Every year near Fathers Day, we are reminded that Mothers Day is one of the highest attended Sunday’s of the year. When we lived in Brownsville, I learned that the day before Mothers Day is also the busiest day of the year for florists. A member who was a florist had to employ a number of additional helpers to meet the demand of Mothers Day.

Let’s face it. Mothers are important. When Kathy would go out of town when the children were young they always looked forward to her return. The food and cleanliness of the house made a big improvement within minutes of her return! Mothers are also important for Christian faith. I have heard a lot of testimonies over the last 35 years. The most common testimony is of how a mother or grandmother was essential in bringing a child to faith in Christ. Many of these testimonies were by young men who strayed from the Christian faith only to be rescued by the prayers and sacrifice of a mother or grandmother.

Two weeks ago when looking at the importance of Scripture for the wise and loving life, we looked at II Timothy. Timothy is one of the most important people in the New Testament. Timothy’s mother, Eunice, was central to his Christian faith. Paul discipled Timothy, but it was Eunice who brought him to Christian faith. Most Christians know the story of St. Augustine, who was not a Christian until very shortly before his mother’s death. [1] Monica prayed and prayed for young Augustine. Finally, after much wandering, Augustine embraced his mother’s faith in one of the most dramatic and important conversions in all of Christian history.

If Christian faith is going to be passed from generation to generation, then it will be because mothers, fathers, parents, grandparents, and others take responsibility to disciple children seriously. Churches are important in this process, but family is more important—and mothers may be the most important people of all!

A Warning from History

It may seem odd to read from the book of Judges on and near Mothers Day. However, mothers are part of families, and this is a blog on passing along faith in families. Therefore, it is appropriate to ask the question, “What happens if faith is not passed along?” “What happens if our children and grandchildren forget our faith or the faith of their parents and grandparents?” Judges tells just such a story. Our text comes from Judges 2, and I am going to be readying verse 7 and verses 10-13:

The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel. … After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In his anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them (Judges 2:7, 10-14).

Most Christians seldom read the book of Judges. It is the seventh book in our Bible and tells the story of Israel between the death of Joshua, who led the people into the Promised Land, until the time of Samuel, the last judge. As Judges begins, a godly, wise, and effective leader has led the people of Israel into the Promised Land. Joshua was Moses’ assistant, a great general, and a godly person. Now, Joshua is passing away.

So long as Joshua was alive, the people of Israel followed the LORD. Joshua and the generation Joshua led into the Promised Land remembered their captivity in Egypt. They remembered that God had released them from captivity, led them in the desert, and miraculously delivered them to the Promised Land. However, after Joshua and the members of his generation died, the newer generations did not remember what God had done. They lost their memory of slavery in Egypt, of their suffering, of God’s miraculous deliverance by the leadership of Moses, the long wandering in the wilderness, and their conquest of the Promised Land. They lost their memory, and as they lost their memory of what God had done, they lost their faith. Soon they were worshiping false gods, living immorally, and acting violently. It was not long before they began to lose their blessings as well.

How long did it take? It took less time than the United States has existed as a nation. We need to take a warning from Israel’s history. There is every reason to believe that our nation and our families are forgetting God, forgetting our history, forgetting those who came here seeking religious freedom, forgetting their struggle for liberty.

Increasingly, young people are abandoning the church and the values of our nation. Increasingly, we see signs of religious persecution as elites who have no respect for religion, and even think it dangerous and deliberately suppress and often distort religion’s importance in our history. As individuals, as families, as communities, and as a nation we need to take the threat of losing our blessings seriously. Our nation was formed on the basis of religious freedom and self-discipline. It cannot survive without it.

Our founding pastor used to like to say; “The Church is only a generation away from extinction in every generation.” This is true. If those who went before us had not been faithful in their day, we who are Christians would not be here today. If we do not find ways to be faithful now, in our day and time, then the blessings of the wisdom and love that can only come from God will not be with our children. Worse, the sufferings that come with moral and spiritual failure will be theirs. We see every indication that this is happening in our time, in our nation. The increase in violence, selfish self-seeking, the increase in divorce, increasing incidence of instability, a loss of good jobs, and the loss of respect for human life—all these things coincide with our culture’s drift away from its spiritual, moral, and legal heritage.

Grace from God

Romans 8 is one of the most beautiful texts in the entire Bible. Here is the part of what Paul has to say in this lovely passage:

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory (Romans 8:14-17).

Here is the idea Paul is communicating: God is calling us by his Spirit. He has made us so that we desire to connect with an ultimate meaning and purpose. We have a longing for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. We have a longing for God built into all of our souls. This is reflected in St. Augustine’s famous line, “our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.” [2] God in his great mercy has made us with hearts that yearn for meaning, purpose, faith, goodness, wisdom, beauty, and love.

God’s Spirit cries out in each one of us. When we respond and cry out, “Abba Father” or “Father God” we bring ourselves into alignment with the God of Wisdom and Love. When we do that, we are brought into God’s family. From this point, whatever our former condition, the power of God’s wisdom and love is unleashed in our lives to change us, reform us, renew, us, and permit us to live wise and morally, emotionally, and spiritually healthy lives. This can also mean a healing of our human family. I personally know this to be true in my life. My conversion to Christ coincided with a healing in my family. God’s grace is not just for our salvation when we die, it is for our healing and salvation and for the healing and salvation of our families, our communities, our church, our nation, our world, as impossible as that seems.

The first and most important things we can do to have a godly family is to open our hearts to God’s grace, invite God in, and allow God to change us. We won’t make a lot of progress on our own. We need God to help us.

Godly Families

Once we have God in the right place, we come to the place where we can get our human families in order as well. There is an old, old adage that a good marriage has three parties, a husband, a wife, and God.There are times when any family will come apart unless both parties are committed to something more important than their own self-interest. A reason divorce has become prevalent in our culture, even among Christians, is that we often do not remember that there is more at stake in a marriage than our own needs and satisfactions. We forget that God has an eternal purpose in our marriages and families. While God does want us to be happy and fulfilled, God has eternal reasons for the family as a place where children are loved, understood, and nurtured. The family is also a place where the elderly grow old in the care of their children and are respected for their experience and wisdom. This does not always work out; it never works out perfectly. Nevertheless, it is a goal we seek by God’s grace.

When we bring God into our family, it is important to really and truly make God a part of our family. A strength of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church is our emphasis on family and on the role of mothers and fathers in the spiritual nurture of children. In a few weeks, we will have Vacation Bible School. All summer long we will have youth and children’s programs. Next fall, we will have EPIC (our midweek children’s program designed after what is called, “LOGOS”). We always have Sunday School. Our church is committed to helping parents in raising Christian children. Yet, the primary place our children learn Christian faith and discipleship is in the home.

A lot of mothers and fathers try to have family devotionals, try to say grace, try to have spiritual conversations with their children, and feel like failures. I urge us not to think this way. Often, we do not see immediate results in discipling children. Sometimes the results of our nurture are long years in revealing themselves. The example of Augustine’s mother, Monica, should always be with us in difficult times.

The Ultimate Family

I wish there were some way to say what I need to say now simply. This is the hardest part of this blog to understand, but it is important. In life there are things that are good in themselves, but they can become harmful when they become ultimate things. Love of country is a good thing—but as we saw in Nazi Germany and in Russian Communism, when love of country is not subject to love of God it can become something terrible. Love of family is the same way. From time to time we see inward-looking families who have no time for others, they are completely absorbed in themselves. Such families are rarely healthy. For a human family to find its place of greatest peace, it must find its true meaning and purpose as a part of the human family and God’s family. Families are part of God’s plan for the wise life, but the family is not God’s entire plan for human happiness.

Over the years, we have been on a few mission trips with our family and other families. Truthfully, I wish we had done more of these. I have really good memories of a few mission trips to Mexico and seeing Hilary, Trammell, Clara or Melanie on the roof of a house being built—and Kathy standing grinning or playing the guitar for a Bible School. On at least one occasion, a couple from Advent came with us and we stayed in the same motel in Mexico. It was a wonderful experience. Serving others, reaching out as a family to help others, getting out of our own selves long enough to see the needs of others is a wonderful and necessary thing.

A couple of weeks ago, the staff attended what is called the “Kainos Conference” in Memphis. It is a special conference that focuses on multi-racial ministry. “Kainos” means “fresh” or “new” in Greek. The idea is that God is doing a new, fresh thing in American churches, as our nation becomes increasingly multi-cultural. Several speakers encouraged us to make friends across cultural and racial barriers. They mentioned that people are uncomfortable with people who are different.

During the talk, one speaker quoted from Revelation a passage wherein we learn that, at the end of human history, we will all be together in heaven—people from every tribe, language group, and nation—all praising God together (Revelation 5:9-10). Then he said, “We are going to be together in heaven; we might as well be together on earth.” It is very true.

My mother is gone now. One promise I hold dear is that I will see Mom and Dad again in heaven. Our family is not over. Our family remains important to God, and he will restore it. In the end, I will meet people in my family, like my grandfather, I never even knew. Furthermore, in heaven, all the dysfunctions and problems of our family will be healed and we will be bound together in a perfect love we never achieved on earth. Finally, as important as my family will be to me in heaven, there will be another family there, the family of God, the Ultimate Family, of which my own family—and yours—is just a part.

Amen

[1] See, At. Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine tr. John K. Ryan (New York, NY: Image Books, 1960).

[2] Confessions of St. Augustine, Book 1, p. 43.

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

Our theme in today’s blog is prayer. Prayer is a key to Christian discipleship, Christian growth, Christian community, and Christian life. As such it is something Christians should value. On my bookshelf, there are a number of books on prayer. I’ve read a number of them. However, prayer is like playing an instrument or any sport. The question is not, “How many books have your read?” The question is, “How much have you practiced?” Prayer is not primarily a matter of knowledge. It is a matter of practice. The best thing to do to learn to pray is pray.

Each weekend in the bulletin there is a prayer list. The last thing we do in every staff meeting is to prepare that prayer list for the congregation. In addition, at 9:30 each Tuesday, a group of staff members meet and pray. Some years ago, when we were changing denominations, we began having prayer vigils on the First Friday of the month. Every first Friday, for the past four years there has been a prayer guide outside the chapel and services at 7:00, 12:00 noon, and 6:00 in the evening. Our prayer day isn’t always well attended, but during this time, we pray for the needs of our church, community, and world. The Session prays for the needs of our church at every meeting, sometimes for a long time.

This is a Great Banquet Weekend. The other day, I woke up early, and Kathy was gone. Well, not really gone. She was downstairs praying for me, for the coming Great Banquet, for our children, and for other prayer requests. This weekend, there have been people praying for the Great Banquet all weekend long. Yesterday, our Men’s Saturday reunion group did what we spend the first Saturday of each month doing: we spent a half a day praying, meditating, and seeking to to grow closer to God.

Paul’s Good Advice.

Our text for this blog comes from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Although a part of the text has to do with a problem in Philippi, the fact is that Philippians is a happy letter. The Philippian church was a strong church and supported Paul through thick and thin. It was also a generous church, giving to the needs of the church in Jerusalem in a time of need. [1] Like all churches, the Philippian church was not perfect. After Paul left, there were false teachers and other issues. As we begin our text, it is obvious that two people, Euodius and Syntyche, are quarreling. Paul’s admonition to rejoice, pray, and dwell on true and good things arises out of his response to this problem. Here is the Word of God as it comes from Philippians:

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends! I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you (Philippians 4:1-9).

Prayer: God of Joy and Peace: Come to us in these words so that we can learn how it by prayer and purity we can enjoy the fullness of joy you have for each one of us. In Jesus Name, Amen.

Our Fallen Condition.

This is a blog about praying, but it needs to begin with our human condition. The problems between the two people in Philippi reminds us that human beings are not by nature in God’s will. We are all naturally self-centered, self-interested, short-sighted, desiring secondary pleasures and unimportant things, inclined to worry and be anxious, sometimes jealous of those who have more than we do, and prone to divide into factions. Each of us may not have all of these inclinations, but we all have some of them. We all have these problems because none of us by nature has the spiritual connection with God that enables us to avoid them. The story of Genesis and the fall is the story of our human condition and its consequences in real life. Since the fall, human beings have had a problem staying connected with God.

I know all my readers know that Kathy and I would never, ever quarrel, and I am sure that none of you who are married ever quarrel, but I have observed in my adult life that when human beings quarrel with another person, we cease to communicate, and when we cease to communicate our problem seldom gets better. In fact, I have noticed over the years that quarrels themselves are often a failure of loving communication in the first place! People who are fighting do not communicate well.

Our relationship with God is no different. Our human tendency is to push God into a corner of our lives, perhaps Sunday morning or a few minutes each day if we remember. The result is that we don’t have the relationship and constant communication we need with God to experience the joy and peace God desires for us to have.

The Solution.

The first step in getting out of ourselves and and our own desires and into God and the desires that God has for us, then, is to rejoice and be thankful for the gift of life and for what God has done for us. It is interesting that, right after Paul comments on the quarrel in the Philippian church, he speaks the following words: “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice!” (v. 4). A life of prayer begins with rejoicing in faith. Our rejoicing will not always be without pain or fatigue or anxiety. Yet, we know there is a God who cares and so we pray to Him.

Second, Paul goes tells the Philippians to be gentle and not to worry, but in everything with prayers and petitions to let God know what we need (v.5). It is as if Paul is saying, once you have your attitude right about God and have begun to praise God and rejoice your salvation by faith, then start talking. Let God know what you need and how much you need it. Just let God know what is on your heart—everything that is on your heart (v.6). Once again, the point is not that we will never be anxious. The point is to turn our anxiety over to God.

Third, Paul says that we should be thoughtful and think about things that are true, roble, right, pure, lovely and admirable (v.8). In other words, we can’t be filled with the Spirit if we don’t think about things that will fill us with the Spirit of God—the True, the Good and the Beautiful. Thinking about true, good and lovely things centers us on the One who is True, Good, and Beautiful.

Finally, Paul says that the Philippians need to think about what they have seen Paul do, how he lived, the results the Gospel had in his life, and put the Gospel into practice (v. 9). It is only as we rejoice, pray, and become wise, and put into practice the grace we have received that God’s peace will come into our hearts (v. 7, 9). Just like study needs to lead to action, prayer needs to lead to action. We need to put our prayers into practice.

Our congregation is generous when it comes to missions. We give to the EPC World Outreach. We support several missionaries whose names appear in the Prayer List in our bulletin. We support what is called, “The Presbyterian Outreach Foundation,” which supports missions in our former denomination, the EPC, and other denominations. One of the members of that board, who lives in the Southeast, is a real prayer warrior. Every so often, I go into my office and he has a prayer message on my phone. Occasionally, he calls and prays. He did this just this week! Sometimes, I get emails with a word of wisdom and a prayer contained within them. I’ve watched my friend for some time now. He is not a pastor. He is in business. He serves on a financial-related committee of the Outreach Foundation. He is unfailingly cheerful and gentle. He is always obviously prayerful. His prayers are powerful and touching. His comments are unfailingly wise and thoughtful. And, in his personal and professional life he puts into practice what it is he believes and prays for. He does not just pray; he leads a prayerful life.

An Approach.

In this Blog, I don’t want to talk about a method of prayer. Most Christians know about the “ACTS method” of Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication, and about other prayer methods. Instead, I want to talk about an approach to prayer that can help each of us develop a deeper prayer life. This week, in the Bulletin and on Facebook, the meditation was as follows:

In prayer, three things happen: We come in touch with God and God’s will, we come in touch with how our will and God’s will can become one, and we come into unity with our brothers and sisters in Christ. When our will and God’s will become one, the power of God’s wisdom and love becomes unleashed in our personal lives. When God’s will and the will of a community of believers become one, the power of God’s wisdom and love becomes unleashed in the world.

The first step in developing a prayer life is alignment. If all we do is ask for things, eventually our prayer life burns out. None of us gets all of our prayers answered, and all of us will have times when we ask God for things we cannot and should not have. As we listen to God and align our prayers with God’s will, we slowly begin asking and praying within the will of God. When that happens our prayer life becomes more powerful. The prayer group our Saturday Men’s Reunion Group attends is primarily a listening prayer experience.

Second, one reason we come together and pray as a group on Sunday mornings, in worship, in small groups, and in classes is that, as the members of our Session, Church, classes, and small groups pray together, their wills and prayers begin to align with God’s will.

Think of alignment as something like a laser. Lasers are essentially light beams that have become “aligned,” or in scientific terms, “coherent”—that is to say all the beams of light are going in the same direction. The light beam of a laser is powerful because it is aligned and coherent. As we pray and listen to God, our wills and God’s will become aligned. We stop asking for things that are not in God’s will. We do ask for things that are in God’s will. As a group prays and listens to God its prayers become aligned, that is to say the entire group is praying in unity within God’s will. When that happens, the power of God is unleashed in churches, families and communities. This is one reason spouses should pray together: It creates unity and alignment.

Finally, we should pray constantly. We all need to have quiet times. We all need special times of prayers at home and church. At the same time, we should all try to develop the habit of constant prayer—a kind of prayer without ceasing. Paul says we should pray in everything, and that means about everything and all the time. When we are worried, tired, stressed, short, jealous, angry, etc. we need to pray. When life is not going our way, we need to pray. If we listen to God, we will certainly find many, many prayers to lift up to God.

As I mentioned a moment ago, the Men’s Saturday Reunion Group at our church meets once a month at a local Episcopal Church for an extended time of prayer. For a good amount of the time, we are silently listening for God. If we are to become aligned with God and God’s will, we have to develop the habit of listening to God and allowing God to form us and speak to us in the silence of our hearts. It is hard for those of us who are active and used to being busy. It is not easy for me. Alignment and constancy in prayer are not natural. They are a gift that God gives to those who wait and desire to be one with God in important matters of the spirit.

Conclusion.

Most Christians know that, on the night before he was crucified, Jesus went to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane. He prayed to be relieved of the duty God had placed upon him. However, he ended the prayer, “Not my will, but your will be done” (Matthew 26:39). In other words, Jesus’ human will had become aligned with God’s will, so that now he had the strength to endure what was about to happen.

Not all of our prayers will be in easy times. Not all will have pleasant results. Our prayer, in the end, is for our human will to embrace God’s will so we may be filled with his power whatever the circumstances. Paul’s advice to lift everything up to God with Thanksgiving is as good a piece of advice today as it was in the First Century.

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] The scholarly sources for this sermon are William Barclay, “The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians” in The Daily Bible Study Series Rev. Ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster 1975) and Richard R. Melick, Jr., Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon” in The New American Commentary vol. 32, (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1991).

Kathy and I have been thinking a lot about maps recently. The other day, I was trying to figure out how to get from Fithian, Illinois to San Antonio, Texas through Abilene, Kansas. For the life of me, I could not close my eyes and remember where in the world Abilene, Kansas could be! I had to look it up on a map.

I have a friend who used to have a huge wall map of the world sitting in his breakfast area. I have been thinking a lot about that map because we’ve been thinking about framing a map of the world for one of our Sunday School Class rooms. Two weeks ago, I was in a mission meeting listening to a report about world missions. I was amazed at how many places there were in the world that I could not close my eyes and imagine where they are!

Without some idea of where you are and where it is you are going, it is really hard to plan a trip. The same thing is true of life. Unless we have some idea of where we are and of where we intend to go in life, we have a lot of trouble getting anywhere. One problem in our world is that a lot of the old road maps for life have changed, and people have a hard idea formulating any idea of who they are, what they were created to be, what changes are needed to be who they were intended to be, and how to get there.

Many people in our culture have a sense of rootlessness. That is to say, they live day in and day out acting on the impulses of the moment. They do not feel particularly connected to the past of their families, communities, our nation, or our culture. They are making up life as they go along. The result is often misery.

