Now is the Moment

Luke 16:19-31
The basic story that Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 16:19-31, had, scholars say, been around for centuries before Jesus told it. But as was true of everything Jesus said and did, He turned the old tale on its head in His telling of it. The twist Jesus gives it is designed to get our attention and to remind us of the urgent need each of us has to turn from sin and claim God’s grace now.

Jesus says: “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.” Purple was, in the ancient world, the color of royalty and of the wealthy. The “fine linen” referred to here is an expensive underwear imported from Egypt. Ordinary folks couldn’t afford it. This first character mentioned in the parable really is a rich guy then.

Read on, please. “At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.” The verb translated here as laid literally means thrown. This beggar has been tossed aside by a world that has no use for the poor, the powerless, the incapacitated, the racially different. For all of the indignities to which this man is subjected though, the beggar is the only fictional character in any of Jesus’ parables given a name: Lazarus, meaning God is my help. (He’s not to be confused with the real man Jesus raised from the dead in Bethany.) The fact that Jesus gives this character a name indicates that God has a high regard for every human being made in His image, no matter what their status among other people may be. The name is ironic though, because no one seems to help Lazarus.

In those days, there were no napkins. (Or silverware.) So the wealthy used scraps of bread to wipe the residue of food off of the fingers they’d just used to eat, then tossed the bread scraps to the floor. And since this was in an age before Hoovers or Dysons, often, dogs, which no one kept as pets and lived as scavengers, would come along and eat the scraps from the floor. In Jesus' parable, Lazarus, desperately hungry, wishes that, like a dog, he could get to the bread scraps the rich man and his guests tossed on the floor. He can’t even do that! He occupies a place lower than dogs.

No two people could be more different than Lazarus and the unnamed rich man in Jesus’ parable. But the difference between them is greater than what can be observed by the naked eye.

See what happens next. “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’”

Don’t be misled here. Lazarus isn’t saved from hellish torment by his poverty and the rich man isn’t denied entrance into the heavenly banquet because of his wealth.

Abraham, the ancestor of all of God’s people, to whose side Lazarus is carried by the angels in Jesus' parable, was himself a wealthy man, wealthy enough to duke it out with kings and kingdoms. But his wealth didn’t keep him out of God’s kingdom.

There are poor people in God’s Kingdom. There are rich people in God’s Kingdom.

Entrance into God's Kingdom happens by a different route.

Genesis 15:6 says that Abraham (then Abram) “believed the Lord, and [God] credited it to [Abraham] as righteousness.” Abraham trusted the promises of God. He trusted God to cover his sins and give him a future. That’s what faith does. Its gifts are available today to all people who turn from sin and trust in the God we now know definitively in Jesus.

The rich man clearly had no faith in God. He lived in unrepentant disrespect for the God he knew about as a Jew, a descendant of Abraham, and as a consequence, with callous disregard for the poor man at his gate.

The rich man seems to feel no sense of irony about asking Abraham to send Lazarus to serve him by cooling his tongue, even though he had, in this life, passed on the opportunity to serve Lazarus in his need.

And it’s here that Jesus’ parable differs from the usual popular tale. Go to verse 25, please: “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’”

In the common folk tale, Abraham granted the rich man’s wish and sent Lazarus to Hades to give the man relief. But not in Jesus’ parable! Abraham refuses the request.

Why?

Because the rich man had countless opportunities in this life to repent for sin and trust in God as Lord of his life, Lord of his pocketbook, Lord of his attitudes and actions. He had chosen instead to be his own lord, to live for the moment, for his own convenience and comfort.

But time was up. He was past the point of God’s consolation.

Listen: God never tires of forgiving, renewing, and helping those who repent and trust in Him. Even the woeful Old Testament book of Lamentations declares: “...Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” [Lamentations 3:22-23].

God loves to forgive us and give us new life! As long as we are on this earth, we human beings, like the thief of the cross, can turn to Him.

But because this life is so fragile, so unpredictable, and because life with God here and now is indescribably better than it is without Him, the best time to turn to the God we know in Christ is now, this moment, every moment.

As the apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 6:2: “...now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”

The rich man had wasted the gift of now--the gift of this life. Now it was over and he was inconsolable. Beyond the gates of death, there is and will always be a great chasm between those who trust in the Lord and those who trust in other things.

But, for all his lack of faith or compassion, the rich man in Jesus’ parable does seem to have what we would call “family values.” He thinks of his brothers, all evidently as unrepentant and disbelieving as he had been.

Verse 27: “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’”

For centuries, God had spoken to His people through “Moses [or the Law] and the Prophets,” what we call the Old Testament. That book, the record of God’s encounters with His people over centuries, had called God’s people--and even Gentiles who heard it--to repent and trust in God.

This Word, Abraham is telling the rich man, is sufficient to communicate God’s call to repent and believe...if people will only pay attention to it. This same Word should have been sufficient for Jesus’ fellow Jews to know that He was God in the flesh when they saw Him.

But people always seem to want one more thing for God to prove Himself and His authority to them.

Years ago, I got to know a Pentecostal pastor named Howard, a wonderful man. He and I had traveled to an event in downtown Cincinnati and, stuck in traffic, we talked about things that mattered to us. At one point, Howard said, "One of the things that bothers me about Pentecostals is that they're always looking for some new revelation from God, some fresh word of prophecy or direction. But the thing is, God has already told us everything we need to know on the pages of the Bible." I chuckled and said, "Howard, you sound like a Lutheran!"

What Howard was saying is exactly what Abraham tells the rich man in Jesus' parable: "God's Word is sufficient. You don't need to ask God to do something special to prove His Lordship or people's need to repent and believe. It's all there in black and white."

The rich man isn’t done, though. “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

‘No,’ Abraham says to the rich man in the parable, ‘if your brothers refuse to trust in God when they have the testimony of God’s faithfulness found in the Old Testament, they won’t believe a man risen from the dead.’

In our home church was a woman named Rosie. Rosie was older. She lived by herself and didn't say much. We were in an adult Sunday School class being taught by a seminarian, who asked us, "If you could add a commemoration or holiday to the church calendar, what would it be?" The question was met with silence until, of all people, Rosie spoke up. "Well, I always thought that we should have a day to thank God that we live now because if I'd been alive when Jesus walked the earth, I might not have believed in Him. Now, I know that He died and He rose and it makes it easier for me to believe."

You and I are especially blessed. We live on the other side of Easter: Jesus has died and He has risen from the dead. The Old Testament pointed forward to Jesus, God on earth. And we have the testimony of the New Testament about Jesus, how He died and rose to set free all people--Jews and Gentiles--from sin and death and to live in God’s kingdom now and for all eternity, if they will do what the rich man never saw the need to do until it was too late: To daily turn from sin and daily trust in Christ above all. Rosie was right!

“In the past,” Hebrews 1:1-2 in the New Testament tells us, “God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.”

Jesus has spoken to us, not just or even primarily with His words, but with one eternity-changing action, the sacrifice of His earthly life on the cross, where He took our punishment for sin and gained life for all who trust in Him.

Today and every today is a good day to repent and follow Jesus.

But watch out! When we do that, God will enlarge our hearts and help us see the poor men at our gates and even learn from them more deeply what it means to be a disciple. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This was presented during both worship services this morning.]

Museum memorializes "the perpetual struggle to live up" to our national ideas

The museum, Mr. Obama said, would make visitors face uncomfortable truths. But it would also capture the essential greatness of the United States — the perpetual struggle to live up to its highest ideals.

Mr. Obama spoke emotionally of his many flights on Marine One across the Mall, past the alabaster spire of the Washington Monument and the lighted figure of Abraham Lincoln, sheltered in his memorial. He said he had watched the museum rise from the ground and thought of the days when he and his family would return to visit it as private citizens.

