Living in The Story

We have two more weeks left in our Living in The Story journey. For these two weeks, we will read all the Minor Prophets. This is not hard. They are designated “minor” because of their short length, not because they are less important than the Major Prophets.

Suggestion: Plan to read one book of prophecy per day. Ponder again the work of the prophet: not prediction as much as speaking forth God’s word and interpreting current events in light of God’s overarching will.

There is both judgment and comfort here. May we be open to hear each as they apply to us, to the church and to the current events of our world.

Hosea

Joel

Amos

Obadiah

Micah

Nahum

Psalms 128

Psalm 129

Psalm 145

Mark 13-14

Colossians

https://livinginthestory.com/2015/10/justice-kindness-humility-micah-and-mark/

Nehemiah was cup bearer for King Artaxerxes living in the capitol city of the Persian Empire. He received this word about his countrymen who had escaped captivity and remained in Jerusalem:

“The survivors there in the province who escaped captivity are in great trouble and shame; the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been destroyed by fire.”

“When I heard these words I sat down and wept, and mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven…”

Nehemiah petitioned the king and was appointed governor of Judah with authority to rebuilding and bringing order.

Nehemiah’s first-person story of returning to Jerusalem is filled with intrigues, plots, gradual successes and witness to the difficult work of rebuilding. Rebuilding not just a wall and a city but also restoring the religion and culture of a people who had lost their way over many generations.

Nehemiah the governor and Ezra the priest worked together alongside many persistently faithful Jews against the hardship and persecution that has characterized this people of God throughout the centuries.

On a day of re-dedication, the story says:

Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. 

Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Jews to this day summarize their history with this clever saying:

They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat.

Nehemiah

Psalms 10

Psalm 13

Psalm 17

Mark 11-12

Philippians

https://livinginthestory.com/2017/11/ezra-and-nehemiah/

2017 was a tough year for hurricanes. America was hit by a back-to-back trio of hurricanes that left our whole nation reeling. But besides all the devastation, there were numerous heartwarming stories about people helping people.

In Houston, after Harvey, Mattress Mack opened up his furniture store for anyone who needed a place to stay. Families hung out on his sofas. Men, women and children slept on his beds. In an interview, Mack said he was moved by his faith. “I had to do this. What else could I do?” he asked.

In Florida, after Irma, as in South Texas, churches, mosques and synagogues opened their doors for their neighbors. Restaurants reopened as quickly as they could and cooked up huge meals to deliver to rescue workers. One millionaire couple opened their mansion for several days to house 70 foster children whose shelter had flooded.

In Puerto Rico, after hurricane Maria, Michelle Narvaez waited in line for an hour in order to buy groceries at twice the normal price. She brought her supplies home, cooked everything she had (because she has no electricity to refrigerate) and shared it with her neighbors. Then the next day, she would go back to the store and do the same thing all over again.

The helping ministry for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Week of Compassion, has been working overtime helping our neighbors who have experienced floods and fires and famine across the globe. I am so proud of my denomination for these impressive acts of compassion in Christ’s name.

It is powerful witness when neighbors reach out to help one another across all our typical differences and divisions. Animosities fall away in the face of disaster.

Compassion builds bridges. Even if it is just for a while.

So my question is: How can the church become a real force to shape our world for compassion all the time? Not just during a crisis, but every day?

Luke tells us about a conversation between Jesus and a shrewd lawyer.

A lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And Jesus said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” But wanting to justify himself, the lawyer asked Jesus, “But who is my neighbor?”

Here is Jesus’ answer:

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Do you see how Jesus flipped the lawyer’s question? Instead of “who is my neighbor,” Jesus asked: “will you be a neighbor?”

The lawyer began well. His answers about loving God and loving neighbor are spot on. Except, I think, for this: the man seemed to believe that love is a noun.

Jesus’ parable, however, teaches us that love is a verb.

Love God. With heart, soul, strength, mind. Every thought, every feeling, every action, every ounce of our being is to be shaped by and powered by the love of God.

Or maybe I should say it this way: everything we are and everything we do is to be powered by God’s own love

When Matthew and Mark tell of a similar encounter, Jesus calls these two loves “commandments.” The greatest commandment is to love God. The second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself.

So have you ever wondered why God commands love? Isn’t love a feeling, an emotion? How does one command our emotions? Someone tells you: don’t be angry; don’t be sad. Or: Snap out of it. Be happy. Are you able to control your feelings so easily? I’m sure not. There is no way deep human gut reactions can be commanded.