The Importance of Scripture.

Our text is from Second Timothy. This is one of Paul’s last letters, if not his last letter. He wrote it from captivity, probably in Rome (2 Tim. 1:8). The letter is to Timothy, his “son in Christ,” protégé, and assistant (See, 1:2). In it, Paul gives Timothy the best advice he can, knowing that it may be the last advice he can give to him. Here is a part of what he says:

You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:10-17).

Prayer: Word of God: This morning we come to a teaching that is at the center of our faith—the authority of your Word and its importance in our lives. Come by the power of your Holy Spirit that we might hunger for the wisdom only you can give. In Your Name we pray, Amen.

A Story that Leads to Christ

Last week in this blog, we visited about worship and about the Jewish temple. This week, we are visiting about another aspect of Jewish culture that is just as important to Christianity and to us—the fact that Jews and Christians are both “People of the Book.” When the Jews were taken into captivity for the second time, this time in Babylon, the temple was destroyed. In any case, it would have been a trip of hundreds of miles to visit Jerusalem, a trip no captive slave could possibly take. Therefore, the Jewish people had to maintain their heritage without the aid of temple worship. It is at this time that the Jews began to create synagogues, diligently study scripture, and compile commentaries on their Scripture. Their worship, which could not include Temple sacrifices, became centered on Scripture.

When we teach one year through the Bible studies, one thing that amazes first time readers is the extent to which the first five books of the Old Testament, what the Jews call the “Torah” or “Law,” aren’t law at all. They are the story of the history of the Jewish people up until their entry into the Promised Land. The story Scripture tells continues right up until the people return from captivity. All this time, the prophets were writing and so were the wise men. By the time it was all over, the Jews had a scripture almost identical to our Old Testament containing their national story, their hymns and songs, their wisdom teachings, and the words of those who warned them against disobedience to God. In those writings was embedded the idea of a Messiah, a Savior who would come to free them from captivity and bring them into a time of renewal.

When the early Christians read the Old Testament, they immediately began to see in the story of the Old Testament and in all of its teachings a foreshadowing of Christ. They saw Jesus as the one who would crush the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15). They saw in Jesus the Suffering Servant of Isaiah (Isaiah 53). The life, death and resurrection of Jesus made sense of the human condition and of God’s intention for human life. The same thing is true today. The Bible, the written Word of God, has a purpose, and its first purpose is to lead us to Christ, to the Word of God in human form. We do not primarily read our Bibles for head knowledge, but to have a heart relationship with God. The first and most important role of Scripture is to lead us to God and to Christ.

A Story that Leads to Self-Understanding.

We find in the story the Bible tells a way of making sense of our personal story, the story of our family and friends, and the story of our world. It is a story of a people created in God’s image, but fallen and prone to err. It is the story of God’s love for every human being. It is the story of God sending his Son to free us from the past, and give us new life. It is a story that can, as Paul says, make us “wise unto salvation” (2 Tim. 3:15). The power of the Bible is such that it can lead us to God and lead us to behave and be changed into more Godly people.

Paul goes on to say that the Scriptures are useful for teaching and for rebuke (2 Tim. 3:16). In other words, an important purpose of reading the Bible is to allow us and cause us to come to a better self-understanding. The Bible leads us to Christ, but it also exposes our need for Christ by exposing who we really are. And, of course, when it does this we learn that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory God intended for us (Romans 3:23).

When I was younger I taught marksmanship and archery for a while. In teaching archery, I learned an important fact. Bent arrows do not fly straight. Each early summer when the counselors got to camp, we would look at last year’s arrows, some of which had gotten damp and warped. (This is before composite and aluminum arrows.) We threw them away because no one could shoot a crooked arrow straight.

This is theologically interesting. One Old Testament word for sin connotes an arrow that has gone astray and missed the mark. [1] It is as if our lives are like arrows fired by our parents and God. Unfortunately, we are crooked arrows. We are all a bit selfish and self-centered. We are all a bit bent morally and spiritually.

A Word that Leads to Correction and New Life

Worse yet (and to change metaphors), all of us have bad sights. We all aim our lives more or less away from God’s perfect intention for us that we live lives of wisdom and love. The result is that we all like sheep, go astray (Isaiah 53:6). Therefore, we all need a bit of rebuking and correcting. In a word, we need to get back on the straight road.

I am not a very good shot, and I don’t know a lot about guns. Recently I have been trying to learn to shoot. When you purchase a new weapon, you have to see if the sights are correct. If the sites are not correct, you won’t hit the target. You also have to learn to aim the weapon properly. If you do not aim at the target, you won’t hit it. Getting your sights right and getting your aim corrected are really important if you want to learn to shoot well.

Every day, I read the Bible. It is a rare week when I do not feel myself condemned by some portion of Scripture I am reading. I don’t always like this aspect of reading the Bible, but I do think it is good for me because it leads to correction. You can only read so long about the need for wise speech before you begin to speak more wisely. You can only read so often about the importance of hard work before you begin to work harder. You can only read so often about saving money before you start saving money. You can only read so long about loving others before you begin to love others.

Those in Memphis who have been in Disciple Bible studies, and more recently in the new discipling study Kathy and I are leading, know that God has been working on my heart concerning discipling people and changing the emphasis of our Bible studies. We do not primarily read our Bibles to gain new information. We read them to correct our vision and attain a new kind of life characterized by wisdom and love—God’s wisdom and love. What is important is not so much how much Bible do I know, but how much Bible am I putting to work in my life. The big question is, “Am I being corrected and living a new, different, healthier, less self-centered, less selfish, less broken, less sinful life?”

A Word that Leads to Good Works.

I have been working our way through one single sentence of Paul. Paul says that “All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, for rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (I Tim. 3:16-17). Those two little words, “so that” mean that God inspired Scripture, he allows it to teach us, rebuke is, correct us, and train us for a purpose. This purpose is that we are properly equipped for every good work.

This summer, I plan on doing some hiking. My plan was to put on my old running shoes and hike. The person with whom I am going hiking pointed out to me that this was a bad idea. Running shoes lack lateral support and are built for short exercise periods, not hours and hours of walking day after day. He told me I needed new equipment if I want to hike with him. The fact is most work requires some kind of equipment. One important purpose of the Bible is to equip us for the work and life God has for us.

In Ephesians, Paul says the following:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:8-9).

We are not saved by our works, that is, by doing good things; however, we were saved for good works. God has a plan to undo all the sin and all the violence and all the greed and all the misplaced passion in the world. He has the idea that people need to be respected, loved, saved from darkness, allowed to lived better lives, converted from sin, taught to live joyfully and healthily.

God saved us all right. But, let’s think back a bit: someone communicated God’s love to us. Someone shared the Gospel. Someone treated us with dignity. Someone helped us up when we were down. Someone shared an insight that helped us solve a problem. Someone invited us to church, or youth group, our Bible study, or an AA group. Someone did something when God saved us.

There is a movie I like called Pay It Forward. [2] It is the story of a young man named Trevor who has a terrible life. His mother and father are both dysfunctional. One day in class his teacher challenges them to do something to change the world. A few days later, Trevor decides to do something big for three people who really need it, with the understanding that each will pay it forward with three good deeds of their own. In Trevor’s vision, the whole world will be changed for the better as people pay good deeds forward.

It so happens and Trevor and God have the same idea. God saved us from our brokenness, and in response, he desires us to pay it forward.

Amen

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] One of the many words for sin connotes missing the mark, as if an arrow missed its intended target. This is not the only connotation, for there are many Hebrew words used to connote sin. If the target of life is to live wisely in community with others, then sin is anything we do to miss this target of life.

[2] Leslie Dixon wr., based on the novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde, Pay it Forward dir. by Mimi Leder, starring Keven Spacey, Helen Hunt, Haley Joel Osment (Warner Brothers Pictures, October 20, 2000).

For a long, long time, I’ve wanted to preach a sermon on worship, which I have done for the past two weeks at Advent Presbyterian Church at each pf our campuses. In this Blog, I want to center on why worship is essential to the wise life. All over America churches are struggling with worship attendance. There are a lot of reasons for this, but at the center of the problem is the notion that worship is something optional. If there is a God, it cannot be optional, because when we cease worshiping, we eventually cease recognizing that there is a wisdom greater than ours. Soon, as Paul puts it in Romans, “thinking ourselves wise, we become fools” (Romans 1:22).

I remember a day when I was in college sitting on the grass on the commons at Trinity University. A group of freshmen were watching an anti-war demonstration and talking. Our conversation drifted to the subject of chapel and church attendance. A friend of mine from Oklahoma said, “I just don’t need to go to church. I can worship God anywhere.” We all agreed. Within about a year, we were all in various stages of losing our Christian faith—and none of us were behaving well at all. It was only a number of years later, after some suffering, that I realized how important worship and the Christian community are.

Worship is important to wise living; but to understand how and why, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of what worship is and is not. Two weeks ago, was Palm Sunday. We thought and meditated about the cross. Last week was Easter. We thought and meditated about the resurrection. We spoke about how the lives of the apostles and disciples of Jesus were changed by those twin events. In the cross, we see the Amazing Love of God, a love so great it would give anything, even life itself, for the Beloved. In the resurrection, we see the victory of God’s Amazing Love over death.

All love evokes a response. Christians have always seen worship not as a duty, but a response to God’s Amazing Love. True worship is a response to God’s love. As we respond to God’s love in worship, we ground ourselves in the source of all true wisdom and all self-giving love–a wisdom greater than natural wisdom and a love greater than natural love.

A Life of Christ-Formed Worship.

To guide our meditation, I have chosen a passage from First Peter. First Peter is one of what are called “the Catholic Epistles.” [1] The Apostle Peter wrote it to congregations in Asia Minor, probably from Rome, near the end of his life (I Peter 1:1). In this letter, Peter gives mature advice to congregations he helped plant and over which he had authority concerning essential parts of the Christian life. In this particular passage, he talks about the Christian life, but what he says is entirely relevant to the subject of worship:

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”

Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (I Peter 4:4-10).

Place Centered Worship.

In this is a passage, it is evident that the writer was a Jew. Peter begins by speaking of Jesus as a “living stone” (I Peter 2:4). He speaks of Christians being built into a spiritual house (2:5). He speaks of a precious stone being laid in Zion (2:6). He speaks of Christians as a “royal priesthood” (2:9). In all of this, Peter is recalling Israel and its history.

In the ancient world temples were built of stone. Mt. Zion was the place where the Temple of the Jews was built. The Temple was manned by priesthood, a special group of people called out of ordinary living to serve the God of Israel at the Temple in Jerusalem.

When Moses led the people out of captivity, he instituted a form of what we might call “Place-Centered Worship.” (Exodus 25-40) Worship was to be in the Tabernacle, a tent designed to be the place where the God of Israel was present in a special way. Aaron and the Levites were called out of the tribes of Israel and given special responsibility to supervise the worship of the Jewish people. The Tabernacle traveled with the Jews, and they believed that God was present there in a special way.

Once Solomon became king, he built a Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple was the successor to the Tabernacle. No longer did the God of Israel travel around present in a special tent. Now, God was especially present in his Temple on Mt. Zion, in Jerusalem. Therefore, Jews who wanted to worship their God or make a sacrifice to their God needed to travel to Jerusalem, the place God chose for his dwelling (See, Deuteronomy 12:5).

When the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon, they rebuilt the temple and reinstituted the form of worship they had before they left (See, Haggai, Zechariah, etc.). Right up to the time of Jesus, Israel had a place centered form of worship, and the place was the Temple.

Most churches are proud of their buildings. Over the past thirty-seven years, the people of our church have built a number of times. We are proud of the sanctuaries and facilities we have built in Cordova and Arlington. Nevertheless, we cannot come to believe our buildings are necessary for worship. People gather all over the world, sometimes in tents or under trees to worship God. Too often in the West, we have allowed ourselves to be excessively committed to a “Place Centered” kind of worship.

The Church is not the building. It is the people. We all love our worship services, whether contemporary or traditional. However, we cannot mistake a worship service or particular liturgy or style of music for true worship. True worship goes beyond a building. True worship is about God and about the human and divine spirit. It is about coming together to worship the Living God of Wisdom, Power, and Love.

Christ-Centered Worship.

Recently, a number of us have been memorizing a story from the book of John. In John 4, Jesus met a woman at a well in Samaria. Jesus was tired and thirsty, so he asked the woman to draw water for him (John 4:7). This was unusual for a couple of reasons. First, the woman was a woman, and Jewish rabbi’s seldom talked directly to women to whom they were not married. Second, she was a Samaritan, and the Jews did not like Samaritans, whom they felt were half-breeds who worshiped falsely on Mt. Gerizim not in Jerusalem where they were supposed to worship (4. 22). Finally, this woman was an immoral woman, and rabbis were never to even be seen with such a person, much less speak to them.

Jesus and the woman got into a talk about water. Jesus asked her to fetch him a cup of physical water, and then began to talk about a kind of living water that, once you drank it, you would never be thirsty again (4:10; 13-14). The woman was amazed at this, again for several reasons. First of all, the well at which Jesus and the woman were having the conversation was one of the most famous wells in all of Jewish history. It was called Jacob’s well (4:12). Second, this woman, like all ancient women, spent hours each day going to and from the well getting water. (This is still the case in much of the world today.) Therefore, this woman is interested in this living water for purely selfish reasons.

“What is this Living Water?” The Living Water is the Holy Spirit—Jesus’ continuing presence and power with us today. Jesus promised this woman a spiritual water to wash away her sin and guilt. He promised her a living water that will allow her to live a completely new kind of life free from the problems and sin of her past. Jesus was also promising her a new kind of worship.

As Jesus and the woman began to talk about worship, the woman pointed out that both the Samaritans and the Jews had a place-centered kind of worship. For the Samaritans it was centered on Mt. Gerizim. For the Jews it was centered on Mt. Zion. She expected that Jesus would defend the Jewish position that all true worship has to take place in Jerusalem, on Mt. Zion, in the Temple. Surprisingly, he did not. Instead he said:

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:21-24).

By this teaching, Jesus is alerting the woman that in him, something new is coming in the area of worship. A particular place is not going to be as important as it will be that worship be spiritual. In First Peter, Peter is talking about a post-place centered worship. He is saying that, in Jesus God was building a spiritual temple that we can be a part of as we are built up into the community of faith and become God’s priests, or sharers of grace. As we open our hearts to God, our hearts become a place of worship. God is saying the same thing to us today. God intends our worship to be a true spiritual worship that lasts all week long.

A Community of Constant Christ-Centered Worship

One of the fundamental differences between the way ancient people saw the world and the way we see the world has to do with the role of community. Every “you” in our text is in the plural. All the verbs are in the plural. In our way of speaking it would be “all of you together are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (I Peter 2:9 (GCS paraphrase). In the ancient world, only a few chosen people were priests who interceded for the people to God. Now, we are all priests together. We are all called to worship together, declaring the praises of God as a community. We are all called to sacrifice together for the salvation and healing of the world. We are all called to live lives of worship (Romans 12:1-2).

One implication of this is that we need to meet together once a week to worship. We need to be together! In fact, that is what the early church did and what Christians have always done since the earliest times.  Jews met on Saturday to worship. Christians met on Sunday. They met to sing songs together. They met to pray together. They met to listen together to the word of God being read. They met to hear the encouragement of the apostles, sometimes, as in First Peter, that encouragement was in the form of a letter read in the service. They met to baptize new believers and to have a meal and communion together. [2] Ever since the beginning of the Christian movement, Christians have taken time to worship the Living God together weekly, singing, praying, hearing the word of God read and expounded, and having Communion.

Sunday, however, was only the beginning of the week. The people of God went from their weekly worship services out into the world where they continued to worship God in spirit and in truth by their daily lives. That is why Peter goes on to urge his readers to live lives worthy of the One who was raised from the dead and who had brought them into his Kingdom of Love (I Peter 2:11-12). This is why Paul urges the early Christians to offer their bodies as “living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God” as true, spiritual worship (Romans 12:1). [3]

We know that in the early church people shared their faith fearlessly. They lived in households where entire groups of people were converted, sometimes all at once. They shared their lives and belongings in ways that caused people to take note (Acts 2:42-47). They were unafraid to live differently than those around them. [4] The weekly worship was lived out in day-to day living. Just as God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, lives in a communion of love, Christians are meant to live and worship in community. A God who exists in community needs to be worshiped in a community that tries to emulate the wisdom and love of the divine community in their worship and life.

In large part, the goal of the Reformers, and especially of Calvin, was to reinstate a humble, spiritual form of worship that was consistent with the intentions of Christ, the practice of the early church, and Holy Scripture, especially the worship we see in the book of Acts. The focus of their efforts was to be sure that worship was spiritual, Christ-centered, and scriptural. [5]

The Church today needs to recover the notion that we are not individuals who privately have been called into a new kind of relationship with God. We are part of a family of people who have been called to live each day in constant worship to “glorify God and enjoy him forever,” as the catechism puts it.  In order to be empowered and encouraged to live the Christian life week in and week out, we need to meet together once a week and worship in community.

A Call to Life Changing Worship.

I began this blog with an illustration of the beginning of what I would call the Post-Modern Christian perspective on worship attendance. My experience in college was just the beginning of the decline in worship we have seen in America. Worship has become increasingly unimportant to Christians in our excessively individualistic culture. In recent years, attendance has fallen in almost all denominations and in almost all churches within those denominations. This phenomenon has impacted Presbyterian churches, Baptist churches, Assemblies of God churches, and independent churches—all kinds of churches. The problem did not begin yesterday. In fact, the seeds of our crisis were sown years ago as the church, and especially the evangelical churches, increasingly adopted the personalistic, entertainment oriented nature of the surrounding culture.

In addition, Americans, even American Christians, have developed what I would call a “personal self-fulfillment search” focus on life, which has impacted churches and church attendance. Too often we seek a particular music, preacher, worship style, etc. that we find personally moving. As a pastor, I cannot complain too loudly about this, but I think it is mistaken. It is mistaken because we are called into communities of people who are bound together by both a relationship with God and with each other, not just here once a week, but in all of life. God did not mean our worship to be like going to a rock concert, but like going to a family reunion.

It is easier to complain than it is to see the way forward. The church I serve, for example, has two different worship services to meet the felt needs of two different kinds of worship preferences. Churches that cater to a younger audience surround us in our community. These congregations have a still different worship format. Each week in all these places, people worship God “in spirit and in truth.” Nevertheless, taken together, we are not reaching the vast numbers of people who never or only very seldom come to worship. Just in our area of Memphis, Tennessee, there are as many as 30,000 people who never attend worship.

Surely part of the solution is to concentrate on a kind of discipleship that encourages new believers to understand the importance of true discipleship, true life in community, and true worship. Salvation is a great thing. However, as Paul says, it has to be worked out in “fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:2). Those who have a godly “fear” (Deep Respect) for God will not only understand the duty of corporate and personal worship, but will seek it with hearts aflame. Our first duty, then, is to make such disciples.

I began with an observation that living a wise, loving,  joyful, spirit-filled life is impossible without worship. Indeed, this is so. It is simply impossible to live a life in community with the Eternal God without living that life in community with others. It is simply impossible to continue to live a life infused with the Spirit of God without remaining connected to that Spirit day in and day out. For Christians, Sunday is that day we set apart for a special worship time together as a community. We believe that worship is essential to being continually connected to the source of the true wisdom, true power, and true suffering love we need to live out the example of Christ in our day to day lives. There is no substitute for true worship.

[1] See, William Barclay, “The Letters of James and Peter” in The Daily Bible Study Series rev. ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1976), 137 ff.

[2] See, “The First Apology of Justin Martyr” in Cyril. C. Richardson, ed. Early Christian Fathers (New York, NY: Collier Books, 1970), 282-288.

