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Your Daily Lenten Devotional
April 6, 2012

Into the Wilderness

Good Friday: Who Holds the Future?

The Wicked Tenants Mark 12:1-12

Some years ago 60 Minutes interviewed a newly elected member of the British Parliament from Belfast, Northern Ireland. What made the election newsworthy was her open support of the Irish Republican Army, a group viewed by many at that time to be engaged in acts of violent resistance to Protestant (and British) control of Northern Ireland. Given the religious dimension of the violence in that troubled nation, the interviewer understandably pursued that line of questioning. Given the Parliament member’s strong support of the IRA, the interviewer asked her: “Is God on your side?”

Her reply was unnerving, both in its seriousness and implications: “God is on the side of the winner.” At the risk of oversimplifying, she was declaring that the outcome of events reveals God’s favor or “siding.” For her, finding God is not a difficult search for right or wrong, moral or immoral but simply in identifying who is left on top of the heap when the smoke has cleared and the killing is over.

Such opportunism stamps this parable from Mark. The tenants perceive that life belongs to those willing and determined to succeed at any cost. An absentee landlord has allowed them the favorable chance to stake out their claims on land he has set them to work upon. The servants sent to collect his due are easily, and gradually more brutally, turned away empty. Possession of that vineyard and its produce has become the one end by which the tenants measure all actions. Even when the owner finally sends his son, the tenants seize an opportunity not to make peace but to make their strongest claim. They kill the son. The heir is gone. The land will be theirs. God must be on their side, for the future now belongs to them.

Momentarily.

As the parable ends, those left standing on top of the heap of history simply become another layer of sedimentary failures. The violence by which they lived becomes the curse by which they die. The vineyard passes on to other hands. Jesus elsewhere tells equally stern stories but not often. And now he strikes a raw nerve. The religious authorities of his day are infuriated, hearing in these words an indictment of their own poor stewardship of God’s good purposes. Fear delays their intent to arrest–but not for long. In a few short days they have the teller of parables arrested in the middle of the night and crucified in the heat of the day.

And why not? God is on the side of the winner.

At approximately three o’clock on that Friday now called Good, who could argue the point? This threat to the future has been executed. Roman power efficiently dispatches a misguided rabbi and two thieves from the land of the living. The future belongs to those left standing at the end of the day. And at the end of this day Jesus stood no more. The one who told a story of a beloved son put to death out of envy became the story himself.

It is a story and a strategy repeated again and again among us. Brute force. Political opportunism. Kill or be killed. Only the strong survive. Do unto others before they do unto you. The name and context may change from generation to generation, but the core attitude remains the same. God is on the side of the winner. To the victor go the spoils.

We do well to linger in the shadows of Good Friday to appreciate the power and seduction of such logic. We do well to linger in the shadows of Good Friday to reflect on our own complicity in its continuing unfoldings among us. We may not be executioners who drive nails or plotters of another’s demise. But we may at times yield to those seemingly smaller killings of spirit and hope that over time contribute to the stigmata of Christ’s wounds by wounding others. We may at times be seduced by self-serving ends that justify
any means. We may give in to the illusion that God is on the side of the last one standing in our view and time.

But the parable reminds us that views and times change. The tenants succeed only momentarily. By neglecting the truth of the vineyard’s owner, they neglect the force of a future beyond their control and manipulation.

What does that perspective bring to our vigil of Good Friday? Religious authorities enforced their purpose. Rome executed Jesus. We are not yet at Easter morning, so we still grieve the shadow cast by an embodied crucifix. But conspirators and capital punishers have overlooked the force of a future beyond their control and manipulation. True, at the end of the day Jesus no longer stands. But in the chill of this day’s closing, as from a still unseen distance, come whisperings. A story told of a vineyard’s owner who will not be forever denied. A closing word of a stone rejected soon to become a cornerstone. A future that belongs not to the last one standing but to the one(s) God at the last “stands up”: in Greek, anastasis; in English, resurrects.

Holy God, help me to trust so in your future that I may live faithfully today. Amen.

Spiritual Exercise

Read one of the Crucifixion accounts in the Gospels. If possible, as you do so listen to a meditative piece of music such as Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Where in that story and in this day do you experience hope that encourages you to live in trust of God’s future, come what may?

Excerpted from:

Parables and Passion: Jesus’ Stories for the Days of Lent
John Indermark
Retail Price: $15.00
CBD Price: $11.99

Parables and Passion offers a disciplined encounter with the parables of Jesus in the season of Lent. The book allows reflection on one parable each day arranged around relevant themes. The Prologue offers a reading for Ash Wednesday, and the Epilogue provides readings for the final days of Holy Week.

