Getting Away From it All

Getting Away From it All

Mark 6:30-32

            Recently my wife and I have had a number of responsibilities pile up on us.  We seem to be rushing from one activity to another until late in the evening.  When we finally get a chance to slow down it takes us a while before we can unwind enough to go to bed.  As a result, on a recent weekend, we did nothing.  Except for church on Sunday we didn’t leave the house from Friday night to Monday morning.  We have an idea of how Jesus and his disciples must have felt.

            Earlier in this chapter, Jesus sent his disciples out to practice what he had been teaching them.  Mark doesn’t tell us how long they were gone, but when they returned they must have been both exhausted and exhilarated.  We can see them talking to Jesus, probably all at once, telling him of their successes, their failures, the wonderful things they had seen and experienced, all while their eyes were half shut because they were falling asleep.

            Jesus recognized the symptoms.  Hadn’t he sometimes become exhausted while being about his Father’s business?  Hadn’t he needed to get off by himself and pray, renewing his energy through contact with the One who sent him?  So Jesus suggested a little R&R.  “Come away by yourselves,” he said, “to a desolate place and rest a while.” 

            We must not take this word desolate too seriously.  When we use the word we usually mean something devoid of any beauty, a bare landscape with nothing to recommend it as a vacation spot—like the badlands in the Dakotas, perhaps.  I believe Mark is indicating a place with no distractions—no fast food restaurants, no movie theatres, no amusement parks.  This is a place where they can be alone together and decompress while Jesus debriefs them.

            We know it didn’t work out that way.  When they got into the boat and headed for their private retreat, people saw them and took off on foot, knowing the shortcuts that would get them there first.  By the time the boat pulled in to shore a crowd of over five thousand had gathered, waiting to be fed.  Jesus had no choice but to feed them—spiritually as well as physically.  As Mark tells us, “he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”

            We don’t know when the disciples got time to relax.  We do know Jesus spent much of that night praying alone, recharging his spiritual batteries, before walking across the water to them.  We can be sure that at some point they must have had time to refresh themselves, to recoup their energy.  No one can go on forever without some down time.  As my wife and I spent last weekend doing much of nothing, so the disciples had to eventually find time to be alone with Jesus.

            So often we allow ourselves to overwork.  We’re tired—we know it.  We’re running on empty—we know it.  Our batteries desperately need recharging—we know it.  Still, we push on.  People need us.  There’s work to be done.  There are projects that must be completed; messes to be tidied up; meals to be cooked; children to be cared for.  How can we possibly take time off?  But Jesus says to us, “Come away by yourselves to a quiet place and rest a while.”

            If we don’t heed Jesus’ words we might run out of steam at the moment we’re needed most.  When our bodies and our spirits crave rest we owe it to those who are dependent on us, to all the work that must be done (and work will always need to be done!), and to all the projects that need to be completed, to gather our strength for what lies ahead.

            “Come away,” Jesus says.  “Take some time off to be alone with me.  Let me feed you.  Talk to me.  Tell me what’s going on in your life.  Tell me what you need.  Decompress and let me debrief you for a while.  It will be good for your body—and your soul.”

Too Many Men

Too Many Men

Judges 7:1-23

            When I was a young boy I loved to hear my father tell Bible stories.  When I was older, and counseling at church camps, I told the boys in my cabin the same stories during nightly devotions.  I hope the stories were as memorable for them as my father made them for me. 

One of my favorites was the story of Gideon.  You can find him in chapters 6-8 in the Book of Judges. 

Once again the people of Israel had turned their backs on God.  The writer of Judges tells us they did evil in God’s sight.  Their punishment was the Midianites. After the Israelite farmers had done all the hard work, the Midianites swept down at harvest time and stole the crops.  Since Israel had no standing army, they were sitting ducks.

            God came to Gideon in the person of an angel, and told him he had been chosen to lead Israel against her oppressors.  Gideon asked for proof.  After all, this was no small task, leading a disorganized bunch of farmers against a trained army so large it couldn’t be numbered.  God supplied the proof to Gideon’s satisfaction, and Gideon sent out a call for fighters.

