Settling our differences

First of all, several quick notes:

Because readership on Saturday is lighter, Saturday's devotional will simply be a passage of scripture. Meditation on that scripture during the events of the weekend can be powerful for those who will do so.

I've finished with my experiment in html email. It will make a great tool for the Home to communicate with its friends in the weeks to come. For a number of reasons I plan to return this devotional to regular email on Monday, unless the public outcry is against it. If you disagree, you can email me at wbhdir@aol.com.

In case you missed a devo, or misfiled one, an archive of the devotionals has been set up on a blog. The blog's web address is: http://www.wbhdevos.blogspot.com/

Matthew 18:12-35

"Look at it this way. If someone has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders off, doesn't he leave the ninety-nine and go after the one? And if he finds it, doesn't he make far more over it than over the ninety-nine who stay put? Your Father in heaven feels the same way. He doesn't want to lose even one of these simple believers.

"If a fellow believer hurts you, go and tell him — work it out between the two of you. If he listens, you've made a friend. If he won't listen, take one or two others along so that the presence of witnesses will keep things honest, and try again. If he still won't listen, tell the church. If he won't listen to the church, you'll have to start over from scratch, confront him with the need for repentance, and offer again God's forgiving love.

"Take this most seriously: A yes on earth is yes in heaven; a no on earth is no in heaven. What you say to one another is eternal. I mean this. When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I'll be there."

At that point Peter got up the nerve to ask, "Master, how many times do I forgive a brother or sister who hurts me? Seven?"

Jesus replied, "Seven! Hardly. Try seventy times seven.

"The kingdom of God is like a king who decided to square accounts with his servants. As he got under way, one servant was brought before him who had run up a debt of a hundred thousand dollars. He couldn't pay up, so the king ordered the man, along with his wife, children, and goods, to be auctioned off at the slave market.

"The poor wretch threw himself at the king's feet and begged, 'Give me a chance and I'll pay it all back.' Touched by his plea, the king let him off, erasing the debt.

"The servant was no sooner out of the room when he came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him ten dollars. He seized him by the throat and demanded, 'Pay up. Now!'

"The poor wretch threw himself down and begged, 'Give me a chance and I'll pay it all back.' But he wouldn't do it. He had him arrested and put in jail until the debt was paid. When the other servants saw this going on, they were outraged and brought a detailed report to the king.

"The king summoned the man and said, 'You evil servant! I forgave your entire debt when you begged me for mercy. Shouldn't you be compelled to be merciful to your fellow servant who asked for mercy?' The king was furious and put the screws to the man until he paid back his entire debt. And that's exactly what my Father in heaven is going to do to each one of you who doesn't forgive unconditionally anyone who asks for mercy."

(from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

Show grace, make peace,

Ron

Who are we not trusting?

God knows that Joshua was a patient man. For 38 years he waited for a promise to be fulfilled that, if fairness to an individual were more important than justice to a people, he deserved to receive after his first excursion into Canaan. Yet he waited, patiently serving Moses, patiently caring for the people whose faithlessness had blockaded his blessing, patiently waiting for God's good time.

And when that time came, he faithfully and courageously sought God's will. Until Joshua 7. Without waiting for word from God, Joshua sent spies up to Ai, and then began the attack based on their witness. Disaster follows. Achan is responsible for his own death, and the deaths of his family, but it may be that as a leader Joshua shares in the responsibility of the deaths of the 36 lost in the first attack on Ai. Perhaps if the Lord had been approached in advance, the sin of Achan could have been discovered without such a great cost [It's so easy to question the decisions of a leader after the fact, isn't it?]

"Courage is the capacity to wait until you've learned as much as you can and then take action. You're never sure of the results until you do it. You're still not going to know everything. You have to take gambles and learn more. Queen Elizabeth I wanted to put off most decisions as long as she could. She didn't make a decision until she had to." - Warren Bennis

Patience is an important part of courageous leadership. Sometimes a person's passion for a cause drives them to so relentlessly pursue their objectives that they fail to correctly assess and patiently cope with obstacles blocking that pursuit. Sometimes we just flat out want God to do things on our timetable and not his. As antithetical as passion and patience seem to be on the surface, one without the other either goes nowhere at all or ends in a dramatic crash. "Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than a man who takes a city" (Prov 16.32).

