Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of our season of Lent. If you attended a traditional Ash Wednesday service, you may have had the opportunity to recite Psalm 51, which is clearly a psalm of repentance.
Whatever you might be planning to do during Lent to draw closer to God, repentance is the place to begin. Through repentance, we open ourselves to God. Through repentance, we relieve ourselves of all sorts of burdens.
So, here is our prayer for today:
Psalm 51 (ESV)
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
The above text will be, God willing, the heart of my sermon this Sunday. When I wrote about it here more than a year ago, I focused on our dependency on God.
I had this Jewish offering recitation on my mind yesterday, which was very different from my usual Monday. I had a midday church-related meeting in Alcoa, Tenn., and being in the area, I had dinner with a clergy friend in Knoxville that evening.
In between these events, I worked in some sermon planning, but I also had about an hour to walk around the University of Tennessee campus, something I had not been able to do in several years.. I graduated from UT’s College of Communications in 1988.
The nature of change was on my mind all day. I had spent time discussing the impending split of our denomination; later, my friend and I talked about the terrible personal change he has experienced.
The campus walk seemed surreal. I passed from the completely familiar to the astonishingly new as I moved from block to block. Buildings where I had once taken classes—buildings that had been surrounded by large swaths of green space—now sat huddled in the shadows of gleaming new structures.
I actually was excited by all I saw. The new buildings are wonderful additions, and the campus seems to have a sense of continuity that it lacked 34 years ago.
Strangest of all: There are wheeled delivery robots roaming the streets, less than knee-high and politely waiting their turns at the crosswalks. They must be very new, as the students were as intrigued by them as I was. One young man bent over to examine one, and then patted it as if it were a dog.
A day like I had yesterday, a day marked by thoughts of change and evidence of change, can startle us. Sometimes, it can even depress us. It helps to have some sort of recitation in our minds, a narrative account of how all that we experience fits into a larger story, one with some constancy to it.
When good Jews recited these words from Deuteronomy, they were anchoring themselves in the great truth that God loves them. When there was change, God was there to lead them through it all. Disease, invaders, famine, whatever, they remembered they were children of a wandering Aramean, and ultimately, the children of God.
As Christians, we use a similar strategy. The Apostles’ Creed reminds us of all those points in history where God has intervened to make us, redeem us and sustain us, and it promises God is in control into an eternal future. In our individual lives, we learn to tell the stories of how God has reached out to us, incorporating us into that larger story.
When faced with change, perhaps we could learn to recite a story beginning along these lines: “Mine was a wandering heart, brought home by an always present and loving God.”
Lord, keep us constantly mindful of your presence. Amen.
Junk mail. I get it, you get it, we all get it. Usually, we just throw it away.
There’s a particularly annoying form of junk mail coming more and more. In recent years, marketers who use junk mail have become more deceptive as they try to get us to read what we didn’t want in our mailbox.
Instead of slick colors, the junk mail now sometimes comes in very official looking black-and-white envelopes, envelopes that practically scream, “I am important!”
I got a real humdinger. The return address was for a Florida office going by the name, “Records of Entitlement.”
The good folks there had printed “DISTRIBUTION OF FUNDS” on the envelope in thumbprint-sized letters. They also stamped “IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS” in another spot.
The sales pitch was fatally flawed in one way—it was addressed to “Resident” at my home address. It has been my experience that official funds aren’t distributed randomly to unnamed residents.
I did open the envelope just to see who could be so obnoxious. It was a local car dealership holding a sale.
But then I had an odd thought. Change “FUNDS” on that envelope to “GRACE,” stick the right information inside, and that envelope could be one of the most honest in the history of marketing.
If God were to use a mass mailing to reach people, that mailing would have to go to every resident of the world. God’s grace—by “grace,” I mean God’s loving offer to restore us and make us whole—is for everyone. The envelopes would make their way even to the people without homes and mailboxes.
Inside the envelope would be some basic information about how God came to earth as Jesus and died on the cross to keep us from suffering for our sins.
The pitch letter most certainly would quote John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
We also would learn about the resurrection, the incredible “raised from the dead” event that happened first to Jesus. It is an event that Jesus promised will happen later to all of us. We would read how the grace channeled to us through Jesus will let us live forever with God.
The end of the pitch, of course, would tell us how to qualify for this fantastic offer.
