In a Nutshell-Part 4: Who Is My Neighbor?

When Jesus was asked which of the 613 laws found in the Hebrew scriptures was the greatest—that is, which took priority over all others—Jesus responded by quoting the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4), adding the little-known Leviticus 19:18. “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37, 39).

Jesus understood that the essence of the law—that is, what is pleasing to God—was love. Love God, love neighbor, love self.

Jesus’s response raises a second question—one asked by an expert in the Hebrew scriptures: “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29).

The man who asked Jesus the question had dedicated his life to studying and interpreting the Hebrew scriptures. We would call him a theologian or scholar. Luke’s gospel indicates the man asked the question to prove that he not only knew the law, he also was doing what the law commanded—“wanting to justify himself” (Luke 10:29). And so, he asked the question, “And who is my neighbor?”

What exactly was the scholar asking?

By attempting to define “neighbor”, the scholar was attempting to define who the law said he was to love—who was to be the recipient of what he would give. Defining who he was commanded to love—his neighbor—also defined those he did not have to love because they were not his neighbor. Defining “neighbor” was an attempt to draw a circle that identified who would benefit from his giving—in other words, who was significant and who was not, who was included and who could be excluded.

 If we can define “neighbor”, we can define the limits of our love.

As a scholar-theologian, this legal expert had already dealt with this question. The common rabbinical interpretation identified one’s neighbor as a fellow Jew—those who were descendants of Abraham. Anyone who was not Jew was not one’s neighbor and, thereby, outside one’s circle of concern, care, and compassion. This lawyer, however, was associated with the Pharisees.  They were not content with the common rabbinical definition of neighbor. They had their own definition. In their minds, a neighbor was someone who interpreted the law the way they did and who followed the law like they did.  In other words, a neighbor was someone like them. They only had to love those like themselves.

The scholar asked “who is my neighbor” in an effort to get Jesus to confirm what he already believed and did. 

Rather than giving a direct answer to the scholar’s question, Jesus told a parable—the parable we know as the Good Samaritan.

A man was on a journey from Jerusalem to Jericho. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho winds from high in the Judean hill country to Jericho at the mouth of the Dead Sea, one of the lowest places on earth. The road is a winding road that follows the canyons that run down out of the high country to the Jordan River Valley. The road was a dangerous road, not to be traveled alone.

As this unidentified man made his way toward Jericho, he was attacked by robbers. The robbers beat him, stripped him, and left him to die. What they did to the man is important to the story.  They stripped him. As a result, there was no means by which he might be identified—nothing to identify his nationality, his social standing, or his economic status. He was just a human being.  The robbers beat the man. Thus, he was a person who was hurting and in need. The robbers left him near death. He could not help himself. He was dependent upon the help of another. Without the aid of another, he would die.

The unidentified man was simply a hurting person, in need, with no way to help himself.  He was dependent on the help of others. 

The first to come by on the road was a priest—one who served in the Temple at Jerusalem. The priest would have been the expected hero of the story as he was at the top of the religious social order. However, when the priest saw the man, he moved to the other side of the road—intentionally avoiding him—and passed by, leaving the man in unattended.

The next to come by was a Levite—a kinsman of the priest and one who also served within the Temple. In the religious social hierarchy, the Levite would be the next expected hero. He too, seeing the wounded man, passed on the other side.

At this point in the story, the crowd listening to Jesus’s story would have begun to snicker because they knew where Jesus was headed—or, at least, they thought they did. The next in line in the religious social hierarchy was the layman. The people thought that Jesus was going to use a layman as the hero of the story, leaving mud on the face of the religious leaders.

Jesus, however, did not do the expected. Instead of using a layman as his hero, he chose a Samaritan.

Samaritans were foreigners. Their ancestors were Jews who had intermarried with non-Jews.  They were hated, despised by the Jewish people. A pious Jew would spit before he spoke the word Samaritan, so great was their hatred of them. A Samaritan was not even on the social ranking. He was beneath the lowest of the low. 

The Samaritan did what the priest and Levite did not do. He responded to the hurting man, at great risk and cost to himself. He gave of himself, his resources, his abilities, and his time to meet the man’ need.

The details of what the Samaritan did are intentionally stated, giving us a glimpse of what it looks like to love our neighbor.

