Luke 6:6-11
Jesus was definitely not a people pleaser. He knew that his identity did not rest in whether others approved of what he did or didn’t do. I’m sure he was tempted at times to listen to the opinions of others – I say that because of what Scripture says about Jesus being tempted in the ways we are tempted and I know I am frequently tempted by what people might think.
Even though Jesus never succumbed to this (or any other) temptation, he knew it was important to address the accusations of those who opposed him – both for their benefit and for the benefit of all who were listening. The people of the day were under the spiritual authority of the religious leaders of the land. Just like today, there were different groups or parties of leaders each with their own ax to grind, particularly the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. They would not relinquish their authority without a fight.
In high school I was on a debate team and more recently I’ve watched my own son debate and have served as a judge. One key to winning a debate is establishing and maintaining the terms of the debate so that you gain the higher ground. In watching movie, “Gettysburg,” with my sons when they were young, I vividly remember the challenge each commanding officer faced in gaining what was literally the higher ground, so that you were looking down on your opponent.
In this passage Jesus is defining the terms in irrefutable ways. He is working to gain and control the higher ground. Jesus could heal the sick and raise the dead, but the healed and resurrected would still be in bondage if he did not also free them from the rules and regulations of these spiritual leaders. These leaders were men who were highly devoted to the Scriptures, but who in their focused devotion, had missed the life and the Life Giver of those Scriptures.
In this setting, the Pharisees and teachers of the law are pushed to the limit. Jesus finally crosses the line. This story of the man healed of a withered hand is the last in a series of stories presented by Luke to show how Jesus confronts the religious authorities of his day. These men were godly men, godly in the sense that they were devoted to the Scriptures, to prayer, to “church” or Sabbath attendance, to tithing, devoted even to doing good deeds and giving alms to the poor. They were, in today’s language, very good church people.
But they had such a grip on the masses that Jesus had to challenge them and their authority before he could effectively reach the masses. He might heal the masses and feed them, but before he could really connect with them, before he could win them over, he had to tear down the religious and political authority structures in their lives so that they could truly see him for who he was and hear what he had to say.
Whenever you and I speak, anyone listening is not hearing our words only. They are hearing our words in context – the context being the situation or setting in which we are speaking, but also the context in which they are living and have been living all their lives. When we listen to the words of others, we bring a whole lot of baggage to the table, baggage that filters every word that is said, every word that is not said, even body language employed, physical features of the speaker and the setting in which the speaker is speaking.
I find it very intriguing that this string of authority conflict stories is presented in Luke’s Gospel just before Jesus calls out the Twelve and before he begins to teach them and the masses. Jesus has already started calling people to follow him, he’s already demonstrated his love through healing people. But these do little more than establish his presence.
Now he is establishing his authority and he is making it very clear that he is not going to be bound either by the rules of the day nor by the rulers of the day. He has come to rule the day, a process that does not end until Resurrection Sunday, but a process that is begun in the everyday trenches of Galilee among the peasants and Pharisees like those in this story.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Skins, Patches and Wine
Luke 5:36-39
Back to Levi’s party. He’s cast his lot, so to speak, with Jesus. He’s cashed in his corrupt, tax revenuing trade to follow this new spiritual guru. And he’s invited all his old nasty friends to party and meet Jesus. All except the Pharisees and teachers of the law who stand outside Levi’s boisterous house and cast verbal stones. Jesus has already faced down these spiritual know-it-alls who’ve attempted to set the record straight that Jesus is Spiritual Lite.
Now Jesus shares a story, a favorite communication means of his. Parties are great times for stories. And I’m sure Levi’s friends quiet down to hear what Jesus tells these religious guys outside.
Recently I watched as a parade of people young and old walked across a Sunday stage, cardboard placards in hand, silent testimonies to the work of God in their lives, one and all.