[3] This is another place where the Jewishness of the Paul and the early church comes through. In the Temple, there were animal sacrifices of blood. In Jesus, this system was completed and ended. Now, the true form of sacrifice is spiritual. There are intimations of this in the Old Testament. For example, In Micah 6:8 the prophet says, “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” This is an expression of the inadequacy of the external religion of temple sacrifice.

[4] This is not the place for me to dwell on this issue, but in my view the biggest issue for the contemporary church in America is the unwillingness of Christians to be different and live differently than the surrounding culture.

[5] There is a vast volume of literature on this. See, Robert E. Webber, Worship Old and New (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1982), 73-84.

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

There are times in all of our lives when we are hoping and praying for Easter. There are times when life has been unfair. At such times, we hope for God to intervene and undo its unfairness. There are times when life is being fair, but we are under a kind of judgment and/or time of suffering that we truly wish would end. We hope for God to shorten our suffering. There are times when we have been suffering for some time and begin to lose hope that our personal Easter will ever come. We hope against hope that God will come quickly. There are times when we have suffered a death in our relationships or career. We hope God will resurrect the death of hope we are suffering. There is that time when we know that our time on this earth grows short. We hope that this world is not the end. The Message of Easter is this: Death is not the final word. Love wins in the end. 

Years ago, Kathy and I had two friends, a young couple, who desperately wanted to have children. It seemed impossible. They had been married for several years when we got married and trying to have children for most of that time. They were very strong Christians, but it seemed to the doctors that it was not possible for them to have children. Finally, they decided to adopt. About a year later, they discovered that they were going to have a baby. All those years of sorrow were swallowed up in a moment of joy. Love finally had its victory.

The First Easter

This year our Lenten meditations have all been on the Amazing Love of God. Last week, we meditated on the cross and on the death of Jesus, which John tells us embodied God’s love for the world—a love so deep and powerful that it would endure the cross )John 3:16; I John 4:8-9). The cross and the resurrection belong together. The cross is God’s judgment on the sin, brokenness, and evil of our world. The resurrection is God’s validation of the sinless life and sacrificial death of Jesus and this promise to us of eternal life with him.

The text for this week is from Mark 16:1-8:

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid (Mark 16:1-8).

Prayer: This Easter season, O God, we ask that the power of the Risen Messiah, Jesus the Christ would come into all of our hearts and minds. Give us all a new outpouring of your Holy Spirit this day and each and every day. In His Name we pray, Amen.

A Fearful Beginning

As we have seen, the last week of Jesus’ life was a week of growing pressure, gloom, and disappointment for the disciples. Jesus’ entry into the city on a donkey, a symbol of his continuity with Solomon and other “Sons of David” who sat on the throne of Israel was the highpoint of a week of disappointment. All week long, until his death, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Priests and the Teachers of the Law opposed him. Finally, on Thursday night, he was betrayed and deserted by everyone. Even Peter, the “Rocky Balboa of the Disciples” denied and deserted him. Then, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. There was no appeal process. He was marched straight to Calvary, the Place of the Skull, where he was crucified. Near dusk on Friday, he died, and Joseph of Arimathea quickly claimed the body and buried him in his personal tomb so that the Passover would not come before his burial (Mark 15:42:46). Mark’s description of the arrest, trial, and death of Jesus ends by noting that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses knew where he was buried (15:47).

There is a lot packed into that one sentence. The disciples did not know where Jesus was buried because they were scattered, hiding in fear, afraid of the authorities and what might happen next, disillusioned, and desperate. Only the women knew. They had gone with Joseph to the tomb and watched as the body was hastily interred. They planned to return on Sunday to anoint the body.

No one expected Jesus to rise from the tomb or find it empty when Passover was over. They knew Jesus was dead, and they knew that dead people do not return to life. We sometimes believe mistakenly that the ancients did not know things we know. That is not true when it comes to things like virginal births and a man rising from the dead. What made Mary’s pregnancy and Jesus’ resurrection so important to the early church was precisely the fact that they were impossible. If true, they forced a complete conversion and a different way of seeing reality.

All of us, ancient and modern, have a way we see the world. We observe things happening and not happening. We conclude that things we see happening over and over again will keep happening. We also conclude that things we do not see happening will not happen in the future. Death is one of those things that we have certain expectations about what will and will not happen next. We expect the person to stay dead, and we do not expect a resurrection.

Sometimes, we are glad we know these regularities. Sometimes we are not so glad. For example, when we are suffering and our suffering goes on for a long time, we sometimes conclude it will never end. Experience begins to tell us this is going to be true. This was the condition of the followers of Jesus Friday and Saturday before the first Easter. Jesus was dead. He was going to stay dead. All of their hopes and dreams died with him, and they expected those hopes and dreams to stay dead.

A Surprise Announcement

All four gospels are unanimous in recording that it was the women who found the tomb empty on that first Easter morning (Matthew 28:1-8; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-12; John 20:1-10). As we learn from Mark, they came to the tomb to finish embalming the body of Jesus (Mark 16:1). They knew that Jesus had been placed in a wealthy person’s tomb, and there was a large stone capping the tomb that would have to be rolled away (16:3). They were not sure that they were strong enough to roll away the stone and, because it was very early, they wondered if anyone would be around to roll away the stone.

When they arrived, they were amazed and confused. The stone was already rolled away (Mark 16:4). As they began entering the tomb, they were faced with another amazing fact: There was an angel in the tomb waiting for someone to arrive! The angel made what is probably the most famous announcement in world history: “Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you’” (16:6-7).

There is a lot of hope for us in these words. First of all, God has vindicated Jesus who died for our sins on the cross. Secondly, by the power of the resurrection God has declared his judgment fulfilled and our reconciliation complete if only we believe. Third, this gracious gift of forgiveness and new life is offered to his disciples who deserted him, even Peter who denied him. It is offered to everyone however far from God. God is not finished with the disciples, with us, or with the human race. In the person of the Risen Christ, God has gone ahead of us, and now by the power of his Holy Spirit draws us into his future of mercy, wisdom, and love.

Our old expectations, the certainties by which we normally navigate life have been superseded by an even greater certainty: This world is not all there is. Our current problems are not all there is. Our current limitations are not all there is. The Risen Christ has given us a new hope, a hope against all hope. By the resurrection, God promises us an eternal fellowship with the Risen Christ.

An Eternal Presence

By the resurrection, Jesus was restored to his disciples. The fellowship they once had was restored, not just for a time, a few days while he walks the earth in his resurrected body, but forever. Nothing, not even death can separate them or us from the love of God (Romans 8:38). Here is how Paul puts it in Romans:

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:32-39).

Nothing, not even death can separate us from the love of God. God’s power will always be with us.

What Good News this is! In Matthew, when Jesus gives the disciples the Great Commission, he promises to be with them always, always “to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). In Luke, Jesus promises his disciples that they will be “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). In John, Jesus breathes upon the disciples after his resurrection, symbolically giving them the promised breath of God (John 20:22-23). In Acts, Jesus promises them the power of the Holy Spirit—a promise kept on Pentecost (Acts 1:8). The promise of the Holy Spirit is the promise that Jesus will always be with his people until the end of time with the power of God’s Spirit of Amazing love.

On Good Friday, Jesus died for our sins on the cross. On Easter, he rose from the dead as a sign of God’s New Creation in him and of the power of his life-giving sacrifice in our lives. This is not something we feel just once, when we come to believe in God, but something we can always experience. His forgiving love is always there for us when we fall short and fail. His cleansing power is always there to cleanse us from guilt and shame. His power to overcome the past and bring new life is always there for his people.

Often, we see Christians who begin the Christian life with joy and in the power of the Spirit. Unfortunately, slowly, ever so slowly, they begin to make of Christian faith a religion of works and duties. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, the joy and power of the Spirit fades from their lives. Old, bad habits recur. This does not have to be! God is always present for his people to undo the effects of sin in our lives. We can live a life of victory over sin and death, if we will only accept God’s gracious offer of salvation and become disciples of the Risen Christ.

A Love that Will Not Fail

Jesus’ Amazing Love is with us when we fall short, when we are called to sacrifice for others, when times are tough in our nation, city, or families. God’s resurrection power is always with us and never fails. This is the sign of Christian hope.

This week a passage from Romans came to me during my quiet time. In Romans, Paul uses Abraham as an example of the power of faith and of the Holy Spirit. Abraham wanted a son, and he believed God had promised him that son although he and his wife, Sarah, were too old to have children. For years and years, Abraham held onto that promise. Finally, Paul tells us, God honored the hope that Abraham had by faith, and he was given a son of the promise God had made (Romans 4:7). Paul goes on to say:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:5-9).

The life of which Paul speaks is resurrection life by the power of the same Holy Spirit that resurrected Jesus from the dead. The God who gave his only Son to save the world on the cross (John 3:16) will save us through the power of the eternal life the Son has received as a result of the resurrection (Romans 5:9). This same God can be trusted to resurrect each one of God’s children to an unimaginable life. God’s Amazing Love is finally going to win.

The hardest part of every Easter message is how to end it. The story ends with the women afraid to tell anyone about the empty tomb, perhaps from fear that people will think they are crazy. I think their fear is our fear as well. But, the ending of Mark is not the end of the story. The women did in fact overcome their fear and tell the disciples and Peter (Matthew 28:8-16; Luke 24:9; John 20:1-3). We know that because of the other Gospels and also because we are here today!

In the same way we must go and overcome our fears. We too must go and proclaim to our own generation the Good News that sin and death do not have the final victory. In the end, God’s Amazing Love wins. [1] In the end, wisdom and love are more powerful than armies. This is a message that our dying culture and violent world desperately need to hear again and again.

[1] Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1986), 99. In writing this, I am also indebted to Thomas Torrance, Space, Time, and Resurrection (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1976 and John Polkinghorne, The God of Hope and the End of the World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), both of which I reread and consulted in preparing to write.

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

When I wrote my dissertation, one question I asked all the pastors and elders I interviewed concerned times when they had to bear a cross on behalf of the people of God. Interestingly, nearly every pastor and elder confirmed some story about a time when they had sacrificed for the good of the congregation. One pastor told of a time when his rapidly growing congregation had to build twice while he had children in college. Being the pastor, he felt he needed to both tithe and give generously to building campaigns. It was a long hard time. 

One of the most meaningful to me was a pastor who led an inner city congregation in a declining area. He reached the conclusion that the only way to save the congregation was to move. Naturally, some of the families in the congregation, who had been in the church for generations, and whose parents and in some cases grandparents had built the existing church, were horrified at the idea. The Session voted to move. The pastor successfully moved the church into a growing area—but those opposed caused difficult problems for him during the rest of his ministry. A former Associate Pastor told me that this fine pastor grew old before his eyes during those years. This week at our Session meeting, I shared with the Session a couple of times that Kathy and I have had to suffer in order that a church might grow and prosper.

One of the most difficult things to get our arms around in the Bible is the cross. Why did Jesus have to die a terrible death? Why did Jesus say that if anyone wants to be my disciple, let him (or her) take up his or her cross and follow me? (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 23). Why does Paul say that he completes in his body the sufferings of Christ on behalf of the church? (Colossians 1:24).

The Way His Life Ended

This morning, we come to the mystery of the cross. I use the term “mystery” because no human words can fully comprehend what God was doing on the cross. No human wisdom can fully penetrate its meaning. As we shall see, the disciples and Paul struggled all the days of their lives to communicate to others the depth of God’s love—a love that, beyond all expectations, died for the human race. Here is how it happened:

It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. … At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. … Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said. With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last (Mark 15:25; 33-37).

A Long and Difficult Week

This Lenten season, we’ve been walking with Jesus through the last week of his life in this blog. Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, where we began our Journey to the Empty Tomb: with Jesus’ triumphal entrance into the City of Jerusalem, the center of Jewish faith. The crowds welcomed Jesus as if he were the long-awaited Messiah. This worried the leaders of the people. They were afraid of what the Romans would do if Jesus tried to lead a rebellion. They also feared a rebellion against the Temple religion of which they were the priests and legal interpreters. Even natural enemies, like the Pharisees, who believed in the resurrection of the dead, and the Sadducees, who did not, were united in their dislike of the rabbi Jesus bar Joseph from the little village of Nazareth. They united in their attempts to trick him, turn the crowds and the Romans against him, and get rid of him. 

From the beginning of the week, things got darker and darker for Jesus.

We don’t know exactly when or why Judas Iscariot decided to betray Jesus. The best guess is that Judas, like the other disciples, initially hoped that Jesus was the Messiah. He hoped that Jesus would get rid of the hated Romans and the corruption of Temple faith. Perhaps Judas was disappointed that Jesus was not doing more to avoid death and begin a rebellion. [1] Sometime during the week, perhaps late Wednesday or early Thursday, Judas must have contacted the Chief Priests or the Temple guards offering to betray Jesus. Similarly, Jesus knew something was up and suspected Judas (John 16:24). In any case, by the time of the last supper, Judas had decided to betray Jesus (Matthew 26:23; Mark 14:20; Luke 22:21; John 13:26). 

 Thursday night, the disciples celebrated a Passover meal together. At the meal, Jesus spoke of his body and blood that would be shed for his disciples (Mark 14:22-25). When he announced that one of the Twelve would betray him, he set off a competition as to who would be the most loyal. When Peter announced that he would never betray Jesus, Jesus foretold that he would indeed deny him three times (14:27-31). In the end, of course they all deserted him, even Peter.

After dinner, amid the gathering gloom, they went off to the Garden of Gethsemane, by which time Jesus clearly understood that he was about to be betrayed, suffer and die (Mark 14:32-42). While he was there praying, about midnight, Judas arrived with the Temple Guards, betrayed him, and he was arrested (14:43-52). Sure enough, just as he foretold, they all deserted him (14:50). 

He was taken to the Sanhedrin, the highest court of the Jewish people, there, the High Priests, the teachers of the law, and the other leaders of the people tried him, and he was condemned to death (14:53-65). The entire affair was illegal—Jewish law forbade trials at night, and it must by now have been very early Friday morning. It was then that Peter denied, betrayed him, and fled (15:66-72). Jesus was left entirely alone, betrayed and abandoned. 

While the Jews could convict Jesus of heresy, a crime punishable by death under their own law, it was not possible under Roman law for Jesus to be executed except by Roman command. [2] Therefore, very early in the morning, the Sanhedrin transferred Jesus to Pilate. He was taken across the city to where Pilate was and examined by him (Mark 15:1-5). Pilate suspected that Jesus was guilty of no capital offense under Roman law. This is why Pilate asked him if he was the King of the Jews (15:2). Jesus said nothing that could be used to execute him. Only if some violation of Roman law could be found could he be executed.

At some point, Pilate was reminded that it was his custom to to release a prisoner during the Passover celebration as a sign of goodwill (Mark 14:8). Perhaps, he felt certain that, if he offered the Jews a choice between a true criminal, Barabbas, and Jesus, the crowd would surely choose Jesus to be released. Pilate offered the crowd the choice, and to his utter surprise, the crowd chose Barabbas (15:11). His hands now tied, Pilate washed his hands of the whole terrible affair, and turned Jesus over to be crucified (15:15). First, He had Jesus flogged.

A Terrible End

By this time, Jesus had been flogged, and his back was probably torn to pieces (Mark 15:15). He had been awake more than twenty-four hours and was tired. He was also probably weak from hunger, not having eaten since the night before. He was publically humiliated: the soldiers mocked him (15:16-50). As was the custom, Jesus carried the cross upon which he was to be crucified, or at least the crossbar of the cross, through the center of the city, down what we call the Way of Tears (Via Delarosa). He was so weak that a visitor to the city, Simon of Cyrene, was asked to carry the cross part of the way to Golgotha, the place of the skull, just outside the city gates. There, he was crucified.

The soldiers, now making fun of the Jews generally, put a sign above his head, “The King of the Jews.” This was intended, probably, to send a message to any other Messianic pretender and also to humiliate the Priests, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, and all those who conspired to put him there (Mark 15:25). Somewhere in the afternoon, before dark and the beginning of the Passover, Jesus cried out to God, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (15:33-34). It was a quote from Psalm 22—an invocation of faith and hope as well as a sign of dereliction. A few moments later he cried out one last time and died (15:37).

As darkness came, Joseph of Arimathea took down his body, got permission from Pilate to bury him, and placed him in a tomb (Mark 15:12-47). Jesus had died in the most unimaginably painful and humiliating way: almost naked, exposed, treated as a criminal, outside the city, deserted by everyone. This was not the way the Messiah was supposed to die.

An Amazing Love

At the time, no one understood what had happened. His disciples were scattered. Those who remained in Jerusalem were in fear of their lives. A few women were willing to anoint the body after Passover (Mark 15:47-16:1). Years later, the Apostle Paul described the event as beyond human imagination. Here is what he says in First Corinthians: 

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;

    the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength (I Cor. 1:18-25). 

 We human beings simply do not have words or intellectual categories to describe what happened on the Cross. Virtue should be rewarded, not punished. Love should be victorious, not end up dying on a cross. Wisdom should prevail, not be destroyed. How are we to even begin to understand this? 

 Paul takes the position that we can never understand the cross on the basis of human wisdom. No secular person, no “Greek,” can understand a god who would give himself up on a cross for the sins of the world. No “Jew,” a religious person who believes that wisdom should be rewarded with long life and riches, can understand the cross. No religion that proclaims, “Love your friends and punish your enemies” can understand what happened on the cross. No worldly wisdom that proclaims “Do unto others before they do unto you” can understand the cross. Only those who can perceive a love so much greater than human love at work that it cannot hardly be imagined or understood can understand the cross. It is just as hard to understand today as it was 2000 years ago. 

 
The Meaning of Holy Week 

 Next week is Holy Week. All the events that we talked about in this blog since early February occurred in one week. All the events that we have spoken of today occurred in one day: next Thursday evening through next Friday evening. It is the most important week of human history.

On Sunday, a charismatic Rabbi entered the city of Jerusalem, and everyone hoped they would see the arrival of their expected Messiah. The next Sunday, a few women announced to a disbelieving world that the charismatic rabbi was the Risen Son of God. In between, he was persecuted, died, and was buried.

His cross has become the symbol of the religion he founded, because his followers see in that cross a disclosure of the very being of God—sheer, unconditional, unimaginable, self-giving love. And, against all worldly wisdom, we have committed ourselves to becoming people transformed by this very love. In truth and in fact, the cross cannot be understood except by those who have walked as disciples with the One who suffered and died upon it. [3]

There is no understanding the the deepest mysteries of human life until the cross and empty tomb become the center of our vision of the world—a world created for freedom, hopeless lost to sin, redeemed by a loving God in a way no one could possibly have foreseen. In the words of John Polkinghorne:

He is not a spectator, but a fellow-sufferer, who has himself absorbed the full force of evil. In the lonely figure hanging in the darkness and dereliction of Calvary, the Christian believes that he sees God opening his arms to embrace the bitterness of the strange world he has made. The God revealed in the vulnerability of the incarnation and in the vulnerability of creation are one. He is the crucified God, whose paradoxical power is perfected in weakness, whose self-chosen symbol is the King reigning from the gallows. [4]

As I put it in Path of Life, on the Cross we see revealed the truth that God not only reigns in glory over his creation, but paradoxically, suffers the travail of its finitude, incompleteness, sin, and suffering. In the end, Christians believe that the One Greater than Wisdom came and in his coming moves our thinking and understanding to a new level. At the cross we come to understand that God does not stand outside our human suffering. Instead, in Christ God is a fellow sufferer with each human being who suffers for whatever reason. This is the kind of Messiah God intended for us. [5]

I began this series of meditations with the observation that Protestants move too quickly from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday—from victorious entrance to Jerusalem to victory over the grave. This can lead to a kind of triumphalism in which we expect as disciples to go from victory to victory with Jesus. This creates an unbalanced and unrealistic Christian faith. It forgets the cost of victory, which is death, a death on a cross. It is a cost believers have had to pay from time to time throughout history that others may live and prosper. This week is a time to celebrate, but ours should be a solemn celebration. This week we remember the cost of our peace with God.

