Daily Devotions

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.  And you know the way to the place where I am going.”  Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”  Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  John 14:1-6

One of the most painful realities of life is that people leave.  Children cry when their parents leave the room, when their parents put them to bed for the night, when their parents head off to work.  Behind their tears is the fear that their parents won’t come back.  The sad truth is, sometimes their parents don’t come back.

Fear of separation.  Fear of abandonment.  These basic fears come back each time we face major changes in our lives.  Will we be OK?  Will we be able to handle a new reality?

Jesus warned them three times.  “We’re going to Jerusalem.  I will be rejected, arrested, humiliated and crucified.  But on the third day, I’ll be back.”  Each time the disciples met those words with misunderstanding and fear.  They didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.  They didn’t want anything bad to happen to themselves.  They didn’t want to be left alone.

So Jesus promises them both that he would always be with them and that he would prepare a place for them, so that where he went, they could come also.

Maybe that is all we need.  The simple reassurance that all will be OK.

Few changes in our lives are as painful or as life altering as people leaving us.  Death.  Divorce.  Distance.  Each time it happens, the pain reaches down to those basic levels of our primordial fears.  Each time it happens, somewhere deep inside we swear that we will never let it happen again.   And a little door to someplace special inside of us slams shut.

But there is a deeper truth. The deeper truth is that we really will be OK.  The disciples would never have been the people God needed them to be had Jesus not left them with his presence even as he left them with his promises.  The deeper truth is that the journey from separation to attachment is how we learn to trust that which is truly trustworthy.

The deeper truth is that faith trumps fear.  That closing one door always opens another.  That life under God always lies on the other side of death.

Let us pray: Gentle Lord, come to us in our deepest fears and bring us consolation and courage.  Come to us when life turns upside down and hold us tight.  Come to us in the face of fearsome change and instill in us awesome faith, that we might know that we’ll be OK.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  John 3:5-8

Jesus challenges Nicodemus with the prospect of change.  But this is more than a simple change in his thinking.  Jesus is challenging Nicodemus with the prospect of complete transformation.

Change and transformation are not the same thing.  You can paint a nice brown brick wall a vibrant bright orange.  But you still have a wall.  A hideous wall, but still a wall.

Much of the time, when we sense that we need a change in our lives, what we really need is a transformation.  But that is too hard.  So we settle for a change.  We buy new clothes.  Get a different hairstyle.  Move to a different job.  Get nipped and tucked.  Find a new partner.  We might think we’re moving on but really we’re just treading water.  It feels like movement but we aren’t really getting anywhere.

One of the changes that Jesus presents to Nicodemus is the challenge of letting go of control.  It is the realization that Nicodemus – although he is well respected, educated and probably wealthy – cannot work the needed changes in his own life on his own.  He must be born again, born from above.  He must understand that he is but clay in the Potter’s hand.

The transformation that Jesus is talking about is a gift of God’s grace, it is the movement of God’s hands upon our lives.  It is the Spirit, urging Nicodemus to a night time meeting with Jesus.  The Spirit, ever reminding him of what Jesus said to him.  The Spirit, there when Nicodemus shows up again in John 19 with spices for Jesus’ burial.  The Spirit that transforms Nicodemus from halting seeker to bold follower.

There is nothing wrong with rearranging the furniture of our lives.  New haircuts, new clothes, new jobs.  Such changes bring variety and excitement.  But often they are not what we really need.  What we really need is transformation – and that is not self generated change.  That is something only God can do.  Dare we ask him for such change?

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, you know us.  You know our lives.  You know every hair on our heads.  You know where we need a little change here and there.  And you know where we need to start all over, fresh and from the beginning.  Help us see where we need to be transformed and, by the power of your Spirit, work that miracle in us.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.”  Psalm 46:1-3

The only sure things in life .well, death and taxes certainly make the list but wouldn’t you also add CHANGE?

Change is a constant in life.  Nothing stays the same.  Everything is in process.  Now what do we do with that?  Is change a good thing or not?

Do we resist change or do we embrace it?  Do we see change as a threat or as the promise of something new?  I guess that depends, doesn’t it?

When we are ill, we long for the change of restored health.  Yet when we are healthy, don’t we dread the change that potential illness could bring our way?

When we are young, we long to grow older old enough, at least, to do what we can’t do while young. 

