"Turn The Other Cheek" Really?

  

Questions are still on my mind this morning.  I am  remembering a quote from Henri Nouwen’s writings: to “live the questions into answers.”  

Ted Loder put it this way: “…venture beyond the answers” (That fear, worries, others plant in our mind.)

The human mind has, from our earliest years, been trained to intellectualize, and  scrutinize, all that comes into our space.  We analyze, test, delve and  generally try to make sense of everything logically.

It is a logical and “realistic” culture have grown up in for sure.

Either the issues at hand is correct or not, good or bad.  Not a whole lot of wiggle room between fact and speculation.

And who is appointed to decides?

So when Jesus’ truth entered the human world; it threw a curve ball right smack into logical ways of looking at life.

                                                 

How Jesus came to be?

  What he did and taught

          How he modeled “right thinking.”

All of it smack up against reason and logical thinking.

Think about the parables Jesus told. Two part stories that call people to adjust their opinions, choices, actions and general worldview of what it means to be a successful here on earth.

God’s entire purpose for coming, in the skin of a baby boy, was to recreate his original plan.  The plan that all the world would love and care for all that he made  “Very Good.”

                  

To put others needs first

    To stop the fussing and fighting.

       To develop a loving and forgiving heart.

          To turn their swords into plowshares - war no more.

In other word, to “turn the other cheek” to fists, hate and the false myth of always needing to be correct -- perfect.

Lets face it, what Jesus asks is just too simple for the human ego to digest.

'Life Between The Questions"

 I want to share with you some quotes from a book that captured my mind; my first year of ministry.  It is the one book that I would never lend to someone for fear I would never see it again.  

It is that precious.

Unfortunately this amazing book it no longer in print.

Please join me in ‘Life Between The Questions,’ by Carolyn Huffman.  Her book is completely written in hand written words and simple illustrations.

“Often I ponder, 

sometimes I pray,

Over making life choices

As I use up my day.”

“Will Big Brother computers

Control our lifestyles?

Will my days be increased

By jogging those miles?”

“Is the atmosphere changing?

Will sea levels hold?

Will science cure cancer

Or diseases of old?”

“How do bees make sweet honey

In an intricate comb?

How do birds navigate 

And find their way home?”

“And why do some children 

Grow gently with grace

while others bring chaos

To reign in a place?”

“Must all faces wrinkle

And all hair turn gray?

Must we always have winter?

Can’t springtime just stay?”

“Will life ever be fair?

Cries man to the sages.

“Unequivocally no,”

Resounds through the ages.”

“What about suffering

By the good and the bad?

Will I ever find answers

When I cry and am sad.”

“Or is that the right time 

Not to ponder, but pray,

And to ask for the courage

To live one more day?’

“For questions don’t matter,

and facts grow quite stale,

when life’s storms surround you

Or wind drops from your sail.”

“Who really does care if 

Brash science is right

When you’re lost in the tunnel

of darkness, no light?”

“Was mankind created

By an unchanging plan?

Or did chance forge the link

Between amoeba and man?”

“For prayer has the power

To erase question marks,

and to bring faith alive

In the spiritual darks.”

“Do miracles happen?

Did a babe become king?

In a Bethlehem stable?

Did angle hosts sing?”

“So ponder, you poets,

theologians, and all,

the mystery of seasons —

The spring and the fall.”

“Of stars in their heavens,

what lies under the sea?  

Of genetic and bloodstreams—

What makes you and me?”

“And test-tubing babies —

Is it ethically right?

Are there really ghost things

That go bump in the night?”

“Do demons and devils

abound in this place?

Do guardian angels

Enter our space?”

“How do frogs spring from tadpoles

And oysters make pearls?

How do boys become men,

while women were girls?”

You may question in daytime

and all through the night

How ears really hear

And eyes call forth sight;

How some worms can crawl,

then learn to wear wings;

How spiders can spin

such gossamer things;

How the brain is divided…

Into left and the right…

Of Einstein’s relativity,

and Ben Franklin’s kite.”

“How do bulbs bring forth tulips,

ansd acorns, oak trees?

How can  man most of wisdom,,

Yet read war’s disease?”

What think you of Easter?

Did they lie and deceive

when they said “Resurrection!”

To all who believe?”

“Oh, I pray for you, friend,

As you question life so,

That one day you’ll say —

“Hey, I really don’t know!”

“It’s your world, dear Lord,

In all of its glory!

I want to be yours;

Help me walk in your story.”

        Carolyn Huffman

Do Questions Have Answers?

Have you ever given any thought to how often the questions we ask; may never find an answer?

One question I have been faced with over and over is: “why?”  I have to believe it is the most common question out there — in ordinary everyday life.

Memory:

That particular question brings back a precious memory and smile to my face.

I was at my future sister-in-laws wedding shower.

I took my seat on a step that led into the living room.  A little three year old girl came and sat beside me and began asking me questions.

I can’t remember what she asked — that was fifty-five years ago — but with each answer I gave, she would ask “why?.”  This went on for multiple minutes.

Little children are just naturally curious and often don’t take our simple response as a pat answer.  More times, than not. they are looking past what we tell them to other possibilities.