One young fellow, happened to be a guitarist in the worship band, held up a sign which told in a handful of words how he who had once been burned by religious organizations was now befriended by Jesus. I can see Levi holding up such a sign the night of his party.
Jesus explains to the people of his day who know well how to patch up threadbare clothes that you don’t tear a patch from a new outfit and sew it onto an old one. If you do, you’ve ruined the new clothes and the patch won’t match the old one anyway.
He adds, in the same way you don’t put new wine into old wineskins. I have to admit this story is culturally ambiguous to most modern teetotalling readers like me. I haven’t the foggiest notion what Jesus is talking about. But astute reader that I am I get the idea. New wine bursts old wineskins and ruins both the skin-bottle and the wine. Wine has a way of expanding, I gather, kind of causing an explosion if the material is worn. No, Jesus says, you put the new wine into new wineskins.
And then comes his bottom line: no one after drinking old wine wants the new, because the old tastes better. I guess. All I know is my grandmother used to jokingly accuse my grandfather of letting the cider sit too long!
What’s your point, Jesus? You’ve got a party staged by a new follower named Levi and some party poopers who are accusing you of being unspiritual and you are saying don’t mix old and new?
Jesus is saying that if you want to reach guys like Levi, you’ve got to do things new. You can’t use old structures and old programs, pews filled with poopers like these Pharisees and teachers of the law. They may know it all, but they have no idea how to include Levi and his ilk in the Kingdom of God.
Take your pick. Go with the tried and tired or go with the new and true. Given the choice, which he has being Master, Jesus goes with the new. He parties with “Levi and the Ilk” and creates a whole new paradigm.
To see a great model of how this new wineskin model is working in a contemporary setting, go to mosaicportland.org/worship/about-mosaic/story/, read the story and watch the video. Here’s a case where old meets new and all catch a surprising vision for how the party can begin, a party that is still going strong. The young man I mentioned earlier with the cardboard sign is part of that party Levi-style.
Back to Levi’s party. He’s cast his lot, so to speak, with Jesus. He’s cashed in his corrupt, tax revenuing trade to follow this new spiritual guru. And he’s invited all his old nasty friends to party and meet Jesus. All except the Pharisees and teachers of the law who stand outside Levi’s boisterous house and cast verbal stones. Jesus has already faced down these spiritual know-it-alls who’ve attempted to set the record straight that Jesus is Spiritual Lite.
Now Jesus shares a story, a favorite communication means of his. Parties are great times for stories. And I’m sure Levi’s friends quiet down to hear what Jesus tells these religious guys outside.
Recently I watched as a parade of people young and old walked across a Sunday stage, cardboard placards in hand, silent testimonies to the work of God in their lives, one and all.
One young fellow, happened to be a guitarist in the worship band, held up a sign which told in a handful of words how he who had once been burned by religious organizations was now befriended by Jesus. I can see Levi holding up such a sign the night of his party.
Jesus explains to the people of his day who know well how to patch up threadbare clothes that you don’t tear a patch from a new outfit and sew it onto an old one. If you do, you’ve ruined the new clothes and the patch won’t match the old one anyway.
He adds, in the same way you don’t put new wine into old wineskins. I have to admit this story is culturally ambiguous to most modern teetotalling readers like me. I haven’t the foggiest notion what Jesus is talking about. But astute reader that I am I get the idea. New wine bursts old wineskins and ruins both the skin-bottle and the wine. Wine has a way of expanding, I gather, kind of causing an explosion if the material is worn. No, Jesus says, you put the new wine into new wineskins.
And then comes his bottom line: no one after drinking old wine wants the new, because the old tastes better. I guess. All I know is my grandmother used to jokingly accuse my grandfather of letting the cider sit too long!
What’s your point, Jesus? You’ve got a party staged by a new follower named Levi and some party poopers who are accusing you of being unspiritual and you are saying don’t mix old and new?