The truth is that we wrestle constantly with change.  The changes of our lives bend over backwards to remind us that we are not nearly as in control of life as we think we are, or think we ought to be.  Changes keep coming.  And try as we might to stem the tide, the tsunami of change overwhelms us.

So what do we do with this change?  What do we do with any change?  The word for Monday is we realize that while God is our sure foundation and we can trust that God’s presence and love will never change, everything else in life is up for grabs!

Let us pray:  Lord, sometimes we flee from change as our enemy and sometimes we embrace it as our friend.  But this we know when the earth is moving under our feet we seek solid ground.  Ground us in you!  Be our Rock and our Redeemer amid that the chances and changes of life.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village. As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”  Luke 9:51-62

Football players call it their “game face.”  Children (or spouses) know something is up when their parent (or partner) gets “that look on their face.”  It is the look of fierce determination, singleness of purpose, the refusal to lose, back down or quit.  That is the look on Jesus’ face as he “set his face toward Jerusalem.”

When I imagine these scenes with Jesus I’m not seeing the friendly smiling Jesus.  I am seeing a resolute Jesus with a quick temper and a quick tongue.  He walks right on past the Samaritans who don’t want to get involved.  He rebukes his disciples who are more than willing for God to do the dirty work of divine retribution (which allows them to sit back and watch rather than stand up for something themselves.)  He snaps at a would be follower, knowing there was a vast difference between the glory of being a follower of Jesus and the pain of actually following Jesus.

In this passage Jesus puts first things first.  He is going to take care of business.  Sometimes we have to do the same thing.

Certainly we choose our battles wisely.  And certainly we don’t fight just for the sake of fighting, nor do we stand up for things not worth standing on.  But there are times when the only lesson to be learned from the voices of criticism that are raised is that those voices are misguided, they have nothing of value to offer, and then it is time to put our game face on and plunge ahead in doing what is right.

That might cost us something.  It might cost us something if we stand up to our boss at work and refuse to cheat our customers even if such cheating seems built into the very nature of the work we are doing.  It might be painful if we befriend a new kid at school even if it costs us learning that our other friends aren’t so terribly friendly.  We might not get elected next time if we refuse to vote for a bill that we are philosophically opposed to and convinced would make things worse rather than better.

There are times when we just have to do what we have to do.  Times when our integrity and all that we believe is on the line.  There are times when following Jesus means putting on our game face, even though it means that we might be rejected by a government which is supposed to protect us, religious people who are supposed to know better, fickle crowds with a six minute attention span, or fair weather friends who follow 150 feet behind us.  There are times when we have to put first things first and go for it.

Let us pray:  Gracious Lord, we’ve prayed all week for wisdom and discernment in the face of constructive and destructive criticism.  We’ve prayed for the openness to learn the lessons of life along the way.  But today we pray for something else – we pray for the kind of courage of conviction, the resolute spirit, that marked your life.  Walk with us through the gathering storms and sustain us as we walk in the right direction.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

“My child, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves the one he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.”  Proverbs 2:11-12

George didn’t like it when he left his supervisor’s office after his annual performance review.  He didn’t like to hear about the times when he had fudged on keeping his office hours, the times he had been late in producing the work for which he was responsible or the reminder that his chronic complaints about working conditions was undermining his relationships with his co-workers.  Few people enjoy hearing criticism.  But for some reason, that day, George hadn’t reacted defensively or negatively.  For some reason, that day, George was open-minded enough to hear the ring of truth.

Behind some destructive criticism there is a kernel of truth.  Behind all constructive criticism there is love.

The clearest indicator of constructive criticism is mission-motivated truth.  When someone takes the time to call us to account, to offer constructive criticism aimed at improving our ability to “deliver the goods of our mission” – to grow as a person, as an employee, as a friend, as a Christian – we need to develop the ability to listen and truly hear.

This begins with an expectation, an openness, to growth.  We are not there yet.  For now, we see reality in a mirror dimly.  Life is a journey; God uses those with whom we walk this journey as catalysts for growth. Every other person in our life can potentially be our teachers.

If we quickly dismiss anything we hear that we don’t like to hear, we lose the opportunity to grow.  We get stuck in our thinking.  We lose perspective on the infinite number of possibilities before us.  We put false limitations on what God can do with us and through us.

When criticism comes, ask yourself these questions: “Is there any portion of truth in it?”  “Is there any lesson here that God wants me to learn?”  If you satisfy yourself that there is no truth to a criticism, shake the dust from your feet and move on.  But if there is a lesson to be learned, learn it.  Our critics can sometimes be our best sources of insight into our blind spots.