            We’re told 32,000 showed up at the spring of Harod.  We can be sure they didn’t look much like soldiers.  Gideon must have been disappointed at the ragtag bunch.  Then God surprised him by saying, “Gideon, you have too many men!”

            There was a method to God’s madness.  God wanted to be sure Israel understood that it was God who had saved them from their enemies and not themselves.  It was not a question of strength, but of whose strength would win the battle.  If Israel had strength of force—even untrained force, the people might continue to rely on themselves instead of turning back to God.

            Gideon gathered his troops and announced, “If any of you are afraid to fight, or if obligations at home would distract you from concentrating on the battle, feel free to leave.”  Twenty-two thousand men left, which meant Gideon had ten thousand untrained troops to fight against the disciplined Midianite army.  God said again, “Gideon, you have too many men.”

            With (I’m sure) a sigh, Gideon led the men to the spring and told them to take a drink.  Most knelt on both knees and used both hands, discarding their weapons so they could get more water.  A significant few, on one knee, scooped up a little water in one hand while they kept their weapons at the ready.  God said, “Send the others home.  This is your fighting force.”  Gideon looked around.  He was left with only 300 men—but they were ready to fight.

            That night, Gideon divided his troops into groups of 100, and placed them around three sides of the Midianite camp.  Each fighter had a trumpet and a torch covered with a jar.  At Gideon’s command, everyone blew their trumpets, smashed the jars, exposing the torches, and cried, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”

            You can imagine what happened.  The camp was in an uproar, with everyone running around half asleep, and fighting with anyone they encountered.  Gideon’s men waited until the enemy had sufficiently decimated itself to make the mop-up operation easy.  The Bible tells how Gideon’s force, now joined by other Israelites, pursued the Midianites and completed the rout of the once unbeatable army.

            Just so does God lead us in battle against our enemies.  These enemies will most often be spiritual rather than physical, but they are the ones that threaten our souls.  We haven’t the strength to conquer these foes, but God does.  If we listen to God, and use the tools God provides, we are assured of victory.  With God’s help we can all be Gideons.

Jesus and Women

Jesus and Women

John 4:1-42

            Jesus was constantly breaking rules.  When we read the accounts of his life we applaud his individuality, the way he stood up to authority, his willingness to defy the leaders of his day and put them in their reactionary place.  Then we turn around and construct rules that are every bit as binding as those Jesus fought against.  Worse yet, we use Scripture to justify those rules, just as the Pharisees used their interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures to justify their binding, smothering rules in Jesus’ day.

            Nowhere is Jesus’ rule-breaking more evident than in his interactions with women.  Relationships between men and women in first-century Judea were very structured.  Men didn’t talk to women—even their relatives—in public.  While the rules governing women’s movements were not as strict as those Islamic extremists seek to put in place today, females had no status in society other than that of daughter, wife or mother.  They were their father’s daughter until they became their husband’s wife—that is, always under the control of a man.  Only by death—their own or their husband’s—could they be freed from this control.  If her husband was wealthy, a woman might be left well-off by his death.  Usually, however, the husband was from the working class, if not downright poor, and the widow would be destitute.

            Jesus turned all these rules upside down.  Luke tells us that several women followed him as he travelled from place to place.  Some of them provided financial support for his ministry.  Jesus also had women friends who were not his relatives, among them the sisters Mary and Martha.  We’ve heard about them for so long that the relationship doesn’t seem remarkable to us, but in the first century such an association would have been unimaginable—for anyone but Jesus.

            There are many stories in the gospels that give us insight into Jesus’ dealings with women:  the woman with a hemorrhagic condition; the woman caught in adultery; the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet; the Syro-Phoenician woman.  There is speculation that Mary Magdalene might have been a member of his inner circle.  She was, after all, the only woman mentioned by all four gospel writers as being at the tomb on Easter morning.  Perhaps the male disciples, not fully understanding or accepting Jesus’ radical attitude towards women “air brushed” her out of the picture.

            One of the most interesting stories of Jesus’ interaction with a woman took place at a well in Samaria.  Jesus broke many rules that day.  First, he talked with a Samaritan, something a Jew would never do—especially a rabbi, a teacher of the law.  This alone would have been shocking. 