The Samaritan saw the man and was moved with compassion. One of the obstacles to helping others is that we fail to see them. We normally see those who are like us or those who have more than we have. We have the tendency to overlook—to not see—those who have less than us and those who have a lower social standing. The Samaritan saw the man.

The Samaritan went to him. Notice the Samaritan was on a journey—that is, there was purpose to his travel. Yet he set aside his schedule and his agenda to help the man. One of the reasons we fail to help others is that we are so busy, so caught up in our own agendas and activities that we don’t have time to get involved. The Samaritan set his agenda aside to help.

The Samaritan bandaged the man’s wounds, using oil and wine to heal them. He did what he could, using his knowledge and skills and resources to address the man’s immediate need. The oil and wine he used were common, everyday items in that culture. What needs could we meet if we shared our knowledge and skill and resources like the Samaritan did?

The Samaritan put the wounded man on his donkey and took him to an inn. There, he took care of him. Beyond addressing his immediate needs, the Samaritan spent time and resources taking care of the man. One of the reasons we give for not helping others is that we don’t want to get involved. We don’t want to invest the time and energy that is required to address a need. The Samaritan did what was needed to meet the man’s need.

The next day, the Samaritan entrusted the man to the inn keeper’s care, providing the financial resources for that on-going care. Another excuse we commonly use for not helping another is it costs too much. The Samaritan gave generously to address the man’s need. 

After telling the story, Jesus asked: Which one of these three was a neighbor to the man who encountered thieves? Note how Jesus changed the scholar’s question. The religious scholar asked, “Who is my neighbor?” In his question, a neighbor was the one to be loved—the recipient of compassion and care. In Jesus’s question, the neighbor was not the one who received the help but rather the one who did the giving, caring, helping. In Jesus’s question, the neighbor was the one who loved.

In this twist is the truth of the story. That which limits our love, preventing us from helping another is not something about the other—their race, religion, wealth, education, sexual orientation, moral behavior, what they did to us. Rather, that which keeps us from giving to another is what is in our heart. That which leads us to draw a circle that excludes another is not something about them. It is something about us. That which causes us to exclude another is within us, within our hearts. The problem does not lie with the other. The problem lies within us, deep inside.

Jesus changed the scholar’s question from “Who is my neighbor?” to “Who is a neighbor?” The scholar again gave the right answer: the one who showed mercy—the one who saw the one in need, who set aside his agenda to respond, who shared his knowledge and skill, who gave his resources, who got involved, who gave generously to ensure the need was met. 

Jesus asked the better question—one that spoke to the heart of the issue. Who is a neighbor? The answer: the one who gives to meet the need of another.

In a Nutshell - Part 3: The Hard Part of Loving Self

Which do you find to be more difficult—loving your neighbor or loving yourself?

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37, 39).

In this teaching about which was the greatest commandment, Jesus linked love of God with love of neighbor, love of neighbor with love of self. These three expressions of love are interrelated and interdependent. Loving God with all of one’s being is foundational. It is what gives birth to the other two.

The way we love God is by loving our neighbor. The key to loving our neighbor is loving ourselves. We cannot really love our neighbor until the Spirit cultivates within us a healthy self-love. A captivating love for who God is and for God’s ways of grace is what frees us to love ourselves with a healthy self-love.

In linking love of neighbor with love of self, Jesus touched on a deep, often unrecognized, psychological reality: what is on the inside—in the heart—is reflected on the outside—in how we treat others, i.e., in our relationships. We project onto others—actually, we dump on them—the unrecognized, unresolved pain we carry deep within. This reality explains our natural propensity to criticize, judge, blame, attack, and ostracize others.

Think about when you are irritated, frustrated, or angry. How often does that anger get dumped onto those nearby? On those you love?

Hurting people hurt people. Hurting people—that’s us, all of us, every one of us.

Which brings us to our struggle to love ourselves. All of us, without exception, carry outside of our conscious awareness old, emotional issues that are laced with pain—old emotional wounds. These old issues—rooted in the experiences of our early, formative years when our sense of who we are was first being formed—are fueled by old messages. These old messages are all shame-based messages—messages that say we are inadequate and flawed, unlovable and unwanted, no good and less than, powerless and vulnerable to being hurt. (The messages are different for each of us but most of us can resonate with all of them.) These messages keep the emotional wounds unhealed and the pain alive.

