Faith

Meet Jeremiah; the seemingly unhinged prophet – Friday, 5th week in Lent – Jeremiah 20:10-13/ John 10:31-42

The text of today can be divided into three movements. The attack on the Lord’s faithful (20:10), the protection of the Lord’s faithful (20:11), and the vindication of the Lord’s faithful (20:12-13).

Jeremiah did not want this job, God forced it upon him. In the preceding text, Jeremiah tells the Lord in no uncertain terms that God ‘enticed’ him (some translations have the word seduced) and he was ‘overpowered’ into taking this job. Far from the ‘honour’ that he thought the job of a prophet would bring, he finds himself a ‘laughingstock’ a man who is ‘mocked,’ his voice disregarded and so he has to ‘shout his prophecy’ but worst of all, his very words that should have struck fear are used against him.

Jeremiah wanted to quit. Chapter 20:9 tells us that he had enough. He wanted to give in his resignation but God had overpowered his heart. “If I say I will not mention him or speak his name or speak any more in his name, then within me is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones.”

The attack on the Lord’s faithful 20:10

The text of today tells us the hate that Jeremiah experienced from the people and even from the priest Pashur (20:1) who struck him and put him in stocks. His ‘close friends’ (verse 10) watch and wait for him to stumble. Others think they can make Jeremiah change his doomsday prophecy by ‘enticing’ him and then once he has changed his message they will destroy the messenger.

The protection of the Lord’s faithful 20:11

Our faith in the protection of God does not come from theoretical knowledge. Those who have trusted in the Lord have seen the Lord come through for them. Jeremiah has experienced hate and isolation because he brings the message of God but he also expresses the sure hope that God will not desert him. Echoing the words of Psalm 22, he says, “But the Lord is with me” and he is my undefeated champion.

 Interestingly the defeat of the enemy comes not because God has made a promise to Jeremiah but because Jeremiah lived the promise of God. Jeremiah says, “The Lord is with me like a dread warrior; THEREFORE, my persecutors will stumble.” Jeremiah is confident of the promises of God and even more predicts accurately what will happen to his enemies. He uses five deadly words that describe the Babylonian captivity; his enemies stumble, they did not prevail, they are greatly shamed, they did not succeed and their eternal dishonour will not be forgotten.

The vindication of the Lord’s faithful 20:12-13.

The Lord’s faithful don’t get free passes. Jeremiah asserts that God has tested their hearts and minds. If you call down blue murder on one who has hurt you, don’t be surprised if God does not come through for you. Your heart and mind have also been tested (verse 12) God does not come through for you because you bandy the name ‘Christian’ on your t-shirt, or because you wear a cross around your neck or make an occasional offering to St Anthony.  God sees the heart and the mind, so get that fixed while you wish your neighbour to be fixed.

Those who are pure of heart (Matthew 5:8) see the will of God and allow God to do what he thinks best. Jeremiah asserts that truth. He seeks God’s vindication and may even come across as vengeful when he says, “Let me see your retribution upon them.” However, he does not take retribution into his own hands; “for to YOU I have committed my cause.” Let God decide the time, the place and the measure of his protection for you.

Is it all that easy? Just three movements? Read the next few verses, and Jeremiah is back to doubting God’s presence. It’s the fourth movement; ‘the fall of the Lord’s faithful.’ Take consolation from the prophets. These holy men struggled with faith as much as you and I do.

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading
Faith

Not an Instagram God – Thursday, 5th week of Lent – Genesis 171:3-9/ John 8:51-59

Faith is not a moment’s revelation; it is a journey. Abraham may be known as the father of faith but scripture tells us that he too wavered in faith. Today’s text is accepted by all scholars as one of the covenants of God in the Old Testament. Depending on how you see it there are between five to seven covenants initiated by God.

Interestingly, covenants are always initiated by God and they are not lopsided in their approach or unpalatable in their appeal. These unbreakable relationships are not a ‘servant-master’ relationship but rather a ‘parent-child’ bond. When God makes a covenant, the recipient is always exalted not humbled. God desired to exalt Noah, Moses and his people, Abraham and David. By his promise, he exalts you and me too.  