“We’ll walk away that much more in love with this country,” he said, “the only place on earth where this story could have unfolded.”

From The New York Times' coverage of the dedication of the new National Museum of African-American History and Culture, located on the Mall in Washington, D.C.

I hope to see the museum the next time I'm in Washington.

As season winds down, Brandon Phillips' days as a Red may be numbered

The player who may be remembered as the second-best second baseman in Cincinnati Reds history--after Joe Morgan--seems likely to be traded during the off-season. Since he has the right to veto any trade, it's likely, based on remarks he makes in the linked article, that he'll only go to a contender. I will hate to see Phillips go; he's one of my all time favorites.

Would selection committee give Houston a chance?

According to a survey of fifteen Power Five Conference ADs conducted by USA Today, yes, the Cougars could have a path to the College Football Playoff. But there are a lot of games to be played yet, including a game against #3 Louisville in Houston on November 17.

The way things look right now, the match-up versus Louisville would be even more demanding than the game the Cougars won in Norman over Oklahoma, which was also ranked #3 on the opening Saturday of college football season when the two teams played. Louisville impressively dismantled Florida State last week; so, they are likely to be a team to be reckoned with.

I'm pulling for the Cougars for a great season, not just because they play in the non-Power Five American Athletic Conference and I love rooting for the "little guys," but mostly because the Cougars' head coach is Tom Herman. Herman was the offensive coordinator for my Ohio State Buckeyes when OSU won the first College Football Playoff championship two seasons ago. His play-calling then was masterful. And he's done an amazing job with all facets of his job with the Cougars.

Houston is rumored to be one of the schools that the Big 12, a Power Five conference, is looking to add to their number. Should the Cougars go 13-0 in regular season play, as seems likely, it would only burnish the case for their admission among major colleges.

Admission into the Big 12 might also entice Herman, who could probably write his own ticket to any available major college program, to stay at Houston. The heightened level of competition and the bigger salary he could likely count on might keep him on. Houston is already a major hotbed for high school football player recruitment and Herman is winning many of them over. He's building something there.

[UPDATE: The likeliest scenario by which Houston could get into the playoffs, I think, is for Oklahoma, now 1-2, to win out the rest of the season as Houston similarly takes care of business in their own weaker conference. This will make their win over Oklahoma a more impressive item on their resume. Houston is still a long shot.]

Of course, if, improbably, Houston gets into the College Football Playoff and faces off against my Buckeyes, who have a great chance to make it to the final four this year, I'll hope that the Cougars just roll over and play dead.

How losing weight and eating healthfully are going

I've written here and here about my quest to lose weight and eat more healthfully after I tipped my doctor's scales at a gargantuan 189.7-pounds. That weigh-in occurred on June 13. On June 14, I began to cut my daily calorie intake.

In the first linked post, I talked about what I'd learned after about a month of more sensible eating. In the second linked post, I gave a progress report; at that point I weighed in at 176.5 pounds.

Yesterday, I went to the local Little Clinic because of a cough and cold. The examination room had scales in it and since I'd not weighed myself since September 1, I decided to bite the bullet.

I wasn't hopeful. I'd fallen off the calorie wagon several times over the past few weeks. On the other side of the ledger though, I had, a few days before, bought a new pair of jeans with a size 34 waist and felt comfortable in them. But when I put my hands on my belly, I could tell that it wasn't shrinking as dramatically as it did when I first began the process or when I'd been more consistently disciplined. (Many people have commented to me how weight comes off readily initially, but gets tougher as time goes on.)

I climbed on the scales. I couldn't believe it! I had lost more weight. I was now at 173 pounds. Not a dramatic reduction, of course, but I had half expected a gain.

In addition to all the lessons this process is teaching me, which I mentioned here, I guess I would point to another one: Maintaining a daily positive discipline isn't easy. (I know that's obvious. But I think it's worth noting.)

Whether, we're establishing disciplines to lose weight, get fit, be financially responsible, serve others, inform ourselves as voting citizens, or keep a daily quiet time with God, all positive things, there will always be some urgent or more compelling thing that keeps us from being disciplined. The hardest thing in the world to do is the right thing.

I've learned that truth more from my failures--including my failures at eating more healthfully--than I have from my successes.

But even that phrase "my successes" makes me laugh. The reason is simple: The reason that I've lost more than 16-pounds since June 14, a paltry amount if the diet technique commercials are to be believed, is not because of my will power. My will is to eat what I want, do what I want, spend as I want, look out for myself with no regard to others as I want.

But God is in the process of taming this rebel sinner. Each day, often many times a day, I turn to the God I know in Jesus Christ and ask Him, despite my self-will and stubbornness, to bring me under His control, to meet my willing but weak spirit and create and deepen faith in Christ within me, to create and deepen my dependence on Christ. And, I also pray that as Christ does this, He will cultivate in me the habits that will cause me to daily welcome Christ as Lord over my whole being.

The old Mark--sinful, selfish, willful--my default mode is always trying to steer me away from letting Christ have charge of my whole life. My only defense is the disciplines of Christian life, the means by which Christ comes to us and strengthens us to be who we know, through Christ, we can be:

• God's Word, the Bible;
• worship with fellow believers;
• the sacrament of Holy Communion, the true body and blood of Jesus;
• prayer;
• the fellowship of other believers;
• serving in Christ's name. 

As I indicated here, I regard this movement toward more healthy eating and a lower weight as a spiritual battle. There is nothing that the devil, the world, and our sinful selves (our old selves) like more than for us to be on "cruise control": self-satisfied, resigned to being who we are, unconcerned with others, unconcerned with taking care of the bodies that God has given to us.

When we follow these ordinary pathways of the world, we take ourselves out of the game in which God enlists us at our Baptism--and in which God wants to enlist all people: to love God, to love our neighbor, to surrender to the life-changing grace of God given only in Jesus, to make disciples.

I want to be in God's game until the moment I draw my last breath on earth. That's why I'm trying to eat healthfully and get to a good weight. Despite all the roadblocks I put in God's way, I keep turning back to Him to help me to make this new life style stick.

He can do the same thing for you.

Being Shrewd Managers of God's Graces

Luke 16:1-15
[Audio of this message can be found here.]

Let’s get one thing off the table immediately as we look at the strange parable Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 16:1-15. The God we know in Jesus Christ does not commend thievery or dishonesty.

The seventh commandment still says, “You shall not steal.”

The eighth commandment still tells us: “You shall not bear false witness.”

The Savior Jesus, the foundational Truth of the universe, Who came into our world not to abolish God’s Law, but to fulfill it, would never compliment dishonesty in financial dealings. Nor would He compliment cheating. But Jesus does commend the manager’s shrewdness. And He commends the shrewd use of all that has come under His disciples’ control in this life. It remains commendable for you and me. Let's find out why.

This parable is, above all, about stewardship. Not just the stewardship of our money, but the stewardship of our whole lives.

Each of us has been given the gift of life. Stewardship is about what we do with this gift.

James 1:17 reminds us: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” We tend to forget this and the moment we take something in hand--be it a job, a house, a car, a career, whatever--we think of it as being intrinsically, by right, ours. In perpetuity...or, until we decide to get rid of it or trade up or sell it or will it to our kids.

But that’s not what God’s Word tells us. Psalm 24:1 says: “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.”

Whatever we have, not just property and goods, but also our minds, our bodies, our health, our friends and family and spouses, aren’t ours. We only have them on loan from God. So, how will we use this life that God has given to us? That is the question Jesus challenges us to answer in this parable.

Let’s look at verse 1: “Jesus told his disciples: There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, “What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.”’”

The rich man isn’t quite ready to give his manager a pink slip. Maybe he’ll give the guy another--less cushy--assignment. But the rich man has heard that the manager is wasting his money.

