I Wish We'd All Been Ready

Matthew 24 and 25 – Jesus, speaking to his disciples on the Mount of Olives, tells about his future return, about remaining watchful, and then tells three parables about how to be ready—the parables of the bridesmaids, the talents, and the sheep and goats.  My NLT Life Application Study Bible[1] footnotes say that these three parables tell us about three different aspects of being ready and about how to live until he comes—spiritual life, using our resources well, and serving others.

All three result in some people being cast out—the bridesmaids who had to go buy oil at the last minute are left outside the door, the servant who did nothing with his talent is thrown into the outer darkness, and the goats are sent into eternal punishment.   So it seems rather important to understand and obey what these parables are teaching, but I think I understand and follow only one of them with any measure of success.  What about you?  Which of these do you struggle with and which of these leaves you feeling comfortable?

If the parable of the bridesmaids is about having a relationship with God, I think I’m on the right track there.  I do talk to him, although I know that I could do that more.  I have good days with God and bad days, and some days where I think I’m as thickheaded and blind as the worst Pharisee, but I try to keep working on that.  When people ask me to pray for them, I do.  I wonder, though, if some people ask for prayer but don’t pray for themselves?

If the parable of the talents is truly about ANY resource we’re given, then that includes time and money and abilities and friends and family and anything else we can think of.  I’ve often felt that I fall short of this one, but I’m not sure if it’s just because of the way I’m looking at it.  If this is about being fruitful, then being loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, gentle and self-controlled would be signs of success (Galatians 5:22-23).  Some days I’m more successful than others.  If this is about time and money, I feel less successful.  Maybe, though, my problem with this parable is that I fall into measuring my success through comparison with other people, something the Bible tells us not to do (Genesis 31:1-2, John 21:21-22, Galatians 6:4-5, 2 Corinthians 10:12-13).

The parable of the sheep and the goats seems to be the most straightforward.  Help people in need, and if you don’t it’s as if you are refusing to help Jesus himself.  But helping people has gotten so much more complicated, particularly if we consider how some ways of helping enable and encourage dependence or addiction.  Sometimes I think the greater problem is that there aren’t enough resources to give all the help that’s needed and in trying to figure that out we end up frozen and not helping anyone.  In both instances, maybe we are thinking too much.  Just help, and if it’s squandered or insufficient so be it.

Maybe the greater lesson is that all three are important and all three areas of readiness need to have our attention.  I wonder if the parable of the bridesmaids isn’t first on purpose, though.  Knowing and talking to God can help us with the other two areas.  And knowing and trusting in Jesus brings us grace and forgiveness, which we surely need as we try to figure all this out.  We will fall short of God’s glorious standard whether we like it or not (Romans 3:23 NLT).

I like how Keith Green puts it:  Just keep doing your best and pray that it’s blessed and He’ll take care of the rest. 

Thanks be to God.

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[1] Tyndale, 1996 & 2004.

Matthew 24 and 25 were the readings for yesterday and today in the Journey Through The New Testament reading plan that Westminster Presbyterian Church, Galveston, and friends are in the midst of.   We're posting the readings daily here and you can download the plan here

Solitude

It isn’t good for the man to be alone.  –Genesis 2:18

God said these words about Adam, and proceeded to create Eve.  Thus began the first family, and just like any time there are people together, there was trouble.  Maybe that’s why God had to keep promising—to Jacob, to Moses, to Joshua, to the disciples—to be with them, to never leave them alone[1]--to help them as he helps us to get through our troubles.[2] 

God also promised that whenever we are gathered together in his name that he would be among us.[3]  Sometimes there’s nothing quite like the beauty of people working together in Jesus’ name.  And there’s nothing quite as ugly as people being ugly to each other.  We are people who need people, but we don’t like to need each other too much, so we are like the push-me-pull-you (pushmi-pullyu) from Doctor Dolittle,[4] each trying to go our own way while at the same time inexplicably connected with each other.

Why can’t we all just get along?[5]  I suppose that’s a question for the ages.  We could blame it on that first family or the serpent or even on God,[6] or maybe it’s just human nature.  Thinking like a writer, I would say that something always has to go wrong to make the story work, to keep us interested, to draw us along through the plot and wanting to see how it all works out.  It always works out in the end, though, doesn’t it?  Even the Bible, in the end, has us all in heaven singing praises to God and to the lamb with the entire host of heaven and people from every tribe and nation.[7]

We live in a world full of people.  Maybe that’s why we crave solitude sometimes, and yet God said it’s not our permanent state.  It’s not good for man to be alone.  Maybe God was the first parent to realize the difficulties of having an only child?  When there are two or more children, they can play together, but when there is only one, the parent must also be the playmate.

For whatever reason, it seems we are stuck with each other, and so we have a choice:  we can make it work and enjoy the beauty of helping and encouraging one another, or we can make it ugly and deal with the consequences.  The beauty of being together is that when there are two or more there is the potential for love.  A person who is alone can only love his or herself, and we can thank the Greeks for the story of Narcissus so that we can see how badly that can turn out.[8] 

But wherever God is, there is redemption.  The person alone who is looking at God instead of the mirror becomes someone who then reflects God to other people.[9]  Jesus spent time alone in prayer, and we need that kind of alone time, too.  Jesus also brought us the living example of grace.  His message to the disciples, the message he told them to tell the world, is that we are forgiven.[10]  And Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians that we are to be ambassadors of reconciliation.[11]  No matter how ugly we are, or how ugly somebody else is, there is forgiveness, made possible by God through Jesus Christ.  Even when forgiveness seems impossible, it is possible.  We can get along if we let God into the equation, and somehow we are best equipped for this possibility if we’ve had some solitude with God first.