Used with the kind permission of our friends at Upper Room Books.

Your Daily Lenten Devotional
April 4, 2012

Into the Wilderness

Prodigals

The Lost Son and the Father’s Love Luke 15:11-24

Neither Jesus nor Luke use the word prodigal in telling or recording this parable. It is a label the church only later superimposed upon it. And with great success. Say aloud “prodigal son” in a congregation, and you will likely see heads nod in recognition and familiarity. “Oh, yes, the prodigal. My cousin’s nephew was such a boy. Wandered off. Got himself good and lost doing you know what with you know who. Made a mess of his life. But just like the story, he came to his senses and returned home. Got his act together. Made amends. And now that prodigal is part of the family again. Thank God!”

There is nothing wrong with that story, that joy, that thanksgiving. Would that all those whose faces and memories come to mind with the mention of “prodigal” turn out that way. But that’s not the whole story of this parable. Lo and behold, there’s more than one prodigal here! I should tell you up front that we don’t get to the elder son until the next reading–so that’s not the other prodigal I mean. The other prodigal is the father.

Prodigal: “recklessly wasteful…profuse in giving…a person given to luxury or extravagance” (The American Heritage Dictionary). The church imposed “prodigal” on this parable out of that first understanding of its definition. The younger child took all he had and “squandered his property in dissolute living.” But sometimes the church acts just like the first disciples and misunderstands Jesus. We want to talk about seats in glory and positions of privilege, when Jesus wants to move the conversation to service and humility. We want to pull out our swords and hack away at the opponents, when Jesus knows violence begets violence…and love eventually begets love. We want to tell everybody about a prodigal son, when Jesus wants to tell us about a prodigal parent.

“Profuse in giving.” This parent divides up the shares of the family property, an act usually reserved until after death. For the younger boy, his dad can’t die soon enough; and the father goes along with it. Is giving profusely a good way to teach responsibility?

“A person given to extravagance.” The boy is walking back home, destitute, a failure. He has his speech of remorse duly memorized and rehearsed. Nothing in the text suggests any insincerity on his part. Now is an ideal time for this young man to learn a hard lesson about humility. And who else should be in charge of hard lessons but a parent? How else can we make sure our children understand the gravity of their mistakes? How else can we restore the authority that belongs to this relationship? The boy has acted as though the father couldn’t die quick enough. So now we stand alongside that father as he waits and watches the youthful prodigal slowly walk toward the house and kin once abandoned. We would understand the father if a gate swings closed or a door locks tight. We might even understand if the father receives the wanderer only after listening to every heart-wrenching word.

But how can we understand the extravagance of this old prodigal? What do we make of someone who acts as though the apology is secondary to the return, who runs to meet the one who should be crawling through the mud for what has been done? Years ago I heard Kenneth Bailey speak of this parable’s affront. Even more shameful than what the son has done is how the father now caves in. Such an act undermines authority, not just in family but in community. For if such a one returns home and receives such honor and extravagant welcome, what will that mean for the village, for the society?

In Dr. Bailey’s estimation such an act in that time merited punishment–not of the son, mind you, but of the father. The parable runs deeper than just a story of family reunion. Recall the complaint against Jesus that Luke identifies at the beginning of this chapter: “‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”‘ This parable arises out of conflict in that community over respectability and community standards. Jesus has gone outside those bounds. In the narrative, and subtly within the parable, we are on the way to Jerusalem. At stake is what will be done with one whose love and grace is prodigal.

We are not done with this parable, for another character stands on its edges. This portion closes by asserting that the dead live and the lost are found. The order of those statements implies that death and life may not be as consequential as whether one is lost or found. The movement between death and life, lost and found occurs in the parable through a prodigal’s love for a prodigal. The movement between death and life, lost and found occurs in our lives by the prodigal love incarnate for us in Jesus’ ministry and passion.

You find and enliven me with such extravagant grace, 0 God: given in creation, affirmed in redemption, promised in hope. Help me remember I am a child and heir of such prodigal love. Amen.

Spiritual Exercise

Remember times when you may have had cause to approach God as did this younger son. As you remember those times, imagine the scene of this parable’s welcome of the one returning. God has welcomed you. God has graced you. Even before you start “home,” God’s arms open wide in embrace. Consider how God’s embrace of you invites your welcome of others.

Excerpted from:

Parables and Passion: Jesus’ Stories for the Days of Lent
John Indermark
Retail Price: $15.00
CBD Price: $11.99

Parables and Passion offers a disciplined encounter with the parables of Jesus in the season of Lent. The book allows reflection on one parable each day arranged around relevant themes. The Prologue offers a reading for Ash Wednesday, and the Epilogue provides readings for the final days of Holy Week.