God’s covenant is not some short-term warranty or merely an attractively packaged extended guarantee. These covenants, though conditional and binding on both parties, are lifelong. In today’s text, God establishes a covenant with Abraham and his descendants. He promised them the land he gave Abraham but when they broke the covenant, he dispossessed them of the land for seventy years. (the Babylonian exile)

God does not enter into covenants because we are perfect. In 7:1 God asks Abraham to walk ‘before him’ and be blameless. ‘Ta-mim’ as in blameless, does not translate as without sin but rather a proper relationship with God. God asked Noah in Genesis 6:9 to be ‘ta-mim’ but we know that after the flood he failed God when he gave into a drunken stupor (Genesis 9:20). God understands human frailty.

Abraham could well be called the father of faithlessness. We know that God called him at the age of 75 in chapter 12 with a promise to make his ‘a great nation.’ He leaves home and country and in chapter 15, God promised him an heir. But Abraham and Sarah doubted God’s word and in Chapter 16:16 tells us that Abraham now 86 years old is faithless to the promise of God. With the consent and encouragement of his wife Sarah, he has sexual relationships with Hagar, an Egyptian slave girl who gives birth to Ishmael.

One verse after 16:16 we are told in 17:1 that Abraham is 90 years old. 13 years have passed since Ishmael was born and there was no sign of the promise of God. In the text of today, God makes a covenant to a ninety-year-old man that he will have a ‘multitude of nations’ It is four chapters later in chapter 21 and at the age of 100 that Abraham has a son whom he named Isaac.

God took his time with our Father in faith. From the time Abraham left Haran at the age of 75 till the time his son was born at 100 is a long span of 25 years of what would seem futile and impossible in the eyes of the world. If that is so, then why does a month or a year of waiting on God’s promises seem to us like eternity? God does not work in an Instagram world where photos are taken to be admired and then deleted. Rather he works in dark rooms where films are developed into photographs that are treasured forever. If you are in a dark room, know that you are being developed.

 Abram means (Ab is father) ‘father who is exalted.’ God changed his name to Abraham or ‘Ab-hamon’ which means father of a multitude. The change in his name was not a reward but an indication of the task ahead. He had to walk that task from Chapter 17 in which this promise was made at the age of 90 for another ten years when Isaac was born in Chapter 21. Our father in faith had to wrestle with his faith; faith did not come easy to him so why should it be the case for us?

But don’t walk away from this text with a feeling that the focus of this text is our struggles in being faithful to God. This text is not about you or me or Abraham; it is about God. It is he who formed us, he who chose us, he who made a covenant with us and he who never broke his word with us.

PLEASE leave your comments and share this teaching .

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading
Faith

Serve to be served? Wednesday, 5th Week in in Lent – Daniel 3:14-20, 24/91-25/95 – John 8:31-42

We always admire young people who live and profess their faith. Several saints died for the Lord but many more lived for him.  While we rightly glorify martyrs who died for the faith, we must also admire those who lived the faith, for as someone said, “It is easier to die for the Lord than to live for him.”

The reading from the book of Daniel tells of three young Jewish exiles who were brought into the Babylonian court. They, like Daniel, after whom this book is named, lived exemplary lives of faith even in the court of a pagan king. Chapter 2:49 tells us that the three young men were appointed by the King himself, over the “affairs of the province of Babylon.”

Now King Nebuchadnezzar builds a golden statue and demands that it be worshipped. The three young men refuse and are reported to the king. They are threatened with death in a fiery furnace. What happens next is the stuff of heroes.

Today’s teaching is presented in a series of six reflections. Reflect on the ones that you need to build your faith on and not the ones that you think apply to someone else you know.

