Stay Awake!

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Jeff Block

vigilent-soldier

“Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake — for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning — lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.”   — Mark 13:33-37

Toward the end of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus and His disciples are on their way to Jerusalem. Jesus has made clear to them that, when they get there, He will be tortured and killed for the sins of mankind, and will then be resurrected three days later victorious over death. The disciples are understandably a little freaked out — focusing more on the fact that Jesus is going to die than that He will rise again. Pretty hard stuff for them to get their heads around, to be sure, so we can’t be too hard on them.

Even when Jesus is resurrected, He’s not sticking around. The eternally-existing plan is for Jesus to hang out for a few days in resurrected form, “prove” the resurrection, give us a glimpse of what we’ll be like someday (1 John 3:2), and then return to the Father. At that point, the disciples will all be tortured and killed (martyred for their faith) as well, and thousands of additional years of history will go by, but someday Jesus will return again. This time, there’s no “lowly and riding on a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9) or “emptied himself to become a servant” (Philippians 2:7). The next time Jesus appears in human history, justice is going to flow like a river (Amos 5:24). God’s patients will only last so long, and someday, Jesus is coming back to set every wrong right. And on that day, every clever 21st century we’re-smarter-than-God-now-because-we-think-we-know-what-a-quark-is idol will be torn down, every knee will bow, and there will be absolutely no doubt of any kind about who’s running the universe.

Jesus knows all this, but the disciples don’t. So, Jesus is teaching them what to expect after He’s gone, and what to teach to their children, and their children’s children. Reading recently in Mark 13, I noticed something that I hadn’t really thought deeply about before. In Jesus’ teaching that “no one knows that day or hour” (where He explains that His return will be sudden and unexpected), I noticed with fresh eyes His emphasis on “Stay awake!” That has such broad sweeping implication for life; I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed it before.

yawn1

Project deadline looming…

The clear implication of God’s command and Jesus’ teaching in this passage is to be prepared for Christ’s return. We don’t know when that’s coming, so we can’t schluff around (technical term) until a couple days before, then quickly clean the house, wash the dog, and pretend things were always clean. When I’m out of town on business, my wife feels the freedom not to worry about the dishes or do the laundry, but she jumps on those things the night before I get home because she likes to have the house clean when I walk in the front door (which I think is super sweet and loving). But that only works because she knows my travel itinerary. If I could come home at any random time, she’d have to keep on top of the dishes every day if she wanted the kitchen to be spick and span when I got there. So is it with our lives.

Level 1

yawn3

Long weekend…

What does that really mean, in practice? Well, first, “while He’s away”, God has given us work to do – work He considers important. Not things to check off a list, so much as ways to be. God has called us to worship Him only, to pray for others, to serve them, to be together as a family of believers, to live generously, to bear each others’ burdens, etc. You know, to love God with all our hearts and love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:29-31). We only have a brief few moments on this earth, and then it’ll be over – on a day we won’t expect it to be. And on that day, God will require an explanation … first as to how we responded to Jesus, and second as to how we invested the time, talent and treasure He gave us. What return have we reaped for God out of the vast resources (money being only one of them) that He left in our care? Part of staying awake (we could call it “paying attention”) is diligently being about the Master’s business with what He has entrusted to us.

Level 2

yawn2

I had to work late…

More than doing the things that God wants us to do, God wants us to be with Him. The Lord created us to walk with Him in the garden in the cool of the day … to tend the garden for Him, yes, but also to enjoy it with Him. In every small group I’ve ever been a part of, the #1 thing anyone ever talks about is wanting to become consistent in their “quiet times” with God. This basically translates to an all-out war to squeeze 15 minutes a day – with Bibles open and prayer lists in front of us – into our busy lives on a semi-regular basis. But I’ve come to understand that this involves a significant dose of wrong thinking … which takes us another level deeper to what I think might be the heart of the issue …

Level 3

yawn4

So many squirrels, so little time…

I really don’t think God is not interested in our leftovers. He’s been clear with me that He’s not interested in mine, and in this way, we’re all the same. God wants all of us. Our whole hearts. The Pearl of Great Price costs a lot more than squeezing in a few minutes a day of “quiet time”. In fact, I can’t imagine God is all too keen on the idea of “squeezing” Him into our lives in any sense. It’s clear to me that God wants to rule on the very throne of my life. Every decision. Every desire. Every thought. All for Him. God has been teaching me that he wants me to slow down and bring even the most trivial things to Him. I think He intended for our lives to be done entirely together with Him the way Jesus did life entirely together with His Father (John 17:20-26).

