ALL IN

One of my not-so guilty pleasures, something I look forward to each holiday season, happens when we gather with my wife’s side of the family. Typically, whether it’s Thanksgiving or Christmas, after the dishes have been cleared, my father-in-law, my two brothers-in-law, and myself gather at the kitchen table to play cards. Lately, our favorite game has been Texas Hold-Em…or as my niece and nephew call it: “poker checkers.”

In these games, at least once, one of my brother-in-law’s will sit at the table, look at his cards, look at the pile of chips in the center, look at us, look at our stacks of chips, look back at his cards…take a long pause, and then says two words: “ALL IN”

ALL IN means just what it sounds like. It means I’m putting up all that I’ve got…I’m playing it all on this one hand.

Now, when he does this, I always say two words as well, and those words are “I FOLD” I usually fold because going all-in, even in a game where there’s no real money involved scares the heck out of me.

I’m not sure what God would think about our games of Texas Hold-Em or if God would approve of teaching our niece and nephew how to play “poker checkers”, but my hunch is God just might smile when he hears those two words my brother-in-law isn’t afraid to say: ALL IN.

There are two people in the story Jesus tells in Matthew 25:14-30 who go all in…and they don’t even hesitate as long as my brother-in-law does to do it. The master gives one of them 5 talents and the other 2 and they go off “at once” to trade them all away. They go ALL IN. In the end, it pays off, they each double their investment and their master is thrilled.

But there’s a third person in this story too, who might be more like me. He gets one talent, and he goes off at once to bury it. He doesn’t trade it. He doesn’t put it in the bank to earn even a small amount of interest. He takes it, finds a safe place, digs a hole in the ground, and buries it. Whatever he does is the opposite of ALL IN…maybe we could say he does what I do…he folds…he takes himself out of the game altogether. He buries the talent.

I think this story is why I say that God smiles when people go ALL IN…because the two servants who do hear things like: “Well done!” and the servant who folds hears this: “You wicked and lazy slave.” In the end, this becomes a story about what happens when we go all in, and what happens to us when we fold.

There’s another story that illustrates that God is in favor of going ALL IN even more clearly.

It’s the story of Jesus. God goes ALL IN when he sends his one and only Son to save us. God doesn’t fold when there’s no room at the inn… “Even if my son is born in a barn, I’m still in God says.” God doesn’t fold when the stakes get high because of Jesus’ message, and people turn against him, and people call for his life…This is how far God is willing to go to go all in for you and I. Because of it, Jesus is a beautiful savior for us.

He’s a beautiful savior, but he would be a terrible poker player. He’d be terrible for at least two reasons that I can think of: he shows his hand way too soon, and he’s always, just like his Father, going ALL IN. Jesus shows his hand early, he tells the world exactly why he came and what he’s about. Then, he proceeds to go all in on every hand that he plays, no matter how many chips are in front of him. For instance, Jesus doesn’t fold when the crowds are starving and hungry, and there seems to be no food. He goes ALL IN and he feeds them. Jesus doesn’t fold when they tell him your friend Lazarus is dead and buried…he goes ALL IN and rolls the stone away and calls into the darkness. Jesus doesn’t fold when people tell him “You can’t do that!”…he goes ALL IN and heals the sick, and turns the tables, and forgives the sins.

Even when the cross is laid on his table, he looks at it, looks at the hand he’s been dealt, looks at the crowds…and still goes ALL IN. The difference maker in this wager, is as Jesus goes ALL IN, so does God…God goes into the darkness, into the tomb, into death itself, refusing to fold until new life emerges for his Son and for you and I.

God goes ALL IN for you ALL THE TIME and he invites you to do the same.

When was the last time you looked at the hand you’ve been dealt, the stack of chips in front of you…no matter how large or small it seemed…and REALLY went ALL IN?

When you saw something in the world that needed changing…you went all in. When you saw something in your life that needed improvement…all in. When you heard a call from God, took it to heart…and went all in.

Or do you fold? The world will never change…so I’ll take my chips and throw in my cards and fold. My life will never change, so I’ll toss my cards on the pile and fold. God’s call isn’t really for me…so I’ll bury my talent in the ground and fold.

God’s promise for you today, even if you’re like me and want to run and hide and grab hold of all your poker checkers when you hear the words “ALL IN”…God’s promise is when you refuse to fold, when you take the chance to go ALL IN…you’ll never go alone because God doesn’t just smile when he hears those two words, he pushes all of His chips into the middle with you and echoes them…ALL IN!

Inviting All

Do you enjoy a really good party? That’s probably a silly question. Who doesn’t love parties, right?

Have ever thrown a good party? If you have, then I am sure you still love a good party, but you also know how much work it can be to throw one. Picking a date, a place, a menu, and a guest list can all be lots of work.

Take that last one for example…can you remember that last guest list you put together? Sometimes, it’s tougher than we might imagine. Sometimes, when we begin making out the list of the people we’d like to invite to our parties, we start to say things like:

“If we invite Jim…then we have to invite Jerry and Bill, too…because they all work together, and Jerry and Bill will be really angry if they find out Jim went and they weren’t invited.”
“But then, we’ve got to remember that Bill doesn’t get along with Darlene, so if they both show up, we’ve got to find a way to keep them separated.”
“And don’t forget about Daryl, he’s always telling those terribly inappropriate jokes…make sure to keep him away from Pastor Dan.”
“Yeah, we’ll put Pastor Dan and his wife at a table next to Darlene and her husband, and Jerry and Bill can go with Daryl and his girlfriend, they love a good joke!”
“Oh my gosh, I just realized…we’ve invited Aunt Bertha and Uncle Henry…remember? She still hasn’t forgiven him for that time when they were ten years old and he told the boy up the street that she really liked him!”

Does any of this sound familiar? My guess is, if you’ve ever thrown a party, you’ve had these conversations. Guest lists and seating charts alone can take up lots of time and give us lots of headaches. The end result, though, the day of the big event, makes it all worth it. When everyone arrives and the party begins, fortunately, we forget about all the headaches…as long as everything goes smoothly and nothing gets broken.

I’ll bet the king in the story that Jesus tells in Matthew 22:1-14 went through all of this as he planned a party for his only Son. He chose a date. He chose the place. He planned his menu…who doesn’t love fatted calf? And then, he made out his guest list. He put everyone who was anyone on it. All of his closest friends and advisers got invitations. Every wealthy landowner in the kingdom was asked to save the date. Every shopkeeper, every rich patron, every A-list person in all the land got to RSVP, and the list went on and on. The king invited them all, he ordered his servants to make the preparations, and then he waited…He couldn’t wait to see the look on his Son’s face when he walked into the banquet hall and they all shouted, SURPRISE! It would be great

When was the last time you threw a party and no one came? This isn’t just being disappointed that Aunt Bertha can’t make the long car trip up. When was the last time you had something really big to celebrate, but no one seemed to care? This is much bigger than Jerry and Bill getting angry that you left them off the guest list. When was the last time something big happened in your life, and there was no one there to tell about it? What happened to the king is much more unbearable than what happens when Cousin Daryl, unknowingly tells Pastor Dan that really tasteless joke.

This is what happens to the king in Jesus’ story. He sends the invitations, he calls his friends, he gets everything ready, and then he stands at the gate…and no one comes. None of the landowners head up his driveway. None of the shopkeepers enter the hall. No A-listers make it to the party. How do you think that felt? You went through all the careful preparations, all of the work, all of the headaches…and you’re not going to experience any of the joy.

Our lives together aren’t really all that different than the guest lists we create for the parties we throw. If we think long and hard enough, I am sure we can begin to map out, even in our own families, the complex and touchy relationship quirks that exist between us. Differences in friendships…long-held grudges from some distant event in our past…senses of humor that just don’t mesh…values that conflict…behaviors that grate on us…the list, like the list of the king’s guest, goes on and on.… With all of that going against us, it’s enough to say “forget it” and tear down the streamers, throw away the menu, and shred the guest list…give up on the party altogether.

But before we do any of that, we may want to pay attention to the end of Jesus’ story.

Jesus seems to be saying, stop being so choosy about who your friends are, and start paying attention to who God’s friends are. The king invites everyone…after the wealthy and the powerful turn down the invitation, the king invites everyone to come to the party. God does the same thing. God invites all people.

God doesn’t waste any time the way we do, wondering who will behave once they get to the party, God doesn’t seem too concerned that two people with a grudge between them might run into one another, I would venture to guess that God doesn’t really care how terrible Cousin Daryl’s jokes are, or how self-righteous Pastor Dan may be…Instead, God puts us all together, often right next to each other, and invites us all to live this way, despite our differences…and…even learn to CELEBRATE them!

Every good party needs an invitation, a reason for the gathering, and great menu. The party that God throws for the world has all of these things wrapped up in one. Jesus is the invitation…he’s the one who heads out into the streets, the neighborhoods, and into your heart, inviting you to stop what you’re doing and come to the party. Jesus is the reason for the celebration, the Son of God just walked through your front door and isn’t here to inspect the work you’ve done so far. Instead he’s here to bring you joy. The menu when we gather, at God’s invitation, is Jesus as well. It is his body and blood that make the celebration possible.

