5-31-21 - Mom! Make Him Stop!

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

This week we get a little glimpse into Jesus’ earthly family. Just a glimpse, but enough to suggest they were a lot like other people’s families: protective of their reputation, swift to pounce when someone steps out of the norm. And might we detect a little sibling resentment against the big brother who can, literally, do no wrong?

This passage from Mark’s gospel shows Jesus right after he’s begun his public ministry of preaching, healing, casting out demons. Just prior to this, he selects his twelve closest disciples and then, Mark tells us, “He went home.” Home, presumably, was no longer the woodshop in Nazareth where he grew up, but Capernaum, the town where Peter and Andrew lived, where Jesus resided when not on the road.

But sometimes “home” doesn’t get shaken so easily. When Jesus’ family hears about the crowds that form around him everywhere he goes, they think it’s time to do something.

[Then he went home;] and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”

Imagine a parent who goes out to reclaim a son or daughter who’s gotten involved in a cult – and discovers their offspring is the cult leader! It must not have been easy for Jesus’ family to see his activities, the wild things he was saying, the miracles he was working, the lowlifes he was hanging out with, the way he stood up to the religious leaders – it sure looked to them like “he has gone out of his mind.” Perhaps they were so used to seeing him one way, they couldn’t conceive of who he had become.

Whatever their motives, their efforts to quiet him didn't work. In response to being told his mother and brothers were outside, wanting to talk to him, Jesus redefined his family. His words may sound harsh to our sentimental ears, but he was just being clear about priorities for those who claim to be his followers:

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

How do those words make you feel? Where in your hierarchy of values is your family - and do they support you getting closer to Jesus, or are they threatened by it?

Are you willing to let people know you are part of Jesus' family, not just a follower, but a brother or sister? Because he said we, whoever does the will of God, are now his mother, his brothers, his sisters. For Christ-followers, family is no longer defined by blood. The community of faith comes first. That’s what "family values" are meant to be for us.

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9-4-20 - The Promise of Presence

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Sometimes I wish Jesus would show up and set a few things straight in this messed up world of ours – if people would pay more attention than they did the first time around. But that idle wish misses a big ol’ point: He is here. He said he would be. It’s up to us to discern him and to make him known.

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them,” is a promise, a promise of presence. To unfold that promise, though, requires a few steps of faith.

First, we have to be able to distinguish between flesh and spirit. Jesus said fleshly reality was limited, and spiritual reality was never-ending. Jesus’ enfleshed presence was time-and-space-limited, 33 years or so, in one region of the world. His presence in a resurrection body lasted about 40 days. His spiritual presence is eternal, and still going strong, especially among those who believe in his promise.

We also need to affirm that Jesus lives in us. I take the promises of baptism at face value - that we are united with Christ, made a new creation, given a new heart and a new spirit – his spirit. So Paul wrote, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” But we are not filled with his spirit in an “invasion of the body snatchers” way. Rather, his spirit joined with ours brings forth a new person, that most true “……..” (fill in your name) that can possibly be.

If Christ dwells in us, abides in us, then he is real in us. When we gather with others in whom Christ lives, his presence can become even stronger and more real. By believing and joining together, we make Christ present in our world, not just a suggestion of presence, but fully here, spiritually speaking. (We have to supply the flesh and blood.) This is just as true for online gatherings in his name as in-person.

How might it change our lives and ministries if we were more fully conscious of this reality? If, when we gathered together, we knew Jesus was among, us and spoke and acted and prayed like we knew we were in the presence of the all-powerful God? If, when we went out in ministry, we made sure we went in teams of at least two, so that the power of Christ’s presence would fill and empower our work in his name? Don’t get me wrong – Christ is present in us when we’re alone. But he promised that when two or three of us – our more – gathered in his name, he would be in our midst.

Where would you love for Jesus to show up this weekend? In a place? A person? A situation? Do you have any idea how you might bring him there, with two or three others? Going deeper… where do you think he might want to go? You might get quiet in prayer today or Saturday morning, and ask him: “Jesus, where do you want me to take you today, to make you known?”

I can’t wait to hear how those prayers turn out. I do know the world needs a lot more Jesus, and we’re just the ones to help make that happen.

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10-3-13 - Community of Faith

This week's reading speaks of faith as something you can have more of or less of. The disciples ask for increased faith because they can see what it takes to live this "God-Life." And it does take faith to trust in what cannot be seen, to proclaim life in the midst of death, to bear light into darkness and truth in the face of injustice. We need faith to forgive the unforgivable, love the unlovable, heal the incurable, restore those who have been cast aside as worthless.

God seems to wait for us to participate in faith. I wish it were otherwise, for our faith is often weak. But time and again in the Gospels we see Jesus respond to people’s faith, even saying to some, “Your faith has made you well.” Not “my power has made you well,” but “your faith.”

Why would God leave so much up to us, when God knows how feeble and fickle we can be? Is this a cosmic cruelty? It might be, if God hadn’t also provided what we need. God asks only that we take hold of it. In addition to the “perfect faith” of Jesus, who joins us by His Spirit when we pray, God has also set us into communities of faith.

It seems that faith is a contagious thing, and one which we can hold for one another. We can pass it down from one generation to another, and friend to friend. In Sunday’s epistle, Paul writes to Timothy, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.” Lois and Eunice and many a father and grandfather too have “held faith” for their children until such time as they took hold of it. Some are still holding it.

Who are your “grandmothers” and “fathers” in the faith, from whom you learned to trust and believe? Name a few. Give thanks and honor to those men and women.

Who are your friends in the faith, brothers and sisters who help you believe when your faith is weak? And for whom do you do that, by your prayers and your encouragement?

And is there a “big thing” you’ve had trouble trusting God about that you might ask a community of faith to pray about with you, for you? It’s a godly risk.

Jesus didn’t set us down, wind us up and say, “Okay – go do everything I commanded you.” 
He said, “Yo, I am with you always, to the end of the ages.” (Well, most translations say, “Lo…”)
We have plenty of faith around us to move trees, mountains, illnesses, injustice – and even hearts.