Devotion: Where Is the Love? (Luke 7:36-50)

Audio file of the devotion "Where Is the Love?".

36 Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. 37 When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, 38 and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. 39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is-- that she is a sinner." 40 Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you." "Tell me, teacher," he said. 41 "Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?" 43 Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled." "You have judged correctly," Jesus said. 44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven-- for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little." 48 Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." 49 The other guests began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" 50 Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

In her 1972 hit song, Roberta Flack asks "Where is the love - You said you'd give to me - Soon as you were free - Will it ever be - Where is the love?" After reading Luke 7:36-50, we might wonder why Jesus isn't asking us the same question. Where is the love that should come from us who have been set free from sin and death by His sacrifice on the Cross? Where is the love that we promised to give to Him when we confirmed our Baptismal faith? Where is the love that should freely flow from sinners who have been forgiven? If our love for Jesus isn't clearly evident in our words and actions now, will it ever be?

Love isn't found in the empty promises that Roberta Flack was lamenting -- or that we have found ourselves making. Genuine love is shown in a person's words and actions. When Jesus was reclining at a dinner at Simon's house, a woman known to be a sinner seized the opportunity to  express her love for Jesus by washing His feet with her tears, drying them with her hair, and anointing them with perfume. Her open expression of love stands in stark contrast to the lack of action on the part of Jesus' host. Simon, who was a Pharisee, did not show Jesus any love. In fact, he did not even extend Jesus the basic actions of hospitality that would have shown friendship and acceptance. Given his attitude and his arrogance, one has to wonder why Simon invited Jesus into his home in the first place.

The essential difference between Simon and the unnamed, uninvited woman wasn't in their actions, but in why they acted as they did. Simon and the woman were responding according to their understanding of who Jesus is and what He has done for them. The woman knew Him to be the Savior and understood her great need for forgiveness. She saw Jesus as her only hope for escaping the judgment and condemnation that she rightly deserved. She wasn't looking for a warrior king to raise the nation to greatness in the world, but a personal savior to deliver her from sin and death. She had a great love for Jesus because she had received so much from Him. In contrast, Simon viewed Jesus as a challenge and was sizing Him up to figure out how to deal with Him. Simon was looking for a national deliverer, not a personal Savior. As a Pharisee, he was looking for validation of his goodness, not forgiveness. He was not afraid of being judged, but felt justified in judging others. He had little love for Jesus because he didn't think he had much use for Him.

"Where is the love?" is a deeply personal question. It is answered based on how you understand who Jesus is and what it is that He has done for you. If you think well of Him, consider Him to be a great teacher, and admire His example, but you don't understand your great need for His forgiveness then you will love Him little. But if you look to Him as your only hope, kneel at His feet in tears because you know that you have sinned against Him, and embrace the vastness of His forgiveness, you are certain to love Him much. Where is the love? It is in the love that Jesus Christ has brought to you. Where is the love? It is in the promises made and then kept on the Cross of Calvary. Where is the love? It is yours now in the freedom from sin and death that Jesus' blood has secured for you. Where is the love? It is in the forgiveness and the life that you have in Jesus.

Reflection: God Has Visited His People (June 9, 2013)

The 3rd Sunday after Pentecost
1 Kings 17:17-24; Galatians 1:11-24; Luke 7:11-17

There once was a time when visits were a social art. Hosts would extend formal invitations to come for a visit. Friends, neighbors, and extended family members would make plans for a visit well in advance. However, as technologies advanced and society grew more casual, the nature of making a visit changed. Now personal visits have given way to postings on social media that are typically momentary and have little impact in people’s lives. Software keeps track of the digital activity and even counts it as visits, but such things are hardly the visits of days gone by — and nothing like the life changing visits that the widow of Zarephath and the people of Nain experienced. In these accounts, God acted in such a way that people knew that He had personally and powerfully visited them.

In Zarephath and in Nain, the visit of God came on the heels of great loss and sorrow. In both of these cases, widows had lost their only sons. Destitute, hopeless, and grieving, these widows were more alone and vulnerable than most of us can understand. Heartbroken and powerless, their difficult circumstances had been made them ready to receive a visit from God. And visit them He did. Doing more than anyone would have asked and more than they could have imagined, God visited them in their desperation and acted to restore peace, hope, and wonder in their lives. Unlike the social visits of our past and the cyber visits of our present, when God visited these people He worked dramatic changes to their circumstances to deliver them from their oppressors.

Like the Lord’s visits to Zarephath and Nain, our visits to one another were once meant to bring aid and encouragement to those in need. But the manner and purpose of the visits that we make has changed. Formal, meaningful, and often practical visits have given way to casual, frivolous, and trivial encounters. But the way and the reasons that God visits His people remains the same. Although He is pleased to receive one, God does not wait for an invitation to intervene in our lives. Instead, He comes to us in the midst of our difficult circumstances to bring the aid that we may not know to ask for or may not even imagine is available to us. When He does, we know that God has entered into our situations and we rejoice with those who have also exclaimed, “God has visited His people.”