            Second, he broke the cardinal rule against speaking with a woman in public.  Third, he asked her for a drink.  Asking an unrelated woman for anything was just not done—especially this woman.  You see, she came to the well at the wrong hour of the day.  Women went for water early in the morning or at dusk, not in the heat of the afternoon.  Later in the story we are given hints that she came when she would not expect to encounter anyone because of her less-than-acceptable lifestyle.

            Yet Jesus spoke to her, gave her words of life, and offered redemption.  She became the first female evangelist.  When she was given grace, rather than keep it to herself, she ran to the village and told everyone about Jesus and his message of salvation.  She led them to Christ.

            When Paul says God is no respecter of persons, he is recognizing what Jesus taught throughout his ministry.  Gender, race, economic status, political affiliation don’t matter.  We are all valuable in God’s sight, and God wants to have a relationship with all of us.

More than Conquerors

More than Conquerors

Romans 8:31-39

Paul has spun out a long theological argument, stating that if we focus on life in the Spirit rather than the life of the flesh we will be “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.”  What a promise!  This is the legal language of a last will and testament.  We will be remembered in God’s will.  (Yes, I know:  God is not going to die—but no metaphor is perfect.)  Our future reward is secure:  life eternal with God and fellowship with Jesus Christ.

When we read the next verses, those in today’s passage, there seems to have been some objection raised.  It sounds as if someone said, “How secure is this promise?  What if someone or something gets in the way and messes things up?  Isn’t it possible we could lose our inheritance?  After all, wills can be challenged.”

Paul answers firmly:  “If God is for us, who can be against us?”  This is the God who created us.  This is the God who sent Jesus Christ, God’s own Son—“gave him up for us all” is how Paul puts it.  This same Jesus Christ, who died for us and was raised from the dead, stands as advocate for us.  If God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son are for us, who will be able to stand against them?  Our future—our inheritance—is secure.

Paul then asks:  “ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?”  Two verses later he answers the question:  “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

It’s difficult to imagine a more affirmative statement.  Paul doesn’t leave much out.  While the list in his answer doesn’t exactly parallel the list in his question, we get the idea.  Nothing nor no one will be able to separate us from God!  Paul left out only one possibility—ourselves.

Remember the parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7)?  We’re not told how the sheep got lost, but with what we know about sheep we can figure it out.  Sheep aren’t very smart, and when they’re concentrating on eating, they forget everything else.  Imagine for a moment that you’re a sheep, feeding on some delicious grass on the hillside.  “Here’s a great tuft; and over there, there’s another; and there!  There!  Look at that!  A whole lot of tasty grass!  And I have it all to myself.  No one else has found it.”  You wander from one patch of grass to another, and another, and another, until—where did everyone go?

Suddenly you realize it’s getting late, and you can’t see the shepherd or the other sheep, and you’ve wandered into a grove of trees, and—you’re lost!  How will you get home?  There are no signposts or familiar landmarks to guide you back.  What do you do now?

Just so we can wander away from God.  It has happened to me, and I’m sure it has happened to someone you know—perhaps even yourself.  Our lack of attention to God may cause us to grow apart from God.  Sometimes we wander far enough away that we can’t find the way back.

Thank heavens God doesn’t give up on us.  Like the good shepherd, God comes looking.  We may not know the way home, but God can find us and bring us back—back to the fold and safety.  We have the assurance that God keeps looking, and calling our name, just as the shepherd calls the name of the lost sheep, waiting to hear a response.

Can anything separate us from the love of God?  No!  Even if we wander from God’s presence, God calls us back, searching until we return, conquering all obstacles with God’s help.

Pax Deus

Pax Deus

John 14:27

            It’s easy to have world peace.  All that is needed is a ruler so powerful that he (she) can control the entire world; so dominant that he (she) will tolerate no dissent; and so cruel that he (she) punishes any sign of rebellion immediately, viciously, and totally.  Such a situation occurred when the Roman Empire was at its height.  Most of the then-known world was under the control of Rome.  The emperors brooked no opposition.  Any hint of revolt was quickly crushed, with all rebels not simply put to death, but executed publicly and in the cruelest way possible. 