That cannot be done after we’ve exhausted ourselves on every other conceivable desire, but it can be done. The cost is a bunch of stuff we don’t really need and shouldn’t really want, but there is a cost. I want the picture of my life to a soldier at attention in the pouring rain, not some guy in a commercial asleep at the wheel.

Asleep at the Wheel

God deserves more than a few droopy-eyed minutes of Bible reading after we collapse exhausted into bed at the end of a long day. He expects more than our inability to concentrate in prayer because we worked late the night before or are totally distracted by the many tasks in the day ahead. There’s no way to have the life God intended for us by checking “quiet time” off the list before racing to get to something more important.

Whatever it takes, we must start saying “no” to lesser things, build the necessary margin into our lives, go to sleep on time, get up early, and stay awake!

There will not always be a tomorrow. We have no idea when the Lord will return. In a matter of moments, this life will be over. And when our King does come back, He will be taken VERY seriously … by everyone. For those of us who claim to love Him… Will He find us faithfully about His business? Will He recognize us from the quality time we’ve spent together? Will it be obvious that our lives have been increasingly about Him? Or will He find us proclaiming victory because we succeeded most days in squeezing Him in?

I don’t know about you, but no matter the cost, that’s just no longer going to work for me.

Standing Watch

Therefore, be on guard. Stay awake!

Posted in Bible Stories, Real Life | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Airbrushed to Death

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Jeff Block
There, but for the grace of God, go all of us...

There, but for the grace of God, go all of us…

For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.

— Revelation 3:17-18

I spent last weekend in lockdown … literally. I joined a group of men (largely from my church) in conducting a “Dad’s Seminar” at a nearby state prison (check out New Life Corrections Ministry, part of Wayside Cross). The goal of the program is to help incarcerated dads break the cycle of fatherlessness and crime.

In ministry, it’s easy to think you’re bringing something to someone — somehow riding into someone’s life or a difficult situation on a white horse with the gospel as your sidearm. But more often than not, you end up realizing that God used them to minister to you at least as much as you were there for them. God is always at work. Nobody ever takes God anywhere. And God’s work always starts with me. So it was with this trip. I didn’t take God to the prison. The question was wether or not I would join God in the work He was already doing there.

This was my first experience in a prison or working with the incarcerated. I don’t know what I was expecting really. I didn’t go down there with much of a clear picture in my head of what I would find, what the inmates would be like, etc. It was guys only. They were all fathers, but only some were married. And they all realized that they had severely messed up their lives (knew what they’d done to earn a prison sentence was wrong). Many were Christians, and many were — to be honest — not that different from me. I found myself repeatedly thinking, alongside 16th century preacher John Bradford, “There but for the grace of God, go I.”

Some were there for things I’ve never done and never considered doing, but others were there for things I’ve definitely thought about and could easily have done (but didn’t). Still others did things I’ve done too, but they got caught and I didn’t. Now that’s sobering. And almost all of them could testify to a condition I thankfully could not: having an absent father. The stats about how much more likely a kid is, without a father, to get into every conceivable trouble are incredible and almost unbelievable:

  • Fatherhood67x more likely to be arrested by age 12
  • 32x more likely to run away
  • 14x more likely to commit rape
  • 10x more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol
  • 5x more likely to commit suicide
  • And so on

But there they were — guys who might easily have traded places with me if our fathers had traded places a generation before. It was uncomfortable, but I think good for me … to feel a little too much like them, so to speak. And God used that feeling to show me, in an extremely potent and profound way, the deceitfulness of sin.

Somewhere on Saturday afternoon, it hit me. The enemy of our souls got himself an airbrush kit for Halloween one year, and has been hard at work ever sense making the devastating consequences of sin look as sparkly and shiny as demonically possible. Satan’s days are spent making steaming piles of crap sparkle like gold.

