Party at My House: How Jesus Thinks of God

Posted on September 3, 2021 by salooper57
Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son

(This is a follow-up to this week’s posts – a sermon I preached several years ago that was part of a series on how Jesus thought of God.)

Party at My House – God

(August 2013)

Luke 15:11-32: Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

In our first week of this series, we saw that salvation is the principal theme of Luke’s Gospel. He wants his readers to know God’s salvation has been brought by his Son Jesus to all people, including the least, the last and the lost.  We’ve seen how this has worked out in practice, as Jesus exercised God’s saving power for Gentiles, Samaritans and prostitutes; for the irreligious and even, as we saw last week, for the despised tax collectors.

            These were people that society intentionally excluded, and they believed it was morally incumbent upon them to do so. But Jesus welcomed them, and that left some people puzzled and others scornful. This was particularly true of other religious leaders, who considered Jesus’s chumminess with such people to be evidence of a morally defective character. They publicly criticized him and tried to use the issue to defame and marginalize him. Reputable folk avoided contact with such people whenever possible so that they wouldn’t be contaminated. Any contact was risky, but certain kinds of contact were worse than others, chief of which was eating or drinking with them – and especially sharing their utensils or dinnerware.

            So what does Jesus do? He goes off to be the guest of honor at the first annual Sinners and Tax Collectors Banquet. Was he ever criticized for that! What else did he do? He asked a Samaritan woman to give him a drink – from her cup! Even the disciples found that shocking.

Do you remember when news of the AIDS virus first broke? No one knew how far the disease might spread, but crazy theories about the disease were spreading everywhere. Since it was a virus, and viruses are capable of mutating, people were wondering if the virus could mutate in such a way that it might be transmitted through simple contact, like sharing a cup. Churches that used a common cup for the Lord’s Supper were changing their communion practices because of it. Everyone was on edge.

            One day I met a couple who both had AIDS and had several children at home with the disease. This was in the early to mid-80s. I visited them at their home, and they told me about how people in the pharmacy that week had turned and almost ran the other way when they saw them. They told me how people at work didn’t want anything to do with them. Everyone was afraid that they would give them the virus.

            That’s when they asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee, and offered me an old stained, chipped cup. I accepted, but as I sat looking around at their unclean, messy kitchen, I wondered if that cup had even been washed. The idea that the virus might mutate crossed my mind. I drank their coffee, but I wondered if I was putting myself at risk.

            We know now there was nothing to worry about, but at the time it seemed like a risky thing to do. Well, in the first century, that’s how people felt about eating and drinking with people who were not Jews, or were not following ritual practices, or who were living sinful lives. Being around them might very well contaminate you. It is hard to overstate how universal and how powerful this idea was. And yet Jesus welcomed these people and whenever they invited him over for a meal, he went.

            By doing so, he was showing them – and everyone else – what God is like. Jesus intentionally challenged the traditions of his day because those traditions obscured the love God has for everyone – even the least, the last and the lost. But he did so without ever obscuring God’s righteousness. He welcomed people joyfully, but he did so without giving them the impression that the way they lived their lives didn’t matter. In fact, he repeatedly told people, “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15).  

            Jesus was born into a culture that catalogued people according to social groupings. He grew up in a society where even little children could recognize a Pharisee from a block away, where the respectable were distinguished from the disrespectable, and where everyone was assigned worth on the basis of their classification. Yet he utterly disregarded those distinctions. He welcomed people gladly, while other religious leaders did just the opposite: they ignored and excluded people, and felt completely justified in doing so. Why was that? What could account for the very different ways they thought about people and acted towards them?

It’s important to understand that thoughts and actions flow out of beliefs, and the religious leaders’ beliefs about others and, more importantly, about God were radically different from Jesus’s. The Pharisees sincerely believed that God did not want these people; that he didn’t like them. They thought that God himself considered them to be a kind of infection. But Jesus believed that God did want these people, that he loved them and considered them to be a kind of treasure.

            Look at verse 1: “Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him.” “Were gathering” reflects an imperfect tense in the original language, which implies repetition. It had become their habit to “draw near” Jesus, as the Greek puts it.

            “But” (verse 2) “the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” That he welcomed them was bad enough, but that he ate with them was indefensible. Eating together was that culture’s most powerful way of signaling mutual acceptance.

            Now we need to understand that these Pharisees and teachers of the law didn’t act this way because they were terrible people. They acted this way because they sincerely believed something that wasn’t true. They thought that welcoming and accepting people was tantamount to approving their sinful behavior. They thought that acceptance would remove any motivation for them to change. They thought the only leverage they had over them was rejection.

            But Jesus knew that people don’t get better or holier because you reject them. Only contact with God can make that happen. The religious leaders were waiting for people to clean themselves up and become worthy of salvation. But God doesn’t wait. He doesn’t withhold his affection and love until people meet a certain standard. He loves people and wants them to be with him, which is another way of saying that he wants them to be all they can be. But the religious leaders couldn’t see that, and they criticized Jesus for it.

            In response to their criticism – criticism that would have made sense to many of Jesus’s followers – Jesus told three stories. The stories were meant to help people reorient their lives and their relationships around the will and character of God; that is, around his kingdom and his righteousness.