Let us pray: Dear Lord, you will never give up on us.  May we always be open to the discipline you send our way, knowing always that you seek nothing but our growth.  We pray especially for the wisdom to discern the lessons you would have us learn through the constructive criticism of those who care about us.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”  Luke 23:34

The powerful love and forgiving power of God is breathtaking.  Who else but Jesus, beaten, humiliated, hung on a cross, could nonetheless speak words of understanding and forgiveness for the very ones who crucified him?  And Jesus was right – they didn’t know what they were doing. They had missed the point of his ministry.  They had seen Jesus only as a threat without seeing the promise of his love. They didn’t have all the information.

Often the unjust, destructive criticism that we hear from others is based on misunderstanding or misinformation.  The criticism we hear from others, or the criticism we find ourselves voicing, can be totally off base because of the limited perspective we have on what is really true.  So what do we do with that?

We remember what we have heard the past few days and decide that the answer is not to engage in a battle to clear up a misunderstanding by forcing someone else to see things from our point of view.  The answer isn’t to change the other, but to maintain a focus on our part.  Just as someone else might not know the whole truth, neither do we.

Rather than fighting to change another’s point of view, why not take some time to try to see what is happening from that person’s point of view.  What happens when we place ourselves in the other person’s shoes?  Does that change our way of looking at things?  Does that make it possible for us to be forgiving and understanding in a way that simply isn’t possible if we only stubbornly hold to our own view?

Can we look behind the words and see the person?

Jesus looked down from the cross and saw broken people, lashing out against the enemy that really lived only in themselves.  Jesus met hate with love.  Always with love.

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, you are the source of understanding and forgiveness.  You are able to see beneath the hard surfaces of our projected images to the wounded reality within.  May we see those around us with the same eyes, opening our hearts to new possibilities of forgiveness, understanding and love.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

“Again Jesus entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand.  They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.”  Mark 3:1-2

One of the most important gifts of the Spirit is the gift of discernment – the ability to not only see reality, but to sort through what you see until you see the truth.  Discernment requires experience, wisdom, courage and humility.  Discernment also requires love.

Discernment is an important skill in hearing and responding to criticism.  It enables us to tell the difference between constructive and destructive criticism.  Both types of criticism invite a response – but they are two very different types of responses.

Jesus certainly is a guide for us in dealing with destructive criticism.  He faced a lot of it.  The Pharisees were always on guard to catch Jesus in an inconsistency or an error.  Their efforts were motivated by self protection, power and jealousy.  The Pharisees made a mockery of God’s call to love the neighbor.  The Pharisees turned the law of love upside down in their blind devotion to their own carefully crafted religious system.

One of the ways that Jesus dealt with the destructive criticism of the Pharisees was to ignore them.  Motivated by his inner compass of love, Jesus responded to the needs of the people around him, regardless of the reactions of the Pharisees.  He ate with sinners and tax collectors, he healed people on the Sabbath, he allowed his disciples to dispense with dietary customs and prohibitions against mixing with the “wrong” people.

A first step in responding to criticism is to ask: Is the source of the criticism I am hearing motivated by love for all, especially love for the unlovely?  Or, is the source motivated by self protection or self serving?  Am I motivated, in my actions, by love or by self?

Let us pray: Lord Jesus, you know the struggle to forge ahead in life in the face of opposition and criticism.  Help us to discern the truth when confronted with voices which question and challenge us.  Guide us, by the power of your Spirit working in us, in making love for our neighbor our primary motivation in life.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

If we are not adept at hearing criticism from others, we run the risk of similarly closing ourselves off to the constructive criticism which the Spirit of God might be trying to bring into our lives.

Let us pray: Gracious Lord, your love has the power to transform our lives.  I ask for your guidance this week as I seek to learn from your Word how to grow in the ability to hear what I might perceive to be criticism.  I pray that you might join me, and all who will share in these devotions this week, in the search for transformation into a new openness to all kinds of communications, even those hard to hear.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’” Luke 15:25-32

One more day to think about the church…

The elder son is feeling resentful.  He has been faithful for a long time.  He has been respectful and obedient and cognizant of his position in the family.  He’s shown up for work every day.  He’s done his share – no, since his little brother took half his father’s money and left, the elder brother has done MORE than his share.  No wonder he has felt used and unappreciated.