But the kind of love that God calls for is not a feeling; this love is not just an emotion. Love is a verb. The commands are for complete allegiance to God and acts of mercy to others.

One of my favorite phrases in this little story says our hero was “moved with pity.” The man did feel something. His heart was broken for the broken man crumpled at his feet. Pity-Compassion-Mercy moved his heart. And then moved his hands into action. He couldn’t do everything but he could do something. He did what he could.

Love is a verb.

So who is my neighbor? Anyone who needs mercy.

And who is the neighbor? Anyone who does mercy.

We call this little story the parable of the Good Samaritan because it highlights the differences and divisions that normally operated between Jews and Samaritans. Any Jew hearing Jesus tell this story would have been shocked to see the despised, half breed Samaritan as the good guy. But they also would have been aghast at the hard heartedness of the priest and the Levite in this story.

Any faithful Jew, even to this day, prays the Shema every morning and every evening:

Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.

The religious characters in our story must have prayed these words over and over again throughout their life. But maybe they were only words to them. Maybe they believed love is a noun. Evidently every ounce of their being had not been shaped and powered by the love of God.

Or again, shaped and powered by God’s own love.

I say it this way because we humans have zero ability to truly obey these two core commandments. In our broken, bent-into-ourselves self-centeredness, we can never muster enough love within ourselves to fulfill these commands.

So that brings me back to my original question: How on earth can this broken body of Christ ever hope to become a real force shaping our world for compassion?

Only by this:

By allowing God’s love to love through us.

By permitting God’s love to transform our heart, soul, strength and mind.

By opening ourselves up to the love that is the very being of God and letting this movement of love move us to action.

Only then will the body of Christ break through its crippling paralysis and navel gazing and become transformed into a movement of welcome and compassion and mercy.

Only then will the church be able to give witness to the gospel.

The gospel. Remember what the gospel is: “God so loved the world that God gave the only begotten Son.”

Love is a verb. If God acted with such mercy and compassion for the whole world, then what should be our own response to this good news? Love God. Love neighbor.

Our world is starving for love. We are inundated with animosities and divisions and fragmentation; with hatred and violence and disdain; with blame and shame and apathy and hardness of heart.

All around us, neighbors are yearning for love and acceptance and hope.

Who will show them mercy? Who will be their neighbor?

Amen.

Ezra, Revelation and the New Jerusalem

The book of Ezra tells the story of Israel’s return from Exile in Babylon and the early reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Ezra was a priest, a descendant of Aaron, who was given responsibility and authority by King Artaxerxes. In his record, he relates some of the challenges the people faced.

The first temple is referred to as Solomon’s Temple and this replacement is called the Second Temple.

This week we complete our reading of the book of Revelation. These final chapters offer the vision of the New Jerusalem “coming down from heaven.” This holy city is not created by the work of human hands; rather it is gift and grace from the hand of the Creator who is “making all things new.” In the New Jerusalem, there is no temple because “its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb…”

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”

I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.  And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.  The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.  Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

It sounds odd and even hurtful for us moderns to hear Ezra’s condemnation of the religiously mixed marriages he saw and his demand that the returned exiles should put away their wives and children. Here is an example of the high standard for purity and holiness that was expected of God’s people. The lines drawn between Israel and the nations was stark; crossing those lines, they believed, would lead to unfaithfulness and a defilement of the whole people.

Even in the New Jerusalem, we see the expectation of purity and total allegiance to the One True God. Anything “unclean” will not be a part of the new creation.

Please take this as comfort and reassurance. The Lamb who is Temple and Priest and Sacrifice is making US new. You and I and all creation are being refined like gold and made fit for the Kingdom of God.

Ezra

Psalms 67

Psalm 69

Psalm 70

Mark 9-10

Revelation 21-22

https://livinginthestory.com/2017/10/behold-making-things-new/

The wonderful stories from Daniel this week. It’s a short book with numerous short stories from the time of Exile in Babylon.

Daniel also describes several visions he was given – visions of judgment and liberation. You will recognize the images as you continue reading through John’s Revelation.

Daniel

Psalms 57

Psalm 58

Psalm 60

Mark 7-8

Revelation 19-20

Living in The Story blog for Week 44

https://livinginthestory.com/2017/10/in-the-lions-den/

This week’s Living in The Story reading attempts the entire work of the prophet Ezekiel. This is ambitious but quite do-able. Challenge yourself to spread out your reading over the week and stick to it. Reading all of Ezekiel in short order gives us the ability to see connections we may miss when we read it piecemeal.