These old messages and the shame they stir lie at the heart of our struggle to love ourselves. How can we love ourselves when we are so inadequate and flawed, when we are so unlovable and unwanted, when we are no good and less than everyone else? The shame we carry blocks our ability to love ourselves. It’s little wonder, then, that we struggle to love our neighbor. Our issues and pain cause us to view them as a competitor and as a threat. (That’s the story of Cain and Abel.)

Another factor contributing to our struggle to love ourselves is the merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking and functioning that we learned growing up. We have to measure up, we have to do it right, we have to be good enough before we deserve to be loved—by God or anyone else, much less ourselves.

In order to have a healthy self-love, these old emotional wounds have to be healed—recognized, addressed, and resolved. The power of these old shame-based messages has to be broken, replaced by spiritual truth taught by the Spirit. The pain they generate has to be soothed. The old, addictive patterns we use to run from the pain and drown out the old shame-inducing voices have to be set aside for healthier ways of living and relating. The inner turmoil and anxiety have to be displaced by peace—deep inner peace, the peace of Christ.

That’s where the love of God comes in. To love God with all of one’s being is to be captivated by a love for who God is—God’s character of steadfast, faithful love (Exodus 34:6-7), God’s nature of self-giving, servant love (1 John 4:8-10). It is to be possessed by an all-consuming love for the ways of God that flow out of God’s character—the ways of God (the ways of the Kingdom) that Jesus taught—the ways of grace and forgiveness.

As the Spirit reveals to us the character of God, giving us glimpses of the heart of God, and teaches us the ways of God that Jesus taught—the ways of the kingdom, God’s ways of grace begin to confront and displace the merit-based, deserving-oriented ways of thinking and functioning we were taught. The Spirit leads us to embrace God’s gift of grace, moving us beyond our merit-based, deserving-oriented way of thinking and functioning. The Spirit leads us to claim our identity as God’s beloved children—created in the divine image; called to be the followers of Jesus, learning and living his ways, growing in his likeness; indwelt by the Spirit who empowers us to do what we cannot do in our own strength and who gives us gifts to use in living God’s ways of grace. The Spirit guides our growth into Christlike maturity, freeing us to be who God created us to be (as opposed to who the world told us we were). Our experience of God’s forgiveness cleanses us of guilt and shame, breaking the power of our old shame-based messages. The Spirit leads us into the peace of Christ, displacing our inner turmoil and anxiety.

As we learn to love God with more and more of who we are—heart, mind, soul, strength—we begin to fall in love with who God created us to be—this one who is created in God’s image, who is called to be a follower of Jesus, growing in his likeness, who is indwelt and empowered by the Spirit who guides us in using our gifts in an area of passion as God’s partner in bringing the kingdom to reality on earth, here and now. We learn to love ourselves with a healthy self-love which, in turns, frees us to love our neighbor.

Loving God with a captivating love frees us to love ourselves with a healthy self-love. Loving ourselves with a healthy self-love frees us to love our neighbor as ourselves. We no longer dump our inner pain and turmoil on our neighbor because we have learned—through the Spirit—to access the peace of Christ when our old issues and their pain are triggered.

Love is indeed the greatest commandment—love of God, love of neighbor, love of self. Love is how we—through the power of the Spirit—live a life that is pleasing to God.

In a Nutshell—Part 2: Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

 When asked which was the greatest commandment among all the commandments in the Hebrew scriptures, Jesus responded by quoting the Shema—Deuteronomy 6:5—and adding an easily overlooked commandment found in Leviticus 19:18. “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37, 39).

With laser-like precision, Jesus’s response zeroed in on the essence of the Law. The essence of the Law—how to live a life that is pleasing to God—is boiled down to a single concept: love. Love God, love neighbor, love self.

In linking these two texts from the Hebrew scriptures, Jesus linked love of God with love of neighbor, love of neighbor with love of self. These three expressions of love are interrelated and interdependent. Loving God with all of one’s being is foundational. It is what gives birth to the other two.

