Step by Step

Step One: Be a sheep

“I have come so that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

11 “I am the good shepherd.” (John 10)

Jesus tells us he provides the good life.  He does this in the context of his being a shepherd.  The shepherd gives good life to the sheep.  Not wolves, not goats, sheep.  So be a sheep. 

Step Two: Follow the right shepherd

“3 For this one the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 Whenever he sends out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”

Are you a sheep?  Good.  But it’s not enough.  Do you belong to the Good Shepherd?  Good.  But it’s not enough.  To belong to him, you must be with him.  To be with him, you must follow him.  Where he goes, you goes.  Where he sits, you sits.  You share His life with him and He shares His life with you!

And what is that life?

“23 Yahweh is my shepherd;”

It is life with God.  Jesus is I AM.  The Father and the Son are one.  If you follow Jesus, you are one with Him and therefore you are One with God.  That sounds pretty abundant.  But wait!  There’s more!

“I will not lack for anything.”

The abundant life is bountiful.  This is the God who can bring water from rocks, angel food cake from dew and cause it to rain Cornish hens, enough for a tribe in the millions.  He can break five pita pockets and two herring and feed five thousand men, their wives, their children and their servants.  I think it’s safe to say He can handle your needs.

“2 In grassy pastures he makes me lie down;

by quiet waters he leads me.”

The abundant life has peace.  There will be places where God feeds you, waters you and there will be times of rest.  “It is in vain for you who rise early and sit late, eating the bread of anxious toil, when thus he provides sleep for his beloved.” (Ps 127)  Look at the world!  How can you have peace?  You are with the Good Shepherd!  He’s providing for you.  You will not lack.  “25 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 26 If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?” (Luke 12)

“3 He restores my life, my soul.”

Life can take it out of you.  Jesus puts it back in… not Gatorade.  When God wanted to take Elijah on a little trip he provided two meals for him of bread and water and those two little snacks gave Elijah enough energy for the trip…of Forty Days!  Take that Garorade!  And before you say, “yeah, but that’s Elijah, the greatest prophet of Israel.  I’m just me.”  This was the greatest prophet of Israel, yes, wanting to die!  He had given up.  He no longer trusted nor thought he could go on.  He knew God like James Taylor, “I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain…” and yet despaired.  And God restored his life and soul.  I think God can handle your doubts.

”He leads me in paths of righteousness

for the sake of his name.”

God has a certain style.  He provides: food, money, wisdom, power, knowledge first because…

“4 Even when I walk in a dark valley,”

He knows there are dark valley’s coming.  This is tremendously important to remember!  The abundant life isn’t one without pain, strife or suffering.  But…

“ I fear no evil”

Why?

“because you are with me.”

The other part of God’s style is repeating himself.  Because we have Spiritual Alzheimer’s.  We forget, constantly.  So he says things like, “I am the Good shepherd.  I lead the sheep.  The sheep follow me.  We are together, these sheep and me.  When it’s good, we are together, me and the sheep.  The sheep and i.  When it' bad, i'm there, with the sheep.  We’re together.  No one separates us.  I never go off and leave them.  Cuz we’re together.  Me and my sheep.  My sheep and me…

We’re together.”

Again, we can have peace because we know we’re with the Shepherd.  And we know that where He leads is a path of righteousness.  It is good, no matter how dark it gets.  No matter how scary.  It is good for us to be here…

With the Shepherd.

Together.

Us and him.

The dark valley phrase is often translated as the “Valley of the Shadow of Death.”  That alone should give us peace.  You know the difference between the Valley of the Shadow of Death and the Valley of Death?  In one, you die.  In the other, you know you could have and didn’t.  In one the arrow hits you, smacking wetly into the hair you meant to pluck between your eyeballs.  In the other it whizzes by your ear, close enough to hear but strangely, without doing damage.  It is appointed for us once to die and then to live for eternity.  We are with the Shepherd.  We share His life.  He laid down his life and then, took it up again!  So will we.

“Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

We are with the Shepherd… but we have Spiritual Alzheimer’s.  We wander off.  We forget who we’re following.  We forget His promises.  We do stupid stuff.  Why?  Cuz we’re sheep.  And in this we take peace: He is the Good Shepherd!  He’s there to discipline us, to teach us, to guide us, to lure us back, to drag us back, to carry us back.  To patch us up, to correct us. 

