Ezek22 Lectionary Reflections

Today’s Readings (text):

• Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18
• Ps 27:1, 7-9, 13-14
• Philippians 3:17-4:1
• Luke 9:28-36

I’m a collector of crosses and crucifixes. I selected two from my collection, put them out on an island in my basement, and took the picture above.

These are two rather different depictions of the cross of Christ, aren’t they? The one on the right depicts the suffering that St. Benedict saw in the crucifixion of our Lord. The one on the left, on the other hand, is intended for wedding ceremonies, a gift you might give to a new couple to decorate their new home or apartment. Many people even put the cross on their bodies, not only as jewelry, but as tattoos.

And I think there’s nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes. So often, however, we forget what the cross meant to Jesus during his own life as a man on Earth. We forget the excruciating pain, shame, and horror he endured, because as we turn the cross into a sacred symbol, a hallowed testament of our faith in Christ and his resurrection, we naturally become less appalled at the image of his death.

Paul’s letter to the Philippians, certainly one of the happiest and most joyful books in the Old or New Testaments, reminds us in Chapter 3, Verses 18-19 (”For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ … their minds are set on earthly things”), that we are enemies of his cross if our minds allow us to live lives of indulgence.

We don’t know any more about our own futures today than Paul did about his two millennia ago. Therefore, Paul uses words that are somewhat vague, like “lowly” and “humiliation,” to describe our earthly shells. This is Jesus the Christ, who died on the cross after suffering humiliation. This is the animal sacrifice made by Abram in our Old Testament lesson, providing food for birds of prey.

Paul then uses words like “glory” to describe the body of Christ: “He will transform the body of our humiliation (or, our humble bodies) that it may be conformed to the body of his glory” (3:18). This is the flaming torch that passed between the pieces of Abram’s sacrifice. This is the image of Jesus transformed on the mountain in our gospel. This is the light and salvation spoken about in the psalm verse.

Religion and spirituality is not intended, in Christ’s kingdom, to be available only as far as we benefit from it. Rather, it was crafted by God out of the suffering of Jesus. Many Christians in the world, particularly in Muslim countries, are persecuted, as Christ was persecuted, for their belief in him and the doctrine of his resurrection.

In fact, persecution is so bad in Malaysia at this time that the former bishop of the Protestant Church in Germany characterized Christians as the most persecuted group in the world. The non-governmental organization Open Door estimates that about 100 million of the world’s 2.2 billion Christians are subjected to persecution in their native land.

They share, first hand, in the deprivation and humiliation that a strong commitment to Christ can involve, even today. Yet they are not afraid to stand up for their beliefs. After a three-year ban on the use of the Bible in churches—simply because it refers to God, in their native language, as “Allah,” a use to which Muslims objected and got laws passed—a judge in the highest court in Malaysia finally ruled on Dec. 31 that Christians could use the word “Allah” just as legally as Muslims could.

Mission accomplished, but the decision only increased threats against Christians in Malaysia. The situation in Malaysia is representative of how God works in our world. Jesus goes up on the mountain, the scene turns brilliant white, and God says, “This is my chosen Son.” This is the promise of our own transformation, as our earthly bodies are transformed into light at the hands of God.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Deuteronomy 26:4-10
• Ps 91:1-2, 10-15
• Romans 10:8-13
• Luke 4:1-13

The readings during Lent take us on a deep journey into the meaning of our faith and our life as Christians, leading to our rebirth in Christ. Paul’s letter to the Romans, especially Chapters 9 to 11, from which we hear an excerpt today, is considered by many to be the heart of the argument for Christianity.

To the Jews, Paul’s ideas here, in Chapter 10, would seem foreign. Jewish law typically divides people into three types, based on obedience to the law, which earned favor with God: the good, whose balance was in God’s favor; the bad, who were on the debt side in terms of obedience to God’s law; and the people in between, who could perform an act of obedience to get on God’s good side.

When Paul writes to the Romans, because of their unbelief, he tells them their way of looking at God’s justice isn’t right: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved,” Paul wrote.

Even though Paul clearly believed in predestination (that we were created by God to be with him), our salvation requires that we say out loud that Jesus is Lord and believe “in our heart” in the doctrine of the resurrection. Think of the heart as a relationship like one you would have with a good friend who is always at your side. If those conditions are met, Paul says we will be saved, regardless of how many acts of obedience or how many acts of disobedience (sins) we have performed.