This is curious! The manager is on the brink of getting fired or demoted because the rich man has heard rumors from gossips. He tells the manager, in effect, “I find you guilty. Now give me the evidence.”

Now, in your experiences, what sort of person is quickest to believe that someone else is cheating them, that someone else has lied to them? It’s usually someone who’s an accomplished cheat and liar themselves. They figure that everyone is as bad as untrustworthy as they are. So, when the rich man hears rumors about his manager, he believes them. We’ll get confirmation of this later in the parable.

Read on, please. “‘The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg—I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.” [The manager’s career options are dwindling.] So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, “How much do you owe my master?” “Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,” he replied. The manager told him, “Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.” “Then he asked the second, “And how much do you owe?” “A thousand bushels of wheat,” he replied. He told him, “Take your bill and make it eight hundred.”’”

Let's be clear: the manager is being completely self-serving. That's not the thing Jesus is commending.

But Jesus says that the manager is using the money owed to his master--or more accurately, forgiven portions of money owed to his master--to create a soft landing for himself--a golden parachute--after he gets fired. The manager figures that each of those whose debts were forgiven will be grateful to him and welcome them into their own households. We still have no idea from what Jesus tells us whether the manager actually had, as the gossips had reported, wasted the rich man’s possessions. But we do know this: That the IOUs the rich man was waiting to come due were now worth a lot less than they had been before.

And there’s something else we know now for sure: This rich man himself isn’t such an upright character. Old Testament law was clear in condemning usury, which it defined as loaning fellow Jews money with interest. Deuteronomy 23:19 says: “Do not charge a fellow Israelite interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest.”

Yet, here was the fictional rich man in Jesus’ parable likely making loans to other Jews with interest. Why do I say that was likely? Stick with me. But I will tell you now that I believe that the rich man violated God’s law and the law of his country to make money. He was a crook. No wonder he was suspicious of the manager without a shred of evidence.

And here’s the deal. There’s a good chance that the manager reduced what the rich man’s debtors actually owed him, without interest added, under the laws of Israel. It’s likely that one guy really only owed the rich man 450 gallons of olive oil and the other really only had borrowed 800 bushels of wheat. Either way you slice it, the manager was being shrewd. The debtors would appreciate his action. And the rich man would be more likely to get a 450 gallon payback of olive oil than 900 or 800 bushel payback of wheat than 1000...just as today, lenders will pay collection agencies to get at least something out of overdue loans, pennies on the dollar.

This may explain the next verse: “[Jesus says:] The master [didn’t fire the manager, but] commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For [Jesus goes on to explain] the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light [‘People of the light’ being disciples of Jesus]. I tell you [Jesus continues], use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

Now, don’t miss Jesus’ point. Jesus is talking about how we are to manage every blessing that comes to us in this world and whether we will be prepared for what happens beyond death. Hebrews 9:27 reminds us that “people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.”

Death, for we fallen descendants of Adam and Eve, is inevitable. It hangs over each of us, just as the loss of his way of life hung over the manager in Jesus’ parable. The question for us, as it was for the manager, is this: Will we prepare for the life to come by being good stewards--good managers--of the lives we’re living right now? Will we share the riches of God's grace with others so that, by our sharing of the Gospel and of our lives with them, they too will become Christ's disciples and be there to welcome us gratefully in eternity? This is an enormous question!

One scholar says, rightly, I think, that there are three ways we can “manage” this life that God gives to us.

One way is to be like the rich fool of Jesus’ parable in Luke 12. Jesus tells about a man who acquired so much that he decided to build bigger barns to hold all his stuff. Then, he told himself, he would relax, eat, drink, and be merry. But Jesus says: “...God said to [this rich man], ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” [Luke 12:20-21] Watch out, Jesus says, that whenever you come to life’s end, you haven’t been spending all of God’s gifts on this life. That’s short-sighted: There will be no soft landing in eternity for people like this.

Another way we can “manage” the gifts of this life--and this life itself--is to, understanding that this life will pass from our hands one day and so, ignore taking care of God's gifts to us in this life. This what fifty years ago, the hippies in communes tried to do. They weren’t going to own anything. Or take care of anything. They were just passing through, man.

Through the centuries, there have been Christian movements that have adopted this line of thinking. These folks can be, as the saying puts it, so heavenly minded that they’re no earthly good. Short as this life may be though, the gifts that come to us from God are to be taken care of, even our bodies. (By the way, have you had a physical lately?)

By His death on the cross, Jesus paid the ransom to buy us out of captivity to sin and death; even as we look forward to eternity, we owe it to Him to take care of this life and this world.

That entails being faithful to the promises we made to God and the Church when we were confirmed:

...to live among God’s faithful people, to hear His Word and share in His supper, to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people, following the example of our Lord Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.

That’s how we’re to use the gifts God has given to us. That's how we're to live and celebrate the free gift of grace given in Christ. That’s how we’re to manage our lives while on this planet!

This leads us to the third way we can live our lives. It’s the way of the manager in Jesus’ parable. It’s the way of shrewdness. One scholar has written that the manager uses “the authority he still has in the present [world] to feather his bed for the future [world].”

Every bit of this life God has given to us is meant to be invested in eternity, in the things of Christ’s eternal kingdom. Invest your life, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, in glorifying the God Who has saved you through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

We all will get pink slips someday, our time and work on earth will be through.

But when it happens, may we stand before our Lord, gloriously spent, good managers who gave this life our all for Christ’s glory, people who, by the way we have entrusted all that we have and all the we are to Christ, have lived faithfully and wisely in response to God's goodness to us.

It will be the ultimate soft landing, right into the hand of God.

And Christ will tell us: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” [Matthew 25:34] It’s then that all will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that those who have managed their lives with gratitude for all that God has done for them are the shrewdest people of all. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This message was shared during worship on September 18.]

Does 1 Timothy 2:8-15 Show That Paul Was a Sexist?

Not being aware during this morning's worship of the events in New York, New Jersey, and Minnesota, I called two of the appointed lessons for this Sunday "fire bombs" because of their power to disturb. Late in the week, I got an email from a member of the Living Water family asking if I would say a few words of explanation of 1 Timothy 2:1-15, the last eight verses of which might raise questions, to say the least. (The other disturbing passage appointed for the day was the Gospel lesson, Luke 16:1-15, which includes a parable in which Jesus tells Christians to be shrewd.)

Anyway, I decided to spend some time talking about these verses, 1 Timothy 2:8-15, before preaching:

⁸ Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing. ⁹ I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, ¹⁰ but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.

Here's a link to that discussion. It's about seven and a half minutes long.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Old As Religion by John Reuben

It's been seven years since rapper (and Columbus native) John Reuben released his last LP, the phenomenal, Sex, Drugs, and Self Control.

I'd read a few months ago that he was back in a recording studio. On Friday, he dropped this new track onto the Internet. It's a great tune that I look forward to getting to know better. Welcome back, Johnny Reubonic!

(The words to Old As Religion can be found right now on Reuben's home page.)

Please pray for Nabeel Qureshi

Please pray for Nabeel Qureshi. This extraordinary scholar and man of God came to faith in Christ, after being a devout Muslim, eleven years ago.

Since then, he has sought both to reach Muslims with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to help other Christians to reach out lovingly to their Muslim neighbors.

Qureshi has learned that he has stomach cancer. The cancer is in the advanced stages and he reports that doctors say he has a 4% chance of surviving.

Qureshi is the author of the extraordinary, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity. Just this past week, his latest book, No God but One: Allah or Jesus?: A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence for Islam and Christianity was published recently.

Please ask God to bring him healing.

Just finished reading...

Here are two books I finished reading this week.

