Day 146: Avoiding Idols

"Little children, keep yourselves from idols.  Amen."  1 John 5:21

I have always found this verse to be one of the oddest things in the bible.  It's the closing of a letter, but it seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the book.

John, as I said yesterday, writes all about the Antichrist and about God's love.  Idolatry doesn't really get all that much attention in the first letter of his.  The last two chapters talk all about Jesus and how to follow him, so I'm surprised that it doesn't end with a doxology (glory be...) or some sort of closing blessing.  Instead, the letter ends with a brief note.  It's as if John wanted to write a P.S. before the custom was popular (I'm not sure how letter writing conventions of the first and second centuries AD were).

But, when I think about it even more, the note at the end had to be important enough for him to include it.  I remember when I was in high school, playing in an orchestra rehearsal, the guest conductor was not happy with how somebody was playing Mozart.  In fact, he stopped and said, "You know, back then, paper was expensive.  Ink was expensive.  Writing music was tedious.  So, if there is a dot on each one of those notes, you'd better play each one."  Perhaps the same logic can be taken here, where paper was scarce, and literacy was low.  This note seems to be important.

The other thing about this note, though, is that John assumes that the readers know what exactly he's talking about.  And, if we as modern day readers think about it, we know exactly what he's talking about.  It seems that following Jesus does require some explanation, and the explanations that John has given us reiterate everything that Jesus has taught us: to love unconditionally.  But ridding our lives of idols, now that's an easy one for us to understand.  We don't need an explanation for that because we know what idols are.  We know that our faith is being stretched just as our attention span is.  We are drawn to money, to beauty, to celebrities, to many other things besides God.  Those idols tempt us each day.  The same thing has been happening all throughout history.  Read any two chapters in 1 or 2 Chronicles and you'll see that.  Look at the wisdom books in the bible and you'll see so much about not straying from idols.  Yet, we always need a reminder.

Perhaps, John is giving us an answer to a question that we'd have after hearing his statement.  It's a summary of the entire letter.  We have a way out of our temptations of all those other idols.  When we devote our lives to idols, we no longer have the time or the energy to love.  So, when we love as Jesus taught us, as John reminds us, then we will draw ourselves ever closer to God.

Day 137: Strengthening a Community

"Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.  As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.  If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.  If anyone ministers, let him do it with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever.  Amen."  1 Peter 4:9-11

One of the underlying themes of 1 Peter is the teaching about building a community, and the means to build up a community is love.

Perhaps, though, the idea of love being thrown around so many times in one letter gets to be too abstract.  Indeed, as I learned in writing school, love is an abstraction.  My idea of it might be very different than another's.  But, fear not, for Peter has given us an example of how to show love.

The love that is used in this letter is the word agape, which gets translated into Latin as caritas, which is where our word charity comes from.  In fact, in some older texts, charity comes closer to meaning a love that builds up a community, as opposed to our modern meaning of doing things for the less fortunate.  And that concept is important to understand, because it helps us to imagine how we can accomplish building up a community of love, the Kingdom of God.  Peter shows us that it comes about with using our unique gifts.

Think about how a church is run.  There's a priest who teaches the congregation.  There are lay ministers who also take on the role of teaching.  There are musicians who lead the congregation.  There are people who take to writing announcements in the bulletin or in social media platforms.
There are fellowships of people who devote their time to using their crafts for the less fortunate, such as knitting shawls for those who need them during the winter, or cooking and serving food for the homeless.  There are many things that can serve the community all around.

So, this is where we all can come in.  None of these things works without people actually giving their time and talent to these ministries.  The only way to build an effective community is by using one's gifts for the common good.  A community grows when each person grows individually.  We have to figure out how we can provide for the bettering of our communities.  If we have questions, there are plenty of people we can ask.  We show our love for our community when we not only speak about the love we have for one another, but when we actually show it with our actions, putting all of our gifts to good use.

Day 123: Spiritual Awakening

"But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich."  Luke 18:23

I read something recently that said, "The truth hurts a lot before it feels better."  That's how I feel about this verse.

Jesus speaks to us all through a Gospel of truth that seeks to save us out of pure love for us.  Of course, the truth is the first part that is going to hurt.  It's going to hurt because it's getting us out of our comfort zone.  It's the thing that will call you out of your bed and into the streets.  It's what will reveal all the imperfections in your life that you have grown to become quite used to.  Jesus wakes us up.

I'm writing this from a hospital bed, where I have come to after quite a number of rounds of tests in order to find what's causing my stomach to feel bad.  I find that the Gospel works in the same way.  It puts us into sometimes seemingly uncomfortable situations in order for our doctor, Jesus Christ, to let us know what we need to do to improve.  Do we need to eat less of the gluttony that exists in our lives in the form of spending money and eating unreasonably exorbitant food?  Do we need to exercise more in our lives as spiritual beings, with prayer and reading?  Do we need to calm down from the stresses of life?  Jesus is there to tell us what to do and how to do it.

In this reading, we find that there is a rich man who is sorrowful after hearing that in order to attain ultimate spiritual greatness, he needs to give up his money.  I interpret this not so much as a condemnation of money, but as a condemnation of the care of money.  This man has defined himself by his money.  How many of us are guilty of similar things?  Do we like to show off our worth with our clothes, shoes, cars?  Do we like to flaunt our degrees with high language and off-putting, vacuous philosophical discussions?