If you don’t think that’s heavy stuff, you would be wrong. It formed an entire basis for the Reformation, one of the most significant events in the history of the world. Of course, many non-Christians live today, who have not had the benefit of hearing this doctrine. Paul’s letter here is specifically about the unbelief of the Jews in the resurrection, so we will restrict our discussion to the topic at hand. But just because this particular way of salvation is open to everyone doesn’t mean it’s the only way to come to the Father through Christ.

But for us, we must believe not only that Christ lived and died, but we must believe that he rose and lives, present tense. He ascended victorious and now walks with us every minute of our lives.

As Christians, when we believe that in our heart and walk with Jesus at our side, it’s not possible to do anything contrary to the law, although the strict legalism and that whole “letter of the law” thinking is dead. Jesus ended it with his resurrection, as he brought all believers into good favor.

He did this for everyone — as Paul says, “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek” — meaning salvation is open to everyone, including those who would be considered “in debt” under the Jewish law. Consider the psalmist’s words today: “Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble.” Even when we are a person on the bad side of the scales of God’s justice, the Lord, our friend, Jesus, walks with us when we ask.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Jeremiah 17:5-8
• Ps 1:1-6
• 1st Corinthians 15:12-20
• Luke 6:17-26

Happy Valentine’s Day. It is rare that this day falls on the reading of the Beatitudes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, but that is what we hear today from the Gospel of Luke. More from this famous sermon later.

First, I call your attention to an article that ran in the New York Times on Feb. 13 (Saturday). The article is entitled “Looking for a Date? A Site Says Check the Data” and is about a group of Harvard-educated mathematicians who formed a company to research what breaks the ice in online dating relationships. Their findings so far include things like for men, don’t look at the camera or smile for your profile photo, and for women, take a shot on the beach and don’t worry at all about revealing skin.

One woman was quoted in a comment that I found most surprising: “I don’t want to waste my time answering a thousand questions so I can find my perfect someone. I’m not into that. I don’t want the father of my children. I just want someone who can carry a conversation and is interesting.”

Funny she should look at an online dating site to find someone who’s “interesting” and can carry on a conversation, especially since most of us think someone is “interesting” if he has the same ideas we do but uses slightly different wording. We can’t quite say what we really want from anything in this life, but I pray we have an easier time telling our Father in heaven what we want from the world to come.

Big names in the online dating world view data about profile pictures a little differently. One big dating site chief executive said “people come to us for our matchmaking skills. They don’t want to worry about whether someone didn’t start up a conversation with them because they didn’t tilt a camera at a certain angle for their profile picture.”

Just as Christmas has come to be about Santa Claus, Valentine’s Day has come to be about online dating. It is the 21st-century consequence of degenerating love. It has been my experience that most people who say they want “good conversation” really just like hearing themselves talk. They aren’t looking for love — or seeking out different opinions for that matter. If you don’t believe me, listen to Fox News for a month if you’re a liberal, or read the Times editorial pages for a month if you’re a conservative. Then, come back and tell me how interested you are in people who can carry on “interesting” conversations.

Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, “interesting” conversations are all we’re truly after. Then, the whole reason these sites exist would be vain. Extend that to the epistle in today’s readings, where Paul writes, “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.” It would be fine to let our hopes deteriorate into the interesting conversations the woman speaks about in the Times article if we have no hope of true love. And it would, in fact, be more truthful to set our sights on achieving nothing more than worldly or commercial gain if we have no faith in Christ’s resurrection.

But Christ showed us what true love was really about: loving our neighbors, praying for our persecutors, laying down our lives to save our friends’ souls. We became aware of something beyond what we see in this world. We learned of a perfect love, the very reason God created us in the first place: for his purpose, not ours.

Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you,
and denounce your name as evil
on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!
Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.

If we don’t live by Christ’s commandments, as laid down by Jesus, for example in the Beatitudes, all our efforts would be rendered pointless, just as useless and without real purpose as the time we stand to waste on Internet dating sites looking for “interesting” conversation.

Today’s Readings (text):

• 1st Kings 10:1-10
• Ps 37:5-6, 30-31, 39-40
• Mark 7:14-23

In today’s gospel, Jesus tells us that nothing that goes into a man makes him unclean. He used food as an analogy in the parable. Rather, what comes out of him, such as evil thoughts, makes him unclean.

The message is affirmed in the Psalm response (”The mouth of the just murmurs wisdom”) and in the story of Solomon’s teaching to the queen of Sheba in the Old Testament lesson (”Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report I heard. Blessed are your men, blessed these servants of yours, who stand before you always and listen to your wisdom”).