But just as passion cannot stand long without patience, patience is dependent on one more virtue. Trust, for example.

You cannot have patience without trust. I can wait upon the Lord because I can trust him to keep his promises. I may not understand his timing, I may not understand the path, and I certainly may not understand the obstacles, but still I can be patient because of trust. When I become impatient with God, isn't that a sign that I have stopped trusting in him and have elevated my wisdom and desires above his faithfulness?

We can't be patient with people without trust either. I can be patient with Ann to put dinner on the table, because I trust her to finish a wonderful meal at the right time. I can be patient listening to one of Daniel's lessons because I trust that, just as there is something in it for the fourth grader, there is something in it for me as well. I can be patient with the kids, because I can trust that God is active in their lives as well. And if I can't yet trust a person, I can trust that God will help me deal with them.

So when we find ourselves being impatient, it may be important to understand what is irritating us, but there is something more important. The key is to understand who it is that we are not trusting. When we discover that, we are on the path to peace.

Grace, and peace,

Ron

A pile of stones

Everywhere you turn in the book of Joshua, there are rocks. Sometimes they are single stones, sometimes they are stacked with a particular number, sometimes they are just a massive pile of rocks.

Twelve stones are brought from the bed of the Jordan to serve as a memorial of the crossing of the twelve tribes (Josh 4). Knives are made from stone to make the people holy and one (Josh 5.2-8). This caused the reproach of Egypt to be rolled away like a stone (Josh 5.9). Jericho (Josh 6) fell into a heap of stones [except the stones of Rahab's house remained standing, the original witness protection plan]. When Achan erred, he was stoned and buried under a pile of stones (Josh 7) so that his error would not quickly be forgotten. When Ai fell (Josh 8), not only was it left as a heap of burnt rocks, its king was buried under a pile of rocks (Josh 8.29). Then, on top of Mount Ebal, an altar of uncut stones is built to worship God, and Joshua copies the Book of the Law onto stones (Josh 8.30-35). When the five kings of the Amorites come against Israel, God makes even water into rocks, and more Amorites die from hailstones than from the sword (Josh 10.5-11). When those kings hide in a cave, they are trapped inside with rocks, and after their deaths, that same cave is made into a tomb sealed with those rocks (Josh 10.16-27). A stone memorializing Bohan, son of Reuben, is made into a boundary marker (Josh 15.6; 18.17) and a silent reminder of a promise fulfilled.

Surely this has the least curious of us asking, "Why all of these rocks?" It might just be that the promised land has lots of rocks, and although that is true, it does not explain why the writer of this story bothered to tell us about them. Why all of these rocks?

The answer comes at the end of the book and the end of the life of Joshua. Joshua sets up a large stone near an oak near the holy place of the Lord (Josh 24.26). He then says, "See . . . this stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the Lord has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God." You have all heard the expressions: "If these walls could talk . . ." or "If these rocks could speak . . . ." For the people of God, all of nature stands as a witness to the acts of God through his people, and their own acts of wilfulness.

Not far from Hollis stands a rock, a stone not likely to be moved by the hands of men. It stands as a witness to the lives of a father and his son and their God, and their relationship with one another: Ron, Ben, YHWH. Its testimony would help you understand how close these three have become because of the events that happened in its presence some time ago. Triumph. Disaster. Pain. Hope. Fear. Courage. Power. Exhaustion. Salvation. And every time that this father and son return with their God, that stone's testimony is heard again in all three hearts.

What testimony will the rocks and trees in Harmon County give about our time there? God only knows now, but if we are truly passionate about our children and our God, now is the time for us to think and plan and prepare for those moments so that we can have some assurance that God will be glorified by that testimony.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Heb 12.1,2

Thirst on the edge of survival

The original "As the Deer . . ." is a great psalm:

As the deer pants for ravines of water,
So my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, the living God;
When will I come and appear before you, O God?
My tears are my bread, day and night,
They say to me all day, "Where is your God?"
This I remember and I pour out my soul:
For I led the throng in procession
to the house of God,
With a voice ringing with joy and thanksgiving
in the tumult of the crowd.
Why are you downcast, O my soul,
and why do you mutter within me?
Hope in God, for still I will give thanks to him,
my salvation, my God.

