by RobertCummins | Jun 1, 2016 | 22. Following And Being Led
For an American aspiring to enter eternal life, whose nation’s bottom 5% lives better than 70% of the rest of the world, the most troubling word he might ever hear was the answer Jesus gave to a rich man’s question: “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus’ bombshell response:
“One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
For myself, as an American living in the upper part of an unprecedented historical bubble of prosperity, who aspires to eternal life, it might be tempting to become very sad (like the rich young ruler) for I too am extremely rich (along with a huge percentile of my fellow citizens).
If what Jesus spoke was intended for all men, I—and every American citizen who looks to Jesus for their salvation—is condemned on the grounds of having not given everything to the poor. This is a troubling thought, apparently so troubling to some they become monks to alleviate their trouble. By giving their belongings away, they are at least clear on that count. However, once settled in their hermitage, they must learn to pray at all times. So they attend various services throughout the day to remain clear on that count. And we know how their vows of celibacy clear them of lust. You probably see my point.
Even the most devout legalist is doomed. Religion will always set the bar such that righteousness, lofty as it is, still appears achievable. Religion then motivates men out of guilt to take fresh runs at various standards of righteousness, hoping they will clear the bar and live lives pleasing to God.
With the rich young ruler, I do not believe Jesus was trying to establish a standard of righteousness where heaven could be purchased by selling all one’s possessions and distributing the proceeds to the poor. No. This would make a sham of the grace by which we are saved. At the same time, I do believe Jesus’ words were a laser-guided bomb that had to be dropped into the rich young ruler’s heart. I believe that with His piercing words Jesus was trying to take out the stronghold of religion that had imprisoned this man in the idea that eternal kingdom life is attainable through good deeds.
I don’t mean to isolate legalistic monks as the sole prisoners of religion. No man is exempt from this struggle. Monks are just the more obvious, thus convenient, examples. Born again believers are quite capable of legalism. More than once I have been liberated from religious mindsets. On one occasion, I was taking a run at a bar with the anticipation I might actually clear it, when, on a dead run, the whole runway exploded beneath me. To say my face-plant was painful would be an understatement. Like the rich young ruler, I was profoundly shaken.
In retrospect, I’m persuaded that, out of His love for me, God dropped that bomb so that I could fully receive the gift. Eternal life is a gift. It cannot be purchased. If we in anyway think our labors earn his favor, his loving crosshairs are painted on our hearts. If we’re fortunate, the missile will find its mark and our religious delusions will be mercifully exploded.
Jesus, not being one to waste a good bomb, allowed others beside the rich man to be hit by its shrapnel. Stunned by the impact, they asked, “Then who can be saved?” As much as any words Jesus ever spoke, I am grateful for those he spoke next:
“The things that are impossible with people are possible with God.”
Whether we live in the top 5% or the bottom 5% of the economic demographic, without Christ, we live in profound spiritual poverty. And try as we may, in our fallen guilt, to appease a holy God through religious observances, we remain impossibly estranged from Him. Our salvation is made possible exclusively though a gift. That gift is purely and simply Jesus. There is no other way to receive what the rich young ruler hungered for other than receiving Jesus. Through a simple yet miraculous embrace of this reality, we are made sons and daughters of God. He has breathed upon us, and His life is once again ours.
The one thing the rich young ruler lacked was not that he was unwilling to sell all that he had. He also lacked the understanding of grace and the understanding that Jesus Himself was the eternal Bread of Life. I believe there is a chance the rich young ruler’s hunger eventually drew him to Jesus and let him see the bigger picture, one in which Christ was the fulfillment of the Law, and one who could dismantle every religious stronghold which opposes the grace gift of God. I believe that after the resurrection, with God’s bigger picture alive in his heart, he may have discovered that all things are in fact possible with God.
I hope that, in light of the great Love that was pursuing this rich man, he changed his mind and surrendered the title of his possessions to God. One day in eternity we’ll discover whether Jesus asked him to give it up after all or not. It would have been a potent testimony for this young man to have remained in the world and not of it by stewarding wealth while living free from its intoxicating and binding influence.