“5 You prepare before me a table

in the presence of my oppressors.”

The rod isn’t just for the sheep.  The rod is used to thwack the holy poop out of wolves, bears and lions, oh my!  We will have oppressors.  But!  We can have peace because…say it with me,

“We are with the Good Shepherd!”

Jesus is God!  He has ascended to heaven and sits in the throne room on the right hand of God Almighty.  There is no oppressor there.  We will have our day.  We will be justified and honored and feted and toasted and party it up in sight of those who once mocked us, spit on us, ignored us, betrayed us, beat us, cheated us, hurt us, raped us, killed us!  Why?

Because we are with the Shepherd.  What they do to his sheep, they’ve done to Him.  What they’ve done to Him, they’ll do to his sheep.  “I have said these things to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have affliction, but have courage! I have conquered the world.” (John 16)  Jesus conquered the world, it’s His.  And what God has given Him, He gives to the sheep.

”You anoint my head with oil;”

Oil, the symbol of the Spirit.  The consecration of priests.  The coronation of kings.  Whatever it says on your resumé, you are also and more so priests and kings in God’s kingdom.  Pretty stinking abundant!

”my cup is overflowing.”

It is too much!!  He gives us more than we can handle!

“6 Surely goodness and loyal love will pursue me

all the days of my life,”

Why?  Because we’re with God and God is, “Yahweh, Yahweh, God, who is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding with loyal love and faithfulness, 7 keeping loyal love to the thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and he does not leave utterly unpunished, punishing the guilt of fathers on sons and on sons of sons on third and fourth generations.” (Ex 34)

and I will stay in the house of Yahweh

for a very long time.” (Ps 23)

Or forever, whichever comes last.  And really, if there’s this much joy and hope and peace in a few lines about God on paper, how much more will there be in the presence of the real thing?  And that’s where the Shepherd is leading.

Abundant?

“9 I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will come in and will go out and will find pasture. 10 The thief comes only so that he can steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10)

I don’t know about you but that phrase, “life…abundantly”, bugs me.  It is the wicket in which I get stuck.  I’m forty years old and I still don’t think I know what it means, probably because I’m forty years old and I still don’t know what life means.  But wickets aren’t for sticking, they’re for clearing and living isn’t passive, inert; even the idle rock is growing moss.  Living is active, moving, changing, foraging, hunting, eating, pooping and eating some more.  So maybe the first conclusion we can draw is: abundant life is one of action?

We see it in the Scripture.  There is entering, saving, coming in and going out and finding.  These aren’t idle sheep.  They’re busy.  They’re doing big, important sheep-stuff.  They’re living.  On a cosmic scale they are just sheep, none of this is earth shattering.  No one in a thousand years from now will be putting bits in history books about the sheep that changed the world but to their own lives, this stuff matters.  A sheep that lies down and refuses to go out dies.  That’s pretty important to the sheep.  So maybe my hang up is one of looking for more significance?

There is a question of time in the scripture too.  Does the sheep fold refer to our earthly lives?  Does Jesus, the gate, guard the passage to Paradise Pastures?  Ancient sheep folds might not belong to one man, one flock.  Flocks of many owners might all gather their sheep together for the night.  When the new day dawned, the shepherds would come and call their own.  The sheep would follow only the voice they recognize.  The voice they trust.  So does this mean we’re all in a fold for the night.  Is life just us sheep of Jesus in with the goats of the other guy until morning?  Doesn’t sound like there’s much to do there.  Is the life abundant something we get later then? 

This scripture however sounds like Jesus is guarding the sheep from something on the outside.  A thief who wants to steal sheep.  No one can snatch sheep out of Jesus’ hand.  “37 Everyone whom the Father gives to me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never throw out, 38 because I have come down from heaven not that I should do my will, but the will of the one who sent me. 39 Now this is the will of the one who sent me: that everyone whom he has given me, I would not lose any of them, but raise them up on the last day.” (John 6)  So whose sheep is the thief stealing?  Apparently, his own.  The sheep that would choose to follow him anyway… or at least, buy his lies.  And each flock gets the same fate as the shepherd they choose.  Christ’s flock suffers a while and then rises to sit on the same throne as Jesus, “The one who conquers, I will grant to him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also have conquered and have sat down with my Father on his throne.” (Rev 3)  While those that follow the enemy will enjoy the same fate as he… “Then he will also say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed ones, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels!” (Matt 25)

Now a life upon a throne certainly sounds like an abundant life by any definition.  So is this it?  Do we muddle and muck about here for fifty to a hundred years and then and only then do we get the life abundant?  Should we pray for a short life so we can get on with the real life?  Tempting, escapist, but tempting.

