A Holy Eracer

I got a text, from a father, this morning concerned with his son's inability to believe God's is active and accepting in his own life.  Yet he believes in God's activity in the lives of others. 

In my prayers for his son an analogy came to mind that has been helpful to me in the past. 

Imagine an eraser. 

What is looks like.  

What it feels like when you hold it in you hands.

Then think about what it can do.

I am thinking that it can offer a poor speller, like me, another chance to get it right.  

It can take our mistakes and rub them out with no trace of the mistake ever happening.

Better yet, it can allow for new possibilities.   It can allow for new words, ideas and understandings. 

I see God as the Great Eraser.  One who is constantly erasing and making new.

Taking how our life has written our story; and changing the unfortunate with a swipe of the holy eraser in his merciful hand. 

Making what was no more; so a new adventures can begins.

Imagine that.  

Imagine being able to just forgive yourself and move on.  Free of any guilt.

Imagine that can happen in your life as well as mine.  

Because it is absolutely the truth that there are no impossibilities when it comes to God. 

…God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, ¹⁴erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.(Col. 2)

Just Imagine

Try this on for some huge amount of imagination:  

Donald Trump was elected as President of the United States in 2016.

Eugene Peterson was the pastor in the Presbyterian Church from 1962-1991.

In one of Peterson’s more recent books — As Kingfishers Catch Fire — Peterson offers some of the sermons he had preached before he retired.  

The sermon I am reading now is entitled “Make Us Gods” based on Exodus 32:1 and 1 Timothy 1:13-17.

Which must have been given before his retirement in 1991.  And yet he is preaching about, an amazingly profound example, of how the nation of Egypt existed. 

“Egypt was religious through and through, one of the most religious cultures in the history the world…..All the politics was religious….

Egypt was a thoroughly religious society, and Egypt was a thoroughgoing slave society.  If you want to control a person or family or society, there is no better way than through religion.  And that is just as true today as it was in ancient Egypt.” (p.29 As Kingfishers Catch Fire)

Now just sit there a moment and imagine what Peterson preached some twenty five years before Trump was elected.

It is mind boggling to me.

God Showed Us, In Jesus, What He Requests

Yesterday, when I began to write, I got a block in thought.  I was thinking that I had begun to travel down a negative road.  And so I gave my fingers, and mind, a rest.

About five, or six, blogs ago I began with this wonder: What Does God Request?  

I have tried to briefly break down my thoughts about what we are told, in the Old Testament.

Now I am to consider what Jesus taught on this subject. 

Then this morning I was reading a new devotional written by Eugene Peterson: ‘Every Step An Arrival.’

After his reflection, on Genesis 1:27-28, he asks this:  

“Who are you in relation to others, in relation to God, and in relation to the world?  Ask God to make clear to you who he made you to be and what it means to be fully human in his eyes.”(p.6)

I sat here a moment and wrote:  God showed us, in Jesus, who we are to be; and how we are to be.

All we have to do is pay attention to what Jesus taught, the way he spoke and how he acted.  

It is not rocket science!

^37… “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” ³⁸This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’(Mt. 22)

We all have heard these words over and over and over again.  

Right?

The "Fundamental Theological Problem"

I just got a mental pat on the back; as I studied the Old Testament reading for this next Sunday.  

Call me silly, but I enjoying getting small little affirmations on what I personally think.  

I was reading an exegetical perspective, written by Thomas W. Mann, for the 12th Sunday of Pentecost.  Where he talks about a, “fundamental theological problem,” named in the Book of Hosea. 

Now when I first read those words: “fundamental Theological problem,”  my mind went in quite another direction.  What I call: The great division in theological thinking today.

Mann is talking about, what I will call, the gigantic-glitch between God and the Israelite people; and how they had been unfaithful — unfair and disrespectful —to God.

It begins with an interesting metaphor of Hosea’s marriage; and then the naming of his children. Which refers to Israel’s love affair with other gods; by prostituting their heart in God’s face.

However, Mann suggests that there is a much graver problem then promiscuity of the heart’s basic desirers.

Israel’s leader were also guilty of desiring the greed enjoyed by foreign powers.  Giving their souls away to other powers who now claim their attention, allegiance and loyalty.

The “fundamental theological problem” is that the  people and leaders, of God’s  “chosen,” have been blatantly disloyal, by their craving for money and power.

This is a God who will not tolerate lack of faithfulness.

Hear, O Israel,…6 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; ⁷you shall have no other gods before me.  8 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁹You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God,  (Deut. 5)

Through the author of Hosea, God is making clear that there has been a failure among the troops.

Now this is where my mind went away from Mann’s exegesis: God is basically saying that he is disowning Israel.

                                       
That is, God is cutting the cord, so to speak.

There is one thing God had ask of His people; and that was their loyalty and allegiance.  Being faithful to no other power or idol.
  