            Each story is about something lost – a sheep, a coin and a son; lost, but still valuable. The sinners that the Pharisees and teachers of the law despised were like that: lost, but still valuable. Now I said the stories are about a sheep, a coin and a son, but they are really about a shepherd who seeks his lost sheep, a woman who searches for her lost coin and a father who longs for his lost son. But on a deeper level, they are about the God who never gives up. We often refer to the third and most famous of these stories as the Parable of the Prodigal Son, but it is really the Parable of the Loving Father. It, and the other two, are stories about the God who never gives up, who keeps looking and waiting for his lost people.

            In the first story, a shepherd loses one of the hundred sheep he owns, and immediately goes in search of that one sheep. Even though it is only one of a hundred, he still wants it and does everything he can to find it. In the second story a peasant woman loses one of the ten coins she possesses. In that society each coin amounted to a day’s wages, so we are talking about one tenth of this peasant woman’s savings. So the stakes have risen from the first story, where it was one out of a hundred; here it is one out of ten.

            The stakes are even higher in the third story, where we are no longer thinking about a coin or a sheep, but a son. And not one of a hundred sons (like King David might have had), or one of ten (like some of Jesus’s hearers might have had) but one of two sons.

            The shepherd searched for the sheep until he found it. The woman swept up a storm until she found her coin. But the father could not use the same technique. His son was not a sheep or a coin, but a person. He would go to the ends of the earth to find him, if it would help. But finding him wouldn’t be enough, because he would only have his body and not what he really wanted: his heart. So he waits and watches, and longs for his son to return.

            Jesus wanted to help the Pharisees and teachers of the law to realize something about God that had escaped them. He wanted them to see that God is like the shepherd who looks for his lost sheep, even though he has plenty of others. And he is like the woman, who looks for her lost coin, and he’s like the father, who watches for his lost son. And God doesn’t look for his lost ones so that he can avoid them, like the Pharisees did, but so that he can restore them.

            These stories are tied together by the repeated use of the same terminology. For example, the word “lost” (or “to lose”) is used in verses 4 (twice), 6, 8, 9, 17, 24, and 32. The word “sinner” is used in verses 1, 2, 7, 10. The word “rejoice” (or “joy”) is used in 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10 (along with the words “celebrate” in 23, 29 and 32, and “be glad” in 32). And the word “call together” is found in verses 6 and 9.

            In each story the picture is this: something is lost, and the one to whom it belongs is determined to get it back. He or she searches for what is lost until it is restored, and is then so happy that he or she calls everybody together to have a party.

            I’ve just said that the word “lost” is used eight times in this chapter. Jesus would have agreed with the Pharisees and teachers of the law that sinners are lost – and desperately so. They are disoriented – that is, their lives are oriented in the wrong direction, around the wrong markers and leading to the wrong place, where irretrievable loss is the result – the Bible calls it “hell.” Though they are lost they are still valuable – just as my car keys are still valuable even when they are lost. Valuable but, for all practical purposes, useless, until they are found.

            Unfortunately, the Pharisees’ response to lost people was totally different from Jesus’s. They thought, “God doesn’t need them. He has plenty of others – ourselves included – so why would he bother with these sinners, who got lost through their own doing?” But Jesus knew that God cares about sinners. They may be lost, but they are his lost.

            Another of the words that is repeated in these stories is the word “rejoice.” Every time the lost thing is found, there is a party. The shepherd calls his buddies and says, “I found that sheep I lost. Come on over. Everybody’s getting together to celebrate.” The peasant woman calls her peasant friends and says, “I’m throwing a party because I finally found that coin I lost. We’re all meeting at my house tonight; it’s going to fun.”

            When the lost son – and lost by his own choice, by the way – is found, the father posts an invite on Facebook: “The boy’s back! Party at my house tonight. Bring a friend; we’re going to celebrate.”

            Now look at verse 7: “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.” Verse 10: “I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Heaven breaks into a party every time a sinner repents; every time someone who has been lost is found.

            Jesus pictures God as someone who is just itching to throw a party. He texts all his friends and says, “Found another one! Party at my house tonight.” Heaven is a perpetual party. And why? Because God seeks the lost … and he is really good at finding them.

            This idea is radically different from the one people usually hold – from the one the Pharisees held – about God. There was a rabbinic quote that said in effect, “God rejoices over the downfall of the godless.” When the Pharisees heard that, they solemnly nodded their heads in agreement, but Jesus emphatically shook his in disagreement. That is not what his Father is like.

            The parable of the lost son (or better, the loving Father) makes that abundantly clear. You know the story: the younger of the two sons breaks his father’s heart by demanding his inheritance while his dad is still alive, cashes it out, and leaves home as fast as his feet will take him. He wastes all his money, sinks lower and lower and brings shame on his family. Then, when he has totally ruined everything and hates his own life, he decides to go back to his dad for help. He figures his dad won’t want him back, and so he works out a plan he hopes his dad will accept: to hire him as a low-level employee, a grunt in his dad’s business.

            You know what happens next. He heads home, rehearsing his apology and figuring out how best to ask for a job. But his dad is out watching for him, waiting for him, longing for his son to come home. He runs to him. (Remember, in that culture it was considered extremely undignified for an older man to run, but he doesn’t care; this is his son!) The son may have thought he was running toward him to accost him and drive him away but instead he hugs and kisses him. The father is overjoyed to have his son back.

            So what does the father do then? What else? He throws a party. But remember that there were two sons. The younger one left home, the older one stayed and worked. When the older one found out that younger one was back – and that his dad had thrown him a party – he was so angry that he wouldn’t go in.  His brother was an irresponsible, self-centered jerk, and fathers shouldn’t throw parties for irresponsible, self-centered jerks. If his brother was lost, it was his own fault. He shouldn’t be rewarded for it.