Transforming Discipleship by Greg Ogden is a great overview for church leaders interested in helping their congregations to develop cultures of disciple making. Ogden's model is built on triads, groups of three people, including a convener or catalyst, and two other people who all covenant to grow together in their faith through study, prayer, action based on what God's Word says, and mutual accountability. It eschews programs and opts instead for the relational methods employed by Jesus, Paul, and Barnabas. We are in the process of implementing a discipleship culture at Living Water Lutheran Church, where I serve as pastor, and it's exciting to see how God is moving us toward the fulfillment of the only mission Jesus ever gave to the Church: making disciples. Ogden is a helpful resource. I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

The Element by Ken Robinson with Lou Aronica is all about finding the thing we're passionate about to determine what we should do in life. That's a thin (and obvious) reed on which to hang a 270-page book and, let's be honest, not everyone has the opportunity to pursue their passions in life. But, as Artemis Ward (not Abraham Lincoln, as I had long believed) once said of a book he'd been asked to review: "People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like." The book is filled with interesting anecdotes. I rate this book at 2.5 stars out of a possible 5.

Truth

Love this quote from the late Dallas Willard: "The average church-going Christian has a headful of vital truths about God and a body unable to fend off sin."

True...and virtually the same as Jesus said of His disciples: "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

All the more reason for we who confess Christ as God and Savior to pray, "Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil."

Handle with Care by The Traveling Wilburys

Just before reading The Economist's piece on George Frideric Handel (mentioned in the previous post), I read about another musician called George from across the pond and a trip he took to America before he became famous. That other George was George Harrison.

Harrison visited his sister Louise in Benton, Illinois, along with his brother Peter, a few months before the US was infected with Beatlemania. I was sent down the rabbit hole of reading about Harrison in Illinois by the announcement from a high school classmate, Peter Conrad, that a song of his is included in the soundtrack of a film about Harrison's visit to Benton.

Harrison wrote Handle with Care as a B-side and thought it would be fun to get some others involved in its recording, namely, Jeff Lynne (who was producing the LP on which the A-side of the single was to appear), Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, and Roy Orbison. After the recording proved to be satisfying and fun, the five musicians decided to do more tracks, resulting in the LP, The Traveling Wilburys.

Handel was unavailable to record with other five musicians at the time, though his name (sort of) appears in the title of this track.

Handel with Care

On this date in 1751, George Frideric Handel completed The Messiah. Here's an article from The Economist; it anticipated the anniversary of Handel's death in 1759.

Lord of the Riff Raff

Luke 15:1-10
[Here's an audio version of this post.]

Apple rolled out its new iPhone 7 this past week. It’s generated a lot of advance sales and buzz. That’s because the new phone has no headphone jack because it uses wireless earbuds, called airpods.

A big concern has arisen though: What if people lose their airpods? This burning question has been the subject online articles at Forbes, Marketwatch, The Daily Beast, Barron’s, and The Chicago Tribune, among other places. One article was headlined snarkily and accurately: "Entire world terrified about losing Apple AirPods that no one even owns yet."

When you can't find your AirPods anywhere pic.twitter.com/t6sUfLT1oA

— Super Deluxe (@superdeluxe) September 7, 2016

Now, I love my Apple products. In fact, I love to go into Apple stores just to smell all the technology! But when I consider...

the young people likely to lose normal life spans or normal brain function because of their drinking water in Flint, Michigan...

or the people losing their lives because of interminable wars in places like Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan...

or parents and others losing family members to the horrors of drug-addiction...

or the lives of babies being lost when abortion is used as a birth control method...

or children losing their innocence in a global sex-crazed culture...

anxiety over losing a couple of airpods seems sinfully inconsequential.

Nonetheless, all this anxiety demonstrates a truth: The value we attach to things or people directly corresponds to the anxiety we feel over losing them as well as to the joy we experience when, after losing them, we find them again.

In Luke 15:1-10, today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus tells two parables. They’re both familiar to us.

In the first, Jesus tells the story of a shepherd charged with overseeing one-hundred sheep. One of the sheep gets away. Apparently, the shepherd believed that all his sheep mattered. So, he searched for the lost sheep, found it, carried it back to its place, then threw a party for his friends, all because this valuable thing that had been lost now was found.

In the second parable, Jesus tells the story of a woman who owns ten silver coins, then loses one. She scours the house until she finds the coin. Like the shepherd in the first parable, she invites her neighbors over for a celebration because this valuable thing that had been lost now was found.

Of course, Jesus didn’t tell these parables just to entertain us. (Although I remember hearing Dr. Henry Mitchell say at a lecture, "The opposite of entertainment is not education.") Jesus told parables to educate and inspire us. But mostly He told them to transform us.

To get in on the transforming power of these two parables, it’s important to remember the context within which Jesus told them. In the first two verses of our Gospel lesson, Luke gives us the context:

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Two groups of people were present, each with their own motives for gathering around Jesus.

One group included tax collectors and sinners. Tax collectors, in those days, of course, were hated people, shaking people down so that they could line their own pockets. They were thieves. We don’t know exactly what Jesus had in mind when he spoke of “sinners.” But He probably meant people who had, until this point, been unrepentant sinners, but now, like the tax collectors, saw in Jesus Someone Who bore the authority of God and the power of God’s love, Who would grant them God’s forgiveness and make their lives new.

The other group to whom Jesus spoke were Pharisees and teachers of God’s law, people who saw themselves as upright people above reproach, alarmed by Jesus’ offer of forgiveness and new life to those who repented and surrendered to Him. They were alarmed too that Jesus, while claiming to be from God, would spend His time with and sit down to party with such sinners. They gathered around Jesus so that they could gather incriminating evidence against Him.

It’s significant that the Pharisees and teachers of the law were horrified by Jesus eating with notorious sinners. For centuries, Jews had been looking forward to the day when they would sit at the great heavenly banquet with God’s anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ.

Isaiah 25:6 promised: “On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines.”

The feast was promised (and is promised) to all who trusted in God and in His Messiah. Well before the day that Jesus told the two parables in our lesson, people were starting to speak of Him as the Messiah. In Luke 9:20, after Jesus asks Peter and the other disciples who they think He is, Peter answers plainly: “God’s Messiah.”

For the Pharisees and teachers of the Jewish law, this was deeply disturbing. Now the One being called Messiah by some was feasting--hinting at the great banquet all who trust in God will enjoy in eternity--with the riff raff. Was Jesus saying that this collection of no goods and nobodies were going to feast with God and them in eternity?

Actually, that was close to what Jesus was saying. The riff raff who turned from sin and trusted in Christ would be welcome to the Messiah’s banquet. But the Pharisees and teachers of the law were, it turns out, a bit too confident about their own places at the table.

That’s why Jesus ends the first parable at verse 7, with these words: “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

According to Jesus, there’s a party, an outbreak of the Messianic banquet, every time a single sinner turns from their sin and trusts in the Savior Who died and rose for them to give them new life. That’s good news, or as the Old English word we use without much thought, puts it, God-spell, Gospel!

Yes, Jesus is saying, all this riff raff will be at the banquet. And so will all the other riff raff who turn to Him in despair over their sins and turn to Him too with faith in Him as their only gracious God and King. (That’s gospel even for riff raff like you and me!)

But did you notice what Jesus also says in that verse to all the Pharisees and others who think that their goodness secures their reservations for the heavenly banquet? Did you see the little barb in Jesus' words? Jesus says that there will be a bigger party in heaven over one sinner who repents than over “ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” Now I ask you, can you name a single person besides Jesus since Adam and Eve fell into sin who has had no need of repentance?

The Pharisees and teachers of the law thought that they needed no repentance. (And maybe we think that sometimes.) But, Jesus is saying, people who are confident in their own goodness need to think again.