Father, continually lead the captives out of captivity, especially those hearts which have fallen back into laboring for your approval and blessing.
by RobertCummins | May 31, 2016 | 22. Following And Being Led
Jesus had just filled Israel with fear and astonishment by healing a paralyzed man and forgiving his sins. As his nation was abuzz with awe, Jesus went about his business and “noticed a tax collector named Levi sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, “Follow Me.” And he left everything behind, and got up and began to follow Him.”
“Luke! Is this all you wanted to say here? Did you not want to say a little something to explain why fish like Levi just jumped into the boat with Jesus? Or—did you want us to reconstruct this story for the information we might glean, as if reconstruction and gleaning were of some benefit, some benefit like manna for our souls? Ah yes. I think I get it. Thanks.”
Who was Levi? All we know so far is that he is a tax collector. And what do we know about tax collectors? Well, they are on the social pariah list right after undertakers—death being the only thing worse than paying taxes. To gain appreciation for Levi’s despised status, imagine that the United States had lost the war to the Axis Powers in World War II. Then imagine an American citizen who was in the employment of either Germany or Japan whose job it was to collect your taxes, if necessary with the tact and force of the brutal occupying army. Levi was a man without a country, loathed by his countryman beyond even their hatred for Rome. Even though he had committed the unpardonable sin of compromise, God did not see him as his nation did. God knew Levi was a lonely man who had to harden himself against the stones and slurs slung at him daily. Whatever Levi was, Jesus invited him into his inner circle. Beautiful!
We know that Levi was, at the very least, grateful and had a pent up desire to experience a party which Jesus’ unqualified acceptance apparently triggered: “And Levi gave a big reception for Him in his house; and there was a great crowd of tax collectors and other people who were reclining at the table with them.”
Maybe this was a regular scum-of-the-city dinner party, but I suspect it was a celebration of an unprecedented nature. Levi had discovered that the most righteous man who ever trod the streets of Jerusalem thought enough of him to befriend him. Levi naturally assumed that Jesus would feel the same toward the rest of the city’s scum so he opened his home to them as well. However, those who were most highly ranked in their religious culture, the un-scum, were not pleased:
The Pharisees and their scribes began grumbling at His disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?”
I don’t know if they were all standing around together, but Jesus preempts whatever his fledgling disciples might have answered:
“It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.“
What an honor it would have been to have been there celebrating with these outcasts; eating, drinking, and making merry with God incarnate as a living consternation to all the elder brothers who were standing outside the party thinking, “I’ve always done my chores, and No One ever killed a fattened calf for me and my friends.”
Religion does a horrific thing to man’s spirit—every bit as intoxicating as lust or greed. Truly, if we are to take the story of Levi seriously, religion is far worse because it alienates. The horrific thing is the delusion it creates that through our chores we achieve status in the religious pecking order where outward moral comparisons define one layer upon another of elder brotherhood. And all the while, the Father appeals:
“Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.”
As we think about ourselves and our relationships with God, it seems we have choices to make. We can throw a party, or we can sing a dirge. Those who know they were sick and needed a physician will throw celebrations. Those who are fairing well in the religious pecking order must remain outside the party, grumbling and being content with their relative wholesomeness and productivity.
Father, I did not see the man lowered through the roof whose body was healed and whose sins were forgiven, but I have known a man who was raised from spiritual death as a prodigal and as an elder brother. Oh Lord, that I would remain a grateful, celebrating, lifelong friend to the friendless. For your Name’s sake, may our hearts be struck with astonishment and filled with awe. May the religious receive their invitation afresh. May the banquet continue, and may the alienation of myriad elder brother’s get the best of them, drawing them into the inner circle. Let it be.
by RobertCummins | May 30, 2016 | 23. The Breath Of God
So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained. (John 20:19-23)
I could have as easily named my blog site In the Middle With Tension instead of In the Middle With Mystery because their can be a lot of tension within mystery. Our passage has stirred my memory of an occasion where there was some tension. I was hosting a retreat for some younger men at a lakeside getaway for the express purpose of listening to each other’s stories. I had primed them to be thinking about this in light of where they have been and where they currently perceived themselves to be.
My recent experiences had led me to believe the Holy Spirit liked settings of this nature. I had made a discovery; the transparency that becomes possible in a safe space can draw men and God together. Men were discovering what walking in the light looks like, a place where our hearts become more open to the reality of our own situation, to God and to others. I had watched the Holy Spirit do enough things in settings such as this to believe the inevitable tensions would be worth the trouble. And blessed tensions there were.
