Reflection: Distracted by Many Things (July 21, 2013)

The 9th Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 18:1-14; Colossians 1:21-29; Luke 10:38-42

A recent Harris Interactive survey of American adults about their use of smartphones showed that many (75%) are within five feet of their devices most of the time and that about one-third use their smartphones in movie theaters, on dinner dates, and while attending functions for their children. However, the level of our distraction by (addiction to?) smartphones is a bit shocking when 19% admitted using their devices in worship services and 12% while taking a shower. But the most disturbing part of this report is that nearly one in ten (9%) admitted using their phones during sex. We have a problem: we’re distracted.

Our problem with distraction isn’t new. While technology has increased the ways and extent of being distracted from more important things, people have struggled with being anxious and worried about lesser matters throughout history. Today’s Gospel lesson includes a woman who was so distracted by preparing a fine meal for Jesus that she wasn’t paying any attention to His teachings — a sort of ancient world equivalent of using your smartphone during worship. More than being distracted herself, Martha was irritated that her sister had chosen to set aside everything else and focus on what Jesus was saying and insisted that Mary take up her distractions. But Jesus wouldn’t let Martha’s distractions keep Mary from the more important matter at hand. “Only one thing is necessary,” He said to her. “And Mary has chosen it.”

How have your distractions in life kept you from choosing “the better portion?” What issues, activities, and priorities have filled you with busyness, worry, or anxiety to the point that you don’t have any place in your life to sit quietly at Jesus’ feet and learn from Him the real purpose and priorities of your life? How have your distractions robbed your spouse, children, or friends of knowing Jesus’ peace and love? We justify our distractedness by calling it “multitasking” and we laugh it off by labeling it “adult ADD,” but being distracted to the point of chasing after the pressing things of this world in place of the lasting things of Christ is destroying our culture, our families, and us. Jesus comes inviting you to set aside the many things that are distracting you, find His peace in the “one thing necessary,” and to know without doubt or distraction the joy of living in His love.

Click here to play an audio file of the sermon "Distracted by Many Things" (or right-click to download).

Devotion: When Things Are Too Hard for God (Genesis 18:1-14)

Click here to listen to an audio file of this devotion (or right-click to download).

And the Lord appeared to [Abraham] by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth 3 and said, “O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. 4 Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, 5 while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” 6 And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quick! Three seahs of fine flour! Knead it, and make cakes.” 7 And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man, who prepared it quickly. 8 Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate. 9 They said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “She is in the tent.” 10 The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?” 13 The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.” 

Abraham's wife Sarah must have known the promise that God had made to her husband. How could he have kept such amazingly good news from her? After being childless her entire life — and enduring the pain of the stigma that her culture attached to being barren — Sarah was going to have a son. What wonderful news for her! But it was as improbable as it was wonderful. She was very old, well past the point in life when women can have children. As far as everything that she knew from her knowledge and experience in the world, it was impossible for her to conceive and bear a child — and she had a lifetime of evidence to prove it.

It certainly didn't help Sarah have confidence in God's promise when what He had told Abraham would happen didn't come to pass right away. As the days faded into months and then into years, the promise became more and more unlikely for Sarah. As the improbability of conceiving a child grew in her mind into an impossibility, she decided to give God some help. Convinced that it was too hard for God for her to bear her husband's child, Sarah offered Abraham her servant as a surrogate mother, a temptation that Abraham found too appealing to resist. But the child born to Hagar was not the child whom God had promised.
In time — His time — God visited Abraham and Sarah to let them know that He was about to fulfill His promise. Years had passed, hope had faded, and circumstances had validated Sarah's doubts. Her dismissive laugh brought God's stern rebuke, "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"

We know Sarah's heart. We share her faith. We rejoice in the promises of God when they are fresh in our hearts and minds. We are confident that God is greater than our circumstances and  that He can do what is impossible for us. But as time wears on and the situations in our lives are so different that what we understood His promises to be and all of the things that we see, hear, and experience testify that those promises will not -- even cannot -- come to be, we lose heart. We give into the temptation to think that God isn't going to do what He said He would do. Weak in faith and challenged by the world, we convince ourselves that our problems, challenges, and dilemmas are not only too much for us to resolve but that making something good out of them is even too hard for the Lord.