Listen: Every sinner matters to God. Every sinner can receive grace that can transform us into God’s friends and transform the way we live each day. But that only happens for those who can acknowledge that they’re sinners in need of forgiveness, debtors to God for Whom Jesus has paid the price when He died on the cross.

True story: A seminary professor had just finished a lecture and was approached by a first year student with a big smile on his face. The professor had just lectured on temptation and sin, big topics. “Professor So and So,” the student said. “It’s amazing. But I just wanted you to know that it’s been seven years since I've been tempted to sin.” He was pleased with his own righteousness. The professor replied, “That’s about the worst thing I can imagine hearing.” The student’s expression changed, “Why?” “Because,” the professor told him, “it means that you’re so filled with self-righteousness that you’re not hearing God’s call to repent and trust in Jesus’ righteousness, rather than your own.” The professor was telling that student that he was really lost.

But the God we know in Jesus Christ can find lost people. And He can use believers in Christ like you and me to find them.

Another true story. A prominent Christian speaker was doing a seminar in Hawaii. The event was to begin in the evening and so, this speaker and some of his friends decided to grab an early dinner at a local greasy spoon. A group of women, whose profession was obvious, came in at the same time for coffee. The Christian speaker learned that it was the birthday of one of the women--we’ll call her Doris--and that at the end of the evening, at about three in the morning, Doris and the other women would gather again for a late night supper before heading for their homes.

The speaker and his friends hatched a plan. They bought a birthday cake, candles, streamers, noisemakers, and went back to the diner to await the women’s return. When the women got back, they threw a birthday party for Doris. They led everyone in singing Happy Birthday. Doris, who hadn’t been treated with genuine kindness in a long time, wept.

Later, someone asked the speaker why he and his friends had thrown this party. “Because,” he said, “we’re Christians.” “Really?” the questioner said. “What kinds of Christian are you?” “The kind of Christian who throws parties for prostitutes at three o’clock in the morning.” That speaker and his friends knew the truth of Paul's words in Romans that tell us that it's the kindness of God that leads sinners to repentance. That speaker and his friends were Christians who treated lost people exactly the way Jesus treats lost people, including you and me. He welcomes us and invites us to a party!

Every sinner (that's all of us) and every dying person (that's all of us too) matters to God.

You matter to God.

God doesn’t want to lose you. God doesn’t want to lose anybody.

God has dedicated Himself and He’s called us to the pursuit of one single purpose: Finding those dying in sin and hopelessness and helping them to receive the Good News of Jesus Christ!

On the cross, Jesus bore the punishment we deserve for sin, so that as we turn from sin, we are set free from death and share in His resurrection. We become part of His banquet, even today as we trustingly receive His body and blood in Holy Communion.

In response to Christ, this week, I ask you to do two things.

First, let Christ find you! Let Christ call you to repentance, and cover you with His forgiveness. Live in His love. Relish God’s celebration of His love for you.

Second, ask God to help you to invite the lost ones in your life to “come and taste the goodness of the Lord.” Do that for one simple reason: Everyone matters to God.

That, and because God loves to throw a party when the lost are found. Amen

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This message was shared during both worship services today.]

The Cost of Being a Disciple (AUDIO)

Here.

Her Majesty by the Beatles

Paul McCartney drew the curtain on the Beatles' years with this little throwaway.

I wanna tell her that I love her a lot
But I gotta get a belly full of wine
Her majesty's a pretty nice girl
Some day I'm gonna make her mine

So far as we know, he never did.

Should You Follow Your Heart?

Not so much.

'Which Professions Have the Most Psychopaths?'

That's the headline for a piece from TIME that got my attention when I saw it linked on Twitter a few weeks ago. I wondered: Does my profession have more than its share of psychopaths? I suspected that it did.

But before the TIME article gets around to revealing which professions have the most psychopaths, it defines what a psychopath really is:

...psychopath doesn’t just mean someone who cuts you up with a chainsaw — though the majority of people who do things like that are psychopaths.

[Then quoting Wikipedia, that last word in all human knowledge evidently, we're told that,] "Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has been variously described as characterized by shallow emotions (in particular reduced fear), stress tolerance, lacking empathy, coldheartedness, lacking guilt, egocentricity, superficial character, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity and antisocial behaviors such as parasitic lifestyle and criminality."

The ten professions with the highest incidence of psychopaths (designated with a + sign) and the lowest (designated with - sign), according to both TIME and The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success, the book from which the following lists come, are:

And there's my profession, in at number 8, right after journalists and police officers, just before chefs and civil servants.

Frankly, it all looks like a bad case of "pop psychology" to me. Whatever it is, I hope that the lists are wrong.

Think Christianity is Shrinking?

Think again. From The Washington Post:

The center of Christianity has shifted from Europe to the global South.

The religious landscape is particularly changing for the world’s Christians. A century ago, 80 percent lived in North America and Europe, compared with just 40 percent today.

In 1980, more Christians were found in the global South than the North for the first time in 1,000 years. Today, the Christian community in Latin America and Africa, alone, account for 1 billion people.

Over the past 100 years, Christians grew from less than 10 percent of Africa’s population to its nearly 500 million today. One out of four Christians in the world presently is an Africa, and the Pew Research Center estimates that will grow to 40 percent by 2030.

Asia is also experiencing growth as world Christianity’s center has moved not only South, but also East. In the last century, Christianity grew at twice the rate of population in that continent. Asia’s Christian population of 350 million is projected to grow to 460 million by 2025.

The global religious wildcard is China. Even today, demographers estimate that more Christian believers are found worshipping in China on any given Sunday than in the United States. Future trends, while difficult to predict because so much is below the religious radar, could dramatically drive down the world’s religious “nones.”

Nones are those who say they have no religion.

So, while the rest of the world is becoming increasingly Christian, the United States presently is moving in the opposite direction.

And, while it's often said that Islam is growing more quickly than Christianity is on the world scene, that's misleading. In fact, Islam's growth is a byproduct of births to Muslim families. But Christianity is seeing hundreds of thousands more conversions to Christian faith. That's real growth. Reports of the demise of Christian faith are not only premature; they're incorrect.

Do presidents need a 'council of historical advisers'?

Graham Ellison and Niall Ferguson, co-directors of Harvard Kennedy School's Applied History Project, make a good argument that our presidents should have a group of trained historians to help in the formulation of policy.

I've always loved the study of history, but I'm not an advocate of the "history for history's sake" school of thought. I study history to learn the lessons it can teach me, as a person and as someone given the precious right to vote. This is what Ellison and Ferguson call "applied history."

History doesn't repeat itself, as some say. But it is true, as King Solomon wrote, that there's nothing new under the sun. Human nature being human nature, there are always analogs in history that can help us navigate the present.

When I was a kid, my parents bought an encyclopedia of United States history for me. It had sixteen volumes, a new volume released each week for four months. Those sixteen volumes became well worn during my elementary school years! President Kennedy wrote the foreword to the whole thing. I was so taken with one line that I memorized the words. I still remember them fifty years later:

A knowledge of the past prepares us for the crisis of the present and the challenge of the future.

That's a truth that has never left me.

As Ellison and Ferguson point out, many policy makers are either completely or partly ignorant of history. The result is that when new challenges arise, they, in essence, "fly blind," oblivious to what history might teach them about the options they're considering. Policy decision-makers become like someone pulling the pin from a hand grenade without knowing that doing so is going to blow them and everything around them to pieces. 

A presidential council of historical advisers, operating like the Council of Economic Advisers we've had for decades, could help presidents in four ways, Ellison and Ferguson say:

• Were a Council of Historical Advisers in place today, it could consider precedents for numerous strategic problems...
• The council might study whether a former president’s handling of another crisis could be applied to a current challenge (what would X have done?).
• A president might also ask the council “what if?” questions. What if some action had not been taken, or a different action had been taken? [In essence, Ellison is here suggesting that the advisers could do after-action reviews that might help in the formulation of future policies.]
• Finally, the council might consider grand strategic questions... [i.e., Is the United States in decline?]

