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Posts Tagged ‘Jesus’

Eyes of my Heart

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 14, 2010| 4 Comments »

I pray for my eyes to be opened! I pray for enlightenment (knowledge, understanding, awareness and clarity). And I pray that this awakening would not be an isolated event but a groundbreaking moment that prepares the way for a turn in my story.

Ephesians 1:18-19
I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

Power is promised and I consider power dangerous, particularly for humans untethered by the seal of God. In some ways, I want power and control. If I said otherwise, I would be lying. I struggle with “control issues” all the time. And successful control translates into power. But that is power abused and we see that every day in our culture. The power of influence or money or position.

But here, we are told that an enlightened heart, eyes wide open, understands power in a new way. It’s an inheritance from God in Christ. It’s a focus. And as I’ve written a million times before, I’m sure there’s a paradox involved. Power is probably in letting go of one’s own “power.” It’s submitting to divine power. And of course, that power will not be the way I would expect. Would I even recognize that kind of power?

Will I recognize what I see when those spiritual eyes are opened?

When the prophets of old described all the unbelievably fantastic things they saw in their visions, they could only use their limited understanding. Am I any different?

And yet, it is my heart’s cry today. Open the eyes of my heart Lord.

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Marked with a Seal

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 13, 2010| 2 Comments »

Lots of different seals crop up in a life, from Easter seals that signify a contribution to a worthy cause to government seals that confirm the truth of a document. Where does this one fit in?

Ephesians 1:13b
Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit . . .

When my husband and I adopted our children, one of the requirements was that every page of our dossier had to have a notary seal, a county seal to confirm the notary seal, and finally a state seal to confirm the notary seal. A bit of redundancy to say the least. (And, somewhat costly I might add. Why the local governments feel it necessary to charge up to $5 for a seal really irks me. Particularly when foreign governments are already gouging prospective adoptive parents.)

But this is a different kind of seal, this Holy Spirit seal. This one speaks to a completion as well as a promise. This seals says I am a believer, a follower of the Christ whose sacrifice I accept as mysteriously having the power to forgive my sins irrespective of time (yesterday, today and forever). The seal also represents the promise of my response to the transaction. I am marked to continue in the faith. I agree to work with the inner Spirit and to allow that Spirit to direct my life.

The Church (that includes me as individual) is referenced as the bride of Christ [Revelation 21:9-10] . This makes perfect sense to me. The seal is a representation of a contract, a marriage, if you will. This marriage is also referred to as “becoming ONE.” [Matthew 19:4-6] In marriages we have both the legal contract (the license or pre-nuptial agreement) and the symbolic seals like the rings, the kiss, the sharing of “bread’ (cake). All of these are visible signs of our promises.

What is the Holy Spirit’s visible sign? How do we recognize the seal . . . in ourselvces or in others?

Some people mistakenly think it’s the wearing of religious icons or jewelry. Some think it’s the show-up rate at a church while others think it’s that 10% tithe.

Personally, I think the mark is within. It’s engraved on the heart and is revealede through the eyes. The more transparent and authentic we are, the more visible the mark of the seal.

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Crucified to the World

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on October 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Now that would be true freedom: to partake so fully of the work of the cross and thereby be dead to the wiles of the world, as in the profane and avaricious, covetous and greedy. But I get sucked in all the time. Why else would I continue to live beyond my means?

Galatians 6:14
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

We have three dogs in our household and our oldest (and smallest) dog has suffered the most from the acquisition of the other two, both in the same year, both only a year old and full of energy. He knows he is supposed to be the alpha dog, but he hasn’t figured out how to make it so. Mostly, he tries to prevent the other dogs from eating at mealtimes. His other tactic is to hoard the chewies and toys. It’s not that he necessarily wants them to eat or for play, but he believes it’s his right to have them all.

Am I any different? So often, I simply want what others have. It looks so appealing on them: the nice car, the designer clothes, the perfect hair, the manicures and pedicures, the successful honor students, the cohorts of friends, the dinners, the barbecues, the season tickets, and so on.

I mean, I can appreciate the amazing things that people like Mother Teresa have accomplished, but come on, own nothing? Eat the same as the poor (which means not eating regularly)? Wear the same “drapey” thing every day? What about having my teeth cleaned twice a year? And my eye doctor visit or my gyno exam? What about learning how to cook a gourmet meal? And how would I get my skin tags and moles removed?