Jesus is saying that if you want to reach guys like Levi, you’ve got to do things new. You can’t use old structures and old programs, pews filled with poopers like these Pharisees and teachers of the law. They may know it all, but they have no idea how to include Levi and his ilk in the Kingdom of God.
Take your pick. Go with the tried and tired or go with the new and true. Given the choice, which he has being Master, Jesus goes with the new. He parties with “Levi and the Ilk” and creates a whole new paradigm.
To see a great model of how this new wineskin model is working in a contemporary setting, go to mosaicportland.org/worship/about-mosaic/story/, read the story and watch the video. Here’s a case where old meets new and all catch a surprising vision for how the party can begin, a party that is still going strong. The young man I mentioned earlier with the cardboard sign is part of that party Levi-style.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Judging a Book by its Eating Habits
Luke 5:33-35
It was the night of the banquet. Levi had left his tax collecting to follow Jesus, and so had invited all his old buddies, his old network, to meet his new ones. It was a great night and everyone was having a good time. Everyone, that is except the religious authorities standing outside of Levi’s house. Their non-participation at the banquet was not because they weren’t invited, it was because they refused to come even if they had been invited.
The disciples had first encountered these religious leaders outside scowling at the boisterous party. And then Jesus came out and mixed it up a bit with them. He would have had to have left the party for a few minutes, for those guys were not going to debase themselves as Jesus had by entering that house of ill repute.
Jesus had already answered their question as to how Jesus and his other disciples could possibly hang out with such sinners. Their next salvo says it all. “John’s disciples are good prayer warriors and they fast a lot. So do the Pharisees (of which we are). But, Jesus, your disciples go on eating and drinking.” If you can’t join ‘em, then trash ‘em.
Some people go around measuring spirituality like tailors go around measuring people’s clothes. Travel to a place like Hong Kong or Thailand and walk down the street in certain districts. In no time, some guy, more often than not from the Indian subcontinent, will be at your side with a tape measure seeing how long your pant leg is.
Sometime go to church like an outside observer and watch how people start out-spiritualizing each other or trumping someone else’s spiritual feats of strength or taking note of a fellow Believer’s politically incorrect speech. It’s like a contest to see who can get to heaven first. Sorry, Enoch already won that race.
The implications of what these teachers of the law were saying was that Jesus could not be that much of a spiritual authority if his disciples were not doing the correct spiritual calisthenics. We who, unlike God in heaven, do not see inside of a person’s heart, resort to measuring meaningless externals in vain attempt to determine how spiritual our fellow travelers really are.
Jesus brushes all this spiritual measurement talk aside, using a wedding party illustration. You don’t fast at wedding parties. You feast. When Levi says yes to following me, Jesus is saying, then is not the time for fasting, but for celebration. Jesus is not dismissing fasting. There will be time enough for that later, he adds. But, he is saying, there is also a time for feasting – and that time is now.
When those spiritual rulers could not discredit Jesus for hanging around sinners, they sought to put him down for not being spiritual enough. But Jesus the great spiritual standard setter himself, is not buying any of that. If anything, these religious experts are flunking out while Levi and his “ilk” are jamming the gates of heaven.
A person can sound very spiritual and be headed straight to hell. Conversely, a person can be very spiritual without sounding spiritual at all, at least to human ears. Who was closer to Jesus that night – the sinner who had not yet repented but was hanging close with Jesus that night, or the spiritual people outside verbally abusing Jesus for sharing life with the sinners inside?
Heaven is all about substance. Hell is for deceptions like appearance.
It was the night of the banquet. Levi had left his tax collecting to follow Jesus, and so had invited all his old buddies, his old network, to meet his new ones. It was a great night and everyone was having a good time. Everyone, that is except the religious authorities standing outside of Levi’s house. Their non-participation at the banquet was not because they weren’t invited, it was because they refused to come even if they had been invited.