In the end, what does your heart tell you?  When you read the Scriptures (you do read the Scriptures, don’t you?)  what do you see?  If Jesus is our model, if he led a perfect life then what do you see in his example?  Perhaps Paul says it best to Titus, “3 Remind them to be subject to the rulers and to the authorities, to obey, to be prepared for every good work, 2 to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all courtesy to all people. 3 For we also were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, enslaved to various desires and pleasures, spending our lives in wickedness and envy, despicable, hating one another. 4 But when the kindness and love for mankind of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not by deeds of righteousness that we have done, but because of his mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” (Titus 3)

When we believed, Jesus saved us from a life that leads to death, no matter how abundant it may feel (Luke 12: 15-21) and opened up to us a life that leads to more life no matter how poor, stricken or desperate it may feel!  The life abundant isn’t one measured in circumstances.  It is a life above and beyond our circumstances!  Abundant life can be lived in the perfumed halls of power and wealth and it can be lived just the same in the dankest gutter of the darkest slum.  No matter what happens now, we have Jesus!  He is the Way and the Truth and the LIFE.  He becomes a source of regeneration and renewal that never fails, never runs out, never loses strength.  The sheep must eat.  The sheep must drink.  The sheep must rest or they will die.

The good shepherd knows.

“23 Yahweh is my shepherd;


I will not lack for anything.

2 In grassy pastures he makes me lie down;


by quiet waters he leads me.

3 He restores my life.


He leads me in correct paths


for the sake of his name.

4 Even when I walk in a dark valley, I fear no evil


because you are with me.


Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

5 You prepare before me a table


in the presence of my oppressors.


You anoint my head with oil;


my cup is overflowing.

6 Surely goodness and loyal love will pursue me


all the days of my life,


and I will stay in the house of Yahweh


for a very long time.” (Ps 23)

And that sounds like a pretty abundant life.

Ridiculously long post that should have probably been two. You have been warned.

“9 For Yahweh’s portion was his people,


    Jacob the share of his inheritance.

…he encircled him, he cared for him,


    he protected him like the apple of his eye.

…12 so Yahweh alone guided him,


    and there was no foreign god accompanying him.

13 And he set him on the high places of the land,


    and he fed him the crops of the field,


and he nursed him with honey from crags,


    and with oil from flinty rock,

14 With curds from the herd,


    and with milk from the flock,


with the fat of young rams,


    and rams, the offspring of Bashan,


and with goats along with the finest kernels of wheat,


    and from the blood of grapes you drank fermented wine.

15 And Jeshurun grew fat, and he kicked;


    you grew fat, you bloated, and you became obstinate;


and he abandoned God, his maker,


    and he scoffed at the rock of his salvation.

16 They made him jealous with strange gods;


    with detestable things they provoked him.

17 They sacrificed to the demons, not God,


    to gods whom they had not known,


new gods who came from recent times;


    their ancestors had not known them.

18 The rock who bore you, you neglected,


    and you forgot God, the one giving you birth.” (Deut 32)

“10 For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all went through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. 5 But God was not pleased with the majority of them, for they were struck down in the desert.

6 Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we should not be desirers of evil things, just as those also desired them, 7 and not become idolaters, as some of them did, just as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play,” 8 nor commit sexual immorality, as some of them committed sexual immorality, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day, 9 nor put Christ to the test, as some of them tested him, and were destroyed by snakes, 10 nor grumble, just as some of them grumbled, and were destroyed by the destroyer. 11 Now these things happened to those people as an example, but are written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come. 12 Therefore, the one who thinks that he stands must watch out lest he fall. 13 Temptation has not come upon you except what is common to humanity…
…14 Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. 15 I am speaking as to sensible people; you judge what I am saying…
…That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No, but that the things which they sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to become sharers with demons. 21 You are not able to drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You are not able to share the table of the Lord and the table of demons.” (1 Cor 10)