We covered a sizable array of topics with the inmates who attended the seminar, and over and over again this was the testimony… That glittered, but it wasn’t gold. That seemed like it would satisfy me, but it turned to poison in my hand. That promised me life, but instead brought pain and suffering and death. And not just for me, but for my family, especially my kids … for whom, frankly, it will take a miracle to avoid ending up in the same cell someday. Scary stuff!

Our goal was to try to disrupt that cycle, and topics during the two-day, eight-part seminar mostly centered on right relationships with God and family. The session on God-honoring sexuality perhaps made the clearest, most vivid point on this topic. There was a lot of blunt, straight talk among the men (awesome!), including the topic of pornography. Of all the places where sin is (in this case quite literally) airbrushed to falsely turn it into something attractive and appealing, this is a great example. And so many men are snared by it. I’m ashamed to say that I have been. If they’re honest, most men (and [sadly] a growing number of women) will say it’s a constant temptation.

Beyond the obvious wrongness and adulterous nature of pornography (yes, it’s cheating on your spouse), our topic of the false promises of sin forms an insidious undercurrent. Men get into porn as a carnal urge-satisfier or an escape, and end up thinking (even if subconsciously) that this is somehow how real life is supposed to be. Women were not created to be men’s sexual fantasy vending machines; that’s a horribly twisted way to look at sexuality (which God created for our good) and the marriage relationship. In the Bible, marriage and sex are synonymous — never one without the other, and exclusively together. But even beyond that, here’s a news flash… nobody really looks like that.

Before-and-After-Airbrushing

The truth is that many of the women glitzed up to look appealing to men in porn pictures or videos are actually, literally someone’s slave — kept in a box somewhere when they’re not “working”, and airbrushed on film so that you can’t see the malnourishment or the bruises when they are. Men — especially men of God — have to come to the point where porn makes us sick. Because it should. Even setting aside for a moment the intrinsic value of the people in these videos, the damage this “industry” causes them, and the horrible betrayal that is adultery, another important reality (and a point we made with the inmates) is that no real woman (aka your wife) can or should be compared to a comic strip. What porn sells men as “pleasing” or some kind of “standard”, isn’t in the least bit real. And if a man feeds himself the disgusting and unrealistic filth of pornography, he will be decreasingly satisfied with his marriage (you know, real life), and sin crouches at the door ready to utterly destroy anyone it can get its hands on.

Likewise, but less dramatically, the car in the showroom is under just the right lighting so that you have to have it. But the truth is that a shiny, new, super-fast car cannot make you happy or give your life meaning in any sense.

Lexus_Automobile_Lineup_2007

The model home has every bell and whistle imaginable. But the truth is that the more you own, the more your stuff owns you.

Mansion

The toy on TV is shown in maximum unsustainable fun mode, not made-in-china, broken-in-a-week mode. The truth is a new toy is never as great as the anticipation of receiving it.

Toy Story

Even lunch never looks like the advertisement when your order comes up.

perfect-cheeseburgersad-cheeseburger

And the apple in the Garden of Eden looked really great too, but sampling it led to death. “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate” (Genesis 3:6). And through that door, every disease and deadly consequence imaginable has entered human experience like a run-away freight train. It glittered, but it wasn’t gold!

There’s a war raging in this world. Nobody wants to be in a war, but we don’t get to opt out. We do, however, get to choose… a life of power lived in and for the Spirit, or a life of slavery and impotency lived for myself. That concept isn’t new to me, but I feel like I saw it with new eyes in prison this past weekend. To the one who doesn’t know Christ, there is no choice. It’s sin, sin, sin … until you choke to death on it and wake up in hell. But the invitation goes out to anyone who will listen…  “Repent [turn around!], for the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near!” (Matthew 3:2)

The sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ has made new life possible to anyone who wants it. Not just someday, but right now! But you can’t want it in addition to some other form of “life” you really love or want to hold on to or think is gratifying you. You have to want it instead of your old life (which is in fact death — it’s just airbrushed to look like life). You can’t have fake gold and real gold too. Real gold … life that amazing … costs everything. All fake gold must be exchanged … left for dead. That’s your stuff, your desires, your goals … your very life. Does it belong to you or God? If it belongs to you, God will take it away. If it belongs to Him, God will pour into it riches you literally cannot imagine. (Matthew 16:25)

God desires for me, you, and every prisoner I met last weekend to have this new life. If you are in Christ, you are no longer a slave to sin. It tells you it has power over you; it doesn’t. Sin tells you it’s your friend; it is not. Sin can not and will not deliver on its promises. It looks good, but it’s a lie.

