Thursday, March 28, 2024

True Love

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

~ 1 Corinthians 13

Thirteen beautiful verses. Who wouldn't nod their head in agreement at the truth and passion contained herein? But this season, the season in which we celebrate life because Jesus died brutally for us, we are reminded of what love truly is, the perilous, exhausting, and humanly impossible task of loving as we have been loved; love for the Father and love for us that compelled Jesus to selflessly, unfalteringly endure its most complete and perfect demonstration ever enacted.

Love suffers long and is kind... The hours of torment Jesus suffered, knowing His friend was His betrayer, seeing His disciples regard so highly their own comfort they would not pray for His peace, asking the Father that this cup might pass from Him --and it did not. Still, He washed feet and prayed a blessing, healed a soldier, made provision for His mother, welcomed a thief into eternal life, and obeyed the Father. Love suffers long and is kind...

...love does not seek its own... He left His throne, He left His Father, that we might become sons and daughters of the same Father and reign with Him in His place of glory. He took humanity upon Himself that we might take His righteousness upon us. He humbled Himself unto death that we might have life. He received every bit of our punishment that we might be fully forgiven. ...love does not seek its own...

...is not provoked... Not even in defense of itself. As those around Him hurled false accusations, as they chose not to understand, as they mocked and disrespected the King of kings, He remained silent that love might grow to its fullest measure, that His life might be taken in exchange for us, that He might wholly obey the Father. ...is not provoked...

...thinks no evil... It does not take into account a wrong endured. In those final moments He cried out, It is finished! The forgiveness of everyone who spit on Him, who threw their fists, who spoke falsely against Him, who mocked, who watched in silence, who desired to be entertained by such a violent display of injustice, who cursed Him, who murdered their children and slandered their neighbor, who slit their wrists in defiance of God's authority, who worshipped their money, who broke their marriage vows, who cheated their government or cheated their citizens, who envied their brother, who drove while drunk, who hurt the innocent and molested their daughters, who stole to eat, who stole because they could, who shirked their responsibilities, who fed their addictions instead of their children --the forgiveness of everyone who would cry out to receive it was won. ...thinks no evil...

Love...bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Midweek: Abandonment

Once again, I'm not sure I want to get into the habit of posting three times a week (I tend to be a little busy these days), but I'm compelled to share this with you. It's a theme that continues to resonate in my personal time with Jesus these days. In the words of John Donne, "No man is an island." I've been reading about the differences between collective societies --cultures who function as a unit with little or no acquiescence to the goals, desires, and preferences of the individual --and individualistic societies such as our in the Western world. We encourage individuals to pursue their own dreams, to be all they as individuals can be, to stand up for themselves, to leave the nest and build your own which your children will one day leave. Knowing the "family of God" encompasses so many ethnicities and varied cultures, is the body of Christ a collective society, or an individualist one? If it is both, how is this dichotomy sustained? And if it is both, what does that mean in terms of my sin and the rest of the body?

Honestly, I'm not planning to answer those questions here, but I encourage you to do some research on your own. What I do know is that we were made for and called to relationship; first, a relationship with our Creator, and then, a relationship with those around us. Because of this, when I meditated this week on the account of the crucifixion, the thing that stood out most to me is the abandonment Jesus suffered. All throughout His ministry, Jesus surrounded Himself with twelve close friends and many other faithful followers; He spoke before multitudes of people; He was a member of the Jewish nation of Israel on earth and a member of the Divine Trinity. He was clearly a part of a body but died alone. I have no context for enduring the beating that Jesus endured; I cannot even begin to empathize with that sort of physical suffering. But I know abandonment. My father was in large part physically absent from our home, in greater part emotionally absent. From childhood, I was taught academics and church were admirable, sports and whatever other types of "distractions" I pursued made me a disappointment to him. When he received accolades regarding his beautiful family, my father hugged us warmly; when we argued or rebelled, he fell silent and withdrew in every way possible. The "love" we received was directly proportional to the opinions of those watching. Abandonment, or the fear of abandonment remained with me long after I left my parents' home, long after my father left this earth. Abandonment is something I can grasp, something that --even in thinking of it today --prompts a visceral reaction, something that --as I think of Jesus' lonely cry from the cross --I can identify with. My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Leaving me here to protect myself, to figure it all out, to endure alone, to bear the weight, to die.