[1] One of the possible explanations is that Judas expected Jesus to declare his Messiahship and begin a rebellion. When it seemed that he was going to bumble along and get himself arrested and killed, he changed sides.

[2] See, James Stalker, The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1983), 18-25. It is from this source that I refer when saying that a night trial was not legal and that the Jews could not execute Jesus. This was possible only under Roman law.

[3] See, Leslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986). Those who know of my years at seminary know that no one book has been more important in my thinking about Jesus and the Church, and no writer more important than Leslie Newbigin. He was the most important person and writer in the development of my thinking about the church, about how to minister to our culture, and about a Christian response to secular ideology.

[4] John Polkinghorne, Science and Providence: God’s Interaction with the World (Philadelphia, PA: Templeton Foundation Press, 1989), 79.

[5] G. Christopher Scruggs, Path of Life: The Way of Wisdom for Christ Followers (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014), 192. I have rephrased the ending of this chapter for this blog.

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

Kathy likes terriers. When we talk about getting a dog, she is always trying to make me choose between Fox Terriers, Scottish Terriers, Westies, and a few other terrier breeds. There are problems with all terriers, however. They are small. They were bred to hunt rats and other vermin. They are extremely aggressive. If they are not trained properly, they think they are in charge of the entire family. When attacked, even by a child, they can bite. All in all, I prefer Golden Retrievers who are easy to train and happily fit into almost any situation.

Nevertheless, when I practiced law, I had a statute of a Fox Terrier in my office. Most people in those days thought it was appropriate, since I was small, aggressive, and occasionally bit when attacked. In fact, if there is such a thing as reincarnation, it is possible that I was a terrier in some prior life. I am telling this little story to make a point: What I have to say does not come naturally. In fact, quite the opposite: by nature, I am not a pacifist or inclined to let things go wrong without a fight. 

 Several weeks ago, one of our members related to me that a prominent media figure had challenged American pastors to preach on ISIS and on events in the Middle East. At the time, I thought that I did not want to do it. However, as I was reading the text for this week and contemplated the blog for the week, it seemed to me that, as much as I hesitate to give my opinion on certain issues, perhaps today’s post meets a need.

Troubled Times

In this blog, I want to talk about “Amazing Love in Troubled Times.” It is easy to act wisely and love people when times are easy. It is harder to be wise and love people when times are tough and we feel threatened. As Jesus noted, it is easy to love our friends and families. It is harder to pray for and love enemies (Matthew 5:44).

Mark 13 is sometimes called a little apocalypse because Jesus here describes the destruction of the temple and also speaks of troubled times for all believers in all times to the very end of time. I cannot reproduce here the entire chapter. I suggest interested readers take a look at the entire chapter as they read the blog and ponder its message. Here is what Mark says about the end of the temple and by implication the end of time:

Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains. You must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit (Mark 13:5-11). 

 
Jesus Faced Danger and Opposition 

 The last week of his life, Jesus faced unrelenting opposition. The Gospels are unanimous that the High Priests, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and other leaders of the people early on looked for ways to get rid of Jesus. There were several possibilities. They could discredit him before the people by forcing him to say things that would turn the people against him. They could trick him into saying things that would cause the Roman government to arrest him. They could arrest him for false teaching and convict him of heresy. They could find a way to have him killed. In fact, they tried all of these ways to get rid of him. Eventually, the succeeded.

Let me give you a few examples: On Jesus’ third day in Jerusalem, the authorities questioned his habit of speaking as if he possessed divine authority (Mark 11:27-35). Jesus responded with a parable about a landowner who sends his son to check on the harvest (Mark 12:1-11). The son is killed by the tenants— a direct reference to the Chief Priests, teachers of the law, and elders. By implication, Jesus was the true son, while they were only dishonest tenants.

The authorities responded by trying to get Jesus to deny Caesar’s authority to tax the Jews—a popular position with the crowd, but sure to get Jesus arrested by the Romans. Jesus responded by pointing out that people should render to Caesar what belong to Caesar and to God what belongs to God (Mark 12:17). The Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, tried to confuse him with resurrection riddles. He avoided them by pointing out that in the resurrection there will be no marriage, and he defended the doctrine of the resurrection (Mark 12:18-27). In all these events and more, the leaders of the people were simply trying to trick Jesus, confuse Jesus, and cause him to lose support from the common people. Jesus responded with wisdom and the power of the Holy Spirit.

What is remarkable is that Jesus never lashed out. He never played the same game as the leaders of the people were playing. He answered questions shrewdly but honestly. He exposed hypocrisy. He avoided trap after trap. He came out of every conflict unshaken. Perhaps there is a message for us: When times are tough, when we face enemies, when we are being tested—it is at these times when our capacity to show the world the wisdom and love of God is the most important. It is when we act and speak in the power of the Spirit that we are most effective. 

 
We Face Danger and Opposition 

 As I mentioned earlier, some weeks ago a member came to me and asked if I would preach on ISIS. I don’t know all the facts, but I am told that on a national television show there was a discussion about Christian faith and the problems of the Middle East. ISIS is, at least to some degree, motivated by a particular interpretation of Islam to engage in a war to create in the Middle East what is called a “Caliphate”. A caliphate is an Islamic state led by a “Caliph,” a political and religious leader, a direct successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. His power and authority is absolute. [1]

It is important to remember that not all Muslims share the radical ideas of ISIS, nor do all Muslims believe that the violence and cruelty of ISIS reflects a correct understanding of Islam. On the program, however, a representative of the Middle Eastern cultures critiqued Christianity by reminding the audience that, during the Middle Ages, Christians several times attempted to create a Christian state in what is today Israel by what are called today the “Crusades.” He was making the point that Christians have sometimes violated our own deepest convictions in the search for power or to respond to threats. We don’t want be guilty of the same thing in responding to today’s threats.

 In recent weeks, the United States and our allies have had to try to slow down the advance of ISIS in parts of Syria and Iraq by force. In response, ISIS has threatened terror attacks against several Western nations, including the United States of America. The President of Egypt has been fighting a battle against a Libyan offshoot of ISIS. It is really a very complex and dangerous thing that is happening. We all ought to pray about what is going on because it could easily end in a war.

ISIS is not the only pressure Americans, and American Christians, experience. The fact is that our nation and our faith face threats. So the question arises, “What should we do in response?” and “How should we behave?” These are important questions because it is important that as Christians we behave with the wisdom and love of God and encourage our neighbors and nation to do the same. One big contribution Christians can make to our nation, so caught up in simplistic and sometimes irrational and unloving politics, is to bear witness to a better way—a way of wisdom and love. 

 
Jesus Reacted in Love 

 Not to be simplistic, but the first thing might be to ask, “What would Jesus do?” “How did Jesus face opposition and impending persecution and death during his last week of life?” Clearly, the answer is that Jesus continued to be Jesus. He continued to preach and teach concerning the Kingdom of God. He continued to point out where the Priests, Scribes, Teachers of the Law, Pharisees, and leaders of his people had gone astray. He was willing to take action, as he did as he was cleansing the Temple. On the other hand, he never overreacted however badly provoked.

A second thing we can  do is to love our enemies. 

In Matthew, Jesus says the following in the Sermon on the Mount:

You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:43-48).

Jesus’ behavior when he was arrested and tried indicates that he was cooperating with God’s will and responding as peaceably and lovingly as possible. When a follower drew his sword, he stopped the attack, healed the guard, and said: “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword” Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 25:52-53). Jesus’ peaceful response to violence was not because he could not respond; he chose not to respond with violence. When Jesus had to speak to the Sanhedrin, the Priests, Pilate, and Herod, he was filled with the Spirit and spoke wisely. 

 On the cross, when he was about to die, Jesus looked down upon those who had crucified him and said, “Father, forgive them, for the do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). All during his last week, amid all the opposition, violence, and troubles he faced, Jesus continued to be a peacemaker. Even at the end, when he might have cursed his enemies, be forgave them. What Amazing Love.

When the disciples and apostles looked back upon this behavior, they were astounded. Paul, in Romans, puts it this way: ^“ For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:10). What amazed Paul was that God loved him and the human race even though they were acting as enemies of God. Later in the First Century, John writes, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (I John 3:16). God, it seems, is in the business of loving his enemies and those who oppose him even as he may have to act to correct them. He wants his people to act in the very same way, as hard as it may be for us.

The implications for us are clear: Somehow, we have to love our enemies, even those who threaten our existence. Whatever governments and armies may have to do, as Christians we must be motivated by love and continue to show love, even for our enemies. 

 
Making it Work in the Real World 

 This is not the place for a long dissertation on Just War Theory; however, the as we think about a Christian response to ISIS, here are four principles to keep in mind. For Christians to use force (i) There must be a grave threat by an aggressor; (ii) The damage the aggressor can inflict upon a nation or community must be significant, lasting, and certain; (iii) There must be no practical or effective way of deterring the aggressor except through the use of force; and (iv) The force used must not result in greater evils than the aggressor threatens. [2] The goal, from beginning to end, must be to create a just peace.

Once a conflict begins, Just War Theory demands that the conflict be conducted humanely, avoiding indiscriminate violence against civilians, and especially violence against women and children who are not engaged in the conflict. [3]Generally, Christian Just War Theory restricts Christian nations to use no greater force than necessary to achieve a just end. In broad terms, Christians must not love violence. We must promote peace whenever possible and be slow to resort to the use of arms. However, we may use force when it is necessary. Evil must not be allowed to remain unchecked. [4] 

 I’ve been a pastor for a long time now, and I’ve noticed that laypeople often think of pastors, including me, as being both different from ordinary people and slightly disconnected from reality, especially as regards conflict. This is sometimes true, but not always. Our pastor in Houston was a very peaceful, conflict-avoidant person. This did not mean he was a pansy. He spent the Second World War in a submarine in the South Pacific. The casualty rates in the Submarine Service in World War II ensured that pansy’s did not seek such duty. [5] I have mentioned my father who, throughout World War II and thirty-five years in the FBI, remained a man of peace in a world of war and conflict. Jesus resisted evil, controlled his impulses and worked for peace and blessedness in a world of conflict. So should we. [6] In all of the challenges we face as a nation and as individuals, we should keep in mind the Beatitude that reads, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God”(Matthew 5:9).

The Little Apocalypse of Mark 

 Throughout his last week of life, Jesus constantly warned his followers about the destruction of the Temple to come and the persecutions they would face as a result. Jesus could see that the current situation would not continue forever and that the destruction of the Temple and a new Jewish time of suffering were on the horizon. In Biblical terms, the long awaited “Day of the Lord” was at hand (Mark 13:24). [7] As he spoke of that terrible day, he was concerned to remind his disciples that they were in God’s hands. They needed to be prudent, but they did not need to worry. They would be persecuted, but they would be given the right words to say when drug before authorities just as Jesus was being given the words to say in the face of the opposition of the leaders of the people (Mark 13:9-11).

Jesus also did not want them or us to overreact. This is why he warns them that there will be false Messiah’s and wars and rumors of wars (Mark 13:5). Jesus wanted them to know that history was going to unfold just has history had unfolded in the past (Mark 13:5-8). Just as God is patient, he wants his people to be patient in the face of threats and dangerous times. 

This is hard for Americans and for American Christians because we are an active and sometimes impulsive people. Nevertheless, we need to remember to be patient and wise.

We cannot be sure when Jesus will come and rescue his people nor do we know exactly how (Mark 13:42-35). What we do know is that God loves his people and intends to rescue us when the time is right. That applies to the end of time and it applies to every bad time in between the times. What we must do is remain faithful to God, to Christ, and to the wisdom and love God has promised to give us. We Americans have been lucky. We have not been persecuted until recently. Our nation has been spared attacks on civilian centers. We have not experiences the horrors of war that other nations have experienced since the American Civil War. Unfortunately, it may be that our good fortune may not continue forever. We should pray it does.

 I am afraid that today’s blog is long and not entirely satisfactory. The scope of the subject is too vast for me to possibly do it justice in a short article. All I can do is scratch the surface and urge readers to do their own investigation. As I mentioned earlier, we do live in challenging times. To face these times as Jesus faced his challenging times we need all the wisdom and all the steadfast love God can give us. It is quite possible that the greatest service we can do for our nation is to model a kind of peaceful reasonableness in the midst of negative politics, media hype, denigration of Christian faith, and all the other negative aspects of our culture. As we do so we can rest assured that “God’s Amazing Love” wins in the end. 

 Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved. 

 [1] https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=what%20is%20caliphate%3F&es_th=1 (Downloaded March 19, 2015).

[2] There are various ways of expressing the principles of Just War Theory. This is but one, simple and short way. From the time of Augustine, through Thomas Aquinas, and to the present day Christians have continued to struggle with the best expression

 [3] There is a Muslim expression of these very principles, and one way in which the Fundamentalist, ISIS war of terror violates Muslim principles is in the way violence is being used against women, children, and other non-combatants. 

 
[4] http://www.catholic.com/documents/just-war-doctrine (Downloaded March 19, 2015). I have basically quoted this website. Sometimes I call the basic Christian approach to war “Just War Pacifism.” War is a last resort. Christians should always regard it as such. However, when peaceful means are exhausted, Christians may engage in war.

 

[5] During World War II, the U.S. Navy’s submarine service suffered the highest casualty percentage of all the American armed forces, losing twenty percent of all submariners. www.valoratsea.com/bookstore.htm See, wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lost_United_States_submarines (Downloaded, March 18, 2015).

 

[6] In Centered Living/Centered Leading: The Way of Light and Love  Rev. Ed (Memphis, TN: Booksurge Publishing, 2014), there are many sections in Centered Living/Centered Leading that deal with conflict and war. This week, I read the following:

“Those who wisely lead or assist those who lead avoid using force to attain an objective.

Wise shepherds resort to force or compulsion only when there is no other alternative.

Force normally brings a violent response; it is contrary to the Way.

A wise leader remembers this: the strong weaken over time.

Wherever there is conflict or coercion, true accomplishment seldom results.

Therefore, wise shepherds are patient.”

This secion ends with the reflection, “Fighting and violence violate God’s Deep Love. Conflict is not the deepest Way of the One Who Is.” (Chapter 30). There are many such references in the Tao and in my Christian adaptation.

 

[7] The Old Testament is filled with prophesies of the Day of the LORD, a day in which God will act in vengeance on his enemies and establish his kingdom of righteousness. See, William Barclay, “Mark” in The Daily Bible Study Series rev. ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1975), 303-324.

If you drive by our house, you know that we have a large landscaped area surrounding a tree filled with azaleas and nandena. The ground is not perfect for azaleas, and none of them do well. The largest of the azaleas used to be sheltered from sun by a pine tree that fell during an ice storm several years ago. Since then, it has never been healthy. About five or six years ago, Kathy and I left on vacation for two weeks in mid-July. The person who was supposed to water them did not while the temperature was near or over 100 degrees. When we returned the largest azalea was a deep orange color. Jim Williams came over, looked at the problem, and offered to take it out. He did not think that it would ever bloom again, if it even survived.

I decided to try to rescue the azalea and went on a program of watering and careful care of the plant. Amazingly, it survived. However, sure enough, it has never bloomed again. Some years, if the winter is very wet and mild, and if I fertilize it at exactly the right time, and if I water the plant all summer long, I get one or two blooms the next spring. Jim and Karen have moved, but everyone I consult gives me the same advice: “Pull the azalea out and plant a new one.” You see, azaleas are meant to flower, and an azalea that never blooms is not an azalea worth having. Someday, I will give up hope and and plant a new azalea.

God has planted his Holy Spirit in us by the power of Christ through faith. He intends us to bear fruit for his garden, the world. When we don’t do that, we are like my azalea—we are not doing the thing God intended us to do when he planted us. On the other hand, when we do bear fruit for his kingdom, we are bearing the fruit for which we were created.

The Story of A Fig Tree.

In this blog, I am looking at a text that comes from passages just before and just after the cleansing of the Temple. In the first reading, Jesus is on his way to the Temple when he stops near a fig tree. Hear the Word of God as it comes to us from the Gospel According to Mark:

The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it (Mark 11:12-14).

Going on to Verse 20 we read:

In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!” (Mark 11:20-21).

This story is one of the most perplexing stories in the New Testament. It is one of the so-called, “Difficult Passages” because it seems odd for a number of reasons. Jesus is walking from Bethany to Jerusalem, a short Sabbath Day journey. It was morning, and Jesus was hungry. As Jesus walked from Bethany to Jerusalem, he saw a fig tree. When he got to the fig tree, Jesus saw nothing but leaves—no figs at all. However, this was not unexpected because it was early spring. Normally in Israel one would not expect there to be figs on a fig tree until much later in June. [1]

Luke tells a similar story, but in his story a landlord has a fig tree that has not born any fruit for three years. He asks his vinedresser to cut down the tree, somewhat like Jim Williams offered to take out my azalea. The landlord’s vinedresser begs for some time to rehabilitate the tree, just as I tried to rehabilitate my azalea. In fact, the reason I did so was that I remembered the story from Luke! (Luke 13:6-9).

Jesus Enacts a Story.

What is going on? How are we to understand what Jesus is doing? To gain a better understanding, let’s begin with a look at the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, prophets and others often use the metaphor of Israel as God’s vineyard to describe God’s people. [2] In Isaiah, for example, Israel is described as a vineyard that only bears bad fruit (Isaiah 5:2). God poses the question concerning what he is to do with this vineyard. God answers that he will take away its hedge and burn it to the ground, destroying everything (v. 3-6). By this, Isaiah is prophesying the destruction of Israel.

In the episode of the cleansing of the temple, Jesus speaks of the corruption of temple religion, which had strayed from God’s intention for his temple to be a place of prayer (Mark 11:15-19). Surrounding the episode of the cleansing of the temple is this story of the fig tree. There are many ways of looking at this story, but to me the best interpretation is to look at the fig tree as the Jewish religion of Jesus’ day. Not only has temple religion not born the fruit for which it was intended, but God’s people also have not born the fruit God intended.

Many scholars think that this story is what they call an “enacted parable.” In the Old Testament, prophets would sometimes enact a story. For example, when Jeremiah wanted to prophesy the enslavement of Israel by the Babylonians, one of the things he did was to wear an ox’s yoke (Jeremiah 27:2). When he wanted to prophesy the breaking up of the nation of Israel, he breaks a pot (Jeremiah 19:1-15). God asked the prophet Ezekiel to take a clay tablet, draw a picture of the temple on it, and then lay siege to his picture of the city (Ezekiel 4:1-8). There are other very good examples in the prophets.

In an enacted parable, the teacher not only tells the story, he or she acts it out. In this case, Jesus sees a fig tree. Perhaps he knows that this particular fig tree never bears fruit. We don’t know. In any case, he curses the fig tree, then goes and cleanses the temple, and on the next day the fig tree is dead. In fact, the Temple was destroyed for the final time a few years later in 70 A.D. In my view, this story is not primarily about a fig tree; it is about God’s judgment on Israel for not bearing the fruit it was intended to bear.

God’s People as God’s Fruit Trees.

What does all this have to do with people like us in the 21^st century? Just like the Jews, we are God’s people. He has planted us, his fig tree, in his vineyard, our world, in my case in that part of the vineyard called Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee. We were not planted where we are planted as a decoration like my azalea. We were planted to bear fruit. It does not matter if we move away, because God still wants us to bear fruit. We have just been planted in another part of God’s vineyard, and it is there that we must bear fruit.

