aSacredRebel

Piece of the puzzle…

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, “Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.” ‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’ The seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’ He said to them, ‘I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’ (Luke 10:1-11, 16-20, NRSV)

Today’s lesson is easily read for many different things.

We read it and hear we should have the power to cure diseases, heal the ill, and cast out demons… Well can’t we all do this? Jesus gave the disciples the power to do what He had done and even greater things… So why are we not casting out demons and curing the sick? We are, we just may not realize we are…

Jesus also tells us that we will tread on snakes and scorpions and nothing will hurt us. As one little man said this morning, “Jesus gives us the power over the bugs!” We can tread on evil and it will not effect us.

Or how about Jesus said, “do not be over joyed because the evil spirits obey you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”

These are all great things, but what is really the thing Jesus is getting to in this text?

I see 2 things…

1. We are sent out in pairs. We are not to go it alone.
2. We are to rely on the generosity of others. We are to take nothing with us.

We are not in this alone. I use the analogy of a puzzle. If you put the border together you see the boundaries that God has set for the body and the image He has designed. Now each of us is a piece in the puzzle. The picture is not complete without all of us. We need everyone else to make the picture that God has designed come to life. We can not go it alone, and we have to rely on others, and that is number 2. We have to more than us, and we have to rely on others. We are to be interdependent. We are individuals, only in the sense that we are unique people God has created to be a part of His picture. Our individualism will only get us so far. As Benjamin Franklin said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, “We must hang together, or assuredly we will all hang separately.”

We are interdependent on each other. We are not created to be alone, we are a part of the body, and we need each other, just as the others, need us.

Without your piece, the puzzle is incomplete.

Vunerable

And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. And he said to them, Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics. And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them. And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere. (Luke 9:1-6 ESV)

Jesus is sending out the twelve to heal and power over demons, to proclaim the kingdom of God. They were told to take nothing for their journey.

Have you ever gone on a trip and not packed a bag? Or made sure that you had extra money to get the things you will need? You plan for a trip just going across town or for the day. Jesus told the disciples to go and not to take anything with them but to make themselves vulnerable and to depend upon the generosity of others for everything.

Jesus is sending us out and asking us to be vulnerable as well. We need to depend upon others. We can not do it alone. We are not self made people, we need others to help us and to get us to the places we need to be. We need others, just like they need us.

So do not think of yourself as a self made person, but remember you need others, just like others need you.

Stewardship ≠ money

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord,begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints—and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you—see that you excel in this act of grace also. (2 Corinthians 8:1-7, ESV)

Great here we go again. Someone telling us we have to give and give more than we can. A lot of time and energy is spent in the church today talking about stewardship and stewardship we all know equals money.

Stewardship is not money. It is not the amount you give to the church, or you give to any where. It is much more than money. Stewardship is who we are as disciples. It is how we live our lives knowing that everything we have is a gift given to us by God. You see we are to be stewards of all God has give us.A steward is someone who manages or cares for what has been placed in their care. We are to manage the resources that God has given us to care for and use them in a way that forwards God’s mission.

One way to look at this is, I see the three wonderful girls I have as daughters as gifts from God, and they are a part of the resources I must steward for the betterment of God’s mission. How I raise them and teach them is all a part of my stewardship to God. It is not just about the money I have and give. It is about everything.

Paul today gives us an example of a group that has given monetarily according to their means, and then more. That is what the Hebrew Scriptures tell us about giving as well. We have to give our first fruits in our means (a tithe or 10%) and then our personal giving is over and above that. We must give from everything we have been given. And manage the rest we use for ourselves as resources for God’s mission.

So everything you do is stewardship, because every action you take has an impact on the mission of God and the spreading of His love to all of the world!

Do do…

For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin. (Romans 7:14-25 NRSV)

Have you ever done something and wondered when you had finished doing it why you had done it? Or maybe it didn’t take you to complete the action to wonder why you were doing it.

We are hung up in our flesh and the sinful life of our past. We try to get away from it, but on our own we can not do it. We are incapable of breaking away from our flesh and satisfying the desires of flesh and making ourselves better and moving ourselves forward.

Either way Paul is saying it is not us. We either give control over to Jesus or to our flesh. Jesus has rescued us from our sin and death if we will follow Him and let Him have control.

Sunshine and roses

“See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. “A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household! (Matthew 10:16-25, NRSV)

Did you get the sense that things would not be easy as followers of Jesus?

But isn’t being a disciple suppose to be sunshine and roses? I mean everything is suppose to be great when we follow God. Everyone will get along and we will all come to the same understanding at the same time. Well that isn’t what happened for Jesus, who came to show us how to live the life God has called us to, and when He did, He was handed over to the authorities and killed for it. Handed over by His own disciple, His own people. The ones who were suppose to understand Him, be u tied with Him. They didn’t get it. They were so hung up o. Their religious system that they didn’t want to be bothered with what God wanted.