            Lest we think that Jesus Christ and the two thieves were the only ones to suffer crucifixion, remember that it was the favorite form of punishment for anyone who dared stand against the forces of Rome.  The concluding scene of the movie “Spartacus” gives us a good example.  We are shown a view of the Appian Way, the main road into the city.  Down the road, as far as we can see, there are men hanging on crosses, the remnants of a failed slave rebellion.  Anyone entering or leaving Rome would have to pass these dying men. 

            Death came slowly and painfully for those who were crucified.  They were given no water to drink.  Slowly, painfully, their weight interfered with their ability to breathe.  Sometimes death took days, while the body inexorably caved in upon itself. 

The lucky rebels died in battle.  Yet even here no mercy was shown.  The emperor’s soldiers were chosen for their cruelty, then trained to be efficient and merciless killers.  They didn’t just kill:  they dispatched their opponents as brutally as possible.

Who would want to rebel?  Who would want to stand up to Rome, knowing that their fate was sure and certain?  The Pax Romana was assured.  As long as the empire maintained its military superiority and its vicious battle plan there would be peace—but at what price?  Peace was purchased at the expense of freedom. 

What a contrast from the peace Jesus offered his disciples in his final words to them before he too suffered a rebel’s death!  “Peace I leave with you,” he said; “my peace I give to you.”

This is not a new concept.  This is the same peace God promised God’s people from the beginning:  God’s shalom.  This is the peace of Eden before Satan.  This is the peace Isaiah described in 65:25:  “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain.”  The peace at the end of time will be the same as at the beginning of time—not just the absence of conflict, but a peace so perfect humans can’t envision it.  Natural predators and their prey will coexist.  Children will be able to play in the open without fear of gunshot or molestation.  Those who have been enemies for centuries—millennia!—will love their opponents as they love their own families.  Peace will not come because a dictator achieves world domination, but because almighty God—who created the world—will set everyone free. 

But what about now?  Can we have peace now?  “Yes,” Jesus says.  “I leave my peace with you now.  You won’t be able to do much about external conditions, but if you follow me and do my Father’s will, you will have internal peace.  I’m not offering peace as the world does, with strings attached, or in exchange for your freedom.  I’m giving you shalom, free for the taking, given by my grace and through my love for you.

What will you choose:  pax terra or pax Deus?  What are you willing to give up:  life lived by the world’s standards, or life lived in alignment with God’s will? 

It’s your choice.  Choose wisely.

A Radical Approach

A Radical Approach

Deuteronomy 1:1-8

            Forty years!  It had been forty years since God had parted the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to leave Egypt, then closed it over Pharaoh and his army.  For forty years they had wandered in the wilderness of Sinai and the Negev.  Now their wandering was over.  The Promised Land was in sight.  Just across the Jordan River lay the paradise God had prepared for them—the paradise God had been preparing them for all this time.

            But first, a final word from Moses, the prophet who had faithfully led them all these years.  Who else could God have trusted to carry them through these difficult times?  Who else would have put up with their complaining, their rebellion, their turning away from God?

            Moses knew he would not be permitted to lead the people into their promised reward.  He would stay on this side of the Jordan.  Tradition says God led him up Mount Nebo, showed him a vision of the land Israel would inhabit, and then received Moses to his final reward.

            Moses used his farewell address to remind the Israelites of all God had taught them.  Deuteronomy means “the second giving of the law.”  The book is a review of God’s instructions.  We find the Ten Commandments here, restated to remind the people of their obligations to God and their neighbors.  The commandments are the basis of the social, legal and religious code by which the Israelites were to live in their new home.

            Today these commandments seem fundamental to us.  We could not envision our lives without them.  Even those who do not subscribe to the first four (Israel’s relationship with God) find the last six an excellent basis for relationships between people.  I believe it would be difficult to find many nations that do not include them—in one form or another—in their social/moral/legal codes.

            We might think of these commandments as a conservative approach to morality, but that was not true when they were first given.  They were radical.  It’s true that many nations would have had some sort of code that permitted people to live together.  After all, killing, stealing, lying, coveting, illicit sexual relations are problems in any society, and must be outlawed in order for people to be able to coexist; but here they have the power of God behind them.  Killing is not just a crime against a fellow human being, but a sin against God.  The same is true for the other commandments that concern how we relate to our neighbors. 