The fruit God wants us to bear is the fruit of the Kingdom of God. God wants us to be a part of his mission to the world to preach the good news, to bring people to faith, to disciple them diligently, and in our own personal lives to bear the fruit that God intends his people to bear. He wants us to be wise, loving, kind, peaceable, generous, etc. He does not intend us to just do this on Sundays, but every day, in every way, in everything we do.

In John, on the night of his betrayal and arrest, Jesus says these famous words:

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples (John 15:5-8).

Earlier in this talk, he mentions that while he is the true vine, the Father is the gardener, and the gardener cuts off branches that do not bear fruit. Why? Because he planted the vine to bear fruit, which it is not doing. He also alerts us that even if we are bearing fruit, from time to time he prunes us so that we will bear even more fruit.

This has direct importance to us. First, God in his mercy has saved us and given us his Spirit so that we can bear fruit. If we do not bear fruit, we are not being the disciples God has called us to be. In fact, we are not being disciples at all! Second, although we have been saved by grace and not by works (Ephesians 2:9), God expects us to bear fruit both in our personal lives and in our ministry to those with whom we come into contact (Ephesians 2:10). From time to time when we are not bearing fruit, we are going to get pruned, whether we like it or not.

Bearing the Fruit of Faith.

God saved us to be fruitful both internally and externally. In other words, God expects us to change personally and to be a part of his mission to save others. First, God intends that our faith in Christ enable us to bear an internal fruit in the depths of our personality. In Galatians, he says:

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other (Galatians 5:19-26).

Our Christian faith should result in letting go of the things in our personalities that are negative and replacing them with the Fruit of the Spirit. This does not happen magically, but spiritually as by grace we cooperate with God to put to death the negative and experience the positive of growing in Christ.

Secondly, God intends us to bear fruit by reaching out to others in the name of Christ and sharing God’s love and God’s wisdom with them by the power of the Spirit. The Gospel of Mark, like all the Gospels, begins with Jesus coming to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God—the Good News that God loves us, died on a cross for us, rose from the dead for us, and desires to bring us and the entire world into his kingdom of wisdom and love (Mark 1:15). The Gospel of Mark, like all the gospels, ends with Jesus sending his disciples into the world to share this good news (Mark 16:15). The fruit Jesus wants us to bear is the fruit of a people who themselves are working to improve God’s lovely and potentially fruitful vineyard as a thing of wisdom, truth, love, and beauty.

Making the World A Better Place.

Every house we have owned, I have tried to improve and leave better than we found it. In particular, I have tried to leave the yard a bit better than I found it. In recent years, I have not worked in the yard as much as I wish, and I have not finished a few projects, especially in our back yard. One thing I hope to do soon is to fix some of the gardening issues in our back yard and do a bit more landscaping where it is needed. I don’t think God cares too much about this little project, but I am sure he appreciates it a little. How much more then, do you suppose God wishes we would leave our families, our neighborhoods, our city, and our church just a bit more fully representative of his Kingdom than we found it? In particular, I think, God wants us to grow in our own holiness and help others to experience the blessings of faith in Christ.

When Kathy and I went on our honeymoon, we had a great time. Kathy loves to go out, dance, and have fun. Surprisingly, about a week into our honeymoon all she wanted to do was sleep. When we got back, she still was very tired. When she went to the doctor, she discovered that we were having a baby. Why? Because love bears fruit. God wants us to bear spiritual fruit for his kingdom. That is why be planted us here.

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] [1] James A. Brooks, “Mark” in The New American Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1991), 181-183. Conservative commentators often try to explain that there were often pods on the fig trees this early in the spring, so perhaps Jesus noted that there were no such pods on this tree. Frankly, we cannot know if the tree deserved cursing. I suspect it must have. I think, however, that the reason the apostles remembered the incident is precisely because they did not undestand what Jesus was doing and it was a bit out of character.

[2] A vineyard is the most common symbol used for Israel in Scripture. God condemned Israel’s leaders because they “have destroyed my vineyard” (Jer. 12:10). In Psalm 80:8-16, Israel is “a vine out of Egypt” whom God brought out and planted in Palestine. In Jeremiah 2:21, God rebukes Israel in the same language he uses in Isaiah 5, “I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine?” See, www.twoagespilgrims.com/pasigucrc/2011/05/11/the-unfruitful-vineyard-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-god (Downloaded March 4, 2015).

Eternal God of Light: We praise you for our salvation. We cry out to you in times of need. We sing of your mercy in times of deliverance. Yet, too often, we do not praise you when you must correct us. God our Father, we confess, we don’t like it when you correct us in fatherly love. Forgive us.

All week long, I have have been pondering two events. The first occurred many, many years ago. My Dad was an F.B.I. agent. He was an unusual F.B.I. agent because he really did not like violence, guns, and many other aspects of police work. Dad entered the Navy in World War II and worked for the U.S. government the rest of his career. I think he might have preferred to be a rose grower, which he was. Nevertheless, as an old wrestler and football player, he could be tough as nails when circumstances required it.

I distinctly remember a day just about the time I was a senior in High School. The drug scene had just become popular in Springfield, Missouri, and I was a high school student getting ready to go off for college. I was invited to come to his study for a chat. Our chat turned out to be about drugs. He was opposed. As our conversation ended, he looked at me with this cold blue eyes, and said, “Just in case you don’t agree, I want you to know that if you ever get arrested for being drunk or on drugs, I am leaving you in jail until the trial is over.” I was aware that he meant every word he said.

Not long ago, I became aware of another story about another father. This father’s son had done something very wrong. That father complained about misconduct by the authorities, covered up for the son, allowed him to lie, and arranged for him to avoid the consequences of his actions. Which father do you suppose really loved his son? [1]

Last week, the blog was about God’s Amazing Love as shown in Jesus’ Servant Leadership. This week, the blog is about Tough Love. Love does not mean being weak, or immoral, or covering up. Love always means doing the right thing. There are times when love cannot remain silent or accept what is happening. Every parent, every teacher, every leader knows this simple fact: there are times when love must be tough. To love is not to accept everything the beloved does. It is to do what is best for the beloved, even if what must be done is difficult or unpopular. God’s Amazing Love is not a weak love, but the strongest love there is. God’s love is never weak, never untruthful, never unwise, never unjust, never immoral. God’s love is shown to be God’s love precisely because all of the failures of human love are never found in the love of God. This can be tough for humans who want God to be a kind of co-dependent parent.

A Story of Tough Love.

One of the most mysterious incidents from Jesus’ life is the story of cleansing of the temple. On the surface, it may not seem that this incident is about love, but this story is about love when things are going deeply wrong. Here is the story:

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching (Mark 11:15-19).

 Last week, we looked at Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. On that first day of Holy Week, Jesus went into the Temple to look around (Mark 11:11). In this passage, we learn that Jesus did not like all that he saw. The next day, Jesus reentered the temple courts and drove out the moneychangers. Why did he do that? In our text, he announces that God intended his temple to be a place of prayer and the religious leaders have made it into a place of commerce (Mark 11:17). Behind this simple statement, there is a bit of history to know that explains why Jesus did not like what he saw.

The cleansing of the Temple occurred in the Court of the Gentiles, a place where people like you and me might be found. [2] Much of the Temple was off limits to non-Jews, but Gentiles could go as far as the Court of the Gentiles. Originally, it was intended that people from any nation could come there to pray. Over time, however, this particular place was made the center of the economic life of the temple. Money was exchanged and sacrificial animals were sold.

In Jesus’ day, the currency of Rome was the currency of commerce. In the temple, however, the temple tax and purchases were made in shekels. Therefore, money was changed from the currency of Rome or some other land to the currency of the Jews in the Court of the Gentiles. It will not surprise anyone who has changed money overseas to know that the exchange rate in the temple was not the best possible rate. In fact, it was a relatively high rate.

Second, sacrificial doves were sold in the temple. If you brought your own dove, it was inspected to be sure that it was without blemish. If you purchased one in the Temple Courts, it was by definition without blemish. Naturally, it was in the best interests of the managers of the Temple to examine doves brought into the temple very closely and reject them if they were not perfect. If the animal was not perfect, it was necessary to purchase a “perfect” temple bird. You can imagine many people had to buy a dove to replace one that did not past muster. The price for these doves was higher than outside the temple grounds. [3]

Jesus was the visible representative of God, and God does not only love, God is just. God would not allow the temple to be run like this without doing something about it, and so Jesus did something. [4] He cleansed the temple, overturning tables, and driving out those who were misusing the Temple for an unfair economic gain. If we skip to the end of today’s text, we learn that this was the very event from the last week of Jesus’ life that caused the religious establishment to look for a way to kill Jesus (Mark 4:18).

Love When Things Aren’t Right.

The problem with the Jewish religion of Jesus’ time can be the problem of our faith today. God intended his people to be a light to all nations, and his temple to be a place of worship for all nations. The Jewish leaders had made it their private place of profit. We can forget that we are intended to be a light to the nations in our cities and neighborhoods, and our churches are intended by God to be places where all are welcome. God intended the Jewish people to be a priestly people, and his priests to be their representative as they demonstrated the character of God to the world. God intends that his church be the same. As Peter put it, we are to be, “… a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, to declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9). In every era, God’s people are to bear God’s wisdom and love to the world.

When God’s people and God’s Church fail to be bearers of God’s wisdom and love to the world, we fail to be the people God calls us to be. When we fail to be the people God intends us to be and refuse to change, sooner or later, usually after a long time when we think we are getting away with it, God’s tough love is shown.

The Love of God the Father.

In Hebrews 12, the author reminds his readers that God’s love is a parental love—only better. As the author describes the discipline of God, writing:

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:7-11).

The love of God is the love of a loving parent. All parents discipline their children. Every human parent has disciplined a child in a way that, in retrospect, was shortsighted, harsh, or unfair. God, on the other hand, never disciplines in this way. God disciplines us so that we can be better, more holy, more like Jesus.

This discipline, like any discipline, is not pleasant, but it is good for us. In the passage we are studying, the Jews had allowed the temple worship to become something it was never intended to be. In so doing, they had drifted from God’s intention for the Temple and for God’s people. Jesus’ overturning of the tables, and injunction that the temple was to be a place of prayer not a “den of thieves” was not an act of human anger or piqué. It was an act of love.

Unfortunately, the Jews responded as we too often respond—with anger and rage. Instead of changing, they decided to kill Jesus. Sometimes, God disciplines us in ways we do not like. He overturns the carefully constructed tables in the temple of our life. When God does this, we have a choice: We can rage against God, harden our hearts, refuse to change, and suffer; or, we can humble ourselves, listen to God, change, and grow in godliness.

This has a meaning for our churches. We are called to make of God’s church, and especially of our particular church, what God wants it to be—a place of prayer for all the people of our area. If we do not do that, God is not going to bless us, because we will not be doing the right thing. If we refuse to change, we are refusing to grow in Christlikeness.

A lot of people my age have a hard time understanding and accepting the changes in our society that impact the church. I am old enough to wish we were back in then days of my youth before postmodernism, before screens in worship, before Biblical interpretation became so much more difficult for preachers, before the morals of our society began to change to that proclaiming the gospel became so much more risky than ever before. But our nation has changed, and perhaps it is a good thing. Perhaps God is calling us to return to being a place of refuge, a place of prayer, a place of quiet and mercy for people. If we run from God by running from our church or run from God because of the scariness of our society, we won’t be doing the right thing. The right thing is to make our congregations a “Place of Prayer for All Peoples.” [5]

Outside of our religious and church lives, this text has direct meaning for our personal lives. Parents, grandparents, teachers, pastors, political leaders, and others are given to us to help us become the people we were intended to be. The Bible, our church, and the leadership of our church were given to us to help us become the people we were intended to be. To become wise and loving, as God is wise and loving, whatever our age, we must listen to the voice of God and to those who can help us become the people God intended us to be. Sometimes we will immediately agree with that voice. Sometimes it may be many years before we understand what God was doing when he overturned our carefully laid plan for our lives, our established way of doing things, our easy, worldly habits and customs.

Real Tough Love is…..

I entitled today’s message “Tough Love” because most all of us have heard the term and can remember this message just from its title. However, real tough love is not what we may immediately think it is. It is not necessarily about being “tough” at all. It is about being courageous. Real love is not about feelings, emotions, human desire, or even what we call “parental love.” Real love is doing all that can be done for the beloved whatever the personal cost. It is doing the right thing, not just the popular, or easy, or instinctual thing. Real love is not cut off from what is true, right, good, just, or equitable. Real love is doing what truth, or righteousness, or goodness, or justice, or equity demand at personal cost.

The parent that never disciplines a child does not love the child. He or she is weak. Going back to my initial illustration, my Dad was more loving for treating me harshly about a potential problem than the man who facilitated his son’s dishonesty. I am confident at the moment his son felt better about his dad then I felt about mine. But almost half a century later, having avoided a number of possible mistakes because of my parents discipline, I am glad they were mine—and I am sorry for those whose parents covered up for their failures to do homework, their speeding, their driving after drinking, their drug use, etc.

One more illustration may help. When I was young, I had a math teacher who really did not like me and did not treat me fairly. She actually ruined my love for math. When we get together, my friends always remark on how unfair this teacher was to me in seventh grade. She gave me terrible grades—and they were unjust. My parents did not have any better a feeling about this person than I did. But their advice has never left me since that day. “Chris, you are going to deal with a lot of people in life, some of them are going to be unfair. You just have to make this teacher happy.” I got one year of bad grades and a lifetime of good advice.

Kathy has taught in private schools a lot during our marriage. I cannot tell how many times notes have been written to parents explaining that homework was not being done, tests were not being completed, and grades were not good. In one school, there were all sorts of procedures that had to done before someone could receive a really low grade. I cannot tell you how many parents come at the last moment blaming a teacher for their child’s not doing their homework and getting a bad grade. Every time this happens, I think back on my parents, and I am glad that they never defended me for failing to do homework, for skipping class, for not doing assignments, or for any of the many other mistakes that I made that by the time I entered college had narrowed my academic potential dramatically. Wisely, and lovingly, they made me pay the consequences, and ever so slowly, I became a good and even diligent student.

Real Love Costs the Lover

At the end of our text, the Chief Priests and teachers of the law determined to have Jesus killed. I think it likely that Jesus understood that his actions were going to have repercussions. In fact, I think he knew very well they might lead to an early death. However, love demanded that Jesus point out the problem of temple worship, and he did. One way to know if our actions are in accordance with God’s love is to ask a simple question: “What is this costing me?” Jesus was willing to pay the cost of his love—his life. This is why John can say in one of his letters, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16). Real love is never a costless love for the lover. Love costs, and the most Amazing Love of all, cost the savior of the world his life. It cost God the incarnation of the Word, the rejection of his Son, and a commitment to bear all the sins of the world. God’s love was real love. This is why John can say in one of his letters, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16). Real love is never a costless love for the lover. Love costs, and the most Amazing Love of all, cost God his Only Begotten Son.

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] This story is a combination of several stories, only one of which did I learn of recently. It is true in the sense that it happens all the time. At the end of the blog, I talk about teachers and parents excusing their children’s academic failure by blaming it on someone else. It is an example of the same phenomenon.

[2] James A. Brooks, “Mark” in The New American Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1991), 185.

[3] See, William Barclay, “Mark” in The Daily Bible Study Series rev. ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1975), 272-275.

[4] Jesus foretold that the temple would be destroyed—and it was. This is but one instance of the reality that God is not hasty, and God allows our sin to continue for a time, sometimes a long time. But there is justice for people, for nations, and for other groups.

[5] In the Greek, the word translated “Nations” comes from the root word, “Ethnos,” which more properly means, all “ethnic people groups.” This word does not refer to geographical areas but to people groups.

I do not usually use this blog to work on a book or research project I am working, but this week is an exception. I am currently trying to turn a dissertation into a book for Christian and other leaders—a project I hope to complete in the next couple of years. In writing this dissertation some years ago, I decided to focus on the spirituality of leadership. The techniques and personality traits that make a good leader vary from organization to organization and congregation to congregation depending on a number of factors, not the least of which include size and complexity. However, it is my belief that the spiritual characteristics of good leaders remain the same. We must all learn to love and lead like Jesus.  In this work, just as in the two others I’ve written, I am exploring the unity of wisdom and love that we find in God and which is revealed in Jesus.

Each of the Gospels spends about a third of their total words describing the last week of Jesus’ life. It is as if the way that they organized their gospels was intended to reflect the surpassing importance of his last week, arrest, death, and resurrection. If we are to fully understand who Jesus was and what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, then we must think carefully about the last week of his life as he experienced first approval, then opposition, rejection, betrayal, arrest, unfair prosecution, and death. This week, I am focused on the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and what it shows us about the love of God and about the character of Christian leadership

Some time ago, I was reading an article about the contemporary church. In America, we spend a lot of sermon and teaching time showing how the Christian life is the “Abundant Life.” We spend a lot of time showing how Christian faith makes life in this world better and more complete. We have Christian exercise and diet classes designed to see that we live longer and healthier. We have books on Christian sexuality proclaiming that our faith will make our love life better. We want a happy church and a happy faith. As a result, pastors seldom preach on the verse “If anyone would be my disciple, let them take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). The writer went on to say, “It should not surprise us that people desert the church the moment there is any suffering involved in the Christian life. We have misled them about its fundamental nature. We have preached a Christianity without the Cross.”

If we examine the last week of Jesus’ life carefully, we see the true character of God’s self-giving, Christ-like love as Jesus showed that love to us in the most dramatic possible way. We see that suffering for others, far from being something we can and should avoid, is something we must accept as an inevitable part of the Christian life. If we believe that Jesus incarnated the character of God fully in human form, then we are left with an understanding that no part of Christian life, including Christian leadership, can be conducted without its share of cross bearing. In fact, the love of God shown on the cross is at the center of Christian leadership. And, if God is the God of all creation, then this same love is at the center of great secular leadership as well.

Jesus Revealed as David’s Heir

In Mark chapter 11, the beginning of Jesus’ last week is described this way:

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’” They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” Hosanna in the highest heaven!” Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve. (Mark 11:1-11).

 In our church, almost every Palm Sunday, we read or hear these verses at some point in the service. We even act them out with the children. I always think that it is sad that we don’t read them earlier in Lent because the story of Jesus joy-filled entry into Jerusalem and the Easter story of his resurrection always dominate Easter week in a Protestant congregation with lots of children. Our Easter begins with the joy of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and ends with the Empty Tomb. We don’t spend much time thinking about what lies in between. Frequently, the cross is an after-thought, except for the few diligent and often older members that attend a Maundy Thursday or Good Friday service. Unfortunately an Easter without the cross represents only half the Gospel. It is not even half the Gospel, for it forgets that Christ came to bear the sins of the world—a world which did then, and does now, reject his gracious offer of forgiveness of sin and new life.

Leaders in the Ancient World and in Our World

There are certain articles you can be sure you will see in magazines and newspapers every so often. Not long ago, I looked at a magazine with an article purporting to give important new information on Jesus. It was a rehash of information that has been talked about for over a hundred years.  Another inevitable kind of article in election years, and at other times, includes those decrying the lack of leadership in America. It is true. There has been a decline in leadership in America and in the West for a long, long time. However, this complaint can mask the continuity between our leaders and leaders throughout history. The world has always produced more bad and mediocre leaders than wise, loving, great, and good ones.