            I wonder if the Pharisees saw themselves in that older brother. I wonder if we do.

            And he wasn’t just angry at his brother. He was angry at his dad. And so he sat outside, pouting – or fuming, which is more like it. When his dad learned that he was outside, refusing to come in, what did he do? He went looking for him, because that is what a father does when his son is lost.

            But this wasn’t the son that was lost, was it? This son had stayed home and worked. And yet he was lost – and profoundly so. He was more deeply lost in the thickets of self-centeredness than was his brother. He just didn’t know it. He had remained present in body, but his heart was a thousand miles away, and it was his heart that his father wanted. His heart had wandered even further than his little brother’s. The older son was lost.

            But he was not just lost; he was a slave. His younger brother had hired himself out to do slave work for a Gentile, but the older brother was just as much a slave as he was – and perhaps more, because he thought of himself as a slave. Look at verse 29: “All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.” Is this a son talking, one who loved his father, loved his work, and loved the estate and cared for it? No, these are the words of a slave. At least the younger brother had, verse 17, “Come to himself” (Greek); the older brother had still not come to himself; that is, he had still not become himself. Instead of being the son of a wonderful father he had trapped himself in the role of a slave.

            Now let me wrap this up. First of all, I summarized this entire passage rather than taking a smaller part of it verse by verse because I didn’t want us to miss the main point in the many wonderful details. The main point is about God and what he is like. He is the kind of person who never stops caring. No matter how much a person has messed up his life, he doesn’t give up on him. He cares for the profligate, the drug addict, the sex addict, the money addict and the fool. But he also cares about the stuffed shirt, the hypocrite, the person whose religion has made him bitter and not better. God loves the lost, in whatever woods they’ve managed to lose themselves.

            This is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He is so full of joy that he is always ready to throw a party. He is so full of love that he is never ready to throw in the towel. Every bad thing you’ve ever heard about him – usually from the mouth of someone like the older brother – is a lie. Every good thing you’ve ever heard about him is an understatement of infinite proportions. The truth is better than you can even begin to imagine.

            I said earlier that if it would help, the father would go to the ends of the earth to find his son. But God went further than that to find you: he went to the cross. It is from the height of the cross that he sees his lost children, and it is by looking at the cross – and only by looking at the cross – that they can truly see him.

            One more thing: no matter what mistakes you’ve made, no matter what sins you’ve committed, God still wants you. God wants you He does not want you because of what you can do for him; he doesn’t want you because of your great potential. He wants you because you are his, the way a loving father wants his child.

You may be thinking, “Well he doesn’t want me.” But you say that because you are looking at yourself, not at Jesus. Look at him, nailed to a cross, and tell me that he doesn’t want you! You’re believing in the God of the Pharisees, not in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Stop looking at yourself and all your faults, and look at him and all his love.

A man who lost his dog posted signs all around the neighborhood, describing the dog and offering a big reward. The description went like this: “He’s has three legs, he’s blind in the left eye, he’s missing his right ear, his tail has been broken off, and he answers to the name ‘Lucky.’”

He doesn’t sound lucky, does he? He apparently got himself into one mess after another. And yet he was lucky to have an owner who totally loved him and wanted him back. And you – no matter what you’ve got yourself into, and no matter how much of it was your own fault – have a God who totally loves you and wants you back.[1]

[1] Philip Griffin, from the sermon “A God Who Redeems.”

Posted in Bible, Peace with God, Theology | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

What Does God Think of You: The Parable of the Prodigal (part 2)

Posted on September 2, 2021 by salooper57

The turning point of the story of the prodigal son comes in verse 17 when the son has a repentance moment. He comes to his senses (literally, “to himself,” to who he really is – the son of a kind and wonderful man) and decides to go back to his dad. He’s got it in his head that his dad might just take him back as a slave on the family farm. He even rehearses his speech, hoping he can say just the right thing to blunt his dad’s anger. Once he’s got his speech memorized, he gets up (or arises; the word is routinely used of rising in the resurrection – this boy is coming back from the dead) and starts off toward his father.

The last time we saw the father, his son was rejecting and disrespecting him. But now as the son approaches, our thoughts return to him. Every Pharisee knows exactly what he will do when the young man arrives: he will turn his back on him. He will say, with his back turned, “You are no son of mine! My son died and everyone knows it! We held his funeral. You – whoever you are – go back to the pigs and live among your own kind.”

Now the Pharisee know this is what the father will say because this is what he would say – and feel right in saying it. And he would say this because he knew it is what God would say. God is holy. He is righteous. He despises sinners.

So imagine the Pharisee’s surprise at what Jesus did with this story. This is verse 20: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” Jesus has pulled the theological rug out from under the Pharisee’s feet. He tells them, “You guys have got it all wrong. This is what God is really like. He is a finder. He finds lost people, not so he can punish them but so he can throw his divine arms around them and kiss them and welcome them home.”

The son launches into his prepared speech, but his dad doesn’t let him finish. No bargaining. No “I’ll do better this time.” He doesn’t make him sign a contract. He takes him in. Brings him home.

The Pharisees would have thought that was crazy. They believed that accepting people who do bad things takes away any motivation they might have to change. They thought the only leverage they had over people was rejection. It was the only tool in their bag; their only tactic for making people change.