While we don't often share in Sarah's laughter in the midst of our disappointments with God, we do share the same doubts, confusion, and lack of confidence that she experienced when God's promise seemed cruelly ridiculous. Like her, we have our own ways of giving God some help when we convince ourselves that His promises are really to hard for Him to keep for us. And like her, when we lose patience with God and take action on our own we end up making a mess of things. Yet, despite Sarah's unworthiness, God gave her the son that He had promised. Isaac's birth is a beautiful demonstration that God's promises are not only real but that they are kept according to His faithfulness, not ours. In the fulfillment of His promise of a son to Abraham and Sarah, God was picturing for us the fulfillment of another promised Son. In an even more unlikely way through a more unlikely woman, the Seed promised long before Sarah laughed at God's impossible promise was born into our world. Because we struggle with firmly believing God's promises, have failed to live according to His Word and His will, and had no hope of doing the impossible work that was necessary for our salvation, God gave us a Son, His Son. The culmination of all that God had promised -- in the Garden, through His covenants, and by His prophets -- this Son has proven that nothing is too hard for God.

Reflection: God's Answer to "Why?" (July 14, 2013)

The 8th Sunday after Pentecost
Leviticus 18:1-5, 19:9-18; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37

While we may have questions that we’d like to ask God one day, the questions that we actually end up asking Him are almost always “why?” questions. From the simple “Why me?” to the challenging “Why do bad things happen to good people?”, we have a long list of “why?” questions for God. Looking for answers to our “why?” questions outside of the Bible is pointless, but what answers does searching the Scripture provide? Interestingly, God does answer our “why?” questions in His Word. However, He doesn’t give us “why” answers. Instead, God answers our “why?” questions with His “who” answer: “I am the Lord your God.”

Having rejected God’s Word, people in our culture have started asking a different kind of “why?” question. Convinced that God does not have any concern for them or that there is no God at all, they question the concept of absolute truth and morality. Those who desire to live out their lives in open immorality — whether sexually, ethically, or materially — refuse to accept that someone else’s “truth” has any voice in their lives. “Why should I accept your truth?” is a common response to those who speak God’s Word of Law in our society. But it doesn’t stop there. “Why do I need your religion?” is an equally common response to those who would speak the Gospel in our culture. For those who reject the truth of God’s Word, “I am the Lord your God” is not only an unconvincing answer; it falls on deaf ears.

We shouldn’t be surprise that the people of the world reject God’s “who” answer to our “why?” questions when we often find His answer unsatisfying. In challenging circumstances we demand to know more than God has revealed and insist on judging whether or not His Word is sufficient. Like Eve in the Garden, we want to know the things that God has kept from us convinced that He is holding out on us rather than trusting that He is serving us well. We can’t accept that the answers to our “why?” questions may not be good for us or that they could even harm us terribly. But God’s “who” answer breaks through our unfaithful insistence. Because
we know the love and character of God through His Son, we find comfort, hope, peace, and confidence in hearing Him remind us when we come to Him with our “why?” questions with “I am the Lord your God.” Why would we want any other answer?

Click to play an audio file of the sermon "God's Answer to 'Why?"" (or right-click to download).

Devotion: Praxis, Love, and My Neighbor (Luke 10:25-37)

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25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put [Jesus] to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” 29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.” 

The word praxis isn't used much in our everyday language. Taken from the ancient Greek word that referred to the activities engaged in by free men, praxis is the act of incorporating practical and applied knowledge into one's actions. In other words, praxis is where theory and practice come together — where the rubber meets the road. Praxis is action.

Perhaps one of the reasons we don't make much use of the word praxis in the Church is that we'd prefer our discipleship to be more conceptual than practical. It's much simpler to incorporate the teachings of Jesus into our family, work, and community lives if we treat them as ideals rather than as practical actions to live out in the context of our relationships. While we know that Christ has called us to live our lives in a way that is radically different than the unbelieving people in our lives, we're much more comfortable living our lives according to the standards, values, and priorities of the world than we are to the teachings of Jesus. When we can no longer escape the inherent conflict between His teachings and those of the world, we manage to convince ourselves that Jesus wasn't seriously expecting His disciples to live out what He was teaching. We treat His Word as idealistic, maybe even naive. We're enamored with His teachings and hold them up as great ideas to which we might aspire, but we don't see how we can actually put them into practice in our lives — and we seem convinced that we aren't really expected to. In treating Jesus' teachings in this way we have removed praxis from our confession of Christ and we have justified our lack of action in serving Christ through serving our neighbors.

The teacher of the Law who stood up to put Jesus to the test understood our predicament well. Faced with the clear and challenging call to love God by loving his neighbor, he approached Jesus in an attempt to justifying himself in his own mind and before God. Well versed in the theory of living according to God's will but unwilling to put his knowledge into action, he was looking for affirmation that knowing God's Word was enough to be justified. But Jesus' teaching challenged his lack of praxis. Clinging to his desire to be justified while being entrenched in his selfish and self-centered worldly ways, he challenged Jesus' insistence on praxis with the question, "Who is my neighbor?"  Jesus' reply, a call to action through the parable that we've come to know as the parable of the Good Samaritan, struck at the heart of the man's self-righteousness. A remarkable parable on many levels, this story's lesson is above all a call to live out what God's Word makes clear — not only for the teacher of the law, but for us —  apart from the compulsion of the Law. It is a call to praxis — a call to activities that are engaged in by free men, not under compulsion but in loving response to the One who has acted on our behalf to free us from sin and death.

