Meditations

Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Matthew 8:20

“I affirm that truckle-beds afford no worse repose than the ivory couch; and the goatskin coverlet being amply sufficient to spread on the bed, there is no need of purple or scarlet coverings…See. The Lord ate from a common bowl, and made the disciples recline on the grass on the ground, and washed their feet, girded with a linen towel — He, the lowly-minded God, and Lord of the universe. He did not bring down a silver foot-bath from heaven. He asked to drink of the Samaritan woman, who drew the water from the well in an earthenware vessel, not seeking regal gold, but teaching us how to quench thirst easily. For He made use, not extravagance, his aim.”

Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215) in Pædagogus, or The Instructor, 2.3 (written c. 198).

Laura Hartman includes this quote by Clement in The Christian Consumer (72) when talking about how moderation is essential to proper enjoyment of blessings. I don’t know what a truckle-bed and a goatskin coverlet look and feel like but they sound like simple alternatives to an ivory couch and a scarlet covering.

In looking at the example of Jesus, Clement concludes that “He made use, not extravagance, his aim.” That’s a great word for us today. Our world tells extravagance is what brings happiness. Consumption like Christ, alternatively, is about using with moderation so that we have margin for sharing.

Father in heaven, show us today what a step toward moderation might look like for each of us, so that we have margin for sharing that reflects your love. May we listen to the still small voice of your Holy Spirit and do what it says. Hear my prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. Ecclesiastes 3:12-13

“We should consume with gratitude, savoring, and sharing…Gratitude helps extend the range of appreciation to the people and creatures whose labor brought the food to the table…Gratitude in action often leads to savoring, an activity of lingering over and taking delight in our consumption…Both gratitude and savoring imply a certain detachment from the thing itself. To be grateful is to recognize the blessing as a gift that was gratuitously given…and to savor, is paradoxically, also to detach. Though it is attentive to and embraces the created world, savoring brings about a certain spiritual fulfillment that helps humans detach from an idolatry of “stuff” and attend to what really matters…”

Laura M. Hartman in The Christian Consumer: Living Faithfully in a Fragile World (Oxford: OUP, 2011) 61-63.

Hartman rightly notes the progression from gratitude to savoring to sharing. Yesterday afternoon Sammy and I fished the Crystal River (pictured above) and caught ten nice fish. Both of us were fortunate to land Master Angler Awards for catching huge Mountain Whitefish. Today we are tying flies at the International Federation of Fly Fishers event at Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs. I am grateful for time with him in God’s creation, and savoring it as a gift from God. Savoring leads to sharing because we find great joy teaching others how to tie flies and catch fish. The best part is that we enjoy doing it together!

This afternoon we will give a presentation on “Native Trout of the United States” at 2pm. If you’ve never watched the trout videos Sammy has produced (and that I help shoot), here’s the most recent one: Owyhee River Basin Redband Trout Fly Fishing. Sammy and I are grateful for each trout we catch. We savor the moments with photos and video, and love to share them with the world. Though we catch a lot of fish, with each one we pause to gratefully savor the “glimpse of God’s extravagance” (as Sammy loves to describe it), and then release it to share the experience with anglers after us.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. 1 Timothy 6:10

“Money can entice one to all kinds of sin; in fact, there is almost no sin imaginable to which it does not entice. However, this is merely the consequence of the core corruption money brings as soon as it becomes for someone what his God alone can and may be for him. That struggle also goes on for a long time in the heart.

Our human heart needs a point of support on which to depend, rest, lean, and rely and from which it derives the peace, rest, and calm of life. At first, things fluctuate. At one time the heart finds this support in God, at another time in money or capital. Then follows a period of constant swinging back and forth, depending on the afflictions and dangers threatening us.

As long as these threats can be countered with money, God takes second place. But if the threatening affliction or danger takes on a character against which gold can no longer fight, then in most people our God’s name once again rises to the surface as the heart again seeks comfort in the God it had forgotten.

For many, their adherence to money gradually becomes so dominant that it begins to rule their entire soul and all their senses. The more money people have at their disposal, the more assured and certain they feel in their capacity for managing such a monetary treasure.”

Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920), Theologian and Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1901-1905, in “The Power of Money” Acton blogpost on 5 October 2016.

From my study of Greek term, philarguria, “the love of money” in antiquity, it is a root of all kinds of evil. It temps people to think they need it to live. Once people think they need it, they will do anything to get it. For example, why would the religious leaders allow moneychangers and merchants in the temple courts (cf. Matthew 21:12-13)? It brought in lots of money. They tried to serve both: God and money. Listen to what Jesus said about them:

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.” Luke 16:12-14

God knows our hearts. What does He see in yours? Has he taken second place to money? When He told the rich man to let go of money in Mark 10:17-31 it was not because He was trying to rob him. Jesus was trying to help Him. Obedience would not leave him destitute. He would learn to serve as a distributor. God had one hundredfold blessings ready for Him to enjoy and share. Friends, please don’t adhere to money and forget God!