The disciples had first encountered these religious leaders outside scowling at the boisterous party. And then Jesus came out and mixed it up a bit with them. He would have had to have left the party for a few minutes, for those guys were not going to debase themselves as Jesus had by entering that house of ill repute.
Jesus had already answered their question as to how Jesus and his other disciples could possibly hang out with such sinners. Their next salvo says it all. “John’s disciples are good prayer warriors and they fast a lot. So do the Pharisees (of which we are). But, Jesus, your disciples go on eating and drinking.” If you can’t join ‘em, then trash ‘em.
Some people go around measuring spirituality like tailors go around measuring people’s clothes. Travel to a place like Hong Kong or Thailand and walk down the street in certain districts. In no time, some guy, more often than not from the Indian subcontinent, will be at your side with a tape measure seeing how long your pant leg is.
Sometime go to church like an outside observer and watch how people start out-spiritualizing each other or trumping someone else’s spiritual feats of strength or taking note of a fellow Believer’s politically incorrect speech. It’s like a contest to see who can get to heaven first. Sorry, Enoch already won that race.
The implications of what these teachers of the law were saying was that Jesus could not be that much of a spiritual authority if his disciples were not doing the correct spiritual calisthenics. We who, unlike God in heaven, do not see inside of a person’s heart, resort to measuring meaningless externals in vain attempt to determine how spiritual our fellow travelers really are.
Jesus brushes all this spiritual measurement talk aside, using a wedding party illustration. You don’t fast at wedding parties. You feast. When Levi says yes to following me, Jesus is saying, then is not the time for fasting, but for celebration. Jesus is not dismissing fasting. There will be time enough for that later, he adds. But, he is saying, there is also a time for feasting – and that time is now.
When those spiritual rulers could not discredit Jesus for hanging around sinners, they sought to put him down for not being spiritual enough. But Jesus the great spiritual standard setter himself, is not buying any of that. If anything, these religious experts are flunking out while Levi and his “ilk” are jamming the gates of heaven.
A person can sound very spiritual and be headed straight to hell. Conversely, a person can be very spiritual without sounding spiritual at all, at least to human ears. Who was closer to Jesus that night – the sinner who had not yet repented but was hanging close with Jesus that night, or the spiritual people outside verbally abusing Jesus for sharing life with the sinners inside?
Heaven is all about substance. Hell is for deceptions like appearance.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Levi’s Party
Luke 5:29-32
Last post we were discussing Luke’s story of how Jesus called Levi (Matthew). He walked right up to Levi’s tax collection booth and said for Levi to follow him and that is exactly what Levi did.
At some point after that, it could have been that very night, Levi held a great banquet for Jesus. As a tax collector, he was a wealthy man and had a sizeable house, large enough to invite quite a gathering. But this gathering was no ordinary party among the respected country club set. This was a mix of all his tax collecting buddies and all the shady people who were willing to associate with them. In truth, because of the ill repute of these folks, no godly person would even go near Levi’s house. None except Jesus that is.
Instead, the religious people stood outside and complained to Jesus’ disciples, who may have come out at some point to check on the crowd outside. Why do you hang out with these filthy people, the Pharisees and religious teachers asked?
Religious people today will often “hang out” with sinners like it’s some civic duty as long as they can turn the occasion into a sermon with fanfare flourish. It has to have an altar call or at least a prayer – some sense of getting the citizens of hell to don the habits of spirituality, if only for a moment.
Years ago on a bus ride from Missouri to North Carolina, I sat next to a fellow teenager. We fell into talking about faith and he said that he had gone forward in church once before (meaning to make a decision). As soon as the woman across the bus aisle heard him say this, she was all over him – and me. The boy didn’t need to listen to what I was saying, he’d already been through the ceremony “Just say you’ve been baptized – that’s it.” Just say the right words, do the right things. Just say it, she squawked like some tropic parrot.