But Jesus knew people don’t get better or holier because you reject them. Only being with God can make that happen. The religious leaders were waiting for people to clean themselves up and become worthy of salvation. God doesn’t wait. He doesn’t withhold his affection and love until people meet a certain standard. He pulls up his robe and runs to them.

In first century Israel (and just about everywhere else), men wore robes. If they needed to run, they would pull their robe up and tie it above their knees. Older men didn’t do that. It was unbecoming – embarrassing, really. But Jesus has the father in his story (who, remember, is meant to show us what God the Father is like) tie up his robe, not caring what anyone thinks, and run to his son. God doesn’t force us into a relationship with him – that would ruin everything he wants for us – but he will help us choose a relationship with him and will come running to us when we take our first step.

God helps us come to him. When the son in this story came to himself and rose from the dead to return to his father, it was because his father was helping him. He helped him with remembered love and blessing, like Louie Zamperini’s father helped him by giving him that money and showing him he was wanted. If God didn’t help us, we would not even think about coming to him.

If you have come to God, it is because he helped you. If you’re inching toward him, it is because he is helping you. He helps you think differently; informs your thoughts. He comes to you, like the father in our story, where you are. He doesn’t demand, as the religious leaders of Jesus’s day did, that you come to where he is first. He is helping you and he will help you. He wants you – his child – with him and with his other children.

Posted in Bible, Christianity, Theology | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

What Does God Think of You: The Story of the Prodigal (part one)

Posted on September 1, 2021 by salooper57

Jesus tells three stories in Luke 15. The first is about a guy who has one of his hundred sheep wander off. He’s still got 99, but he can’t stand to lose that one, so he goes after it and, when he finds it, he throws a party to celebrate.

The second story is about a woman who has ten denarii – a denarii was worth one day’s wages – and she loses one of them. She’s still got nine but she can’t stand to lose that one, so she goes looking for it until she finds it and then throws a party.

The third story, the jewel in the crown, is about a dad who has two sons. Notice how the stakes get higher with each story. One out of a hundred. One out of ten. This time one out of two. One of his sons leaves, goes out into the world, and gets terribly lost.

(By the way, the word lost is one of the key terms in these stories: it occurs 8 times in its noun and verb forms. The religious leaders would have said, “People are lost,” and Jesus would have agreed. Forget fourth level, E-Flight, 64th position. That’s not how God thinks of us. We’re either lost because we are away from him, which is a grief, even to God, or we’re found, because we’ve come back, which is reason to throw the biggest party ever. Jesus would have agreed with the Pharisees that people are lost but, unlike the Pharisees, he knew that God loves people whether they’re lost or found.  And he loves finding them.

The rabbis had a saying: “God rejoices over the downfall of the godless.” When the Pharisees heard that, they nodded their heads in agreement, but Jesus emphatically shook his in disagreement. That is not what his Father is like.)

Now, Jesus adds a lot of color to this story – more than usual. He gives us details. The lost son pulls a Louie Zamperini on his dad. He knows his dad doesn’t want him to go, but he says (in effect), “I hate my life with you and I can’t wait to get out of here.” He doesn’t care about his dad. Doesn’t care about his family. He sells his share of the farm out from under them, takes the cash, and takes off.

Now, if you are a Pharisee listening to this story, you know exactly how the dad feels. He is madder than a wet hen. Madder than a hornet – than a nest of hornets. And you know exactly what that dad would do: hold a ketsssatsah, aceremony in which his son is declared dead. Not MIA but KIA; not missing but dead. As far as that dad was concerned, his boy died and any relationship they’d had died with him.

Jesus, being the greatest storyteller ever, leaves the dad right there and follows the son. And here is where the details come in. The son blows through his money in no time. He’s out there partying, telling himself he should have done this long ago, that this is the life. He knows it can’t go on forever, but he’ll worry about that when the time comes. Then one morning he wakes up with a hangover and discovers the time has come. (Our modern translations say something like, he “squandered his wealth” in verse 13, but the original language could be translated, “he squandered his being.” He thought he was spending his money. He was really spending himself.)

And then life got really bad really fast. Circumstances went against him. Unemployment soared. His friends all left – Jesus says, “no one gave him anything.” Not able to find a job, he did the last thing any self-respecting Jew would do: he went to work for a Gentile pig farmer. He sank so low he wanted to eat the pig’s food.

Jesus has a reason for telling us these details – one that we might miss. Feeding pigs was shameful for a Jew. The Mishnah said, “None may rear swine anywhere” and “Cursed is the man who rears swine.” Just hearing this part of the story would make a Pharisee sick to his stomach. It was disgusting. And that Pharisee would be thinking, “He got what he deserves. If he is going to act like a pig, he should live with the pigs.”

If I were a first century Jewish father, and my son Joel (I’ll pick on him because he is our only son with a Hebrew name) went to work for a pig farmer, I would be mortified. I would be shamed before the entire community. People would look at me differently, call me a failure, talk behind my back. And shaming one’s father was, in that time and place, just about the worst thing a person could do.

Posted in Bible, Christianity, Theology | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

What Does God Think of You?

Posted on August 31, 2021 by salooper57

Louie Zamperini was a Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps in the Second World War, serving as a bombardier when his plane was badly damaged by Japanese anti-aircraft fire. The plane made it back to base but was no longer flight-worthy, so Louie was assigned to another plane and another mission: to search for a lost aircraft and her crew. During the search, the plane developed mechanical difficulties and crashed into the Pacific Ocean, 800 miles from Hawaii, killing 8 men of the 11-member crew.

