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“When you do it to the least of these my brethren, you do it unto me.”

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The vineyard pictured above was our backyard for a couple of days during a recent stay in the Napa valley. The vines are arranged with military precision. They receive lavish amounts of attention and no resource is spared to insure they produce the best possible grapes. Truth is, these vines receive better care than most people.

Of course, there are certain advantages to talking care of vines. They don’t complain, talk back or resist efforts to provide for them. Vines present certain challenges, to be sure, but they stay where they are put and generally do not exhibit annoying, unlikable personalities. Not so with people. That is not to suggest that some people are not provided for simply for what can be gained from them. But this is not caring.

To care is to have regard for the whole person, warts and all. And it’s not easy because most of our inclinations are in the direction of self-care. Over the centuries the Church developed into an institution that could be relied upon to care for those whom it was easy to forget. Monastaries and churches became places of sanctuary where countless lives found compassion, healing and support during some very dark and brutal times.

God calls us in Jesus Christ to be a caring community. This caring can and does run in many directions and it is not always welcome when it arrives in the neighborhood. It is good, then, to remember that our Lord’s compassion and caring was not always met with gratitude. But that was not His motivation, to be thanked. He cared for others because it is in the nature of love to do so.

Christ Jesus left His Church with a powerful image of caring that challenges the faithful of each generation. Surveying the hungry, thirsty, naked and imprisoned He turns to us and says, in effect, ‘When you care for them, you care for me.”

“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep you hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“What does it profit a man if he should gain the whole world but lose his soul?”

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Hannah was already in her nineties when I became her pastor. She was homebound so I stopped by with communion each month. Coffee was always ready and Hannah liked to remember the old days.

Just south of the small northwestern Minnesota town where we lived, an old log cabin struggled for survival in a grove of oaks and brush. Hannah was born in that cabin and spent her childhood there.

She once told me about the native Americans who came through the area each Spring, on their way from Minnesota to hunt in the Dakotas. They would stop for a few days and set up camp in the meadow near the old cabin, visiting and trading with her father and some of the other local farmers. Her parents and their guests also shared something else, their Christian faith.

During one visit I asked her the obvious question; ‘What has been the biggest change you’ve seen in your life time?’ I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe she would marvel at the space program, automobiles, the telephone, or running water at the very least. What was Hannah’s reply? “Not much has changed. People are still the same,” she said, her voice still carrying a Scandanavian edge.

I suppose I should have expected this kind of sober wisdom from a woman who grew up in a log cabin. Her life had been tuned to relationships and the Christian faith, not things. Gaining the world was not important to her. Her soul was.

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“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“Go, and do likewise.”

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Are you a good, law abiding citizen? You would probably say so. The police don’t show up at your front door, your taxes get paid and you manage to find the voting booth. Oh, you might exceed the speed limit now and then or grouse about the neighbors but who doesn’t? All in all, you manage to stay within the confines of legality and are no threat to law and order.

When it comes to the law most of us play defense. We stay safely behind the prescribed fences, not unlike those who walked by the poor fellow in the parable of the Good Samaritan. He had been badly beaten and left for dead. The two men who passed him by did so for perfectly acceptable legal reasons. No one would have faulted them. To have touched this man would have made them ritually unclean.

In pressing His point Jesus tells His disciples that a Samaritan (the Jews and Samaritans hated each other) was also passing by, saw the injured man and had compassion on him. Jesus then asked, “Which of these three was a neighbor to the man that fell among the robbers? The one who had mercy on him. Go, and do likewise.”

The Samaritan did not keep the law, he fulfilled the law. The difference is huge. Those who seek to fulfill the law play offense, not defense. They actively seek the welfare, the good of the neighbor. They live way beyond the law in the realm of love, the realm of mercy, without any kind of pride, where there is nothing to fear. All of a sudden, being a law abiding citizen doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it.

Faith in Christ brings real freedom. That means we are free FOR something. And that something is love. Christians are ‘free range’ lovers, wandering through the world looking for any excuse to pour love and mercy all over everything. When our Lord Jesus says, “Go, and do likewise”, He is turning loose on a world of law keepers, a horde of law fulfillers whose aim is reckless, extravagant love – without borders. Nobody should be allowed to have this much fun!

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“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.“

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 “…whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Where do such words find a voice today? Certainly not in the cultural chorus of jaded cynicism which mocks just about everything on Paul’s list. After all, worldliness is chic, hip. Vulgarity is cool. Paul’s list of terms belong to a world of Pollyannas and fifties sitcoms. We all know that in the “real world” there is no room for the language of innocence. Right?

