Luke 8: Women Who Give

After leaving Capernaum, it's town to town itinerant living for Jesus and his 12 disciples. This lifestyle was made possible by the financial support of women who had been healed and delivered and were now traveling with them: "these women were helping to support them out of their own means."

We don't often think of a group of ladies tagging along with Jesus and his guys, but there it is in the Bible. Those who had been forgiven much, and healed and delivered of much, loved much in return. This following love seemed more important to Jesus than appearances, including the appearance (and reality) of relying on the generosity of women for their daily bread. He could have practiced "self-sufficiency" by on-demand multiplication of loaves and fishes. But for some reason Jesus chose to rely on the gratitude and love of these women camp followers. Maybe he knew that Christian men and women would be traveling through life together and would have to learn to give and receive each others' gifts in a spirit of humility and gratitude. What a wonderful savior is Jesus my Lord.

The Pharisees with all of their rules and fear could not evoke that kind of giving. Jesus scorns them for robbing poor widows. Such religious thievery would not have been "necessary" if a) they lived simply or b) their followers gave freely. It seems neither was the case.

Luke 7: John the Advance Man

My friend Mark was an "advance man" for a presidential campaign. His visited every whistle stop ahead of time to arrange the accommodations, prep the faithful, alert the media and in every conceivable way and in the fullness of time make the candidate look as good as possible. By that time, though, Mark would be on to the next town. If you were someone who needed kudos and visual gratification, it wasn't the right job.

Luke explicitly praises John the Baptist's "advance work" in vss. 29-30: "all the people, even the Democrats (the Greek word actually means "tax collectors"), when they heard Jesus' words, acknowledged that God's way was right, because they had been baptized by John [italics mine]. But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John."

I am the advance man of the Holy Spirit, or at least am called to be. My Spirit-led prayers, acts of sacrificial love, and testimony prepare "even the tax collectors" of my life to believe His message. As in Capernaum, not everyone who encounters the gospel will play childish games with it.

* * * * * * * * *

In Luke 7:44, Jesus tells Simon the inhospitable Pharisee why he appreciates the woman wiping his feet with her hair. Apart from the powerful message of grace, this story exemplifies the feminine narrative threading through Luke. Not only is the "star" a woman, but the setting is described with such drama and emotion that, well, it sounds like a woman said it. Sorry for the sexism, but there it is. Had it been told by a guy, it might read like "Jesus and the disciples and their host Simon reclined at table and enjoyed a wonderful meal of bread, lamb (nice and crispy), olive oil flavored just right, and a great bottle of way, and all the time Jesus taught us, his special friends.......oh, and some strange woman came and went, too."

The Golden Rule in our history

Luke 6:31 says, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

As an occasional student of American history, and as the father of two African-American children, I asked myself this morning, “how has The Golden Rule influenced American attitudes towards social justice?” Using my informal 10-minute rule (“if you can’t find it on the Internet in 10 minutes, forget it”), I found:

1)      The first reference to the “do unto others” concept as “golden” was from English physicist  Robert Godfrey in 1674: "Whilst forgetting that Golden Law, do as you would be done by, they make self the center of their actions." He was apparently one of these wonderful 17^th century English natural scientists, epitomized by Bacon, who both read the scriptures and studied Creation.

2)      In 1771, the great hymn writer Isaac Watts wrote of “that golden principle of morality of which the Lord Jesus has blessed us.”

3)      In 1791, Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon on slavery and Matthew 7:12 from the New Testament (in which Jesus expresses a variation of the Golden Rule). However, Edwards did not refer to that verse as the "Golden Rule." Rather, he spoke of "the general rule given us in the [Bible] text" and this "divine maxim."

4)      To my brother Dan’s UVM German Professor, Wolfgang Mieder, we owe the preservation of this quote by the great abolitionist, the Moses of black Americans, Frederick Douglas: “Remember George Latimer in bonds as bound with him; keep in view the golden rule - 'All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.” It is not too much of a stretch to say that the Golden Rule was also the Cardinal Rule of Abolitionism. Abraham Lincoln was once heard to muse, “yes, slavery, this Great National Blessing that no-one seems to want for himself.” I think it is significant that Lincoln’s anti-slavery sentiment was not a result of financial interest (as was at times in the more settled Northeast) but as a result of a trip he took down the Mississippi, where he saw slaves in chains. One wonders today if the slaves in bondage today (political, religious, economic) are hoping a Lincoln in plain working clothes will see them and begin the work of their deliverance.  