Many years ago, I read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. [1] What struck me was the fact that, from the beginning of the empire until its fall,  a period of hundreds of years, there were relatively few good emperors. By the time most of the New Testament was written, the empire was often in the hands of poor, corrupt, and often-insane leaders. Gibbon described the decline in leadership as follows:

“The manly pride of the Romans … left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious greatness. However, when they lost even the semblance of those virtues which were derived from their ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners was … corrupted by the stately affectation of the courts of Asia. The distinctions of personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a republic, so feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished by the despotism of the emperors….” [2]

In Jesus’ day, as in our day, leaders often excelled at the art of the politics of power and flattery. Pontius Pilate was just such a man—a friend of the Emperor, a capable administrator, but lacking in true virtue. [3]  He was known to be corrupt and weak. Pilate, like most of the Roman governors was addicted to power and the perquisites and symbols that come with power. Like most of the Roman bureaucracy, he was out of touch with the reality of the lives of the common people. We, therefore, should not be surprised that our leaders are often mere politicians, addicted to power, surrounded by increasingly meaningless symbols of power, and unaware and unconcerned with the problems of the common, average person.

A Biblical Symbol of Humility

David began his kingship as a soldier who had once been a shepherd. Although in his later years, he was corrupted by his power, he still had the love and respect of the common people. Near the end of his life, one of his sons, Adonijah, attempted to prematurely become king. Adonijah had a better claim to the throne than Solomon, but David had promised his favorite wife, Bathseba that her son would sit on his throne. So David had Solomon placed on a mule, and enter the city of Jerusalem where he was made king. This action, filled with symbolism of service and humility, was part of the expected entry of a new king into the city. [4]

The prophet Zechariah prophesied that the Messiah would enter the city in just such a way: as follows:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your king coming unto you; he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon a donkey, even upon a colt, the foal of a donkey (Zechariah 9:9).

The Messiah would not ride into the city on a white charger, like a conquering hero, but on a donkey as a servant king. Jesus’ entry was a part of the revelation that he was the expected Messiah.

Jesus: The First Servant Leader

Jesus may have been the expected Messiah, but his nature was completely unexpected. The people who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem that Palm Sunday so many years ago still expected Jesus to turn out to be a military leader, a king like other kings, and a deliver from the centuries of oppression they had endured under the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Medes, Greeks, and Romans. They expected Jesus to found a kingdom that looked pretty much like the other kingdoms around them, only better. But that is not what God intended and not what Jesus did. This is a lesson we need to learn today. The Kingdom of God is not the United States of America, only better. It is something completely different that dwells in the hearts and minds of those who follow the God of Wisdom and Love. Our human kingdoms can be made better, more reflective of God’s love and wisdom, but they cannot be made into the Kingdom of God. Only God can create the Kingdom of God, and he has chosen to do so using only the power of wisdom and self-giving love.

When James and John came to him asking that they be designated as leaders due special honor because of their association with him, Jesus replied that they had no idea what they were asking (Mark 10:38). When the other of his disciples were furious at James and John, Jesus gave them a teaching about what it means to be a leader in Jesus’ kingdom:

You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:42-45).

Jesus came to be a leader. In fact, he came to be long awaited Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace for whom the Jews waited (Isaiah 9:6). He came to establish a kingdom that would never end (v. 7). He also came to reveal God’s love and serve in love—not just any kind of love but the self-giving, merciful, sacrificial love of God to save a lost world he would show the world the very next Friday as he died on the Cross. As a leader, Jesus was still the God of Wisdom and Love he incarnated, and his kingdom and kingship could, therefore, not look anything like our kingdoms or our kings and rulers.

Everything Jesus did he did embodying the All Wise, All Powerful, All Merciful love of God. He came in love as one of us. He called his disciples (and us) in love to follow him. He communicated his message in love, revealing that all the laws and all the messages of goodness of all the ages could be reduced to loving God and loving others with the agape love of God. Even when Jesus rebuked the disciples, as he did from time to time, he rebuked them in love. Finally, in love he empowered them by his Holy Spirit, just as he gifts and empowers us by his Holy Spirit.

At the root of Jesus’ leadership, and at the root of any Christian idea of leadership is God’s character, and the Bible teaches us that God is love (I John 4:8). Furthermore, God is not just any old kind of love, but a love that loves us while we are still far from God. “This is love,” John says, “not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (v. 10). A Christian who is a leader is to be a disciple of the one who said, “If anyone would come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).

What this Means for Us

For the last several months, a group of our elders and a few others have been meeting and thinking about what it means to be a leader in our church. They have been thinking about this question in light of our commitment to become a more intentional discipling church. It has taken them about a year and a half or two years to think through this important question and what it means for the selection and training of new leaders for our congregation. Interestingly enough, they were able to reduce this very complex subject to a single graphic in addition to producing a curriculum and other materials.

To be a Christian leader is first of all to be a Christian. We have to hear the voice of Jesus calling and saying to us, “Come and follow me” (Mark 1:17). To be a Christian is more than believing that Jesus is the Son of God; it is following Jesus and trying to be like Jesus day after day. It is praying, reading our Bibles, exercising our wills, and in every way trying to become like the one we, like Peter, proclaim to be the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Mark 8:29).

Then, as we grow in Christ, we begin to model Christ for others. This means that as we grow in Christ we reach the point where other people can see the character and person of Jesus in us as we react to our day-to-day problems. We begin to be a person that others look to as they seek to walk the Christian walk and live as Christians. This can last a long, long time as slowly but surely God transforms our character in prayer, Bible Study, service, and other elements of the Christian life.

Finally, we begin to mentor others in the Christian life. A mentor is someone who helps another person achieve a goal, gain a skill, or deserve a position. A mentor is a Christian leader who is also involved in helping another person become a Christian leader. Too many leaders, Christian and otherwise, cling to a position of leadership until they are too old to do anything else but give up and never mentor another to replace them. I think that generations of Presbyterians have been guilty of this, and it is part of the reason that the Presbyterian Church is in such disarray.

We cannot mentor another person unless we ourselves have taken the time to learn what we intend to mentor them to be. We cannot mentor another person unless we understand our Christian duty to the future to prepare another generation of leaders. Finally, we will never mentor anyone until we have learned to love that person unconditionally. In the beginning, it is always easier to do something yourself than to train another person. But, like raising children, unless we think we can live forever, we must do so in love—love for the person and love for the church or family of which we are a part.

Conclusion

Anyone who has read any of my books or any long selection of sermons knows that I am committed to seeing the Word of God as revealed in Christ as the ultimate revelation of the wisdom and love of God—what I sometimes call a Deep Light and Deep Love. By this term I mean a wisdom and love that is deeper than anything found in this created universe, because it finds its source in the being and character of God. [5]

Christians as leaders, not just in our churches but also in our day-to-day lives must embody a kind of leadership that is founded on the leadership of Christ. He is the source of the only really enduring leadership there is or can be. To do this, we must first look at the leadership Jesus embodied—and that leads us straight to a love revealed on the cross.

[1] Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (New York, NY: Random House: Modern Library Paperback Ed., 2003).

[2] Id, at Chapter 17.

[3] Pilate was a friend of the emperor, or at least his wife was a friend of the emperor, from whom he received his appointment as prefect. He served a relatively long time, indicating that he was a capable person. The Jews felt that he was unfeeling and insensitive to the Jewish people. Eventually, he was removed from office. The gospel accounts portray him as aware of the injustice that is being done to Jesus, but unwilling to face Jewish disapproval and possible appeal to Caesar if he releases someone who claims to be a king. See, Ronald F. Youngblood, ed. “Pilate” in Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary Rev. Ed. (Nashville, TN: Nelson, 1995,1986).

[4] The entire incident is portrayed in First Kings 1:1-53.

[5] See, G. Christopher Scruggs, Centered Living/Centered Leading: The Way of Light and Love Rev. Ed. (Memphis, TN Permisio Por Favor/Book Surge, 2014).

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (Mark 4:35-41).

Years ago, a group of young men set sail one morning from Galveston Bay near Houston. They intended to enjoy a day of sailing. The day began with a clear bright blue sky. They made good time to the mouth of the Galveston Bay and out into the Gulf of Mexico. You can imagine that they were swapping stories about their businesses and families. Suddenly, the situation changed. A storm came up quickly and unexpectedly. The light of day became dark as night. The gentle swells turned into waves. They could not see other boats around them. What began as a simple day sailing trip turned into a frightening experience. Many years later when the story was recounted to me, I could still detect the fear in the voice of my friend. My friend said that he had never been this scared in all his life.

Hard times require a deep faith. This reminder is important to us today. Hardly a week goes by when someone does not send me an article about the difficulty of Christian life in America. Recently, I’ve been reading a book written just after President Reagan’s Presidency. The book discusses the remarkable religious revival that preceded his election, and the emergence of Christian faith as a force in politics after a long absence. I’ve been smiling as I read the book because the author seems to assume that this religious resurgence was going to be a permanent part of American politics. Today, as in the 1960’s, religion seems to be losing influence. This has many Christians depressed. Nearly every meeting I attend has some seminar on the gradual shrinking of the church in America. This phenomenon, which used to be limited to what we sometimes call “Old Line” denominations, has more recently impacted churches across the board in America. The question for us is, “Can we remain faithful and strong in our discipleship during stressful times?” I think we can.

Jesus Calms the Storm

 The Story of the Calming of the Sea completes a section of Mark in which Jesus intensively teaches and heals. As mentioned over the past several weeks, Jesus took time to explain to the disciples in detail the Parable of the Four Soils. He even warned them that, when difficult times come, it is hard for those without a deep faith to endure. Then, unexpectedly the disciples are faced with a test of their faith. They go sailing on the Sea of Galilee and are caught in a great storm. They lack faith in Jesus and are rebuked by him as he calms the storm.

This story comes at an important time in the life of the disciples. Jesus had been revealed to them as a person of great charisma, as a doer of mighty deeds of healing and exorcism, as a teacher of unusual wisdom, and as the one who will usher in the Kingdom of God. Jesus has spent special time with them and given them special teaching. You can imagine that the disciples were filled with energy, but also tired from the ceaseless activity of their ministry. Today we would say, “They were living on adrenalin.” When the disciples set sail with Jesus, you can imagine that they were looking forward to the short day sail to the region on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, as well as to some well-deserved rest.

The Sea of Galilee is an interesting inland sea. As the Jordan River flows southward from its headwaters in the north of Israel near the Lebanon border, it falls some 700 feet below sea level into a basin that forms the sea itself. Due to the hills surrounding the lake, the sea can experience rapid temperature changes, as well as wind changes. This can result in extremely violent and unexpected storms. [1] Jesus and his disciples were caught in just such a storm.

I think most of us have observed that storms of life can come at unexpected times and in unexpected ways. They often come during periods just after we have endured a time of peak performance or stress. I have observed that, at times when I am already tired from Christmas or Easter, there can be particularly difficult issues at Advent. In business, many businessmen and women have seen how often when they are tired and ready for a rest, there are problems at work. Often, just when we think we have a problem solved within our families, with our spouse, or in some other relationship, and are looking forward to smooth sailing, we enter a time of anxiety and stress.

Sometimes the Storms of Life are Perfect Storms

In the year 2000, one of the most successful movies was called, “The Perfect Storm”. [2] The Perfect Storm is based upon an actual incident in which a New England fishing vessel was sunk when it was trapped between two weather fronts and a hurricane, forming a so-called “Perfect Storm.” The story begins with a sea captain played by George Clooney returning from a fishing voyage with less than success. He is in a difficult period of failure. Although it is late in the season, the captain persuades the crew to return to sea for one last fishing trip before winter comes. Due to difficulties on the trip, they decide that they must return although they know that to do so they will pass through a storm. It is a fateful decision. Caught between a hurricane and two fronts, the ship is tossed in 40-foot waves and finally turns over and sinks with all lives lost.

This is the kind of experience the disciples were having—and it is the kind of experience we all have from time to time. When we have economic hard times, there are stresses on marriages, budgets, families, children, churches, and society itself. Sometimes in the life of you and me, the various negative factors in the environment around us combine into what seems to us to be an emotional, physical, and spiritual perfect storm. It is scary, and the longer it lasts, and the tireder we get, the harder it is to retain our faith in the midst of the troubles. Sometimes we misjudge the size of the storm we are just about to enter. Therefore, we must understand how to survive a “Perfect Storm.”

Keys to staying Afloat in a Perfect Storm

Around the year 1633, the painter Rembrandt painted a picture of the story of Jesus Calming the Sea. The picture is one of the most famous in art history. Rembrandt pictures Jesus and the twelve disciples in the boat. He even puts himself in the picture as the 13^th disciple, representing all of us. In the picture, Rembrandt depicts how people react in a storm. There is a man with the rudder  desperately trying to keep the boat pointed into the waves so it does not capsize. There are four experienced sailors, perhaps Peter, Andrew, James and John, trying to take down the sails and fix the ropes that have come apart in the storm to keep the wind from capsizing the boat and breaking the mast. Another disciple has his head over the rail about to lose his lunch. Other disciples are holding on for dear life. Two disciples are waking Jesus and complaining about his sleeping through the storm. As Rembrandt pictures the scene, no one is looking at Jesus.

The picture intends to give us some clues taken from the story to show us how the disciples might have reacted and how we might react as a kind of warning. While it is a good thing that the disciples who know how to sail are trying to save the ship, it is probably not a good thing that they are not even looking at Jesus. The disciples who are berating Jesus are not doing anything constructive. The best thing we can do in a Perfect Storm is keep our eyes on Scripture and upon Jesus and try as best we can to navigate the storm with the wisdom and strength of God. Even more importantly, when we take our eyes off Christ, we may be implicitly admitting that we are not fully sure of the love and mercy of God in this situation.

A second lesson that we need to remember is this: Continuing to do the things that got us into the storm in the first place are not likely to get us out. One of the underlying themes of the movie The Perfect Storm is that for all of the positive character traits of George Clooney, he is leading his men to a watery grave because of his human pride and ego. So often, as parents, spouses, workers, business owners, and citizens, we continue to try to do the very same things that got us into the storm in the first place. Unconsciously, we may be attempting to prove we were right all along or that our approach to the problem is right. Frequently, this is a big mistake. The first thing we need to do in a storm is look God right in the face and be willing to change. We need to have faith that the God who led us into the storm will get us out. The fact that Jesus was asleep is a sign that Jesus trusts God his Father to either rescue him from the storm or to bring good from the storm that sunk the ship of his life. Jesus can sleep because he has faith.

Over Aggressiveness is Never the Best Strategy in a Perfect Storm

One of the most famous incidents of the Second World War is an event sometimes called “Halsey’s Typhoon,” although it was actually two hurricanes. In December of 1944, through a confluence of errors, not all of which were the fault of Admiral Halsey, Admiral “Bull” Halsey sailed the entire Third Fleet right into the Center of a huge typhoon. In the end, 790 men were killed, 100 aircraft were lost, three ships were sunk, and many ships were damaged, some very seriously. The losses were more extensive than the losses of the American Fleet at the Battle of Midway. The losses were so serious that America’s most famous sailor had to endure a Court of Inquiry. About six months later, Admiral Halsey sent his fleet into another hurricane with additional serious damage to the fleet. This time after a court of inquiry Halsey was reassigned. His defect as a leader was described in both instances as over-aggressiveness. Let’s be clear, Admiral Halsey was the most famous fighting admiral of World War II. He was one of only four five star admirals (Fleet Admirals) in American history. He was a great leader. Unfortunately, tired after four years of war and near the end of his career, he allowed the military virtue of aggressiveness to become his downfall.

Psychologists talk a lot about the Fight or Flight Syndrome. All of us, male and female, old and young, when threatened tend to aggressively do what we think will work to bring the success, joy and happiness we desire. Often it is a response we have made to stress over and over again during our lives, and which we should know will not work. The Story of the Jesus Calming the Storm reminds us that for disciples, this is not the right move. A calm, sure, faith in God, and a wise, loving response to the problem is always the better choice.

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Harpers Bible Dictionary (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1985), 330.

[2] William D. Wittliff, wr. The Perfect Storm dir. Wolfgang Peterson. Produced by Paul Weinstein, Wolfgang Peterson, Gail Katz staring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, based upon The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger (June 30, 2000). My description is based upon the wikipedia article about the movie. Not upon the actual events upon which the movie is based.

Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times (Mark 4:8).

In one of her recent books, Beth Moore describes a trip she and her husband took to Angola. While they were in Angola, they saw children with signs of malnutrition. One sign of malnutrition in Africa is when the normally dark hair of the children turns blonde. In Angola, they saw many, many blonde children. In some villages, the farmers were so poor that they ate their seed for planting. Therefore, the crops were habitually bad. Beth Moore sees an analogy between physical hunger in Africa and the spiritual hunger in America. Too often, Christians go to church and receive the Word of God, eating spiritual food, without sowing it for a harvest. Here is the way she puts it:

“Some just eat the seed and never sow it for a harvest. You want examples? Why have many of us heard hundreds of messages on freedom, done every line of Bible studies like Breaking Free, wept over them, been blessed by them and even memorized parts of them, yet remain in captivity? Because we ate the seed instead of sowing it. Why have many of us read books on forgiving people, known the teachings were true and right, cried over them, marked them with our highlighters, yet remain in our bitterness? Because we ate the seed instead of sowing it. Why have we repeatedly heard how Christ has forgiven our sinful pasts, and sobbed with gratitude over the grace of it, yet we remain in bondage to condemnation? Because we ate the seed instead of sowing it.”  [1]

This blog completes a series on the parable of the four soils by talking about being fertile and the harvest Christ can reap from our hearts if we will only give him open, humble, faithful, and fertile hearts. God is always sowing his Word into our hearts. God is always seeking to fill us with his love and grace. The question is, “Are we open to the growth of God in our hearts?” “Are we ready to allow God to grow a crop of love and wisdom in our hearts, sometimes in unexpected ways?” “Are we ready to stop just eating and bear fruit?”

For the last month, the “Parable of the Four Soils” has been at the center of each weekly article. The parable is about a farmer who is sowing seed in a First Century Galilean farm. Unlike many of his parables, Jesus took time out to explain the parable and the New Testament writers recorded his explanation. He began and ended the parable with the injunction to “Listen.” We began looking at the seed that falls on the rocky path. Nothing can grow on rock. Seed falling on a rocky path is eaten by birds (4:4). Some human hearts are like this soil. The good news cannot find any root, and the Evil One comes and takes the seed away (4:15). We looked at the rocky, shallow soil. Such soil permits some growth, but growth cannot last because the ground is shallow (4:5). Some people are like this spiritually: At the beginning they are enthusiastic; but, when hard times come, they have no depth, and their faith dies (4:17). Some seed is like seed that falls among thorns. Such seed cannot grow. Any growth is choked out by the thorns (4:7). People dominated by the worries of life, by the desire for wealth, and by other desires, are like this soil. Their faith is choked to death by their thorny heart (4:18-19).

The Good Soil

At the end of the parable, Jesus tells us that some of God’s good seed falls on the good soil—and it produces a crop, thirty-fold, sixty-fold, and sometimes even a hundred fold (4:8). A fertile human heart is like this soil: when the word of God falls upon it, it bears a crop of faith (4:20).

My great grandfather on Mom’s side was a farmer in Muncie, Indiana. He traveled over into Illinois, to just west of Muncie, Illinois, where he bought 160 acres of land, which he and his son farmed all of their lives, and which my uncle and cousin have farmed all of their lives. My mother, who grew up on and near the farm, was exceedingly proud of it. The topsoil in that particular part of Illinois is some of the best farmland in America. Year in and year out, in good years and bad years, this little farm produces a crop. Some years are great. Some years are not so great, but there is always a crop. Why? Because the topsoil is some of the deepest, richest topsoil in America.

The human heart is like this topsoil. If we have humble hearts (the word “humble” comes from the Latin word for soil), if we pray diligently both talking and listening to God, if we allow the Word of God to enter our lives in Scripture and in the presence of Christ, if we allow God’s Grace to transform us, and if we reach out in loving service to others, then we have a heart that will grow a crop for God.