Wrong. The “real world” is an expression which actually describes the fallen, unreal world where innocence is not at home and the most intimate of fellowships is the fellowship of sin. In that world, the language works like this:

“Whatever is false, whatever is dishonorable, whatever is unjust, whatever is ugly, whatever is merciless, if there is anything debased, if there anything worthy of ridicule, think about these things.”

This is the sort of language politicians use to dig up the dirt on one another. This is the language of the “unreal world” but it is not the language of faith.

Paul knew that the freedom won for us in Christ Jesus restores a kind of innocence to living, to our thoughts, words and actions. Faith gives expression to that freedom; the freedom to love as we have been loved, the freedom to affirm, enjoy and reflect with gratitude on what is good in life, the freedom to look ahead in confident hope to the restoration of the real world, where God’s children will live in innocence, righteousness and blessedness forever.

 Gives you something to think about, doesn’t it.

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“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

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Today’s photo takes us to Rome and the famous Pantheon. As its name suggests, it was most likely a temple that celebrated all the gods. Visitors from all over the empire would find in this great edifice reason to celebrate their religious diversity.

Our culture calls upon us to celebrate diversity and has embraced this idea to the point of making it a virtual absolute. No culture, idea, tradition, aesthetic, etc, is of more value than any other…except the idea of diversity, of course. One definition of celebrate is ‘to praise widely’. If that’s what the culture wants me to do on behalf of diversity, I’m not so sure.

The trumpeting of the glories of diversity by the culture is not surprising. The culture is really at a stand off here. They really have nowhere else to go. Is cultural window shopping the best we can do? What, if anything, is capable of actually moving beyond the stalemate of diversity into unity? For that is something I would want to praise widely.

St. Paul points us beyond a world defined by relative distinctions to a world defined by its relationship to God in Christ. Jew, Greek, slave, free, male and female are not ultimate categories. What is of ultimate importance is that they have all been caught up in the great, unifying power of God’s love and grace in Jesus Christ.

For the Christian, the great unifying reality in life is not the principle of diversity. We celebrate, in the truest sense of the word, the unity we know in Christ. I will tolerate diversity but it is not something I will celebrate. I’ll save that for Jesus, in whose glorious name people among every race and nation are reconciled in the authentic unity of God’s gracious love.

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“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“And early in the morning, while it was still dark, He arose and went out and departed to a lonely place, and was praying there.”

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The photo above was taken this morning off our balcony here at Tenaya Lodge, just a few miles outside of Yosemite National Park. It’s quiet here. The atmosphere invites solitude, rest and reflection, dimensions of living that can be hard to come by.

Being here reminds me of a trip Linda and I were on several years ago that included part of a day along the Sea of Galilee. It looks much as it did when Jesus and His disciples lived along its quiet shores. And it is not hard to understand why the Lord made that remote, tranquil place His home, His resting point.

The life of faith is lived in a world of conflict, tension and struggle – much of which militates against the faith itself. Our Lord knew that battle and those who belong to Him know it too. So, at regular intervals, Jesus withdrew to places of solitude where prayer and rest were His only work.

Disconnecting from daily life does not require a long trip to a remote place. We can all find space and quiet places that are near at hand. A few moments with the Scriptures, in quiet contemplation, can center us again in God’s promises, clear the clutter from our distracted lives, and refresh us in that peace that world neither knows nor can give.

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“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

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The language that St. Paul uses here in Romans 7 describes the gap between what someone once called “The is and the ought”. Paul writes from that gap. It is where we all find ourselves. But how do we deal with it?

Some ignore the gap and resolve themselves into their desires and impulses, letting what is simply be what is. In the 1960’s they put it this way, ‘If it feels good, do it’.

Others are driven by the gap to take a higher road and recognize that some form of ethical and moral effort are necessary. The struggle to be fully human must progress beyond the level of animal impulse.

Humor is another response. Laughing at the gap is sometimes the best that we can do.

Then there are those who are consumed by the gap. Those for whom the tensions between what is and what ought to be are too much. They fall into despair, cynicism, even madness.

Whatever approach we take to the gap, ignoring it, battling it, laughing at it or allowing it to overwhelm, the outcome remains the same. The gap is never closed. We remain caught in the tension between “the is and the ought”.

It is surprising, then, to know that even as he laments life in the gap, Paul does so as one for whom the gap has been closed! The yawning chasm between his humanity and its fulfillment was crossed at the cross. Only the forgiveness of God in Christ is strong enough, enduring enough to close the gap between what we are and what we ought to be.