To love God with all of one’s being is to be captivated by a love for who God is—God’s character of steadfast, faithful love (Exodus 34:6-7), God’s nature of self-giving, servant love (1 John 4:8-10). It is to be possessed by an all-consuming love for the ways of God that flow out of God’s character—the ways of God that Jesus taught (the ways of the Kingdom)—the ways of grace and forgiveness. Such love is greater than the love of our own egocentric selves. It breaks the power of Self-life (the me-centered, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit that Paul identified as the Sin that enslaves us) in our lives.

The Spirit is at work to transform our hearts, creating such a love within us—breaking the grip of Self-life (Sin) in our hearts; infusing this all-consuming love of God; displacing our me-centered, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit with the servant spirit of Jesus. In other words, this captivating love of God is not something we conjure up through self-effort. It is God’s gift to us through the work of the Spirit. Our part is to desire such a love—or, as my professor would say, want to want such a love—and to do those things that nurture it—prayer, study, worship, living in the interdependence of authentic spiritual community, using our gifts on behalf of others, practicing generosity (just to name a few).

This love of God is expressed in loving our neighbor (Matthew 25:31-46). It is expressed in relating to our neighbor the way God relates to us—out of grace and forgiveness. Such a love trains us to view and value, accept and embrace every person—without exception—as a beloved child of God, one created in the image of God. It trains us to respond to our neighbor’s failures and struggles—normal parts of our human condition—with understanding and compassion and patience rather than judgment and condemnation and rejection (Colossians 3:12-17). When our neighbor “wrongs” us, this love of God leads us to forgive them as God forgives us (Matthew 18:21-35; Romans 12:14-21). This love of God leads us to use our gifts and resources on behalf of our neighbor’s good, seeking their growth, maturity, wholeness, and wellbeing. It trains us to be generous in sharing what we have been given by God (Romans 12:3-8, 1 Peter 4:8-11). It cultivates in us a particular sensitivity to, compassion for, and response to those who are the most powerless and vulnerable—the widow, the orphan, the resident alien or immigrant (Isaiah 1:17), “the least of these” in Jesus’s parable in Matthew 25:31-46, the poor (Luke 16:14-15, 19-31).

The Spirit is the one who empowers us to love our neighbor in this way. The Spirit teaches us the ways of God that Jesus taught, guides us in how to live those ways in specific situations, and empowers us to do so. We do not live this way—loving God by loving our neighbor—in our own strength. 

We love God by loving our neighbor. We love our neighbor by loving ourselves. This next dimension is the focus of my next blog.

In a Nutshell: the Great Commandment

We humans like to simplify things—translate the complex into simple, understandable terms—reduce what is too big to grasp into small, more manageable bites—boil things down “into a nutshell” so it is more easily managed. That’s what an unnamed Pharisee was doing when he asked Jesus, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (Matthew 22:36). Of all the laws in the Hebrew scriptures, which one takes priority. Boil the 613 laws down to one. What is the essence of the Law in a nutshell?

Jesus responded by quoting the Shema—Deuteronomy 6:5—and Leviticus 19:18. “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37, 39).

Therein is the essence of the Law—what it means to live a life that is pleasing to God—in a nutshell: love. Love in three-part harmony: love God; love neighbor; love self.

Of course, we humans are seldom content with nutshell answers. We have questions about the answer.

What does it mean to love the LORD our God with heart, mind, soul, and strength (Luke 10:27)—that is, with all that we are, with the totality of our being?

To love God with heart, mind, soul, and strength is to be captivated by the beauty of God’s character and the wisdom of God’s ways. It is to love God with an all-consuming love—a love that governs our thinking, that directs what we do, that shapes who we are and how we live. That’s what Jesus meant when he taught us to pray, “hallowed be your name” (Luke 11:2). We pray that we might love God with a love that is greater than any other love, including the love of our own selves.

Jesus’s identification of love as the essence of the Law comes with built-in challenges that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to do—at least in our own strength.

The first challenge is most of us do not know the God Jesus revealed. Our understanding of God is limited, at best—patterned after the ways we humans naturally think. We can never truly love the God we have created in our own image.

To love God with an all-consuming, captivating love requires us to know who Jesus revealed God to be: a God of steadfast, faithful love (Exodus 34:6)—a love that never waivers, a love that never gives up on us or abandons us; a God of self-giving, servant love who seeks our good (1 John 4:8); a God whose love is unconditional because it is rooted in God’s character rather in response to who we are or what we do. It requires us to grasp on a deep level that God relates to us out of grace, dealing with our failures, rebellion, and sins with forgiveness. As the psalmist said, “[The LORD] does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities” (Psalm 103:10). As long as we remain stuck in our merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking, we will never be able to truly love God.

