We have more ways to hear God’s Word than any generation before us. Me? I have three Bible apps, several audio bibles, and e-bibles on my phone. That phone also sends me a chime and a verse every morning at 6:00. I have a great church family with access to daily resources, great Sunday worship and a Sunday School class.

Hearing the word?
No problem.

I can nail that every day and twice on Sunday. But then James reminds me, “But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” I shudder a bit when I read James 1:22. Being a veracious hearer of the word but not a doer of the word is utter craziness, but I’m so good at the “hearing of the word” part! It’s my jam. But doing the word trips me up every day. Now that I’m in my 60’s, you’d think I would have arrived. I haven’t. The difficulty is in the doing.

What is Easy?

It’s so much easier to label than to love.
It’s so much easier to be entertained than to be involved.
It’s so much easier to hoard than give.
It’s so much easier to fear than to have faith.

It’s so much easier to win the internet with half truths, mocking memes, and snarky comments than it is to step into the middle of another real person’s trauma and offer grace through our acts of Christian charity and mercy. We often build walls to keep us away from the people He called us to love and reach.

What is Difficult?

Our words are deadly serious: “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Jesus Christ, Matthew 12:36)

This is a difficult saying that I have to remember every. single. day.

Because we don’t have much time, it’s important that we become acutely aware of our spiritual illnesses and give them up quickly. We should be throwing off the chains of dead religion with hilarity and abandon so that we can enter into the narrow, eye-of-the-needle Gospel.

What is Impossible?

Like the flabbergasted disciples said after another of Jesus’ revolutionary challenges, “Then how can
anyone be saved?” I completely relate to their astonishment. But how amazing would it be if we all were a different kind of crazy! For instance, when Jesus said, “love your enemies,” what if we actually loved everybody–even our enemies, to the extent that our enemies would actually look at us and say, “Wow, those crazy people love me!” What if we listened to people like Jesus listened to them instead of feeling like we had to win debates and put people in our own neat little categories? Our magnificent obsession would be to see how much time, money and encouragement we could give away. We would be more compelled to “go” than we’d be to “stay.” We’d seek to serve more than to be entertained. Our heroes wouldn’t be found in the Marvel universe, but missionaries in mud huts and rice fields half a world away. We’d have the audacity to believe that all things are possible. And when we have that kind of faith, they absolutely are.

What about you?

Do you long to see your ideological villains embarrassed and humiliated? Do you enjoy the rhetorical violence of politics? Do you love it when you get the applause or become the preferred? Do you relish the time you spend on the pews of your amen corners? Are you constantly designing your argument or apologetic strategy before listening, really listening to people?

If you read the Word and stop there, you are safe, at least for a few years. If you obey the Word, you are a revolutionary. Every revolution begins in the soul. Revolutions are dangerous, unpopular, and messy but in 10,000 years from now, you will have no regrets.

You can measure one’s faith by their ability to move on. Jesus encountered many people who fawned and queried Him, looking to work out some kind of bargain, complete with caveats and clauses. He presents each follower with a moment. These moments connect us to a point of decision. When that moment comes, you’d better grab it because it’s singular in transcendence.It transports you into both adventure and holy consequence. In Luke 9, we see three symbolic responses to the Jesus call. Each representing different ways

During times of hardships

The first declaring voice makes an enormous claim. The would-be follower meets Jesus on the road and says, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

So often I have longed for a 10 year plan. I’ve dreamed of putting down roots and knowing exactly where I will find myself at the end of every day. I hate surprises and Uncle Murphy who shows up when everything that can go wrong does. He enters the arena of my personal world in force and fanfare. I don’t like it. I hate it. I hate surprises. And I HATE MOVING BOXES. What will happen next? Only God knows and He won’t tell. Sometimes life is void of parachutes, exit plans, and emergency funds. Sometimes we exit the scene of the fire, smelling like soot and hopping in the car of a loved one with little explanation, because life is just that unpredictable. Don’t feel abandoned because you lack the certainty of addresses and schedules. He’s there. He’s just silent.

When we anticipate grief

Some of us see grief just around the corner instead of 10 years down the road. We catastrophize tomorrow and we say like Jesus’ next potential follower, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” The context is probably not a hospice situation. Burying your father in that culture is committing to be there to the very end for your earthly community. This person’s father could have been in perfect health and 40 years old. Jesus’ response would seem terse and unsympathetic if the dad was presently at death’s door but probably that was not the case. Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

We love to be tidy, even obligatory in life. But with Jesus, we don’t loiter in the obituaries of our mind. We hug their necks, bid farewell and trust God. No one has funerals on their calendar months in advance. Life goes on and Jesus calls us into life which, at its core, can’t be tethered to future sackcloths.

When we have to leave home

Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Sometimes our exits are protracted. We don’t know how to hang up the phone or walk out the door. We do postmortems where we look at our past and wonder if we could have left later. We burden ourselves with feeling of guilt for not being with the same people in the same town, facing the same problems. We have to stop rubbernecking our history and move forward. Sometimes you have to cry the tears, hug the necks, and pack it in- all on the same day. We don’t have time to worry about what will happen in our wake.