Sin is like a pet tiger; it’s fluffy and beautiful and purrs when you pet it … until it suddenly turns on you and rips your face off.

God, on the other hand, always delivers on His promises. You may not understand them or His answers when you ask your many questions, but you can trust Him. God will keep His promises. What God calls gold you can take to the bank. And God has clearly promised you power to live for Him (Acts 1:8, Galatians 5:16-23). You can chose life! And when you do, His blessing will extend not just to you, but to 1,000 generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments. (Deuteronomy 5:9-10)

I counsel you to buy gold refined by fire...

I counsel you to buy gold refined by fire…

Posted in Real Life, Theology | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Best… Dinner… Ever

Posted on October 12, 2014 by Jeff Block
Feast

Home for Dinner

In reading Luke this week, I saw something that struck me in a new way that I thought I’d share. In Luke 18, Jesus tells a parable about two men who came to the temple to pray. He specifically calls out that the story is meant to highlight the critical difference between the Pharisees “[those] who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt” (Luke 18:1) and the sinners with whom He (Jesus) was so frequently accused of fraternizing. Here’s the story…

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week;  I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”  — Luke 18:10-14

I remember a time in my life where I barely understood anything Jesus was saying in this parable. Eventually God revealed to me / really impressed upon me what spiritual poverty is. I’m still learning that, but at least I am now full-on moved every time I read the tax collector’s plea to God for help. I can imagine his being trapped in sin. I can imagine his feeling totally overwhelmed and defeated. I can imagine his being able to articulate what the Lord is telling him, but being too afraid to act. I can imagine his heart’s acknowledgement of spiritual bankruptcy, contrasted against what is likely significant material wealth. Not comparing him to me in the specifics at all, and this is all supposition, but the point is that I can relate. It’s clear to me that he has assessed and is deeply in touch with his desperate need for God. In observing that this man goes home justified before God, Jesus is simply rewording one of the beatitudes, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:3; Luke 6:20). The man who believes he is righteous on his own is condemning himself in that belief. The man who acknowledges how desperately he needs the Lord will be shown mercy, and not just mercy, but will be “exalted”.

The King's Table

Reclining at the King’s Table

And there’s the new insight this week…

I’ve always glazed over the last word in this passage. Those who humble themselves before God will be “exalted”. Or “lifted up” (James 4:10). I think what I (we?) have fail to realize is that just being with God will be more glorious than we can possibly image — better than anything in this world, no matter how seemingly wonderful. Being “exalted” might not be intended to mean anything more than simply being invited to dinner and seated at God’s table (Luke 13:29). And if so, that would be more than enough, wouldn’t it?. Obviously more than we deserve.

Still, reading passages like this, I always had flashing thoughts of thrones and glory, and didn’t give it much of a second thought. I get that there are passages in the NT about our “reigning with Christ” (particularly in Revelation, but also 2 Timothy 2:12 and others), but I wonder if much of God’s language about “exalting” is less about some kind of glory we’re going to have, and more about the glory (His glory) that we will then more fully experience. We simply cannot fathom the awe and joy we will experience in just being with God. Nothing in this life can possibly compare. But I think our culture and our privileged lives rob us of connecting with thoughts like this, because we have so much. Our expectations of this life have gotten so high and large, that we have a hard time processing Jesus’ offers of a better life to come.

In thinking about it this morning, I wrote down this cheesy-but-probably-pretty-close-to-home adaptation of a warning Jesus once gave to his disciples about materialism…  It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a person who thinks having an iPhone is amazing to enter the Kingdom of God. CS Lewis was right that we are far too easily pleased. And, after reading Jesus’ story in Luke with fresh eyes this week, I wonder if that low bar of gratification makes it harder for us to marvel at how utterly mind-blowingly awesome it’s going to be to simply recline at God’s table with Him someday.

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But what happened to the widow on Monday?

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Jeff Block
Vast Treasure

The wealth of dwarves, or the wealth of God?

