Mark 12:1-12
My wife works at the school district child care facility. She has been working primarily with two year olds. The other day she came home and said to me, “Those kids only know one word.” I took a guess: “Why?” Ronda shook her head: “All they say is ‘no’ or ‘I don’t wanna.’” Already at two we are learning the language of resistance. As teenagers, we rebel as a prelude to living on our own. In our first jobs we think we know more than our bosses. We often think we know more than our spouses. No matter how old we get we resist advice from our parents. Rebellion is deeply ingrained in us.
There remain pockets of resistance in my life, just as there are in each of our lives. If we are honest with ourselves, we can find thoughts, attitudes, and actions where we are failing to give God his due. There are places in our lives where we simply say “no” or “I don’t wanna” to God’s call to get right with him. This is the reality of humankind’s relationship with God from the earliest of times.
Think for a moment. Why would Mark preserve this story about Jesus’ conflict with the Jewish leaders? At the time it was written most of those leaders were dead. The early Christian church had been firmly established. What is the message to Christ’s disciples? Could it be that Mark wants us to be conscious of our continuing tendency to rebel?
Jesus challenges each of us to examine our own hearts for pockets of resistance. Where in our lives are we resisting God’s generosity and grace? Where are we saying “no” or “I don’t wanna” to God’s wishes or God’s plan? I invite you to pause for a moment and prayerfully reflect on possible pockets of resistance to God in your life. If the Lord reveals some areas, make note of them. Through the coming week, take time to pray about these things, asking God’s help in breaking down your resistance in these areas of your life.
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
God's Crazy Mercy
Mark 12:1-12
The drama of our rebellion is recounted by Jesus in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants. Jesus’ authority for teaching and healing had been challenged by the leaders of the Jews. More and more Jesus had confronted their injustices and hypocrisy. At the time he is telling this story he has entered Jerusalem to the shouts of people’s praise for what will be the last week of his life. The Jewish leaders are jealous and don’t appreciate the disruption of their orderly observance of their most important religious holiday…Passover.
So Jesus tells the parable of the Wicked Vineyard Tenant Farmers who treat the owners slaves horribly and won’t give the owner his due. Their rebellion is so great that they are willing to kill the owner’s son in a futile attempt to gain the vineyard for themselves. All this is because they are unwilling to give the owner his due.
Jesus’ use of the vineyard for this story he told to the Chief priests and temple leaders was very intentional. Several times in the Jewish scriptures we call the Old Testament, the people of Israel were refered to as a vineyard. The Jewish leaders would have made that connection immediately. The wicked tenants of the story were God’s people, who over and over again, rejected God’s prophets who called God’s people to give God his due. The prophets, God’s servants, called God’s people to be faithful to God as God had been so graciously generous and faithful to them. In spite of God’s patience with us, rarely has God been given his due.
Are you ever blown away by the patience of God? In the parable, the owner looks incompetent, doesn’t he? Sending servant after servant to be reconciled with his tenants…each one treated horribly, some killed. Then to send his son…believing that he would get a different response? What are you called when you keep doing the same thing, expecting different results? That’s right…crazy! Let’s be grateful for a God of crazy mercy, who never tires in efforts to redeem us…to bring us back into a right relationship with him.
The drama of our rebellion is recounted by Jesus in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants. Jesus’ authority for teaching and healing had been challenged by the leaders of the Jews. More and more Jesus had confronted their injustices and hypocrisy. At the time he is telling this story he has entered Jerusalem to the shouts of people’s praise for what will be the last week of his life. The Jewish leaders are jealous and don’t appreciate the disruption of their orderly observance of their most important religious holiday…Passover.
So Jesus tells the parable of the Wicked Vineyard Tenant Farmers who treat the owners slaves horribly and won’t give the owner his due. Their rebellion is so great that they are willing to kill the owner’s son in a futile attempt to gain the vineyard for themselves. All this is because they are unwilling to give the owner his due.
Jesus’ use of the vineyard for this story he told to the Chief priests and temple leaders was very intentional. Several times in the Jewish scriptures we call the Old Testament, the people of Israel were refered to as a vineyard. The Jewish leaders would have made that connection immediately. The wicked tenants of the story were God’s people, who over and over again, rejected God’s prophets who called God’s people to give God his due. The prophets, God’s servants, called God’s people to be faithful to God as God had been so graciously generous and faithful to them. In spite of God’s patience with us, rarely has God been given his due.
