John 17:9-19

John 17:9-19

I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth. (NRSV)

"I sent them into the world." We have been "sent into the world" sanctified in truth by Jesus. As his prayer continues today, I can't help but think about the mission he was on and how he invites us to participate in his mission. He prays for protection as we navigate the horror of this life. 

This near the end of the longest prayer that Jesus offers and one can't help but notice the angst in his tone. Not that he hasn't prepared his followers, but that he loves them and doesn't want harm to come to them. As a parent this evokes feelings of concern that I have for my children. I want them to be successful in what they set out to do. I hope and trust that I taught them the difference between right and wrong and how to make good decisions. Like Jesus, feel that I have but there is that lingering worry that hangs over us rooted in love for the ones entrusted to us.

Our joy is in knowing that we have a loving God who like a parent has tended us with care and nurtures us to continue on our life of love. It's the truth with which we are sanctified. Our response is to follow in the way of Jesus and go into the world and care for others like we are taught.

Romans 1:28-2:11 (NRSV)

Wednesday in the Second Week of Lent - Reflections on the Letters of Lent

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God's decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die-- yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them. Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, "We know that God's judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth." Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will repay according to each one's deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.

Paul tells us, "in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself." If we are looking at others and judging them on some sort of moral code that we think we understand more than we are looking in the mirror and examining our own lives, we are damned. I truly feel that if we all pay attention to ourselves, if there is deceit or strife in another it will be worked out. We cannot help another see if we have a log in our own eye. (Matt 7:3)

I am struck by the laundry list of sins that Paul is listing - wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, gossip, slander, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. I am wondering what the Romans are really up to, and why Paul is pressing on them. It may be that he is admonishing them for their pagan ways, but it seems that in all of these instances, the offender is putting something (deceit, gossip, etc.) in the way of their relationship with others and God.

Anything that destroys our relationships is a sin and it needs to be taken out of our lives. However, you know best what is destroying your relationships with others. The saving grace is that God loves us through our shortcomings. God's patience and kindness lead us to repentance. God is the final judge and we will all be accountable, not that we let so and so do thus and such, but that we destroyed our relationship with God and others trying to be a judge of some pursuit of some puristic code.

The call I hear today is to be good to one another. Love one another. Help one another navigate the troubles of this life. Don't hurt each other. Strive for relationship and understanding. Struggle with the things that you don't understand. Help untie the knots in communication and help heal the hurting.

1 Corinthians 1:17-31 (NRSV)

First Sunday in Lent - Reflections on the Epistle Letters during Lent

"For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

"We proclaim Christ crucified!" Jesus died, and through his death, we are the recipients of God's abundant favor. It is horrible to think that a man had to lose his life so that we might gain life, but if we think about it, that's how it works. I'm not going to go into a bunch of atonement theology in this short reflection, but rather delve into what it means for us to proclaim Christ crucified.

Wouldn't we much rather proclaim Christ risen? Wouldn't it be easier to explain the power of God through the risen Jesus? It probably would, but it wouldn't complete the story. The craziness of the cross makes resurrection that much more relevant. I think the fact is that we proclaim that Jesus endured pain and suffering in order to show the world what real sacrificial love looks like. That's the message. That's the wisdom. We need to remember that Jesus didn't do anything wrong and the powers and prejudices of this world tortured him and hung him on a Roman cross to die because they were afraid of him. Jesus challenged their authority and way of having a relationship with God and it freaked them out. So as foolish as it may be, we proclaim Christ crucified, and glory in the saving power of the cross.

I sense that the call to action from this scripture is to be bold in our proclamation. People that don't understand will scoff us, but that doesn't matter. We know different. We know of a God's love that stretched out arms on a cross to embrace the world. We know of a man named Jesus who died to show the world how to love completely.

1 Corinthians 1:17-31 (NRSV)

First Sunday in Lent

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’

I often struggle with the idea that someone, namely Jesus, had to die so that I might have life. That a benevolent creator would require a blood sacrifice of the creation. I’m sure I’m not alone. I’m sure that when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he faced similar push-back from the people he spoke with. He went to proclaim the good news of Christ and Christ crucified for the sins of everyone and was ignored by the ones who thought it was absurd or foolish. This was usually the people, who in a Hellenistic world, were quick to judge things as rational and irrational based on reason.

In today’s reading, I love the phrase, “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Corinth was a port city and a cultural melting pot in this world. So, I’m sure that Paul was bombarded from all sides when he tried to present the idea that Jesus came into the world to die for the sins of anyone who would repent and believe. It’s an absurdity.

To make his case, Paul points out that God takes what is foolish in this world and makes it meaningful. God rights the wrongs and makes the weak strong. God raises up the low and brings down that which the world has raised up. The whole understanding of the socio-economic system and everything rational in society according to the world is turned on end when viewed through the lens of the Good News. God’s news of love and reconciliation and truth revealed in Jesus Christ.

People through the ages have thought about over and over again, trying to wrap their heads around the things of God. It’s not easy, nor is it very complicated. What I am trying to say is, if we continue to contemplate the creator through the lens of the creation and the created order, the deeper and more complex it becomes. However, if we fully accept and return the love so freely displayed for us by God in the person of Jesus, then it makes the complicated and complex start to fall away. What is left is love. Love is what connects us to our creator. To know we are loved and to know our life has meaning is what I think it’s all about. God loved us so much that God gave of himself that we might be reunited with God and dwell in the presence of the creator forever. It remains the only perfect sacrifice.