“Just believe in what Jesus has done, and your name will be placed on file with God’s ‘Records of Entitlement’ office. Your reward—joy —will be available to you both now and eternally into the future!”
Like I said, it was just an odd thought I had while opening my mail. God doesn’t use mass mailings to make such an offer to the world. God uses us.
Dear Lord, accepting Jesus as Savior is such a simple matter. Help us to help people discover this wonderful truth. Amen.
Before we launch into today’s verses from Zephaniah, let’s acquire a little background on his situation.
The prophet spoke about 630 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, during a time of religious indifference, social injustice and economic greed.
This also was an important time of transition for the Kingdom of Judah, which was moving from King Amon, who had been assassinated, to King Josiah, a boy king. A little later in Josiah’s reign, the Book of the Law would be rediscovered. Essentially, the people were about to re-learn who they were, and Josiah, for a time, would restore them to religious righteousness.
Zephaniah was a contemporary of the Prophet Jeremiah. It very well may be that what Zephaniah said helped lay the groundwork for the transition back toward holiness.
Let’s hear some of what he had to say, recorded in Zephaniah 1:7-18:
Stand in silence in the presence of the Sovereign Lord,
for the awesome day of the Lord’s judgment is near.
The Lord has prepared his people for a great slaughter
and has chosen their executioners.
“On that day of judgment,”
says the Lord,
“I will punish the leaders and princes of Judah
and all those following pagan customs.
Yes, I will punish those who participate in pagan worship ceremonies,
and those who fill their masters’ houses with violence and deceit.
“On that day,” says the Lord,
“a cry of alarm will come from the Fish Gate
and echo throughout the New Quarter of the city.
And a great crash will sound from the hills.
Wail in sorrow, all you who live in the market area,
for all the merchants and traders will be destroyed.
“I will search with lanterns in Jerusalem’s darkest corners
to punish those who sit complacent in their sins.
They think the Lord will do nothing to them,
either good or bad.
So their property will be plundered,
their homes will be ransacked.
They will build new homes
but never live in them.
They will plant vineyards
but never drink wine from them.
“That terrible day of the Lord is near.
Swiftly it comes—
a day of bitter tears,
a day when even strong men will cry out.
It will be a day when the Lord’s anger is poured out—
a day of terrible distress and anguish,
a day of ruin and desolation,
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and blackness,
a day of trumpet calls and battle cries.
Down go the walled cities
and the strongest battlements!
“Because you have sinned against the Lord,
I will make you grope around like the blind.
Your blood will be poured into the dust,
and your bodies will lie rotting on the ground."
Your silver and gold will not save you
on that day of the Lord’s anger.
For the whole land will be devoured
by the fire of his jealousy.
He will make a terrifying end
of all the people on earth.
It’s hard to miss the sound of irrevocable finality in this concept of the “Day of the Lord.” Zephaniah may seem obscure to us, but the Day of the Lord is a common biblical theme, its images at times playing out in not-completely-final ways, giving us little preludes of what we are told is to come.
Not everyone lives as if they will ever see such a day, including many who consider themselves God’s followers. In church circles, it is not unusual to hear people express a longing for the positive aspect of such a day, the visible return and rule of Jesus Christ. People ask, “Why does he take so long?”
And yet, judgment for both the living and the dead will accompany Christ’s return. I suspect many will examine their lives and cry out, “We needed more time!”
Christians live in the midst of a people much like Zephaniah’s, and we have to be careful not to fall in with them. It’s easy to think of examples of religious indifference, social injustice and economic greed all around us.
Our prayer should be that we’re moving into a similar time of transition, a rediscovery of what God has revealed to us and an awakening in our culture to how that truth impacts all of us.
Thanks be to God that he works in this world with an offer of overwhelming love and forgiveness, received through the simple belief that Christ died on the cross for our sins.
In return, all we are asked to do is to present the world with this tremendous opportunity to escape from what ultimately will be destroyed on the Day of the Lord.
Lord, show each of us what to do as part of a great turning back to you. Amen.
Today’s epistle reading in the daily lectionary is 1 Corinthians 11:17-22, 27-33. Paul gives instructions regarding communion, and how it can be taken worthily or unworthily.
