Luke 6:46-49
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord” and do not do what I say?” This question comes up with telling frequency in Jesus’ teachings.
Become famous or rich or important in society and everyone will call you their friend. That is a trait among humans as old as the human race. Jesus knows that there are those who follow him with their lips and not with their actions. And so, he says, he will show his listeners what those people are like. Actually he makes this statement in the affirmative: he will first explain what those are like who DO follow him with their lips AND their actions.
This parable is an old and familiar one to all of us who grew up in Sunday School and learned the song “The wise man built his house upon a rock … and the rains came tumbling down.” It is a great song for kids, full of action and word pictures that bring out the kidness in all of us. And a catchy tune that sticks with us all the week through.
Even little kids who know nothing of the intricate workings of engineering know the difference between an endurable construction project and a sand castle or a lego tower that goes crash when you smash it. And who better to test such engineering feats than a kid?
In Luke’s rendering of this parable, the words “wise” and “foolish” do not appear as it does in Matthew’s. Jesus says simply enough that the one who hears and follows through responsively is like a man who, when building a house, digs down deep and lays a foundation on rock. When the floods inevitably come, the floodwaters hit the house hard, but the house is unshaken and stands firm because “it was well built.”
In contrast, Jesus then goes on to say, the one who hears his words and does not put them into practice is like someone who builds a house directly on the ground without any foundation (in this setting, neither “rock” nor “sand” are used, only “foundation”). This house doesn’t survive the floods, collapsing immediately.
Jesus isn’t focusing on the type of house built – earthen or wooden or rock. The emphasis is the house having a proper foundation. Not so much whether it is built on rock or sand, but whether the house has something that anchors it to the ground on which it sits.
A mighty city such as New York can build huge skyscrapers because the ground at “Ground Zero” is deep bedrock, something true of much of the area. Bedrock deep enough to support one of the world’s largest collections of super-structures.
Even where there is sand, however, such as at the Jersey shore only a short drive from those skyscrapers, you can build a house that will last many an Atlantic hurricane as long as you drive pilings (or foundation materials) deep into the sand. A major storm might damage the shingles or shutters, even some of the siding and framing, but the house itself will not collapse if it has a proper foundation. Ever go to the shore and push your feet into the watery sand until it sucks your legs in tight? You are unmovable with your “foundation” anchored in simple sand.
For people, Jesus says, that “proper foundation” for life is the dynamic duo of hearing his words and putting them into action. We never really know or understand something unless we do something with it after we hear or read it. This is especially the case when Jesus calls us to obey. It is not enough, he warns, to say we know him or that we call him “Lord” or master or some such word of deference. We must listen to him and then follow through with what he has said.
To tie this in with what Jesus has been teaching in the verses just prior, we are not good just because we listen to Jesus or even applaud what he has to say. We are good because we do what Jesus says.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Fruit-bearing and Recognition
Luke 6:43-45
One issue with understanding Scriptures is determining whether or how a certain text is related to what comes immediately before or immediately after. These verses are a good case in point.
Here Jesus explains, first, that good trees bear good fruit and bad trees bear bad fruit and, second, that you can identify a tree by its fruit. For the agrarian-based society to which Jesus was talking, this made perfect sense. They all knew fruit trees and they all knew which trees were which. Nowadays, it is much harder to find people who can identify trees and even fruits can be hybrids, a mix, for example, of apple and pear.
By such analogy Jesus is teaching that what comes from inside a person is what identifies said person as good or evil. Thus, good trees do not produce bad fruit and bad trees do not produce good fruit.
As soon as I read that, I am struck by the realization that I have seen very bad people do very good things and very good people do very bad things. When I was a much younger man, I remember a New Jersey senator, Harrison Williams, a man I looked up to for how he showed much compassion for the poor. And yet he got caught up in a sting operation called Abscam. Disgraced, he resigned and did time.