It’s an amazing thing, the cross. That work, the ultimate sacrifice, made it possible for me to have relationship with God, creator of the universe. It also avails me to be set free from the web of “gotta have it.” But I haven’t appropriated that aspect of the cross at all. I have accepted the primary benefit but shrug off the other half of the equation. It’s when I step into this realm that I’m pretty sure, I can serve others freely.

I don’t serve others because it’s still, despite everything, it’s all about me. God forgive me. Give me courage to let go of the threads that I am holding (and not that hold me) in this worldly web. Christ died for me so that I could die to the “world” as we have come to know it. There is another world outside this one, that kingdom world, that is calling me.

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Sowing Slowly

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 7, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I don’t like doing anything slowly. Part of that is my personality and part of it I inherited from our current culture. Fast food, fast cars, fast acting detergent, whatever! About the only ones who appreciate slow are the Slowskies from the Comcast commercials.

Galatians 6:7b, 9
A man reaps what he sows. . . . Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

But truthfully, sowing has it’s own rate of speed. I can’t make something grow any faster than it’s intended to grow. It’s total futility to sit in front of a small pot and try to talk a seed into germinating. That is all God-stuff. It’s that way in nature and it’s undoubtedly the same way in the soil of the human soul.

I have posted about the Tortoise before. This ongoing battle of speed. My mind starts that buzzing first. I wake up in the mornings, and my mind is racing far ahead of my body. It makes me tired. I want to go back to sleep just to shut it off. But it’s even worse if I put that clock on sowing good things.

Good things will always reap good, eventually. If the motive is good, the results will be comparable. But I cannot predict what this “good” will look like. Sometimes, things get worse before they get better. Sometimes, the good we sow seems absorbed and lost. But, that is just perception. Good has a power, like energy, and cannot be destroyed. Good is love.

God is good. “Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.” [Mark 10:18b]
God is love. [I John 4:16b]

I believe our focus should be on the planting, the sowing, part of the equation. Plant love in the lives of others and good will grow. I have been too “results” oriented. I’ve been looking for harvest.

My kids are all teens and I keep crying over the mistakes their making in their lives, the false starts, the collapsing dreams. I’ve been counting on those early seeds to be bearing fruit already. And sure, in some cases, that’s how it happens. But now I’m thinking, they are still germinating. And instead of sorrowing over the slow growth, I should be planting more and more. No one has ever said that we’re supposed to sow and then sit around and wait for the reaping. That will come, in its good time.

More sowing. Nice and steady. Every day. Every day.

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Yeast in Dough

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I should write a book: “My Favorite Bible Metaphors.” There are a zillion ways that Jesus used to communicate with the people about faith and the Kingdom of God from seeds to light to fish to sheep to salt to cooking. These word pictures were then passed down through stories. They still work today.

Galatians 5:7, 9
You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? . . . “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.”

One of my good friends bakes bread several times a week to provide this staple for her family. Her father baked it for their family when she was growing up and it’s a tradition she has continued. Whenever I think of yeast-rising bread, I think of her.

I did my own stint at bread making some years ago. At first, the hand method (which is preferable) and eventually to a bread machine. The smell would envelop our house. I actually gave up the practice because my husband and I were devouring a loaf a day and our waists followed suit. But it might be time, with teens in the house, to return to this simple practice of adding yeast, working dough, watching it rise, and then shaping into a tasty loaf. There’s something a little “zen” about it.

Bread of all kinds is staple for all cultures. Everyone understands the yeast/dough image. It only takes a small amount of yeast to transform bread from flour, salt and water. Yeast affects all the dough. It too transforms itself to have the effect.

As a metaphor, it is a simple message. In Galatians, Paul refers to the “yeast” of a misleading but charismatic preacher who was drawing the original Christ believers back toward Jewish law, particularly circumcision.

It only takes one person to change a group. It only takes one to deadlock a jury. It only takes one to break consensus. It only takes one to undermine a team. It only takes one to start a war. But it also works the other way, it can be the one who motivates a group to higher challenges, or one to bring a family back together, or one to inspire a nation, or one to raise the flag of peace, or one to be the watchman crying out a warning.