Audio file of the sermon "God Has Visited His People."

Reflection: Worthy or Not (June 2, 2013)

The 2nd Sunday after Pentecost
1 Kings 8:22-24, 27-29, 41-43; Galatians 1:1-12; Luke 7:1-10

Over the past two generations, more and more churches are adapting a very casual worship style and environment. Pastors dress down to reflect the fashion preferences of those who attend. Coffee and other drinks are dispensed in narthexes and consumed in worship centers. Some churches have even replaced rows of pews or seats with tables and chairs to create a casual coffee house setting. The motives for making worship more casual vary, but the underlying message is much the same. In making worship such a casual affair we’re reinforcing people’s understanding that they are worthy to come into God’s presence however they want to and just as they are.

This attitude is nothing new. When a centurion in Capernaum was concerned about a gravely ill servant, he asked the Jewish religious leaders to intervene for him. They went to Jesus on his behalf and pleaded with Him to help. “He is worthy to have You do this for him,” they told Jesus, showing that they also saw themselves as worthy of being in Jesus’ presence and expecting Him to do their bidding. Patiently and graciously, Jesus granted their request and started making His way to the centurion’s house. But the centurion would have nothing to do with that. He sent word to Jesus that showed his faith and his heart. He said that he was not worthy to have Jesus come into his house and that he was not worthy to come into Jesus presence. He knew the power and authority of Jesus. And he respected Jesus by not presuming that he could casually come to Him and ask for anything.

Worthy or not, Jesus is always present with His people and He invites us to come into His presence. He hears the prayers of His people and answers us with His grace. How amazing! We can come before our God with all of our cares, concerns, faults, failures, joys, and hopes even though we have no right to do so and we could never be worthy of such a privilege in and of ourselves. Through the Gospel of Christ, “who gave Himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age,” we have been counted worthy of this privilege. We could treat it casually and still be loved by Him. But when we understand it as the incomparable blessing that it is and we know that He joyfully receives us whether we worthy or not, we can only refuse to be casual about worshiping our awesome God.

Audio file of the sermon "Worthy or Not."

Reflection: The Definite Plan and Foreknowledge of God (May 26, 2013)

Holy Trinity Sunday
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Acts 2:14a, 22-36; John 8:48-59

We've come to believe that many things in our world are the result of randomness. We survey the damage in the wake of a natural disaster and see a house that is barely touched in the middle of the rubble that used to be a neighborhood and it
looks very random. We hear about a crime in which the perpetrator confesses that he just picked out a victim for no particular reason and it confirms our sense of randomness. Science explains our existence as a species as the result of beneficial, random mutations. Sociologists tell us that we become the people we are because of the family or community of which we are randomly a member. As a society, we embrace the idea that accidents, diseases, success, relationships, and many more of the elements of our lives are driven, in whole or in part, by randomness.

In contrast to seeing our existence and experiences as random, God’s Word declares that they are driven by “the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.” He makes it clear that He created us intentionally and specifically. We are not the result of a random process that just happened to work out well for us, but of God’s marvelous design and expert craftsmanship, created for specific roles in His plan for the reconciliation and restoration of His creation. It goes against most of what our culture understands as truth, but we are uniquely crafted by God for the particular reasons that He has chosen. We don’t choose our own paths or destiny. We’re not being carried along in a stream of randomness. We are integral participants in the plan that God laid out before the foundation of the world that is now unfolding in our lives under His guiding hand.

Knowing that God has a definite plan is one thing. Understanding it is another. Some parts of God’s plan are confusing and troubling. When His plan calls for suffering and hardship in our lives we might be tempted to reject the idea that a loving and gracious God could want such things for us. We might even view Him as capricious — even random — and see ourselves as pawns in His hands. But He assures us that the challenges we face in our lives are part of a plan that unfailingly leads us to good things. We can be sure of this because He Himself bore the Cross and suffered death for us “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.”

Audio file of the sermon "The Definite Plan and Foreknowledge of God."

Reflection: Help We Can Use (May 19, 2013)

Pentecost Day
Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-21; John 14:23-31

Ronald Reagan once quipped, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" While government isn't the only entity that provides help that isn't much help, it seems that our government is especially good at being more hindrance than help. If you've ever been on the receiving end of “help” that wasn't any help, you know what Reagan meant. Rules, regulations, bureaucracy, restrictions, conflicting guidelines, etc. are not the help that we need when we turn to the government for assistance. But, unfortunately, that is often the “help” that we get.

When Jesus was preparing His disciples to continue His work after He had returned to the Father, He promised that He would send them help. He knew that they would need a lot of help. They were going to face tremendous opposition from the Jewish leaders, endure hostility when proclaiming the Gospel, and be persecuted by the Roman government for promoting a subversive religion. They would be betrayed by some of the people who embraced their message and attacked by people who rejected it. They would face all kinds of physical and emotional hardships as well as the spiritual attacks of Satan. They would definitely need help. So rather than send them a set of rules, or threats of punishments for being unfaithful, or a system of accountability run by superiors, Jesus sent them real help. He sent them the Helper.