(Ps 42.1-6 RB)

Sometimes we have the feeling that the song presents a serene, silvan setting in which this strong, noble stag pauses in his frolic to consider his thirst during the early morning hours. Instead, the psalmist presents a picture of an animal, haggard from a lengthy chase, longing for a sip of water even from a shallow puddle in the midst of the rocks, left over from the last rain. The heart of the deer is about to burst from deep within its chest. The thirst is overwhelming, and the fear is tangible. The confidence and power of this once-noble animal have been poured out.

Only God can fill this thirst.
Only God can calm this heart.
Only God can deliver his creation from its enemies.
God alone is its shelter.
God alone is salvation.

Let him be our Rock;
Let him be our living water;
May the steadfast love of the Lord
never cease to sustain us.

Trust in his grace,
find comfort in his peace.

Ron

One human soul

Sometimes we as Christians tend to compartmentalize our lives. We tend to be dualistic. What does this mean? There is our body, which lives on this planet, has needs, and seeks to find ways to satisfy them. And somewhere over here, floating in the same general neighborhood is our spirit, here but not really of this world, with needs, but needs which we sometimes think cannot be satisfied in this world. But this is not a biblical view of things.

The Bible teaches us that one human soul is a body that enfleshes a spirit, a spirit embodied in a human body. We don't really know where the dividing line is because, for example, how do you separate the consciousness of the spirit from the physical thinking process of the brain? As you think about that question, are you in the body or in the spirit? You are seeing the world with both, yet as one soul. We don't have to understand how it works, but it is important to understand that God has firmly linked the two together. The scriptures tell us that even when we are resurrected, we will be in some sort of body, just as Jesus was. I don't know how he is going to do that, but since he made this body and spirit once, I don't figure that re-creating me again will be particularly difficult.

This means that there is always a connection between the physical and the spiritual in our lives. Nothing that we do for our bodies is devoid of the spiritual, and the things that our spirits experience have tangible effects on our bodies. There is no hard and fast boundary between the two, despite our tendency to talk that way. Let me illustrate this.

In John 4, a physically thirsty Jesus meets a spiritually thirsty Samaritan woman at Jacob's well in Sychar. Jesus asks for water from the woman, and the woman asks Jesus for living water, and, eventually, seriously so. As the encounter concludes, Jesus has spiritual food in such abundance that he is no longer physically hungry; he rebuffs the offer of food from his disciples. The woman is overflowing with living, spiritual water to the extent that she chooses to share it with her neighbors, while leaving her full but forgotten water jar (originally intended to satisfy her physical needs) at the well. The joy that the woman and Jesus feel is tangible. This narrative enacts the statement, "Man shall not live by bread alone," and demonstrates the move back and forth from the physical to the spiritual in the case of two different elements of the sacred: bread and water. The water and the bread that satisfy our physical needs are the same elements God uses to meet our spiritual needs; he is present in the meeting of either need, even for those who many might consider to be outsiders or infidels.

In John 21 (a narrative we referred to yesterday), seven disciples, including Peter, have gone fishing in Galilee after the death of Jesus. After fishing all night, these professional fishermen are hungry, naked, and empty-netted. In a matter of minutes, a resurrected Jesus fills their net full beyond belief, carefully maintaining their productive capacity by protecting every strained cord, and not only wishing them to be warm and filled, but doing it. In the early morning, this little community finds peace while warming at a charcoal fire and eating a breakfast of fish and bread. The simple earthly, physical acts of Jesus remind them that his spiritual and physical providence and presence are not limited by the cross. Jesus moves back and forth between the spiritual and physical totally unconcerned about whether some might wonder whether he was totally human or totally God. The spiritual healing and filling that that are intertwined with these simple physical acts reveal the creator of the universe to be interested in and active in both the physical and spiritual, interchangeably and permeably. So should we be.