On the guest list were those who had very different understandings and experience with Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit was to some the Counselor whom Jesus had left on earth primarily to interpret the Bible when it would come along in a few hundred years. And then there were friends of mine present whose daily Bread was not necessarily the scriptures rather it was whatever was being said to them that day (or that moment) by the Holy Spirit. We called our gathering a Kingdom Summit. It should have been promoted as Sola Scriptura meet Sola Pneuma.
The sola scriptura men were young, devout, heavily involved in ministry and decidedly certain. The written word of God was central in their understanding of God’s authority. Hmmm. I am having a flashback. Now I am recalling there was also some tension (although well managed) between these brothers. One of them saw ministry as saving souls and caring for the poor and one saw ministry mostly as preaching of the word and discipling men. Regrettably, they were moving in different directions relationally.
Then there were my friends whose backgrounds had equipped them with a knowledge of scripture which would match or rival anyone in the room. They were older, passionate for Jesus and keen on listening to the Holy Spirit. After each man had told his story (and a few were heart rending) the other men were invited to offer input if they believed God had given them something to share. This is where we entered into The Middle With Tension.
This opportunity for “ministry” flushed out everyone’s understanding of what God was doing in the earth and how he was going about it. (Maybe this is why the word ministry sometimes gives me an icky feeling.) After one particularly gut-wrenching and humble disclosure (which I would have characterized as walking in the light) the knee jerk response from the sola scriptura contingent was to immediately direct this aching soul to the particular scriptures (chapter and verse) which (if applied) would fine tune his repentance and get his life back on track with God. I knew the person pretty well who had just told his story. He came from a bible-fixer upper background. In fact some of his despondency came from attempts and failures to achieve biblically-informed repentance. Was his a hard and unrepentant heart in need of correction? Or, was his a broken and disoriented heart that needed to be heard and encouraged?
As I listened I was definitely convinced that, in this moment, it needed to be treated as the latter type of heart. I felt this so strongly I found myself looking for tables to overturn. Something in me kind of went off. With an uncharacteristic boldness I publicly called a time out to the unfolding biblical counseling session. It was profoundly awkward because I loved our biblical counselor. We had to call a time out to let the pressure out of the room and so sola scripture and I could regroup. The break was tense but succeeded in restoring the bonds of trust between us.
The would-be counselor deferred to my role as a facilitator and with humility agreed to set his approach on the shelf for the day. I can’t recall if I hugged or kissed him but I clearly recall wanting to do both. Naturally speaking, tension is not my thing. This is a problem because I don’t know any way to the truth except through tension. I do not believe we can just sail around it. In a fallen world I believe the truth will often be found in this domain of tension. However, as the card carrying pacifist I am, I prefer to think of this realm as mystery – a realm where man’s tiny thoughts are dwarfed by the Life of God and where certainty regarding God’s ways is out of place. Back to our retreat. Our encounter with tension was not over. We had not yet heard from Sola Pneuma.
When it came time to pray for the Sola Scriptura-Care for the Poor specialist, my Pneuma oriented friends weighed in during the waining moments of our prayer time with personal prophecies and an extra treat; One of them leaned in near and did what He believed Jesus was doing in that moment, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
As I was also engaged in earnestly praying for this young man, I noticed something happening in me again. It wan’t as intense as before; I didn’t want to knock tables over but I did find myself wanting to at least rearrange them OR SOMETHING! I sensed my poor unsuspecting sola-scriptura friend had been ambushed. More tension! This was so difficult because I loved these men too. In this instance I didn’t feel like I succeeded in keeping things safe for my younger friend who had been receiving prayer. But, looking back, I comfort myself knowing I had helped facilitate (even if it was by default) an experience he would not soon forget.
Someone ask me, “Why (in the world) do you call your blog, In The Middle With Mystery? That’s why you only have 5 subscribers!” How did they know this? (My low readership was exaggerated for humor’s sake. We all know how humor diffuses tension!) For the record; there are actually 6 subscribers.
MwM received its name because my life has been filled with theological, alienating, fellowship-breaking tension. (plus, the name MwM just popped into my head and I liked it.) Churches I have participated in (and even help lead) have split; my own family has been divided. Debate (Oh God I hate that word!) has never diminished tension or created an iota of energy. On the contrary, debate for debates sake only compounds division and provides entertainment for contentious souls.