We face some of the same challenges that His first disciples faced — and a few of our own. Our world is still fallen and broken. It’s filled with sin and the effects of sin. We can’t avoid or escape it — and we aren't suppose to. Instead, we are called to confront the sin, evil, and brokenness of our world with the Gospel. When we do we set ourselves against people who love this world, those who are living to make a name for themselves, unbelievers who are hostile to God and His Word, and the one who prowls about as a roaring lion seeking to devour us. Jesus has warned us that we will face opposition, hardship, persecution, and even death as we do the work that He has given us to do. His warning is helpful, but it isn’t the help that we need. We need more than His warning and even more than His encouragement. For help we can use, Jesus continues to send us real help; He continues to send us the Helper.

Audio file of the sermon "Help We Can Use."

Reflection: To Go Where No One Has Gone Before (May 5, 2013)

The Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 16:9-15; Revelation 21:9-14, 21-27; John 16:23-33


When I was growing up I used to dream about going to a place where no other human being had ever been. Fueled by stories I read in books and documentaries from TV, I imagined myself as an adventurer who would discover new lands and untouched civilizations. As time went on, I realized that, because the world was heavily populated and well traveled, it was unlikely that I would ever be the explorer and discoverer that I dreamt of being. I've also come to understand that I have many opportunities to go where no one has gone before. And so do you.

When the Apostle Paul was carrying out the work that God had called him to do in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey), he set his sights on going into the region of Bithynia to proclaim the Gospel. He had already started numerous new churches in the surrounding regions and Bithynia was the next logical place to continue his work. But he was stopped in his tracks by the Holy Spirit who prevented him from going there. Why would the Spirit keep someone from going to a place to share the Gospel? Because He wanted Paul to go somewhere else, to a place where no one had gone before with the Gospel. Paul didn't have to wait long to find out where God wanted him to go. Paul received a vision of a man from Macedonia urging him to come to that region to help the people there. When Paul arrived in Philippi, which was the main city of Macedonia, he found that there wasn't even a synagogue there. He had come to a place where no one had gone before.

There was a time when we would have had to pack up our lives and travel to distant lands to find people who had never heard of the love, joy, and peace of Jesus, to places like those of my childhood daydreams. But now the places where no one has gone before with the Gospel are all around us. Our workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, and even our families are filled with people who don't know anything about the love and grace of God in Christ Jesus. Like the Macedonian man in Paul's vision, they are calling us to come to their aid. But unlike that man, they aren't issuing a direct invitation. Instead their cries of spiritual suffering and death through the choices they make, the values they hold, and the sins that they live out in their everyday lives are crying out for us to listen to the Holy Spirit's call to go to where no one has gone before.

Audio file of the sermon "To Go Where No One Has Gone Before."

Reflection: Standing in the Way of God (April 28, 2013)

The Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 11:1-18; Revelation 21:1-7; John 16:12-22


It can be hard to know when God is doing something out of the ordinary. In situations when we can’t tell whether God is in it or not we’re faced with a dilemma. If it’s not from Him, we don’t want to get caught up in it. If it is from Him, we don’t want to stand in the way of what He’s doing. When God was moving Peter to share the Gospel with the Gentiles He communicated His will in an unusual vision — three times! Later, when he was questioned about the validity of sharing the Gospel with Gentiles, Peter was able to say confidently that it was God’s will for the Gentiles to share in the Gospel. Knowing that God was in it, Peter asked his detractors “who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”

There are many people who do stand in God’s way, especially in His desire that all people would hear His Word and come to know His love and grace. It doesn't seem like a very good idea to stand in the way of the God who “opposes the proud, but gives grace to the poor” (James 4:6). Even Gamaliel, one of the most avid opponents of the Apostles, warned his fellow Jews to be careful about how they dealt with their efforts to share the Gospel, telling them that “if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” (Acts 5:39). It’s a small thing for our God, who will one day destroy all created things to make a new heaven and a new earth, to crush anyone or anything that stands in His way. Yet there is a manner in which He has called us to stand in the way of God.

When we think of standing in God’s way as being present and visible as His representatives doing His work in the world, then it becomes clear in what manner we are called to stand in God’s way. Making such a stand is often unpopular and it may even lead us into great hardships and difficulties. You may feel inadequate for such an important task. You might even respond to His call to be His ambassador by saying “who am I that should stand in God’s way?” But you belong to the One who is making everything new. You have been called by Him and appointed to be His ambassador. He has made you a priest to the world and empowered You with His Word and Spirit. Who are you to stand in the way of God? You are the very person He has created, crafted, and called for this loving work.

Audio file of the sermon "Standing in the Way of God."