Remember Ezekiel wrote for Israel during the time of Exile. Here we see both visions of hope and visions of judgment.

As you read this week, consider how the tradition of Scripture often records God’s people calling for judgment and justice.  The current chapters of Revelation picture “bowls of wrath” being poured out upon the earth. The images are violent but the prophetic understanding of John is that the judgment of the Creator will allow creation to implode upon itself under the weight of its accumulated evil.

Here is the cry for justice from this week’s Psalmist:

Our enemies say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation;
    let the name of Israel be remembered no more.”

O my God, make them like whirling dust,
    like chaff before the wind.
Pursue them with your tempest
    and terrify them with your hurricane.
Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever;
    let them perish in disgrace. (from Psalm 83)

Ezekiel 1-21

Ezekiel 22-39

Ezekiel 40-48

Psalms 80

Psalm 82

Psalm 83

Mark 6

Revelation 16-18

 

https://livinginthestory.com/2015/10/parables-and-poetry-ezekiel-and-mark/

 

We complete our reading of Jeremiah this week. Notice the woes the prophet pronounces upon the nations. As he offers a word of hope and restoration for Israel, he warns of devastations coming to the nations that have preyed upon God’s people.

The Psalms celebrate God’s faithfulness and continue to paint the big picture of the promises of the covenant.

Stay with your reading in Revelation. It’s an important book and there are several blogs here in Living in The Story that can help you make sense.

Jeremiah 40-52

Psalms 124

Psalm 125

Psalm 127

Mark 4-5

Revelation 12-15

Living in The Story blog for Week 42

https://livinginthestory.com/2017/10/holding-on-to-hope/

Sometimes Jeremiah is called “the weeping prophet.” His message is one that promises judgment and devastation upon Judah and the surrounding nations for their entrenched wickedness. Even so, his vision still offers glimpses of hope.

25: The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah (that was the first year of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon), ² which the prophet Jeremiah spoke to all the people of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ³ For twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, to this day, the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened.

29: For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. ¹¹ For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. ¹² Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. ¹³ When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, ¹⁴ I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile...

Jeremiah’s vision sees the restoration of Israel/Judah but he also envisions a day when the Lord’s ultimate goal of Shalom will be accomplished.

31: The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ³² It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband,^[w] says the Lord. ³³ But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴ No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Charlotte’s Living in The Story blog for this week ponders Mark 3. Consider how our human cycles of compassion and apathy, of righteousness and self-righteousness continue. The Christian Hope looks back to Jeremiah’s promise of the new covenant, is grounded in Christ’s enactment of the new covenant and looks forward to its final fulfillment and completion.

Jeremiah 25-39

Psalms 95

Psalm 106

Psalm 148

Mark 3

Revelation 10-11

https://livinginthestory.com/2017/10/righteous-anger/

We continue to read various works of the prophets. A few weeks ago, we read the opening chapters of Jeremiah along with the beginning of Isaiah. These different readings tell the story of these two prophets receiving their call through visions. Now you have read the opening words of John when he too was given a vision of the Risen Christ in the Revelation.

In Scripture, the “prophetic voice” is understood to be the voice of the Holy One. “Thus says the Lord…” is the prophet’s brazen statement. In the Hebrew tradition, the prophets were chosen and called by God. They were given a message for a specific people at a specific time within a specific situation. Sometimes a message of hope and comfort; sometimes a message of judgment.

“Who shall I send?” asked the One who sits upon the throne and whose robe fills the Temple.

“Here I am,” answered the trembling Isaiah. “Send me.”

This week’s blog considers the Psalms and offers some insights into the hymnbook of Israel. Included here is the essay about the prophetic imagination, in case you missed it earlier.

Jeremiah 5-24

Psalms 108

Psalm 110

Psalm 112

Mark 2

Revelation 7-9

https://livinginthestory.com/2017/08/reflections-on-the-psalms/

https://livinginthestory.com/2017/09/week-39-the-prophetic-imagination/

 

We complete our reading of the massive prophetic work of Isaiah and continue reading the mysterious prophetic work of the Revelation.

We also begin again the Gospel of Mark. It is the earliest gospel written, the shortest but in some ways – more powerful for all its compact straightforwardness. Read Charlotte’s overview for Mark this week.

Isaiah 56-66

Psalms 133

Psalm 134

Psalm 135

Psalm 136

Mark 1

Revelation 4-6

https://livinginthestory.com/2017/09/week-39-the-prophetic-imagination/

https://livinginthestory.com/2015/04/marks-jesus/