The second challenge lies in the condition of our hearts. We live out of a self-serving, me-centered, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit. This me-centered spirit is the essence of Sin—Sin with a capital S as opposed to sins (plural). Sin with a capital S is the disease that ravages our spirit; sins (plural) are the symptoms that reflect the presence of the disease. This self-life, expressed in our ego-centric selves and our comparing and competing orientation, blocks our ability to authentically love God. By the way, this comparing and competing orientation is why we focus on sins (plural), judging and condemning the sins of others.

The good news is God—living out of God’s steadfast, faithful love—does not give up on us in spite of our deeply rooted self-life (our Sin and sins). God—living out of grace—freely forgives us our Sin and our sins, accepting us as we are, claiming us as beloved children. God—living out of God’s self-giving, servant love—acts on our behalf, giving the Son to break the power of Sin and death on our lives, giving the Spirit to set us free from the power of Sin in our lives.

The good news is that God—through the Spirit—is at work to create within us the ability to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. The Spirit is nurturing within us a love for God that is greater than the love of our own ego-centric selves—a captivating love for God that frees us from our me-centered, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit—an all-consuming love that governs how we think, directs what we do, and shapes who we are and how we live.

The ability to love God in such a way begins by acknowledging that we don’t love God with such a love—but we want to.

Which brings us to the next question—what will it look like when we love the LORD our God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength? Jesus gave us the answer to this question. The way we love God is by loving our neighbor as ourself. Loving our neighbor will be the topic of the next blog.

2nd Sunday of Advent, 2024 - The Way of Peace

 The Advent season is designed to mirror the experience of the people of Israel living in exile in Babylon. It reflects their longings, their hope, their desire for peace, the joy they anticipated, and their trust in the steadfast, faithful love of God.

The theme of this second Sunday of the Advent season is peace.

Scripture speaks of four different expressions of peace, each rooted in the life and ministry of Jesus. These four expressions of peace are interrelated, i.e., one leads to next.

Foundational to the other three expressions is peace with God.

The story of the Garden in Genesis 3 reflects our universal human condition. We live with an awareness that we live in disobedience to God, trusting our own wisdom over God’s, following our own way rather than God’s. That awareness gives birth to a sense of guilt and shame, leading us to avoid God. A common religious teaching is our sin separates us from God. In reality, our awareness of wrongdoing, our sense of guilt and shame about that wrongdoing, and our self-condemnation are what separate us from God. Like the man and the woman in the Garden, we hide from God.

In Jesus, God addressed and resolved the alienation inherent to our human condition. The power of sin and death that rules our lives was broken in Jesus’s death and resurrection. In addition, Jesus restored our relationship with God. In keeping with God’s steadfast, faithful love, God claimed us in Christ Jesus as beloved children.

In his life, teachings, and ministry, Jesus revealed to us the nature of God’s steadfast, faithful love (Exodus 34:6—7). God’s faithful love means God does not abandon us or give up on us, even when we sin. His steadfast love means God’s love for us never waivers, even when we go our own way in rejection of what God has taught. In Jesus’s life and ministry, we see that God’s love is expressed in grace and forgiveness. The way God deals with our sin is to forgive it. In spite of our sin, God loves us unconditionally, accepts us unconditionally (i.e., just as we are), and forgives us unconditionally. Relating to us out of that steadfast, faithful love, God claims us in Christ Jesus as beloved children.

The apostle Paul’s word for this reality is “justified.” Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand (Romans 12:1—2). In Jesus’s death and resurrection, we have been brought back into right relationship with God—i.e., justified. As a result, we “stand” in God’s grace as beloved children. It is our new reality. It is our identity.

God’s grace and forgiveness invite us to claim our identity as beloved children. They call us to trust God’s steadfast, faithful love, resting in God’s grace and forgiveness.