Mann puts it this way:  “But God’s “steadfast love and faithfulness” depend on Israel’s steadfast love and faithfulness. In that it benefits those who keep covenant and remember God’s commandments (Ps 103:18)”

But my mind went to the unfortunate theology of those who want to draw a line in the sand when it comes to God’s grace and forgiveness today.

So, what I am thinking is that there are many leaders in this nation, and in the entire world, who are at this moment prostituting their, hearts and minds, before God.

To begin the next thought, for tomorrow:  How would God, in Jesus’s mouth, handle this very apparent fundamental theological problem?

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,

   for he will speak peace to his people,

   to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts. 

Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him,

   that his glory may dwell in our land. 

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;

   righteousness and peace will kiss each other. 

Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,

   and righteousness will look down from the sky. 

The Lord will give what is good,

   and our land will yield its increase. 

Righteousness will go before him,

   and will make a path for his steps.(Ps.85:8-13)

What Is The Message You Listen To?

My cousin’s little boy came into the kitchen on morning and made this bold announcement:  “This is not the way the world is suppose to be.”

That is the same way I have been thinking for sometime now.  The world we live in is not the way it is suppose to be.

And the question is often asked: “Where is God in the -- this that is not suppose to be -- world?

And yet, in the New Testament reading assigned for yesterday we heard: 

….¹⁶for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.(Col. 1)

….in him all things hold together.

That is:  All things visible, invisible,

  Thrones

  Dominions

           Rulers

  Powers 

 Created through him.

And he “holds all thing together.”

And you might be tempted to ask:  How?

How is the world, that is not the way it is suppose to be, being held together?

I sometimes ask that myself.  And then I realize that I truly believe God has His entire being wrapped around this messy world.  

I believe that God is actively involved in all the unfortunate words spoken, and actions taken. 

We are just not able to perceive it. 

Now, what I am about to write my seem like it doesn’t belong in this discussion.  But it is what I am thinking none-the-less.

In this world  many messages are roaming around in the spaces in which we live, and move, and have our being. 

  

Just yesterday the preacher asked:  “Where in your daily schedule do you make time for the Word of God?  And, and, how significant is the time?

From the Christian Church pastors preach and teach the hope, the love, the truth of God.

Then Politicians stand and speck yet another word. Often  quite opposite of what is heard from the pulpit.

School teachers speak of the importance of a hundred percent test results.  Or, at the very least, seventy percent results.

Coaches talk of the value of a competitive spirit; and sometimes they include the importance of team work.  Yet winning, at all cost, is at the core their message.

From the time children are very small they have all these words — messages — coming at them.  And each voice claims to be the most important message for them to listen to.  

Sadly, God’s voice does not receive much credence. That is not, in my humble opinion, the way it should be.

I am thinking that, just maybe, could be the cause of the mix-up in priorities; that speak louder and are listened to more.

But God is still faithful despite it all.

Because:  ¹⁷He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

That is the message I cling to.  

That is my hope.

God Came To Say: Lose Your Ego

Today I will attempt to summarize what God came to do in Jesus’ skin.

Basically I think He came to teach and model for us what we read in Micah: 

⁸ He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

   and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

   and to walk humbly with your God?(Mic. 6) 

I believe that Jesus did embodied doing justice, living in loving kindness and certainly walking with the greatest of humility.

However I want to tell you what I believe about, what and why, God came in Jesus skin to help us hear.  God came to make clear that the Old Testament way of being God’s children now would have a new paradigm.  A new way of being in relationship. 

  

Now the rules of a hierarchical system would be no more.  God would no longer rule from above in fire, smoke and thunder. 

There would be no games of  ‘Sin, Repent and Forgive.’

From now on it would be like this:  

Believe in Me or not. 

     Live like I would have you live.

           Loving as I love, forgiving as I forgive.  

                                                                     Or Not!

The message has never actually changed.  

Our purpose has alway been to take care of the earth, and all its living creatures and all of natural creation.  

That was/is God’s request.

Jesus lived by modeling, our intended behavior as a display of, humility and love. 

There is no room in this new paradigm  — This New Covenant —for arrogance and unkindness.  No more lording it over anyone else.   Rude and bullying behavior has no place in God’s world.

So Now lets be honest here.  None of us like the idea of being a humble servant.  

In fact, that is not at all the most popular idea in the fully human mind.

Who would honestly vote for such a personality type?

The stories about Jesus witness to that fact.  That is why He was crucified nailed to a cross.

But the uncluttered truth is like this:  We all like -- need -- being loved like Jesus loved.  We like it when we are forgiven for our gravest of mean, ugly, and evil deeds.  We enjoy it when others are kind and respectful to us.  Behavior that allows us the privilege of being tended to and listened to.

Right?

It is offering the same, kinds of behavior, in return that haunts our mind. 

Being a humble presence is often look upon as weak; and/or one with no “guts”  no backbone.

In truth humility is often look down upon.

However there it is!

It is right there, written in black and white, on the pages of the Bible.

The top best-selling book in history.  And sadly the least read book in history.

The request of the Almighty, and most gracious God: 

Love as I have loved you.