Where's The Smell?

I love the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in John 11. As you might guess it is not for all the usual reasons. Jesus comes to Bethany and Martha and Mary give him the same greeting, "Lord if you had been here Lazarus would still be alive." Perhaps because of who I am, I always hear Martha and Mary say this with a good amount of blame. It is almost as it were Jesus fault for the death of Lazarus. When Jesus is greeted this way and he sees the crowd weeping and mourning with Mary he responds. Most of the time this is one of those spots where our scriptures usually say, and Jesus was moved with compassion, not here. Here the emotion the NLT assigns to the moment is indignation.

It seems ironic to me that indignation would be Jesus response to the sisters and the crowd. I am sure this is exactly how some of them felt toward Jesus. It had been made clear by Jesus earlier that everything was under control, and God was using this situation to bring glory to Jesus, and therefore Himself. I do not expect Jesus to act in the midst of indignation, his own or others, yet that is what happens. Even once Jesus says everything will be fine, what Martha and Mary were originally looking for, they still do not listen to what Jesus asks them to do. "Roll away the stone" is Jesus request. "But is will smell" is Martha's response. I can sense Jesus getting more and more irritated. The stone is moves and Lazarus walks out at Jesus command, no mention of a smell. Everything was well under control.

I wonder how many times I do not listen and trust, that God has everything under control.

Fear

I have been reading the book Walking with God by John Eldredge and it has been of great help in my journey. One of the areas which has been particularly helpful has been in the area of prayer. By asking God what to pray for and what is going on around me. In particular what spirits are working against me and the church I lead.

Earlier this week I asked God what spirit was at work in the church I serve, the answer, Fear. I have to admit I was not sure what that meant at first. So, I asked God to tell me more. Our God is faithful and He told me. The people of the church, myself included were being told by the Enemy, that giving ourselves totally to God would never really work. That in the end it would reach tragic results. I feel like we have begun to fear what might happen if we "let ourselves go" during our times of community worship.

Fear is an amazing thing. I am not sure if there is another spirit or emotion which can steal away our joy more quickly or more effectively. Fear is what reduces that voice saying it will never work. Fear is the voice that says go ahead and try you are just going to fail. Fear is what causes us to follow the rules, and not step into the unknown. Fear is what keeps us right where we are at. I wonder if it is God who wants us to stay right where we are at, or if it might be God's great adversary?

Lord God, I pray in the name of Jesus that you would come against the spirit of fear in my life in the church I serve, and the lives of the individuals who read this blog. May we know the joy of you God, may we not believe the lie. Through the power of Christ remove fear from the equation. In Jesus Name, Amen

Intentional Troublemaker

Sometimes I wonder if Jesus did things the way he did them just to upset the religious people and leaders of the day. It is not like Jesus was surprised by their reaction to him healing on the Sabbath. In fact multiple times Jesus heals on the Sabbath. Jesus spends time with people who are not considered worthy by the religious people. Again it is not like Jesus didn't know how the people would react. If I didn't know better I would think Jesus was an instigator of trouble.

One thing I have experienced is when you are an instigator or change, or trouble as some would call it, you spend a lot of your time with people not liking you, or not happy with you. The love that I have for Jesus, causes me to forget from time to time about the opposition he faced on a daily basis. Jesus was constantly being challenged by the religious people for breaking the rules. Irony, Jesus was the creator of the boundaries, and is not being condemned by those the boundaries were created for.

Let us not lose sight however. This is not about rules and boundaries. It was not rules and boundaries that Jesus had a problem with. It was the way people we living out a relationship with God. Humanity had taken what God had given out of grace and love, and perverted it into a religion. Living by the rules was never the intention. Connecting with God through Jesus while recognizing the boundaries is the intention.

Anytime we participate in the ministry of Jesus in the midst of religious people, we can expect challenge and trouble. My challenge is to be alright with trouble. Better yet, I have to recognize that from time to time my role is like that of Christ, to intentionally do things I know will cause problems for the religious. Knowing that there will be ramifications, and I will not be liked or loved bu the religious people. Yet, i will be in good company in that matter.

Abiding and Obedience

Recently I have been having another battle with things religious. It seems as though about every six or seven weeks I am bombarded by the challenge of religion. These are the voices, real or perceived which say or scream, God must be accessed this way and only this way. I want to be clear I am not talking about the role of Christ in coming to God. The Bible, not religion is the clarifying agent when it comes to Christ. Jesus Christ is the only way for us to have access to God. They ways in which we interact with Jesus, now there is a place of great variety. Yet, religion tells us that we must pray this way, we must say this or that. Religion says we must worship this way or that way in this place or that place. Religion is getting between God and humanity.