When human life had become so tangled and confused that we had all but forgotten how to attend a great party, how to celebrate life, with all of its imperfections, that’s when Jesus showed up. He came to show us that life is difficult, relationships are messy, and it’s all imperfect…But God is still here… and that is worth celebrating!

In this life, Jesus’ guest list included tax collectors and fishermen, women and men, the rich and the poor, the sick and the well, people with great references and also many with the worst reputations…He met them all face to face…he sat with them at the table, he drank wine with them at the wedding, and he cried with them at the graveside. In it all, he invited the people around him to celebrate the life God gives, in all of its fullness…the good and the bad.

In the end, he made this kind of celebration possible for eternity…he stretched out his arms on the cross, to invite you into God’s unconditional love. He called you to come and experience real forgiveness and freedom. He sent out word that there was a place saved for you at his table of grace, where the menu would be bread and wine that hold his presence and life…all of it given for you.

The table is set, the doors are open, the meal is waiting. God is inviting you to come, but before you do, you may want to stop agonizing over preparations, stop judging who makes your guest list and who doesn’t, and to stop trying to coordinate and control the messy world of human relationships, and instead start celebrating the loving God who redeems them all.
Imagine a party where you don’t have to do all the work, you don’t have to feel responsible for how the guests interact, you don’t have to worry when something gets broken. In fact, you don’t have to worry about a single thing. This is the party that God is throwing for the world…inviting all people to come and see and taste and hear how much there is to celebrate when we invite everyone to gather together.

Worshipping Faithfully

I’ve got some bad news for you…right now, at this very moment…you’re not accomplishing anything at all…I can almost guarantee you…when you walk out of this room later on this morning…when you drive out of the parking lot later today…you will not have accomplished very much.

-The dirty laundry sitting in the hamper at home, will be just as dirty when you get home.
-The leaves in your yard…well, they will have grown…there will be more of them to rake up once you return later today.
-Unless you’ve written “go to church” on your to-do list this morning, then I guarantee you there will be just as many things to check off…as many things left to do as there were yesterday.
-If you went to the bank and checked the balance on your account, it will not have grown during the time you spent here.

That’s the truth…you’ve chosen to invest your time here in church this morning, but if you try to measure what kind of return on your investment you’ve received later today, you may end up disappointed…because in the hour or so that you and I spend here together…we really don’t accomplish too much. That’s the bad news…if you’ve chosen to invest your time here today…you won’t find much of a return.

In the last several weeks, we’ve been talking a lot about our vision here at Zion…a vision for GROWING. We’ve talked about the importance for our lives of GIVING forgiveness away unselfishly. We’ve thought about how each day in our life might be different if we were to practice RECEIVING God’s grace each moment. And, we’ve looked to Jesus’ as someone who can help us to OPEN new doors of possibility without fear. Today, we’re talking about WORSHIP.

One of the things that I love the most about our GROWING vision statement, is that today’s point is located in the exact center of it. WORSHIPPING FAITHFULLY isn’t just the center of our vision, but as Jesus reminds us, it’s the center of our life. Worshipping Faithfully means that we make our relationship with GOD the most important relationship in our life…it becomes the center of who we are, every moment of every day.

Sometimes, though, we confuse WORSHIP with INVESTMENT. We go to church and wonder, what will I get out of it? What kind of returns can I expect from this investment? What’s in it for me? Believe me, I do this all the time, wondering “How many people will show up?” “What will the giving look like, will it help us to meet the budget?” “What will I say? How will it make an impact.” Maybe you’ve done this, too…wondering what kind of return you’ll get out of the investment that you make when you come to worship.

The problem is, when we do this, we get dangerously close to the mindset of the people in Jesus’ story in Matthew 21:33-45.

From their perspective, they think that they’re really accomplishing something. They think that the investment strategy that they’ve come up with will really pay off for them in the end. They’ve convinced themselves that they’re in for a huge windfall…they’ve got visions of the entire vineyard…every vine, every grape, every drop of wine that comes from that winepress…all of it belonging to them! They can already hear the cash registers ringing in the profits they’ll receive…once that pesky landowner is out of the picture. They are one hundred percent certain, that they are on the verge of accomplishing something great.

How does it work out for them in the end? My guess is, it doesn’t turn out at all how they thought it would. Maybe they should have invested differently. Their plan to sever the relationship with the landowner backfires on them in a big way.

I think Jesus tells this story for a reason. I think he’s illustrating what happens when we lose sight of how important relationships are in life. WORSHIP reminds us, whenever we do this, of just how important they are. In fact to God, they are priceless.

Relationship with us is so PRICELESS to God, in fact, that He sends us the everything that is most valuable to Him. God’s only Son walks into the vineyard to give us his life. He’s less concerned with the number of grapes on the vine than he is with the number of people who are working there. Jesus doesn’t seem to look at his journey to live among us as an INVESTMENT…and if he does, then we might say that in the end he made a poor one. Instead, he just might see it as a PAYMENT…he gives away everything he has to purchase our lives…In the end, when he goes to the cross it looks like his whole life will have been wasted…and the investment that he’s made won’t yield, produce, or accomplish anything.

With Jesus’ death and resurrection, though, God reminds us that life isn’t always about what you can see: the laundry pile shrinking, the leaves being raked into piles and cleared away, the to-do list growing smaller, or the bank account growing larger…sometimes the most priceless things in life are unseen…like the new life that is silently happens inside the darkness of Jesus’ tomb.
Worship, just like life, isn’t about what WE can accomplish when we gather together…sing a few songs…pray a few prayers…and pass the plate (although often we make the mistake of believing that it is.) A life of WORSHIPPING God FAITHFULLY seems to be less about the things we accomplish…the growth we can see….and Instead, WORSHIP is all about what GOD can accomplish through us. The returns on the investments that we make are often intangible, immeasurable…but in the long run, they are priceless.

Think about what happens in the hour or so when we gather in worship.
We begin by confessing our sins…we open our hearts to God and one another and admit that we’re not perfect…we allow ourselves to become vulnerable…and then, the moment we do…we hear not a punishment, but a word that reminds us that we’re forgiven for all of them! I can’t think of another place where this happens.

Bishop Payne once pointed out to a group gathered here that church, in today’s world is one of the only places where people sing together. No matter what your voice sounds like…if you’re more at the “Pavarotti” end of the spectrum…or if you live in my musical neighborhood…you still get to sing together…to God.

We do something else here when we gather that’s unique…we stop what we’re doing to get up out of our comfortable seats to cross the aisle and shake hands, hug, and offer peace to people. Can you think of another place where this happens?

When we gather, we approach a table and share a meal where there is always enough for everyone, and there is always room for everyone…and we don’t ever clear the dishes until everyone has had something to eat and drink…that , I think, is truly unique.
Finally, and to me, this is one of the best parts of WORSHIP…we never say that we’re finished until we receive God’s blessing, and THANK God for sending us out into the world to share the love we’ve found in here with other people!

When we invest our time in WORSHIP, our laundry won’t get clean, but our souls will get cleansed…the leaves in our yard will still pile up, but all of the guilt from our mistakes will be carted away…our to-do list might not shrink, but our sense of being overwhelmed by it all just might…Our bank account may not grow, but I guarantee you, our hearts will!

When WORSHIP…trusting God to be in charge of everything, becomes the center of our life…we GROW…in love for God and in love for one another and the world God made.

For some of us, it may seem like bad news that our investment this morning won’t accomplish too much…but, I’ve got worse news for you…there are many people that you and I know and love…and many people who we have yet to know…who at this very moment are trying to make investments all by themselves, and wondering why none of them are working out. There are people fretting over mountains of dirty laundry at this very moment…there are people crying because the leaves keep falling faster than they can clear them…there are people trying to get everything on the to-do list done all by themselves and working themselves to exhaustion…and there are certainly many people worrying about the balance in their checkbook…You will run into some of these people tomorrow morning…you’ll sit next to them on the bus…you’ll stand beside them in the coffee shop…you’ll say “Good Morning” to them at work…You’ll do it all after coming here, and receiving the PRICELESS return from the investment that God made for you, but they will be struggling without knowing the benefit of it. WORSHIP is at the center of our lives, but we’ll find out next week that it always leads us to invest, not in a return for ourselves, but in the life of someone else…Maybe you can get a headstart on investing this week by inviting one of those many people into God’s investment plan…His life for yours and theirs.