Are you ever blown away by the patience of God? In the parable, the owner looks incompetent, doesn’t he? Sending servant after servant to be reconciled with his tenants…each one treated horribly, some killed. Then to send his son…believing that he would get a different response? What are you called when you keep doing the same thing, expecting different results? That’s right…crazy! Let’s be grateful for a God of crazy mercy, who never tires in efforts to redeem us…to bring us back into a right relationship with him.
Monday, March 05, 2012
We are a rebellious lot
Mark 12.1-12
It was a beautiful, warm spring day in Sioux Falls, SD. I was sitting on the plaza outside my dorm at Augustana College reading the Sunday paper. Many of my fellow students were walking to worship on campus or were leaving in cars for worship services around town. That had not been my habit for several months. In fact, I hadn’t really had much to do with God or the things of God for several months. I had done what many young men and women do after high school. I had checked out of the whole church, following Jesus thing. I was enjoying freedom and not giving God his due. I was having a revolt against the God and the faith I grew up with.
As I sat there reading the paper, a great sense of conviction came over me. Something had been missing from my life and it had been showing. I knew it. I knew why. I had been in rebellion from the One who gave my life grounding and focus. At that moment, I set my paper down, walked to my car, and drove to St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. That day I met a man who would become an important mentor in my life, Gary Schwerin. In God’s grace, when I ended my rebellion, God had someone waiting in the wings to help me get back on track. It was one of the most important moments in my faith journey.
I mentioned earlier that my story is typical of many people in the years following high school. Recent research by the Barna Group, a social research company that focuses on religious beliefs and practices, shows that 59 percent of 18- to 29-year olds with a Christian background drop out of attending church, after attending regularly. Almost 40 percent say they have gone through a time when they significantly doubted their faith. (Kinnaman, David. You Lost Me. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011).
Dropping out is not the only kind of rebellion. Last weekend several of our youth group members went to a great youth event called Planet Wisdom. This year’s theme was focused on the importance of the Bible to one’s faith. One of the speakers introduced us to the work of Michael Novelli. Novelli stepped back and looked at the Bible from a broad perspective and identified seven movements in the story of God and God’s relationship with humankind. At creation, people and God enjoyed a close relationship. But you only have to go three chapters into Genesis before that close relationship is disrupted by human rebellion. And from that time on, the Bible tells of the story of God’s great love for us, God’s mission to redeem us, and God’s patience with us as we continue to rebel by going our own way and doing our own thing.
It was a beautiful, warm spring day in Sioux Falls, SD. I was sitting on the plaza outside my dorm at Augustana College reading the Sunday paper. Many of my fellow students were walking to worship on campus or were leaving in cars for worship services around town. That had not been my habit for several months. In fact, I hadn’t really had much to do with God or the things of God for several months. I had done what many young men and women do after high school. I had checked out of the whole church, following Jesus thing. I was enjoying freedom and not giving God his due. I was having a revolt against the God and the faith I grew up with.
As I sat there reading the paper, a great sense of conviction came over me. Something had been missing from my life and it had been showing. I knew it. I knew why. I had been in rebellion from the One who gave my life grounding and focus. At that moment, I set my paper down, walked to my car, and drove to St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. That day I met a man who would become an important mentor in my life, Gary Schwerin. In God’s grace, when I ended my rebellion, God had someone waiting in the wings to help me get back on track. It was one of the most important moments in my faith journey.
I mentioned earlier that my story is typical of many people in the years following high school. Recent research by the Barna Group, a social research company that focuses on religious beliefs and practices, shows that 59 percent of 18- to 29-year olds with a Christian background drop out of attending church, after attending regularly. Almost 40 percent say they have gone through a time when they significantly doubted their faith. (Kinnaman, David. You Lost Me. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2011).
Dropping out is not the only kind of rebellion. Last weekend several of our youth group members went to a great youth event called Planet Wisdom. This year’s theme was focused on the importance of the Bible to one’s faith. One of the speakers introduced us to the work of Michael Novelli. Novelli stepped back and looked at the Bible from a broad perspective and identified seven movements in the story of God and God’s relationship with humankind. At creation, people and God enjoyed a close relationship. But you only have to go three chapters into Genesis before that close relationship is disrupted by human rebellion. And from that time on, the Bible tells of the story of God’s great love for us, God’s mission to redeem us, and God’s patience with us as we continue to rebel by going our own way and doing our own thing.
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