What does faithfulness look like right now?

Letter from Exile 5

God’s Word: Psalm 118:25-29

25 Save us, we pray, O Lord!

    O Lord, we pray, give us success!

26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

    We bless you from the house of the Lord.

27 The Lord is God,

    and he has made his light to shine upon us.

Bind the festal sacrifice with cords,

    up to the horns of the altar!

28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;

    you are my God; I will extol you.

29 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;

    for his steadfast love endures forever!

 Reflection: 

The very first verse of our reading spoke the exact words in my heart.  “Save us!”  Now, let’s back up.  Let’s not hear what the psalmist is NOT saying.  He is not saying, “Lord, my health is the single most important thing, so preserve me!”  He is not saying,  “Lord, you are my cosmic vending machine, you are my personal doctor, so do me a solid!”  Not at all!  The psalmist is asking for protection because he was saved FOR something.  And so are we. 

Health is not an end unto itself.  Earlier in the same psalm the writer reflects on a situation that he is going through and says, “The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death. Open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter through them.”  Do you notice it?  God provided protection, SO THAT, the psalmist may walk into the gates of righteousness.

What are “gates of righteousness”?  Well, I am not precisely sure what to do with the poetic language, but it does not mean that we need to do 10 quiet times so that God loves us.  It does not mean that if you read this devotional, God will love you more. Nope.

Nourish your dependence on the Lord so deeply, that it actually shapes your choices.  Don’t let your faith stay stuck on paper.  Work it out in your life.

Here is what it means on the most basic level:  Be sensitive to the Lord especially in this weird time. Walk with Him. Don’t waste your circumstances.  Let the Lord search you.  If you are still the same person when the stay at home order is lifted than you were when it began, then you have not walked through the gates of righteousness.  Nourish your dependence on the Lord so deeply, that it actually shapes your choices.  Don’t let your faith stay stuck on paper.  Work it out in your life.  

Try this: with every action you do today (even the most mundane), ask this question: “What would faithfulness to God look like right now?”  Open your computer and ask: “What would faithfulness look like?”  Talk to your kids.  Look at your grocery bill.  Clean out your fridge.  Look at your bank account online. Play a board game.  Wash your car.  Read a book.  Do all of these things, and ask: “What would faithfulness look like?” 

With every action you do today ask this question:  “What would faithfulness to God look like right now?” 

In the 1500’s, the bubonic plague ravished Europe.  Some estimate that it killed up to half the population. In the middle of the crisis, the great Reformer Martin Luther asked himself the same question that is before us.  What does faithfulness look like right now?  Here is what he wrote: 

“I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person, but will go freely.”  --Martin Luther, 1527

Yes, Luther desired to be saved. But why? He knows that he was saved FOR something.  Do you?  Let’s walk through the gates of righteousness together.  Let’s not waste a single opportunity to change, serve, and grow in Christ.  

Prayer:  

Dear Lord, my great Refuge, I come to you humbly to ask you to make my legs strong to walk through your gates.  Make my hands hardened to serve you and your people with endurance.  Make my heart soft so that the Spirit changes me.  Lord, I confess that there is so much selfish inertia in my life that wants to keep me stuck.  Would your Spirit work in me?  Shine your light in my heart so that I can see things that I need to surrender to you.  God, use COVID-19 as discipline to turn over to you every square inch of my soul.  Don’t let me keep ANYTHING from you!  Hide me in your care.  In Christ I pray, Amen.  

 Praying outside of ourselves:

• Pray for researchers to quickly and skillfully find a cure or vaccine that could mitigate the suffering. 

• Pray for the true Church to be strengthened to serve others.  

• Pray for the elderly who cannot have any visitors and feel particularly lonely.  

• Pray for stock markets to bounce back so that workers can work, and givers can give abundantly.

• Give thanks to God for the people who have recovered from COVID-19.  

A loving warning to care for the vulnerable

Letter from Exile 4

God’s Word: Matthew 25: 31-46

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Reflection: 

This morning when I opened my Bible to Matthew 25, I just chuckled to myself.  “Okay, Lord, I guess it is ‘judgement' week.”  Let’s wade into these waters together. 

Our text this morning is the famous passage of God separating the sheep from the goats.  It is super uncomfortable for our modern sensibilities, but please don’t ignore it.  Warnings are God’s words of mercy!  Think about this with me. 

You guys know that we have four kids, all born within 2.5 years of each other.  So imagine walking out of a restaurant with a 5 year old, and three 3 year olds.  It is like herding cats.  For a split second, Amanda and I get distracted, and Ruthie, the youngest, darted straight into the middle of the parking lot.  At that precise moment, an irresponsible teenage driver was unknowingly moving incredibly fast right for my daughter.  Both of them were completely unaware.  

I dropped everything and started in a dead sprint to Ruthie, and jumped right in front of the car.  I screamed out with the deepest, guttural, angry voice I could muster up, “STOP!!”  The tires screeched. Everyone stopped on a dime.  It was so uncomfortable.  The bystanders were horrified.  Ruthie explodes with tears.  The teenage driver was on the verge of tears.  I grabbed Ruthie and sheepishly apologized to everyone, to include the young lady.  

Here’s what I want you to know: when I screamed, it sounded awful.  It sounded like hate.  It sounded like disgust. But I can assure you that my actions in that precise moment were the single most LOVING thing I could do for my daughter and the driver.  It felt awful, sure.  But it was loving.  Can I suggest to you that Jesus’ warnings in the Bible sometimes feel awful, but they are loving.  Why?  Because if you will heed the growling warning, there is still time to prevent a spiritual car wreck.  Warnings are not ‘judgy’.  No one is saying, “I am better than you.”  They are simply the result of seeing a car heading for a small girl, or in our case, our souls steering toward a pit. 

