Positive Faith in Scripture: Upbuildings

“God didn’t set us up for an angry rejection but for salvation by our Master, Jesus Christ. He died for us, a death that triggered life. Whether we’re awake with the living or asleep with the dead, we’re alive with him! So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you’ll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you’re already doing this; just keep on doing it.”

1 Thessalonians 5:9-11, Message

Here we see similar language to yesterday: a life of faith is actually about “life.” Insanity! It’s hard to imagine, in our culture, that God actually wants us to live a full life. More often we’re left with the idea that we need to hide who we really are because, if we’re found out, we’ll be excluded from the group. So, instead, we spend so much time managing appearances so we can appear as good (if not better) than the next person in line.

But this is no way to live! It’s not life- it’s prison. Imagine a faith community where people are encouraged, affirmed, built up, together. Brothers and sisters in arms. It’s hard to imagine- we don’t see enough of this.

This isn’t some hippy modern idea either- as the passage above shows, it’s quite literally 1st century stuff. Positive faith isn’t new- it’s biblical.

Maybe we do need to go back to the good old days- the days where we recognized and acknowledged the good in each other and attempted to build it up.

Jesus Died so That We Would Have More Wheat

"The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Those who love their life will lose it, while those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."

John 12:23-24 NIV

I will never communicate this with the clarity of Barbara Brown Taylor through her sermon "Unless a Grain Falls" in her book Teaching Sermons on Pain, but here goes....

When I was a little girl, my grandparents' very southern Baptist preacher drilled into my head that it was my fault Jesus died. That's a lot for a seven year old to handle. But according to him, Jesus had to die because my sins needed to be atoned for. This made sense to me, because the previous fall my mother had taken me and my three younger brothers to Kmart to buy school supplies. While there I found the most beautiful jewel-toned pen. It was the kind that came with ink cartridges and had an amazing silver tip. I begged my mother for this pen. I promised all sorts of acts of service to earn the money for this pen. She said no. I stole it.

My life as a thief was short-lived because it did not net me decent results. You see, this pen was so perfect, so magical, so....charming, that one of the kids at school stole it from me. I told the teacher and she couldn't figure out who was telling the truth. So she told me to have my mother write a note and offer proof that this was my pen. The other kid, it seems, was innocent until proven guilty. The problem was, I could not acquire said note unless I confessed my own thieving ways - and no way could I do that! The following summer when I heard the preacher wax on about how I had killed Jesus, the guilt and shame was overwhelming. It replaced my bitterness at losing my precious pen to the class bully. Suddenly, the pen felt like a sword I had unintentionally used to carve up God's son.

But according to Taylor, who got her information from John, "Jesus died to fill the world with wheat, with so many sons and daughters of God that no one would ever want for read again. Only in order to do that, the seed had to be planted. It had to die, or it would never grow." (p. 64, Teaching Sermons on Pain)

Jesus had a choice. He could have given into temptation and ridden the wave of popularity. A few more resurrections like he pulled off with Lazarus and Jesus would have been set for life. But it would not have been enough to sustain God's message so that it would reach us and renew us in 2021. Jesus' choice taught us that death is not the end nor is the worst thing that could happen to a person. Jesus taught us that suffering is not something we should (or could) avoid. Jesus narrated his own death story in such a way as to prove to us that God is not mad at us nor is he still demanding live sacrifices to please his hungry, thirsty quest for self-satisfaction. (As if God needs us to give him stuff!)

Jesus was never moved off his trajectory - to love his father and do his will. Jesus showed us that suffering can be endured and redeemed. Jesus invited us to follow him and offer whatever we have to give - the smallest seed - to God, to see what he might do with it.

I am so curious - what would suffering within the context of following God's call mean for you?

Evidence

"Each time we love again after having our love rejected, we share in the power of the resurrection. Each time we hope again after having our hope smashed to pieces, we share in the power of the resurrection. Each time we pick up the pieces, wipe our tears, face the sun and start again, we share in the power of the resurrection." East Indian Jesuit Pratap Naik

In the meantime, we do not know what it'll mean, we just have evidence that it is so. And this evidence inspires us to respond to the breath of God on our dry, dead bones. Reviving us after tragic loss. Renewing our hope. Giving us a vision for how to carry on after destruction and death and ruin. On May 2nd our community will begin opening up again after over a year of pandemic zooming. We have no idea what it will look like, all the different feelings that this change will bring up for each of us. There will be all sorts of different reactions. But what we must do, we who want to be faithful, is learn to trust God's resurrection strength. In any form it arises.

"Let us rise up and build"

Nehemiah 2:18.