“4 Now the Spirit explicitly says that in the last times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 by the hypocrisy of liars, who are seared in their own conscience, 3 who forbid marrying and insist on abstaining from foods that God created for sharing in with thankfulness by those who believe and who know the truth, 4 because everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thankfulness, 5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.” (1Tim 4)

My wife and I had a bit of a tiff last night.  She was reading an essay/confession of a mother distraught over what to do with her violent, unstable son.  A child she feared was capable of doing terrible, horrific things the likes of which our world sees far too much of.  My wife was pitying the woman and I do too but my nature is analytical.  If you tell me “what” I’ll want to know “why?”  This led to accusations of self-righteousness, being holier-than-thou and hypocrisy.  Things I get accused of a lot and I would be a pompous fool to deny for as Paul says, “For in that which you pass judgment on someone else, you condemn yourself, for you who are passing judgment are doing the same things.” (Rom 2)  Jesus wasn’t specific about whose eye the plank was in, he just said, “you.”

“Who me?”

“Are you a you?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then yes, you.”

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 

“9 Who will say “I have made my heart clean;


    I am pure from my sin”?” (Prv 20)

Nature abhors a vacuum.  “20 For from the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, both his eternal power and deity, are discerned clearly, being understood in the things created…” (Rom 1)  Therefore, God abhors a vacuum.  Think about it.  Everything bad is not a thing at all.  It is the absence of something good.  Cold, absence of heat.  Dark, absence of light.  Apathy, absence of love.  Loneliness, absence of friends.  Emptiness, absence of filling.  Hunger, absence of food.  Food.  Let’s stop there.  Both the Deuteronomy passage and the Corinthians one makes mention of food.  Someone once said, if you are reading the Bible and not getting hungry, you’re not paying attention.  God has modeled love for us in food.  God loves us, he demonstrates this by feeding us, filling us.  The world was empty, God filled it.  His first command was, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.  God abhors a vacuum.  One of the first things he says of man is, “it’s not good for the man to be alone.”  Our hearts are void and empty with the Spirit hovering over them.  He stands at the door and knocks.  But since Adam, we have been rejecting Him and choosing to fill ourselves with pride, lust and sin.  A lie is the absence of truth and Satan, who is real, fed us with lies and we ate them up.  You see, if you don’t let God fill you, you will be filled.  “43 “Now whenever an unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it travels through waterless places searching for rest, and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came out.’ And when it arrives it finds the house unoccupied and swept and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings along with itself seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there. And the last state of that person becomes worse than the first. So it will be for this evil generation also!”  (Matt 12)  I don’t know about you but I’m picturing Animal House.

You ask me, “Are demons real?”  I tell you, “Look around!  Open your eyes!”  The Scriptures are clear.  When we reject God’s food, God’s love, God’s lordship over us, we accept something else and if God is Love, God is Truth, God is Life then what we accept is apathy, indifference, lies, falsehood and death.  If we reject Jesus is the Way, then we accept being lost.  If reject Jesus as the Light and source of all Wisdom, then we accept living in darkness and the futility of our own thinking.

Why is there evil?  Why is the world in the mess it’s in?  Evil is the absence of good.  God is good and so evil is the absence of God.  The more we reject God, the more we look for scientific, humanistic, us-centered solutions to our problems the more we will fill ourselves with what is not God, filling our bellies with the fruit of Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

“13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by his good behavior his works, with the humility of wisdom.  (The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom (Ps 111)) 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and tell lies against the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there is disorder and every evil practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, obedient, full of mercy and good fruits, nonjudgmental, without hypocrisy, 18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace among, by, for those who make peace.” (Jam 3)

Do you want to expel the demons from among us?  Do you want a world free of Satan and sin and the effects of his rule? Jesus told us how, “his disciples asked him privately, “Why were we not able to expel it?” 29 And he said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing except by prayer and fasting.” (Mark 9) 