The parable warns us that the Kingdom of God does not automatically grow in our hearts nor is it automatically felt in our lives. For the Word to grow in our lives, we must have hearts open to God. Our minds, our emotions, our will, our bodies, and our unique human spirit must be open to the Word and Sprit of God, so that we grow to become more like God, which means becoming more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

Wisdom literature always begins with the injunction, “The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom.” I another work I have defined this “Fear of the Lord” as a Deep Respect and Awe.” [2] When we are open to God and revere God for who God is, we become open to the growth of his Word in our lives. When we become humble before God, the Kingdom of God finds a place to grow in our lives, as we trust in God and the Way of Christ in forming our character and guiding our actions. The result is a wonderful, fundamental change in our personalities and in the way we live and relate to other people.

The Good Seed

In any kind of farming, it is true as the old proverb says, “You reap what you sow.” No one ever sowed corn and got tomatoes. The kind of spiritual crop we will ultimately reap in the spiritual life depends on the seed we sow. If we sow the seed of God’s Word, if we sow the seed of the Good News of God’s love and mercy for the human race, if sow the Good News of the Kingdom of God, if we sow a seed of the kind of self-giving love God showed on the Cross, then we will certainly reap a crop that reflects the character of God and God’s intention fort the human race. In fact, the Kingdom of God grows up right in our hearts.

As we mentioned a few weeks ago, the seed in this passage is the Word of God Jesus came embodying in his life, and which God desires to be embodied in our lives. God desires us to become little Christ’s, filled with God’s Spirit and bearing a crop for Him. Receiving Christ is not the end of the journey of faith; it is its beginning. The life of discipleship is the gradual growth in our lives of God’s Kingdom and character. The point of coming to Christ is to become a disciple and to grow, change, mature, and deepen all the days of our lives.

There is a passage from Revelation, which reads like this:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:1-2).

These words, from the last chapter of Revelation, show God’s intention for the lives of the Apostles and for our lives. We are to be little trees of life drawing our spiritual sustenance from God by the power of the Holy Spirit, the water of life. And, we are to bear fruit—fruit that will heal our lives, the lives of those closest to us, and even the lives of those we hardly ever meet, even to all the nations of the world. The growth of the kingdom in our lives has consequences for everyone around us and for the entire world. What we do in our homes, in our families, and among our acquaintances has eternal consequences for us an for our world. Love is just that powerful.

The Incredible Growth

You might be thinking, “How can I possibly become a person who bears a crop like that?” “I am so broken or so immature or I’ve done so many things wrong, how could this possibly apply to me?” If you are a person like this, perhaps the way Jesus concludes this teaching in this area might be helpful. A little further in Mark, we read this:

Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade (Mark 4:30-32).

Jesus is saying that the power of God is such that a very small seed of the Kingdom planted in your heart can grow and grow and become a great tree of faith—in fact it can become such a fruitful tree of life in you that your life will actually and really be a healing not just for you but for everyone your life touches.

As I have been thinking about this blog over the past week or so, I have been remembering trips to my grandfather’s farm. One of the things I remember is a certain smell in the springtime. Early in the spring, the farmers till the soil and prepare the soil for planting. If a spring rain occurs just as the soil has been tilled, there is a particular smell in the air. It is the fresh, fertile smell of soil just before the crop is planted.

Today, they don’t plant like they did in Jesus’ day. Modern computerized farming techniques permit farmers to place each seed just where they want it to be to maximize yield. If you were to drive by sometime in late April or May, you would not see a thing. But, if you drive by that farm in late July or August, the corn will be taller than a man, and the fields will be green with a harvest for miles and miles and miles.

The Kingdom of God is like this. When you’ve opened, softened, deepened, and fertilized your heart, you will smell something wonderful—but you won’t see the fruit. You won’t even see the seed. Later, sometimes months and years later, when you look, you will see the seed of God’s grace.

Just before the Parable of the Mustard Seed, Jesus says the following:

This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come (Mark 4:26-29).

If you allow God to plant the kingdom in your heart, one day you will look back and see the crop—a crop that when it is harvested, you will not believe or understand or how it could happen in your life. In the beginning, faith looks like an awfully small, insignificant seed. Later on, it will be the largest crop you can imagine! It will be a crop of personal healing, of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your own character, and it will have sown itself into countless lives around you.

The Cross is the Tree of Life for Us.

In John, Jesus puts it this way: “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:24). In the end, whatever crop any of us manages to sow and reap is dependent upon another sower—one who sowed his life for us. The final message of the Gospel is not a message for today. We will meditate on this message later in Lent. The hardest lesson of the Gospel is this: Those would enter the Kingdom of God and have their hearts and lives transformed, must take up a cross and follow the One who went to the Cross for us. The Kingdom begins with faith, but it grows with love—not just any kind of love, but a love that gives and gives beyond any human wisdom. It was that love God showed us on the Cross, and it is that love which finally transforms our lives.

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Beth Moore, Stepping Up: A Journey through the Psalms of Ascent (Nashville, TN: Lifeway Publishing, 2007), 81.

[2] G. Christopher Scruggs, Centered Living/Centered Leading: The Way of Light and Love Rev. Ed. (Cordova, TN: Shiloh Publishing, 2010, 2014) and Path of Life: The Way of Wisdom for Christ Followers Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014).

Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. (Mark 4:3-9).

 I find gardening frustrating. There are several facts of life about gardens that I don’t particularly like. Among them is this simple fact: Weeds are easier to grow than flowers. No matter how well you prepare the soil, no matter how much fertilizer you put in the ground, no matter how-well tilled your garden is, sooner or later the weeds begin to take over—and when they do, they choke out everything else. I don’t know why God could not have created a world in which the flowers crowd out the weeds in my garden. It makes perfect sense to me, anyway.

In the Midsouth, we are so used to Bermuda lawns that we forget that in other parts of the country Bermuda is thought of as a weed! When it gets into a border, or a flowerbed, it is almost impossible to get out, and it eventually will take over the garden. Just across the street and the pond from our yard is a wooded area. This wooded area has poison ivy in it. The poison ivy gets into my yard every spring, and I have to eradicate it. There are also thorns in the woods. The variety of thorns we have are not particularly bushy, but they have a deep tap root and are almost impossible to get out of the garden once they have become established. I have several pretty large azaleas in my front yard and in two of them these thorns have managed to get well-established. The root system of the thorns is intertwined with the root system of the azaleas and it is almost impossible to keep the thorns from choking out the plant. Every spring, I fight another year of the never-ending battle between the azalea grower and the thorns. I guarantee you if I stopped fighting for five years, the thorns would win.

The same phenomenon is true in the spiritual life. It is far easier to develop negative spiritual qualities than positive ones. If we are not vigilant in rooting out the thorns in our spiritual life, sooner or later they will come to dominate us.

The Parable of the Four Soils

This is the third blog in a series of four blogs on the “Parable of the Four Soils” from Mark. In this parable, Jesus describes the human heart as like four soils, hard, rocky and shallow, dominated by thorns, and fertile.

Two weeks ago, we talked about the problem of hardness of heart—a heart so hard that the Gospel simply cannot find a home. Last week, we talked about the shallow, rocky heart—a heart in which the gospel finds a home for a time, but when hard times come and growth is necessary, that person’s heart is too shallow for faith to take root and grow. Today, we are talking about the third problem—the cluttered and thorn-filled heart where faith can grow for a while but is eventually choked out.

Life among the Thorns

In Spanish, the word for “Footpath” is “Sendera.” One day, years and years ago, I went hunting on a ranch on the north side of the King Ranch in South Texas. Large bushes, some of them thorn bushes taller than a man’s head, cover the land. In order to get from place to place, someone had bulldozed paths through the bushes called “Senderas” by which a person or jeep could get from one place to another. There were some smaller paths that animals had made in the predominate brush. (I had a frightening encounter with a havalina, which is a kind of wild pig, in one of these Sendera’s.) These thorn bushes were all the plant growth there was in places they took over, because once it was overgrown with the brush, light could not reach the ground and everything else was killed. The thorns and brush choked out every other kind of growth.

In the Holy Land in Jesus’ day, some of the land was sometimes covered with bushes, what Jesus calls “thorns,” because these bushes did have thorns on them. If land were left unattended for any length of time, these thorny bushes would take over a field. The way farmers tried to control the thorns was to burn the ground after each harvest. This would burn any thorns to the ground. However, in the spring, the thorns would take over again, and if a farmer were not careful, they would choke out a crop. [1]

As I mentioned in the first blog, this parable is significant because Jesus explains the parable in detail to his disciples, and that explanation is found in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Here is how Jesus explains the parable in Mark:

Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. (Mark 4:15-19)

 So we see that Jesus sees the thorns as representing (1) the worries of this life, (2) the deceitfulness of wealth, and the (3) desire for pleasureable things. This is one of those cases when the Bible might as well have been written yesterday. These same things choke out our faith today.

When our staff met this week, Cindy immediately took us to the first thing on the list: worry. So often, when reading a list that includes greed and desire, we shift our attention immediately to those things as potential thorns. This is unfortunate because “the worries of this life” are more common ways in which our faith is choked to death. What are the “worries of this life?” The worries of this life are all the things that you and I legitimately worry about taken beyond the point where there is anything productive in our worries. For example, we all legitimately worry about our children. It begins to choke our faith when we worry and worry without trusting that God will take care of them once we’ve done the best we can. We worry about our work. We all worry about having enough money when we grow old. We legitimately worry about a lot of things. When we continue to worry once we’ve done all we can do, our worry begins to choke out our faith. I could go on and on because there are as many worries of this life as there are things to worry about!

The second thing Jesus mentions is the deceitfulness of wealth. I think that the only way we can get a handle on this in our society is to think about what was wealth in the ancient world. Wealth in the ancient world did not include stocks, bonds, investments in hedge funds, gold futures, 401k plans, IRA’s, or any such things. In Jesus’ day a wealthy person owned his own home, and it would have been nicer than most but not nearly as nice as most of our homes, had a reserve of food of some amount, and had accumulated some silver or gold items. This was wealth in the ancient world.

Over and over again, the Bible makes two comments about wealth being deceitful. First, it promises a life without the worries of the common person—but it never delivers (Proverbs 11:28). The wealthy worry just like the poor. Second, it promises a security it cannot give. Proverbs warns us that wealth can flee away (Proverbs 25:3). As we begin trusting in riches and in power we come to trust in an idol—in something that will, in the end, leave us empty. Having enough is important. However, we cannot focus all of our attention and time on making money. It cannot be our ultimate source of security in life.

Finally, we can allow the good things of this life, the pleasures of this life, to gradually choke out our faith. Once again, these pleasures are not bad things in themselves. They become thorns that choke out our faith when they take up too much of time and energy. I don’t want to belabor the point—and there are a thousand possible illustrations. Perhaps just one in one area will give us some idea of how good things can become bad things when taken to excess. Let’s suppose I have a hobby, like sailing. (It is a safe bet that most people in Memphis do not spend a lot of the time sailing!). I purchase a small boat that I can afford and I begin sailing. Pretty soon, I am leaving work early on Friday, taking of all day Saturday and Sunday to sail my little boat. I begin to buy extra equipment for my little boat, and I must take classes to qualify as an expert in the use of all of them. One day, I decide I need a bigger boat, and after a while a still bigger boat. What was once a hobby to help me relax from work has now become a huge distraction. I no longer have time for church, for my family, for friendships, or for God. My little boat has become a big thorn bush. This same analysis applies in every area in which there are pleasures of life we can legitimately enjoy or let them dominate our lives.

Clearing out the Thorns

If we are going to be able to allow the garden of our hearts to grow in discipleship, we have to get the thorns under control. This can be hard because as I said at the beginning, thorns are not necessarily bad in themselves; they just take too much of our time, talent, money, and energy, sapping us of the ability to bear fruit for God. In some ways, the easiest thorns to get rid of are the worst: if I am an alcoholic or a drug addict, I know I must get rid of my alcoholism before I can grow in Christ. It is not so easy to see the necessity if I am a workaholic. Working hard is a good thing. Therefore, it can be hard to see when it has become something demonic. Golf or exercise, or any hobby is a good thing. It can be hard to see when it is taking up too much of my time, money, and energy. Some thorns need to be eradicated; some thorns just need to be controlled.

One of my worst thorn problems in my front yard is, as I said earlier, in my azaleas. I cannot get the root system for these thorns completely out of my yard. However, I have learned that what I can do is control the thorns by cutting them back as far as possible the minute they come up and I can see them. The thorns don’t threaten the azaleas because I have stunted their growth. Our dealings with thorns can be the same. There are thorns, like the allure of pleasures and riches that we cannot entirely eliminate, but we can get them under constant control. We can prevent them from dominating our lives.

Life in a Thornless Field

One day in those Sendera’s in South Texas, I went down a winding path looking for a javelina or a deer.  After a few twists and turns on the path, I was pretty well lost—and I had a hard time finding my way out. As I mentioned before, the bushes, some which were thorny, were taller than my head and it could be dark inside the path. There was always the danger that you would turn the next corner and face a charging animal (which never happened). Not only do the thorns choke out the spiritual life within us, they also cause us to lose our sense of spiritual direction.

One of the benefits of cutting out the thorns from our lives and burning them to the roots is that we can gain a clear vision of what God is calling us to do and to be. We have a clear set of priorities—with God firmly implanted in first place. And, because we have God in first place, it gets a whole lot easier to put everything else in the proper place as well. Pretty soon, we have a kind of peace, not a peace in the sense of no possible worries, but a peace in the sense of having done the best we can possibly do.

Not long ago, I went to a professional about a problem common among people my age. I was worried about the problem and had taken a lot of steps to solve the problem over the years. After our consultation was over, and I and done what was asked of me, I felt a kind of peace. I had done all that I knew to do about the problem. Now, the future is in the hands of God. I’ve done my part, and all I need to do is to keep doing my part. If it doesn’t work out, I’ve done my best.

The peace we get from getting the thorns out of our lives is the peace of having done the best we can do. We may still wish we had a bit more money, more things, more pleasures, etc. However, we have them in the proper place; and, we can no longer be seriously shaken by our desires. With God first in our lives, we have plenty of time and money left for secondary things—and these secondary things no longer dominate us the way they used to. There is something liberating about this.

An Important Key to Fruitful Discipleship: Get Rid of the Thorns

This week our text really asks us to do two things: First take an inventory of the thorns in our lives. Secondly, we must perform what I call a “thornectomy” on them. No two of us have exactly the same thorns. For some people, things are thorns that barely bother others. However, we all have thorns in the garden of our heart that can and will crush out faith if we let them grow. If we are to be the disciples God calls us to be, one of the first things we must do is cut the thorns out of our lives or burn them to the ground so that they no longer choke our faith to death.

Copyright G. Christopher Scruggs, 2015, All Rights Reserved

[1] William Barclay, “Mark” in The Daily Bible Study Series Rev. Ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1975), 96.

“Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.” Then Jesus said, ‘Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear’” (Mark 4:3-9).

When we moved to Brownsville, Tennessee, we lived in a home with very shallow topsoil and a lot of clay underneath. It was almost an acre. One winter, we decided to purchase a pine tree that would grow in the midsouth as a Christmas tree and then plant it in our yard. A group of men in the church helped move the very heavy tree in and out of the house, a farmer with a backhoe helped dig a hole of the correct size and depth, and we planted the tree at the recommended time of year. It was dead by August 1. The soil was just too shallow and poor to support the tree. Over the time we lived in the house, we had a similar problem with every non-irrigated foot of our yard. Each time we planted anything less hardy than privet, it looked good for a short time, and then when the weather got hot and dry as it does in mid-summer, it died.

Last week, we began a series of sermons concerning the Parable of the Four Soils. The parable is about a farmer that sows seed in a field. Some falls on ground that is packed hard and filled with rocks. Nothing ever grows there. Some seed falls on what is called “rocky ground,” that is soil where the topsoil is not deep enough and rich enough to allow the plant to receive nutrients when the weather is hot and dry. Some soil falls in among the thorns. Some soil falls in the places where there is deep topsoil.

In the parable, God is the sower, the Word is the seed, and we are various soils. Last week, we talked about what it means to have a heart so hard that nothing, not even the Word of God, can penetrate it. This is is the worst condition we can be in. When our hearts are hard, we do not even allow God to enter into our being. We don’t respond to the Gospel. The Word of God, the Wisdom of God, and the Grace of God are simply eaten away by the Evil One.

Soil in Jesus’ Day and In Ours

Years ago, I had an opportunity to travel to Israel. A retired Baptist pastor, beloved in Brownsville, led a trip to Israel every few years. He lived across the street from the Presbyterian Church, and his next-door neighbor was one of our members, an elderly lady who loved her neighbor and our church. As this retired pastor entered his 80’s, his friends had mostly died, and so he had trouble filling up his last trip to the Holy Land. In addition, he had fallen off his roof and had several pins in his legs and hip. Our Session asked if I would go along to help fill up the trip. The congregation offered to help with the costs, and so I went. We landed in Tel Aviv late one night. After clearing customs, we got on a bus and traveled north of Tel Aviv to a hotel in a beautiful place on the Mediterranean Sea area called “Natanya.”

The next day, we got up and traveled first to Haifa and then south to Nazareth. At one point, we crossed from Israel to the West Bank. In some places, unimproved land in Israel and the West Bank reminds me of the Hill Country of Texas. It is filled with rocks with very little topsoil. A few rugged trees and grasses can live in the soil, but most of it can intermittently be just barren rocky soil.

Jesus, of course, had walked the “hill country” of the Galilee from one side to the other. He was very familiar with rocky, shallow soil. One characteristic of this soil is that it is shallow, rocky, and poor. In the winter and spring when there is some rain grass and a few hardy plants can grow, but when the sun gets hot the water in the soil evaporates, and almost any crop dies.

We sometimes read our Bibles and think of what a religious people the ancient Jews must have been. Scholars think otherwise. There is a passage in II Chronicles that alerts us to the fact that, from the time of the prophet Samuel until the days of Josiah, Passover was rarely, if ever, celebrated by the average people or by the leaders of Israel. Only a few folks probably continued to celebrate the feast. [1] It faded from most people’s memory. The writer James Michener wrote a famous novel about ancient Israel called The Source. [2] I remember being kind of disturbed by his portrayal of the Jewish people in the ancient world. He pictured them as only partially captured by the religion of Moses, and continually intermixing with the native religions. It was not until I got to seminary that I learned that this is probably true. The Jews could have a very shallow faith.

The ancient Jews were not unlike us. They were busy and often had all the worries people have. Discipleship takes time and energy, and they did not always have the time and energy. They lived in a culture in which there were many non-Jews, most of whom worshiped fertility gods and goddesses. Over time, many Jews only paid only nominal attention to the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus would have known many such people. They had some connection to the faith of Israel, but when the crops were bad, they visited the pagan shrines, performed the ancient fertility rites, and hoped for the best. Their faith was a shallow faith.

We laugh each Christmas and Easter about “Christmas and Easter Christians.” The truth is, however, that the problem with contemporary Christianity is a bit deeper than just those who rarely attend. All of us some of the time, and a few of us most of the time, are content to be shallow Christians. We are unprepared for the heat of the trials that come into every human life. When trials come, we don’t have the depth to meet them.

What Prevents Your Soil from Being Deep?

When I began thinking about this blog, I thought it would be hard. First of all, Americans in general don’t like to be called shallow. There is something in our psyche that rebels against that particular charge. Second, I don’t normally think of myself as a shallow person. I can relate to hardness of heart and thorns a lot easier than I can relate to shallow soil. (At least I could before I began to write this sermon.) Therefore, I began to think of the ways in which I can be a shallow Christian. Interestingly, it was not long before it was much easier to to think of myself as spiritually shallow.

