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.

"know-it-all"-ism

Matthew 10:24-39

A.J. Jacobs is a “know-it-all,” and I know he wouldn’t mind me saying so. In fact, he devoted a large portion of his life to becoming one. He did it by reading the entire Encyclopaedia Brittanica from cover to cover. All 32 volumes. All 32,000 pages, all forty-four million words. Along the way, he learned: “the name of Turkey’s leading avant-garde publication…that Bud Abbott was a double-crosser and John Quincy Adams married for money...[and] that there’s a heated controversy over who invented the accordion”. All that, among other things, was just in the first 100 pages! In the end, he made it the title of his book “The Know-it-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World” (2004, Simon and Schuster).

You and I are most likely nothing like Mr. Jacobs. If we’ve read any bit of an encyclopedia, it was probably when we were in grade school collecting facts for a report, and even then we probably “skimmed” or “gleaned” more than we read. Most of us would shy away, and even resent the implication that we were in any way a “know-it-all.” Yet, if we are followers of Jesus, then much of the world sees us this way.

In an open-ended study of impressions of churches and church-goers by people ages 17 to 29, the top three characteristics listed about Christians were: “hypocritical, insensitive, and judgmental” (unchristian:What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity…and Why it Matters. Kinnamon and Lyons. Baker, 2007). All of this can be summarized in one term: “know-it-all.” A.J. Jacobs may have written the book on it, but it seems that when it comes to being “know-it-alls” that we’ve made a household name for ourselves out of it.

Don’t be alarmed, though. This doesn’t seem to be anything new. Two-thousand years ago, Jesus confronted “know-it-all”-ism as well. In Matthew 10:24 he tells his followers: “The learner isn’t above the teacher and the servant isn’t above the master…it’s enough that you’re like me; the idea isn’t that you are me.” Whenever you or I are tempted to become “know-it-alls” for Jesus, he seems to remind us that we’ve still got a lot to learn.

So how can the Christian church today shed this “know-it-all” image that we seem to have gotten ourselves into? Jesus has a solution: “Forget about yourself.” Forget about the answers, forget about being “right”, forget about trying to be above the teacher, and forget about outdoing the master. No matter how much energy you devote to it, no matter how many pages you read, no matter how many facts you memorize, there is only, and there will only ever be, one true “know-it-all”. The antidote to “know-it-all”-ism of every variety is to always let that one be the only one in your life.

God is THE “know-it-all”. There have been some pretty smart people throughout history. Yasumasa Kanada is one of them. He and a team of people used a supercomputer to calculate pi to one trillion, two-hundred forty one billion, one hundred million places. That’s impressive, but God knows the one trillion, two-hundred forty one billion, one hundred million and first digit and He can calculate it in his head! Ken Jennings holds the record for consecutive wins on the game show “Jeopardy!” with 74. The question he lost on was “Most of this firm’s 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees work only four months a year.” Jennings thought it was Federal Express. God knew that it was really H&R Block. You may know that Barry Bonds holds the record for the most home runs in a single season with seventy-three. Did you know that God knows who will break that record, when it will happen, and what kind of bat the player will use. A.J. Jacobs read the entire Encyclopaedia Brittanica. God was there when everything written in the book actually happened.

I am prone to “know-it-all”-ism, too. I know what my wife Kathleen’s birthday is, what her favorite color is, and what her favorite food is. Jesus reminds me that all of that is just fine, but God knows all of it as well, and he also knows the exact number of hairs on her head!

Jesus invites us to make God the ONLY “know-it-all” in our lives, but he knows that because we are human, it won’t always be easy for us to do that. It will take a great deal of trust. To help, Jesus invites us to let him worry about knowing it all, and tells us to “have no fear”. It will take a lot of patience, and Jesus invites us to “follow behind” him, let him lead, and go at his pace. It will take faith to let go of our “know-it-all”-ism, and Jesus reminds us that if God knows everything, down to what happens every moment in a sparrow’s life, then God knows what we’re going through every moment as well. If you and I are interested in following Jesus, then one of the first things we’ll have to do is forget ourselves and let God be the one and only “know-it-all” in our life.