The world is starving and only Jesus has the food it needs.    There are much more than five thousand hungry mouths and souls out there. I was going to put a picture in but i don't want to influence what they look like to you because the fact is, they are everyone!  Need is all around us!  It takes many forms.  They are lonely, overwhelmed by insignificance, lost, in desperate need, in deep, dark despair, slaves to their lusts and their wraths, there is poverty, injustice, hunger.  Jesus looks at them and says, “You give them something to eat.”  But just as the disciples didn’t have to come up with enough food on their own, neither do we.  We are not the source!  Pray!  Fall on God’s mercy and repent!  Repent of trying to be your own source!  Of searching for other foods, other wells.  Pray and fast from those sources.  Seek heavenly food!  The Kingdom is near to you!  It is His joy to fill us!  I’m not saying we don’t have work to do.  We have gardens to tend.  We have flocks to shepherd but what we must do first is reattach to the Vine, the Source, fill ourselves with the Bread of Life, give thanks for what He gives us, whether little or much and then we will bear the fruit the world needs to eat, some two times, some ten, some hundredfold. God blesses us so we can be a blessing.  So we can be the Jesus they see!  Sharing our food, which is Jesus, with them just as He has shared himself with us.  Sharing the Truth with them just as it was given to us!  Pointing them to the Way and the Life.  To the lover of their souls who wants them back.  To their Father!  What is a problem?  What is a dilemma?  What is wrong with the world?  It is the absence of an answer.

And the answer is always Jesus.

“55 “Ho! Everyone thirsty, come to the waters!


    And whoever has no money, come, buy and eat,


and come, buy without money,


    wine and milk without price!

2 Why do you weigh out money for what is not food,


    and your labor for what cannot satisfy?


Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,


    and let your soul take pleasure in rich food.” (Is 55)

Good advice, i thought

Who can stand?

“10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And behold, a woman was there who had a spirit that had disabled her for eighteen years, and she was bent over and not able to straighten herself up completely. 12 And when he saw her, Jesus summoned her and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability!” 13 And he placed his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and glorified God. 14 But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, answered and said to the crowd, “There are six days on which it is necessary to work. Therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the day of the Sabbath!” 15 But the Lord answered and said to him, “Hypocrites! Does not each one of you untie his ox or his donkey from the feeding trough on the Sabbath and lead it away to water it? 16 And this woman, who is a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound eighteen long years—is it not necessary that she be released from this bond on the day of the Sabbath?” 17 And when he said these things, all those who opposed him were humiliated, and the whole crowd was rejoicing at all the splendid things that were being done by him.” (Luke 13)

I cannot express to you how immensely reassuring these verses are to me.  By now I hope you know to look for the gospel in every chapter, verse, word, jot and tittle of the Word.  It’s there and in this particular story the good news just drips off the page like honey based medicine.

One of the reason’s it’s so sweet to me is a footnote in my Bible that says the phrase, “that had disabled her,” is literally, “weakness.”  She had a spirit of weakness for eighteen years and could not stand up straight.  Isn’t that just the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?  It is to me and here’s why.

The chasm.  The gulf.  The vast, empty, impossible void between what I should be as a beloved son of God Most High and what I am.  Paul’s rant in Romans seven describes it.  He knows what he should do, he is willing but unable to do it! “24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”  We are supposed to stand firm in our faith, to put on the full armor of God so we might resist the evil day and having done all, to stand.  But who can stand?  “12 because our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6)  We’re going up against Angels of Hell, no wonder we fall!  “8 But at that time when you did not know God, you were enslaved to the things which by nature are not gods.” (Gal 4)  We are Satan’s slaves, in bondage!  The Bride of Christ is chained with a spirit of weakness!

Ah, but “is it not necessary that she be released from this bond on the day of the Sabbath?”  Not, “Is it good?”  Not, “Is it right?”  But, “Is it not necessary?”  The Sabbath was a mini-festival.  A day set aside by God to rest.  To rest in God and His work, His provision.  Every seven days there was a Sabbath Day.  And every seven years there was a Sabbath Year.  And every seven Sabbath Years was the Year of Jubilee, the Super Sabbath!  The day all slaves were set free!  The day all land returned to its owners.  The year everyone went HOME.  These were not suggestions.  They were not just laws.  They were gifts!  Wedding gifts from God to His Bride.  Time set aside just for them!