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27

“God’s intent from the beginning is thus for a cooperative world of shalom, generosity, and blessing, evident most fundamentally in His own mode of exercising power at creation. In the New Testament, Jesus even grounds love for enemies in the imago Dei, suggesting that this sort of radical generosity toward others reflects the Creator’s own “perfect” love toward all people shown in His causing sun and rain to benefit both the righteous and the wicked (Matt. 5:43-48; cf. Luke 6:27-35).

In the end, nothing less than God’s own exercise of creative activity ought to function as the ethical paradigm or model for our development of culture, with attendant care of the earth and just and loving interhuman action. By our wise exercise of cultural power we truly function as imago Dei, mediating the Creator’s presence in the full range of earthly activities, thus fulfilling the initial narrative sequence of the biblical story.”

J. Richard Middleton in A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014) 52.

Yesterday I spent the morning discussing generosity in the image of God with Tim Dittloff of Stewardship Innovations. After lunch before my late afternoon flight home, he took me and some of his friends sailing on Lake Michigan on his boat, the “Imago Dei” (Latin for “image of God”), where I shot the above photo of Milwaukee.

After this amazing experience, I decided to read on this theme further this morning. Our lives must be defined by God’s ethical paradigm which reflects shalom, generosity, and blessing because that’s His image. Do these traits characterize the full range of our living? Do they embody our loving of others from friend to enemy? Do they shape how we interact with our culture and creation?

Father in heaven, thank you for making us in your image, male and female. Help us live as men and women of God who bring Your shalom to our communities. Help us serve as conduits of your generosity even to the most undeserving. Teach us to share Your blessings freely so that people may see You through us. Make it so by Your Holy Spirit I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” Luke 12:15

“Take if from someone who has had a lifetime of experience of trying to help Christians understand their relationship to their finances, money has a very powerful and profound effect upon the human soul. I have watched hundreds of Christians in my time become financially blessed and then develop an acquisitive streak that in turn makes their souls as metallic as the coins they seek.

Someone has said that “having a good deal of money does not change a person, it merely unmasks them.” If a person is naturally selfish or greedy, money will simply show up those tendencies in a greater and clearer light. “An offering,” said one writer, “is minted personality.” We can tell a lot about the kind of person we are by what and how we give.”

Selwyn Hughes in Divine Mathematics: A Biblical Perspective on Investing in God’s Kingdom (Surrey, UK: CWR, 2004) 19.

This is a great little devotional book I like to read when I travel. Today’s reading reminds me that as God blesses us, we need to “be on guard” (in the words of Jesus) that an “acquisitive streak” (in the words of Selwyn Hughes) does not appear in our lives.

The Greek word for “greed” in this sentence can also be translated “covetousness or acquisitiveness”. Jesus is basically saying, “Beware of all the messages that bombard you that life is found in acquiring money and lots of things. It’s not found there!

What’s the best way to avoid an “acquisitive streak?” Focus on giving rather than getting! As God blesses us financially, we have learned to increase our level of giving not our level of living. I hope you will join us. Let’s mint our personalities as unselfish and generous!

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. Galatians 5:13

“If your Christianity consists of slavery to religion in order to make yourself right before God, then it’s just as if you’re giving yourself to the pagan religions of the world. But Christianity is radically different from those worldly religions. Rather than slaves of religion, we are [children] in relationship with God…We can either make Christianity just like every other world religion and check off our boxes every week and go through the routine and the ritual, or we can step into the intimate presence of God.

We ought not to be a people who prayed a prayer a while ago and are now just trying to do our best to get things right with our lives on a week-in and week-out basis. We ought to serve God wholeheartedly, not because we’re trying to make ourselves right, but because we’ve been made right by God’s grace. We walk with him as [children] who know Him and love Him and enjoy Him and glorify Him, no matter what it costs…And Paul reminds us that because we are are free, we are not living for earthly pleasure…we [neither] live like everybody else, nor do we live for what everybody else lives for…and this changes everything about our lives in this world.”

David Platt and Tony Merida in Exalting Jesus in Galatians (Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary; Nashville: B & H Publishing, 2014) 89-90.

Today I lead a workshop with EFCA pastors to help them grasp their role in raising up a congregation of ministers who integrate their faith and work. My aim is to equip them mobilize those they serve to live differently from everyone else (as Platt and Merida would say) seven days a week!

With these pastors, I will present 30 practical ideas in four areas: (1) liturgy (activities in congregational gatherings), (2) pastoral care (rhythms for vocational pastors and marketplace leaders), (3) discipleship & spiritual formation (practices to mobilize a congregation of ministers), and (4) mission & outreach (steps that position the church to shape the community).

Please pray for fruitful time with them. Reply to this email if you want my a PDF version of my handout.