Opening Doors Fearlessly

I’m not a big fan of scary movies, but this week the stores were filled with Halloween stuff, so maybe that’s why I’m thinking about them. And even if you’re not a fan of scary movies, I’ll bet you’ve seen the scene that’s been written into many of them. It starts with a shot of someone sitting at home alone on a dark and stormy night. Then, all of a sudden this person hears a “bump” from upstairs…the same upstairs that’s supposed to be empty. So they get up from their chair, and head to the foot of the stairs. Then, at that point the camera angle switches so that you and I see what they see as they tiptoe up the stairs and creep toward the door to the room where that bump in the night came from When they get there, we see their shaking, trembling hand slowly reach out to open the door… I think that’s the moment when the person in the row in front of you at the movie theater yells out “Don’t go in there!” and you jump out of your seat and spill your popcorn all over your lap. You know that scene, don’t you?

We’re familiar with this kind of thing…the tension…the feelings of trepidation that fill us as we follow the character up the stairs…the fear that we can feel as they reach out with that trembling hand to open the door…we know this well…but I’m not sure that Jesus does.
I’ll bet that when Jesus arrived at the temple in Matthew 21:23-32 that there wasn’t an ounce of fear in him. Picture him, walking across town, down the street to the temple, up the front steps, and making his way to the entrance. How did he open the door when he got there? Do you picture him tiptoeing up the stairs? Do you envision him creeping toward the door? Do you see his hand trembling, shaking in fear as he reaches out to open it and enter? I don’t. In fact, when I read this story, I can’t picture Jesus approaching anything that way.

If you skip back to verse 12, you’ll find, I think, a very different picture of Jesus’ entrance that day:

“Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you are making it a den of robbers.” (Matthew 21:12-13)

Turning tables, driving people out, making bold proclamations? This doesn’t sound like someone who opened the door to the temple that day with fear and trepidation. Instead, I think Jesus opened the door that day with purpose, with confidence…when it comes down to it…I think he opened it…FEARLESSLY.

In fact, if you read Jesus’ story, I think you’ll find that he opens most doors without fear. He opened the door to a fishermen’s heart and asked him to follow…without fear of rejection. He opened the door to the room where that same fisherman’s mother-in-law suffered with a terrible fever…without fear of catching what she had. He opened the door to his friend Lazarus’ tomb…without fear of the smell of death that was inside it. Jesus opens lots of doors, and he opens them all fearlessly.

He invites you to do the same thing…with doors that lead to new possibilities…with doors that have been bolted shut for too long…with doors that prevent you from living life in all of the abundance that God intended...Jesus invites you to do it with every door you face.
We’re invited to open doors fearlessly because that’s what Jesus himself does. I think he must get that from his Father.

God isn’t afraid of opening new doors. God isn’t afraid to open the door that leads from heaven to earth and send his only Son down to live with us. God isn’t afraid to open the door of the tomb that holds His Son’s lifeless body. God certainly isn’t afraid to open the door to your heart, and invite you to follow His way.

How did Jesus open the door to the temple that day? Timidly? Fearfully? With uncertainty? I’ll bet not! He opened it fearlessly and walked right in. Even though he knew there were challenges waiting for him on the other side of it.

The people Jesus meets in the temple that day aren’t very good at opening doors…fearlessly or otherwise. In fact, maybe because of their fear they prefer to close doors and keep them shut. We might not be all that different. When you see a door in front of you that may hold a new, but scary opportunity behind it…what do you do? When you pass by the doors that have been slammed on relationships, and hold nothing but old wounds and grudges behind them…what do you do? When you stand before the door that leads to new life…how do you stand? Do you tiptoe past them? Do you creep by them? Do you stand and tremble with fear…debating whether or not to open them?

I think Jesus is always inviting us, but never forcing us, to open these doors in our lives and know that because he’s with us that we can open them FEARLESSLY!

God opened the door from heaven to earth and Jesus walked through it…on the other side he saw some pretty scary things…he saw people using God’s name to get rich…he saw people struggling to eat with no one to help them…he saw people dying alone because people were afraid to reach out and touch them…in the end he saw possibly the scariest thing of all…a wooden cross with his name on it! He saw it all, and yet he never crept, he never trembled, he never gave in to any fear he may have had. In the end, I think Jesus goes to the cross because his love for us is so strong that it far outweighs any fear he feels.

There is one exception to this, though. On the evening when Jesus was raised from the dead, we’re told that his disciples were gathered in a house and they had locked the doors because they were afraid. These may be the only doors that Jesus doesn’t open. Mysteriously, he simply appears in the house. The doors remain locked as he stands among his disciples, shows them the marks of the nails in his hands and offers them his peace. He doesn’t open the door when he comes to show his disciples that he’s alive and well…He appears, and then he leaves that last part up to them…to let go of everything that scares them, and fearlessly open the door to step into the life that God has in store for them. We know they did it because we wouldn ‘t be here otherwise. Will you do the same?

Receiving God's Grace

When the alarm clock goes off on a Monday morning, what’s the first thought that typically comes to your mind?

If you’re like me, then that thought, most Mondays just might begin with the word “Ugh!” “Another Monday.” Have you ever felt that way? If you have, then you know it’s even worse when you wake up on Monday and it’s dark and grey outside, and the sky is cloudy, and the air is cold. On a day like that it’s enough to want to just stay in bed, pull back the covers, and hide from the world. Have you been there before? Me too.

Now, shift gears for a moment and think back the last day you can remember when you woke up, and the first thoughts in your mind, the first thing you said to yourself was “Man, today’s going to be a great day!” Maybe the sun was shining in through the window, the birds were chirping outside, the sky was blue…maybe you’re like a friend of mine, and your automatic coffee maker had dutifully made the coffee and you can already smell it wafting in from the kitchen…and all you can think in the middle of that perfect scene is “Man, today’s going to be a great day!” Wouldn’t it be nice if every day could begin that way?
Well, if you think so, then I’d like to let you in on a secret…ANY day CAN be a great day. It doesn’t matter if the sky is blue or grey, if the sun is shining or buried behind a thick wall of clouds, if the birds are chirping sweetly or there are a flock of crows cawing wildly…any day can be a great day.

Too often, I know I’m guilty of it, when the day doesn’t start the way we wanted, when the air’s too cold, the sky is too grey…you forgot to plug the coffee maker in the night before…we didn’t get enough sleep…when all these things collide to make us wake up on the wrong side of the bed…too often the first thoughts we think or the first words we say…fall into the category of complaints. Before we’ve even pulled back the covers, we’re complaining…
We all complain, some more than others..but when complaining becomes a daily habit…an every morning routine…then pretty soon the things that can ruin a day become smaller and smaller…and it doesn’t take long before the words “Man, today’s going to be a great day” disappear from our vocabulary altogether…THIS DOESN’T HAVE TO HAPPEN…Like I said…any day has the potential for being a great one.

Think about the story that Jesus tells in Matthew 20:1-16. There is a group of people in that story for whom the day is starting to show signs of going south. I’m talking about that 5 pm group who are still standing around.

They may have rolled out of bed saying “Man, today’s going to be a great day!” but then when the clock struck 9, noon, 3, and 5 and they were still standing around, un-hired, they may have begun question their initial assessment…the reason this is turning out to be a bad day is because they know that if they don’t get picked, they don’t work, and if they don’t work, then their family doesn’t eat that day.

Have you ever felt like that? Like a day that had so much potential just sort of ran out of steam? Or took a wrong turn somewhere? Or came to a screeching halt altogether? What did you do when that happened? What are the things you started to think? What did you say? What did you do about it?

The interesting thing to me, about the 5 o’clock group is their strategy. They don’t start complaining: “What a rotten day!” or “How come he got picked over me? Everyone knows I always work hard and he’s a slacker!” Instead of letting the grey clouds get the better of them, instead they seem to say “Let’s wait and see! The day’s not over yet.” At the end of the day, for them it was worth it…they finally get picked, and they receive far more than they ever expected. I’ll bet when the checks were handed out at the end of the day…that 5 o’clock group looked at them and said “Man, I KNEW today was going to be a great day!”

There is word for what those workers received, and it is the key to the secret of every great day…the word is GRACE. Being paid for a full day’s work, when you only showed up at 5 is GRACE…it means the difference between food on the table or empty stomachs. GRACE is the key to our lives, too because it means the difference between whether a day is rotten or good.
The complainers in Jesus story grumble because they worked all day and got the same thing as the ones who showed up late. My guess is, most of us might do the same thing if we found ourselves in their shoes. I think they complain…and most of the time we do too…because we have a hard time recognizing GRACE. Jesus’ story reminds us that GRACE is all around us…it’s as available to you the moment you wake up, before the day has even started, as it is late in the day when you’re exhausted and ready for bed.

The question is, is it ENOUGH for you? Is what God provides enough…or do you find yourself worrying about what others have? Is what God provides enough for today or do you find yourself fearful of what tomorrow might bring? When you look at what God has given you, do you find yourself complaining about what you’re receiving…or not receiving?