Louie and two others survived the crash. They spent 47 days at sea, living off collected rainwater and whatever fish or birds they could catch. They fought off sharks and were strafed by Japanese planes and one of the three friends died. When they finally reached land, they were immediately captured by the Japanese and transferred to a prison camp. Later they were sent to another camp, where they were brutally, sadistically tortured.

The Army assumed Lieutenant Zamperini died with the rest of the crew and listed him as KIA. President Roosevelt sent his parents a letter of condolence. Can you imagine how his family felt when they learned he was alive, when he returned home, and they saw him again?

Being lost at sea was not the first time Louie was lost. When he was a teen he was constantly getting into fights and stealing and drinking. One day after a fight with his parents, he told them he was leaving. His parents pleaded with him to stay, but he refused. So his tearful mother made him a sandwich to take with him and his dad gave him $2 which, in the Depression, may have been all the money he had.

Louie hopped a freight train but nearly died in a boxcar after he got locked inside in sweltering heat. When he was discovered, he was run off at gunpoint. With nowhere to go, he sat around the rail yard, dirty, bruised, and wet. There was nothing to eat except a can of beans he’d stolen. While he sat there in misery, a passenger train went by and Louie could see people sitting at tables with tablecloths and crystal stemware, eating and laughing. In that moment, he remembered the sandwich his mother gave him and the money his dad handed him, and he stood up and headed home.[1] He’d experienced repentance.

That is a modern (and true-life) retelling of Jesus’s Parable of the Prodigal Son – or better, The Parable of the Lost Sons, since both sons in the story are lost or, better yet, the Parable of the Loving Father. It is the crown of Jesus’s 37 parables and it powerfully portrays what the God and Father of Jesus is really like.

When Jesus told this masterpiece of a story, he was speaking to people who lived in a society where everyone was assigned a status. Who is you dad? Where do you work? What school did you go to? What is your annual income? What are your assets? How many languages do you speak? What are your religious credentials? Based on these particulars, we are assigning you to the fourth level, E-flight, 64th position. That is who you are.

Of course, people who were assigned to D-flight looked down on those in E-Flight but were looked down upon by people in C-Flight who, in turn, were looked down upon by people in B-Flight, and so on. In fact, looking down on people, especially those who didn’t measure up on the religion scale, was practically a matter of duty. And, since we assume God is like us, it was taken for granted God did the same thing.

Then came Jesus. He not only didn’t look down on people at the lower end of the scale, he got rid of the scale – threw it out. In a society where even little children could distinguish between the reputable and the disreputable, Jesus’s disregard for those distinctions was scandalous. He took people in, while other religious leaders shut them out—and thought they were doing right thing. What accounts for the difference?

The reason Jesus and the religious leaders treated people differently is that they believed radically different things about God. Beliefs have consequences! The Pharisees believed God did not want these people; that he didn’t like them. They thought God considered them to be a kind of infection and so they treated them that way. Jesus believed that God did want these people, that he loved them and considered them to be a kind of treasure. And so he treated them that way.

[1] Adapted from Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken (Random House, 2010), pp. 11-15.

Posted in Christianity, Theology, Worldview and Culture | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Are We There Yet?

Posted on August 29, 2021 by salooper57
Listening time approximate 27 minutes.
Posted in Bible, Spiritual life | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

God, People, and Schrödinger’s Cat: Our Role in it All

Posted on August 28, 2021 by salooper57
Photo by Du01b0u01a1ng Nhu00e2n on Pexels.com

A friend recently said to me something like this: “If this is all there is [to a recent set of events], then it was all for nothing.” She went on to say that nothing good came of it. When it was going on, it had seemed so meaningful – that is, she felt it had been divinely intentioned – but in retrospect that was not the case.

This is a sentiment I have run across repeatedly. As far as I know, atheists do not experience it. It is theists, especially Christians with a robust belief in an engaged and sovereign God, who endure this theological dysphoria.

Because of the way things transpired, my friend had concluded that God was involved in the timing and engineering of certain events. That belief gave rise to a set of expectations. If God really meant this to happen, as it seemed he did, then certain results could be expected to ensue.

When the expected results did not occur, my friend was disappointed and confused. She was not only disappointed with the apparent lack of results, but she was also confused about God. If she had been wrong about God’s involvement in this case, when she had been so sure, how could she ever trust herself to recognize God’s activity in the world?

Some people see God at work in everything. The fact that they missed that pothole as they drove into work is to them clear evidence of divine intervention. If they catch cold, God gave them the cold. If they find a dollar bill in the sofa, God arranged for that to happen.

My friend doesn’t want to be one of those people. She does not want to be deceived. She believes in God, but she doesn’t want a make-believe God.

I think my friend is mistaken on at least two counts. First, she is mistaken in her belief that certain results would occur if God was involved and that if they did not occur, God must not be involved. This is to presume to know more that humans can know.

With rhetorical flourish, St. Paul joins prophets and apostles in dispelling the idea that any of us is capable of comprehending God: “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”

Neither my friend nor I can know what good things may result from the events that transpired. Perhaps this article will encourage some reader neither of us has ever met to trust God in hardship. Perhaps the compassion my friend gains from her experience will one day encourage and support people not yet born.

We cannot know what things will result, but we can trust that they will be good. According to St. Paul, “all things work together for good for those who love God.” This does not mean that all things are good, but that God is so skilled that he can make even bad things achieve good ends for the people in his family.