5)      By the mid-18^th century, writers and thinkers in England and America increasingly used the term, including Dickens, social philosopher John Stuart Mill, and (proving that even the devil can quote scripture) Charles Darwin. One can only wonder how the Golden Rule and Darwinianism could possibly be compatible.

6)      Building on the abolitionist attachment to the Golden Rule, Martin Luther King often said that the fear of the civil rights movement is America’s history of segregation, but the hope of the civil rights movement is America’s ingrained sense of justice and fair play. He saw his job as pushing white America to release the former and embrace the latter. And it did.

7)      Speaking from personal experience, the Golden Rule has had a powerful impact on those struggling on behalf of the powerless, but fully human unborn and terminally ill.

If Jesus had not said AND LIVED those words, and if sixty or so generations of Christians had not done likewise in contemporary fashion, amid the sturm und drang (storm and stress) there would have been no beacon of justice to follow. For this reason, and regardless of their beliefs, all lovers of freedom and justice owe Jesus an incalculable debt.

Source of most of the information above: http://www.scarboromissions.ca/.

The Greatness of Peter (no I am not kidding)

Obviously Jesus, who knew men's hearts, saw some spiritual potential in Peter. On the outside he was not exactly anyone's first choice for the Rock on whom the early church would be built. After listening to Alistair Begg preach this week on this passage on The Light 91.5 FM (9 am weekdays), I learned a few things about this Good Old Boy from Gallilee.

When Jesus - whom Peter admires but knows to be a landlubber carpenter, NOT an experienced fisherman - tells him to head out into deeper water, Peter tells him why it won't work BUT then obeys, saying these magic words: "Because you say so."

I don't think I want to know how many times Jesus has called me into deeper waters of acts requiring less so-called common sense and more faith. More trust, and less self-preservation. More love, and less selfishness. What kind of man would I be, and how much more would the world be blessed, had I said "weird, Lord, but because you say so" I will 1) apologize to this difficult person and ask their forgiveness; 2) contact this heart-stirring ministry and offer my services; 3) Think Big for God and move past the entropy of daily life. The Hallelujah Chorus Flash Mob would never, ever have happened if my better half hadn't prodded me into activity. And that's just one example.

More to the point, I don't want to live in the past, I want to look ahead with a "because you say so, Lord" attititude. That's exciting discipleship.

Second, I admire Peter's response at the success of the fishing expedition. For darn sure if, say, some godly lobbying effort succeeds, Guy Page is not going to drop to his knees in humility, acknowledge God's power, and say "I am a sinful man." No way, I'm doing a victory lap before the cloud of witnesses! Well, at least a big part of me will want to do that. Maybe that's one area of my life that would benefit from the "because you say so, Lord" treatment.

So the greatness of Peter is that when confronted by True Greatness, he acknowledged his comparative unworthiness and obeyed "because you say so, Lord." Those nets will catch men.

Luke 5

Jesus Calls His First Disciples

 ¹ One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret,^[a] the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. ² He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. ³ He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
 ⁴ When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”
 ⁵ Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
 ⁶ When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. ⁷ So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
 ⁸ When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” ⁹ For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, ¹⁰ and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.
   Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” ¹¹ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

Luke 4: a new Adam

The last words of chapter three are the conclusion of the genealogy of Jesus: “Adam, the Son of God.”

Luke recognizes that Jesus is for Jew and Gentile alike. Matthew traces the Savior’s line back to Abraham, the father of the nation of Israel. By hearkening back to Adam, Luke tells the reader that this story is not just for Jews, it’s for everyone.

It’s also a wonderful segue to the temptation of Jesus in the desert. Consider the contrast between Adam and Jesus, referred to by Paul (a traveling companion of Luke) as “the Second Adam” in his letter to the Romans. Adam is in the garden; Jesus, in the desert. When Adam is hungry, he eats; Jesus fasts. When Adam is tempted, he sins. Therefore his male descendents are required to be subsistence farmers, more or less. When Jesus is tempted, he obeys God (here and unto the cross), and so all of his descendents bear the fruit of the Spirit. We are the new Garden, and God walks among us in the cool of the day; covered by his mercy, we are unashamed.

Luke 3: John's Plan for Improving Society

John storms out of the desert, preaching the messianic deliverance to all mankind.