Used with the kind permission of our friends at Upper Room Books.

Your Daily Lenten Devotional
April 3, 2012

Into the Wilderness

Until Recently, Dead!

Read John 12:1-11.

Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him (vv. 1-2, NIV).

Today we’re going to step out of the time-line sequence of the Gospel story. But it’s a deliberate move–because The Greatest Story Ever Told is being told for a reason. I want to reexamine the setting for Holy Week.

For me, the reason for the story of Holy Week always comes into clearer focus when I think of my family. I know I write about my children a lot, but my experiences with them tell the story of redemption and reconciliation so clearly that I can’t help but listen.

Recently, my daughter, Naomi, and her husband, Craig, came home for a week to celebrate my birthday. It would have been great to have our son, Andrew, in the mix too, but traveling from Tuscany is more of a challenge than from Connecticut, and Rebekah and I were going to be heading his way before long.

My birthday celebration was a long affair, during which we ate a large dinner together. But the repast—as in bread, wine, lasagna, chicken Parmesan, cannelloni, spaghetti, coffee, chocolate cake, and so forth—only constituted a small part of the occasion. Love and presence, not food, held sway over the evening.

At Table With Jesus, Living As If We Mean It

And so today we’re jumping back to John 12, the story of Jesus attending a dinner party in Bethany. It’s the day before his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. This time the meal is more like a deep breath, a last moment of tranquility before Jesus purposefully walks into Jerusalem to experience betrayal and a violent death. There is peace around the table—good friends hanging out, enjoying one another’s presence. And look who’s there! Lazarus, who until recently, lay dead in his tomb!

The Easter story is all about living completely, radically, and consummately; about living out loud, living as if we mean it. That is, after all, why Jesus was willing to go to Jerusalem and to give up absolutely everything for the people who were reclining with him around the table. He is still most welcome—not as a guest but as family.

Celebration is incomplete any other way.

Don’t Just Do Something; Sit There!

Sometimes we find ourselves in such a hurry to extract all the meaning possible from this time of the year that we forget to sit at the table with Jesus and to just be. Jesus and his friends simply enjoyed the meal in Bethany. For Lazarus the joy was in being alive.

So I’m interested in a Lenten experience that for today at least puts “being” ahead of “doing.” Many of us frantically “do” faith, showing up for every event at church, throwing ourselves into service and mission, tuning in to Christian radio in our cars. We try hard to live the practical expression of a holy life.

That’s fine. But what are we doing about being holy? I believe that we should sometimes ground our experience in a spiritual practice that invites an attitude of “don’t just do something—sit there”! Or, to use a phrase that my wife, Rebekah, often employs, “Everything we do at this church comes out of worship.” And our worship would certainly benefit from a little more “Be still and understand the presence of God” as the impetus for the “doing” part of our faith journey.

Being Moves Us Into Doing

Such a vital experience of being propels us into action, action grounded in a more vital connection to “the source of all being.” God, in my experience, is interested in occupying every element of our experience. The Creator doesn’t just give us marching orders at church and check off what we’re up to–God wants to inhabit our being and transform the experience.

In Mark’s account of the “parable of the sower,” Jesus pointed out that life can–and will–get in the way of the message when we forget to be still.

“Some folk are exposed to God’s words; but then other–more pressing–priorities crowd their lives and get in the way. Eventually the message is pretty much lost to them. God’s voice is choked out, and people receive no benefit from the transformational life it offers” (Mark 4:18-19, author’s paraphrase).

Prayer: We know how important it is to be still and tune in to your voice, God. Help us to reprioritize and schedule more time at the table with Jesus. Amen.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
God will help it when the morning dawns.
The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Come, behold the works of the Lord;
see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth.”

Psalm 46:4-10

Excerpted from:

Reaching Toward Easter: Devotions for Lent
Derek Maul
Retail Price: $16.00
CBD Price: $10.49

Reaching Toward Easter by Derek Maul offers a daily devotional pilgrimage through Lent, using the framework of the Gospel of John as a guide. Features include a suggested scripture reading for each day, prayers for personal devotions, and a leader’s guide for weekly group meetings.

Used with the kind permission of our friends at Upper Room Books.

Your Daily Lenten Devotional

April 2, 2012
 
Into the Wilderness

You Can’t Handle the Truth


Read John 18:19-24.



Then the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. Jesus answered, “I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said” (vv. 19-21). 

