Commitment of the Heart As Well As the Hands

Pow! Luke doesn't pull any punches when it comes to what John the Baptizer preached. It's amazing how so many Jewish people came from so many far away communities to go in the wilderness to hear John; only to have him theologically blast them out of the water. John calls them a brood of vipers. Seems to question their intelligences by asking, "who warned you of the coming wrath." As if to say, you couldn't have come up with this on your own. Someone must have warned you! But that's not the upper cut to their doctrinal chins.

John then says to them in so many words, group affiliation does not guarantee your salvation. If you get a chance look at what John says in Luke 3:8, 9. He paints a picture of God literally taking an ax to the notion that group or family affiliation was enough. Graphic enough for you? I can imagine how hard it was for them to hear that. The thing I relied on for my salvation from the coming wrath (my ethnic identity as a child of Abraham) is not adequate enough to save my soul. I imagine it was hard for our church to hear that as well, yesterday. Because many of us believe group affiliation in the "right" church is good enough to warrant eternity with God. But John emphatically states it is more than just being connected to the right group.

We can see throughout the Old and New Testaments people in the right group doing the wrong thing and forced to deal with the natural consequences of that wrong behavior. And I'm so glad John boldly proclaimed this truth. Because if group affiliation is all that is needed then our commitment to Christ can be merely mental assent instead of incarnational living. Think about it. If being connected to the right group was enough, the only thing I would need to do is the minimum requirements to stay connected to the group. My commitment could stay on the heart level and would never really have to move to the hand level; that level of taking my beliefs and enfleshing them in healthy behavior--thus incarnational living.

Commitment in the heart naturally leads to commitment of the hands (behavior, service, action); if in fact there was a commitment made. In truth, it really is not so much about doing a lot of stuff. It's more about owning a belief system so much so that the natural response of that belief is the outpouring of behavior in keeping with that system. It is owning this Christian belief system to such a degree that our very character is changed and that change prompts Christlikeness.

This reliance on group affiliation gets in the way of this type of transformative living. Does this mean any and every group is sound in their teaching and practice and we no longer have to be mindful of those sorts of thing? Not at all. But that discussion tends to distract us from the transformative process. Let us focus on commitment in sound truth to such a degree that it leads to us living out that truth in sound ways.

Where do you look first?

In Luke 2:41-50 we have this very interesting moment in Mary and Joseph's life. After spending time in Jerusalem celebrating the Passover, Mary and Joseph head back to their hometown unaware that Jesus stays behind to spend time in the Temple discussing the things of His Father with the teachers of the Law. After a day of travel Mary and Joseph discover their 12 year old son is not with them or anyone else in the group heading home. Scripture says they spend three days searching for Jesus. Finally they look for Jesus in the Temple and find Him.

The question was asked: Why didn't they look in the Temple first? I think that is such a good question. I think it is a question that goes to the heart of who we are as a people. I think the image of a searching Mary and Joseph is Luke's depiction of a truly human condition. Why didn't they look for Jesus at the Temple first? I think it is the same reason we look for wholeness and contentment everywhere else first before we find it in Christ. Jesus' parents discovered they have lost something along their journey. And so often that happens to us along our way. And at the point we discover something is missing we look almost everywhere before we look upward. We will look to our jobs; our families; our possessions only to find out they are insufficient surrogates to Christ.

It's really hard to go to Christ first. We seem to think running to Christ first will require much of us. It seems as if it will be a lot of ripping, breaking, and wounding. When in truth it only takes one thing: Our willingness to be absolutely loved & taking that love to it's natural conclusion. But often we will look everywhere else before we move couragously toward love.

For believers, Christ is in the temple of our being. The indwelling of the very Spirit of Christ; the Holy Spirit resides in our being. And Christ stands open armed in the sacred space of our inner life waiting for us to find Him there. Find Him in a place where we can be accepted wholely in the divine.

Where will you go first?

How Much Does God Have To Do?

You know I'm looking over Luke 1 again after the sermon I preached yesterday. And it's really incredible. To me Luke makes it pretty clear in the first 4 verses that his writing is to help make certain the teachings of our faith. He then leads off his account with a depiction of a man, Zechariah, who's first response to an encounter with the divine is uncertainty. And I know that's who I am as well. In these last seven years of ministry I have run across the hand prints of God over so many peoples lives. And when I encounter the traces of God in peoples' stuff I'm astounded. How much does God have to do to convince me that He is as active today in peoples' lives as He was in the time of scripture. I'll tell you what it took for Zechariah. With the odds against him he was chosen to serve in the temple. Which sounds like it would be an easy thing but it wasn't. An angel is sent. (Now that in itself should be enough, if you think about it). But not only is an angel sent but an angel is sent with the greatest news! "Zechariah not only is your aged and barren wife going to have a son but your son will have the honor of paving the way for the messiah to come." And Zechariah's response? "How can I be sure its going to happen. We are too old." Wow! Instead of looking at the angel with good news before him, Zechariah is looking at all of the reasons this thing can't work! What more could God have done to convince Zechariah? What more does God have to do to convince me? To convince you? I guess it takes all of us to get struck dumb to be convinced. It seemed to help Zechariah. It finally takes being silenced and stilled enough in order to convince and make certain. Maybe it's true: we learn from being burned by the fire instead of being enlightened by the flame. I'm just grateful God was gracious enough to do what ever it took to get Zechariah to believe. There is hope for us all.