Like love itself, loving praxis cannot be mandated. To actively love God and our neighbor, we must first be moved by the love that Christ has shown to us in His praxis. In the ultimate act of love, Jesus carried our sins to the Cross, bore our shame, and endured the punishment that we deserved. Willing to act to save us when we could not act on our own behalf, Jesus' life-saving and life-giving praxis fully expresses the call to love one's neighbor as oneself. And as His neighbors served and saved by His loving action, we are now free to live in loving praxis for our neighbors and our world — to "go and do likewise."

Reflection: Something to Rejoice In (July 7, 2013)

The 7th Sunday after Pentecost
Isaiah 66:10-14; Galatians 6:1-10, 14-18; Luke 10:1-20

It’s easy to criticize our country and to lament how things are not what they used to be. America is filled with immorality and our leaders not only allow it but more and more are endorsing and promoting it. Those who want our country to return to its Judeo-Christian moral roots don’t have much sway these days. But given the option to stay or to leave, there are very few Americans who would consider moving to another country. As much as we complain about our country and our government, we find ourselves agreeing with Winston Churchill’s remark that “democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

When we take stock of all that it means to be Americans, we have much to rejoice about. But there’s a danger in basing our joy in being citizens of the United States. It’s the same danger that Jesus’ disciples were facing when they returned to Him rejoicing that they had power over demons. “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you,” Jesus warned them. He knew that if they focused on the things that were honored, respected, and desirable in the world that they would get wrapped up in the pursuit of glory. “But rejoice in this,” He continued, “that your names are written in heaven.”

Earthly glory and heavenly glory often stand in opposition to one another. As Christians in the world, we find ourselves in the very place that they collide. Our great danger as Americans is to think that our U.S. citizenship somehow entitles us to have and to hold glory. Spoiled by the vast wealth and unprecedented power that our nation has enjoyed, we’ve come to put our hope, trust, and security in our citizenship and the benefits that we receive through it. We expect glory. We demand it. And we rejoice in having it. But Jesus gives us something else to rejoice in. He redirects our focus from our earthly citizenship to a citizenship that isn’t the least worst option, but one that is perfect in every way. It is a citizenship that ensures us that all of our needs will be met without exception and without erosion. It is a citizenship that does entitle us to have and to hold glory, just not yet. We are blessed to be Americans, but Jesus would say “Do not rejoice in this, but rejoice that your name is written in heaven.” He should know; He’s the one who has written them there.

Audio file of the sermon "Something to Rejoice In"

Reflection: What Are We Doing Here (June 30, 2013)

The 6th Sunday after Pentecost
1 Kings 19:9b-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62

If you’ve ever experienced the euphoria of an exciting experience, then you’ve also experienced the let down that follows. It seems that the more intense that excitement is, the more disappointing the realities of going forward with ordinary living are. This is especially the case when those realities don’t line up with the expectations that we had beforehand. When the excitement of a promotion trails off into the daily headaches of new responsibilities, or the thrill of a baby being born is lost in a series of sleepless nights, or the idealism of newlyweds collides with the eye-opening experiences of sharing one’s whole life with another person, we understand what the prophet Elijah was going through.

Before going on the run, Elijah had confronted 400 prophets of Baal. He experienced an incredible display of God’s power and a resounding victory over God’s enemies. Although people had rallied around him during this confrontation, the queen was bent on capturing and killing Elijah for his actions. The thrill of victory quickly faded into the fear of defeat and destruction. Elijah ran for his life and hid in a cave. But God called him out of his cave and questioned him. “What are you doing here, Elijah?” It was a powerful question. It forced Elijah to realize how foolish he was being. He had no reason to run away. He should not have been afraid. The Lord was on his side. Victory was certain.

Like Elijah, we can let our circumstances draw us away from God’s promises and into the despair of the things that could go wrong and the possible outcomes that would be undesirable. When God finds us in the caves hallowed out by our doubts, fears, and worries, He calls us out into the light of His love and grace. “What are you doing here?” reminds us that we are called to rise above our circumstances to share in the greater purpose that God has planned for us and for which He has crafted us, our lives, and the very circumstances in which we find ourselves. When we ask ourselves “What are we doing here?” we’re seeking to align our lives and our wills with the life to which Christ has called us and the work that He has prepared for us. And we’ve opened ourselves to the euphoria of exciting experiences that do not diminish and cannot lead us to disappointment because they are based in the certainty of God’s victory in Christ Jesus.

Audio file of the sermon "What Are We Doing Here?"