Perhaps it will help to think about what it means to be shallow soil. Literally, our text reads “rocky ground.” The land in Springfield Missouri is really rocky and my father was a gardener. I am very familiar with the need to remove rocks from soil. Whenever my father would extend his garden or plant a new one, one of the things we most needed was a pick age. The ground around Springfield is filled with rocks, some of them so big you have to break them to get them out of the ground. Planting a garden meant getting rid of rocks.

I used to travel to Lexington Kentucky to attend Asbury Theological Seminary. In order to shave a few miles off my journey, I would take a short cut that took me through the horse country outside of Lexington. I used to wonder at the fields where those thoroughbreds graze: they were greener and had fewer weeds than my front lawn! Interestingly, it was not the grass that first attracted me. It was the wonderful, lovely rock walls lining the fields for miles. Where do suppose those rock walls came from? They came from the fields. The farmers who originally farmed that land, removed the rocks, and worked the soil until the land was able to grow that lovely grass.

In order to have good soil, you have to remove the rocks and deepen the topsoil. It may, therefore, be important for us to ask the question, “What are the rocks in our spiritual topsoil?” One of the most important things Christians can do to make our spiritual topsoil better is remove the rocks. The biggest rocks in our field are sins we have never confessed, never repented of, never gotten out of our lives. We all have such sins. These are the sins we kind of like and don’t want to stop. We may occasionally feel bad about them. We may confess them in the sense that we know they are there. But, we have never really and truly repented and removed them.

We might ask if we, like many ancient Jews, have shallow commitment that simply will not withstand the pressures of hard times. In order to sustain our faith through the many, many difficult times of life, we have to be committed. The word in the Bible we translate “faith” does not mean simply believing that Jesus was the Son of God. It includes the element of trust. We have to believe in our minds and in the depth of our hearts, so that we live and act on the basis of our faith. Our faith is like a marriage: we must be committed to God and to his Word absolutely and without compromise.

We can also ask if we lack will power. You know, I have never run a Marathon. I have a medical reason I sometimes give, but the truth may be that I just do not have the will power to do the level of necessary training. I don’t want to get up at 5:30 every morning week after week, month after month and run several miles. The spiritual life is not a sprint. It is a Marathon, and it takes will power. You have to get up and be a disciple even when it is cold or hot and you don’t feel like it.

The life of discipleship also takes endurance and conditioning. I don’t watch a lot of sports, but here is what I can tell you—most experts will tell you that the difference between the best athletes and the average athletes is not usually native talent. Once you get to the professional level or the highest college level, all the athletes are extremely talented. It is conditioning that makes the difference. It is conditioning that produces the endurance athletes need. It is keeping on keeping on every day in the conditioning process and not letting up. Endurance is the single most important thing in a Marathon—and it is important in our spiritual life.

The difference between Mother Teresa and most of us is not native talent. It is practice. It is being a disciple in good times and in bad, in rainy seasons and dry seasons, in times of growth and times of stagnation. It is being a better disciple tomorrow than I was today, day after day, month after month, year after year. When we do that, we grow as disciples and we bear a crop for God.

Improving Your Topsoil

Many, many years ago, I backpacked across Europe. One day, high in the Swiss Alps, I stopped because something smelled really bad. In the field just down the road a farmer was emptying his septic tank, spraying the accumulated waste into his field using a giant hose. For generations, every spring and early summer the farmers in Switzerland have been emptying their septic tanks and fertilizing their fields. After a few hundred years of this, you have some really great fields.

This fall, we had the opportunity to visit Italy for a wedding. The land in Italy in the area we were in is very interesting. I have told many people, the land outside the window of our room was so lovely, I thought I was in a scene from the Lord of the Rings where Tolkien describes Hobbiton in my copy of the Fellowship of the Ring. [3] It looked just like the cover of my old copy from college. Interestingly, the land is often kind of rocky and poor near where we were. However, generations of farmers have tilled and improved that soil. They have built little walls to keep erosion down, fertilized, hoed, and deepened the soil year after year for generations until it contains lovely olive groves and vineyards. Good farmers are always improving their soil. Great farmers of the past did so year after year, after year.

If we want the soil of our souls to be deep, fertile, and lovely, we are going to have to go about the task of improving the soil. We are all sinners. We all have rocks in our souls. We all will have some “rocky sin” in our lives until the day of our death. But we can have deeper spiritual soil than we have today. Actually, God has made it pretty simple, if not pretty easy. Here are a few simple tips.

First, get rid of those rocks. It really helps to form the habit of reviewing each day and asking what you think you did best and worst. If you have a temper, or a rash tongue, or a tendency to drink a bit too much, or whatever, I can assure you that reminding yourself daily that you wish you had done something a bit differently is a wonderful way to keep your mind on the rock in your spiritual life you want to remove. [4]

Pray for yourself, your family, your friends, and your co-workers—everyone you know. Pray for the Holy Spirit to enter your life in a new way. Read your Bible daily and join some small group of folks who are getting together to let the Word of God transform them. Finally, find a place to serve. Service changes you outside and inside. We need also to remember that part of serving is sowing. In the Parable, God is the Sower, Christ is the Sower, the Apostles are the Sower—and we are the sower. Our primary duty as Christians is to sow the Word of God into the lives people day in and day out.

God Wants Us to be Deep.

You remember my trip to the Holy Land? I forgot to mention a little fact. At one point we crossed a border. On one side of the border, the land was wasteland. Within just a few yards, we saw oranges, grapes, grapefruit, and all kinds of crops. What made the difference? One one side no one improved the soil, never irrigated, never fertilized, never added new humus, never improved the soil. On the other side they did.

Jesus told us this parable to teach us that we need to be sure that the soil of our souls is deep enough so that the seed of faith doesn’t just pop up and die, but has room to grow and prosper, even in hard times. To do this we must get rid of the rocks of sin, pray, read our Bibles daily, and serve others in love. This is the key to having a deep heart.

Prayer: God of Wisdom and Love: Thank you for this wonderful parable of the human heart. You came to show us what we were intended to be and to give us a glimpse of the wonders of your Kingdom. You call us to enter this kingdom of wisdom and love as little children. Help us to hear this story with the ears of little children and to understand in the depth of our souls its meaning for our lives. In Jesus Name, Amen.

 

Copyright, 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] II Chronicles 35:12 reads: “The Passover had not been observed like this in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel; and none of the kings of Israel had ever celebrated such a Passover as did Josiah, with the priests, the Levites and all Judah and Israel who were there with the people of Jerusalem.

[2] James A. Michener, The Source (New York, NY: Marjay Books, 1963).

[3] J.R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (New York, Ballantine Books, 1965).

[4] One of the best ways to do this is to have the habit of examining yourself daily. A common so-called examen is one attributed to St. Ignatius: It goes something like this: 1. Become aware of God’s presence. 2. Review the day with gratitude. 3. Pay attention to your emotions. 4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it. 5. Look toward tomorrow. See more at: http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen/#sthash.zzhGUx24.dpuf

“Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.” Then Jesus said, ‘Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear’” (Mark 4:3-9).

About four months ago, Kathy sent me a note concerning a discipleship program she wanted to help begin at our church. For several years, I have been pondering how we could have a more vital local evangelism and discipleship program. Because we are involved in Living Waters for the World, I have pondered how we might develop a more intentional evangelism program for our Living Waters installations. Because our church has an active local and international missions program, I have wondered how we might do something in the area of evangelism and discipleship that was truly international–something that would work in America and overseas. As I began to read about the program Kathy sent me, I became very excited, because it seemed to me that it potentially answered these questions.

Part of the program Kathy sent to me is built upon the “Parable of the Four Soils” found in all three of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Immediately, the idea came to me for a four-week sermon series entitled, “What Kind of Soil are You?” Once the staff got their mind around the idea of four sermons on one parable of Jesus, they suggested that we change the title to “The Four Soils: Working in God’s Field.” For the next few blogs, will be looking at one aspect of the Parable of the Four Soils and then talking about how this parable challenges us as we grow as disciples in Christ.

I think it was about thirty-five years ago that I first read this parable as a new Christian. I’ve now read it many, many times through many phases of life. This story, which is absolutely one of the most important of Jesus’ parables, challenges and enlightens every Christian in every phase of the Christian life. I have experienced times when my life looked like each of these soils, and I hope the next weeks will help readers think about how they can become better disciples of Christ in 2015.

Jesus often taught in parables—seemingly simple stories that, properly understood, open up the reality of God and God’s Word in new and powerful ways. Some people can pass over the parables just because they seem so simple. This is a great mistake. When I was a new Christian, I liked the clear passages of the teachings of Jesus and Paul because they helped me the most. These days, I like the parables more and more. Twenty years as a preacher have shown me how hard it is to be simple and clear. Twenty years as a preacher has taught me that the most profound lessons cannot really be taught propositionally. They must be taught in such a way that they enter the heart of the person. Jesus was a master of this art.

The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard talked about the importance of indirect communication. Direct communication is when we state a proposition or lesson clearly and didactically. We leave the reader no choice but to accept or reject what we are saying. There is a place for this kind of teaching. There is, however, another kind of communication. This kind of communication we may call “indirect communication.” Here we leave the reader open to understand the story or concept in different ways. In his book, Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard tells and retells the story of Abraham and Isaac in different ways, all the while making the reader think about Abraham and his faith, and how unusual this faith was. [1] By this method, he hoped to help the reader—and all of us—come to a deeper understanding of Christian faith. This is exactly what Jesus is doing in his parables.

The Battle Between Farmers and Birds

In Mark, the Parable of the Four Soils is found after Jesus has been introduced as the One who brings the Kingdom and the Good News of the Kingdom to Israel. By this time, he had gained a certain amount of notoriety and opposition to his teaching had begun to develop. The parable is set near Capernaum, by the Sea of Galilee. The crowd that came to see him was so large that he got into a boat and began to teach (Mark 4:1-2). One can imagine that in the crowd there were those who wanted to know more and those who really came to criticize Jesus.

Jesus tells a pretty simple story about a first century Jewish farmer. It is very possible that, as Jesus was teaching, he looked up and saw a farmer sowing seed and told the parable as a farmer was actually doing exactly what he described. [2] If this interpretation is true, Jesus was both using a story and an object example to reinforce his teaching and to support the memories of his listeners.

In Jesus’ day, fields were crudely prepared.  A farmer would go through his field, remove rocks and other impediments to growth, rough the ground, clear thorns and weeds, and then sow seeds by hand. Many of the fields around Jesus would have had paths running through them, perhaps running from the Sea of Galilee up into the hills beyond. A farmer might walk down one of these paths sowing seed by hand. As he threw the seed, the wind would catch some of it and blow the seed back on the path. Other of the seed would travel out, some to the very perimeter of the little field. After sowing, a good farmer would then cover the seed as best he could with dirt to prevent birds from eating most of next year’s crop. Some of the seed, however, fell right on the path where it could not possibly grow. There, the land was filled with rocks and the dirt beaten hard as concrete by passing feet. Nothing could live there. Therefore, whatever was left on the path sooner or later was going to be eaten by the birds.

When I was thinking about this parable, I had two images in mind almost immediately. The first was the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds.” [3] If you remember the movie, you will recall that the movie depicts a town in California that is suddenly attacked by swarms of birds who try to injure and even kill human beings. It was very scary! It turns out that Hitchcock’s use of birds as a main character in a horror movie is not without precedent. Jesus does the same thing! It turns out that the Bible just occasionally uses birds, and especially black birds, as a symbol for evil. [4]

The second memory was a memory of reading Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Raven” when I was in Junior High or High School. We all remember the constant dark refrain in the poem, “Nevermore!” The  Raven in that poem was really pretty scary. The poem ends with the Raven depicted as a demon like creature. It reads like this:

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil – prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us – by that God we both adore –
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore –
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting – “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken! – quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted – nevermore!” [5]

Jesus, when he explained the parable to his disciples, identified the birds with the Evil One, Satan, or the Devil who prevents and devours human connection with God if at all possible (Matthew 13:19; Mark 4:15; Luke 8:12). This identification must have some common resonance in the human psyche. We all have a kind of fear of irrational creatures that can peck at us and harm us.  For farmers, until quite recently, birds were predators that might eat up a crop if not scared away by the farmer with scarecrows and the like. In Jesus’ day, no farmer would have wanted to see birds near his field eating his seed or his crop. We are not supposed to like these birds or the idea that we might be like the seed that falls on the rocky path. This is a place no sane human wants to be or should be.

The Battle in our Hearts

The parable, then, portrays a battle between God and the Evil One, a battle that is being fought on level of the human heart. God is constantly sowing his message of love, mercy and grace into our lives and into our hearts. The question is not, “Does God love us?” The question is, “Are we open to the message of God’s love?”

Over and over again in the Bible we are told that God is interested in the heart. For example, In Proverbs, the writers often talk about the importance of the heart:

“My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you peace and prosperity. Let love and faithfulness never leave you;  bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:1-6 [emphasis added]).

In Jeremiah, when the prophet speaks of what God will do when the Messiah comes with the Kingdom says: “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:32-33). In Ezekiel, God makes it even plainer when the prophet says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).

As we mentioned more than once in the wisdom series, the human heart in the Old Testament is more than an organ for pumping blood to the organs of the body. It is the human person at the depth of the being of the human soul. It is the unique combination of our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual being. It is what makes “us” us. One reason why Jesus uses parables is that he is after more than how we think. He is after a change of heart. He wants us to change our entire orientation toward reality. He wants to change how we think, act, feel, and how our thoughts, emotions, and actions impact our personhood.

The Prophets and Wise Men of Israel recognized that the human race has a heart problem. We are all subject to hardness of heart, towards God, towards family members and friends, and towards other people. Jesus tells this parable to warn us that one of the problems we human beings can have is to have hard hearts. Therefore, when God sows some seed of the Spirit, some seed of Grace, some seed of his Kingdom, some seed of his Love, into our lives, one thing we can and often do is to harden our hearts and reject what is being offered us.

Most Christians understand that it is never an excuse to say, “The Devil made me do it.” There may be times in my life when the Devil made me do it, but in each of those times I can look back and see that Chris was cooperating with the Devil in some way. The fact that we are being tempted, the fact that we face overwhelming spiritual opposition, the fact that our faith does not seem to be bringing us the life we hoped for and desire, does not excuse our bad or faithless behavior. Our best bet when tempted is not to harden our hearts, not to reject the love of God, and to be sure that the seed of God’s word falls in a field ready for it to grow in.

Jesus, the Parable, and Us

This Parable of the Four Soils is not easy for a number of reasons. In the parable, we see in the person of the farmer the person of God, who sends his message of grace by prophets and others. We also see Jesus who has been sent by God to share the good news of the Kingdom, as he just told is in Mark 1:15. [6] Finally, we see the figure of those who shared the Word with us and those with whom we share the Word. The farmer is God, Jesus, and each person from the days of Jesus until now who ever shared the Good News with another person. [7]

The Seed is the Word of God, the Good News of God’s love for the human race: of God’s forgiveness for our sins in Christ,  in the love of God showed on the cross, and in the salvation and New Life we can have in Christ. The Seed is that in us that can result in a crop of love, peace, godliness and joy in our lives. We might think of Galatians in this regard where Paul says:

“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:19:24).

The Evil One wants us to harden our hearts to the things of the Spirit so that we will be concentrated on the things of the flesh and miss out on the blessings of God. God wants us to be filled with the seed of his spirit and grow in the fruit on the spirit can give: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

I think most of us can think of times in our lives and areas of our lives when and where our hearts have been less than receptive to God. We are not to judge, but most of us, I think, can think of people we have known whose fundamental problem was a hard heart. Jesus warns us that there is a God and there is an Evil One. The Evil One can and does try as best he can to kill any hope of spiritual growth in us. I don’t know about you, but I have experienced times when I just made a resolution to avoid a temptation—and right after that resolution, I was tempted! At such times it is good not to have a hard heart.

This problem of hard hearts can give us pause as we share the gospel with others. No one likes to be rejected. The parable gives us a kind of answer to this problem. The Sower knows that some of the seed is going to fall along the path. The birds will in fact eat some of the seed. Nevertheless, the sower sows. As Disciples of Christ, we too must sow knowing that not all the seed we sow will bear fruit. One of the commentaries I read quotes an inscription from St. Paul’s Cathedral in London that reads: ““Fear not to sow because of birds!” [8]

January 2015: Reflecting on Our Walk with Christ

I am excited to be able to take one whole year and concentrate on what it means to be a better disciple of Jesus Christ. When Kathy and I begin a trip, we take out maps and think about the journey we will take. Then, Kathy begins to get maps of specific places and perhaps books and brochures about the places we will see. When I begin looking at the map I always begin by finding Memphis and tracing the journey. We all begin somewhere and the best way not to get lost is to figure out where we are and where we are going right at the beginning.

We are all beginning the journey of 2015, and our own personal journey of the coming year. It is a good idea to begin with a time of centering on the truth of where exactly we are on the journey. Some of us are at the very beginning of the life of faith. Some of us are halfway through our discipleship journey. Some of us are near the end. We are all somewhere on the journey of discipleship.

Our hearts are also somewhere in some condition. I have been through times when my heart was hard, shallow, thorn-encrusted, and fertile. This week in staff meeting, I made the comment that each one of us—each human being—is a strange combination of hardness, shallowness, thorniness, and depth. I think we all find ourselves in more than one place in the parable. That is a good kind of taking stock as well. It is good to ask, “Where am I hard, shallow, cluttered with desire, deep and fertile.

The purpose of this taking stock is not just to take stock. God is not interested in our reaching some mental idea of where we are on the journey of discipleship. Looking at a map is part of taking a journey. It is part of beginning the journey of the year to come with a commitment to developing a soft, deep, fertile heart, filled with seeds of God’s love and growing a great crop of fruits of the spirit in our own lives and in the lives of others.

Prayer: God of Wisdom and Love: Thank you for this wonderful parable of the human heart. You came to show us what we were intended to be and to give us a glimpse of the wonders of your Kingdom. You call us to enter this kingdom of wisdom and love as little children. Help us to hear this story with the ears of little children and to understand in the depth of our souls its meaning for our lives. In Jesus Name, Amen.

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (London, ENG: Penguin Books, 1983).

[2] William Barclay, “Mark” in The Daily Bible Study Series Rev. Ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1975), 88ff.

[3] “The Birds”, wr. Evan Hunter, dr. Alfred Hitchcock, based on the novel by Dauphne Du Muaurier starring Rod Taylor and Tippy Hendren (1963).

[4] This parable is not the only place in Scripture in which birds are used as symbols for evil. Revelation 8: 2 reads: “And [an angel] cried mightily with a loud voice, saying Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a habitation of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird!” This is not a univocal idea, however. Doves for example, are often used as symbols of the Holy Spirit.

[5] Edgar Allen Poe, “The Raven” https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome instant&ion=1&espv= 2&es_th=1&ie=UTF 8#q=the+raven+poem+text&revid=1280564404 (Downloaded January 8, 2015). Poe in writing of a raven is drawing upon our human fear of beasts that might peck and kill in a moment of irrationality. Birds, like parrots can speak, and thus appear almost human or possessed by a demon while still being brutes.

[6] Mark 1:15 reads, “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

[7] If one surveys commentaries and sermons on the parable, one finds writers and preachers focusing on each one of these alternatives.

[8] This quote is found in Hallford E. Luccock, “Exposition” in Volume 7: The Interpreters Bible: The Gospel According to St. Mark George Buttrick, ed. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1951), 696. The inscription is found on a bronze tablet found in the cathedral in memory of Canon Samuel Barnet who worked in London’s east end for many years.