Jesus is calling us to remember to care for all those around us.  We need to give our time, talent, and treasures to all of those around us in order to continue the work of the Kingdom of God.  We need to get up out of our comfort zones so that those who live in discomfort can have a breath of relief.  In fact, we might even find new relief when we find ourselves out in the world doing the work we are called to do.

Day 087: Community

"Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself."  Philippians 2:3

This is a message that we seem to forget many times.

Why go to church if we aren't there to help build up the community?  We have been called to go to church and participate in corporate worship in order to build up a community.  We are called by Jesus to present a perfect offering of a Church before God - one without blemish or defect.  We are going to church in order to unite ourselves to God.

When we do things just for our own benefit, everybody suffers.  We are all born with gifts from God, and we are to use them to bring others to God.  Yet, if we go about using our gifts just for ourselves, we end up isolating ourselves from the greater community of people who thirst for your gift.  We find ourselves wandering without any direction, and we no longer experience the love that God wants us to experience.  When we do things for selfish interests, we are no longer living a life of godly love, but a life of hate.

Everybody out in the world is longing for something.  Many times, it is difficult to figure out what, exactly.  In fact, that's when people will turn to self destruction, for they will be pleasured in the moment, but they will continue searching for what they truly need.  We can help alleviate this issue by going out and presenting our gifts in ways that will build up strong communities.  It's all about making sure there is a constant dialogue in a community.  When we communicate, we will figure out what needs to happen.  Usually, when there is communication, we will understand that the answers and solutions are much simpler than we had ever thought.

Day 053: Producing Good

There are those who sow their own things and produce more things, and there are those who gather but have less.  Proverbs 11:23

This proverb reminds me of Jesus' parable of the talents, for the lesson in the parable was about putting the talents to good use.  Both speak to me about how we should grow in our faith.

God gives us so many things in our lives.  Those things come in the form of material things and wealth.  Others, though, come in the form of our abilities, our talents.  Whatever they are, though, we have an obligation to put them to some form of use.  That's where faith comes in.

On the one hand, we could just hide the gifts that we have from God, but, just as the parable shows, that will just leave us with less.  If we aren't putting any of what we have to good use, we are turning ourselves away from avenues that could connect us with more people in the world.  We could be turning ourselves away from many who want to hear the Gospel but can't just because of our selfishness.

On the other hand, we can put our gifts to good use, for God.  Of course, at first, it might be scary.  Sometimes that means investing our gifts into things that may or may not be successful.  It is always difficult to make an investment of any kind.  However, God's grace is there just for this reason.  God wants to help us, to make us successful, when we bring our offerings to God.  God the provider, is all loving and will help us in our endeavors.  All we need to do is to make the first step in the right direction.  Allow for this Lent to be a time for bringing your offerings to God, so that God can make them grow into greater things than we could ever have imagined.

God Hates Figs

"Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, [Jesus] went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, 'May no one ever eat fruit from you again.' And his disciples heard it."
Mark 11:13-14

This passage has troubled me for a long time, for it is a harsh curse from Jesus.  Now, don't get me wrong, Jesus does use many strong and harsh statements throughout the gospels, but, for some reason, this one seems to be among the harshest.  Maybe it's because of the fact that it's to a tree, which, in my experience, kind of just does its own thing (of course, my gardening skills are sub-par at best).  Maybe it's because the tree ended up withering away very soon after (Mark 11:20).  Jesus kills a tree with his words.
But, then I remember, God has the final word: the word is Jesus.  So, this has to have some sort of meaning for me, right?  God, Love, speaks to me through Jesus, but I feel stumped with this passage.
In my attempts to understand this, I have turned to other sources to "check" if my own suspicions are right.
But, of course, this unschooled guy here thinks of something that is totally off from what the authorities teach: that this is a prophecy against Israel for not producing fruit.
I don't want to let this passage to be just a prophecy for the Jews of their impending tribulations.  I feel that it speaks to me in this way:
A great tree that bears a promise of good fruit (fig newtons, anyone?) is replete with leaves well before fig-season.  What a gift it is for that tree!  I would be so excited if I saw something like that when I was hungry.  And now we have Jesus, about whom the gospel writers rarely state that he is hungry.  And, he goes to the tree, and there's nothing but leaves.  I already hear the words of a parable, where the sprout of the Gospel grows too quickly with such a small root that it dies out, for that is what this tree is: lots of growth with little to offer.  The tree is just showing off for no reason.  The tree deceives.  And so, Jesus commands the tree to die.  Now, there is no longer a deceiving plant, but shriveled pride.  

"He who has little will have it taken away from him."

The thing that punches me, though, is that Mark writes that Jesus replies to the tree, as if the tree were a person and had spoken something to Jesus. (Frequently, in Mark, whenever Jesus replies to his disciples or anyone else, the Greek phrase ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν 'he said in response' appears.)  So, now we have a tree that's like, "Jesus, here I am in all my glory.  Go away from your path and come to me."
Then, I think about how I am.  God has given me many talents, and many times I feel like I am just using them for my own gain.  Sometimes, when I pray, I feel that I am asking for something that is just for me and not for my job in life.  God works through each of us with our talents.  However, God counts on us making a good use of our talents.  So, instead of showing off our talents to lead others astray, wondering why they aren't good enough or why they don't have what another might have (despite lacking in their hearts), we should work together to cultivate each other's talents and incorporate them into the great garden that is the Kingdom of God.  For, we are all seeds that are wandering and beaten through the chaos that is this world, but we have one in heaven who is waiting with a watering can and a shovel to cultivate us into a wonderful tree with many fruits to offer.

Sam van Aken "Tree of 40 Fruit"