The ignorance of history, particularly the kind of applied history that Ellison and Ferguson are talking about, has had a destructive impact on our country. Neither American citizens nor American leaders know much about history and, as a result, stupid and often tragic mistakes are made that would otherwise be avoided. I like Ellison's and Ferguson's proposal.

The Cost of Being a Disciple

Luke 14:1-14
An old bit of wisdom says, “Let the buyer beware.”

It’s a good idea whatever we’re in the market for to be careful not to buy a “bill of goods” and to make sure that whoever is trying to convince us of anything is engaging in “truth in advertising.”

Our Gospel lesson from Luke for today finds Jesus engaging in “truth in advertising.” He wants people to know exactly what is involved in following Him, in being His disciple.

God’s grace, His forgiveness and favor, is a free gift; but to grasp hold of it costs us our whole lives.

To take hold of Jesus means to let go of the world’s way of thinking and living. It means also letting go of our own way of thinking and living. Those are hard things to give up!

Jesus wants us to understand that there is a cost to being His disciple.

Take a look, please, at this morning’s Gospel lesson, Luke 14:25-33. Verse 25 starts: “Large crowds were traveling with Jesus...”

Whenever Luke references crowds, Luke is talking about people who are interested in Jesus, maybe even hopeful that Jesus will do something for them, but who haven’t committed to following Jesus.

The crowds wanted just enough of Jesus to get from Him what they wanted, but not enough to let Him change their lives. If this is our approach to Jesus, no matter how many good things we do--in church or outside of church--we’re no more Jesus’ disciples than those crowds.

It's important understanding the difference between being part of a crowd acquainted with Jesus on the one hand, and being a follower of Jesus, on the other hand, as we consider Jesus' words to us today.

Read on with me, please: “...and turning to them he said: ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.’”

In Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke every day, the word hate didn't necessarily imply hostility, but often was a comparative term. It meant to love less, to hold one thing or person as having less importance than another.

In this verse, Jesus is telling us to love our families and our own lives less than we love Him, to love Him more than these things.

Frankly, this command from Jesus has incredible relevance for how we live our lives in 2016. This past week, I saw a stunning Infographic on bigthink.com about 'helicopter parenting,' you know the phenomenon of parents hovering around the lives of their kids, no matter how old the kids are.* They talked to job recruiters, people in charge of finding people to fill professional positions and learned, for example, that "30% of recruiters have had a parent submit a resume for their child." And that "12% had a parent call to set up an interview."

Parents like these think that they're being loving toward their children. But if one of the goals of parenthood is to prepare children for adulthood, then their behavior can only be described as unloving. Helicopter parenting cripples kids and creates unhealthy co-dependencies. And it stems not from love, but from egotism, narcissism, and a need to be needed, which is nothing other than the ancient human desire to "be like God."

The truth is that we will love our families better if we love Jesus most of all.

In commanding us to this, Jesus isn’t expecting more of us than He expected of Himself: It would have been easy for Jesus to listen to His family’s and followers’ plea to avoid the cross. But He ignored them to pursue the will of God by taking the cross, where He loved us and offered us the possibility of salvation through faith in Him, which he couldn’t have given to us had He not given God the Father first place in His life!

I like what a person wrote in an online article a few years ago about the God Who comes to us in Jesus: "God does not offer us a choice. He comes, not hat in hand, but ready for battle. He breaks into the strong man’s house [that is, He breaks into our wills, held captive by sin from the moment of our conceptions] entering into contention against the heart, soul & mind of the [sinner]. The rational free will of [human beings] cannot believe or accept this & as such God always ...appears as the opposite, contrary to our expectations, confounding appeals to choice."

Where do Jesus and His Word found in the Bible fall on your list priorities in life?

Is Jesus everything or is He nothing to you? (Because those are the only two choices before us.)

Read verse 27 now [Jesus is still speaking]: “...whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

One scholar says of these words, says: “Bearing a cross has nothing to do with chronic illness, painful physical conditions, or trying family relationships. It is instead what we do voluntarily as a consequence of our commitment to Jesus Christ. Cross bearing requires deliberate sacrifice and exposure to risk and ridicule in order to follow Jesus. This commitment is not just a way of life...It is a commitment to a person. A disciple follows another person and learns a new way of life.”

That person Who calls us to a different way of life is Jesus.

Discipleship means breaking with the world’s values in order to follow Jesus and His Word alone.

After saying these provocative things Jesus tells two parables, each meant to urge those considering following Him to count the cost involved.

In one, Jesus says that farmers, who in first century Judea where He lived, often built towers to give themselves early warning about marauding thieves or wild animals, would be crazy not to figure out whether they could afford the structures before starting to build them.

Similarly, Jesus says, a king who didn’t know about the strength of an opposing army would be foolish to start a war with that army. Again, Jesus wants us to know that following Him isn’t easy.

Then, in verse 33, Jesus says what may be the most dumbfounding thing of all in this lesson: “...those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.”

What do we make of this? In James 1:17, we’re told: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights…”

Every penny that comes into our possession, no matter how hard we work for it, is a gift from God to be used not just for our own needs, but for the glory of God, the sharing of the Gospel, and the good of others.

We may say, “I earned the money through brain and brawn and hours of over-time or extra work.”

But who gave you the brain and the brawn and the power to put in extra time?

Who made the resources from which our daily bread and our luxuries are made?

Jesus is not asking every Christian to take the vow of poverty. He’s calling us to allow His grace to change our attitude about our money and possessions. He wants to be the Lord of our money, our life, our families, our intimate relationships, our work, our everything. We can have nothing of Jesus’ kingdom unless we are willing to let Him be King over every part of our lives!

And make no mistake: Jesus has every right to demand that of us! On the cross, we were bought out of slavery to sin and death by Jesus’ suffering and death.

In response to such unfathomable grace, He calls us to give Him the final say on how we spend not just our time and our lives, but also our money.

The old saying tells us, “You can’t take it with you!” That’s true. But we can invest it in the kingdom--in sharing the good news, in expanding the ministries of churches, in helping the poor. In short, we’re to use our money for the same purposes for which we’re to live our lives as grateful recipients of God’s amazing grace: To love God, love neighbor, love the Church, tell the good news that all who believe in Jesus Christ have everlasting life with God. To...

Reach up,  
Reach in,  
Reach out!

Now, if these words of Jesus for this morning are as daunting to you as they are to me, I want you to consider some very good news. Three times in our lesson, Jesus uses the phrase “cannot be my disciple”: in verses 26, 27, and 33. In the original Greek, the same words are used in each place, giving the verses this literal meaning, “You do not have the power to be My disciples unless you put Me in first place, take up the cross, and give Me access to your whole life.” Jesus uses that word for power or ability in another place in Luke’s Gospel. It comes after Jesus tells the disciples that it will be harder for a rich person to enter God’s kingdom than it would be for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. The disciples, who to that point, thought that wealth was a sign of God’s favor, ask Jesus, “Then, who does have the power or ability to get into the kingdom?” Jesus says, literally, “The things that human beings cannot do [or don’t have the ability to do], God can do.”

Sisters and brothers in Christ, those who follow Jesus have all the gifts He came into our world to bring: forgiveness of sin, lives lived for good purposes, strength when we’re weak, eternity with God.

But unless Jesus rules over our lives without rival, these gifts cannot come to us. The good news is that your ability to follow Jesus, the Savior Who died and rose for you, doesn’t depend on you.