When we take communion, we of course do this in remembrance of Christ’s Last Supper with his disciples. Traditionally, if we think of a painting, we tend to think of DaVinci’s famous depiction. There are other attempts to picture this moment, and I particularly like the one above, painted by Artus Wolffort around 1630. As we prepare for future opportunities to take communion worthily, perhaps meditating on this work will help.
Hope your screen is big enough, and that your week is increasingly blessed!
A detail from Fedor Bronnikov’s “Lazarus at the Rich Man’s Home,” painted in 1886.
A Parable of Jesus, from Luke 16:19-31 (NRSV)
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores.
“The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.
“He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’
“He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’
“Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
By Chuck Griffin
Having heard the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, you may be having trouble seeing yourself in the story. That’s understandable. Lottery jackpot billboards aside, most of us don’t seriously imagine a life of great wealth and constant feasting. I suspect our basic psychological makeup also makes it difficult for us to imagine having fallen so low in life that we could end up lying in the street with festering sores, stray dogs the only creatures who seem to notice us.
And yet, I find this parable to be almost universally applicable.
Certainly, the lesson is taught through extremes of wealth and poverty. But at the same time, it’s not really about the dangers of wealth, nor does it somehow invest poverty with a kind of holiness. Instead, Jesus gives us a lesson for the heart.
Notice something about both men in the first of the parable. They simply are described in their respective states. There’s no evidence they interact; at no point does poor Lazarus actually ask the rich man for anything, and at no point is the rich man portrayed as having rejected Lazarus directly. They simply are in proximity to each other.
The parable points out the danger of a terrible sin, a sin we seldom talk about. It is the sin of self-absorption, of being unable to see a need that is before us. It is the sin of unsearching eyes; it is the sin of walking past someone and not caring.
We tend to think, “It is what I do that could send me to hell, to an eternity separated from God.” Jesus is telling us something very different—there is tremendous danger in what we fail to do.
The extremes of wealth and poverty are in the story for a basic reason. They make clear the rich man has no excuse for his failure to act. With such wealth, he could have easily cared for the poor man who had wandered into his circle of influence. The rich man would not have missed what Lazarus required for restored health and a decent standard of living.
The rich man is not condemned for failing to care for all poor people, just for failing to help the one at his gate. I’m reminded of the story of the thousands of starfish washed ashore on a beach, gasping and dying. A little girl walked the ocean’s edge, throwing starfish into the ocean.
A man came along and said, “Little girl, there’s no way you can save all those starfish!”
“You’re right,” she replied, throwing another one in the ocean. “But I saved that one.”
The rich man could have at least said of Lazarus, “I saved that one.”
Some may protest this interpretation by pointing out how we are saved by faith, not works, and on that point, I would agree. We can do nothing without the grace of God at work in us, and we receive God’s saving grace through a belief in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.
Jesus intertwines faith and action in his teachings, however, presenting them as the rope that pulls us from the pit. This parable has much in common with Jesus’ teaching about the final judgment in Matthew 25:31-46, where he sorts the judged to his left and right—to damnation or eternal joy—based on how they treated the stranger, the poor, the sick and the imprisoned.
The lesson is the same in both accounts: Our actions best reveal whether our hearts rest near the bosom of Christ.
This teaching is good news! We are actually being invited to participate in God’s restorative work in the world. All we have to do is pray that the Christ who saves us also makes us intentional about seeing the brokenness around us.
I once worked in a nonprofit relief organization with a woman who required a family to allow her to make a home visit before they could receive any significant aid. I asked her one day why she did that—I could tell some of the families felt they were being scrutinized or even judged.
She laughed, telling me that yes, some of them probably felt that way, but the home visits let her see the needs the families weren’t revealing. Even the poorest people in rural Upper East Tennessee are generally a proud bunch, and often the problem was getting them to ask for all the help our little nonprofit could provide.
When I understood what she was doing, I admired her approach. She was actively searching for need so she could see it and address it.
The end of the parable emphasizes the overall point. The rich man’s last request is that Lazarus be sent to his presumably rich brothers as a warning about the danger of their hard-heartedness. Abraham makes it clear that these lessons about compassion have already been delivered by Moses and prophets, and that men who failed to hear those ancient words would continue in their deafness “even if someone rises from the dead.”
