An Ash Wednesday Meditation in Three Words

⁸ Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ⁹ “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”¹⁰ Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”¹¹ Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

This is a meditation in three words.

“Again . . .” That’s the hardest word in this passage. As I hear it I can’t help adding, “Oh no not . . . again.” Ongoing temptation, the work of the Devil, and things that seek to trip me up, freak me out, pull me under, or do me in – they happen again, and again, and again. As we enter into this season of Lent we do so to ponder this truth once again – that we are beautiful, sinful creatures made of ash in the image of God. We are cracked icons capable of terrible and tragic things. We remember this “again.” And yet friends I also want to tell you tonight that the most beautiful word in this entire passage is “again.” That’s why we follow the church year and celebrate Ash Wednesday even when Valentine’s Day might feel like more fun or reflect a more attractive form of love. We practice this during Lent again to name the darkness so that we might inch that much closer to the light. “Again” becomes our very word for salvation. A third century monk Abba Anthony once said, “Anyone who has not been tempted cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Without temptation, one cannot be saved.” So God takes up our “again” and lovingly twists it to his own purposes and once again forgives us, once again cares for us, once again fortifies us. This God loves us once again.

“Kingdoms . . .” The second word in our passage is the Devil’s unquestioned claim to be able to offer power with no strings attached save one – worship. The lovely writer Henri Nouwen calls this the temptation to power. He notes that when he considers why so many people have left the church throughout Europe as well as North America, the word “power” easily comes to mind. One of the great ironies of the history of Christianity is that a religion founded upon a crucified and failed messiah has constantly given in to the temptation of power – political power, military power, economic power, or moral and spiritual power – all this despite the fact that we say we love one, who did not cling to his own divine power, the Apostle Paul tells us, but emptied himself, becoming a servant, even unto death. Why is this so? Why do we fall prey so easily to the temptation of power? Maybe because power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to regulate life than to love life. This Lenten season I invite you to explore what powerlessness might look like for you. 

[Here the original point ended and I went on to point three. However, I had wanted to say something more and didn't. So I have returned to add this for whomever might read it and to help me remember to have courage and listen to the Spirit. On Ash Wednesday 2018 the U.S. experienced another horrific high school shooting. This has become so common that words simply fail to describe them. Evangelicals, of all Christians groups, remain the most skeptical of gun control legislation. More importantly, however, is the wish by so many Christians to remain armed for their own protection, for their own safety. I guess I want to ask, "How might following the powerless Jesus speak to that concern?"]

“Attended . . .” Our third and final word is an antidote to our desire for power. Listen to this truth: even Jesus needed attention. Even Jesus, the Gospel writer notes, needed angels to care for him. He wasn’t self-sufficient, self-sustaining, or self-made. The other night my small group gathered after missing a few meetings due to all of the disasters and displacements. And as we sat around the table, shared failures and triumphs, and personal concerns and fears, I felt something holy and sacred, something life-giving and (breathe out). I felt “attended” to. What if we don’t have to solve all the problems of this world – indeed our solutions often seem to create just as many problems anyway? What if all that we must do faithfully, persistently, without reservation, is to give one another, the poor, the hurting, the hopeless, our attention. The famous Christian philosopher and activist Simone Weil is one of the angels who will attend to us. Listen to her words:

Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention. The capacity to give one’s attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have this capacity do not possess it. Warmth of heart, impulsiveness, pity are not enough…The love of neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him: ‘What are you going through?’”

This Lenten season I invite you to do two things on top of whatever discipline you practice: attend to someone else but also allow someone to attend to you.

Prayer of Confession:

Lord, we confess to you what we are. We are sinful people who persist in our own destruction again and again. Help us this season to confess our sin again, so that we may once again enjoy the light of your salvation.

Lord, we confess to you what we long for. We are sinful people who prefer power over love, influence more than sacrifice, and notoriety instead of humility. Show us this season how to model our lives on Jesus who, though he was God, humbled himself.