Recently I watched an encounter between a couple of men who are believers. One was trying to explain his recent progress in faith. The other got all agitated with the way the first guy was explaining his spiritual journey and insisted that he use certain phrases of speaking. The first man’s story wasn’t spiritual enough without those key phrases. We believers today can be filled with as much politically correct paranoia as the First Century Pharisees were.
But Jesus didn’t seem to go in for any of that. In the case of Levi’s nasty friends, he simply hung out with them. He knew that if they were hungry for more they would come back around and check him out later. In any case, no sermon could be preached that night to compare with the impact that Levi’s “conversion” was making on people who knew Levi better than all the rest.
There was something about just being around Jesus that was life-changing. He wasn’t without words, obviously. But his life gave his words fuller meaning and deeper impact. The teachers of the law mentioned by Luke in this story actually could say the very same things Jesus was saying, but there was nothing life-giving in their teachings. Their lives, in fact, were in conflict with such teaching, casting doubt on both.
Jesus knew that light is not contaminated by dark. Instead light overcomes darkness. He was all about going to the darkness to set its inhabitants free. After all, as he told the Pharisees that night, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” This is not a putdown to sinners, but a wake up call to the so-called “righteous”. For repentance is a blessing from heaven only self-righteous fools turn down.
Last post we were discussing Luke’s story of how Jesus called Levi (Matthew). He walked right up to Levi’s tax collection booth and said for Levi to follow him and that is exactly what Levi did.
At some point after that, it could have been that very night, Levi held a great banquet for Jesus. As a tax collector, he was a wealthy man and had a sizeable house, large enough to invite quite a gathering. But this gathering was no ordinary party among the respected country club set. This was a mix of all his tax collecting buddies and all the shady people who were willing to associate with them. In truth, because of the ill repute of these folks, no godly person would even go near Levi’s house. None except Jesus that is.
Instead, the religious people stood outside and complained to Jesus’ disciples, who may have come out at some point to check on the crowd outside. Why do you hang out with these filthy people, the Pharisees and religious teachers asked?
Religious people today will often “hang out” with sinners like it’s some civic duty as long as they can turn the occasion into a sermon with fanfare flourish. It has to have an altar call or at least a prayer – some sense of getting the citizens of hell to don the habits of spirituality, if only for a moment.
Years ago on a bus ride from Missouri to North Carolina, I sat next to a fellow teenager. We fell into talking about faith and he said that he had gone forward in church once before (meaning to make a decision). As soon as the woman across the bus aisle heard him say this, she was all over him – and me. The boy didn’t need to listen to what I was saying, he’d already been through the ceremony “Just say you’ve been baptized – that’s it.” Just say the right words, do the right things. Just say it, she squawked like some tropic parrot.
Recently I watched an encounter between a couple of men who are believers. One was trying to explain his recent progress in faith. The other got all agitated with the way the first guy was explaining his spiritual journey and insisted that he use certain phrases of speaking. The first man’s story wasn’t spiritual enough without those key phrases. We believers today can be filled with as much politically correct paranoia as the First Century Pharisees were.
But Jesus didn’t seem to go in for any of that. In the case of Levi’s nasty friends, he simply hung out with them. He knew that if they were hungry for more they would come back around and check him out later. In any case, no sermon could be preached that night to compare with the impact that Levi’s “conversion” was making on people who knew Levi better than all the rest.
There was something about just being around Jesus that was life-changing. He wasn’t without words, obviously. But his life gave his words fuller meaning and deeper impact. The teachers of the law mentioned by Luke in this story actually could say the very same things Jesus was saying, but there was nothing life-giving in their teachings. Their lives, in fact, were in conflict with such teaching, casting doubt on both.
Jesus knew that light is not contaminated by dark. Instead light overcomes darkness. He was all about going to the darkness to set its inhabitants free. After all, as he told the Pharisees that night, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” This is not a putdown to sinners, but a wake up call to the so-called “righteous”. For repentance is a blessing from heaven only self-righteous fools turn down.
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