If we are going to let someone do this, it might as well be God. One thing that God knows with certainty is that when our life gets rough, when people criticize and insult us, when things happen that fill us with fear, that He will stick with us. God knows without a shred of doubt that even when things get really bad, when our life is overcome by shadows, whenever we find ourselves wandering through dark valleys, and when the future looks uncertain or even bleak, that even at those moments God knows that He will give His own life before He lets anything destroy ours.

It’s always enough that you and I are like Jesus: compassionate, forgiving, and faithful. It will never be enough if we try to become him, outdo him, or out-wit him. It will forever be sufficient that you and I resemble Jesus: obedient, focused on God, and diligent. It will never be enough if we try to out-work him. No matter what we say or do, there will, always and forever, be only one true “know-it-all.” He’s the God who told Isaiah: “when you were in your mother’s womb, I named you." He is the God who was there before the world existed and who will be there when it comes to an end. He is the God who knows what makes you happy, fearful, sad, and hopeful. He is the only one who knows it all, and when we let God be God, soon we’ll learn that life is a lot easier when we don’t have to know it all because God does, and that is always enough!

“The only grace you can have is the grace you can imagine.” –Benjamin Zander, The Art of Possibility

In his book, The Art of Possibilty, Benjamin Zander re-tells “The Monk’s Story.”

A monastery has fallen on hard times. It was once part of a great order which, as a result of religious persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, lost all its branches. It was decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the mother house: the Abbot and four others, all of whom were over seventy. Clearly it was a dying order.

Deep in the woods surrounding the monastery was a little hut that the Rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. One day, it occurred to the Abbot to visit the hermitage to see if the Rabbi could offer any advice that might save the monastery. The Rabbi welcomed the Abbot and commiserated. “I know how it is,” he said, “the spirit has gone out of people. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore.” So the old Rabbi and the old Abbot wept together, and they read parts of the Torah and spoke quietly of deep things.

The time came when the Abbot had to leave. They embraced. “It has been wonderful being with you,” said the Abbot, “but I have failed in my purpose for coming. Have you no piece of advice that might save the monastery?” “No, I am sorry,” the Rabbi responded, “I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”

When the other monks heard the Rabbi’s words, they wondered what possible significance they might have. “The Messiah is one of us? One of us, here, at the monastery? Do you suppose he meant the Abbot? Of course—it must be the Abbot, who has been our leader for so long. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas, who is certainly a holy man. Or could he have meant Brother Elrod, who is so crotchety? But then Elrod is very wise. Surely, he could not have meant Brother Phillip—he’s too passive. But then, magically, he’s always there when you need him. Of course he didn’t mean me—yet supposing he did? Oh Lord, not me! I couldn’t mean that much to you, could I?”

As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect, on the off chance that one of them might be the Messiah. And on the off off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.

Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, people occasionally came to visit the monastery, to picnic or to wander along the old paths, most of which led to the dilapidated chapel. They sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that surrounded the five old monks, permeating the atmosphere. They began to come more frequently, bringing their friends, and their friends brought friends. Some of the younger men who came to visit began to engage in conversation with the monks. After a while, one asked if he might join. Then another, and another. Within a few years, the monastery became once again a thriving order, and—thanks to the Rabbi’s gift—a vibrant, authentic community of light and love for the whole realm.

“One of you is the messiah…”

In Matthew 9:35-10:8, Jesus invites his disciples to start doing what he’s been doing. He’s been telling people about God’s powerful love, now it’s their turn to go out and do it, too. He’s been curing sick people, now it’s they will give it a try. He’s been raising the dead to new life, now it’s their turn to visit the people whom death has touched. He’s been cleansing lepers and he’s been casting out demons, now they will cleanse and cast out, too.

I wonder what was going through their minds as he sent them out into the world for this? I wonder what we might think if he asked us to do the same things?