  1. The young men refuse to allow a bully to get to them and even more the fear of death to get to them. Bullies are to be found in varying age groups; from the playground to the halls of political power. Bullies thrive on creating a sense of fear. They may indeed beat you to the ground physically or break you down in their prisons but even a bully knows that while they can kill the body, they can never kill the soul. Nebuchadnezzar was a bully who thought that his superpower status would scare three Jewish youths into submission.
  2. The three young men refused to apostasy. That’s a big word for quitting on God for other gods. People apostasy under fear and duress but even worse to please people. In our day, there is no dearth of people who bow down before any god with fervour to win favour. If you can’t obey the first commandment, how will you get to the tenth? I AM the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before me. God is a living God, the great I AM, not an ‘I was’ or ‘I will be’. He is to be worshipped exclusively and if you can’t fall in line then quit the fold.
  3. The three young Jewish men teach us another valuable lesson in answering the dictator that Nebuchadnezzar was (you can add your dictator here). Their love for God was governed by a deeply spiritual principle, ‘the God we serve does not need to serve us.” For most of us, our relationship with God is a quid pro quo. You have to scratch my back Lord, I scratched yours! The young men are emphatic, “If our God, the one we serve, is able to save us; he will save us and even if he does not, then you must know that we will not serve your god or worship the statue you have erected.’ Have you made God your spiritual grocer?
  4. These were the young men that Nebuchadnezzar had appointed over the affairs of Babylon. This was no small post in arguably the biggest superpower in the world at that time. They found favour in the king and he let his favour rest on them. Now that they have stood up for their beliefs his “expression was very different.” Sadly, people love us not for who we are but for the fact that are agreeable to their thoughts and views. We too strive for human approval by submitting to that which is immoral and, in the process, lose divine favour.
  5. God came through for the three young men. In the history of salvation, many young women and men have died in their fiery furnaces, at the gallows, in prisons, in the arenas of Rome and in prisons in Mumbai….We remember the blood of the martyrs (Fr Stan Swamy) whose blood is both the seeds of Christianity and the fertilizer for the faith.
  6. Finally, the pagan king blesses the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Our WITNESS makes the world bow down to Christ, not our cowardice. Will we suffer martyrdom? the answer is an emphatic yes! Ironically, the Cardinals of the world wear red not as a princely colour (they were and some still refer to them as princes of the Church) but rather as a reminder that they are the first to shed their BLOOD for the Church. It is time we throw political correctness into the garbage where it belongs and profess like St Peter, our unworthiness to be put to death like Our Lord.

 

Leave your reflections in the comments below. I am sure you have thoughts of your own that are inspired by the divine.

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading
Faith

Looking in the right direction – Tuesday, 5th Week in Lent – Numbers 21:4-9/ John 8:21-30

If anything, today’s first reading seems like we have a vengeful God. The evidence seems to be in your face. The people of Israel have been wandering the wilderness for forty years. They were on the threshold of entering the promised land (the land of Canaanites) from the south but were denied permission by their ‘cousins,’ the Edomites, (sons of Esau, brother of Jacob -Genesis 36:6-8) to cut through their land, thus forcing them to take a longer route.

The promised land which was in eyesight has once again become a distant reality.  For the last forty years, they have had to eat “unsatisfying food” that tasted like cakes baked in oil (Numbers 11:9). So, what choice do you have? What do you do if not grumble? And should your ‘punishment’ be snakes that bite you and cause death? This sounds like a petty vengeful God.

Life is all about what coloured glasses you wear. Change your glasses and you see things differently. Yes, these were people who wandered for forty years but in reality, they were not ready for what God desired for them; a land for themselves. They were not ready because THEY repeatedly turned against God and broke his covenant. How do you entrust such a people with a nation when they can’t be trusted to return your love? Yet, all through THEIR ‘wandering’, God provided for their needs. He did give them water and food, yet they lied and said that there was no food and water.

The desert does not provide for garlic and cucumber which they remind God that they got in Egypt. But they got these meagre treats along with slavery and the whip (which in their grumbling they conveniently forget). The people received what could be provided, but for them, it had become ‘detestable food’ that was ‘miserable.’ We too think we deserve much more than what is placed on our table. The grace that we say each day is not a formality but an act of gratitude for what has been provided.

So, did God punish them? Very strictly speaking, the RSV translation does not say, ‘Therefore the Lord sent poisonous snakes.’ It says, “Then the Lord sent poisonous snakes.” The obvious conclusion that we infer is that God is wrathful in the face of sin. If that was the case, then why was God not wrathful when they grumbled several times previously about food and water and when they made a golden calf?

Even if this was a wrathful God, I would put it down to frayed nerves; they had pressed his buttons so often with their ingratitude that even God would snap. This was a self-goal, a self-inflicted suffering brought by the people of Israel; they bit the hand that fed them now the snakes did the biting.

It is interesting to note whom they approached for relief; they go to Moses. They were too ashamed to go to God whom they should have accused of “attempted murder.” (21:5) Moses knew what to do and whom to approach. He goes to God in prayer. One can only imagine the prayer that Moses made. It was a prayer that he said several times in forty years for a people who never knew gratitude.