Many of you probably know who Randy Pausch is…he’s the Carnegie Mellon Professor, who at the age of 47 was diagnosed with a terminal pancreatic cancer that this past summer took his life. For Randy, that one day at the doctor’s office changed his life forever. With a wife and three small children, no one would blame Randy if he complained…if he said that this wasn’t fair…if he cried out that he didn’t deserve what he had received in this diagnosis. In his book, “The Last Lecture” he says something profound about complaining. He says this: “Complaining doesn’t work as a strategy.” I would agree with him.

Complaining doesn’t work as a strategy…but I believe that Receiving God’s Grace does. When you don’t receive what you had hoped out of a day, a week, or a life…complaining won’t change any bit of it. God’s Grace might.

Take Jesus for example. We’re told that on one particular Thursday night, he had a nice meal with all of his friends, but that later on he wound up spending the rest of that night in a jail cell. Then, Friday morning he woke up and stood trial. He listened as large crowds of people called not for his release, but for his life. Then at noon on Friday he trudged up a hill with the cross on his shoulders…and that afternoon he felt the nails in his hands…then that night, he died.

As far as I know, he never complained about any bit of it. But he did say things like: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Even when the day showed no signs of improving, and only got worse as the hours went by, Jesus spent every minute of it still trusting, hoping, and counting on somehow receiving God’s grace. No matter how you look at it, that Friday for Jesus was not a “good” day.

But then, something happened…something no one could have foreseen or predicted. If you think that the 5 o’clock workers were surprised that day when the checks were handed out, then imagine how surprised Jesus was when Sunday morning rolled around, and he opened his eyes, breathed in and looked around, and saw that the sun outside his tomb was shining and the door was opened. My guess is, he smiled, rolled out of that cold, dark tomb and said to himself “Man, today is going to be a great day!”

Jesus reminds us all that no matter what happens, whether it is morning, noon, or night, God’s grace is always there…sometimes we don’t see it right away, but if we hang around long enough it always shows up. Complaining, though we do it often, is never a strategy that will improve our day or our life…But, waiting on God’s grace just might!

Giving Unselfishly

If you wanted to read a really great work of literature, you could go to your local library and borrow: War and Peace, The Old Man and the Sea, The Great Gatsby, or countless others. But, as far as I’m concerned, there aren’t too many books that rival a classic from my childhood. “The Berenstain Bears: Trouble with Money” is without a doubt one of the greatest books you’ll ever read. If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and pick it up, you’ll be glad you did. It’s a quick read, but what it lacks in length, it more than makes up for in meaning.
The Berenstain Bears Trouble with Money is a portrait of a young bear family, and their struggles to teach their children about money. Brother Bear and Sister Bear have a problem with money, namely they have a hard time holding onto it. It burns holes in their pockets, they spend it frivolously, they have a hard time saving. For them, that’s the trouble with money, they can’t seem to spend it or get rid of it fast enough. Often, they spend it on the wrong things. The book is all about Mama and Papa Bear trying to teach their young cubs how to save money, how to value their money, and how to put some away for a rainy day. Again, if you have yet to read this classic of American literature, go out and pick up a copy. Ours is well-worn and well-read.

Chapter 18 of Matthew’s Gospel (v. 21-35) contains a quick lesson, too, but it is also full of meaning. You could call this story “The Trouble with Forgiveness.” It all begins with a simple question from a sincere disciple. Peter asks Jesus: “Lord, how many times should I forgive?” Already, he’s recognizing that when it comes to forgiveness, he’s having trouble. Maybe his question is an effort to make this difficult concept somehow simpler: “Should I forgive seven times?”

Jesus’ words remind Peter, and you and I, that forgiveness doesn’t really work that way. His story is an illustration of the trouble we often have with forgiveness.

Whereas the Bears in the book have trouble holding onto their money, often you and I have trouble letting go of our forgiveness. Sometimes we guard it as if it were pricelessly irreplaceable. Sometimes, we treat it like money: we bank it, we save it, we hold onto it. Sometimes, we lock our forgiveness up in an air-tight vault with thick walls, that only we have the combination to. Sometimes, we don’t let forgiveness out enough.
The trouble with forgiveness, that Jesus communicates, is that you have to GIVE it for it to work. The king in the story that Jesus tells gives forgiveness, he forgives an outrageous debt…and the servant is relieved. But, he still has trouble with forgiveness, because just a few moments later…he can’t do the same thing for a miniscule debt. Because of this, he winds up in trouble. When we don’t give our forgiveness away, and instead keep it all to ourselves, then we wind up in trouble.

What he never realized, is that you can never “bounce” a forgiveness check. You can never deplete your “forgiveness” bank. In fact, it’s impossible to ever run out of forgiveness. Peter is probably more ambitious than you and I could be “Can I forgive up to seven times?” Jesus still says he’s being way too conservative with his forgiveness.

We’ll never run out of forgiveness because God has already given us more than we could ever imagine. God knows how to give out forgiveness.

When we owed God and one another big time, God handed himself over to cancel our debt. No matter what we owed, Jesus came to forgive it. Unselfishly, he gave all that he could to erase every debt. He gave us his time, his listening ear, his loving presence…in the end, he gave us his life. Jesus’ death cancels our debt…forgives us completely. His new life, in rising again, helps us to get on a brand new payment plan…one that runs on love and forgiveness.

Because of all this, you will never “bounce” a forgiveness check, so write them often, and make sure they’re in large amounts.

Our Vision at Zion is for GROWING and the first challenge we’ve set to help ourselves grow is the commitment to GIVING UNSELFISHLY. I can think of few things more challenging to give unselfishly than forgiveness, but if we are really interested in GROWING in our faith, then this a good place to begin…by giving forgiveness unselfishly.

When you and I forgive from the heart, we grow! We grow closer to one another, and we grow closer to God. Jesus makes it abundantly clear in his last words to Peter that God is really interested in our trouble with forgiveness, and God is concerned with helping us overcome it.

When you think about your own trouble with forgiveness, who comes to mind? Who might benefit this week, if you decided to crack open your forgiveness vault and give some of it away? Who might you know who needs for you to open up your forgiveness checkbook and write one great big check? Who is that person whose whole life might change, all because you trusted God enough to confront your own trouble with forgiveness and give some of it away?

Forgiveness isn’t like money…it’s not something we should save up and bank throughout our lives. Instead it’s something God wants us to spend frivolously, generously, unselfishly…every day. He did it for you and it made your troubles easier to bear…you can do it for someone else and do the exact same thing.

Water is still wet!

In his book, The Shack, William Young tells the story of a man named Mack who spends a weekend with God in a shack in the wilderness, sorting out the tremendous pain that a devastating loss has brought into his life.

In one very poignant scene, Mack takes a walk with Jesus, who suggests that the quickest way to get to where they’re headed is to walk, not around the lake at the foot of the hill, but across it…on top of the water. At first, Mack is skeptical, but then he remembers “If Peter could do it…why not me?” Before he takes his first faith-filled step, Mack has one important question for Jesus. He asks: “Will my feet get wet?” Jesus tells him: “Of course, water is still wet.”

Maybe this was Peter’s problem when Jesus invites him to walk on water. (Matthew 14:22-33) Even though he gets over the shock of seeing someone walking on water, even though he establishes that it is not a ghost standing in front of him, and even though he decided to take that first faith-filled step…he forgot: water is still wet!

Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe this is why he’s distracted, startled, and becomes fearful. He steps on to the surface of the water and his feet get soaked. He takes a few steps and the sea sloshes beneath him. He walks over to Jesus, and standing on the water, those first waves crash around his feet, and soak his shins, he becomes worried…he loses focus on Jesus…he starts to sink. Maybe he thought that because he was walking on water, that the waves and the wind would become less real…that they would lose their power over him…but he learns: no matter what…water is still wet!

God loves to make the impossible possible. In the Bible this looks like Peter walking on water, Jesus changing water into wine, and five loaves and two fish feeding thousands until they can’t eat another bite.

God makes the impossible possible for you and I, but in our lives the miracles are often more subtle. After a devastating loss, somehow we pick up the pieces and move on with God’s help. When life becomes difficult, when waves crash and the wind is in your face, God shows up and helps you keep going. When life becomes uncertain, God is there to stand beside you.

God makes the impossible possible, and yet we sometimes still make the same mistake that Peter made. How often do you and I forget that the water is still wet? God helps us through the pain, but the pain still stings….because pain hurts. God gets us through the storm, but the waves still crash on our little boat and soak us to the bone…because that’s what waves do. God helps us live in uncertain times, but our heart still races, our mind still wanders, and our breath sometimes gets taken away, because that’s what fear does to us.

What if the miracle is not that God comes to our side, walking across the water to our boat, and the storms clear out? What if the real miracle isn’t when God takes us by the hand and at once the pain disappears? Could it be that the miraclet is not that God puts his arms around us and the fears dissolve? What if the real the miracle is simply that God comes to us, God takes our hand, and God puts his arms around us? Even though he does these things, often, the waves still crash, the pain still hurts, and the fears still fill our heart…but the miracle is that we are no longer alone in them.