Since I associate division with separation and separation as a primary woe which our ancient foe doth seek to work on us, I have taken a different road and (with only 6 subscribers) it certainly feels like the one less travelled. This road is simply my attempt to live out a life that was breathed into me. I have known the breath of God independent of the scriptures and I have certainly known the breath of God emerging from the printed page. Word and Spirit are so integrated to me. I have comforted myself (whether I am exegetically entitled to do so or not) with the notion that the words of Jesus might apply…..
But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:23-24)
My prayer is..
Father may this be the hour when you breathe once again upon us and find all those who will worship you in spirit and truth. Help us to escape all our sola-stances, which alienate and divide. Help us to discover the vast, safe and mysterious expanses of your Life. May we jointly find our security and unity in you – the Mystery of the Ages.
Note: I have taken liberties in applying the term sola (or only) to a few folks. This was an exaggeration. I should have used prefera-scriptura or prefera-pneuma to depict their love for scripture or Holy Spirit.
These are not the only persons with preferences around me. I am also surrounded by other unique perspectives. Let’s see. There is the foreign missions givers and goers, the word-faith devotees, the prophetic-apostolic oriented persons, the intercessory prayer and warfare people, the Israel-intercessors, the Bethel and the IHOP disciples, the lectio divina folks, The N.T. Wright re-read the bible guys, the anti-establishment community friends, the care for the poor zealots, the house church and high church friends. I am related to and surrounded by these and more. They make up my community. As I see it, we are together in the middle with Christ, our Common Life, who has surrounded us and engulfed us in his vast wisdom, love and power. It is my simple ambition that Jesus, as mysterious as He may be, may find expression through us which would validate our claims of being new creations.
by RobertCummins | May 29, 2016 | 21. The Story
As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. (Luke 23:26-27)
Simon involuntarily carried Jesus’ cross. Jesus tells us we must voluntarily carry our own. The cross of Christ drew a large crowd. Taking up our own is much less popular. Is the reality of the cross being lived out in contemporary western culture? In the church I attended for twenty years, I do not recall any sermons on Luke 9:23. Here is an adaptation of that verse from the Amplified Bible;
And Jesus said to all, If any person wills to come after Me, let him disown himself; let him forget and refuse himself and give himself up to me. Let him take up his cross daily and cleave steadfastly to Me. Let him be conformed wholly to My example in living and, if necessary, in dying also.
I cannot help but think of my granddaughter who just asked Jesus into her heart. Should this little note about her cross have been shared with her before she invited Jesus in? When will her obligation to disown herself come due? I pray that she will be exposed to (and choose) the full -gospel that birthed the first century Church – not the contemporary western version that has excluded the cross.
I understand my granddaughter’s prayer went something like this, “Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and (by the way) thank you for feeding the five hundred.” From there she likely picked up her American Doll and skipped on to her next adventure. How will this precious child come to understand Luke 9:23? Will someone be there to explain to her that she has been saved by a gift, yet as it is opened, it will include her cross? I have concern that her bright mind may stumble over the tangled ideas of a gift and a cross.
I am so grateful that Jesus has come into her life and that her parents will be the models of this apparent contradiction. I believe her parent’s lives will demonstrate how the precious gift of Jesus Christ is the beginning of life and that the continuance of it involves dying to our own agendas. By God’s grace, their lives will embody and model Luke 9:23 as the counterintuitive pathway to actual freedom. I believe their deference to the Holy Spirit will equip them to equip her to walk by faith and obedience. I believe her parent’s lives will help her untangle the mystery of the gift and the cross.
I pray for my young granddaughter-disciple that her community will help her distinguish between the American Dream and the Kingdom of God. I pray they will not only pledge allegiance to the American flag and the republic for which it stands; I pray they will model submission to God for the furtherance of His Kingdom. I pray that her grasp of the cross will help her to see America the Beautiful in the right light. While the constitution attempts to guarantee her rights to pursue liberty and happiness, I pray that she will see Jesus and His words in Luke 9:23 as her only true Guarantor of freedom and joy. So be it Lord.
by RobertCummins | May 28, 2016 | 21. The Story
And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:25-27)
It is unfortunate that Jesus did not take the opportunity to preach the gospel of Himself (the gospel of Jesus Christ – as we have have it) and say, “You have answered incorrectly, you must invite Me into Your heart; do this and you will live.” Instead, the Lord of Life said to him…
“You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” (Luke 10:28)
It seems Jesus’ assuring words may have awakened the lawyer to his own legal problem. He immediately tries to reduce his exposure by fishing for a definition of neighbor that might not condemn him.