If you want Jesus to take first place in your life, all you need is to make yourself available to Him and ask Him to help you do just that. Give Jesus room to work in your life and He will work in your life. Right now. Every day. The Holy Spirit Jesus sends into open lives and open wills can take care of the rest!

Now, if you’re anything like me, immediately after you tell the Lord something like, “I’m available, Jesus; be first in my life,” you’ll start making your own plans, dreaming your own dreams, obsessing on your own thoughts, maybe even committing your own favorite sins. Keep asking Jesus to take first place in your life. He is faithful, even when we’re not.

But, just as the buyer should beware, the would-be follower of Jesus should be aware, too: Let Jesus into your life and He will start to make of you what cannot make of yourself. Despite the temptations you face, despite the sins for which you must repeatedly repent, as you turn to Jesus, He will relentlessly, lovingly, and in ways you yourself will be unable to perceive or understand, turn you into the person God wants all people to be, the person our secret hearts most yearn to be.

Do you know what Jesus will make of you? He will make you His disciple.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This was shared during worship with the people of Living Water yesterday.]

*Thanks to writer and blogger Leslie Sholly for sharing this Instagram on Twitter.]

More on my quest to lose weight and be healthy

I wrote here about beginning a quest to shed pounds that started after a recent appointment with my cardiologist. During that appointment, I weighed in 189.7 pounds, the heaviest I'd ever been!

That was on June 13. On June 14, I put myself on a diet, counting my calories. By July 26, I'd gotten down to 181.2, not a dramatic loss, but one that made me happy.

I don't keep scales around the house and I've decided keep it that way. I don't want to get caught up in weighing myself each day.

My focus is more on changing how I think of and use food, adopting a healthier mindset, diet, and body. So, I'm using a grocery store in Columbus that I visit occasionally, Marc's, where there's a huge, old-fashioned scale setting next to the exit, for occasional weigh-ins.

I hadn't gone to Marc's for a while. But on Thursday, I had a wonderful (and filling) meal with our daughter at my favorite Columbus-area Mexican restaurant, Cuco's Taqueria. Cuco's is close to Marc's. I'd been thinking of stopping by to pick up a few items. (They have great prices!) But as I stuffed myself, I told my daughter, "Maybe I should wait until another time to weigh in at Marc's."

In the end, I decided to bite the bullet. But I was wary, convinced that a few pounds had crept back on. A recent six-day trip to California for a church conference, when I wasn't preparing my own meals, and two other days of overindulgence, convinced me that the scales were going to deliver a bad message.

My daughter tried to console me (pre-console me?) as I prepared to step onto the scales: "Remember, dad, that you just had a big meal." I gritted my teeth, stood on the scales, and hesitantly looked up.

"Oh!" my daughter said, seeing the number before I did.

The scales showed that I now weighed 176.5 pounds. While I would have preferred making more progress than that, I definitely feel that I'm moving in the right direction and I was thankful that my eight days of less controlled eating hadn't done more damage!

In that earlier post, I talked about some of the things I'd learned after little more than a month of controlling my calories. As I continue this journey, I'll share more of what I'm learning. But for now, I'll just say that this whole business is important to me as a way of thanking God for the body that He's given to me.

I also hope that these periodic progress reports (at least, I hope and pray that they'll be progress reports) will encourage others as they deal with seemingly intractable issues in their own lives.

I will tell you this though. The single most important element in helping me to get this far has been prayer. Every time I'm tempted to eat more than I need to eat, I ask God to help me, to divert my attention to other, more productive things.

God is in this struggle with me; if He wasn't, I couldn't have made any progress.

He can be with you in your struggles, big and small, too. Just call out to God in the name of Jesus...He will hear you! Latch onto this promise from 1 John 5:14:

This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

And don't think that calling on God is a "good luck charm." That wouldn't be faith, but superstition. So, even with God's constant help, it hasn't been easy implementing a new way of life. It involves daily crucifying the sinful, self-indulgent me that likes, literally as well as figuratively, to have my cake and eat it too. (Though I don't really like cake very much.) I realize that I've wanted to eat big and be small. It doesn't work that way.

I've had to reckon with the fact that there are consequences to the bad choices we make in life, some of them eternal, though God's grace, offered in Christ, can reach us in any and all circumstances.

I'm convinced that issues like overeating and materialism are, in fact, among the greatest spiritual issues we face in the modern West.  Our craving for more and our acquisition and eating of more are, simply, sins in which we take far more than the daily bread we need. Behavior like that can wreck our bodies and destroy our souls.

I'm learning that as I crucify sinful desires and sinful habits, a new me is taking shape, measurable not only in fewer pounds, but also in greater peace with God, with myself, and with others.

This shouldn't surprise me. Crucifixion and resurrection constitute the daily pattern of Christian discipleship, even when it comes to what we do with the bodies God has given to us.

God bless!

Responding to Our Own Sin: Godly Grief v. Worldly Grief

During my quiet time this morning, I read 2 Corinthians 7. Before reading, I asked God to impress on me what verses and what truth He wanted to impress on me today. I was struck by verses 9 and 10:

As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Scholars tell us that 2 Corinthians may be a mashup of different letters the apostle Paul sent to the first century Christians in Corinth. So, we can't be entirely certain of the specifics (which probably don't matter), but we do know that Paul had confronted the Corinthian Christians for a sin. And we also can understand from Paul that his previous sharp words had brought to the Corinthians a sense of grief.

In the chapter, Paul lets his readers know that he hated that his words had hurt the Corinthians. (Although he also didn't regret saying or writing to them in the way he had.) Here, in verses 9 and 10, Paul expresses joy over the impact of the Corinthians' grief. It led them to authentic repentance, which combines genuine, God-induced sorrow for sin and a genuine, God-induced turning to Christ that lets the repentant know that their sin is forgiven, their relationship with God restored. (Biblical repentance always involves these two elements.)

Paul says that what the Corinthian Christians experienced was "godly grief" for their sin. He contrasts that with "worldly grief." The distinction between the two is worth considering.

As I read these verses, I thought of Judas, chosen by Christ to be an apostle, but who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. With this act of betrayal, Judas found himself to be revealed to "important" people--the Sanhedrin, religious leaders of his and Jesus' fellow Jews--as a duplicitous, money-grubbing traitor. Exposed for what he really was, Judas returned the thirty pieces of silver, then killed himself.

This is how "worldly grief" for sin acts: It may have genuine regret for the sinful act. But that regret doesn't account for God being the one Who, in C.S. Lewis' phrase, "chiefly offended" by our sin.

Worldly grief is self-driven and self-referential: It lets self or other people be the judge and jury of our souls (and these judges and juries always hang the defendants); or, it lets the opinions of the world (vox populi)--fickle, self-serving, uncaring, to embarrass, humiliate, rationalize away, or otherwise kill the grieving person. It stews more about the reactions of others than about the Word and will of God.

Godly grief will listen to authentic people of God who lovingly condemn us or call us to account for our sin. But godly grief will only listen to others' condemnation as they speak the truth of God, as revealed definitively in God's Word, the Bible.

Godly grief comes from measuring ourselves by God's Law and being aggrieved at how our sins hurt God. But, unlike worldly grief, godly grief doesn't leave us hopeless or dead, spiritually and physically.

Repentance, the gift God grants to those who experience godly grief, as Martin Luther pointed out, drives us to the cross, where the Gospel--the good news--is found: The Gospel that God loves sinners and because of that love, took on flesh in order to bear the deserved and fatal condemnation for our sin, then sets free those who take that same cross for themselves, surrendering them to death, so that the forgiveness Christ died to give to us when He went to the cross, will be ours. This is what happens when we heed godly grief for our sin.

Last week, I told a friend that if Christians lose their salvation, it won't be because of God. It will be because they either drifted lazily or willfully into lifestyles of no repentance: no regret for sin, no joyful restoration to God because there is neither repentance or faith.