Jesus suffered abandonment for me. His friends ran from the garden when the guards showed up. The one who stayed was the one who betrayed Him. On the cross, His Father turned His back on Him; so vile with sin was Jesus, the Father could not look on His only begotten Son. Our sin. My sin. Ephesians 1:7 says, In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. Admittedly, I never gave that word "we" much thought before. But as I read it with new eyes this morning, I thought about the collective. Truly no sin is victimless. No one can say the battle with pornography or shopping is "private." We may tell ourselves no one knows or no one will be hurt, but there are victims. Jesus, abandoned by His own Father, to atone for sins committed, to restore a relationship violated in every way possible before God's grace intervened and rescued, Jesus Christ whose name every follower now bears --Jesus is the ultimate victim of sin. He suffered pain unto death, He suffered abandonment for sin. My sin. Our sin. 

The body of Christ, my fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord are victims of my sin just as I am victims of theirs. When we, as members of this divine family, sin, we sin against one another. The reputation of the body is at stake, the prayers and encouragement of my brothers and sisters are mocked, and a breach occurs which makes the collective susceptible to the wasting disease of sin. The continuity of the ministry, the cohesiveness of the body, the welfare of the collective are impacted by the sin of the individual. My sin becomes our sin. The body is left without a fully functioning, healthy and whole in Christ member until the sin is dealt with and relationship is restored: the strain that is put on the back when suffering a bum knee, the immune system weakened by poor dietary choices. Crimes against one another; abandonment of purpose, of commitment, of the collective.

As we approach the next couple of days, meditating on the great suffering our Lord endured, meditating on the tremendous betrayal of men and the ultimate selflessness of God, let us bear in mind the abandonment Jesus experienced for our sakes and the abandonment those sins we commit even today inflict upon the body of Christ. Our sin has consequences, consequences that are not solely our own, consequences that are not as hidden as the alcohol at the bottom of our bedroom closet or as "innocent" as the hours we spend scrolling social media, consequences that affect the collective. My sin is not my own. I abandon the body with each commission, I shirk my responsibilities, I become less of what God has designed me to be, I call into question the reputation of Jesus Christ and His followers. Praise God, in Christ we have redemption --as individuals and as a collective, His body. Let us uphold through obedience the work of the cross, not forsaking the good of the body and abandoning those who stand with us before the throne.

Monday, March 25, 2024

Wash, Rinse, Repent!

I'm listening to the wastewater from the washing machine pour down the drain. The laundry room is now on the other side of my office and that, to me, is sublime. I really hate doing laundry. When my office was on the third floor, I'd throw in a load, telling myself to check on it in forty minutes or so, and I'd forget it. Later in the day --maybe even later in the next day --I'd pass the laundry room on my way out the door and noticed the sealed-up tomb that held our damp, now funky clothes. Yuk! Wash, rinse, repeat. And hope I don't forget again! 

Clothes aren't the only things that can become funky and stale. Relationships can as well, particularly our relationship with those who aren't sitting in the back seat waiting for us to take them to play practice, or those who aren't standing in the kitchen with the refrigerator door open searching for the thing they couldn't find the last three times they checked, or those who aren't daily begging us to take them for a walk. Hey, I didn't say our relationship had to be fun! But our relationship with those folks who aren't always needing, expecting, demanding something of us can grow a little musty, fetid, forgotten like laundry in a sheet metal sepulcher. Our relationship with Jesus can be like that. Out of sight, out of mind. Or the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Right?

Just this past week I got a text from one of our progenies. I hate that I pray more when I need something, it read. No judgment here! I think we can all be guilty of that at some point; maybe we are just as frustrated with ourselves. We get busy and miss a day of quiet time, or quiet time seems to be an assault from one stray thought after another. Prayer happens in the car at seventy miles an hour rather than on our knees in a place of silence. We're not sure of the last time we memorized a verse, and meditation is something that yogis do. Church is much more convenient now that it's live-streamed and pjs are far more comfortable than church pews. Not until we get that late night call, or the pink slip, or the prognosis, or the summons, or the invoice do we get serious about our relationship with Jesus. We dust off our Bibles, call the pastor, recommit to the weekly Bible study, show up in person at church, and set our alarms to "early" so we can meet the Lord while the house is still sleeping. We've hit the WASH button once again, vowing this time to pay attention all the way to the end of the cycle.