In the end, I think this is less a lesson about the number of sick people you cure, dead people you raise, lepers you cleanse, or demons you cast out, and more a lesson about what happens when you venture out into uncertain and even dangerous territory for God. I think this is a lesson about what happens to twelve people who have already abandoned their former lives as fishermen, tax collectors, and whatever else they may have been before, and now are asked to abandon the values of the world and begin to live God’s values. I think it’s a lesson about what happens to these twelve people and what happens to the sick, the people who mourn the death of loved ones, the lepers, and the afflicted people they meet when they go out because of Jesus’ command.

I think this story is about what happens to us when we believe that God is with us.
When you believe that God is with you, you may have the courage to go out and try to do the impossible. When you believe that God is with you, you may find that you’ve lost your fear of the unknown. When you believe that God is with you, you just might make a difference in someone else’s life.

Jesus did it all first. In chapters 8 and 9 of Matthew’s gospel alone, he does it all: tells people about God’s love, cures the sick, raises the dead, cleanses the lepers, and casts out the demons. He does it, because he is the Messiah. He is the compassionate Son of God who was sent to change the world. He does it also, I think, because he can’t help but believe. In fact, he knows every moment of every day that God is with him. It gives him courage in the face of fearful things, it gives him confidence in the face of criticism, and it gives him the perseverance to keep going, living and telling the world that God is here.

Even when it looks to all who stand and watch, as if he were wrong about it all. Even when the cross blocks sight of anything that would ever seem to come from God. Even when death silences his voice, Jesus is reminding us that God is with him. We are saved, in the end, because Jesus kept going. No matter how much suffering he saw, no matter how much suffering he experienced, he kept going on believing every moment that God is with us.

The dying monastery, in the end, was saved because they reclaimed a sense of awe at the presence of God among them. When they thought each day that God could be just an arm’s length away: across the dinner table, sitting next to you during a prayer, working alongside you out in the garden, then they began to look at their world, and the people around them very differently.

How would your life change this week if you believed that God was with you? In the car next to you on the highway as you drove to work? Across the table from you as you sat down to breakfast? Sitting at the desk just in front of you in the classroom? Would your thoughts about life change? Would your actions in life change? Would the things that make you impatient and angry seem as important to you as they do right now? Would the things that bring you joy somehow seem even better?

Imagine the sick person, who the world had abandoned for fear of contagiousness, when Bartholomew and Philip arrived, took her hand, looked into her eyes and prayed for their health. Imagine the leper who no one dared to touch because his condition was interpreted as a punishment from God. What did he think when James and John knelt down with him in the street and bathed his sores? Imagine the family who mourned the loss of a child when Thomas and Matthew came by to sit and talk about the child’s life and remind her parents that God loved their daughter. Imagine the person whose life is in total chaos, who struggles with even the simplest tasks, and because of this he has lost every friend, and his family won’t even return his calls. Imagine what might happen when Peter knocks on the door and says: “God sent me, how can I help you?”

Who are the nearby people in your life that God would have you call, whose door God would have you knock on, whose wounds God would have you attend to? If you believed that God was with you every step of the way would you go, would you call, would you knock, would you reach out? And if you did, how might your life, and theirs, change?

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." -Matthew 9:9-13

Which crowd do you run with most of the time? It’s no secret that people tend to share the same values as the people they associate with. As human beings, we will tend to reflect, and even adopt, the beliefs, behaviors, and styles of the people that we spend most of our time with.
Think about this for a moment. How true has it been in your life? Think back to when you were a child. Did you ever befriend someone who was popular hoping that it would make you popular, too? Did you ever play a sport? When you were on the junior varsity team, did you hang around the kids who had made varsity hoping to pick up some of their skills and abilities? At your job, have you ever felt pressure to shift your values or beliefs in order to get the job done?