We are not yet what we will be and we share this burden with the apostle. But we do not sing in a minor key. Even our laments ring with joyous hope as we look forward to that Day when the gap between “the is and the ought” will, in every way, be closed, and God’s great work of reconciliation in Jesus Christ will be complete.

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 “May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

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Two adult sisters lived together in a somewhat contentious relationship. Finally, one of the sisters hurt the other quite deeply and she was asked to move out. The resulting rift kept them apart for some time. Finally, a friend who knew them both went to the sister who carried the grievance. “I have spoken to your sister”, she said, “and she is deeply sorry for hurting you and wants to move back in with you. I really think you should forgive her.” The offended sister thought for a few moments then replied, “Oh, all right. I’ll forgive her. But she’s no good, you know. And I have done nothing wrong. She’d better not hurt me again.”

Forgiveness is a delicate and dangerous tool. In the hands of someone who believes they really need no forgiveness, it can become a patronizing, condescending and begrudging instrument of manipulation and control. Many people practice this kind of forgiveness. Maybe you have done so. Actually, it can hardly be called fogiveness at all. And it is certainly not the kind of forgievness we speak of where God is concerned.

There is one requirement for those who would truly forgive; they must see themselves as a forgiven one, with no claim to rights. When one of Jesus disciples asked Him if seven times was an adequate number of times to forgive, His reply was designed to expose that sense of being a forgiven one. Seventy times seven, was His reply. In other words, forgivers don’t keep track. Forgiven ones forgive. I have known people who are deeply offended by this. You may be.

We are all offenders against God. This is the great, overarching truth of the human condition. God has answered with the cross and the forgiveness that is in His Son. Those who stand in awe and gratitude under this forgiveness of God are truly in a position to forgive. Not as a magnanimous gesture of good will, but as an expression of sheer grace and mercy. The Christian forgives and forgets, not because it is easy but because we are the forgiven ones.

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“May the peace of God that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“Train a child in the way he should go…”

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I attended my first opera when I was eight years old. The place was Honolulu, where my father served as an Air Force chaplain. The occasion was the opening night of Verdi’s ‘Aida’, a dramatic story set in ancient Egypt. The role of the pharaoh was played by my father. The sounds and images of that night seemed to transport me to the banks of the Nile. I remember it like it was yesterday.

In the years that followed I developed a growing interest in ancient Egypt and read everything I could find. By the time college came around, I majored in ancient history and gave serious thought to studying near eastern archaeology with the goal of digging in the sands of Egypt. The call to ministry set another course but my interest in Egypt has never faded. My dad could not have predicted that one night at the opera would nearly result in a vocation as an egyptologist. An opera lover, maybe. But an egyptologist?

As Christian parents we can never predict with any certainty how our lives may influence our children. But this much is certain; influence them we will. And when Christian worship, learning, witness and service are the shaping and defining pattern of their parents lives, we can know that these influences can only help to define and shape our children as they come to know and trust in the God who loves them in Jesus Christ.

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“May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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“What is the price of two sparrows–one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it…So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

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It was a random shot inside a Hong Kong eatery. A few moments later Linda and I were seated next to him. His name was Feng, a computer programmer from Beijing who spoke good English. Feng ordered a sampling of dishes for us, assuring us we would be pleased (we were) and for a few minutes we enjoyed friendly conversation in what had been a room full of strangers.

You don’t have to travel far from home to find yourself in the nameless crowd. We pass by strangers every day. They give us no thought. We give no thought to them. I am always amazed at how people can stand in line at the grocery store, for example, within a foot or two of someone, and not have anything to say. This numbing indifference to others, in which we are all implicated, is part of living in a fearful world estranged from its Creator. It takes its toll on all of us.

A man once told me he hated to be in crowds. This was not because he suffered from agoraphobia but because he felt more alone in a crowd than anywhere else. In this he is not alone. Someone once observed that loneliness is the mass neurosis of the modern age. Not being noticed is a burden that many carry, even in the midst of the most intimate relationships.

To hear, as in the lesson for today, that God’s knowledge of me is intimate and total would be too much to bear were it not for Jesus. For the One who presses upon us the promise of His fearful nearness, is the same One who gave His life for us, who comes near in mercy, forgiveness and love in His Word and the sacraments. Jesus gave the promise in today’s lesson to His disciples as He prepared to send them into a hostile world. He wanted them to know that they would always be in the Father’s eye, on His mind and in His heart. He wants you to know that too.

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 “May the peace of God passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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