Tag: Gospel

What Comes Next?

What Comes Next? As the seasons change, we reflect on our choices and where they are taking us. A YMCA devotion for members and friends.

There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged.

[St. Paul’s Letter to the Christians in Rome, 5.3-4, The Message]

It’s that time of year when it’s natural to look back over the previous seasons and reflect on what did and didn’t happen. With a mixture of grief and gratitude, we look ahead to the approaching winter and the year beyond.

What comes next for you?

This isn’t a plug for making new year’s resolutions. Rather, it’s an invitation to consider during Advent the kind of choices you have been making. Past decisions profoundly determine what often comes next for us.

For Christians around the world, this season is named Advent, which begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day. The first Sunday of Advent is New Year’s Day for the Christian church, the emphasis being on the much anticipated coming again (advent) of the Lord Jesus Christ to our world.

Advent focuses on the promise that Christ will come again soon to make right every wrong and personally lead the world into justice, truth, beauty, and love. Not coercively, but courageously, embodying in himself what was originally intended for humanity – for Jesus, the means are the end.

Imagine how this belief can shape how you interpret your past and present decisions, as well as your future expectations and fears. Christians can be motivated by a beautifully compelling vision of the future which we strive to embody now in everyday life.

When we muse on what is next, it is not a blank slate. Christians around the world can count on the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost to shape our prayers, our perspective, and our participation in the complicated and often painful world unfolding in front of us.

We are not adrift in a world of random chaos or hopeless unhappiness. But it can sometimes seem like that if we keep our eyes on our selves.  Rather, trials and troubles can keep us alert for whatever God will do next, as embodied in the Christian calendar.

It may seem cheesy or naively spiritualistic to suggest that the Christian calendar can be a source of courage for how we look into the future. Maybe it is.

But consider how submitting to Christ and the Scriptures through it can develop a patience perspective in us, which in turn can forge much-needed virtue:

The twelve days of Christmas focus on the mysterious way God keeps his promises to his people – people that disbelieve him, mock him, reject him, and ignore him. Christmas is first about loyalty, faithfulness, reconciliation, and new beginnings that have not just a lifetime in mind, but millenniums.

These days are followed by what Christians call Epiphany, a week of Sundays where we pay attention to the stories of men and women awakening to the reality of Christ Jesus in their world. The wise men, John the Baptist, the wedding miracle at Cana. They all experienced epiphanies, eyes to see the ways Christ has already come, ways he is becoming real and present in our world.

After this is Lent, 40 days, not including Sundays, when Christians reflect on their present existence in penitence and humility. In light of how stubbornly prideful and passively aggressive people tend to be, we need this season more than we want to admit.

This preparation ahead of the Easter season give us context for 49 days of breathing new life into what is good and beautiful. It’s a season to renew our energy for acts of justice and mercy so that in our community life flourishes for all.

The seven weeks of Pentecost that come next inspire Christians with the expectation of God keeping his promises to empower his creative and redeeming love to flourish in the world through the body of Christ – his people fueled by the Spirit of God.

It is Advent now: what is coming next for you? Or, who is coming next?

As you’ve probably begun to realize, what you choose to do eventually begins to choose for you.

Sometimes our failure to control our future stems from not understanding the inherent consequences of past decisions. We live in an existence exuding entropy – everything eventually declines into disorder.

Unless an outside force resists the dis-bonding of people, where does the energy come from to reconnect, reconcile, and courageously forge a renewed future together?

May it be Christ in you.

This Advent, may Christ Jesus come to you (again), his holy and courageous love surrounding you; may he be to your left and your right, Christ above and below, behind and ahead of you, Christ next to you as you exude patience, forge virtue, getting ready for what comes next.

The earliest Christians prayed “Mara natha!” – Come, Lord Jesus!

This Advent, (re)choose Christ. 

This Advent, “Mara natha.”

The Disbelievable & Misunderstandable God…

One of the fastest growing religious demographics in the United States is that of the “dones” and “nones” – those who aren’t affiliated with any kind of religious organization (anymore). This reality reminds me that God is often disbelievable and misunderstandable (as revealed in poll stats, the Bible and world history).

It’s ironic to me that Jesus was disbelievable and misunderstandable to the twelve men who spent every day with him. Not only did Jesus heal the sick and exorcize demons in their presence, he gave them the power to do so as well. And still, they did not get what God was doing, prompting Jesus to exasperatedly sigh, “Do you still not understand?”

For those of us who are Christians, maybe we say we believe in God a little too easily. Maybe we proclaim our faith in Christ a little too confidently.

Maybe we look down on the nones and dones, mystified as to how they don’t “get it” in regard to God when in it’s highly possible that if Jesus were in our midst, he might grill us like he did The Twelve: “Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?”

In this particular gospel story that Mark retells to us, word had spread that Jesus had fed four-thousand people with bread and fish. The Pharisees came to question Jesus about it. They had missed the event, so they asked for another sign from heaven.