As Peter and the Beloved Disciple were waiting in the courtyard, Jesus was being dragged into a “kangaroo court” where his accusers could yell at him with impunity and try to justify their actions. But Jesus, when asked about his teaching, challenged the high priest’s motives for asking and suggested that they question the crowds. Jesus pointed out that he had done nothing in secret. John picks up the story:


“When he had said this, one of the police standing nearby struck Jesus on the face, saying, ‘Is that how you answer the high priest?’ Jesus answered, ‘If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me’?” (John 18:22-23).

Jesus spoke the truth, which is what he always did and which is exactly why he was hit in the face. The official did nothing more than act out what many frustrated people desire to do when they are confronted with the truth of their actions–he lashed out. No one present could come up with anything in Jesus’ actions that was actually illegal, and when Jesus pointed that out emotions ruled and there seemed nothing else to do but to hit him. I can imagine the high priest’s police stamping their feet, raising their voices, and lashing out because they couldn’t bully Jesus without him turning it into some kind of lesson.


When I taught in the public schools, I encountered a lot of children who responded just like that official. Unfortunately, I know a bunch of adults who react like that too. Because–and we all know this deep down–there is no antidote to the truth, just as there is no darkness that can possibly eradicate light. Jesus stood in what had become a dark place, and the light of his incisive truth was simply too much for them to deal with.

With Jesus There Are No Secrets

When questioned, Jesus immediately reminded his accusers about the openness in his ministry, and openness is inherent to light and truth. Everything about his ministry was open and available to inspection, a fact evidenced by the number of people who were always welcomed and encouraged to ask questions. Even when Jesus was teaching directly to his close-knit group of disciples, there was often a fair crowd gathered, looking on, just to listen and to learn.


There was a fair crowd of people at my church yesterday morning. There always is, and I am sure that some who showed up were a little like the high priest’s officers—not only curious but also looking for a reason not to believe. You know what I mean because we’ve all been there. Too much truth makes us nervous, so we find fault with the truth-teller, change the subject, or lash out in frustration, trying hard to be mad about something so that we can avoid dealing with God’s kind of truth.
 
But Jesus understands. “Please,” he invites us, “tell me what it is that is wrong.” But at the same time he is not willing to let us off the hook. No, facing the truth is too important for that, and things have gone too far for that kind of a graceful exit! Because his truth is designed to expose our lie, his presence reminds us the extent of God’s commitment to our healing, and his light illuminates our need for the kind of grace God always has in mind.



Caiaphas, the high priest, passed up another golden opportunity to learn from the Savior and instead sent him on his way to the Cross. There is always the danger that we will do the same. What truth is Jesus confronting you with today? Will you be transformed? Or will you simply strike out and turn away?

Prayer: Please don’t let us off the hook either, Lord. Don’t leave, just because we are so nervous. Expose our need with the light of your truth and then heal us with your grace. Amen.

 
Excerpted from:

Reaching Toward Easter: Devotions for Lent
Derek Maul
Retail Price: $16.00
CBD Price: $10.49

Reaching Toward Easter by Derek Maul offers a daily devotional pilgrimage through Lent, using the framework of the Gospel of John as a guide. Features include a suggested scripture reading for each day, prayers for personal devotions, and a leader’s guide for weekly group meetings.
     
Used with the kind permission of our friends at Upper Room Books.

Your Daily Lenten Devotional

March 29, 2012

Into the Wilderness

Mark 12.1-17; focused on 12.1-12



Jesus began to speak to them with parables.

’Once upon a time,’ he began, ‘there was a man who planted a vineyard. He built a fence around it, dug out a wine-press, built a watchtower, and then let it out to tenant farmers. He himself went abroad. When the time came he sent a slave to the farmers to collect from them his portion of the vineyard’s produce. They seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed.

’So again he sent another slave to them. This one they beat about the head, and treated shamefully. He sent another, and they killed him. He sent several more; they beat some and killed others.

’He had one more to send: his beloved son. He sent him to them last of all, thinking “They will respect my son”.
‘But the tenant farmers said to themselves,

”This is the heir! Come on – let’s kill him, and we’ll get the inheritance!” ‘So they seized him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

’So what will the vineyard owner do? He will come and destroy those tenants, and give the vineyard to others. Or haven’t you read the scripture which says, 

There is the stone the builders refused; now it’s in place at the top of the corner. “This happened the way the Lord planned it; we were astonished to see it.’ 

They tried to find a way of arresting him, because they realized he had directed the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd. They left him and went away.

Mark Twain is reputed to have said that history never repeats itself, but that it often rhymes. In other words, although every event is unique, many events resemble others. They fall into a pattern. Sometimes, looking back along the line of unrepeatable events, one may detect a kind of poetry. A sequence that makes sense, that echoes and resonates down the years.