So let’s turn our attention briefly to the details of this particular warning.  Jesus imagines a future day in which people will be divided, similar to how a shepherd divides goats from sheep.  Now, I really like goats (they are cute and delicious), but you don’t want to be a goat in this analogy (nor at my dinner table).  

Jesus so inextricably identifies with the poor and vulnerable, that he says, “Whatever you do for them, you do for me!”  Jesus wants us to love him so much, that we can’t help but pour ourselves out for the very people who are most dear to His heart. 

See, when the just King returns, you want to be a part of his flock.  The rest will be cast away.  Remember, this is not a sentence, it is a warning.  So, how do you know if you are a sheep or a goat?  Is it good people versus bad people?  Is it republicans versus democrats? Is it “science people” versus anti-vaxers?  Nope.  It is none of those things.  In this parable, Jesus brings our attention to one important part of His heart. 

Jesus so inextricably identifies with the poor and vulnerable, that he says, “Whatever you do for them, you do for me!”  Jesus wants us to love him so much, that we can’t help but pour ourselves out for the very people who are most dear to His heart.  

So who precisely are the poor and vulnerable?  I don’t think I am poor, but neither am I rich.  What is this about?  In the Bible, the “rich” are simply those who can bounce back from a crisis, while the poor are those who can’t absorb it; those who are ruined by it.  

Proverbs 10:15

A rich man's wealth is his strong city; the poverty of the poor is their ruin. 

Think about it this way, our wealth and resources are like the walls of a strong city that protect us from the external dangers of life.  A corona crisis hurts a little.  Of course, we all have to make adjustments, but none of us will go hungry.  The poor are different however. For example, day laborers are fine under normal circumstances; they work, and they have food.  But different than you and me, the poor don’t have the resources to absorb a crisis. They could quite literally go hungry and creditors will find them.  

In other words, with no “city walls” the “poor” were fine, until they weren’t.  Jesus says, “THOSE are the ones that I love so so so much!”  This is not a pity-love either.  Jesus does not say, “My goodness! Poor thing. They don’t have Netflix!”  Listen closely, distributing money to people who do not have it is NOT the goal. This is not blind and ideologically driven wealth distribution. Poverty in itself is not a problem.  Statistics show that poorer socio-economic classes tend to be happier on average than upper socio-economic classes.  Poverty is not an intrinsically bad thing. Just ask my grandparents in Mexico, who lived quite “full” lives having a dirt floor.  But the poor do have certain risks that you and I don’t have.  The goal is to care for them when they are at their most vulnerable moment.  To feed, to clothe, to heal.  

So what does this mean for Trinity?  First, let’s nurture our love for Jesus so intensely that it produces an imagination for how to care for the vulnerable in our immediate community.  For starters, we have decided to use our money (and by “our” money, I mean money that YOU have sacrificially tithed) to continue to pay our hourly workers (most notably, the precious women who clean our building and serve in childcare).  Although they are prohibited from working, we are hoping to ease the crisis for them. 

we will pray fervently for God to open our eyes to those who are close to His heart.  And we will pray equally hard that God will engender in our souls such profound trust and gratitude, that we will not be tempted to hoard our resources but practice even deeper and skillful generosity. 

Second, we will be investing in the needs of the workers and families of Sector La Hormiga.  As a general rule, we don’t like to hand out cash, but if there are things they need money for (i.e. toilet paper, anyone?), we can step into the gap and provide that.  

Third, we will pray fervently for God to open our eyes to those who are close to His heart.  And we will pray equally hard that God will engender in our souls such profound trust and gratitude, that we will not be tempted to hoard our resources but practice even deeper and skillful generosity.  

One last thought: where do we find the courage to actually do this and live with Jesus’ priorities in mind?  We are not generous simply because we can make calculations about the future and ensure that we will be unaffected.  Not at all.  We find courageous hope in the very first verse in our passage, v31.  Our hope is that Jesus will come.  He will sit on His throne, and there will be angels with Him.  Nothing else is certain, but Jesus’ return is.  Do you believe that?

If all of this sounds crazy to you then Jesus is not growling loud enough.  It is a loving warning.  It is a call into His heart.  It is a call to give ourselves to the great Shepherd who will come for his flock of sheep.  Do you love him?  He who has ears to hear, let him hear!  And may it start with ME!

 Prayer:  

Good Shepherd, I will be the first to admit that panic buying makes a lot of sense to my internal economic system. I am so sad to admit that Purell brings me more comfort than your Word.  When a crisis hits, I fail to trust you, and I move into self-preservation mode.  Forgive me, Father.  What a mess I am! You have NEVER not pulled through for me, and yet, here I am questioning your care for me.  I am so sorry.  I am sorry that I look at mirrors more than I look at the vulnerable.  Create in me a new heart.  Put your heart in me.  Lord, today I will rest knowing that where I failed to trust, Jesus trusted you perfectly; and I hide myself in him.  You are a generous God; make me like you.  In the name of Jesus I pray, Amen.  

Praying outside ourselves:

• Pray for God to show us the vulnerable in our community.

• Pray for God to make us generous for the sake of others.

• Pray for those sick with COVID-19. 

• Pray for God’s presence and companionship for those passing this quarantine alone.

• Pray for wisdom for government agencies to act for the well-being of their citizens in a way that honors the Lord.  

• Pray mercy, relief, and freedom for hypochondriacs; this can be paralyzing fear for them.  

Love y’all, ronnie