When this happens, there may be worldly grief over sin--the "Oops! I got caught" or the "Oops! Oh, well, everyone else is doing it" or the "Oh, no! I'm a sinner and that's just the way I am and nothing will ever change and I'm going to hell" or the "There is no God, no hell, and it doesn't matter. I'll try to do better next time"--kinds of grief. But all such worldly grief ends in death and separation from God.

Godly grief leads to the cross and to restoration. That's what I'm banking my life on.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Wedding Afternoon Music

I presided at a wedding this past Saturday afternoon. See here.

Here's one song that was played at the reception and two more I heard on the car radio later.

Tuesday

This piece was composed by Paul McCartney and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. It was one of the pieces on Working Classical, released in 1999. I love the theme that begins at the 5:37 mark and continues through about the 9:50 mark, to be picked up later in the piece. Whatever indifferent lyrics the solo McCartney may have produced at times during his career, he has never lost his sense of melody, fully on display here.

AUDIO: When upside down is rightside up

Here.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

When Upside Down is Rightside Up

Luke 14:1-14
It would be easy to think that the two stories Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson are just about good manners. But if we think that, we will be missing important lessons Jesus wants to teach us.

Take a look, please, at our Gospel lesson, Luke 14:1-14, starting at verse 7: “When [Jesus] noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable.”

A parable, of course, is a special sort of story. A parable is a story woven from people's everyday experiences, with another story of deep significance rolled alongside of it. The term parable has been transliterated into English from the Greek word, parabolos, a compound word composed of para, a prefix meaning alongside (as in parallel) and bolos, related to the terms throw or ball. A parable is a story with another story, a deeper story told alongside it. Jesus’ parables always tell us something about the kingdom of God that Jesus brought into the world and still brings to those who believe in Him.

Jesus told the two parables in today’s Gospel lesson while He sat a banquet at the home of a Pharisee. We know something about the Pharisees, of course. Although they wouldn’t have expressed themselves in quite this way, the Pharisees didn’t believe that rightness with God—what the Bible calls righteousness—is a gift from God given to those who repent for sin and believe in the God we now know in Jesus. Instead, they believed that, by their actions, they would earn a place in heaven.

Despite their seeming faithfulness, the Pharisees really tried to whittle God down to human size, to turn God into a deity they could force to make concessions to them because they were such good people.

Today, people don’t worry so much about God’s favor. We moderns seem to have whittled God completely out of our lives. Or we’ve twisted the Bible’s teaching that God is love and turned the mighty God of the universe into an indulgent sugar daddy.

Many people, even those identifying themselves as Christians, seem to think that all roads lead to heaven. Polling, in fact, repeatedly shows that Christians in the United States accept Jesus’ teaching that there is a heaven. But much smaller numbers of Christians accept the word of Jesus that there is a hell. How it's possible to accept some of Jesus' teaching, while not accepting other of His teachings, while claiming Him as Lord is something these folks can't explain very well.

Let’s face it: The Bible is filled with inconvenient truths we would rather not hear about. I know that this is true for me. We’re like the rebel people of God the prophet Isaiah addressed some seven hundred years before Jesus. “Give us no more visions of what is right!” they tell the prophet in Isaiah 30:10. “Tell us pleasant things…”

By contrast, for all their many faults, most of the Pharisees would never have knowingly taught things contrary to the will of God. In fact, like the dumb sheep that populated many of Jesus’ other parables, they unknowingly and thoughtlessly drifted into their false beliefs.

Christ’s Church always struggles to resist such unintentional drifting from God. That’s why the Reformation begun by Martin Luther and others back in the sixteenth century must be a continuing part of our lives today. We need to constantly return to God, to God’s Word, to God’s will, to Jesus Christ.

But many Christians seem to have settled into a new kind of Pharisaism in which we are expected to passively go along with what I call Christianity Lite, the religion of anything goes so long as it conforms to the shifting standards of society. Someone has said that if Jesus were to come to a typical Christian congregation in North America and teach, as He did to the Pharisees in first-century Judea, “Stop trying to earn righteousness and salvation,” the response would be, “Who’s trying to be righteous?”

Many churches and many Christians--even we ourselves, we must confess--have wandered from surrendering trust in Christ and from reverence for God’s Word and will.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor who was executed by the Nazis at the end of World War II, warned Christians against what he called “cheap grace,” which he described as “the grace we bestow on ourselves…the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession.”

Still and all, in this time with so little consciousness of God or concern about the will of God, people are, as in first-century Judea, still in a frenzy to push themselves to the top, to be noticed, to win, to die with the most toys. These impulses are bred in our sinful bones. And Jesus’ two parables are aimed as much at us as they were at His original hearers.

The first one was told specifically to the guests who were jockeying for places of honor at the banquet. Take a look at it, please, starting at verse 8. “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

From the very beginning of Luke’s Gospel, we’re told that Jesus came into our world to flip humanity’s standard operating procedures on their head. His mother, Mary had it right, when she said, in what we call the Magnifcat, “[God] has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” [Luke 1:51-53]

Mary knew the truth that Jesus affirms in today’s first parable, that those who humble themselves before God, even if despised by the world, are exalted in God’s kingdom.

Jesus calls us to live in confidence not in ourselves or our achievements or our shrewd exploitation of people and circumstances, but in the God Who loves us just as we are and Who is committed to helping those humble enough to confess their sins and their need of Him to enter the process of becoming more Christ-like in this life.

Those who trust in Christ are God’s children forever. There’s nothing you can do or need to do to earn that exalted status. When you have Jesus living within you, you most certainly will try to be and do your best every day. You’ll want to do everything to the glory of the God Who made you and sets you free from sin and death. But you also will know that the God Who sent His Son to die and rise for you will honor your repentance and shower you with a sense of your infinite value in the eyes of heaven, whatever your job, irrespective of how many degrees you have acquired, however large your income, no matter how good your health, however popular you may be, or even if you get the best spot at the banquet or the football game.

In Christ, I hope and pray that you know that no matter what you’ve done, or how guilty you may really be for some past wrong none of us could guess, or how inadequate you may feel, you could not possibly be more loved by God than you are at this very moment.

And if we are willing to let God tear down all the walls we have that can block out His grace and love, if we are willing to repent for our sins and receive forgiveness, we become God’s personal reclamation projects. Not only can God erase the power of sin and death over you, He can, for those who surrender each day, decrease your taste for the sins that may keep you from knowing peace with God and peace with yourself.

The Lord wants you to take a place of honor at His table even if you think that you’re too lowly or too unworthy to take it. God loves you and all people are welcome to, in the words of Scripture, “taste and see that the Lord is good.” [Psalm 34:8]

Jesus next tells a kind parable to His host, a scenario in which He asks the man (and us) to imagine himself (and we ourselves) as the lead character. You can read it, starting at verse 12. ““When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Jesus isn’t making deals here. He’s saying that we who have been welcomed by God our host into the kingdom of God are called to also welcome others. All others.

Jesus is here expressing again what He says in the Great Commission: “...go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” [Matthew 28:19-20]

Filled with God’s Spirit, you and I are to be the instruments God uses to invite others to hear God’s Word, Law and Gospel, to hear God’s call and command to repentance, to hear God’s call and command to believe in Jesus and know life everlasting.

We have no control over whether those we invite to follow Christ with us will let go of their sins to grasp hold of the grace offered in Jesus. But we must never stop telling them, by our words and our lives, either the inconvenient truth about human sin and our need of God or the incredible, life-changing, good news of the God Who, in Christ, can turn our lives upside down and in doing so, turn our souls right-side up, facing God for life, following Christ for hope, being filled with the Holy Spirit to give us a joy that will never end. Amen!

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]