March 2, 2015

Psalm 121

Psalm 121 
English Standard Version (ESV) 

   This is a good one to memorize.  It's short, simple and to the point:  The Lord will be with you.
  Remember that scene in Peter Pan, when Peter is fighting his shadow, then has to work to have it reattached.  It's absurd because of the basic premise:  our shadow is always with us.  In the same way, Christ is always with us, and he will not sleep, not even for a moment, lest your soul be in mortal danger.
  Now, you may fear that in the darkest of nights, your shadow abandons you until the light returns.  Instead, Christ draws closer still.  Often, in these dark nights, we cease to look for the presence of God, but if we take a moment to remember the promises of God, we can trust that God will be there, with us in the darkness, and he can lead us forward, for to God, even the darkness is like light.

  You have nothing to fear.  God is with you.  Take courage, be strong, and you shall live with God forever.