Peter gets out of the boat, I suspect, because he wants to walk with Jesus. Jesus comes down from the mountain, I also suspect, because he wants to walk with us. He isn’t content to sit on the mountaintop while we’re being battered by the waves on the sea below.

When God sees the waves that crash and the winds that blow…when God watches the losses that fill us with pain unfold…when God notices that our hearts are filling up with fear…his first action is to come to wherever we are.

It’s what Jesus did that day for his disciples. It’s what Jesus seems to do all the time. He comes to us out of the safety of heaven, to be with us as we face the waves and the wind. He comes to our side to walk with us through the pain and the loss. He puts his arms around us as we stand in the middle of our greatest fears.

Maybe Peter and the other disciples were so scared when they saw Jesus walking on the water, not because they didn’t recognize him, but because they knew that no one in their right mind would stand where he was standing. Who would get their feet wet, walking into the middle of the storm, just to be with the men whose boat is filling up with water?

Who would walk into the rooms that fill with loss, just to be with someone whose heart is filling up with pain? Who would venture into the fearful places, just to sit with someone whose heart is trembling? Who would do all this? There’s only one person, who in every storm, at every loss, and for every fear, will promise to show up…he’s the same Jesus who came down the mountain and walked on the sea.

He walked through this life, and lived it his way He showed up when the storms raged. He appeared when loved ones died. He came out to be with people whose hearts knew only fear.

Even when the skies darkened over his own life, and the waves of accusation crashed around him, and the winds of rejection blew into his face, he still stuck around. When the pain became real, and the cross was placed on his shoulders, he kept on. Even when he hung there and wondered aloud whether or not he was completely alone, and the fear of death filled his heart, still he stuck around.

The lesson that Jesus himself learned through all of this, is that no matter what happens, God is there when you need him. Jesus may not have felt his presence when he hung on the cross, breathed his last breath, and the darkness began to descend upon him. I’ll guarantee you that he felt it when he opened his eyes , breathed once more, felt the sunshine streaming in through the open door of the tomb!
When that happened, once more he walked out into the world. He walked out of the tomb to be with people who were still feeling the pain of loss, still huddled in fear, and for whom the storm had yet to subside. When he did, he still had the scars, because the pain of death still hurts, but now he knew that God was there, is there, and will always be there when his children need him.

The next time you wonder about whether or not God is around: because the pain seems to be too much, the loss seems to be too strong, and the fears seem to be too real…remember even if you walk on water, you’re still going to get wet. If your shoes are soaked, and the waves are still crashing, it doesn’t mean that God’s not there. Peter found out when he started to sink, sometimes that’s when you and I realize, too.

a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter

“A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter.” You remember these words, don’t you? Are they etched in your brain? Do they emerge as you walk the aisles of the supermarket with your shopping list in hand, trying to make sure you don’t forget a single item? If you grew up when I did, or had children who did, then you know these familiar words.

If you don’t know what I am talking about, they come from a Sesame Street cartoon in which a little girl is asked by her mother to walk down to the store. She tells her daughter: “Now, don’t forget: a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter.” Then she says: “If you can’t remember, I’ll write it down for you.” But the little girl is confident and says: “That’s o.k. mommy, I won’t forget, I’ll remember.”(Watch it now at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jdP7HUPbVs )

How does she remember? She remembers those three items by repeating them to herself over and over in her head as she walks down the block and into the store: “A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter…a loaf of bread a container of milk, and a stick of butter…a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter…”

Memory is important. Not just for remembering the things on our grocery list, or the important things that people tell us, but also, it seems for our spiritual life.

Do you know about the five loaves and the two fish? Do you know about the five thousand

people who were fed by them? Matthew tells the story in chapter fourteen of his gospel (14:13-21) The story begins when Jesus and his disciples are out in the middle of nowhere among a crowd of over 5,000 people who have been determined to follow them wherever they go. Out there, at the end of a long day of listening to Jesus speak, as the sun begins to set , suddenly the disciples realize: everyone has forgotten to bring something to eat. Over 5,000 people, and among all of them, all they can gather up are 5 loaves of bread and two little fish. Whether they never intended on staying this late, or they just plain forgot, no one brought anything to eat.

Fortunately, the disciples have thought about this, and to avoid an angry, grouchy, hungry crowd turning on them, they’ve come up with a plan that they propose to Jesus: “We’re out in the country and it’s getting late. Dismiss the people so they can go to the villages and get some supper.”

Now, when these disciples should be glad that Jesus didn’t look at them and say: “They don’t need to leave, you give them supper. Go into town and don’t forget: 5,000 loaves of bread, 5,000 little fish…and a stick of butter…If you can’t remember, I’ll write it down for you.” While they may not have liked it, they might have understood better if this had been what Jesus says. Because, what Jesus does say to them is: “No one needs to go away. You give them supper.”

Can’t you picture them standing there, speechless, looking at one another? One of them is holding those five loaves and two fish and they sort of put them right in front of Jesus…”Aren’t you forgetting…this is all we’ve got! 5 loaves. 2 fish…5,000 people! This isn’t a sample portion, this is the whole menu!”

Go back to that Sesame Street cartoon for a moment. When the little girl finally arrives at the store, after repeating that shopping list over and over to herself the whole way, she walks up to the counter, looks at the clerk and says: “Sir, can I have a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and…and…I can’t remember…” At the most important part of the trip, she forgot. She remembered as she left the house, as she walked down the street, but at the counter, standing in front of the clerk, on the spot…she forgot! What does she do? She closes her eyes, pictures her mother standing in the kitchen, giving her the instructions, and then, it all comes back to her: “A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and…a stick of butter!” “I remembered!” she shouts.

I think that Jesus’ disciples would have benefited from watching this short cartoon, because if they had, they might have borrowed a page from the little girl’s book and thought back and remembered all other things that Jesus had told them and done with them, instead of giving up so soon.

That day, out in the middle of nowhere, they forgot all about what he said, but I bet you remember, don’t you? You remember when Jesus spoke about the seed that produces thirty, sixty, and a hundred times over! You remember the tiny mustard seed that grows into a tree. You remember that he told you that a mustard seed’s worth of faith can move mountains and uproot trees. You remember all of those stories that Jesus told about small things producing huge results?

His disciplese made it all the way out to the wilderness, they saw the crowds, they listened to Jesus, but when it mattered most, they forgot about all that they had heard and seen.
What does Jesus do? When his disciples seem to be forgetful? Matthew doesn’t mention it, but I like to think that he smiled when looked at them, with those five loaves of bread and those two little fish, and said “Give them to me.”

We know how it turns out. Jesus asks God to bless those five loaves and two fish, and then he breaks the bread and everyone is fed. In the end, it happens just as Jesus said, the disciples give everyone something to eat. All 5,000. Until they couldn’t eat another bite. There are even leftovers to wrap up and take home.

Memory is important, and I would be willing to bet that the disciples never forgot what happened that day. Or, maybe they did. Or maybe Jesus was afraid they would. Later on, when he knows it will matter the most, he goes over it all with them again.

At the Last Supper, Jesus sits them all down and gives them the most dramatic illustration there is of small, simple things producing big results. Maybe his talk with them was just like the mother in that Sesame Street cartoon: “Now don’t forget: the bread is my body, the wine is my blood…If you can’t remember, I’ll write it down for you…” and you can almost see the disciples around the table, repeating it back to him: “No, Jesus ,we won’t forget the bread is your body, the wine is your blood…”

He goes over it with them there, because when they get out into the real world he knows it may be easy to forget. At that critical moment, when his hands are tied and the cross is placed on his shoulders, it would be easy to forget: “the bread is your body, the wine is your blood…” At that critical moment, when he is raised up, and breathes his last breath, you could understand if what happened at the table with the bread and the cup escaped the memory of the disciples.

How well-versed are you in remembering that because of what Jesus has done for you on the cross, that small, simple things can produce huge results? When you reach the critical moments in your life, do you sometimes forget? I know I do. I know that many times, I must seem just like the disciples, standing before God, worried and trembling, saying: “Don’t you see, this is all I’ve got” Then I stand there, and raise up the equivalent of those five loaves of bread and two little fish for God to see.

How about you, do you ever do the same thing? Somehow, at those moments we forget about the mustard seed, the feeding of the 5,000+, and the faith that Jesus showed us on the cross, and all we can think about are how little we have, how bleak it looks, and how God needs to understand the situation our way.

Maybe what we need at that moment is what the little girl in the cartoon had. She had the ability to stop all the worry, the fear, and the wandering of her mind, and remember what her mother had told her. Maybe we need the same thing.

Jesus’ disciples finally remembered. After the cross, after he was dead and buried, three days later, he appeared again. He met two of them on the road and walked with them. All they could talk about was how bleak it was, how little they had, and how their hopes had grown small. Then, Jesus sat with them at the table, and did what he did at the feeding of the 5,000 and at the Last Supper: he took the bread, asked God to bless it, and broke it…and do you know what they said at that moment? “We remember! We remember!”