[Jesus] sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums.  And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny.  And he called his disciples to him and said to them,  “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”  — Mark 12:41-44

In the story, Jesus commends the widow because she put everything she had in the offering at church on Sunday.

So, what happened Monday? Did she buy food? Did she pay her rent? A widow in that culture would have had almost no ability to earn money. Shouldn’t Jesus have chastised her for her foolish and reckless generosity? Or at least encouraged her to have enough set aside for her bills? Or maybe a 3 month reserve? How did she manage?

Is it possible that God simply and miraculously provided for her needs?

I think that’s exactly what happened. We have no idea really. It’s speculation. She’s not mentioned again in Scripture. But I assume God took care of her. I think there’s enough clarity on this topic in Scripture to believe that God will be proven faithful again… in caring for her in ways she could never have cared for herself. Trusting the Lord, she literally gave her last penny, and I’m going to go on record betting that she didn’t starve to death the next week as a result.

At the root of it is the question of whether or not we are going to take God seriously. Maybe we’re thinking about “having enough” all wrong. Maybe the point is that God is always enough, and that He is the one that should be doing the providing … not the widow, not us. Maybe we should be assuming that Jesus can actually be trusted when He said that He takes care of ravens and lilies, but loves us far more than He does birds and flowers. (Luke 12:22-30)

I think the widow believed God, and He made a way. And I wonder what would happen if we actually believed that her story was in the Bible as an example to us. I think it’s amazing how many of us (myself included) read this story and in fact take it as a rationale for doing exactly what everyone else in the story is doing.

We read Jesus words, see that He commended her for giving all she had, and then we get all juiced up and “contribute [a little more than last week] out of [our] abundance” (v44). The longer I walk with God, the more I think we’re doing way more patting Jesus on the head than kneeling at His feet.

Mary Magdalene anoints Jesus' feet

Wherever the gospel is proclaimed…

In another story, Mary Magdalene made a tremendous sacrifice by anointing Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume days before His execution (Mark 14:3-9). The perfume was “pure nard”, worth over a year’s wages. It was incredible extravagance, and some criticized her saying that the money from selling that perfume could have been given to the poor. But what Jesus said to Mary’s critics, I believe He would say of the reckless faith of the widow in our story as well: “Wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

And so it has been. Not just the next day or the next month or the next year. I suspect that the woman in our story never had much in the way of material wealth or possessions, but I’m going to assume she ate and slept under a roof and cared for those around her and had friends. And even if none of that was true, even if she died 3 days later starving on the street somewhere, that doesn’t make God unfaithful. God has lovingly afforded her the ultimate provision in Christ, and if she had that, then we will meet her in heaven someday and I know she will say that the Lord has never failed to provide for her every good thing. It’s perspective. And faith. And the willful decision to trust God to take care of her.

Most of what we chase lasts for only a moment, and then it fades. A disheartening-to-mention percentage of those things aren’t worth pursuing at all, and turn to ash in our mouths the second we finally catch them. But this woman (both women) pursued honoring the Lord, and her fame has greatly exceeded yours or mine or even the wealthiest people our world has to offer. For thousands of years, wherever the gospel has been proclaimed in the whole world, what she did has been told in memory of her.

Praise be to the God of the totally upside-down!

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My Favorite One-liner in Scripture

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Jeff Block
Earthscape

The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it

And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?”  But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me  a denarius and let me look at it.”  And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.”  Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  And they marveled at him.  (Mark 12:13-17 ESV)

Denarius

A Roman denarius

This is one of my favorite one-liners from Jesus in all of Scripture. Makes me want to jump up with a “God is awesome! Take that, you simpletons!” every time I read it, so I thought I’d share it with you…

Jesus, holding a denarius: “Whose likeness and inscription is this?”
Mere men trying to trick Jesus: “Caesar’s”
King of the Universe: “[Then] render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”

What’s the correct spelling of the word, “booyah!” ?  icon_wink

Posted in Bible Stories | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Jesus Feeds the Dogs

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Jeff Block
Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the Master's table

Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table

A story about amazing love…

Jesus withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” He answered,  “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” And he answered,  “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”  Then Jesus answered her,  “O woman, great is your faith!  Be it done for you as you desire.”  And her daughter was healed instantly.

