Washing Feet...

The quote below from Dietrich Bonhoeffer helps paint a picture of what it looks like for Jesus' followers to wash the feet of others in His name:

"In the midst of discipline, the entire fullness of the Holy Spirit wants to unfold and to ripen, and we should give it full space within us for the sake of God, for the sake of others, and for our own sake. The entire world of God, the dear Father, wants to be born in us, to grow and ripen. Love—where only suspicion and hostility reign; joy—instead of bitterness and pain; peace—amid internal and external strife; patience—where impatience threatens to overwhelm us; kindness—where only raw and hard words seem to make any difference; goodness—where understanding and empathy seem like weakness; faithfulness—where long separations and enormous changes in all relationships seek to rock the foundations of even what is most stable; gentleness—where recklessness and selfishness seem to be the only ways to reach one’s goals; self-control—where short term pleasures seem to be the only reasonable option and all bonds are about to dissolve."

In a world where hostility, sadness, strife, impatience, harshness, meanness, infidelity, brashness and self-indulgence wear and tear people down, the fruit of the Spirit of Jesus at work through us brings refreshing as did the washing of tired and dirty feet in Jesus' day.

Galatians 5:22,23 "The Spirit however, produces in human life fruits such as these: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, fidelity, tolerance and self-control—and no law exists against any of them."

Wisdom Gives Us Ground Rules for Growing and Relating in a Time of Transition

This week a friend of mine pointed James 3:17 out to me. I hadn't read this portion for awhile and I was struck afresh with the contrast that James makes between earthly wisdom and wisdom from God. He speaks of this in the context of the power of the tongue to bless and to curse. After stressing that earthly wisdom is contentious and jealous, James goes on to give a beautiful description of what the 'wisdom from on high' is like. Below are several versions/paraphrases of this verse, and I have highlighted the various descriptive words used for wisdom:

NET: But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable,  gentle,  accommodating,  full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and not hypocritical.  

ESV: ¹⁷ But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 

HCSB: ¹⁷ But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without favoritism and hypocrisy.
 
TLB: ¹⁷ But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure and full of quiet gentleness. Then it is peace-loving and courteous. It allows discussion and is willing to yield to others; it is full of mercy and good deeds. It is wholehearted and straightforward and sincere.  

MSG: ¹⁷ Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced.  

NRSV: ¹⁷ But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.  

YLT: ¹⁷ and the wisdom from above, first, indeed, is pure, then peaceable, gentle, easily entreated, full of kindness and good fruits, uncontentious, and unhypocritical.

In today's climate of change and paradigm shifts, this passage provides us with a great set of 'ground rules' for growing and relating with one another as we work through differences of views. May we desire and seek for God's wisdom as we would for hidden treasure (Prov 2) and therein grow in our understanding of God and of one another together.

 

  

Jesus' Good News of Peace - God is Not Against You!

As a young woman I loved praying the well-known prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. It is a wonderful and profoundly fitting prayer for the days we are living in:

The first words from the risen Christ to His fearful and failing followers were, "Peace be with you..." He should have scolded them and pointed out their failure and weakness. Imagine how startled and relieved they must have felt to hear His words of comfort after their utter failure to be loyal to Him in His darkest hour.

But Jesus is always different than what we expect.

When He spoke words of peace to His followers after His resurrection, He was sowing seeds of love, forgiveness, faith, hope, light, joy in hearts that were full of fear, offense, unbelief, hopelessness, darkness and sadness. He was loving and forgiving them without demanding to be loved and understood. In so doing He won their full allegiance and willingness to follow in His steps.

This is the way of the cross, the way of Jesus. Every human longs for inner peace. To be His follower is to be an "instrument of peace" to those among whom we live, giving them the good news of the risen Lord that God is not against them but is for them no matter how they have failed.

Lord, make us instruments of Your peace in the days we are living in...Amen.

Devoted to Jesus or to Our Beliefs about Jesus?

I used to be certain about my beliefs about God, but as I have continued to grow in Him, I have become increasingly uncertain about many beliefs I used to hold tightly. I have discovered that God won't be held captive to a set of beliefs; this can be seen clearly in Jesus who was continually confounding the religious leaders of His day by acting and speaking in ways that did not fit their belief system.

When I first began loosening my grip on what I had been so sure of concerning God, it scared me because my sense of security was based on being certain, not on God Himself. Now after a few years of exploring outside the confines of my inherited belief system and discovering that God is unbelievably wonderful, I am experiencing a level of peace and joy unlike what I had in the past. He is my certainty, not my beliefs about Him. This allows me to continue to keep changing in my beliefs and to be at peace with uncertainty.

Oswald Chambers had strong words concerning our tendency as evangelicals to be more devoted to our beliefs than to Jesus Himself. "...a Christian must be consistent in his relationship to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to strict unyielding doctrines. People pour themselves into their own doctrines, and God has to blast them out of their preconceived ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ."

"...When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a particular belief, something within us dies. That is not believing God– it is only believing our belief about Him. Jesus said, “…unless you…become as little children…”. The spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what He is going to do next. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy. Jesus said, '…believe also in Me', not, 'Believe certain things about Me.'"

Our devotion to unyielding doctrines and beliefs about God cause us to look more like the Pharisees of Jesus' time than like Jesus. In these days of significant social change in our culture we have a great opportunity to demonstrate what it means to be devoted to Jesus and His ways (serving those in need, giving to the poor, befriending those we consider unlovely and unworthy, embracing the "other" without judgment) rather than to defend our beliefs about Him and shut people out of the kingdom.