Who can blame him for getting angry when his irresponsible little brother comes gallivanting down the driveway like some long lost hero, arm and arm with his gullible father!  As if that weren’t enough, their father actually wants to celebrate the return of the son by throwing a party and sharing his gullibility and enabling of his little brother’s excesses with the neighbors!

Who can blame him?

Read the story and look closely at the words.  No one blames him.  No one condemns him for his resentment, his anger….his jealousy?  If the elder son feels pain in this story it is self-generated.  His father doesn’t condemn him for his childishness, he pleads with him to come back into the party and enjoy himself.  But the story ends with the elder brother pouting on the porch.

Who among us wants to be an elder brother? 

Church members who have long been part of the church, who haven’t strayed away, who have been faithful in worship and faithful in service and generous in giving – who among them wants to be an elder brother?

Pastors who have made significant sacrifices to serve the church, who have chosen the ministry over other more lucrative careers their college educations might have earned, who gave four years of their lives to earning a seminary degree, who have gone to the places they were sent to serve – who among them would want to be an elder brother?

The elder brother simply cannot understand the joy of the father at the return of his disappointment of a son.  No doubt, the elder son went about his daily duties on the farm the whole time the younger brother was gone with absolutely no idea how much his father hurt inside, longing for the return of the son who seemingly had rejected his love.  The elder son – not seeing the realities of either his brother or his father – was likewise blind to the personal cost he was paying for being blind even to himself.  None among us want to be that elder son.

So let’s not live as if we were he.  Let’s let go of the notion that the church is somehow “ours” and needs to be protected from the infringements “they” would lay upon us.  Let’s welcome the stranger with open arms, but only after doing absolutely everything we can to prepare for the stranger’s arrival, including anticipating their needs with programs that are helpful to people, designing worship that feels like a celebration rather than a funeral, and creating a culture reminiscent of the loving embrace of a Father who welcomes all of his broken, sinful, selfish children home.

Let us pray:  Thank you, gracious and loving God, for welcoming us home even though we have abused your gifts, have betrayed your name, and have gone our own ways time and time again.  Thank you for your forgiveness and your grace.  May that same grace which has come to us from you also flow through us to the others in our lives, that we be as gracious with them as you have been with us.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

While everyone was amazed at all that he was doing, he said to his disciples, “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.” But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was concealed from them, so that they could not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying…An argument arose among them as to which one of them was the greatest. But Jesus, aware of their inner thoughts, took a little child and put it by his side, and said to them, “Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.” Luke 9:43-48

There are a lot of different ways to say it but the fact is, life in the kingdom of God is counter-intuitive.  Upside down.  It is no wonder that the disciples were often puzzled along the way.

Hearing the Boss say he was going to be betrayed, arrested, humiliated, crucified?  The world would call that failure.  No one in their right mind would aspire to such drastic downward mobility.

Listening to the One (whom they thought would right the wrongs of the world, maybe raise a mighty army to defeat the Romans, surely move into the Big House in Jerusalem and assume his position of Davidic leadership) lifting up a small child and then saying that greatness has something to do with leastness?  That doesn’t make any sense.  We would think greatness is about rubbing elbows with the rich, famous and powerful, not bouncing a child on your knee.  But Jesus turns everything around.

How do you follow someone like that?  One step at a time.  Hopefully in the right direction.

After the “big” conference at the beginning of the week, I’ll be spending today on retreat with a small group of pastors in their first three years of parish ministry. This retreat is part of an initiative that recognizes the value, and the difficulty, of excellent leadership in the church in the midst of the challenges we face today.  Together we will look again at how we look at things and how best to do what we are called to do.

Knowing that we follow one who was rejected means that we often must do battle with that inner urge we have to please people, to be liked, to settle for peace at all costs while mistrusting the possibility of peace beyond understanding. 

Realizing that greatness has something to do with least-ness means that our calling is to be attentive to the poor, the powerless, the rejected, the least and the lost.  Children are seldom the ones bending a pastor’s ear, telling him or her what they don’t like about this or that, about what they want done about this or that.  Children don’t pay the bills.  But Jesus lifted up a child and we need to be attentive to that.

Let us pray:  Gracious Lord, much has changed in 2000 years but so much remains the same – you still turn us inside out and upside down, you still rely on simple human beings to incarnate your love for the world, and it is still so hard to resist the allure of the easy way out.  Inspire us to excellence in all of the upside down ways that happens as we follow you day by day.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.