Think now about the people over the course of your life with whom you chose not to associate. Which social circles did you avoid? When you were a teenager was there a “crowd” that your parents warned you about. Did your mom or dad ever wonder about someone being a “bad influence” on you? Were there people over the years who seemed so different from you that you weren’t sure how to relate to them? What did you do when you encountered them? Did you start a conversation to learn more about one another? Did you avoid them altogether?

Sometimes, when we experience people who are different from ourselves, we retreat. We return to the circles of people where we feel most comfortable, and oftentimes we stay there. As a result, these people begin to shape who we are, who we become, and who the world understands us to be.

If you understand this, then you can understand the position that the Pharisees find themselves in. They wander past a crowd of people who have bad reputations. There are tax collectors who take money from people and are dishonest in what they do. Along with them are sinners of every variety. When the Pharisees wander by, this crowd is doing what they do best: causing a scene. They’re eating and drinking, and partying. They’re using all kinds of foul language, and whooping it up. To borrow a word from St. Paul that I’ve grown fond of in recent weeks: they’re doing quite a bit of “carousing”.

It’s hard not to notice, in the middle of this scene, who’s sitting with them, joining in the festivities. Jesus and his disciples are there at the party and this really bothers the Pharisees. You can guess what they might be thinking:

“The nerve of this guy? How can he talk to us about God and the Bible and goodness and truth, and faith? Who does he think he is? How can he claim to be sent from God if this is where he’s spending his time? Look at him sitting there with tax collectors, and prostitutes, and homeless beggars, and criminals!”

You can hear the conclusion they draw even before they say it:

“If he enjoys hanging around in that crowd, then he must be one of them, too!"

It bothers them. By eating with these people, Jesus is sending a clear message that he doesn’t see things the way the Pharisees do. It might bother us, too. In many ways Jesus’ life, and the way he lives it, are a signal that he doesn’t see the world the way we do, either.

Amazingly, Jesus doesn’t seem too worried about the reputations of the people at the party that night rubbing off on him. He doesn’t avoid the criminals, the homeless, the prostitutes, the sick, or the tax collectors. In fact, he goes out of his way not to avoid them. Jesus isn’t worried about what the neighbors will think of him, or what people might say about him.

Jesus, when it comes down to it, meets the people of the world with acceptance. He’s constantly loving the people the world says are unlovable and accepting the people who the world might say are the most unacceptable. He makes it clear that he hasn’t come to call the ones who have made the team, or the ones on the honor roll, or the members of the “in” crowd. Instead, he’s come to call the sinners. In the process, he doesn’t seem overly concerned with figuring out whether they’re worth it, or not.

Jesus is all about inviting everyone: sinners, outcasts, the forgotten, the ones the world has written off completely. He offers each of them his time, his love, and his acceptance before he takes the time to figure out who their friends are, what their GPA might be, or how much money they make. When Jesus stops at Matthew’s tax booth and says “Follow me” he’s reminding us all that there is more than enough room in the “Jesus” crowd for everyone. The high-achiever and the perpetual failure, the captain of the team and the water-boy, the prom queen and the girl who’s never been asked out can all find a place at the table Jesus has set. There’s also a place there for you, and for me.

Which crowd have you been spending most of your time with lately? The crowd that gathers to enjoy this life that God has blessed, no matter how imperfect it is most of the time? Or the crowd that stands on the outside and complains about how anyone could celebrate in a world like ours? Which crowd have you been hanging out with these days? The crowd that loves to spend most of their time pointing out what’s wrong with the rest of the world , or the crowd that’s been trying to reach out to the world? Which flock do you find yourself in?

Jesus embraced people for who they were, then he invited them into the life God gave him to share. “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” He tells the Pharisees. In Jesus, no matter who you are or which crowd you spend most of your time with, Jesus offers you his mercy. Most of the time, it’s all he wants to do. He is so set on this that in the end, when a sacrifice is made, it is his sacrifice. His life in place of the tax collector, the prostitute, the perpetual failure, the criminal…and you. With his death he sacrifices it all so that you and I won’t have to. With the new life God gives him, he lives on to continue to invite us all into relationship with him at a table of forgiveness where all are welcome.