And how will Messiah do this, one might ask…..

Improve people’s self-esteem?

No – John calls them “a brood of vipers.”

Preach class struggle?

No – John was an equal-opportunity critic.

Tell people their nation is exceptional above all others?

No – John says big deal, out of these stones God could raise Americans (did I just say that?).

Tell people they are basically good and urge them to tweak their habits?

No – see “brood of vipers.”

Tell them it’s all society’s fault, and that society must save them?

No – the two key words he uses are “repentance” and “forgiveness.” Specifically, when individuals repent, God forgives. And then he gets down to the somewhat counterintuitive Plan for Improving Society, which is really just a natural result of God's radical, sacrificial plan for transforming his enemies into his friends…..

“Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”

What kind of fruit are you talking about, John?

Well, for example…..

If you have two coats, give one to someone without any.

If you have food, give some to a starving person.

And if you work in the government, when you say “I’m Here To Help,” you should mean it. You shouldn’t collect more taxes than necessary. You shouldn’t use your nightclub to extort money out of the good citizens. Government employees, hear this: serve the people, don’t oppress them.

Wow, that’s asking a lot, John. That doesn’t come naturally. How are we supposed to do all that? “One who is more powerful than I will come, one whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

Oh, we get it. We repent, God forgives, and empowered by the Spirit we choose to love and serve our fellow man and woman.   Sounds like a plan, John – bring it on.

I suppose to the Wise of this world, it sounds simplistic. But think - what if most of humanity said "yes" to John. What if the wealthy really helped the poor; what if the money handlers weren't greedy; what if there were no injust wars and police everywhere really did protect and serve. We would say that the Kingdom of God was among us. Even now, 20 difficult centuries later, we must admit that many people have done those things and the world is better for it. And finally we must conclude that the good that hasn't happened in this world’s Kingdom, we trust will happen in the Next. And with it, the "judgement to come."

So that's John's message for this viper: repent, and be forgiven. Then produce fruit in keeping with repentance.

Luke 2: Waiting for the Consolation

Yesterday I mentioned that Mary the mother of Jesus, or someone close to her, was probably one of Luke's sources. This is evident all through chapter two. After telling the Nativity story with details available nowhere else, Luke says in 2:19: "But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." And not once but twice Luke says that Jesus grew in wisdom and in strength, and in favor with God and man. If those aren't the words of a proud mom, I'll eat my Red Sox baseball cap commemorating the 2004 World Championship.

.....Which was, as you know, a LONG TIME in coming. Even for me, who gained Red Sox Nation citizenship in 1967. My father was a lifelong Red Sox fan who, born eight years after the previous World Series victory in 1918, died in 1996 before RSN experienced the "we were like men who dreamed" delirium of October, 2004 when the Sox finally won, O happy day.

So, I relate to Simeon, an aged man of God who was "waiting for the consolation of Israel". The consolation refers to the opening words of Isaiah 40, well-known from Handel's Messiah: "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, says your God." In short, he was waiting for Messiah. And he had waited a long, long time.

It takes effort to wait for consolation. It takes intentionality. The road to hope starts with a small step of faith in the goodness and timing of God. Instead I stamp my foot, demand and scheme. Like Carly Simon, "I haven't got time for the pain." And yet not waiting inflicts pain on others and myself.

I am in a Simeon season, "waiting for the consolation." I do not know what consolation will look like, whether it will be slowly progressive or a series of abrupt revelations. It is enough to know that He does. The great African-American poet Maya Angelou writes, "You said to lean, so I'm leaning; you said to trust, so I'm trusting; you said to call, so I'm calling you Lord, I'm stepping out on Your Word. And as with all of His dealings with me, waiting builds faith, hope and love, not despair.

Simeon is my New Normal role model. While waiting he remained faithful to listen to God's Spirit, who (need it be said?) remained faithful to him, summoning him into the temple courts to a pair of pilgrims and their baby. Clearly the wait was worth it: "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation."

Earlier I mentioned one of my favorite verses, Luke 2:52: "And Jesus grew in wisdom and strength, and in favor with God and man." I used to pray over Tim, Joe and Imani - "may you grow in wisdom and strength, and may you be wise and handsome [for Imani, 'beautiful'] too!"- and for all three it has been answered. I could brag on (oops, sorry Lord, "give thanks for") their real-time wisdom, strength, godliness and love of others all day. Wow - that didn't take long! It's started already.....