"I Die Everyday!"

 In my last blog, I wrote about the process of adding manure to the soil to mix, with whats there, to create a new possibility for better growth.

Today I am thinking about Jesus’ dying on the Cross on Good Friday that led to a new, and gracious, life of God’s possibilities in our world.

In the New Testament we hear some muddiness about dying. In John we read:  

²⁴Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ ²⁵Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, ²⁶and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ ²⁷She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’(John 11)

In Romans the Apostle Paul writes: 

7 We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. ⁸If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. ⁹For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.(Romans 14)

Then in 1 Corinthians he writes:

³¹I die every day! That is as certain, brothers and sisters, as my boasting of you—a boast that I make in Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Cor. 15)

 

So this is the wonder I have this morning: What do we, what did Paul “die” from?

Name the dying,

  

What does Paul die to everyday?

I am going to take a huge leap here.  

What I am thinking is not about proper exegesis.  It is my thoughts on this issue about Paul’s statement: ³¹I die every day!   And Jesus words ²⁶and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. 

I will call this dyings “little bitty deaths.”   In Paul’s case he is talking about dying to habits that could possibly, or do, offend the ways of God/Jesus.

In many ways we do the same.

I will suggest that every time we feel guilt, or shame, or failure our psyche makes a shift, a growth spirt, in our emotional make-up.

When we hurt, or are hurt, or feel isolation, or have physical pain, or feel emotionally  abandonment.  

                                        We die a bit.

Lets say we learn a bit, or change in some way, or grow-up in ways that otherwise we wouldn’t.

And I will suggest that as Christian — or any other God fearing people  — we find something inside of ourselves that causes us to pay attention to our human nature that bumps up against God’s will.  

       And we die to them

We die to those things that we would otherwise fine quite fine and acceptable to the human mind.  But are not to God.

Because of our desire to live as Jesus taught, and modeled; we willing give-up what comes so natural to our being.

We put away things like unkindness, or hatred, and revenge etc. 

And we choose to be forgiving, gentle, and caring to our neighbors — close and far away. 

7 We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. ⁸If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

A Parable About Manure -- Really?

 Have you ever given much thought to manure?  Why its used, What it does, how it works etc.?

Well as I read the parable about the fig tree in, Luke’s Gospel,  I began to wonder what was the importance of this small little story.

And so, my mind lead me on adventure of the smelly stuff.

After reading just a small bit of information; I begin to realize the impact that such a parable would have on those who were listening; and why Jesus told them about the fig tree.

They were people who knew the land and how best to use it.  In most cases, except for fishing, people at that time in history worked the land for their livelihood.  

They knew the importance of taking good care of the earth in their charge. 

I google manure and this is what I found  this:

“Manure is both a fertilizer and a soil amendment (material added to improve soil). Manure slowly releases nutrients into the soil that plants can easily absorb. Manure contains nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and micronutrients, which are important for plant health. Nitrogen is the most important nutrient that plants need and is responsible for rapid plant growth and the green color of plants.

Before manure can be used to fertilize plants, it must go through an aging process called composting. In this process, fresh manure sits for 3 to 12 months…..Applying manure to the soil and allowing it to work is a slow and gradual process.  There is now instant fix to quickly solve the problems.”

Did you catch the one word used twice?  “Slow — a gradual process.”

The gardener — Jesus — just ask for one more year to allow the manure to do it work.    

That is, let the process of good growth happen slowly so the improvements take a healthy hold on the production of the tree.  Then “next year” we’ll decide.

We humans all-to-often expect fast.  We want God to be fast.  To do what we pray for now.

In my experience, God doesn’t move at our speed. God knows it take time to make things right and good.

Like manure working in damaged soil.

6 Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. ⁷So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” ⁸He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. ⁹If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” ’(Luke 13)

God's New Rule

It the beginning, of everything, when there was only darkness and void, God made light.

In the beginning God created everything that exist and called it “very good.”

Then God trusted all that He had created into the hands of His male and female images.  Trusting that they would take care of all creation in very good ways.

That plan didn't work out so well.

Several centuries later we are told in the first verse of Mark’s Gospel: 

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (Mark 1)

Jesus has brought a new beginning, for the original design, of what and how creation was made as “very good.”

The “beginning” — what God created as “Very  good,” Begins with Jesus.

As Eugene Peterson put it: “The authorial intent is explicit:  the story of Jesus is not a new story but a continuation of the first story.” (P. 230 As Kingfisher Catch Fire) 

This profound idea had not, in thirty some years,  registered in my of mine.

Just this morning I was thinking about  the Old testament theme of a God who test his people through a long forty years in the wilderness trying to get them to trust him with their lives.

As you read the entire Old Testament you begin to realized that God had his hands full with those he freed from the cruel hand of the Egyptians. 

With Moses, as the chosen one, God, led those Israelites through the sea into the “promise land.”  And for forty years they challenge God at every turn.  They were never satisfied.  

His original plan for earth’s creations was warn out and battered to death.

Picture the dry bones story: 

11 Then he said to me, ‘Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” ¹²Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.’ 

(Ezekiel 37). 

No life, no hope, no possibility, no imagination of God’s creative power.  Those unsatisfied Israelites were never happy.  Never willing to go along with God’s plan. 

And so God decided to change all the rules for living with this crazy-mixed-up human beings.

And He came down to earth and grew up in the boy Jesus.    

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (Mark 1)

God came to start again with new rules — new kind of relationship. 

All He asked, from Jesus’ birth on, was that we believe the truth of who He was; and how He wanted us to live. No more scolding, punishing, warning.  

Just one thing mattered.

You can believe in me or not. 

Its Your life 

     It is Your choice.