This peace with God sets up the second expression of peace found in scripture—inner peace. Inner peace is peace deep within. Jesus referred to this peace as my peace (John 14:27). Paul spoke of it as the peace of God which surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7). Both Jesus and Paul indicated this peace was a kind of peace the world cannot give: not as the world gives (John 14:27); which surpasses all understanding, i.e., cannot be explained (Philippians 4:7). This peace is not something we can manufacture. Paul identified it is one of the nine traits found in the fruit of the Spirit. It is a gift of the Spirit, something the Spirit produces in our lives.

Again, our human condition is one filled with anxiety and fear. This reality is reflected in what both Jesus and Paul said about peace. In his teaching in John 14, Jesus said do not let your hearts be troubled. Paul began his teaching about God’s peace with the exhortation do not worry about anything (Philippians 4:6). Both exhortations reflect the reality that our hearts are often troubled as our minds are filled with worry. In the original language, both exhortations carry the idea of “stop”—stop letting your hearts be troubled, stop being anxious. While anxiety and worry are a normal part of our human condition, we do not have to live there. We can move beyond anxiety into the peace both promised—the peace of Christ, the peace of God. In prayer, we face and name our anxiety and fear to God. In doing so, we put ourselves in a position for the Spirit to move us beyond our anxiety and lead us into God’s peace.

Paul said God’s peace would guard your hearts and minds. Living out of God’s peace rather than out of our anxiety changes how we think. It shapes the choices we make. It also impacts the way we view and relate to others.

Inner peace is a key factor in the next kind of peace we find in scripture—peace in our relationships with others.

What is in our hearts gets lived out in our relationships. The inner angst with which we live—unrecognized, unaddressed, unresolved pain that we run from, that we push down out of our conscious awareness—gets projected onto others in the form of criticism and judgment. The presence of this inner angst is evident in our lack of inner peace, in our sense of guilt and shame. Projecting our unaddressed pain onto others is why we view others as a threat, why we see them as an enemy, why we view them as the problem that needs to be fixed or eliminated.

The writer of the book of Ephesians spoke of how Christ put an end to the broken relationships with which we live. Speaking of the alienation between Jews and Gentiles, the author wrote he (Christ) is our peace; in his flesh he has . . . broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it (Ephesians 2:14—16). How we view another determines how we treat them. In Christ, we learn to see one another as beloved children of God. We learn to view and value, accept and embrace the other as one whom God loves. This shift in how we view the other changes the way we treat them.

Peace in relation to others—even those we would think of as an enemy—is possible because of Christ. Living in peace with others is the way we contribute to the fourth expression of peace we find in scripture—the peace proclaimed by the Hebrew prophets: the peace of the Messianic kingdom.

The prophet Isaiah described the peace of the Messianic kingdom as a peace that is more than peace between nations. It is a peace that permeates all of creation. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them (Isaiah 11:6). This dimension of peace is possible because the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the seas (Isaiah 11:9). The key to this dimension of peace is learning and living the ways of God—what Jesus called the kingdom of God. In the kingdom, power is not used over, down against others the way power is used in the world (Mark 10:42—45). It is not used to attack, control, or destroy the other. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain (Isaiah 11:9).

The books of Isaiah and Micah both record a vision of when all the nations of the earth would come to Jerusalem to learn the ways of God—that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths (Isaiah 2:3b). As a result of learning and living the ways of God, they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more (vs. 4). Such is the promise of the peace of the Messianic kingdom.

Today’s text from Luke 1:68—79 is a traditional reading for this 2^nd Sunday of Advent because it speaks of peace, specifically the way of peace. The text is the song attributed to Zechariah after the birth of his son born late in life—the one we know as John the Baptist.

The song divides in two sections both sections make reference to peace.

Vs. 68—69 speak of a Messiah who would be a savior, one who would deliver the nation from their enemies—salvation from our enemies and from the power of all those who hate us (verse 74). This messianic king would create a nation in which the Hebrew people could worship God and follow God’s ways in peace, without fear—so that we could serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness in God’s eyes, for as long as we live (verse 74—75).  

This first section of Zechariah’s song reflects how we commonly think about peace. We view the problem as the other, those who make life difficult, in other words, those we view as enemies and “other.” In broken relationships, we are prone to think “If they would just . . . if they weren’t so . . . .” We seldom think about our contribution to the relationship. (Every relationship is reciprocal. Both parties contribute to the situation.)