Every day of your life you have the same chance. Bring all of your hopes that have grown small, all of your skepticism about the future, all of your worries, and bring them to Jesus. Show them to him, and every time he will do the same thing. He will smile, take them from you, ask God to bless them, and show you that with God, no matter how little you feel you have, huge things are possible! Then, before you go, he’ll feed you and ask you to remember that no matter what happens that week: “The bread is my body, the wine is my blood…given for you!”

It's not easy being you

Kermit the Frog sang about it. Rodney Dangerfield made a comedy career out of it…. “It’s not easy…Being green. It’s not easy when you get “no respect!” You probably know how it feels, too. Like it or not, sometimes it’s hard being you.

Any of us could understand why Kermit could relate, right? Being a frog in a man’s world has got to be hard. We all understand where Rodney was coming from when he complained about getting no respect. You’re well-acquainted with the feeling, especially when life starts to get the best of you. It’s not easy being you and no one knows that better than you do.
But, the next time you fall into a Kermit the Frog mode or you start to feel a little Dangerfield-esque, remind yourself that everyone has to deal with this. There are no exceptions. Everyone, at one time or another faces the unavoidable reality that sometimes it is just plain hard to be you.

If you don’t believe me, you can ask King Solomon. Sitting on the throne that his father made famous, he feels it. Ruling over an empire doesn’t make it go away. Power, riches, fame, none of these things can overpower the feeling that being King is hard. Solomon may not know what it feels like to be green, he may not be able to complain about getting no respect, but he does know that life isn’t always easy, even for a king! Solomon knows this as well as any of us, but you won’t hear him complain about it. Not even for a second.

Lord knows, he had the chance to complain, too. Literally. God knows. One night, God visited Solomon in a dream. He stood right in front of David’s Son, and said “Ask what I should give you.” (1 Kings 3:5 NRSV) I’ve had dreams where I’m flying. I’ve had dreams where I’ve somehow left the house and forgotten to get dressed. I’ve had other dreams that I couldn’t explain at all. I’ve never had a dream where God showed up and invited me to ask him for anything in the world. Solomon had one. Because it was dream, he could have said anything at all. He could have asked for everything his heart had ever desired. He could have told God anything at all. He could have even said:

“Being king is too much pressure. I’m not sure I can fill my father, David’s, shoes. The people in my kingdom expect so much from me. I live in constant fear of my enemies coming to defeat me. Make me something other than a king. What can you do for me, God? How about getting me out of this!”

He could have said all of that, but he didn’t. Instead, he thanked God for making him king, and then he asked God to help him be the best king he could possibly be. When God showed up in a dream and said: “What can I give you? Ask.” Solomon looked back at God and said:

“Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil” (1 Kings 3:9).

Solomon knows that it was God who put him on the throne, and he also knows that without God there’s no way he can continue to sit there, so he asks God for the ability to be the person God created him to be. Even though it’s difficult, Solomon asks God for help to be himself. He’s willing to lead God’s kingdom if God will help him to do it well.

Jesus loves to tell people about God’s kingdom. The good news is, we’re all a part of it, every single person on earth! The bad news (maybe) is that it is unlike any kingdom you’ve ever imagined. It is built from tiny seeds that grow into low-lying shrubs instead of tall trees and heavy timbers. It is like a hidden treasure that no one but God knows about. It is like a single pearl that God searches passionately for. It is like a net full of fish…and you are in the net! Are you ready for life in this kind of kingdom? Because this is what Jesus tells his disciples that life in God’s kingdom is like.

I don’t know about you, but there are several places I can think of where I would rather live than in the branch of a shrub. And while I may not mind being called “treasure”, I’m not sure I’m willing to be buried in the dirt in middle of the field in order to do it. Pearls are great, but you and I know where they get their start…in oysters. And finally, while I wouldn’t mind being the person pulling in the net full of fish, I’m not sure I want to be the fish sitting in that net.
This, I think, is what makes Solomon’s request to God so remarkable. He doesn’t ask to be something other than what he is. He doesn’t ask for something that he doesn’t aready have. He doesn’t ask for an easier life. He doesn’t say: “Get me out of the shrub and plant me in a tall, strong tree where I’ll be safe from the rest of the world.” He doesn’t ask God to give him more treasure than he’s already got. He’s not interested in getting out of the oyster shell. He’s content to stay right in the net that God cast for him. He doesn’t ask for any of these things, or anything else that would change him from what he is, remove him from where he’s at, or free him from his responsibilities.

Instead, when God invites him to ask for anything in the world, all he asks is for God to make him good at what God made him in the first place. “You made me king, help me to be the best one I can be.” I don’t know if I could do the same thing. Could you? If God showed up in a dream and invited you to ask him for anything at all, could you ask the way Solomon does? Asking, not for more riches, more success, or for more power, but instead asking God simply to help you be a better you. IT IS TOUGH!

If you don’t believe me that it is challenging to ask God to help you be what you are, just ask Jesus. He speaks to God in the middle of the night after he has shared the Last Supper with his disciples. Unlike the conversation Solomon had with God, this is no dream. In fact, it’s a nightmare, and Jesus knows it. That night, kneeling in the garden, he prays to God, and this is what he says: “My Father, if there is any way, get me out of this.” That’s an honest prayer. That’s a prayer I can relate to. That’s a prayer that screams to God that it’s not always easy being us. But Jesus’ prayer doesn’t stop there. His conversation with God in the garden continues with the words: “But please, not what I want. You, what do you want?”. (Matthew 13: The Message) To even give voice to these words is so difficult, so challenging, that it causes him to sweat. Luke’s gospel tells us that as he prayed, his sweat fell “like great drops of blood.”
In the garden, where olives are grown to be pressed into oil, Jesus is pressed into saving our world. When every human muscle in his body screams “Get me out of this!”, every divine cell within him quietly asks God to help him to continue to be who God wants him to be. What Jesus does in the garden that night is exactly what Solomon does in his dream: he asks God to help him be who God made him to be. “You sent me to save the world, help me to do it…even if it means my life.”

“Not what I want, but what you want” is possibly the hardest prayer ever prayed. But Jesus does it. The reason is simple. Jesus does it all, prays for strength to face the cross, prays for God’s will to be done instead of his own, carries through on the life God gave him to live-even when that life is on a nonstop collision course with death. Jesus does it all so that you will have the chance to live the life God made just for you.

Jesus knows that it is God who put us all on earth, and without God none of us can live here. Jesus gives his life for yours. He gives his life so that nothing can harm you, nothing can defeat you, nothing can prevent you from living the kind of life God knows you can. Jesus gives up his life so that you never have give up yours.

God made you. Who you are is no accident. God made you to do things that only you can do. What are they? God made you to be someone that only you can be. Who is that person? Do you know what God put you on earth for? Are you doing something about it everyday? If not, how can you pray to God, asking for help to find out what you’re here for?

If you do know what it is, how can you be the best at it? Do you have the strength to do what Solomon and Jesus did? To speak to God and ask, not for wealth, or fame, victory over your enemies, or even in Jesus’ honest words for God to get you out of whatever you find yourself in…but instead for the strength, the power, and the tools to become who God created you to be?

Martin Luther King Jr. once said: “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” Quarterback Johnny Unitas heard a similar mantra from his mother, who taught him that "If your job is to scrub toilets, then make them shine!"

The streetsweeper and the King , if they are living the life God gave them, know that they can’t do any of it without God. They also know that they are doing all of it, in the end, for God. Solomon’s prayer is a tough one: “Help me be who I am.” Jesus’ is even tougher “Not what I want, but what you want”. If you and I are going to live in God’s Kingdom, we will need these prayers-to avoid the temptation to try be mighty redwoods when we’re called to be mustard shrubs. We’ll need to be well-versed in these words if we are going to be able to sit in the field and wait for God to uncover us as the treasure we really are. We will need to pray these words regularly, as we sit clamped tight in that oyster shell as we slowly and steadily become the pearl God made us to be. We will be glad when we can say these words, when we sit lumped together with all the other fish in the net, waiting for God to pluck us out and keep us forever.

Being what God made you to be is never easy, but with God’s help, it is worth it. Along the way, we’ll find that out: as we grow, as we are discovered, as we become that precious gem, and as we are caught up in God’s net just because we are who he made us to be.

Weeds and Wheat

God loves things that grow. In fact, God started all of this, everything we see around us, in a garden. Genesis chapter two tells the story of that garden and the first people, whom God put there to “till it and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15) From the beginning, God is sharing His love for growing things with us.

Jesus seems to share God’s passion for growing things. He tells all kinds of stories about things that grow. He tells stories about seeds, a fig tree, vineyards, vines, and branches. In Matthew chapter 13, he tells a story about “weeds and wheat” (13:24-30, 36-43)

What makes this story so interesting to me is the weed that this person sows into the wheat field in the middle of the night. The Bible names it: zizanium (in Greek). It’s scientific name is Lolium Temulentum. It is commonly known as darnel or cockle. In some places, this weed is called “false wheat” and here’s why: it grows right alongside wheat and looks nearly identical to it. But, when the seed in the zizanium, which is heavier than the seed in wheat, appears it makes the plant bow over. Worse yet, the seed of the zizanium is inedible, and can even be poisonous.