There are two senses in which the present passage, one of Jesus’ most famous stories, ‘rhymes’ in that sort of way. To begin with, rather obviously within the story itself, the point Jesus is making is that the vineyard owner has sent one servant after another to the vineyard, and each one has been treated–well, not exactly alike, but all alike with violence and contempt. This reaches a crescendo when the owner sends his own beloved son. This is how it works, Jesus is saying; listen for the rhyme, and see what’s going to happen next.

Behind this story itself, at the level of Jesus’ own ministry, we hear other echoes, other rhymes: of Jesus coming to look for figs on the fig tree and, finding none, pronouncing a solemn curse on the tree. It was, as we saw, a sign of his coming to Jerusalem looking for the fruit of obedience to God’s way and his purposes, and, finding none, acting out dramatically God’s judgment on the Temple itself. Now he tells a story of people coming to look for fruit, not from a fig tree but from a vineyard; and this time, instead of the plants being in trouble, it is the tenant farmers.

The second sense in which the present passage ‘rhymes’ is that Jesus is standing, and must have been conscious of standing, in a long line of prophets who have told similar stories, with similar intent. Chief among them is Isaiah, who in chapter 5 wrote a song about a vineyard–the vineyard which was Israel itself, the people who should have produced the fruit of justice and right living, but who instead produced only the wild grapes of wickedness and violence (Isaiah 5.7).

But there were other echoes, other ‘rhymes, in the long Jewish tradition. Daniel interpreted the king’s dream of a statue made of four metals being overthrown by a ‘stone’ which smashed it on its feet and which, in turn became a kingdom (Daniel 2). Jesus speaks, at the end of his story, of the ‘stone’ that the builders refused; and, in Hebrew, the word `stone’ and the word `son’ are very similar, as by coincidence they are in English too. Take away the ‘t’ and the ‘e’ from ‘stone, and you have ‘son.’ Take away the e from eben, ‘stone,’ in Hebrew, and you have ben, ‘son’. Here is the story, then, of the sequence of events leading up to the coming of the ‘son.’
Remember where all this is taking place, and why, and yet another ‘rhyme’ emerges. Jesus is still explaining why he has done what he has done in the Temple. The Temple will be destroyed, but his kingdom-work will go on and be vindicated by events. This time the echo is of Psalm 118.22–23, which speaks of a ‘stone,’ lying perhaps in the builders’ yard, but of the wrong shape to fit anywhere in the wall. Only when the builders get to the very top, and look around for a stone which will do to finish off the top corner, will they realize that the stone they have ignored up to that point is the very one they now need.

In the same way, Jesus is saying, he has come to Jerusalem with the message of God’s kingdom, but this message simply won’t fit into the `building’ of Judaism the way the present builders (the chief priests, Herod, the Pharisees) have been constructing it. They will realize too late that he belongs at the very top of the true building. But by then the vineyard owner will have come to ‘destroy those tenants, and give the vineyard to others’ (verse 9).
This story is as shocking today as it was to Jesus’ first hearers. That can’t be avoided. We are on a Lenten journey, after all, which we know will end at the foot of the cross; and the cross, as Paul said, is foolishness to pagans and a scandal to Jews. All those other sayings about selling everything to buy the one great pearl, or giving everything you’ve got to get the field with the buried treasure, come to mind. The story, in other words, ‘rhymes’ with so much else in Jesus’ teaching.
But what does it rhyme with in our own lives? Has God been sending one message after another to us, corporately or individually, which we’ve been steadfastly ignoring? Which prophetic words has our proud modern culture refused to hear, pouring scorn on the messengers and making fun of those who listen to them? Which voices have you done your best not to hear? Listen for the rhymes. When push comes to shove, are we going to celebrate Jesus’ enthronement at the top of the new ‘Temple,’ or are we going to treat him as simply a misshapen piece of stone for which we can see no purpose?

Today

Come to us, King Jesus, with your word of warning, and give us ears to hear and hearts to enthrone you as Lord.

Excerpted from:
Lent for Everyone, Mark, Year B: A Daily Devotional
N.T. Wright
Retail Price: $15.00
CBD Price: $9.49

Lent for Everyone, provides readers with a gentle guide through the Lenten season, from Ash Wednesday through the week after Easter. Popular biblical scholar and author N.T. Wright provides his own Scripture translation, brief reflection, and a prayer for each day of the season, helping readers consider how the text is relevant to their lives today.

Used with the kind permission of our friends at Westminster John Knox Press.