— Matthew 15:21-28 ESV

A story about love? Really? At first blush, I’m not getting that. When I first read this story, I felt like Jesus was fairly rude to ignore her and then deny her request the way He did. At first reading, He could come across harsh, or worse, bigoted. What’s the deal? Was He having a bad day? Maybe you have to be called names and be a little extra persistent to get a miracles on Tuesdays? Does this serve as a counter-example to Jesus’ teaching about loving your neighbor? Let’s unpack it and discuss…

American CultureBiased Against Bias

I think we have to start here…

One of the most offensive things you can possibly do in modern American culture today is to be perceived as prejudiced in our decisions or our speech — especially if that prejudice is racially motivated. Borne out of serious injustices that have existed, and to some extent still exist, in our culture / history / world, our culture is hyper sensitive to racial or gender or other forms of bias. But in my opinion, the conversation on these topics today isn’t very healthy. There are too many people out there making their living baiting racial or gender or sexual orientation issues — fanning flames to keep conflict alive and gain fame and fortune from it. And there are WAY too many people hanging on their every word. Some make it their whole lives — everything that happens to them is seen through the lens of oppression or inequality. Some ignore these issues all together. Some lump all these issues together to be one big pot of tolerance stew that everyone has to gobble down unquestioningly, or you’re evil. And some are extremely valuable in their ongoing efforts to ensure equality for all. But I fear that this last group is too-often drowned in a sea of all the others. No way I can tackle all that in a single blog post, but at the very least least my question drives within a few miles of it on the map…

Does this passage demonstrating that Jesus is in fact a bit of a racist? Chauvinist? Unkind? Unjustifiably grumpy? Why would Jesus call this woman a “dog”? Why would He withhold something from her that she desperately wants? What does this passage say about who God really is?

God's chosen peopleGod’s Chosen People

Another aspect of this story that offends our cultural sensibilities is Jesus’ implication that one person would be chosen (for anything, really) and another not (chosen). The implication is that one person is special, but the other isn’t. One person is maybe even better than another. To our American ears that’s pretty offensive too. And the reason is that we have developed a sense of entitlement in our worldview that says it’s not fair for one person to have something while another doesn’t. That’s pretty crazy when you really think about it, but it’s what many think. “I deserve to be chosen too!” “No matter what you have, if I want it too, then it’s unfair that you have it and I don’t!”

It’s important in the context of this discussion to understand that the nation of Israel was and is very special to God. Special… as in “different”, “set apart”, “unique” among other nations. Um… correct… more important to God than other nations. Yes, including the US.

The woman in the story was a Canaanite, a Syrophoenician. A gentile. She wasn’t a part of Israel. Not in God’s family. Wasn’t chosen, like the Israelites were.

JusticeGod has the Right

And that leads us to a really important question…  God, where do you get off calling one person “special” and not someone else? What gives you the right to choose someone for something for no apparent reason, while not choosing someone else (who looks identical to us) for it? That’s totally unfair!

So here’s the third thing our me-soakedAmerican culture isn’t going to like… God absolutely has the right … to everything. We think we have rights. We demand them. They are to us what the One ring was to Gollum. We walk around wild-eyed stroking our independence mumbling, “My precious!” Can you imagine how thatsounds to the God who in Gollummajestic holiness dwells in unapproachable light and masterfully directs the entire universe such that two hydrogen atoms in a distant galaxy cannot dance with one another without His express permission. God is the one who literally holds the very molecules of your body together in His hand (Colossians 1:17). Everything is from God and to God and for God. He is the one with the rights, not us.

Whatever God does is good and just by the very virtue of the fact that He did it. So, I would submit that if we don’t like the way God does things, the problem doesn’t lie with Him, as if He were to be judged by our sense of what should and shouldn’t be. The problem lies in our understanding or our expectations. But we’ll come back to that

About Faith, not Rejection

So, we’ve established that in this story Jesus, as God, is making a distinction He has the right to make between His people and the rest of the world — specifically this particular woman asking for a miracle. Now, to me what’s left is understanding why Jesus didn’t heal her at first request anyway. So she’s not descended from Israel and God treats the Israelites differently. So what? Jesus has healed all kinds of people; why not just heal this woman? Why make an issue out of it?