The second count on which I believe my friend to be mistaken is her idea that the outcome of the events she experienced is now complete. This view assumes that God either foreordains a specific outcome or, like the Supreme Court, refuses to take up the case. Either way, the individuals involved are superfluous. But this, I think, is to misunderstand how God works. He frequently allows his creatures to interact in events in a way that makes them meaningful or meaningless, good or bad – even after the fact.

Physicists speak of a quantum system remaining in a “superposition” of states and its outcome indeterminate until an interaction occurs with an observer. God designed reality so that something like this happens. Some events remain indeterminate even after they happen, neither good nor bad, until we interact with them.

If we interact with them while trusting God, the outcome will bring good to us, as the apostle claimed. Either way, God dignifies humans with a (limited) role in bringing reality – it’s final state – into being, for good our bad.

(First published by Gannet.)

Posted in Bible, Spiritual life, Theology | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Asking Questions of John 3: What Does Jesus Mean by “Be Born Again?”

Posted on August 27, 2021 by salooper57

What on earth does Jesus mean when he talks about being born again? The answer to that question needs to be clearly grasped, and so merits study and careful thought. For now, let me say this: to be born again is to experience a radical change in the source from which your life flows.

Imagine a creek that flows through the hilly country of northern Kentucky into a small lake. Now without changing the creek bed at all – it still occupies the same place – the corps of engineers digs a channel from the Ohio River that connects to the creek. It is still the same creek, but a new energy flows through it. At first it overflows its banks, but its banks eventually widen and its bed deepens, as the water coursing through it gives it a new shape.

That’s the kind of thing that happens when a person is born again. He or she is still the same person, but a new life – a new kind of life – is now present in his or her innermost being. At first, a person hardly knows what to do with that new life; it overflows them. But then they deepen, they change, they become bigger, if you will, and carve out a lifestyle better suited to the new life that’s in them. Or another way of putting it is: They are transformed in Christlikeness.

You see, people need new life – a qualitatively different kind of life – in order even to see the kingdom of God; to be able to envision what living in the presence and power of God is like. They need that life, which comes from outside themselves and changes them, in order to trust God and live freely in his good kingdom.

We have to ask, then, what has to happen for a person to be born again and receive this foreign life into themselves? The answer to that crucial question comes a little later in the text, so we are going to come back to that in just a couple of moments.

So the question for the text is: “What does Jesus mean when he talks about being born again?” The question for our lives is, “Have we been born again? Have we received that outside life into innermost being? And how would we know if we had? One way we know is that we have seen the kingdom of God, or at least we’ve seen its shadow. It is in our vision. We desire to live in it, under God’s rule and under his protection. We long to know God, to be his true son or daughter. That happens to people who’ve experienced this new birth.

To Nicodemus, none of this made any sense. It frustrated him. So here’s another question to bring to the text: Why didn’t Jesus’s thoughtful teaching make sense to Nicodemus? And I think the answer must be that Nick had no place to file Jesus’s words. What Jesus was saying didn’t fit into his file drawer; into what Nicodemus thought he knew – and thought he knew beyond a doubt.

You see, Nick already knew (or thought he knew) what a person – or better yet, a nation – had to do to see the kingdom of God: they had to keep the rules; live by the Law; be zealous for the Torah. Nicodemus – and the people who had taught him, and the people who taught them, were certain that the way into God’s good graces was through a careful, zealous, persistent observance of the religious law. He believed that if people would repent and obey that law, God would take notice and would respond by sending his Messiah to inaugurate his kingdom. The idea that a different kind of life was needed to see and enter the kingdom had never occurred to him – that’s not what he had been taught! He had the Law of Moses – that was all anyone needed. Why even talk about a different kind of life?

What Nick didn’t realize was that he needed a different kind of life even to understand the Law, much less to follow the Law to where it had always led: to a wholehearted, whole-person love for God and neighbor.

So the question for the text was: “Why couldn’t Nicodemus understand what Jesus was saying?” And the answer is: His view of God prevented it. His misconceptions about the kind of person God is and the kind of person he wants us to be led him led him into misguided commitments. Nick was committed to controlling his situation and managing his sin, rather than trust his Savior.

The question for our lives is this – and it is a hard one: Am I able to hear what Jesus is saying, or are mistaken beliefs and misguided commitments getting in my way? That is something we will never know without help – God’s help and others’ help. When God or others (or God through others, as is often the case) begins to show us such mistaken beliefs and misguided commitments it is natural for us to become defensive. It’s natural, but it’s not helpful. We must trust God to reveal his truth to us. Will you ask God to reveal the truth to you and about you that you need to know to live joyfully in his kingdom?

Let’s now return to the question I raised earlier, “What has to happen for a person to be born again and receive this different kind of life?” The answer is that God has to act. When Nicodemus asked, “How can this be?” Jesus’s answer was: “… the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” – the born again kind of life. Jesus was talking about his own death on the cross as the act of God that would make possible the different kind of life – the eternal kind of life – that people need to see and enter God’s kingdom.

But what must we do? The answer is simple: believe on God’s only begotten Son. Trust him. Entrust yourself to him. “To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). When (v. 16) Jesus spoke of God giving his one and only Son, it’s undoubtedly the cross that he had in mind. It was preeminently there that the Son was given to us, and it is preeminently in our daily lives that we give ourselves back to him – that is, that we believe in him.