And who is Jesus?  “5 And he said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”” (Luke 6)  The Lord of the Sabbath!  Jesus is our Sabbath!  Here is our Master at last!  Here is our Bridegroom!  He is our rest from the toils and slavery of our former master we sold ourselves to, from the curse on the land, from the duty of the law and performance, from the old man I am!  Jesus sees us; he places his hands on us and frees us!  Suddenly… We. Can. Stand!  Not in our strength, His!  The gulf closes.  The void is filled with Jesus’ body, Jesus’ righteousness.  On the Sabbath there was no work, not even to prepare bread.  God prepared enough the day before.  Now, we lift not a finger to accomplish our salvation, our justification and our redemption.  Jesus is the Bread and the Living Water provided for us.  Feast upon Him.  Jesus is the Bridegroom who delights in His bride, cleanses and dresses her and longs to take her to Himself!  Run to Him!  Or if you feel you cannot run, if you are still bound to your yoke of slavery, to the old master, to the sin that will not let you go, to your guilt…

Then crawl to where He is, fall at his feet and wait, cry out, He will see you, He will touch you, He will lift you up…

And you will stand!

Disaster movie

“6 And he told this parable: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any. 7 So he said to the gardener, ‘Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and did not find any. Cut it down! Why should it even exhaust the soil?’ 8 But he answered and said to him, ‘Sir, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 And if indeed it produces fruit in the coming year, so much the better, but if not, you can cut it down.’” (Luke 13)

Disaster movies pretty much follow a formula.  Establish an array of main characters by following their lives for a few minutes each.  One of which will be our protagonist.  Protagonist will be the only one who believes disaster is imminent.  First half hour or so of movie will be protagonist trying to convince authorities, general populace and love interest that disaster is imminent while disaster gives everyone ominous hints and foreshadowings.  The turning point of the movie, the hinge, the pivot is the disaster manifesting.  Now that everyone believes what they see with their own eyes, the second half of the movie is them scrambling to survive the disaster’s effects with varying degrees of success or horrific failure.  Despite the fact that they are rarely done well, they are perennially popular movies to make and I think I know why…

We are in a disaster movie.

Luke twelve and thirteen are a synopsis of this.  Jesus, our Protagonist, is trying to warn everyone of what’s coming.  He’s pointing to all the hints, the signs of imminent catastrophe that we’ve had along the way and are yet to come and by and large everyone is scratching their heads, tilting them to one side and concluding he’s a kook.  And it’s so easy to sit back, scratch our well fed bellies and conclude that Jesus rose, the movie’s over and they’re all idiots.  Here’s the problem with that…

We’re still only in the first act.

Jesus has not come back yet.  The imminent catastrophe hasn’t hit.  And that means we’re still in the first part of the movie.  Jesus’ parable is about how we’re getting a second chance.  He has come himself, the True Noah and done all that is necessary to save us, to build the Ark of Salvation so to speak, his own body, and now is the time to get on board.  The great Day of the Lord is coming and no one knows how long He will delay.  

“13 Now at the same time some had come to tell him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered and said to them, “Do you think that these Galileans were sinners worse than all the Galileans, because they suffered these things? 3 No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish as well! 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them—do you think that they were sinners worse than all the people who live in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all perish as well!” (Luke 13)  The great philosopher Moffatt pointed out to me the other day that in our minds people fall into two Carlinian categories: Idiots and Fanatics.  Anyone less spiritual than we are is an idiot.  Anyone more spiritual than us is a fanatic. 

But Jesus makes no such distinction.  To him there are only sinners: sinners on the boat and sinners too proud to board.  The rains won’t fall until all have had a chance to board but they will fall, make no mistake.  God is pained by our behavior, God is hurt and grieved by us.  We have no concept of how much!  It is suffering for Him to withhold justice, it is suffering for him to see the weak starve, to see the young abused, the elderly ignored or shunted aside.  It is suffering to Him to see his children kill each other, it is true agony when they don’t forgive one another, it is adultery when we deny Him as our husband, our lover, our God.  And the worst of all is when we, the church, the ones already on the boat are the perpetrators!  We who should know better still sin!  He forgives us for Jesus’ sake alone!  So we have no room to condemn anyone!  For our sin is the worst of all!  “45 But if that slave should say to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time to return,’ and he begins to beat the male slaves and the female slaves and to eat and drink and get drunk, 46 the master of that slave will come on a day that he does not expect and at an hour that he does not know, and will cut him in two and assign his place with the unbelievers. 47 And that slave who knew the will of his master and did not prepare or do according to his will will be given a severe beating. 48 But the one who did not know and did things deserving blows will be given a light beating. And from everyone to whom much has been given, much will be demanded, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will ask him for even more.”  (Luke 12)  We hurt God every day and only His goodness and long suffering and strength allows Him to postpone the terrible Day when He steps in and cleanses the world of our wickedness.  He is patient, He is longsuffering, Sodom and Gomorrah He would have spared for just ten righteous citizen’s sake.  If there is fruit, He will delay.