Verses 78—79 speak of John’s work of preparing for the messiah. This section uses the traditional metaphors of light and darkness to speak of the messiah’s work: the dawn from heaven will break upon us, to give light to those who are sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide us on the path of peace (Luke 1:78—79). The dawn from heaven is a metaphor for the Messiah. He would give light, guiding us on the path of peace. The Messiah would teach the way of life that leads to peace.

This second section of the song teaches us the real reason we do not know peace. The greatest barrier to peace is not external—the other. It is not those we view as our enemies. Rather, the greatest barrier is internal. It is the darkness in which we live—our ignorance of God’s ways, our failure to live them. Our lack of peace is because we do not know or follow ways of God.

Zechariah’s song proclaims that the Messiah—Jesus—came to guide us on the path of peace. He came to teach us the ways of God that lead to genuine peace: peace with God, deep inner peace, peace in relationship with others, the peace of the messianic kingdom. His song reminds us that peace is not possible apart from the ways of the Kingdom that Jesus taught.

This Advent season reminds us that Jesus guides us on the path that leads to peace.  May we, as the people of God and the followers of Jesus—through the Spirit’s power—follow the path that leads to peace, claiming God’s grace and forgiveness for our guilt and shame so that we rest in God’s love as beloved children; opening ourselves to the work of the Spirit who displaces our inner anxiety with the peace of God, the peace of Christ; learning to view and value, accept and embrace one another as beloved children of God rather than seeing them as a threat, as an enemy; working to bring the kingdom into reality on earth so that we can experience the peace on earth the angels proclaimed when they announced Jesus’s birth.

This Advent season, may we walk the ways of God that Jesus taught—the way of peace.

1st Sunday of Advent, 2024 - Longing for What Is Not Yet

Advent is the season on the liturgical calendar that teaches us about waiting—living in what-is as we wait for what-is-not-yet.

The season reflects on and uses the nation of Israel’s experience of looking forward to the coming of the promised Messiah and his peaceable kingdom—what-is-not-yet—as they lived under the rule of foreign nations (Babylon, Persia, the Seleucids, Rome) —i.e., what-is. The Advent hymn O Come, O Come, Emmanuel captures the sentiment of the season.

O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel,

who mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appears.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel.

The liturgical readings for the season always begin with the ministry of John the Baptizer. John was the forerunner—the one who came before the Messiah to prepare the people for his coming. The gospel writers portrayed John as the fulfillment of the prophesy in Isaiah:

            A voice cries out:

            “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the LORD.

            make straight in the desert the highway for our God.

            Every valley shall be lifted up,

            and every mountain and hill shall be made low;

            the uneven ground shall become level,

            and the rough places a plain. (Isaiah 40:3—4)

John’s message spoke to the deep longing of the people—a longing for the long-awaited Messiah, a longing for his rule of righteousness and justice, a longing to escape the pain and struggle of their current situation. In other words, John spoke to the longing to move beyond what-is to what-is-not-yet-but-will-be.

In the same way, the season of Advent speaks to a longing deep within us—often an unrecognized, unexpressed longing—for what-is-not as we deal with what-is.

The account of John’s ministry in the gospel of Luke (Luke 3:1—15) describes his ministry with more detail than the other gospels. His ministry centered in a baptism that expressed repentance. In defiance of the Temple, it promised forgiveness apart from sacrifices and the priests’ authority. His baptism, denoting repentance, brought forgiveness. 

His preaching explained what that repentance would look like—“fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:8). Each group that came out to him—the crowds in general, tax collectors, soldiers—were instructed in what repentance looked like for them. The average person was to share what they had with those who had none—“Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise” (Luke 3:11). Tax collectors were to not abuse their position, collecting only what was prescribed by Rome (Luke 3:12—13). Likewise, soldiers were not to abuse their power by extorting money from the people through threaten and false accusations (Luke 3:14).

John instructed the people to live the ways of that for which they longed. He taught them to put into practice the ways of the kingdom—sharing with a spirit of generosity, trusting God’s abundant provision; using power on behalf of others rather than over, down against them for personal benefit at their expense (the way power is commonly used in the world—see Mark 10:41—45). John instructed them to live the ways of what-is-not-yet-but-will-be in the midst of what-is. By living the ways of what-will-be-but-is-not-yet in the midst of what-is, the people would help to bring the what-will-be-into reality. They would escape the power of what-is.