Resurrection is Out-of-the-Box Believing

None of us are familiar with resurrection, are we? Dead people do not come back to life except in horror movies. This is entirely unnatural. But as unnatural as it is, every time I return to this story I find new things to confound and inspire me. In a sermon preached by Barbara Brown Taylor, she says this, "A resurrection is a miracle of another order. There is no continuity with life as we know it. The spark is utterly extinguished. The heart stops...Death occurs, beyond a shadow of a doubt. The living withdraw to get on with their lives and the silence is complete. Then, when everything is over, something entirely new begins. What was cold becomes warm again, and what lay still sits up. Creation occurs all over again - not a spark rescued from the ashes but a whole new fire kindled out of nothing - the gracious act of the only one who can make life out of dust, not just once upon a time, or even at the end of time, but over and over again."

And here is the point that I want to emphasize in the midst of this Easter season. Life is more than what we can experience. Jesus did not die to rescue us from God, Jesus died the way he did so that we would understand that the God we worship knows what suffering and death is like and we are never alone. Jesus rose again, so we know that death is not a final ending, but a new beginning. Now, there's a lot we do not know. God keeps things invisible - like the resurrection - and these invisible truths are more important than anything we can fact check. Paul says in Corinthians that if we do not believe the resurrection "our preaching is useless and so is our faith." (1 Corinthians 15:14). He's a good one to speak on the subject since he witnessed first hand God's mighty power on the road to Damascus. Because here is the thing...

We no longer have to believe that it is up to us keep things alive. Not our children, not our parents, not our spouses or even ourselves. Because we know this - "God has never forgotten how to breathe life into piles of dust."

BTB

In my life, I confess that I have felt a strong pressure to keep struggling or dead or dying things alive. No more. This is God's work. But it is encouraging to know that He works in this way. What have you spent too much time and energy trying to "keep going"? What pressures have you put on yourself that you need to release?

A Re-Cap of Pre-Easter Events…

On Palm Sunday, the week before Easter, Jesus enters Jerusalem to shouting and praise. "This is Jesus, the Prophet from Nazareth in Galilee." (Matthew 21:11) But the party did not last long, soon the religious leaders were questioning his authority - not because they doubted he was God's son but because in fact THEY KNEW he was who he claimed to be. Jesus was on his game - teaching and answering questions, confounding and comforting the listeners. When he was finished, two days before Passover, he predicted his crucifixion - and Judas agrees to betray Jesus. Some people say it was for money - 30 pieces of silver. Others speculate that Judas was pushing Jesus to reveal himself, believing that Jesus would ultimately rise victorious. But it did not go as the pundits predicted and Judas died by suicide having returned the 30 pieces of silver to those who bribed him for information about Jesus' whereabouts. Now - we know that Jesus does rise again, but first, there was this:

Jesus was arrested, charged, abandoned by religious leaders, followers, political leaders and the common man. To be fair, Pilate did not want to crucify him. His wife sent him a note and told him in no uncertain terms to NOT let this happen. He tried to wriggle out of it, but the crowd was charged up and they cried for his crucifixion. This year, when I reread this story, I read it with more fear. That must have been truly terrifying for everyone. A whipped up crowd with bad intel and a political leader trying to maintain control of this city under Roman domination. Pilate had Jesus flogged and then absented himself from the crowd - washing his hands of the deed. Then the crucifixion. Insults hurled. Mocked and ridiculed.

And then, after hours of his torture, he cries out, "It is finished." Man, it was scary, the temple curtain tore from the top down, an earthquake shook rattled and rolled the land. The land went dark. He was laid in a tomb. But it wasn't enough for the authorities, who knew the scriptures. They remembered that Jesus had said, "After three days I will rise again." You see, Jesus did not get crucified because authority figures believed he was lying about who he was - they had him crucified because they believed. They believed that he was the Son of God. So they ordered for the tomb to be made secure so that his body would not be stolen.

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary show up at the tomb in total grief. They cannot find the body to anoint. An angel, doing what angels do, told the two Mary's to not be afraid; Jesus has risen. Go tell the disciples. Along the way, Jesus appears. In the gospel of John, a grieving Mary hears her name called as Jesus says, "Mary." And at that moment, she knows. She recognizes him. She goes to tell the disciples and they don't believe her. (Luke 24)

And so it goes. This group of Jesus followers just cannot figure out what is going on! And yet...God finds a way to work with them. They are, according to Jesus in the gospel of Luke, "dull minded". And so are we. We miss seeing Jesus, and we miss seeing ourselves as God sees us too. If we were to accept that God works with whatever we give him and in the end, God's plan will be fulfilled, then what would you do differently with your day? What would that belief change in you?