It’s God’s Spirit that gives a person this new life; that brings about the new birth. We cannot make the Spirit act any more than we can make the wind blow … but we can raise our sails. We cannot bring about our own new birth, but we can (by God’s grace) believe in his one and only Son.

So the question for the text is, “What has to happen for a person to be born again?” And the answer is: God had to give his Son and we have to believe in him. The question for our lives is, “Have we believed in him?” Not just believed things about him; not just believed that he did certain things; but believed in him – trusted him and entrusted ourselves to him.

Posted in Bible, Sermons, Spiritual life | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Asking Questions of John 3: Why Did Jesus Interrupt?

Posted on August 26, 2021 by salooper57

We are asking questions of John 3. Here is one: Why does Jesus abruptly change the subject and talk to Nicodemus about the necessity of being born again and about the kingdom of God?

So here’s the picture: Nicodemus is being all suave and sophisticated. It’s not an act; it’s just who the man has become over the years. “You know, some of us (down at the club or in the department) are pretty impressed with you, young man. We know you’re special – know that God sent you.” He probably would have gone on for a while, talking like that, trying to get to his real point, but Jesus cut him off faster than a Mercedes on an LA highway: “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3).

So why does Jesus change the subject and talk about the kingdom of God? I think people rarely ask this question, but they feel it; and then they assume an answer that is all wrong.

They feel the question, and if they had to frame the answer it would be something like this: Jesus interrupted Nicodemus and changed the subject because he had important information to share with him (and us) about how to get into heaven. Jesus wanted to cut to the chase and tell Nicodemus how to get into heaven. But read it again. Is there anything about getting into heaven in this passage? Is Jesus really talking about pulling up stakes and moving to the skies?

I don’t think so. We jump to that conclusion because we assume that entering the kingdom of God is synonymous with getting into heaven. But that is the wrong conclusion to draw. Elsewhere Jesus talks about the kingdom of God (it is his single favorite subject to talk about) and it is abundantly clear that he is not using the term as a synonym for heaven. He says in one place, “the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28). Was he saying that the eternal dwelling place of the blessed had descended up those people? Not at all—not yet.

In other places Jesus talked about the kingdom of God being taken from people. He wasn’t talking about heaven. He told his disciples that some of them would see the kingdom of God come with power in their lifetimes. He wasn’t talking about heaven then, either. I don’t know if there is any place in the New Testament where the words “kingdom of God” are synonymous for heaven, including here.

Jesus is not telling Nick how to get to heaven when he dies, but how to enter God’s kingdom while he lives. Jesus is not giving Nick directions to a destination. He’s telling him what needs to happen for a human to participate in God’s rule and live under his care – that is, to enter God’s kingdom.

Does that make heaven as a destination unimportant? Of course not. Just because Jesus wasn’t talking about our destination on this occasion doesn’t mean he never talked about it (he did), or that our destination isn’t important, (it is). But we cannot hijack a passage to make it serve our own theological interests. If we do, we’ll make Jesus say something that he wasn’t really saying, and we’ll miss something that he wanted people to know.

Jesus was always announcing this good news: God’s kingdom – his rule and protection – is available to people now. It is delightfully possible to enter God’s kingdom today, and live in it with rich confidence and joy. But to do so, we must be born again.

Posted in Bible, Spiritual life | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Original “Nick at Night”: Asking Questions of John 3

Posted on August 25, 2021 by salooper57

In John 3, a man named Nicodemus comes to see Jesus. Nicodemus is a mid-level celebrity in ancient Israel, a respected scholar and prominent national leader. As far as we can tell, he’s a stand-up kind of guy. He’s got money. He’s got influence. He’s got brains. He’s a guy who’s got it altogether. So why is he coming to see Jesus? That’s our first question for the text: Why did Nicodemus go to see Jesus?

And doesn’t the question reveal something about how we think? We know that the guy who’s falling apart needs Jesus, but we’re not so sure about the guy who’s got it all together. The alcoholic needs Jesus, as does the cancer patient and the abuse victim, but what about the successful business owner? What about the movie star and the big league politician? Do they need Jesus?

Now let me ask a question of us: Do we need Jesus? Do you need Jesus, or can you get by without him? When life is going smoothly, do you go to Jesus? If not, what do you really believe about yourself and about him?

Nicodemus was smart: smart enough to know that Jesus was special; that he could learn something from Jesus; that he needed something from him.

So let me ask a second question of the text. Why did Nicodemus come to Jesus at night? And there’s a follow-up question: Why did John, who related this story, want us to know that Nicodemus came at night (and then tell us again, and yet again)?

So why did Nicodemus come at night? (He was the original Nick at Night.) The answer is: we don’t know. The answer might even be, he didn’t know. Perhaps he was too busy during the day. Perhaps Jesus was too busy during the day. Perhaps Nick told himself Jesus was too busy during the day but the real reason was something different: he didn’t want to be seen calling on the controversial young rabbi.

We really don’t know why he went to see Jesus at night, and that brings us to that follow-up question: Why did John tell us that he came at night? Surely he could have left that part out without diminishing the point of the story.

I can think of three reasons why John might have included the information that Nick came at night. First (and I’m going to impress you by my profound exegetical skills and interpretive insights with this one), John might have told us this because Nick really did come at night, and he wanted to tell the story as it actually happened. Now, while I think that is certainly true, I don’t think it’s the whole story, because John doesn’t mention it just once. Every time Nick comes into the story, John refers to the fact that he came at night. Obviously he thought the timing of his visit was important.