There has never been a time when I left a ministry, job or town that everything suddenly fell apart because I left. I can’t think that much of me. None of us are indispensable. You’ll be missed but the people you have to leave will be fine. Don’t idolize your importance to an organization or a community. To do so limits your perspective on the sovereignty of God.

So when you are faced with a sad, yet mandatory farewell and you find your beloved friends questioning, speculating and bargaining regarding your departure, here’s a good response: “I love you. I must be going.”

Our trust in God’s plan should be:

• Unconditional

• Unwavering

• Undaunted

• Undeniable

• Unadulterated

It means giving God a blank check.

I’ve asked myself this question for years now and I still see through a glass darkly. I am guided and shaped in the midst of my own perplexities. One fact counters the next, but this list is true. Everything else is still on the table.

I am loved by Christ . . .
often wrong
rarely strong
seduced by grace
fixed in place
soaked in tears
racked in fears
a mix of duality
I long for centrality
homesick
heaven bent
wounded, limping
yet surprisingly steady and quite unrelenting
rebel some days
deceived by the haze
this maddening, saddening, dazzling maze.
sick and then healed
with mercy revealed
faithful, bold, and perfectly formed
wandering, timid, disfigured and scorned
enigma, riddle, mystery, clue
firm, unchanging, promised, and true.

As I read the Gospel, there’s something that stands out in so many narratives and backstories. Jesus loves desperate people. Whether it’s the pleading father, the paralyzed man whose friends tore the roof off a house, or the sufferings of the entire nation of Israel, desperate people always get His attention.

I can remember times when I was so preoccupied with my work, the game, or a task, that my five-year-old son would grab my face with both his hands to assure I was listening. That’s just how absurdly one-track minded I can get. But that was never the case with Jesus. Nobody had to grab Him by the face. The moment the tassels of his prayer garment were touched, He felt her faith connect with His sufficiency. There is absolute power in the faith of a desperate person.

I’ve spent lots of time trying not to appear desperate, while knowing the deep chasm of my own insufficiency. And there is power in desperation. It’s clumsy at times. When I’m desperate, there’s no telling what might come out of my mouth. My prayers are fragmented. Sometimes all I can pray is the oldest one: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God have mercy on me.” In fact, that’s how I start every morning. It centers me on the truth that I have to cry out for mercy. Every morning. Every evening. And a baker’s dozen times a day. “Lord Jesus, Son of God have mercy.” I’m sure there are those who don’t need his mercy as much as I do, but it’s my broken bread and butter.

It brings me back to the woman reaching for the tassels of Jesus. (Luke 8, Mark 5)

A desperate, sick, bankrupt woman fights her way through the crowd to touch Jesus’ cloak. In Mark, we read that she spent everything she had on doctors but things only got worse. I have been there. It’s when you throw money at a problem and the problem’s appetite for money only grows. No one wants “money pit” problems. They’ll bring you to the end of yourself. Who wants that? There comes a time when you aren’t worried about how humiliating you look. You just lay yourself out there in front of God and everybody because you don’t care what anybody thinks. “In front of” is none of your concern.

As soon as she made contact with Him, He knew it and focused all his attention on her. In one moment, we can agree on a number of things about Jesus. He’s never too late, He’s never too busy, and He’s never too burdened to step into the pain of our desperation. Sometimes, He has to bring us into desperation in order for us to diligently seek Him. That’s the whole point of this life and yet we are often too consumed with the crowd to really stop and focus on our ultimate and preeminent King. That’s too bad, because when it comes down to it, every solution for brokenness, our pain and neediness is no more than a touch away.

Lord Jesus, Son of God have mercy. I have so often wanted a self-instigated salvation without the mess and grit of desperation. There is only one hero in my story. Have mercy in my desperation, so that I can more fully revel in your rescue.

This is the first episode of seven on “A Scattered Feast” Season three.

____

I fell headlong into the chasm of my willful atrocities.
Some subtle and slight. Under the surface. Others are so visible I must tremble. 
The level of my careless rebellion is undeniable.
Without a word of recompence I have stood, not knowing the grief I impose on almighty God.

But then

My soul is transported through time to thorn-crowned head of the dawn creator.
He remains
I hear his voice from the hill of mankind’s transgression
His voice reverberates through the centuries

Through wars, idolatry, conspiracy, and flesh borne insurrection.
Like the deep voice of a billion sorrows crystalized in that one moment of suffering
Father, the voice cries above the unseen hoards of demons and  all too visible tormentors
Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. 
Bludgeoned, beaten, challenged, ridiculed
His power unparalleled
Yet he remains
Yet not only remains. He calls for amnesty in the midst of annihilation 

Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.
We hear Jesus uttering this prayer while enduring unthinkable agony
It’s personal. It’s unimaginable. But most of all, it’s mercy.
Mercy of the greatest kind.
And when I think of God his son not sparing sent him to die, I scare can take it in. 
Father forgive them.
Father forgive the dogs that surrounded him
Father forgive the religious bigots who spewed malicious venom and mocking rebukes
Father forgive Thomas who doubted
Peter who denied him.
And disciples who deserted him
Father forgive them.
And as he scanned the ions of centuries to come 
He gazed through history.
He saw me and he saw you
Father forgive them. 
They know not what they do.

~