How might this concept apply to our ministry context? At Westview, a family meal is among the first experiences that a young man confronts. Grace is said, usually by another boy, and a meal is shared. That meal may be the first recognizable extension of God's grace and providence that a child from poverty might experience. The nature of the Lord's Supper might remain a mystery for a long time (perhaps a lifetime), but an abundance of hot food can be a life-changing reality. This is true because so many children suffer from the systemic sins of our society: poverty, oppression, violence, and abuse. But eventually, if we can appropriately worship around the Lord's Table and our dinner table, these young people can come to understand that God has provided for all of our needs, both spiritual and physical. But he does this by dealing with the whole human: body and spirit, one soul.

As we go through this day, let us be whole people. This will allow us to better imitate Jesus for our own sake, and for the sake of those who live around us.

I wish you grace and peace for your whole person,

Ron

Grandma's kitchen table

Is there a history of food in your family? There are a lot of stories about food in mine: rituals for what food is to be eaten at which holiday, carefully researched histories of which aunt it was who originated a favorite family recipe, tales about how certain individuals cooked or learned to cook, and legends about the culinary artistry of certain family members. Many of these stories in the Bruner family have as their main character my paternal grandmother. These stories remain fresh in my memory even though the last time I ate at my grandmother’s table was in 1964, just months before she died.

When Grandma came home from church in Bowie, Texas, the screen door would scree open, and this six foot tall, broad-shouldered woman would enter. Without bending to touch them, she would kick off her low-heeled shoes under the end of the sofa, and quietly cross the hardwood floors in stocking feet. Moving to the kitchen, she would cross in front of Granddad, who had been firmly ensconced in his chair with his newspaper and Winstons all morning long. She would take off her pillbox hat en route, Bible still firmly pinned beneath one elbow; Grandma never went to worship without a hat on her head – it was not to be done. Putting away the hat and Bible in the kitchen, she would begin work on lunch.

There was something spiritual about Grandma’s cooking. It seemed that she imitated the divine in her ability to make a feast for a large family out of practically nothing. And surely what she cooked was so heavenly that even the angels must have been tempted to find some excuse to drop in without notice. Although she had a very cautious view of manifestations of the Holy Spirit, surely some of her recipes must have been inspired: she very rarely resorted to any written notes. Usually she just quietly worked: chopping, sifting, mixing, kneading, folding, straining, stirring, crimping, seasoning, tasting. She would measure when she baked or canned, but the rest was done by sight, smell, texture, and taste. Meanwhile, as she continued her work, this amazing symphony of smells would emerge from her kitchen, making the very idea of a dinner bell absurdly redundant. People would just intuitively migrate to the kitchen, like the hopeful chosen divinely called to the land of promise and plenty. There was this now, and not yet, about the whole experience; you could smell it, and you could see some of it, you just hoped that the world wouldn’t end before you got a chance to eat it.

Finally, we were allowed to sit at the table. Grandma brought coffee to the table for Granddad, coffee so hot that Granddad always had to pour some into a saucer to sip before he could drink from the cup. Baked ham, potato salad, fresh-snapped black-eyed peas, fresh vegetables, peach preserves on hot biscuits, and banana pudding. Heaven at the kitchen table.

I’ve had parts of this meal since: Ann has figured out the black-eyed peas and the potato salad. But no one can quite get the banana pudding, or the peach preserves, or the chow-chow to match up with my memories. I can relish recalling past pleasures of the table, and tastes of heaven in the present, but the experience of sitting at my grandmother’s table is not possible any more. Still, I live in hope. Hope that one day I will once again sit at a heavenly table with her and enjoy the quiet and faithful comfort of her presence. And perhaps she won’t even have to cook. God can cook after all. The family of faith has its cooking stories, too. It’s true. Read this:

When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, "Who are you?" because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
John 21:9-14 - NRSV

I can just imagine how good this meal tasted to this hungry crew: hot, tasty, filling. Since everything Jesus did was well done, I have to believe that this meal was refreshing, delicious, and satisfying.

But one of these days God will bring us to a table
where we can all be satisfied in a way that is, unbelievable as it is,
beyond even the masterful cooking skills of my dear grandmother.
We can have deservedly fond memories of the table of the past,
and we really need to celebrate our time together at the table today,
but, oh, what a day is coming! What a banquet is being prepared!
I think that I can smell dinner cooking already . . .

Say grace, and enjoy peace at his table,
In hopes of the table to come,

Ron