Lord, we confess to you what we ignore. We are sinful people who think we are self-sufficient and self-made, in need of no one. Offer us the grace of being attended to and give us grace so that we might attend to others. Amen.

Running with the Chariot: Reading the Bible with Others on the Run ~ Acts 8:26-40

We have been going through a series which explores the meaning and call of Scripture. Today’s story informs us about what kind of book the Bible is. We will see through Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch that the Bible is a book that calls us to mission and justice – to run toward desert places and excluded people, cause us to encounter questions that we might not expect, and have us running with the Spirit in strange ways.

The story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch reveals that . . .

          1.    The Bible is an outdoor book. It will send you on mission to places you’ve never been and people you’d rather not meet. 

Our story begins with Philip receiving an absurd command from an angel to go toward a not so comfortable road (vs. 26) - "Get up and go South, along the desert road (in the middle of the day) and run." This is not a comfortable book. If you find yourself never encountering difficult commands or desert places, you’re probably not reading it correctly. Bible reading demands a commitment to action and adventure. It requires engagement not simply understanding. It asks you to run.

So, Bible study is not for the faint of heart. It requires an openness to God and doing what God wants. It involves a mental, emotional, and spiritual commitment that will lead you into unfamiliar territory.

My former pastor John Wimber was once confronted by an angry mob of church goers in the parking lot who demanded just how far he was planning on taking the church. They had recently experienced some challenging teachings and were struggling to make sense of things. Wimber reported that he was terrified and not knowing what to say held up the Bible he was carrying and said, “Friends. I promise. It will go no farther than this book.” He laughed when he later reported this story saying, “They all dispersed and took comfort in that. Have they read this book?” So John Wimber learned, like Philip, that reading the Bible will lead you along the desert road.

Philip was being asked to run to someone who didn’t look like him or share his culture. He was commanded to run to an uncomfortable place. So what does he see? I can almost imagine a scenario just like this.

“Philip, run to the chariot!” “But Lord – he’ black. He doesn’t look like me.” In the Ancient world the term “Ethiopian” was synonymous with blackness and connected to many myths about their fierceness in battle, their great wisdom and other scary stereotypes. But Luke doesn’t speculate and the Spirit doesn’t explain – he simply says, “Run.”

“Philip, run to the chariot!” “But Lord – he’s a foreigner. He doesn’t talk like me.” The Bible often mentions “Ethiopia” as the very end of the earth. Though obviously a God fearer (reading Isaiah), the guardians of the Temple following what the Bible says would not have admitted him past the Court of the Gentiles. 

“Philip, run to the chariot!” “But Lord – he’s a eunuch.” He doesn’t belong with people like me. Unlike the other adjectives or descriptors, Luke uses the word “eunuch” five times – it’s a central feature of the story he wants to tell us. Why? Eunuchs were marginalized in Judaism and explicitly told that they could not be a part of the people of God (Deut. 23:1). He would not have been able to enter the temple nor eat any sacrifices that he had sponsored. Culturally he would have been considered effeminate and a bad omen if you crossed his path. In fact, calling a man a eunuch was an insult against his manhood and they were not considered either male or female. Given the stereotype, cultural tensions, and clear Biblical text, not everyone would have appreciated Luke’s portraying this man as a protagonist, as an object of mission, as a concern of God. 

The fact that the first Gentile convert to Christianity is from a sexual minority and a different race, ethnicity and nationality offers an interesting take on Bible study. This is a book about mission and justice and a God who sends us running to those who are not like us because God loves people who are not like us.  

So who might God calling you to run to? So read your Bible and asks, “What am I being led to do?” or “To whom am I being sent?”

When Philip obeys the Spirit and runs toward the chariot he discovers that the eunuch was reading from the Book of Isaiah. Philip asks him, “Do you understand what you are reading?” The eunuch responds, “How can I, unless someone guides me?”