The Mid-Atlantic, where I live now, has been attacked by two huge snowstorms within a week, making travel hazardous at best, impossible at worst. The first storm, Feb. 5-6, brought about 30 inches to most areas around Washington, while the second one, still going as I write, threatens to bring 20 more.

But by last night, only a couple inches of new snow had fallen in the area. I decided to go up to one of my favorite places for dinner after work: a growing restaurant in Hunt Valley Mall, the last stop of the light rail north of Baltimore. They were open, despite many shops in the outdoor mall having closed in preparation for the snowstorm they knew was coming.

Craig, the manager, was there to greet me and a few other customers at the door. “I knew I could count on seeing you,” he said.

When I got in, I obviously had to hurry as much as possible. Every minute meant more snow on the roads and an increased likelihood I wouldn’t get home safe and sound.

My waitress—I think her name was Alicia—was looking forward to her day off so she could enjoy the snow. “I moved from the Eastern Shore (of the Chesapeake Bay) to Baltimore because we would never get any snow over there,” she told me.

And it occurred to me, with these two transactions, that there’s nothing inherently good or bad in snow. Rather, it’s our perception of the snow: being able to count on a customer or being able to find pleasure in building a snowman or sledding.

Like Solomon’s wise words to the queen of Sheba, these comments, which not only acknowledge the danger of the snow but look at the positives the snow brings to our world, also reaffirm today’s lesson: your character is not derived from anything the outside world brings to you, but it is based on what you give to the world.

Today’s Readings (text):

• Isaiah 6:1-8
• Ps 138:1-8
• 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
• Luke 5:1-11

Special attention today must go to the gospel, since this is one of about three times in all of scripture that Jesus gives a command for us to evangelize: He himself teaches from the boat belonging to Peter, and he commands Peter, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”

Peter resists initially, since his fishing that day had not been going well, but he does as the Lord commands. This initial interaction might be like so many people who turn to Christ at a low point in their lives. That’s what got Peter here.

However, after people from the other boat come to help him (perhaps these can be metaphors for non-Christians), he recognizes the divinity in Christ, bowing humbly as he and his partners reap the rewards of following Christ.

In this moment, when the fishing business is good for Peter, we also see him turn to Christ, and Jesus then turns to Peter and tells him, don’t be afraid — one of hundreds of times in scripture that phrase is used — for now, they “will be catching men.”

Then Peter and his partners drop everything and follow Jesus. This is the amazing part of the story: they switch careers when business is good. That’s not how it usually happens. Business people usually don’t get out of a particular line of work until business is bad. Jesus’ ways, though, are different from yours and mine.

St. Paul and today’s Old Testament lesson also remind us that God is with us through good times and bad, when we are at rest, at play, and at work. Do we always remember him at work, in our careers? No, but we should. I mean, Peter was not afraid to bring Christ into his workplace: Jesus got into the very boat that was Peter’s livelihood.

Even when our careers are moving forward nicely, we should remember that it is God who gave us the abilities and skills we need to perform those functions that are vital to our job. In the presence of those we work with, like the psalmist in the presence of the angels, we sing our Lord’s praises.

For example, some might hang a cross in their office or put a small crucifix on their desk. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, although some might consider it offensive. We should not make a nuisance of ourselves, but nor should we be afraid of being ourselves — strong Christians, in different aspects of our lives.

Today is Super Bowl Sunday, and an ad that has been controversial, even weeks before the Super Bowl, is being run by Tim Tebow, a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback who writes Bible verses under his eyes during football games.

His story is about his mother, who went against medical advice and carried her pregnancy with him to term. Doctors advised her to have an abortion, but her beliefs superseded their advice.

Now, in a $2-plus million spot on national TV, an estimated 100 million Americans — one-third of the total population — will hear that abortion is not a desirable way to end a pregnancy. The commercial has been called uncharacteristic, and the National Organization for Women even publicly declared it unfit for air. Coverage comes from ABC News.

Well, America has never restricted free speech, especially about political or moral ideas. Our Constitution’s First Amendment is founded on these very principles. And if other groups don’t run similar ads to get their point across — i.e., to cast out into deeper waters — shame on them. Listen to what Jesus told Peter: “Put out into deep water,” he said. “And prepare for a catch.”

Go Tim! Get ready to catch a few unborn babies. Thanks be to God for the goodness he has shared with you, your mom, and the organization that sponsored the ad.