And so it might be that John wanted us to understand that Nick was either ashamed or afraid of being seen with Jesus. Jesus had just had a run-in with some powerful and prominent leaders in Jerusalem. Were it to get out that Nicodemus went to see Jesus after that, it might not have gone over well.

But I think there is another reason John keeps telling us that he came at night. John loves the imagery of light and darkness. In the Gospel alone – not counting the letters or The Revelation – John uses the words and images of darkness and light fifty times! When he tells us that Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, he wants us to know that Nicodemus – the scholar and prominent leader – was in the dark. He wasn’t seeing clearly, and he didn’t even know it. (Or perhaps he did. As I said, he was a smart guy.)

So that’s another question for the text. Now, here’s one for you: Are you in the dark about Jesus and about God and what God wants for you? And if you are, what should you do about it? Well, when you’re in the dark, the best thing to do is to move toward the light. Scientists tell us that if someone were to light a candle in absolute darkness, it would be possible to see the light of that candle with the naked eye from a distance of 43 miles. If you’re in the dark but you see a light – even a little light, even a distant light – move toward it.

In John 3, Nick said that he had seen signs – they had been a light to him – and had moved towards the light. If you’re in the darkness, even if you’re not sure about God and about Jesus, move in the direction of even the faintest light. There will surely be more to follow.

Posted in Bible, Sermons, Spiritual life | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

How to Seek the Kingdom

Posted on August 22, 2021 by salooper57

  Why do people need to seek the kingdom of God? Shouldn’t it just be there, for everyone to see? But we are in occupied territory, under enemy control. If you lived in occupied France in 1942 and wanted to join the Resistance, you would’ve had to seek it. It is the same here. People who want to join the kingdom of God must seek it. People have the ability to ignore it, if they want to – for the time being. They can go about their daily lives, worrying about their daily troubles, and imagine that that’s all there is to it. God won’t force his kingdom down anyone’s throat. Anyone who chooses to be part of the kingdom has to seek it.

              But how do you do that? How do you seek his kingdom? Let me offer some suggestions. First, volunteer for duty. Tell God that you want a kingdom assignment. Then do what he gives you to do. But keep in mind that God operates on the principle: “He who is faithful in little will be faithful in much.” So if God gives you something little to do – visit a sick church member, talk to a relative about Jesus, or drive someone to a doctor’s appointment; whatever it is – do it. If you won’t obey in a small thing, you won’t be given more to do.

              Along with that first is a second, corresponding, principle: “To him who has, more will be given.” When I was still a fairly new Christian, I asked the pastor of our church if there was something I could do to help. He suggested I paint the trim around the church education building. It needed extensive scraping and caulking before it could be painted. So I went down to the church, day after day, to work, all by myself. It was a pretty thankless job, but I had volunteered for duty and this was my first assignment.

              Perhaps I’m in my fortieth year of pastoral ministry because I said yes to that job. Who knows? I just know that kingdom assignments are not always exciting or esteemed. But the one who is faithful in little will be give more to do.

              How can you seek the kingdom? First, try volunteering for an assignment, and when God gives you one, do what you’ve been given to do. Second, hang around people who are known to be activists in the kingdom, and learn from them. Imitate them. Do what they do. Join them when they gather. When the church comes together, it is a kingdom gathering – a meeting of the Resistance – in the name of the Prince of Glory.

              Third, be on the lookout for fresh recruits. Tell your friends and family how good it is to be in God’s kingdom, with Jesus as your leader. Invite them to join up.

              But most importantly, put your confidence in Jesus Christ, the Captain of our Salvation and the Leader of God’s Kingdom. He is the way into the kingdom. No one else has the authority to admit you. Trust him. Listen to what he says – the Gospels are the easiest place to do that – and learn from him.

              To seek God’s kingdom is to seek his rule, first over your own life, then over the sphere of your influence. To be in his kingdom is to be his person, under his orders, representing his name.

              But Jesus also tells us to seek his righteousness. So we seek his kingdom – his rule over us – and his righteousness – his character in us. And the two go together. Those who seek his kingdom are transformed in their hearts and minds, and those who are transformed in their hearts and minds see with increasing clarity how to live and serve in the kingdom of God.

              It is important to note that we are to seek his kingdom and righteousness first, not second. “First” can refer either to first in sequence or first in precedence; first in time or first in priority. And the truth is, if we don’t give priority to seeking his kingdom, we’ll never find it. “Seek second the kingdom and his righteousness” and you’ll be wasting your time. But that’s the way God intended it. The half-hearted, the religious dabbler, the spiritual dilettante never see the kingdom. “The kingdom of heaven,” Jesus once said, “is like a treasure hidden in a field.” Any number of people can pass right by it and never know it’s there. It is the one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness that is filled, not the one who nibbles at it. It is “he who seeks [who] finds,” not he who daydreams. The promise is: “You will seek for me and you will find me when you seek for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). If you’re going to be a kingdom person, it’s going to take all of you.

              But is entering the kingdom worth it? I think of a line by Bernard of Clairvaux: “To those who fall, how kind thou art; how good to those who seek. But what of those who find? Ah, this, nor tongue nor pen can show.” You were made for the kingdom. Life will never work right outside the kingdom. You will never be your true self anywhere else. Is it worth it?  I know the answer to that question: Yes, and a thousand times over. But I can’t answer that question for you. You will have to answer it for yourself.

Posted in Bible, Christianity, Sermons, Spiritual life | Tagged , , | 5 Comments