Read the text carefully. This time, God does not take away the cause of pain and death, namely the serpent. He simply provided a solution for death but only IF THEY CHOSE TO LOOK IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. This is no longer a God providing a quick fix aid for sin. Sin is a serious business. Sin is the serpent we brought into the world by the choices we made.

God is a holy God; he did not provide serpents rather he provided the garden of goodness. We chose the wrong tree and invited the serpent to bite us. God is not vengeful. If He was so then he would have never provided the instrument of salvation that saves us from death; Jesus on the cross.

The cross without Jesus is merely an instrument of shame; criminals were nailed to it. The cross with Jesus hanging on it is an instrument of Salvation; Our Lord hung on it. Our sin was nailed to the cross so that looking at the cross we may be saved. Yet the sting of death may be preferred by many rather than gazing at the instrument of salvation. No one can force us to accept this truth, but should we do then we have to choose to look in the right direction when we sin. Look to Jesus on the cross.

LEAVE a thought or a comment…by doing that you build the commentary around the faith.

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading
Faith

No free pass at Lent – Monday, 5th week in Lent – Daniel 13:41-62/ John8:1-11

We tend to repeat our sins because we commit them behind closed doors. No one has seen what we have done and so the shame of our sin eludes us. But if we were caught in the act of sin, we would wish the earth would open and swallow us so that we would not have to face the shame of what we have done.

A woman was caught in the act of committing adultery. The Bible is sensitive, her name is not mentioned unlike the unmerciful on WhatsApp today.  For this woman, this was not just a matter of shame it was a death sentence. The law of Moses mandated death for adultery; such was the gravity of the sin and the desire to protect the sanctity of the institution of marriage. Today, infidelity would at the most, cause an eyebrow to be raised not a head to be chopped off.

We know from Chapter 7 of the Gospel of John that Jesus has come to the temple for the third time. It was the feast of Tabernacles. The religious authority made their hate for Jesus quite clear and they had murderous thoughts that they wished to inflict on Jesus.

Today’s text tells us that Our Lord has spent the night in the Garden of Gethsemane. This must have been his go-to place when he came to Jerusalem. It is here that he spent his last night before his passion and death. Judas knew Jesus’ go-to place in Jerusalem. He had no problem finding Jesus when he betrayed him. To get there Jesus would have left Jerusalem by one of the Eastern gates and crossed the Kidron valley. We are told that he returns to the temple early the next morning where he teaches in the temple.

They bring him a woman (it could be a man; it could be you or me) caught in the act of committing adultery. Public shame and a religiously sanctioned death now await her. Ironically, even though she was caught in the act of committing adultery her partner in sin seemed to have conveniently disappeared. Now she is paraded before Jesus by the scribes and Pharisees with a clear intent to ‘trap him.’

They want to know what Jesus thinks of the law of Moses that ‘permitted them to stone her to death.’ The law of Moses did sanction death for adultery, but it never sanctioned the manner of death that they claim Moses gave them. In any case, this was a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-dont situation. The religious sanction of death had been suspended by the Romans and appropriated as a civil right that could be enforced only by the Romans. If Jesus fell in line with the law of Moses, he would have broken Roman law and if he condoned the woman’s sin to any lesser penalty then the accusation of the Jews, that Jesus had come to change the law and the prophets, would ring true. The author of life is being asked to sanction death.

“Let he who is without sin, be the first to cast a stone” is not just a clever answer that helped Jesus get out of a rock and a hard place. Our Lord is addressing both, the frailty of life that succumbs to sin and even more, the reality of religious arrogance that points fingers knowing that their very lives are sinful. We are told that Jesus, bent over and writing on the ground, straightens up to straighten the self-righteous religious leaders.  The Pharisees and the scribes walk away. It’s a walk of shame led by the elders.

Jesus is left with the woman. The circle of shame that surrounded her has disappeared. This was her opportunity to make ‘her case,’ and defend her sinful action; she was tricked by the man, this was her first time, and this happened by mistake. Yet she says none of this. She stands in her shame before one who has not shamed her but saved her.

Scripture tells us that Jesus who has still been writing in the ground straightens up again but this time not to straighten her but to look at her straight in the eye. He offers her forgiveness but not a free pass. She is to sin no more.

Lent is that time when the circle of shame is lifted and you stand face to face with Jesus but Lent is not a time when we get a free pass. Like the woman, we are to sin no more.

If you read this far then you are more than a fan…leave a comment, please.

Spread the love ♥
       
Continue Reading