And there again is the great danger of unseeing self-absorption. When we fall into it, we miss God entirely. In God’s greatest work in this world, Christ rose from the dead, but self-absorption can leave us blind to even this great miracle.
Lord, make us alert. Show us the broken people in this world and how we can play some small part in undoing their suffering. Amen.
Psalm 120 (NLT)
A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.
I took my troubles to the Lord;
I cried out to him, and he answered my prayer.
Rescue me, O Lord, from liars
and from all deceitful people.
O deceptive tongue, what will God do to you?
How will he increase your punishment?
You will be pierced with sharp arrows
and burned with glowing coals.
How I suffer in far-off Meshech.
It pains me to live in distant Kedar.
I am tired of living
among people who hate peace.
I search for peace;
but when I speak of peace, they want war!
By Chuck Griffin
Spend some time reading and praying the psalms, and you will soon notice that there seems to be at least one for every situation.
Psalm 120 is a good example. This psalm oozes with grouchiness, a vocal complaint from someone who has grown tired of the deceit around him. Traditionally, this psalm is attributed to David, written when he was under attack by fellow Israelites and forced to live among foreigners.
The psalmist craves a life among peaceful people, people who say what they mean and mean what they say, with no calculated corruption of what God has revealed to be holy and right. When he declares these deceptive tongues will be pierced by sharp arrows and burned by hot coals, his desire for revenge becomes clear.
We’ve all been there, some of us pretty recently. Tolerance is a powerful, Christ-like virtue. But it doesn’t take long for mere humans to become angry when we realize the people we have long tolerated are themselves intolerant, actively working to obfuscate God’s revealed truth.
When we’re feeling such anger, there is nothing wrong with praying this psalm out loud. Just keep that prayer in perspective. The psalmist doesn’t speak of arrows he will launch and burning coals he will impose on these people. Instead, he uses them as symbols of the punishment that God will deliver.
We take comfort in the great promise that the righteous will be rewarded, while the deceitful and manipulative will reap what they have sown.
Our main task in troubled times is to stay right with God. Just keep taking it all to the Lord.
Dear Lord, give us Christ-like demeanors in times of strife, and continue to offer us your grace when we are burdened with anger. Amen.
Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, “How have we robbed you?” In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.
By Chuck Griffin
I should begin with a big word of thanks to all of you who have supported a church financially in any way. Those of us who lead churches don’t say thanks enough to those of you who support Christ’s mission with your dollars.
So, thanks be to God for you; thanks, whether you gave a dollar or a thousand dollars or twenty thousand dollars. When you give, you are part of the solution the church offers to the world.
I wanted to start out with words of thanks because today’s verses, read without much context, sound like a mixture of threats and promises tied to whether you tithe and give other offerings. Don’t tithe, and you are robbing God and faced with a curse. Do tithe, and you will receive an overflowing blessing. And I know that preachers often imitate this text, making threats and promises where church giving is concerned.
I will note that Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament in our Christian Bible, so we should expect more legalistic formulas for relating to God. Jesus Christ, the ultimate expression of God’s forgiving grace, is not yet visibly in the picture.
I don’t, however, want to simply write off Malachi’s words about tithes and offerings as somehow irrelevant. In fact, this minor prophet makes a major connection between what he says about tithes and offerings and the reasons for Christ’s entry into the world.
Malachi’s straightforward question, “Will anyone rob God?” comes in the midst of other, more mysterious and far-reaching words. Just before he speaks of tithes and offerings, the prophet has been speaking of a coming messenger, to be followed by the arrival of the Lord. These words long have been associated with the ministry of John the Baptist—the Messiah’s herald—and the coming of Jesus Christ.
After Malachi speaks of tithes and offerings, he raises a new subject, how God will respond to the faithful. That leads ultimately to prophecies about “the great and terrible day of the Lord,” a time when the wicked and righteous are finally sorted, with the righteous entering a glorious new life. These images remind me of Jesus’ more detailed words in Matthew 25:31-46, where he makes clear that he will be the one to do the sorting.
All of that Messiah and End Days imagery, with talk of tithes and offerings sandwiched in between, causes me to reconsider my understanding of tithing. In fact, that big-picture perspective is what should convince us to tithe.
Certainly, tithing was part of the Mosaic law, the code the Jews tried to live by to remain in relationship with God. It’s important to note, however, that tithing predated the law.