Sadly, as they grow, their tendency to ask — their natural curiosity — gets squelched.  It gets sucked out of their free thinking little minds.

And they lose the freedom to ask.  Left to wonder in their private little minds.

I, myself, know of this conditioned private world of wondering alone.

Interesting!  

I had put this blog to the side for a bit; and was reading the news pop-up, for the day, on my I-pad.  This is what I read: “Ethiopian troops are blocking critical aid to their starving population.”

Immediately my mind asked:  “What is happening to our world?”

Care to venture and answer ?

Tomorrow I will share with you some of the questions in a book titled:  "Life Between the Questions by: Carolyn Huffman, published in 1985.

"Life Is Like a Tapestry".

As I wrote about yesterday:

Through out the years we fine ourselves, for one reason or another, looking back on various moments in our lives.  And we perceive insights that helps us understand something we had not thought about before.

So I wanted to share with you some wisdom, insight, from Jacob The Baker:

“There was a great teacher” said Jacob “Who told us that life was like a tapestry.”  …  "I wondered about this a long time,” said Jacob.  “And then, watching you over the last days, I discovered that one works on a tapestry from the back.  That you work on it without seeing the larger pattern.  That all you see are the colored stitches running at odds and at angles to each other.  That, indeed, is like life: One day is woven into the next.  But we cannot see the implication of every stitch in time.  And so we work blind.  Courage is the required pattern in life.  Courage and faith.”….

“…that’s why God has created a time-out, said Jacob.  The Sabbath.  The Sabbath is a spiritually sanctified time out.  The Sabbath is the concept by which time sets its watch.  That Sabbath affords us a perspective, even on time.  It is an opportunity to see that our work in life is also a work of art.  One day in seven we are to step back and turn our tapestry over.”

"What will we see then?” asked the woman.

We will see,” said Jacob, “that life has two sides, that there are grand patterns in small stitches…”  (p. 120-121 Jacob’s Ladder)

Lets remember to take our Sabbath’s in order to look more clearly at our lives; instead of the stitches running at odds with each other.

We Understand Backward

 “…life is lived forward but understood backwards.  We arrive at the end of our learning only to discover what has been true from the beginning.” (Jacob’s Ladder p.107)

I have read that paragraph many times since the early 1990s.  Today it struck me in a different ways.  

It is so true that hindsight is our gift of insight.

Looking back over various life struggles, and joys, we can understand how our life has unfolded in the ways it has.

I think of the person I was in high school, college, marriage and all the years since until now.  I see how I have changes and grown over the decades.

The one constant truth for me, as a young girl, remains for me today — God is truth.

When I was younger it was true. I knew it.  Yet my life was clearly more immature.  I let other things push God a bit to the side of all my living.  Even though I almost never missed worship.

That was same, in many ways, in the years of college, marriage and motherhood.

It was sort of like God was just letting me do life while he walked beside me.  Carrying me when in need, comforting me in my worrying and picking me up when I was down.

I had an idea about God’s presence during all of that time.

However, today I can look back and actually remember how persuasive my growth gradually became toward God.  God influenced me in so many active and gracious ways without me even being aware of it.

I feel so blessed to have had God at my side as, I did the best I could to live, God in Jesus’ skin taught me as a child.

More on this idea tomorrow on Jacobs wisdom.

"Abide In Me."

 I’m between Jesus’ washing the disciple’ feet, and his resurrection appearance on the beach.  When he offered them an analogy reflect on.  It comes in chapter fifteen  of John’s Gospel.

⁵I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

Now not to many of us have the experience of growing  vineyard. The closest we come to grape is from the grocery store or in a glass of wine.

So we need a little help understanding what Jesus is talking about here.

The people listening to Jesus were not only familiar with how to grow grape; but how to grow most anything.  

They were people of the land.  Most of them made their living growing some kind of produce.

Those who specialized in grape production would have been very aware of what Jesus was getting at when he tells them:

‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. ²He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.

The best nutrients are concentrated — released — closest to the vine.  So branches are “pruned” to grow close to the vine to produce the best grapes.

Point: when we stay close to the vine we do our best living.   The analogy of being pruned, to keep us close to the nutrients in the vine, is about how critical it is for us to stay close to Jesus.

Plants grow healthier and produce the best “fruit” or flowers when pruned. Any ordinary gardener knows this. 

The “fruit” Jesus is talking about is our acts of love we offer freely to others.

“The chief difficultly to thinking theologically — and thus practically, ethically, about this passage lies in the necessity of going beyond the surface of the basics truths of faith….”   (Stephen A Cooper)

“Bearing fruit when it counts grows from union with Jesus.  Finding home in him and letting his word find a home in us through faithful devotion brings about great joy.  As in nature, the pruning and the abiding are held together. When we remain that close to Jesus, we attuned to him and he to us, the remarkable result is that what we want will be what God wants, and it will surely come to pass.  (Nancy R. Blakely)

⁷If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

With all that being said, there is another point Jesus is trying to make.   This pruning and producing is not an individual thing.  

It is a relational thing.

We stay connect — close — to the vine in order to give of ourselves, as Jesus did, to others.

            We can give his love and grace to others.

‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. ²He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. ³You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. ⁵I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. ⁹As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ¹⁰If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.(John 15)