          2.    The second thing that the story teaches us is that the Bible is a blurry book.

Philip discovers that the Bible can’t simply explain itself – it often needs, demands, someone to teach it or explain it (the Spirit, the church, and maybe “you”). We need to move beyond an easy dismissal of argumentation, “The Bible says . . .” or “I just believe what the Bible says . . .” This isn’t to say that the Bible loses authority or must give way to only an elite set of interpreters but it does require some careful attention.  

I’ve been struck these past few Sundays by our blurry screens with the image of the Bible. To be honest, I think it it’s appropriate and, I suspect, so would Philip. If you don’t understand that the Bible is blurry you will never read it with the care that it demands. Blurry doesn’t mean you can’t see anything or that it’s inscrutable but neither is it easy. To read it well requires three characters: the Ethiopian Eunuch, Philip and God.

To read it well you’re going to need to be like Ethiopian Eunuch. You are going to have to ask some questions. You are going to have to ask for help. You will need to discover some helpful friends to explain it to you. You will need to cultivate a proper disposition - a commitment to study, a determination to ask questions, a willingness to risk, the ability to laugh, and a readiness to ask for help.

You will also need to be like Philip. You are going to check-in on others, to ask if they need help with this book. You are going to have learn obedience to God and an ability to hear his voice and do what is asked of you. You are going to have to know the Old Testament and how it connects with the story that God wants to tell – “the good news about Jesus.”

Actually, a healthy Bible reader will constantly switch between being a Philip and being an Ethiopian Eunuch – to become a questioner and explainer. This is a blurry book. There will always be something that you missed. You will only be dangerous if you forget that. But asking questions and offering explanations is still not enough.

          3.    Finally, the story reveals that the Bible is opened by the Spirit in strange ways.

It’s very important to recognize that Philip was being asked to violate what one should not do from a Biblical standpoint – admitting a eunuch into God’s community. Yet throughout Jesus’ ministry and the book of Acts it is with the Spirit’s help that God’s agents violate certain readings of Scripture at strategic moments to fulfill God’s mission and justice. This is a major theme in Luke: the Spirit empowers Christ’s witnesses to cross cultural barriers reading the Bible in new and unexpected ways.

This is why it’s always important to read with the Bible with God. Let the Bible be a book that leads you to pray and a book that you pray about. Without the Spirit, you won’t be able to see it rightly and well. Remember that our story would never have happened through Bible reading alone. God exists apart from this book but he’s also found in it, through it, and even in the creases and passages that you don’t underline or in chapters that you probably never read.

In the movie Godspeed, Matt, an American pastor living in a small village in Scotland, randomly visits the house of Alan Torrance – a wild and wooly Scotsman – who welcomes the pastor in and offers his some hospitality. After a nice conversation, the Matt leaves and unbeknownst to him a book falls off the shelf. As he is walking away, Alan comes to the door and yells, “Matt, Matt, look at this. That book fell from the shelf as you left.” And the book was a copy of John’s Gospel. So Matt asked Alan, “Do you want to read it?” He said, “Not really.” Matt responded, “How about we a get couple of other people who don’t want to read it and we ask questions.” But what is even more amazing is that Alan came to faith largely because of the map in the back of the Bible. He discovered that the scale of the map of Jesus’ ministry fit the exact scale of the small town and territory that he lived in. The distance from Capernaum to the Sea of Galilee. Here was a guy who had never studied the Bible in depth but suddenly he saw himself in it. And Alan became a Christian. 

Through a chance encounter – a knock on the door, a fallen book, and a map at the back of a Bible, Pastor Matt was taken on an adventure and Alan Torrance became a Christian. This is not how they said it would happen in seminary. And yet Alan, like the eunuch believed. The eunuch asks Philip, “What prevents me from being baptized?” “Well,” Philip could have said, “Deuteronomy 23:1, for starters.” But he knew better – this was God’s mission and God’s book. He was there by God’s command, asking questions of God’s book with God’s Spirit running alongside. It was God, he knew, who told him, “Run!”