This elicited a deep sigh from Jesus towards them and their generation of Israelites. God was making himself visible and present to his people through Jesus of Nazareth in practical and healing ways, and it was still disbelievable and misunderstandable.

Why? Because that generation (like most) were looking for signs of God as evidenced in power – the kind of political power that manifests itself in violence (safety), coercion (security), empire-economics (prosperity), and class privilege (stability).

They believed that when necessary God condones violence as a means to his will being done and his kingdom coming to earth. Jesus warned his disciples to “watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.” Beware their appetite for power and their willingness to use violence – it’s like a cancerous yeast.

God made it clear through Jesus that he did not want his people to use violence to coerce, to punish, or to terrorize. This was a key way that the kingdom of God was both good news to people around the world as well as a source of fear to the few who had a greedy grasp on consolidated power.

Jesus had fed bread to five thousand people, and then later to four thousand people. In Rome, it was an obvious political strategy to use “bread and circus” to win the support of the populace. To the cynic, Jesus was using bread and exorcism to build a political base.

Yes, Christ (King of Israel) Jesus had a political agenda. It included using bread and power to actually renew the hopes and lives of people, to empower them to care for their neighbors, and reject abuse as a form of governing.

This was completely disbelieveable and misunderstood by those with an appetite for power. For this Jesus was crucified for sedition and blasphemy – he was a threat to Rome and Jerusalem. He was a political threat because he was a king who wouldn’t use bread to manipulate people.

Jesus went out of his way to avoid using violence to bring about the kingdom of God on earth. His gospel-command to his disciples are: love one another – and your enemies, be a non-violent (non-nuclear) peacemaker, be merciful, forgive those who hate you, don’t lie.

This is ridiculously difficult. It could get you killed too. Ironically, it is partly what makes God disbelievable and misunderstandable – but it is also the gospel.

Don’t misunderestimate the subversive political power of getting to know your neighbors who don’t look like you, of naming and confessing your bigotry, and of refusing to hate your enemies, in Jesus name.

This is the sign from heaven many are still looking for. May it be you.

The Courage To Be Misunderstood

If you’re a leader, you’ll be misunderstood.

If you care about people, you’ll be misunderstood.

Even if you serve people well, you’ll still be misunderstood.

If you’re like me, it’s terribly frustrating to be misunderstood. I have a deep need to be liked, so I have to fight against the urge to please everyone with my decisions. Whether as a leader, a neighbor, or a family-man, the risk of being misunderstood is constant.

But rather than being afraid of being misunderstood, we ought to accept reality, and face it with courage. Sure, we ought to do our best to keep things in context while being truthful and wise in our explanations. But if it’s laced with fear, you’ll undermine the trust you need to overcome the misunderstanding.

It’s courage, not fear, that overcomes misunderstanding.

That’s what we see in Jesus, as told by Mark in the gospel. After feeding the five thousand, Jesus had sent his disciples across the lake in their fishing boat while he went up into the mountains to pray. Late that night, as they struggled against the wind, Jesus came out to them on the lake. They were terrified by Jesus – how can he walk on water and why does the wind stop when he shows up?

They still did not understand Jesus. But that didn’t stop Jesus from being with them, speaking into their life, and giving them courage.

Jesus risked being misunderstood by his own disciples even as he worked to train them for his mission. It took courage for Jesus to teach them, send them out to preach and heal, to live with them, and then still be misunderstood. Sometimes they were still afraid of him!

“Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

If it was difficult for the disciples to understand Jesus in the first century, imagine the challenges we face in the 21st century. We are separated by two millenniums and six thousand miles. Jesus is still misunderstood in America, even (mostly?) by Christians. That includes me.

So when we see how patient and persistent (and sometimes exasperated) Jesus was with his disciples when he was misunderstood, we can imitate him in regard to those who misunderstand us.

All people have power. Some know it and use it to their advantage, often at the expense of others well-being. A lot of us don’t think too much about the power we have over others. Which means we may not appreciate how we make others afraid of us.

Our desire to be understood could be another attempt to control and exert power over others. We would be wise to pay attention to the power we have (even if we think it is impotent or misunderstood) and how we use it in regard to others.

Jesus used his power to heal, to welcome, to embody the love of God, and to proclaim the forgiveness of sins for those who would repent.

Jesus used his power to transform lives, to set people free from fear in order that they may live a life of courage and trust in the God of Israel. And the whole time he risked being misunderstood. By his family, by his friends, his his disciples, by the religious and political authorities, by his own mother.

As you sense God’s call on your life to serve him in this world, your “yes” to the Lord may result in misunderstanding.

Like all important decisions, the greater the stakes, the greater the risk of misunderstanding. But when Jesus is calling you to follow him, we can hear his words to his disciples in every generation, every nation, every storm: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

What is Jesus calling you to do with your power?

What are the ways that Jesus has been appearing to you, inviting you to trust him with your life?

In what ways does Jesus make you afraid? What are you afraid of losing as you sense Jesus making himself real to you?

What kind of courage is Jesus calling you to exude as he invites you to join him in his work to heal the world for the flourishing of all?