But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29)
Jesus knew this man’s dilemma. Its the same as ours. Jesus’ efforts to liberate us captives causes Him to share the story of The Good Samaritan.
Jesus replied and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.’ Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?“ And he said, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.” (Luke 10:30-37)
Being generous can be difficult cant it? As I listen to generous-hearted people describe their attempts to be good Samaritans, I hear painful accounts of being conned by those claiming to have been waylaid by life. Being poor has become an occupation for some and the key to their success is location, location, location – and guilt.
As the would-be Samaritans approach the intersection (franchise) in their cars, Guilt stabs their heart and says, “That person has so little and you have so much. That person’s burdens are much greater than yours.” These statements are not necessarily false but true charity asks, “Is this wise? Could my donation be doing this person harm?”
Did God intend for this person’s problems to drive them to this intersection so they could advertise their poverty to 5,000 cars (on a good day)? I seriously doubt it. At the same time we must not turn off our charity. Charity does no harm because it is both generous and wise. We would be poor stewards of charity if we were to react by hardening our hearts to all giving just because some have given the poor a bad name with their professionalism.
Well then…if these people are not the poor, who are the poor? I believe when we see things from God’s perspective, we are the poor, every last one of us who think we are making life work while excluding God. We are everywhere. Some of the poorest are those with wealth and power, living from one comfort to the next. Other poor live from paycheck to paycheck. And some poor live from handout to handout. The poor are all of us who live without God as our life.
The poor, in our parable happens to be a man with obvious and immediate needs. These needs became apparent to three different people in the course of their daily affairs, traveling from one place to another. Two of them grossly fail the test of loving their neighbor as themselves. In failing to love their neighbor, they failed to love God, in spite of their holy occupations and linage.
This unfortunate man is not just the subject of Jesus’ moralistic homily. God is defining for the lawyer (and us) just who is our neighbor. Remember, the poor are everywhere. We work with them and live next to them. They are our friends and acquaintances. Good Samaritans identify their neighbors needs and help to carry them. If we have eyes to see, these burdens are all around us. God has startegically placed us on earth such that we will encounter them and not pass them by. He wants us to love them as ourselves and in doing so, love him.
But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. (Luke 10:33-34)
I live among a community of saints who regularly encounter those in need and model the Samaritan’s pattern of charity. When they come upon the person lying in the road, they quickly try to stop the bleeding. They clean the wound the best they can. They make sure basic needs are met. They recruit help so that others can have the privilege of loving God. These teams find ways to follow through. They are faithful to stay engaged until the person (or family) finds their own strength and stability. Restoring people to this place of dignity is the goal of true charity. Drive-by-gifts are a sad and (typically) harmful parody of true charity.
If we will open our eyes and connect with our community, we will discover that the poor are all around us. God may call some to direct their resources to the opposite side of town or abroad but He directs all of us to care for our neighbors. And who are neighbors? They are the people God has strategically located on our intersection – that place we are passing by on our way from here to there. Our communities are those people within our relational reach. With Christ in us, with Christ in our communities, we have the Resource to clean the wounds, stop the bleeding, recruit the help (if needed) without referring it the benevolent committee.
The wisdom and generosity of Charity are healing balms to the Body of Christ. We are vessels filled with this Ointment. Oh how healthy and beautiful the Bride shall be when she is adorned with true Charity. Authentic God (not guilt) -induced charity is one way we can be in the world and yet not of the world. Who knows, perhaps they will come to know us by our love.
Father, so that we do not die without a vision, reveal to us our communities and our neighbors. Show us their burdens. May we discover the nature of the Ointment within us. May we see that “we” are the broken vessels from which Your life was to be poured out. Teach us to love others that we might love You – fill us afresh that we might overflow, for your Name’s sake. Amen.