Tithing also didn’t just go away after God’s grace more clearly entered the picture through Christ. Consider this: How did the early church, made up largely of Jews used to tithing, respond to the resurrected Jesus? Rather than shrinking their giving, they gave everything they had. (See Acts 2:43-47.)
If we could interview them, I think we would be hard pressed to find an early Christian who would describe tithing as anything more than a starting point in support of God’s redemptive work.
Scripturally, tithing for thousands of years has served as the baseline for how we participate in God’s effort to move us toward a time when evil is vanquished for good. In the world we live in now, a world where money is the primary driver behind how everything works, we still have to talk frankly about how money gets into church coffers. It gets there because people like you make commitments that the money will be there, and I think the tithe remains the appropriate beginning point for Christian giving.
Here’s a little church math to consider. As best I can tell, United Methodist households in churches I have served give about 4 percent of their income toward the work of their churches. That’s an average covering every active household, whether a household gave nothing or thousands of dollars.
If we could raise that average by one percentage point, incredible things would happen. A percentage point doesn’t sound like much, but if churches would move from an average of 4 percent per household to an average of 5 percent, our funds for ministry would jump by 25 percent.
I dive into this church math for one reason. I want you to see there is increasing power as we move toward tithing in a community, the kind of power that helps change the world.
With more finances available, we could tell more people about Jesus. We could feed more people and clothe more people in Jesus’ name. We could do more for our children and youth and our homebound elderly. We could start ministries we have yet to imagine.
Maybe we would minister with more programs and facilities to serve the people we’re trying to reach. Maybe we would reach out to the community with more paid ministry staff to lead the way. However our churches might minister, lives would be changed, even more so than they are being changed now.
Here’s what I want you to walk away with today: You are not required under some sort of law to tithe, or to give at any level. As grateful recipients of God’s eternal grace, however, you are invited to participate in God’s restorative work, using the financial resources God has given you.
Lord, speak to our hearts directly about how we use our resources to benefit your kingdom. Amen.
No doubt, we’ve been experiencing tough times. It’s not much consolation, but we do need to remember that times have been tougher.
In the Book of Lamentations, the Promised Land is depicted as smoking ruins, and we are told that starving mothers ate their children. Never forget that the Bible can be a grisly book.
As Lamentations notes, at least the destruction of sinful Sodom and Gomorrah was quick. Jerusalem’s punishment for disobeying God was slow and agonizing, creating scenes that even the seedier side of Hollywood might hesitate to depict.
Jewish tradition holds that this series of poems was written by the prophet Jeremiah, who warned the people of Judah that God’s punishment was coming and then watched invasion, destruction and exile unfold through his long life.
I cannot fully capture for you the somber beauty of these poems in a short article. If the imagery were not crafted with elegant conciseness, most readers would quickly turn away from the dark subject matter.
In these poems, the author twists in pain as he struggles to reconcile God’s obvious anger with God’s faithful love.
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness,” says the writer in chapter 3. He later says of God, “Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone.”
Yes, when God removes his protective hand from a disobedient people, terrible things happen. Existence without God is hellish. In fact, the best way to define hell is as a place separated from God.
But in the midst of all this horror, the author senses one important fact about God. His love for humanity, even for each individual human, remains, and somehow, somewhere, there must be an ultimate solution to the pain sin causes.
Once again, we find the Old Testament pointing toward the New Testament, that record of the ultimate solution found in Jesus Christ. We are reminded in the midst of suffering that God finally chose to suffer with us, in the process using the cross to solve the dilemma of human disobedience. Through simple belief, our sin is erased, and we receive the promise that the horrible effects of sin will be wiped from the world one day.
At the close of Lamentations, the author prays that his people be restored to God, “unless you have utterly rejected us, and are angry with us beyond measure.”
In Christ, we find that God loves us beyond measure. With Christ in our lives, we can walk through tough times with confidence and even joy, knowing God is eternally faithful.
People are called from all stations in life to follow and serve the Lord. Matthew 9:9-13, the story of the calling of a tax collector, is a great example. In many ways, Matthew was an enemy to his people, collecting taxes for hated oppressors. But Jesus saw something holy in him and called him to a new life.
“The Calling of St. Matthew,” James Tissot, circa 1890
Methodist Life 