            To make matters even more serious, the social/moral code is prefaced by a religious code—and what a code it is!  It establishes monotheism as the law of the land, an idea so radical in its day that only Israel followed it.  It is true that for a brief period Egypt had a pharaoh who tried to install a monotheistic religion, but the attempt died with him.  Only Israel of all the nations of the known world at that time believed in the supremacy of one God before whom all human beings and all other heavenly beings must bow.  This was a radical concept!

            Should this surprise us?  Not really.  If we read the Bible carefully we will see that God is a radical.  There is nothing conservative about God.  The laws given by God prove this.  “I am the LORD,” God says.  “You will worship me and only me.  No other god, no other heavenly being, no other object deserves your worship, only me, and you will love your neighbor—all your neighbors—as you love yourself.”

            God’s social code enshrines the idea of democracy.  If we read carefully we see that the commandments make no distinction among people.  There is no preferred upper class.  No one shall kill.  No one shall take what doesn’t belong to him/her.  No one has a right to another person’s spouse, or anything that belongs to any other person.  All are equal in God’s sight and before the law.  God is not a conservative.  God is a radical—and God’s law proves it.

A Cry for Help

A Cry for Help

Exodus 3:1-8

            After listing the sons of Jacob who emigrated from Canaan to Egypt, announcing the death of Joseph, and letting us know that the children of Israel had prospered, the sacred writer tells us, “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.”

            Changes of leadership can be bad for some groups of people, especially those in the minority.  A country can have a significant minority population that fits well with the majority, that does very well for itself, and becomes somewhat integrated with society, but when a new leader, or political party, or governing philosophy or style arises, its minority status becomes alarmingly clear.

            Too often throughout history that minority has been Jewish.  In pre-Exodus Egypt, in Europe from the Middle Ages through the middle twentieth century, in the Middle East today, those of Jewish heritage were and are a minority either persecuted or in danger of persecution.  Are they the only minority to suffer?  By no means!  We have only to look at African-Americans or Hispanic-Americans today, or perhaps Muslim-Americans in the near future to see persecution.  Whoever the people, whatever the time or circumstance, we must realize that persecution of one class of people by another is morally wrong.  Moreover, in nations claiming to be Christian, it must be recognized as being against God’s law.

            Let’s focus on Israel in Egypt.  Things had started off well for Jacob’s children.  Because of Joseph’s service to the nation, Pharaoh had welcomed them with open arms, giving them fertile land to dwell in.  Israelites and Egyptians lived side by side in peace and prosperity.

            Then arose a king who had not known Joseph, who did not have open arms for Jacob’s descendants.  Suddenly, neighbors became strangers, not to be trusted but to be envied for their success.  It wasn’t right for them to do better than the native population.  It wasn’t proper for them to have better homes and farms than their Egyptian counterparts.  Something must be done!

            And done it was!  First, forced labor, then slavery, then genocide, until the children of Israel cried out to their God.  Perhaps, in the good years, they had forgotten about God.  Perhaps they had ceased to pray, to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Perhaps they felt they were doing all right without God’s help.  Perhaps they had forsaken the God of Israel and had begun to worship the gods of Egypt.  Now everything had changed.

            In their helplessness and distress they cried out to God, and God heard them.  YHWH—I AM—sent Moses to break Pharaoh’s heart of stone and lead Israel out of bondage and into the Promised Land.  You would think that would have been enough to seal the relationship between God and God’s people forever, but it didn’t happen that way.  Throughout history, Israel’s leadership led the people astray, or laid a heavy burden of servitude and economic inequality on their backs.  Sometimes the well-off people followed willingly, condemning their less-fortunate brothers and sisters to lives of poverty and misery.

            Whenever the people cried out to God, God sent a deliverer—a prophet, a wise king, an inspired leader.  Finally God sent Jesus Christ, the ultimate answer to the people’s cry for deliverance.

            Today people in bondage still cry out to God.  Whether that bondage is economic, social, psychological or spiritual, whatever pit humans may have fallen or been pushed into, God hears their cry.  But who will help?  Where is the deliverer who will save them?

            Every Christian must raise a hand and say, “Here I am, Lord!  Send me!”