The season of Advent speaks to our deep-seated longing for what-will-be-but-is-not-yet. It speaks to our desire to move beyond what-is. In addition, it instructs us to put into practice in our own lives that for which we long—the ways of the kingdom that Jesus taught.

The season of Advent is a season that teaches us about waiting in the midst of what-is as we long for what-will-be-but-is-not-yet. Our waiting is not a passive waiting. It is an active waiting as we work to bring what-will-be-but-is-not-yet into reality in the midst of what-is.

May this Advent season be filled with the ways of the kingdom—what-will-be-but-is-not-yet.

 

All Saints Sunday, 2024

All Saints Sunday—the Sunday following Halloween—is a day of remembering. Like the Day of the Dead in the Latino/a culture (November 1), it is a day of remembering those who have died.

All Saints Sunday remembers “those who have gone before”—before us in death, but also before us in life. We remember those from the generations before our own—parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, ancestors. We remember those through whom we came into existence, without whom we would not be. Some we knew; most we did not. Most are only names our parents and grandparents named from their memories of growing up, names in our family tree. If they are in our family tree, they touched our lives though we never actually knew them.

In addition to calling us to remember them, All Saints Sunday calls us to remember their touch on our lives—how they shaped how we think and the attitudes with which we live—their influence in shaping who we are today. All Saints Sunday calls us, in our remembering, to give thanks for them and for their touch on our lives. It calls us to identify how God touched us through them.

In calling us to remember those who have gone before, All Saints Sunday sometimes brings to mind unpleasant, painful memories. Those who have gone before were—like every person who has ever lived—flawed. Although they were adults, they were not necessarily mature emotionally or spiritually. They had their own emotional wounds from those who shaped their lives, their own unresolved issues inherited from those who went before them. (Until our emotional issues—our emotional wounds—are recognized, named, and addressed, they remain unresolved. They govern how we think and live. They get passed on to the next generation.)  Predictably, their unrecognized, unaddressed, and unresolved issues got dumped on us. As a result, their touch on our lives was sometimes a wounding touch. All Saints Sunday invites us to recognize and acknowledge the wound we experienced from them so it can be healed—resolved rather than passed on. It invites us to say three things so that healing can come. It invites us to say “Thank you,” recognizing the gifts we received from their hand. It invites us to say “I forgive you,” recognizing how they failed in their relationship with us because of their own emotional wounds and emotional issues. It invites us to say “I’m sorry,” recognizing and acknowledging how we failed in our relationship with them. Working through our pain so that we can say these three things frees us to not pass our pain on to the next generation. It stops the flow of pain through the generations. Such is one of the many gifts of All Saints Sunday.

In addition to remembering those who have gone before, All Saints Sunday calls us to face the reality of our own mortality and the inescapable reality of our own death. It reminds us that we too will die, our names will be called in an All Saints Sunday service at some point (if we are so blessed). It calls us to recognize and treasure the gift of life we enjoy in each day. It calls us beyond the autopilot-way we often go through a day, responding to the demands and commitments of our schedule, moving from one task to the next. Specifically, All Saints Sunday calls us to recognize and treasure the people who are a part of our lives. It calls us to be conscious of and intentional about how we touch their lives. It calls us to recognize and address the emotional wounds and issues with which we live so that we do not pass our pain onto others, so that our touch on their lives is not a wounding touch.

Finally, All Saints Sunday calls us to remember who and whose we are. We are beloved children of God (1 John 3:1-3). We are called to be followers of Jesus, partnering with God in bringing the kingdom into reality on earth as it is in heaven. The Spirit lives in us, transforming us into the likeness of Christ, engraining the character of God within us, empowering us to live the ways of God Jesus taught. As beloved children, we are growing up to be like Christ as the Spirit teaches us to think with the mind of Christ—thinking shaped by the character of God and the ways of God (1 Corinthians 2:16). As we intentionally pursue growing in the likeness of Christ, the Spirit will lead us to recognize, address, and resolve the emotional pain and the emotional issues that produce the unhealthy ways we react to others.

All Saints Sunday is about remembering—remembering those who have gone before, remembering the inevitable reality of our own death, remembering who and whose we are.

Remember and be grateful!