I’ve learned over and over again that just about everyone is a mixed bag when it comes to producing good and evil. So how does this observation settle with what Jesus is saying in this passage?
Go back to what Jesus has just been saying about judging others. Jesus, who was perfect, was very slow to judge others and when he did, he preferred mercy over judgment – otherwise we’d all be crispy critters long before now. So he has been telling his audience, who are we to judge? We, who have planks in our own eyes, should be slow to clean out the eyes of those around us.
And yet, the very next thing Jesus is saying is that people’s goodness and badness will be self-evident. Before we rush off to study what Jesus has said elsewhere on the subject, it is good to meditate on why Jesus is saying such seemingly contradictory statements in nearly the same breath.
What follows? Jesus concludes this “Sermon on the Level Place” by talking about wise and foolish builders. I start to get a picture here. Jesus is placing the focus on judging ourselves, not on judging others. This is not about playing “Santa”, “gonna to find out who’s naughty and nice.” This is all about examining ourselves. He has just said, we can’t really properly judge others, not like God who is perfect.
But we can take a good hard look at ourselves. What do we see in ourselves? Good or evil? A good tree will not produce evil fruit and a bad tree will not produce good fruit. Whatever is in the heart of a person is going to flow out in what they say and do. Or as Jesus says, “out of the overflow of the heart.”
When my heart is full of goodness, that is what is going to gush out of me without even trying. It is not a forced goodness, but a goodness that flows naturally. Like an artesian well.
Here in the shadow of the Cascades, our creeks and rivers flow year round because they have a source that is not dependent on snow melt. Winter, summer, spring or fall, the underground water sources have an abundant supply.
So, too, it is with a person full of goodness. You don’t have to try and pump it out. It gushes forth on its own. A good person will bear good fruit without even trying. The character of a person will be self-evident. No mixed signals (or fruit). No hesitations or mixed messages or ineffective attempts at righteousness. Goodness is as natural to a good person as apples are to an apple tree.
So, Jesus says, in what follows next, don’t try to put yourself forth as something you are not. If you are good, it will come out as natural as fruit on a fruit-bearing tree.
One issue with understanding Scriptures is determining whether or how a certain text is related to what comes immediately before or immediately after. These verses are a good case in point.
Here Jesus explains, first, that good trees bear good fruit and bad trees bear bad fruit and, second, that you can identify a tree by its fruit. For the agrarian-based society to which Jesus was talking, this made perfect sense. They all knew fruit trees and they all knew which trees were which. Nowadays, it is much harder to find people who can identify trees and even fruits can be hybrids, a mix, for example, of apple and pear.
By such analogy Jesus is teaching that what comes from inside a person is what identifies said person as good or evil. Thus, good trees do not produce bad fruit and bad trees do not produce good fruit.
As soon as I read that, I am struck by the realization that I have seen very bad people do very good things and very good people do very bad things. When I was a much younger man, I remember a New Jersey senator, Harrison Williams, a man I looked up to for how he showed much compassion for the poor. And yet he got caught up in a sting operation called Abscam. Disgraced, he resigned and did time.
I’ve learned over and over again that just about everyone is a mixed bag when it comes to producing good and evil. So how does this observation settle with what Jesus is saying in this passage?
Go back to what Jesus has just been saying about judging others. Jesus, who was perfect, was very slow to judge others and when he did, he preferred mercy over judgment – otherwise we’d all be crispy critters long before now. So he has been telling his audience, who are we to judge? We, who have planks in our own eyes, should be slow to clean out the eyes of those around us.
And yet, the very next thing Jesus is saying is that people’s goodness and badness will be self-evident. Before we rush off to study what Jesus has said elsewhere on the subject, it is good to meditate on why Jesus is saying such seemingly contradictory statements in nearly the same breath.