We are not above the teacher, but what they did to the teacher, we can expect. The religious order of the day wanted nothing to do with Jesus or His followers and you can bet the established religious order of the day will want nothing to do with Jesus’ followers today either. It is not all sunshine and roses… God calls us to go and be pitted against those whom love us and we love in order to get Is message out there.

So be wise as serpents and innocent as doves and know that those around you who are suppose to be for you, might just be the wolves in sheep clothing that Jesus warned us about. We need to follow Jesus knowing it is not all going to be easy and we might be called out, but when we are called out or handed over, He will be there to guide our words and our actions, so His love and grace and mercy are shown.

So follow Him, knowing He is always with you.

come to mind, remembered, missed, or made again…

“‘And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. And when you have multiplied and been fruitful in the land, in those days, declares the Lord, they shall no more say, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord.” It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again. At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers for a heritage. (Jeremiah 3:15-18, ESV)

Did you hear what the prophet said? Or better yet did you hear what God said through Jeremiah?

We read this passage and the others in the Hebrew Scriptures that point to the union of the nations. But do we really read them and allow them to speak to us? We see this and hear that the nations will be united, that people will not follow after their own evil hearts and all will be united under God. We hear this because deep down we really all want this. We want the dissension and back biting and the rivalries to be done. We want to be united because that is what God has promised will happen!

But what we miss in the above text is when the shepherds come that God is sending, the shepherds who will feed knowledge and understanding, then the Ark of the Covenant will vanish…

And the Ark of the Covenant is the place where the law resides. So the law will not come to mind, be remembered or missed or be made again! The law will not matter because we will be united in Him.

So if the law will not matter why do we make such a big deal out of it now? If we can get past the differences the law instills in us, will we not be where God promises we will be?

So make sure you are right with God and love others as God first loved you!

Are There Limits on Diversity?

Great thoughts…

The Company of the Eudaimon

Diversity. Good word. I’m a progressive, so I use the word a lot.

But I’m wondering about the limits of diversity. We progressives prefer not to think about the fact that—as much as we like to think so in theory—in practice there’s no way to include everybody.

Ok. There. I said it. You can’t include everybody.

Wh-what?!?

Somebody will almost certainly exclaim gleefully at this point: “See, I knew it! Liberals want to include everyone except those who are exclusivists!”

Continue reading at [D]mergent . . .

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Light or no light…

Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. (1 John 2:7-11 ESV)

This is nothing new. It is actually something every Christian will agree about. Jesus told His disciples to “love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor as yourself.” John simply expands, or expounds this concept. We are to love our brothers and sisters, and if we do not then there is no light in us. So John says tha if we do not love then Jesus is not in us, because if He is not in us then we do not have any light light in us.

And we are called to love all of our brothers and sisters. That means the quirky ones and the ones we agree with. The ones we think are sinners and the ones we think are saints (and wwe are probably wrong on both of these accounts.)

We are to love the other regardless of how we feel about them. That is what Jesus did for you. Because if He had to wait for you to be in the right place and acting the right way and doing the right things to be with Him you would have never made it. And if you don’t shine His light, some may not see it. So love as He first loved you.

What do you ooze?

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village. As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:51-62, NRSV)

Control is a big thing in all of our lives. We want to be in control.

But life gets in the way… The big question is, is there something in your life that makes a difference? Is Jesus a part of your life and does He make a difference?

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus asks some people to follow Him and they have some reasonable requests, to bury their dead and say farewell, nothing any of us would not ask for. But Jesus says no, we have to give up control and let His will trump our plans and desires.

The picture above says a lot, if you were on trial for being a Christian, a follower of Christ, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Does Jesus make a big enough impact on your life that others know you are a follower, without you having to convince them? Or to put it another way, does your life ooze Jesus?

Your cross…

And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:21-27, ESV)

Jesus was heading into Jerusalem to be handed over to the authorities and and killed for crimes against the religious order of the day. He was telling the disciples this to set up the next part.

How many of you have a cross? A cross on your wall? A cross you wear around your neck?

I have at least 20 crosses on my wall and probably just as many necklaces I wear for different occasions. I also have one on my body at all times. We look upon the cross as a symbol of our Lord and savior, as the sacrifice He made. We see it as a beautiful thing. But it is not a beautiful thing. The cross was the cruelest mode of death anyone could face in Jesus’ day. The person hung on the cross actually suffocated because of the lungs collapsing and air not entering due to the collapsed space.

So why then does Jesus tell us to take up our cross? Why is it we have to go to the death again? Did we not suffer with Him in His death? Yes we did suffer with Him and He paid the price for all of us so we could stand before God. But you see Jesus has a way for us to do things that is not our way. God’s ways are not our ways. His path is not the path we would openly and willingly choose. So we must take up our cross and deny ourselves. Jesus’ way is the way we need to go and if we leave it up to us, we will not go the right path.

You see if you take up your cross and follow Him, you will gain life, the life He has planned for you. We can struggle through life knowing that He has our back, and He will not let us down.

So the next time you look upon a cross remember the reason we have it, because Jesus died upon it so that you might have life, and then take it up and follow Him, leaving your wants and desires at the door.