The farmer sows seeds that will grow into wheat that can be harvested to feed his family. He sows the seeds with the hope that they will grow and produce ripe grain. He sows only the best seed he has. Then, when he goes to sleep someone sneaks in and sows zizanium. This intruder is as passionate about ruining the harvest as the farmer is about growing good, healthy crops.
Think about it for just a moment. Do you garden? What do you love to grow? It would be like someone coming into your garden at night and planting something that looked just like it, but when it grew and blossomed, destroying everything around it!

If you’re not a gardener, then what are you passionate about? I have a friend who is passionate about his car. He works on it every chance he gets, he keeps it clean, waxed and polished. Sowing weeds among he wheat would be like someone coming in the middle of the night and putting sugar in his gas tank.

Are you passionate about the appearance of your home? The story that Jesus tells could be about you, too. Picture this, you’ve just repainted your house, then someone comes in the middle of the night and eggs it!

The simplest explanation is that what this night-time planter does is mean, malicious, and intent on stopping the growth from happening.

What if it happened to you? You wake up in the morning to find zizanium growing in your wheat field. You leave the house, start the car and it’s dead because of the sugar in your gas tank. You’re coming in after picking up the morning paper and your house is covered in whites, yolks, and shells! How would you feel? What thoughts might coarse through your mind? What would you do about it? What if you knew who had done it? What would you like to say to that person? What might you like to do to him?

Jesus’ story is a story about God, his Father, who began creation in a garden and makes it his passion to help it to grow. How does God feel when someone comes into His garden and sows things that will ruin it? What does God do when this happens?

Amazingly, in the story that Jesus tells his followers, God does nothing! There’s no retribution. God doesn’t go storming over the malicious weed-planter’s house to confront him. God doesn’t begin dreaming up ways to repay the favor. Instead, God does nothing. After these poisonously destructive weeds begin to come up, growing right alongside the farmer’s precious grain, what does he say: “Let both of them grow together until the harvest…”

This doesn’t make sense to me. This is the same all-powerful God, who, the moment He said “Let there be light,” the sun burst into the brightest ball of flame the world will ever know. This is the same creator who watched his people flee slavery and reached down to part the sea in front of them so that they could escape. This is the God, by the way, who sent ten nasty plagues: frogs, locusts, darkness, a river of blood, to free those people. And now, Jesus tells a story where the character who is supposed to represent this same all-powerful God does nothing when someone sows nasty weeds into his garden? It doesn’t make sense. Not to me, and not, apparently to Jesus’ disciples. “Explain the parable of the weeds to us…” they ask. “Make this clear to us, because we’re just not getting it.”

Maybe the disciples are having a hard time, because up to this point they had thought that as followers of God’s Son, that it was their job to pull up all the nasty weeds in the world. Now they’re confused because Jesus seems to be saying: “leave them alone”. Maybe they’re wondering why God doesn’t do a better job of guarding the garden. Maybe they’re starting to wonder which kind of plant they are “Are we the weeds or the wheat? Please explain it to us!” Jesus’ story, rather than make something about God clear to them, seems to leave them more confused. Sometimes, we have these same kinds of confusions.

Jesus’ story, and his explanation to his followers, is a reminder to us all that God is always only concerned with growing. God loves the garden he has created, and wants nothing more than for everything in it to grow and grow. God lets the weeds grow, for now, because He’s never willing to do anything that might harm the things that He’s passionate about growing. If pulling up these nasty weeds, as offensive and poisonous as they may be, could in any way hurt the grain, then God is content to leave them until the wheat is safely harvested and stored in His barn.
The message for us seems to be: Grow! Let God worry about everything else, you just grow where you’re planted. Because, the reality is, God knows exactly what to do with the weeds and God will do whatever it takes to make sure that they never, ever harm the grain.

God is serious about the business of growing. There’s another story that takes place in a garden, and like the story that Jesus tells, it happens at night. After he and his disciples have eaten at the table, after he told them about the bread and the wine and how from now on they would be his body and blood, and how they needed to remember everything they had done at that table…After all of that, Jesus and his followers went to a garden called Gethsemane, and there, in the middle of the night people came for him. They came with charges of everything from blasphemy to treason, they came, ultimately to take him to the cross. His disciples offered to intervene, they tried to stop it, they jumped at the chance to keep Jesus right there in the garden. But, do you know what Jesus did? When people came to take him, and his life, in the end, that night in the garden, he did NOTHING. He didn’t protest. He didn’t fight. He didn’t run. He went with them. To the courts, and then to the cross.

Jesus is just like his father. Rather than lose a single follower. Rather than lose a single grain of wheat, He goes instead. Jesus won’t let anything uproot a single person from being rooted firmly in God’s loving garden…even if it means his own life, he’ll give it.

The story that Jesus tells ends in the fall. It ends when the whole field is harvested. Only then, does God worry about the weeds, and even then, his top priority is getting the wheat into the barn.

How much of your time in life is spent worrying about the weeds? Weeds that pop up out of nowhere. Weeds that ruin your garden. Weeds that poison your life? God’s strategy, when it comes to weeds, is don’t worry about them at all. Just keep growing. If you're having trouble with weeds, and they're getting in the way of your growth, then go back and re-read the story about the weeds and the wheat. In it, God promises that if we focus on growing, in faith, in grace, in our awareness of the people God has planted in this world with us…then He’ll worry about the weeds, and we won't have to!

When was the last time you visited a major city? While you were there, did you ever take public transportation? The T in Boston? The Subway in New York? The Metro in Washington D.C? If not, did you walk along the city streets? Think back to those times. Was there ever music playing as you waited for your train? As you walked down the street, was there music on one of the corners? Where did it come from? Who was playing it? What did you do when you heard it? Can you remember what instrument that person was playing? What piece of music did they perform? How long did you stay and listen? How much money did you throw into their instrument case?

The Washington Post recently explored all these questions with a little experiment. This past January 12, they invited a man to stand in L’Enfant Plaza in Washington D.C. and play his violin. Dressed in a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans, he stood and played for 43 minutes, while the folks from the Washington Post surreptitiously videotaped the whole scene. (Read the entire article and watch a video at: “Pearls before Breakfast” http://www.washingtonpost.com/)

During that time 1,097 people passed by him. How many people do you think stopped to listen? A total of seven people stopped, each one listening to his music an average of only one minute. How many do you think threw money into the open violin case at his feet? That number was higher. Twenty-seven people dropped something into the case, most of them not even breaking stride as they did it. At the end of the performance, the violinist had a little more than $32 to take home with him. As he played his violin, a crowd never formed, there wasn’t any applause, and more than 1,000 people passed by, seemingly oblivious that there was anything happening at all.

You’re probably thinking: “Isn’t this what happens when most street performers set up shop in train stations, street corners, and public squares?” You would be right, except the difference this time was that the man playing the violin wasn’t an average street performer. The man that the Washington Post invited to stand in the plaza and play was a man named Joshua Bell, considered by many to be one of the best classical performers in the entire world. The violin that he played wasn’t just any violin, either. It was a Stradivarius that was made in 1713 that still had its original coat of varnish. Its estimated value is around $3.5 million. Three days before he played his 43 minute concert in D.C. he had filled Boston’s own Symphony hall to capacity. If you wanted to hear him play there, you would have had to pay $100 for an average seat.

So, when one of the world’s greatest musicians stands in a public place and plays some of the greatest music ever composed for free on a 3 million dollar violin, what happens? The answer is, apparently, nothing. He didn’t draw a crowd, not even for a second. He didn’t receive an ovation of any kind. At the end of the day, his work had earned him the price of dinner for two at an average restaurant.

What did Josh Bell have to say about it?
"At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change."

This little experiment happened this past January. Jesus described the very same thing 2,000 years ago.

He compares the people of his time to children, sitting in the marketplace, calling out: “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance.” (Matthew 11:17) I think what he’s pointing out is our capacity to miss some of the greatest things that life has to offer because we’re focused on other things.

Has it ever happened to you? When was the last time you felt rushed, like you didn’t have enough time to get everything on your “to-do” list done? When was the last time you missed something that someone was telling you because while they were speaking your thoughts were on other things? When was the last time you walked right past something beautiful and breath-taking and didn’t even know that it was there?

Jesus understands. He knows that our lives are often overloaded. He knows that our shoulders are often weighed down with heavy things: responsibilities, schedules, deadlines, worries. He doesn’t need to videotape our lives to notice any of it. He watches us as we hurry here and there, as we pile more and more into our life, and as we exhaust ourselves. If you’ve ever felt this way, you don’t even have to tell him, he already knows.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest…Keep company with me an you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:28 The Message)

Jesus invites us to stop hurrying, stop carrying so much extra baggage on our shoulders, and stop exhausting ourselves so that we might notice and enjoy this beautiful life that God has given us to live.