What follows? Jesus concludes this “Sermon on the Level Place” by talking about wise and foolish builders. I start to get a picture here. Jesus is placing the focus on judging ourselves, not on judging others. This is not about playing “Santa”, “gonna to find out who’s naughty and nice.” This is all about examining ourselves. He has just said, we can’t really properly judge others, not like God who is perfect.
But we can take a good hard look at ourselves. What do we see in ourselves? Good or evil? A good tree will not produce evil fruit and a bad tree will not produce good fruit. Whatever is in the heart of a person is going to flow out in what they say and do. Or as Jesus says, “out of the overflow of the heart.”
When my heart is full of goodness, that is what is going to gush out of me without even trying. It is not a forced goodness, but a goodness that flows naturally. Like an artesian well.
Here in the shadow of the Cascades, our creeks and rivers flow year round because they have a source that is not dependent on snow melt. Winter, summer, spring or fall, the underground water sources have an abundant supply.
So, too, it is with a person full of goodness. You don’t have to try and pump it out. It gushes forth on its own. A good person will bear good fruit without even trying. The character of a person will be self-evident. No mixed signals (or fruit). No hesitations or mixed messages or ineffective attempts at righteousness. Goodness is as natural to a good person as apples are to an apple tree.
So, Jesus says, in what follows next, don’t try to put yourself forth as something you are not. If you are good, it will come out as natural as fruit on a fruit-bearing tree.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Judging Others – Part IV
Luke 6:41-42
One day (recorded elsewhere) some people drag this woman to Jesus. She’s been caught in an act of adultery with some man. (Never mind the obvious that he wasn’t dragged to Jesus along with her.) The woman’s accusers are bound to obey the law of Moses and stone her to death for her sin. Jesus doesn’t discredit Moses’ law. He doesn’t even disagree with their verdict of guilty. He says simply, “Whichever of you her accusers is without sin, cast the first stone.” The men all quietly leave and Jesus says to the woman, “I don’t condemn you either. Go and stop sinning.”
Here in Luke, Jesus says that before we start pointing fingers at the sins of others, we better take care of our own sins. He isn’t saying that once we clean up our own house, we can start yelling at other people to clean up theirs.
What happens when we start dealing with our own problems is we start understanding the role of mercy and grace in bringing healing and wholeness to our lives.
There’s an old proverb about the sun, the wind and a man with an overcoat. The sun and the wind are in a challenge match as to who can get the man to take off his coat. The wind blows and blows and the harder and longer he blows, the tighter the man wraps the coat around himself. Then the sun takes over, just beaming down quiet warmth. Pretty quickly, the man takes off the coat.
Jesus doesn’t even get to the point in this passage of explaining how to straighten up your brother. He simply says that before you start doing so, take care of your own problems first.
All this talk about specks and planks in eyes that Jesus uses to illustrate his point means that it is hard to solve your brother’s problem when you’ve got stuff in your own life. If I have a bit of dust get in my eye, I don’t want someone who has a pole sticking out of his to come clean out my dust.
What has Jesus been telling us about judging others?
1. Don’t judge, pure and simple.
2. Be as merciful with others as our Father in Heaven is merciful with us.
3. As we give (mercy), so will we be given (mercy) in return.
4. Don’t rush to judgment.
5. You can’t lead others if you can’t see the way yourself.
6. We don’t judge; we lead simply by pointing the way.
7. Take care of your own messes before you straighten out everyone else’s.
I am struck by this truth. Jesus, who was perfect, was very slow to judge others. When he did speak out, he did so in a very forthright way because his vision was clear. And he, like his Father in Heaven, preferred mercy over judgment.
I think I’ll take his cue. I definitely want God’s mercy and not His judgment.
One day (recorded elsewhere) some people drag this woman to Jesus. She’s been caught in an act of adultery with some man. (Never mind the obvious that he wasn’t dragged to Jesus along with her.) The woman’s accusers are bound to obey the law of Moses and stone her to death for her sin. Jesus doesn’t discredit Moses’ law. He doesn’t even disagree with their verdict of guilty. He says simply, “Whichever of you her accusers is without sin, cast the first stone.” The men all quietly leave and Jesus says to the woman, “I don’t condemn you either. Go and stop sinning.”