When I first read this story…  Actually the first dozen times I read this story… This question really bothered me. And for a bunch of times in a row, after pondering it for a few moments, I just let it go, trusting that God is good and that I was just failing to understand something. But the last time I read it — in fact, a couple of months ago — I decided I couldn’t let it go anymore. So, for weeks I’ve been pondering why Jesus behaves in this story the way He does. Why is He hesitant, or even what I would call “off-putting”, toward the woman?

And in my study of Mark this morning for the New Testament class I’m taking, God finally gave me the answer…  It’s about faith.

Faith

Contrary to my original thoughts on it, this story is in fact not unique. Jesus demonstrates this pattern repeatedly when He interacts with people in the Scriptures. Not just gentiles either. Let’s see if we can identify a pattern out of a few select miracle stories…

Mark 10:46-52

(the particular story that unjammed the logs for me this morning)…  Blind Bartimaeus is laying on the side of the road as Jesus and the disciples walk by. He yells, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”. But Jesus appears to keep walking!!! So, Bartimaeus yells again. Then, Jesus turns to him, asks him what he wants, and then heals him, saying, “Your faith has made you well.” (Mark 10:52)

John 4:46-50… A man travels far to find Jesus and ask Him to come home with him to heal his sick son. He finally locates Jesus and asks for His help. But Jesus seems to rebuke the crowd for a lack of faith. He ultimately agrees to heal the boy, but only after the man has to ask multiple times. “The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him [first] and went on his way” (John 4:50) only to find that Jesus had healed the boy at that very time.

There are others, but I think that makes the point. Do you see it? I think Jesus is testing their faith. He has made it clear that God moves toward us in our faith. God moves mountains (Matthew 17:20), and generally does the impossible (Mark 9:23) … if we believe. Faith in the Lord is the beginning of a relationship of great power.

So Jesus is waiting so that they will be persistent … press … even demand a result. God is inviting them into bold request. “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” (John 14:12-14)

That’s the “power” I’m talking about. God has literally offered to act on my behalf. What I ask, He will do. But there are conditions…  In the stories we looked at, Jesus isn’t healing people like a vending machine dispenses candy bars. Jesus is inviting them to walk with Him. The heart that demands for self will get nothing. The heart that submits to God for His glory, gets things we can’t even imagine (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Back to our original story, Jesus isn’t being slow to respond (as some would understand slowness). I think He’s evoking a relationship-oriented, persistent faith from the heart of this woman, whom He loves. He’s drawing her into something that’s far better than if He’d immediately responded by handing her a Snickers bar, and then went on His way.

Sowing SeedsSow the Field for Rain

The fact is that we have to be ready to receive miracles. God’s grace to us in Christ is first and foremost, but even in the everyday walking with God through life, being prepared is everything. If you want to reap a harvest, you have to plant the field like it’s going to rain, even if it hasn’t yet. In the spiritual world, life-giving rain comes after we sow the field. In the same way, we must be prepared to receive when we ask God. That means that we have examined our hearts, humbled ourselves, believed it will be as we asked, and acted as if God’s provision for us is a certainty. Most of us don’t do that; we either don’t ask (figuring we can take care of things ourselves) or we ask at the last second when everything else has failed or we ask not really sure what God’s going to do. I think Jesus would say, “simply believe”.

I have no idea where the woman’s heart was that asked Jesus for a miracle. I don’t know Bartimaeus either. Or any of the others in the New Testament, whom Jesus made wait for a miracle. What I do know is that God’s response to them (and to us) is a loving response. Always. If God’s not responding to you the way you think He should, check your heart. Check your expectations. Maybe He has something in mind that’s better than what you’re asking for. Or maybe He’s waiting for you to adjust your attitude in the asking of it (which is also better than what you’re asking for!), so that He can give you exactly what you want.

Either way, in each of these stories, Jesus gave a miracle to someone who didn’t deserve it. I too do not deserve God’s miraculous grace. I too am a gentile in a pagan land, who does not deserve to be seated at the Master’s table. And I too would be absolutely thrilled to eat the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table.

Because compared to even the crumbs of God, what this world has to offer I wouldn’t feed to dogs.

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