There are all the religious cliches available to us. Religion is about what we do and Jesus is about what God has done. Still I spent too much of my time trying to do this thing called religion. It is time to simplify. It is time to remember the essence of what a journey with God looks like, not the specific mile markers, or landmarks. On the most basic level our journey with God is being in constant connection with God, and doing what we are being lead to do. For those who need religions words, abiding and obedience.

Religion is the enemy of abiding and obedience. living a life full of abiding and obedience is hard, and religion says we can make it easier, just do these few rituals, and say these words and you are good to go. The process of the journey with God is quite simple to articulate, in practice it is difficult to do because it represents a massive shift in our focus and time. Religion is very difficult to articulate, but easy to practice, hence its draw.

Blatant sin is not the most dangerous thing in our walk with God. Though we must deal forthrightly with sin, it is not the thing which holds the most destructive power. That position is held by our quest for the easy and quick fix. That we would only want God as long as it is convenient and easy. The end result is we often settle for less than the full and abundant life God desires for us. Many have said it in many forms, the greatest fear is not that we will lose our faith, it is that we will settle of a mediocre form of it.

What are you settling for?

Late Summer Cleaning?

Reading the account of King Josiah is a refreshing change of pace from many of the Old Testament kings. Josiah does some house cleaning. Others had done some tiddying up of the house of Israel but Josiah saw the job through. There was a complete destruction of idols and places of worship of false gods.

It made me wonder what false gods run rampant among the people of God today. I am pretty sure we do not have people worshiping Baal, or Molech. We have given our gods different names, yet they have the same power to draw us away from the One True God. Perhaps you are worshiping at the alter of tradition, or maybe comfort, possibly yours is consumerism, another common one is individualism.

What would it look like if the people of God returned to God? What would it look like if Josiah returned and cleansed the land? The biggest challenge to Christ in our world is not Islam or any other religion. The biggest challenge to Christ in our world is not an ideology. The biggest challenge to Christ is not certain lifestyles. No, the biggest challenge to Christ in our world, is the same as it always has been, we worship the wrong thing. I, we fail to maintain God as the center and source of our lives.

Let's get the brooms out. Put on those funky yellow gloves. Get the disinfectant off the shelf, and clean up our relationship with God. Remember there are some things that will simply need to be thrown away. Those idols in our lives cannot be simply managed, they must go.

You Can Never Go Faster Than The One Leading You

Have you ever noticed that God works on a different pace and timetable than you and I. For me this is highlighted when I think God is not doing what I thing God should be doing, and I decide to act as I see fit. This kind of action puts me in the company of many Biblical characters, King Saul had this problem, the disciples often had this problem. In John 6 there are two verses which might be missed, and depending on the translation might catch it differently, which speak to this. "That evening his disciples went down to the shore to wait for him. But as darkness fell and Jesus still hadn't come back, they got in the boat and headed out across the lake toward Capernaum." John 6:16-17

Jesus was their leader. Jesus had just provided food for 5000 men plus their families. Jesus was high in the hills resting and recharging. The crowds were gone and the disciples were left waiting by the lake for Jesus. We are not told why, but the disciples decide they cannot wait any longer for Jesus, so they get into the boat without their leader. The result, they face a storm.

Jesus then comes to them walking on water. In Johns Gospel there is not invitation of walking on water, the result of Jesus arrival is they immediately reach their destination. It is amazing what happens when you let the one who leads you lead. I am called by God to be the leader of this Congregation in Cortland, but I can only lead as fast as the one who is leading me. I cannot get into the boat and start out. Well I can but the results could be troublesome.

Once again I am faced with the simple and difficult reality that Christ, not Aaron, is the head of the church. I cannot expect things to move faster than Christ would dictate. Simply my role is to follow Christ as I invite others to join me in the journey.

Do You Know God?

Chapter 5 of John's Gospel begins with the healing of the man next to the pool. From this healing account we get the phrase, do you want to be made well. However, that exchange is not my focus. The focus this morning is on the resulting conversation with the religious leaders. Essentially Jesus points out the fact that the religious people were missing the whole point. They were caught up in the actions of human beings, instead of remembering the origin of those actions and of humanity.

One of the issues Jesus addresses is the searching of the scriptures. Jesus reminds the religious leaders that they search the scriptures to find eternal life. But when the door to eternal life stands right in front of them they miss him. I wonder how many times Jesus has been right there in front of me and I have missed it? How many times have I chosen my own wisdom and understanding while ignoring the one who holds all the wisdom and understanding is right there? The religious people had a fairly terminal problem, they knew too much. They knew how to run their lives, they knew how to keep the law. They knew all the rules and regulations which draw you close to God. The tragedy is through all this they did not know God.

I am a huge advocate of education. I also think we should be always reading, hearing and learning all we can about God. This should never be at the expense of knowing God. The giver of live, Jesus, is right here with us, and that which we are searching for is found in him. When will I, we, the church stop leaning on our understanding and start running to Jesus?