Is that how this relationship is supposed to work? Of course not, but it is human nature. Psalm 103:2 urges us, Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Throughout Scripture we are warned not to forget; Judges 2:10 even reports, sadly, an entire generation of Israel came up who did not know the Lord! We forget. We lose track of time. We give ourselves far more credit than we deserve. We miss the significance of rest and silence, and place far too much emphasis on busyness. We choose assertiveness over gentleness. We speak when we should be silent and turn a blind eye when we should defend the faith. We don't know how to defend the faith because we've spent too much time mastering social media. But let's not lose heart! Psalm 103:14 assures us, God knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust. Our God is a rememberer. We forget. We are frail and fickle; but He is not. We leave our laundry to grow putrid behind closed doors, we forget the prayers we pray and fail to recall the faithfulness of our Creator. We long to become the obedient and trustworthy Bride He has called us to be, but our longing for things we can pursue with our senses is often greater. But He remembers. And He calls us to wash, to be washed in the blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins, to be made white as snow, and to repent from that life, from those desires, from the funky, stale relationship we once had with Him and to walk in newness of life. Immersed in relationship and clothed in the righteousness of Jesus, there's no reason to stink!

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Loving Is Not for Sissies!

Set me as a seal over your heart;

        wear me as an emblem on your arm

    For love is as strong as death,

        and jealousy is as relentless as the grave.

    Love flares up like a blazing fire, a very ardent flame.

No amount of water can quench love;

        a raging flood cannot drown it out.

    If a person tried to exchange all of his wealth for love,

        then he would be surely rejected.

~ Song of Songs 8:6-7, The Voice

One day a coworker remarked, "Judi, you're absolutely fearless!" He really didn't know me very well. He saw the Judi that ran after runaway equipment or stood two stories up in the door of an aircraft or disposed of smoking hazardous materials. He never saw the Judi that couldn't decide what color to paint her walls because she was terrified of "getting it wrong," of the criticism of others. Or the Judi so afraid of abandonment, she said whatever was required to please others and subsequently lied to get out of the hasty, people-pleasing promises she made. What he saw as fearless was often more like reckless. What he saw as bravery was often more like bravado. I was insecure and self-centered, not at all the fearless hero I appeared to be. True fearlessness requires love. Think about Jesus' courage and boldness as He stood for hours before corrupt men, falsely accused, judged unjustly, and silent. Think of His resolve as He took lash after lash and step after step on His way to the cross, all the while knowing He had the power to put an end to the circus and an end to each one of its clowns! We consider the events of His crucifixion and are, perhaps, brought to tears of repentance, but do we ever stop to acknowledge the ferocity of the love that compelled Him to endure that, or recognize the fearlessness of a love unto death? Loving is not for sissies!

Our family consists of biological children, stepchildren, and a soon-to-be adopted (Lord willing) child. Loving them has not been easy for a variety of reasons. Our older children experienced the raw, unredeemed, immature, self-centered, ridiculously unwise versions of us. We were, in large measure, the reason why love was an uphill climb. Our younger children have had to live with the crazier, still learning, follow-after-Jesus-which-seems-sometimes-humanly-unsound versions of us. Loving us can't always be easy. Likewise, we've nursed sniffles and stomachaches well into the night, diffused temper tantrums and sibling squabbles every few hours or so, attended baseball games and assembled toys on little to no sleep, sweated with them over homework and cried with them over broken relationships; we have prayed and begged and fasted and pleaded and wept for the safety and salvation of our children. And we have seen some of them still reject Jesus. That's not recklessness or bravado. That's love.

Loving, and loving as Jesus loves, is bravery and boldness, fearlessness and fierceness. It is risking ego for the sake of kindness. It is fighting for those around us rather than with them. It is taking the barb for the greater good. It is apologizing and forgiving when the other has not. It is speaking blessing over the lives of those who have forgotten you exist. It is hours on your knees and day after day of falling on your sword. It is trusting in the One who loves us unto death, and doing all we can to imitate that love. It is fearlessness that springs from the depths of His love for us and the assurance He will never leave us or forsake us in anything He has called us to do. It is being content with the things present --the people, the circumstances, the resources --knowing God has determined, selected, and meted out exactly what we will need (and, perhaps, as much as we can rightly steward) to succeed at whatever assignment He has given us that glory might be brought before His throne. That is love. And it is fearless.