But Jesus is saying, “40 You also must be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not think he will come.” (Luke 12)  This is no game.  There are no idiots and fanatics, there is none good; there is none righteous, no not one.  There are only those who deny, denounce and decry the Day coming and those who know their accuser is going to drag them before the Judge and they are doomed…

But Jesus.

Whose slave are you?

“42 And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful wise manager whom the master will put in charge over his servants to give them their food allowance at the right time?” (Luke 12)

From head to heart then, the road we must walk, the path we must pave.  From knowledge to action.  From philosophy to propellant.  It does us no good to know what we are to be, what we are to do if we do not do it.  “47 And that slave who knew the will of his master and did not prepare or do according to his will will be given a severe beating.”  Jesus began this text with warnings against hypocrisy.  Here he returns to it.  Over and over, Jesus keeps saying the same things in differing ways.  Live genuine.  Live as a slave of God.  If you do, people will hate you.  Live genuine.  Live as a slave of God.  If you do…  Why? 

Because we’re shtoopit, cuz why!  Because we don’t believe him.  Because we see the world and the way it works and we think, no matter what we say we believe, we truly act as if this is all there is!  We spend the first half of our lives as if we will never die.  We spend the last half of our lives afraid of dying.  We hoard and collect the perishable as if that were the only goal to life.  We worry incessantly about things far beyond our control and spend exorbitant amounts of resources and energy trying to gain control of them anyway.  It’s madness!  Noisy, wasteful, arrogant, self-centered insanity and this season, Christmas, is the greatest illustration: blinking lights; incessant background noise; business, business; drive, push, imperatives to spend all we haven’t on the worthless and unnecessary and for what?  For fear we will be thought unloving, unkind, unpatriotic?  Which is another way of showing we fear if we don’t perform as intended we won’t be loved.

…

As constant and persistent as a bubbling brook set back in the forest far from the furious rage of the strip mall strewn highway, Jesus whispers, “For this reason I tell you, do not be anxious for your life, what you will eat, or for your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens, that they neither sow nor reap; to them there is neither storeroom nor barn, and God feeds them. How much more are you worth than the birds? 25 And which of you by being anxious is able to add an hour to his life span? 26 If then you are not even able to do a very little thing, why are you anxious about the rest? 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they do not toil or spin, but I say to you, not even Solomon in all his glory was dressed like one of these. 28 But if God clothes the grass in the field in this way, although it is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he do so for you, you of little faith? 29 And you, do not consider what you will eat and what you will drink, and do not be anxious. 30 For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need these things. 31 But seek his kingdom and these things will be added to you.

32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, because your Father is well pleased to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give charitable gifts. Make for yourselves money bags that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven where thief does not approach or moth destroy. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Who then is the wise servant?  The one who acknowledges he or she is a servant in the first place.  One who knows that all he or she has belongs to someone else, to someone greater.  But Jesus tells us one who, unlike earthly masters, loves us.  A master who wishes to come and give us all things.  A master who wants to come and serve us!  “37 Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he returns! Truly I say to you that he will dress himself for service and have them recline at the table and will come by and serve them.” 

I know you see the world as it is.  I get it.  No one’s more cynical than me.  Here you must earn your keep.  Here you must perform or be cast out.  Here you must protect what little you have or someone or something else will take it.  Here we are constantly put in boxes and categories.  Here no one knows you.  No one takes the time to know you because they are too busy trying to get you to notice them.  The master of this world puts you on a treadmill.  The master of this world doesn’t love you.  Owes you nothing.  You are food to him.  The miracle is: Jesus sees it too!  He’s not saying the world isn’t this way.  He’s saying, we don’t belong to the world!  We belong to Him!  And in His house, things work a little differently!  You’ve been purchased from the master of this world by the Master to come!  The King over All.  Stop serving the old master!