With Jesus, though, this is more than an invitation. It’s a way of life. In fact, it is his only way of life. In John 10:10, he tells us “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” The “they” he’s referring to are people like you and I. This is why he came, so that people like you and I wouldn’t have to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. So that we wouldn’t be depleted of all our life and energy by working ourselves to exhaustion. He came so that we might begin to live the kind of life that God intended for us. A life that is awake and alert to the world around us, and ready to take it all in

Jesus made this possible by taking the weight of the world off of your shoulders and putting it on his own. He made an abundant life a reality for you by exhausting and depleting every bit of life that he had in him. By giving up the life God intended for him on the cross, he made it possible for you to live a real life of your own.

When you let go of the heavy burdens, the hurried pace, and the drive to work yourself to exhaustion, God does what he did for Jesus, he gives you a real life. After the cross, God opened up a new life for Jesus to live, and it was a life that was stronger than death. God does the same for us. God gives us the opportunity to live a life that is stronger than all those heavy burdens and exhausting things that have made you miss the real life that is all around you for so long.

There were two moments during Josh Bell’s performance when people did notice. The first was a man who worked for the Department of Energy who stopped to listen for a full three minutes. Afterwards, when asked to describe why he stopped, here’s what he said about what he heard: "Whatever it was, it made me feel at peace." He felt something, so he stopped to listen.

The other moment came when a mother hurriedly led her three year-old son through the plaza. She was too hurried to stop and notice or savor the music, but her son was intrigued. He twisted and turned while his mother grasped his hand, trying to see Bell as he played. Even when his mother stepped between he and the musician, he craned his neck and strained to stay and listen. When she was asked to describe what had happened, she said: "There was a musician,and my son was intrigued. He wanted to pull over and listen, but I was rushed for time." When she was told who had been playing, and what she had missed out on, all she could say was her son must be “very smart!”

Jesus thanks God that when it comes to his plan for the world that it has been “hidden” from the “wise and intelligent” and “revealed to infants.” (Matthew 11:25)

What would happen if we recovered some of the child-like faith that Jesus speaks about? What might happen if we made it a priority to stop and listen to the music of life and dance to it when it is played? What might change in our life if we stopped rushing, carrying, and doing so much and instead let God handle it while we savored some of the abundance he’s given us? What might happen if you and I trusted Jesus with our burdens and noticed the people around us a little more? Maybe people like Josh Bell would get an ovation in the plaza, and the little boy who was mesmerized by the music might not have to strain so hard to hear. Maybe, just maybe, we might even feel at peace more often.

Start with the small stuff

An often repeated story from an unknown author tells of a young boy who was so upset with his parents that he decided to run away from home. He packed two cans of root beer and two twinkies into his knapsack and he left the house and started walking. He walked to the end of his street, and toward the center of town. Every step of the way he muttered to himself about how angry he was, about how unfair his parents had been, and about how he would never go back. He walked and walked. By the time he made it to the park, he was thinking less about how upset he was and more about how hungry he felt, so he sat down on a bench and opened his backpack.

There was an elderly woman sitting on the bench next to him as he opened one of the twinkies and started eating. Without saying a word, he offered the second twinkie to her. She smiled at the young boy and took it from him. When he opened the first can of root beer, again, without saying a word he offered the woman the other one. She gave him another huge smile and took the second can of root beer. The two of them sat there in silence, together on that bench in the park, eating the twinkies and drinking the root beer. When the little boy had finished his twinkie and his root beer, the little boy wasn’t muttering to himself anymore, he wasn’t as angry as he had been, and now, he didn’t know what else to do, so he got up and decided to walk back home. He took a few steps and started to leave, but then stopped, turned around and gave the woman on the bench a hug. She smiled at him once more.

When he walked in the door of his house and went into the kitchen, his mother couldn’t help but notice that this wasn’t the same angry boy who had stormed out of the house earlier that day. “What’s gotten into you?” she asked. “I just met God in the park,” the little boy said, and before his mother could say a single word, he added “and she’s got the nicest smile I’ve ever seen!”

Later that day, across town, when the elderly woman’s son stopped by her house to say hello, he noticed that she seemed to be in an especially good mood. “What’s gotten into you?” he asked. “I just met God in the park,” the elderly woman said, and before her son could say a single word, she added “and he’s a lot younger than I thought he would be!”

Whenever we meet God, we’re never the same afterward. Problems seem less difficult to bear. Something that at one time seemed insurmountable, now seems manageable. Grudges that seemed to be permanently wedged into our hearts now seem to be loosened, and we’re capable of un-wedging them and even letting them go. The places in life that seemed lifeless, now seem to blossom with new life.

I think this is what Jesus is getting at in Matthew 10:40-42, as he begins to conclude a long message to his followers. In his words to them, he’s been preparing them to enter the world and bring his compassion, his healing, and his forgiveness to people who desperately need it. These two verses are the last words he says to them before they go:

“We are intimately linked in this harvest work…this is a large work that I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it…start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance.” (10:40-42 The Message)

Start small. A twinkie and a root beer can lead to an unexpected encounter with God. A phone call and a reassuring word could open up the lines directly to God’s heart. A cup of cool water may not seem like much to you, but to the person dying of thirst it could mean salvation.

We are linked together in this business that God has invited us into. When you open the door to welcome someone new, God gets to come inside with them. When you share a word of forgiveness with someone, God reminds you of how many times he’s forgiven you. When you share what you have, even down to something simple: a twinkie and a root-beer, a cup of cool water, God reminds you of how abundant he’s made your life…that you are comfortable and you have enough to share. The smile you get in return, may at the end of the day turn out to be something priceless…something that changes everything.

There’s another story that gets told, about another boy who left home. This one takes place in a small town in Spain. One evening a man named Jorge had a bitter argument with his young son Paco. The next day Jorge discovered that Paco's bed was empty--he had run away from home.
Overcome with remorse, Jorge searched his soul and realized that his son was more important to him than anything else. He wished he could go back and take back all the things he had said and the way he had said them. He found that more than anything, he wanted to start over. Jorge went to a well-known store in the center of the town and posted a large sign that read, "Paco, come home, I love you. Meet me here tomorrow morning."

The next morning Jorge went to the store, where he found no less than seven young boys named Paco who also run away from home. They were all answering the call for love, each hoping it was his dad inviting him home with open arms.

Sometimes, when we’re angry, we don’t stop walking when we get to the park, and we don’t post the invitation for reconciliation and forgiveness. Instead, we keep trudging through life, muttering on about how angry we are, and about how many times the world has wronged us, and about how unfairly we’ve been treated, and how we’ll never go back. Too often in life, we sit at home and wait, too stubborn to go out and make things right, too stubborn to forgive, too stubborn to welcome the people we’ve disagreed with back into our life. When we choose these paths, in the end, we lose out. We miss the smile from God’s own face. We miss the embrace that washes away all the regret, that seals the reconciliation, that re-solidifies the love.

The Bible is full of situations where the people that God has created fall short of what God had hoped for them. Our human story is filled with these same things. The times when we’ve walked out on God to try to carve our own path. The times when we’ve shut God out of our lives, not content to share our space with him. The Bible communicates the pain God feels when these things happen. It’s no different when they happen in our life. God feels the pain.

In the end, though, when God faces these things, God chooses the path of love. God chooses to welcome us back into His loving arms. God chooses to give us the cool waters that quench our thirst for forgiveness and keep us in relationship with him. When God does this, it isn’t with something simple like two twinkies and a couple of cans of root beer. God doesn’t repair the relationship with a hand-written note. God doesn’t just sit down with us over a cup of cool water.
Instead, God does something that costs a great deal. In fact, it costs him everything he loves most. Jesus himself, the only Son God has, repairs the relationship with his own broken body, he extends the forgiveness with his own outstretched arms, he welcomes us into God’s love forever by welcoming the pain and the rejection of the cross into his own life. In the end, it kills him to fix the places where our relationship with God has become broken. Somehow, it makes the gift that much greater, it’s like what Paul writes: “God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus.” (Romans 6:23 The Message)

God does the large work of forgiving you so that you can do the small work of getting to know him by offering what he’s given you to others: forgiveness and twinkies, cups of cool water and words of deep forgiveness, messages of hope through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and hand-written letters of hope for broken relationships. Who might need to find God’s face in your smile this week? Who might hunger for grace and find it in the first bite of that twinkie that you share? Who could thirst for acceptance and taste it in the cool water you pour for them? Who might need to read the words “Please forgive me” as only you can write them? You won’t how it will reach them, or you, unless you share what you’ve got, write the note, or offer the cup to that person. It’s a large work that we’ve been called into. It doesn’t have to overwhelm us if we start with the small stuff.