Many years ago, I was on a women’s retreat and we were all assigned to a certain discussion group that would meet and discuss the teaching sessions. (For those in the know, this format is used in a variety of parachurch organizations like Cursillo, Walk to Emmaus, Tres Dias, and so forth.) The first day I was sure I was assigned to the wrong group. Each woman came with so much baggage, even the assigned facilitators were a mess. The first couple of discussion sessions were painfully dull or fraught with misunderstandings and confusion. I cried. Can’t anyone see I’m miserable? Can’t I change to that happy group over there? Can’t I be with the fun group on the far side of the room, or the clever group behind us? Finally, God “smacked me up side the head!” And I literally heard a voice from within say, “It’s you! You! You are not being the yeast or the salt.” I had come to that retreat experience with some expectations, not realizing that I wasn’t entering the story. I was sitting back and waiting for story to come to me. When I finally engaged fully and lovingly, everything changed. By the end of that weekend, our group became the most impacted, the most cohesive, warm, and authentic. There was much healing.

Lord, give me courage to be yeast in the right circumstances. And when it’s yeast coming against me, help me jump out of the bowl. 🙂

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Child of the Free Woman

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Does it matter–our genealogy? our heritage? our family line? In scripture, it’s recorded in many ways as quite significant, from the “begats” in Matthew to the repetitive list of kings and their fathers and their fathers. Am I a child of the promise, a child of the free woman?

Galatians 4:31
Therefore, brothers [and sisters], we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

Paul goes into a longish discussion of the “figurative” nature of Hagar (the slave woman) and Sarah (the free), who bore children, one “naturally” and the other as the result of a God-promise and power of the Spirit (a supernatural birth). The slave child (and subsequent generations) is born to a time and place in history, while the implication is that the child (and following generations) is of a “new Jerusalem,” a place out of time.

Despite the fact that Sarah and Abraham are usually considered the “father and mother” of the Jews (who we know followed the law), now the focus is on the next step when the Abrahamic children come into their true inheritance. The long-awaited Messiah was part of the promise, the miracle of Isaac. Christ too was born supernaturally. (Isaac was born from an old woman’s barren womb and Jesus from a very young woman’s virginal womb.)

And just so, because I have accepted that same long-promised Messiah as my Messiah too, I become a child of the free woman, the metaphysical, the kingdom of God. I now have a different genealogy than I did before. This is a truer meaning of “new creation.”

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” [II Corinthians 5:17]

I’m not living in this freedom really. It’s positional only, not internalized. It’s head knowledge, not heart knowledge.

It’s like I’m so close to really understanding the enormity of this truth but not quite. It’s a thought butterfly flitting around my head. I can’t quite grab hold of it. But someday I will. And when I do, I will be changed.

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Become Like Me

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Paul is certainly confident as a prototype for believers: become like me, follow me, imitate me. Paul was a zealot before he met Christ and he was certainly one afterward. I could no more imitate him than I can imitate Christ. Ah, there’s the difference. . .

Galatians 4:12
I plead with you, brothers, become like me, . . .
I Corinthians 4:16
Therefore I urge you to imitate me.
I Corinthians 11:1
Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.
Philippians 3:17
Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.

To follow Paul is an outside/in method while following Christ is an inside/out endeavor.

Despite the freedoms Paul articulates as a follower of Jesus, having been a Pharisee for many years, he still had a very law-based mentality and world view. He was an administrator, an organizer. He could see how things would work out best. He loved his churches and he loved his people, but he did get frustrated. He was impatient. He continually aimed for perfection (Christ) and condemned himself often (not in a bad way, just as a confession) for missing the mark. He knew he was less than perfect and only Christ within made up the difference. Nonetheless, it was Paul who set up the churches with structure. He was an academic. He laid out the reasons for everything he said. He was a man of logic and reason. I’d say a good portion of our modern day churches have evolved out of the teachings and interpretations of Paul.

But when Jesus calls us to “follow him,” I think he is drawing us to the Kingdom. It is Jesus who consistently lays out the paradoxes of internal following. Everything is the opposite of what we would think: turning the other cheek, loving our enemies, going the extra mile, meekness is victor, weakness is strength and so on.

For Jesus it is not really “become LIKE me,” it’s become ME.

This is much more mysterious. When Jesus taught about “eating his flesh and drinking his blood,” a lot of disciples fled. This entire teaching on Jesus being the “bread of life” terrified most of his followers. [John 6:41-66] They fled because they understood, not because it was beyond them. Every time Jesus spoke bluntly about his intentions, there was an uproar.

With Jesus, what seems impossible is possible; what is lost can be found; what dies can be raised up.

In the face of these kinds of truths, do the outer trappings really matter: Robes or no robes, dunking or sprinkling, wine or grape juice, men or women, buildings or no buildings, and so on.

“On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” [John 14:20]

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