Here in Luke, Jesus says that before we start pointing fingers at the sins of others, we better take care of our own sins. He isn’t saying that once we clean up our own house, we can start yelling at other people to clean up theirs.
What happens when we start dealing with our own problems is we start understanding the role of mercy and grace in bringing healing and wholeness to our lives.
There’s an old proverb about the sun, the wind and a man with an overcoat. The sun and the wind are in a challenge match as to who can get the man to take off his coat. The wind blows and blows and the harder and longer he blows, the tighter the man wraps the coat around himself. Then the sun takes over, just beaming down quiet warmth. Pretty quickly, the man takes off the coat.
Jesus doesn’t even get to the point in this passage of explaining how to straighten up your brother. He simply says that before you start doing so, take care of your own problems first.
All this talk about specks and planks in eyes that Jesus uses to illustrate his point means that it is hard to solve your brother’s problem when you’ve got stuff in your own life. If I have a bit of dust get in my eye, I don’t want someone who has a pole sticking out of his to come clean out my dust.
What has Jesus been telling us about judging others?
1. Don’t judge, pure and simple.
2. Be as merciful with others as our Father in Heaven is merciful with us.
3. As we give (mercy), so will we be given (mercy) in return.
4. Don’t rush to judgment.
5. You can’t lead others if you can’t see the way yourself.
6. We don’t judge; we lead simply by pointing the way.
7. Take care of your own messes before you straighten out everyone else’s.
I am struck by this truth. Jesus, who was perfect, was very slow to judge others. When he did speak out, he did so in a very forthright way because his vision was clear. And he, like his Father in Heaven, preferred mercy over judgment.
I think I’ll take his cue. I definitely want God’s mercy and not His judgment.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Judging Others – Part III
Luke 6:40
Take this verse out of its context and it’s very straightforward: “A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.” On its own, this sentence makes sense in a very commonsensical way.
John quotes Jesus saying something similar over in his gospel (13:16) in regards to a servant not being greater than his master or a messenger being greater than the one who sent him. That context is about Jesus setting an example he expects his disciples to follow.
But what does this verse in Luke have to do with the verses that come before and after? In Matthew’s parallel teaching on judging others (7:1-5), this verse is not to be found.
Our temptations are one of two directions. One, we just take this verse at face value and ignore its context. Let each verse be a stand-alone. Or, two, we consider whether this verse is indeed part of the original sayings of Jesus. Maybe Luke (or whoever wrote this passage) added it in, or maybe the Early Church did so many years later.
What each of these temptations – one by “literalists” and the other by those who don’t think the Bible can be taken so literally – do is to miss out on the fuller meaning of the text. It may not hurt to take it face value and it may not hurt to examine the writings of different scholars as to its source, but as with most temptations, these are easy ways out. Maybe, just maybe, this is how Jesus actually said it. Then what was he after by putting this sentence in this particular context?
The larger context (verses 37-42) is all about being careful not to judge others, first, because in the way we treat others, we will be treated; and, second, because we can’t judge others very well when we haven’t dealt properly with our own faults. In judging others, we lead them, or attempt to do so. That is why we judge people, to set them straight, to “put them on the straight and narrow.” But how can we who are blinded by our own faults see clearly enough to lead others? If we try to do just that, we will all fall into a far greater mess. It is in this context, Jesus says, that a student is not above his teacher.
In China, I directed various schools and educational programs. One time I had a wonderful history teacher at our international school who was intimidated by her high school students, all who had lived in China far longer than she had. The intimidation came from having to teach them a year of Chinese history, something any one of them knew far better than she already. But she knew something they did not – she knew historical methodology. She knew how to take facts, data and information and turn it into useful historical analysis.