The goal is to get along.  Is this what we’re teaching?  In some ways yes and in other ways no.  American individualism isn’t quite the recipe for harmonious community, depending on how we approach it.  Self-care is important, but self-esteem may be leading us down a dead-end road.[12]  As much as we are quick to claim the right to be our own people and make our own decisions, we are not alone in the world and everything we decide for ourselves has the potential to impact someone else.  The more we take that into consideration, the more we grow and the better we get along with the world.

Plays nice with others – This was what our kindergarten teachers hoped to write on our report cards.  As we got older, our successes were measured differently.  Knowledge was rewarded with good letters.  Initiative was rewarded with dollar signs.  Persistence and creativity and hard work were rewarded.  But in the end what will last beyond the schooling and the jobs and the bank accounts are our relationships with people.  In the end we will need people to care for us just as much as we did when we were first born. 

We are people who need people.  May we learn to live together in beautiful, harmonious peace.

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[1] Genesis 28:15, Exodus 33:14 , Joshua 1:9, Matthew 28:20, Hebrews 13:5

[2] See Isaiah 43

[3] Matthew 18:20

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Dolittle_characters#The_pushmi-pullyu

[5] Paraphrase of Rodney King in 1992 about the riots in Los Angeles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King

[6] See Genesis 3

[7] Revelation 7:9

[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_(mythology)

[9] 2 Corinthians 3:16-18

[10] John 20:23, Matthew 6:12,14-15

[11] 2 Corinthians 5:17-19

[12] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-work/200910/status-more-accurate-way-understanding-self-esteem

Whose Christmas Is It Anyway? (A Brief Comment on Matthew 24:36-44)

Whose Christmas is it?

That’s really a rhetorical question to which we all probably already know the answer.  It’s God’s.  Psalm 24 says:

 The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. (Ps. 24:1)

There’s another question that begs to be answered after that scripture reading, though—Why are we reading  Jesus’ teaching about the end of the world on the first Sunday in Advent?

The short answer is because advent is a time of preparing for Jesus’ coming, and this is Jesus telling us to not just spend time remembering how he came in the past, but also in being prepared for his coming in the future.

We we might think of some things as secular and other things as sacred.  But there is really no distinction between them.  Everything is God’s.  We just don’t always remember to see things that way.

So Jesus tells us in our reading today to be watchful.  Look at what’s happening in the world around you not just as passing events, but also as signs—signs that God is at work in the world around us.  Watch for Jesus’ work and look for opportunities to participate in it, to help with it.

Be watchful.  Not just physically.  We can’t literally keep our eyes open 24/7.  This is more of a spiritual watchfulness.  An invitation to look beyond the physical, to remember that there’s more going on that just what we can see.  Just like the wind, we can’t see the Holy Spirit, we can’t see what the Spirit is doing in people’s hearts.  Sometimes we can see the results, though.

Jesus gives us the example of Noah who trusted God and built an ark in anticipation of a great flood.  There’s no way Noah could have known there would be a flood other than to listen to God, to follow God’s guidance. Noah prepared by building an ark, just as we prepare through prayer and study and doing everything we do in ways that honor God and further God’s purposes—that spread God’s love.

Be watchful. This is a call to keep our eyes open for opportunities:

·        opportunities to be thankful,

·        opportunities to show God’s love,

·        opportunities to grow in our faith and to help others grow in theirs

·        —to make disciples, to show mercy, to be God’s people in the world.

The Bible tells us to make the most of every opportunity, and to do so with hope, our theme for today.  We do have hope, and we also need to be prepared to explain our hope.  We don’t know how long we’ll have with the people around.  Jesus could come at any time.  Or they could go to meet Jesus at any time.  The people in Noah’s time were caught by surprise—caught unprepared.  We need to be prepared because there won’t be time to go do what we should already have been doing…preparing our hearts to meet Jesus, and helping others to also be prepared.

You may have had an English teacher who in teaching how to write told you to show instead of tell.  This means to paint a picture, describe a scene, use an illustration, and to just fill the page with theorizing and postulating.  In fiction, this would mean showing how a character is reacting to a situation through dialog and action, instead of through remote description.  It brings the writing alive to put the reader into the scene.

In a sense, it’s the same with our faith and our hope.  We can tell about it, and we need to tell, but it’s much more effective if we also show it in how we live—in how we interact with other people, in how we spend our time and money, and in what we say and do on a regular basis.

Be prepared—Be prepared to demonstrate our hope and then be prepared to explain why we have hope.

Remembering to be kind and gentle in doing so.  Ultimately we have hope because of Jesus, but that takes time for someone who doesn’t know Jesus to understand.  The ways of Jesus don’t always make sense to the world, because the way of Jesus is that people matter more than stuff, more than anything.  The way of Jesus trusts, hopes, and loves joyfully, prayerfully and thankfully.

May this advent be a time for spending time with God and with those you love, and for sharing that love with someone new.