So I told her she didn’t need to teach them Chinese history as much as she needed to guide them in how to formulate what they did know and then add to that body of knowledge according to the historical analysis already formulated. Which is exactly what her class did under her tutelage. By year’s end, her students had designed a whole year’s curriculum in Chinese history for high school students.
I’ve often explained to teachers that a teacher really has to be only one step ahead of his or her students. It’s easier if you are many steps ahead, but you don’t have to be. A student is someone who has something to learn from someone else, who in this case becomes the teacher.
Then Jesus explains that when a student is fully trained he or she will indeed achieve the level of his or her own teacher. Our job is not to judge others as much as show them the way and help them gain skills in how to improve. No one is perfect. If this is true, then who can teach? Our job as humans is not to cast out the sin in others, but to point everyone to the One who can. It is the Holy Spirit actually, Jesus says elsewhere, who convicts of sin. But as followers of Jesus, we can point people to Jesus and to his Word. And his Spirit will take care of the rest.
Take this verse out of its context and it’s very straightforward: “A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.” On its own, this sentence makes sense in a very commonsensical way.
John quotes Jesus saying something similar over in his gospel (13:16) in regards to a servant not being greater than his master or a messenger being greater than the one who sent him. That context is about Jesus setting an example he expects his disciples to follow.
But what does this verse in Luke have to do with the verses that come before and after? In Matthew’s parallel teaching on judging others (7:1-5), this verse is not to be found.
Our temptations are one of two directions. One, we just take this verse at face value and ignore its context. Let each verse be a stand-alone. Or, two, we consider whether this verse is indeed part of the original sayings of Jesus. Maybe Luke (or whoever wrote this passage) added it in, or maybe the Early Church did so many years later.
What each of these temptations – one by “literalists” and the other by those who don’t think the Bible can be taken so literally – do is to miss out on the fuller meaning of the text. It may not hurt to take it face value and it may not hurt to examine the writings of different scholars as to its source, but as with most temptations, these are easy ways out. Maybe, just maybe, this is how Jesus actually said it. Then what was he after by putting this sentence in this particular context?
The larger context (verses 37-42) is all about being careful not to judge others, first, because in the way we treat others, we will be treated; and, second, because we can’t judge others very well when we haven’t dealt properly with our own faults. In judging others, we lead them, or attempt to do so. That is why we judge people, to set them straight, to “put them on the straight and narrow.” But how can we who are blinded by our own faults see clearly enough to lead others? If we try to do just that, we will all fall into a far greater mess. It is in this context, Jesus says, that a student is not above his teacher.
In China, I directed various schools and educational programs. One time I had a wonderful history teacher at our international school who was intimidated by her high school students, all who had lived in China far longer than she had. The intimidation came from having to teach them a year of Chinese history, something any one of them knew far better than she already. But she knew something they did not – she knew historical methodology. She knew how to take facts, data and information and turn it into useful historical analysis.
So I told her she didn’t need to teach them Chinese history as much as she needed to guide them in how to formulate what they did know and then add to that body of knowledge according to the historical analysis already formulated. Which is exactly what her class did under her tutelage. By year’s end, her students had designed a whole year’s curriculum in Chinese history for high school students.
I’ve often explained to teachers that a teacher really has to be only one step ahead of his or her students. It’s easier if you are many steps ahead, but you don’t have to be. A student is someone who has something to learn from someone else, who in this case becomes the teacher.
Then Jesus explains that when a student is fully trained he or she will indeed achieve the level of his or her own teacher. Our job is not to judge others as much as show them the way and help them gain skills in how to improve. No one is perfect. If this is true, then who can teach? Our job as humans is not to cast out the sin in others, but to point everyone to the One who can. It is the Holy Spirit actually, Jesus says elsewhere, who convicts of sin. But as followers of Jesus, we can point people to Jesus and to his Word. And his Spirit will take care of the rest.
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