Ben Quash and Jean-Luc Marion: Limitless

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

“The Bible is not just a tool. It is a ‘You’, not an ‘It’. To open it is to come into the presence of something living and transformative; something actively present. To abide with it is to recognize moreover, that it is what the contemporary French Catholic philosopher Jean-Luc Marion might call a ‘saturated phenomenon’, one that contains more than any one reader or any one epoch can simply and completely and definitively wring out of it. Its power to affect successive new situations and to encounter new people is apparently limitless. It is a text that keeps on giving.”

Ben Quash in Abiding: The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent, Book 2013 (London: Bloomsbury, 2012) 55.

Quash and Marion remind us that God’s Word represents a beautiful example of God’s “limitless” generosity toward us. “It is a text that keeps on giving.”

This week at Warner University in Florida, Jenni spoke in chapel on Tuesday and I spoke on Thursday offering a total of seven practices for growing our love for God and neighbor.

One of Jenni’s points was to “Soak in Scripture” (she starts at the 11:35 mark of this video and goes for 20 minutes). Marion would add that we all should do this because it’s a “saturated phenomenon”. Do you have a regular routine for mining the depths of the living and limitless Word of God? Even without any money, a person can be generous who receives and shares the riches of the Word of God with others!

To hear part two of the message that I got to share, watch the video at this link and you will see my brother, Dr. David Hoag, president of Warner University introduce me at the 7:55 mark. In his words, it was “Hoagmania” week at Warner.

What a joy it was to teach from God’s Word together this week: “the text that keeps on giving.”

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Romans 12:1

“This world is so hungry. Surely someone needs what it is in your nature to offer. What do you do that causes you to lose all track of time? Where do you most often experience delight, and when do you sense God’s pleasure? Make an altar there, and climb on. You’ll love how it feels to yourself in the sacrifice of a work well done…and God will be more than pleased to accept it.”

Leigh McLeroy in The Beautiful Ache (Brenham: Lucid, 2010) 191.

Yesterday I asked readers to pray for my mother, one of my favorite givers. Thank you for your prayers. Mom made it through mitral valve heart surgery, and is stable in surgical ICU at University Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. She should be there for 4-5 days.

Today, McLeroy points the way to becoming a giver of all you are and all you have. Do what you believe God wired you to do, and then, “make an altar there, and climb on.” God is pleased when we sacrifice like this in service to others. It’s His design for our generosity.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 1 Corinthians 12:27

“We delude ourselves if we think we can be a Christian in isolation. We need the Church in everything the Church can give us: her sacraments, the proclamation and exposition of the Word of God, mutual sharing of gifts and insights, mutual support both material and spiritual. None of us can stand up alone against the forces of atheism and materialism within society. What is more, a Christian is always as one “given”, committed to others, to a community.”

Ruth Burrows in Love Unknown: The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent, Book 2012 (London: Continuum, 2012) 33.

To be Christian, is to be “given” to others the the community of the body of Christ. In American, many instead exhibit independence, which may be why so many succumb to materialism or atheism, that is to say, why they leave the church and conform to the world.

A community keeps us accountable. It positions us to aid others in crisis and them to aid us. Without it, generosity is impossible because part of our growth is linked to using our gifts in service to others in the Church.

Today I am praying for my mother, Patsy Hoag, as she has heart surgery on a leaking mitral valve. She’s modeled the “given” way of living for many years. Join me in lifting up a prayer for her healing today, so that her strength to serve God is renewed. Thanks.

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24

“What we give we gain. What we gain when we give comes in many forms. First of all, when we give, we recognize, both implicitly and explicitly, that life is not a process of exchange and equivalence, but of abundance and generosity…Exchange and equivalence is a zero-sum approach, the notion that what I give I lose to your gain. It implies a closed system. Abundance and generosity implies an open system, one in which the creative power of God is ever active, so what we give we gain. Mammon wants us to believe that the books always have to balance out in the end – that whatever you have is what I can’t have and vice versa…

Mammon is good at arithmetic, and balancing the books, but very bad at divine economics. Mammon’s economy is based on the principle of ‘beggar your neighbor’. But in divine economics, where there is abundance and generosity, there is no zero-sum approach. Instead, we see an economy that facilitates mutual flourishing and the common good…Abundance exists to be given, freely and openly…We need to train ourselves to see the world in terms of abundance and generosity…Such a discipline swims against the stream of the way economy is assumed to work.”

Justin Welby in Dethroning Mammon: Making Money Serve Grace: The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book 2017 (London: Bloomsbury, 2017) 108-109, 126.

Lent is the time to train ourselves to see the world in terms of the open system of God’s abundance and generosity which teaches us “what we give we gain.” It is not easy because the world teaches us that “what I give I lose to your gain.”

How’s your Lent going in terms of giving? Are you trying to balance the books or seeking to experience the creative power of God? This is not about making poor financial decisions; it’s about choosing to live by divine economics.

Jesus is clear: we cannot serve God and Mammon. He is not trying to ruin us financially; He is trying to help us take hold of life according to God’s economy. When we discipline ourselves to live this way, we find that it’s the only way to live!

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. 1 John 5:21

“I have been told of a very small and very devout boy who was heard murmuring to himself on Easter morning a poem of his own composition, which began ‘Chocolate eggs and Jesus risen’. This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety. But of course the time will soon come when such a child can no longer effortlessly and spontaneously enjoy that unity. He will become able to distinguish the spiritual from the ritual and festive aspect of Easter; chocolate eggs will no longer be sacramental. And once he has distinguished he must put one or the other first. If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will soon be no more than any other sweetmeat.”

C.S. Lewis in “The Fair Beauty of the Lord” in Reflections on the Psalms as recounted in Preparing for Easter: Fifty Devotional Readings from C.S. Lewis (San Francisco: Harper One, 2017) 181-182.

God desires for each of us (and that includes our children and grandchildren), “to distinguish the spiritual from the ritual and festive aspect of Easter” as we grow in the Christian faith. But how do we attain, and more importantly, maintain a right perspective?

Talk about “Jesus risen” as the sweetest proclamation ever! Share how our enjoyment and generous sharing of gifts from God like chocolate eggs serve to sweeten the celebration, but warn how they can become idols if they supplant the spiritual focus of the holy day.

Is it time to reassess your traditions? With Lewis, don’t misunderstood this as a call to abandon baskets, hunts, and chocolate eggs. It’s a reminder to celebrate “Jesus risen” above all else this Easter. Perhaps share the sweetest news and a chocolate egg with your neighbor this holy day.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5

“The question is how to go from an absurd life to an obedient life, from a deaf life to a listening life. If you are anxious and nervous and tense and upset, you don’t listen because your anxiety allows you no space to listen. You can’t receive the voice of God that assures us, “You are with me always, and all I have is yours.” Let us try to give time and space to this amazing voice, speaking in our hearts.

Listening is creating the space in which you can hear the voice that says, “You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter, you are special to me. All that is mine is yours.” The whole Gospel, the whole message of Jesus, is precisely that: “All that is mine is yours. All that I say is for you to hear, all that I know is for you to know, all that I do is for you to do.” Jesus is saying, “Nothing that the Father gave me do I hold back from you.” Really try to listen to that so as to gradually become like Jesus. That is the journey of our adult life.”

Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) in From From Fear To Love: Lenten Reflections on the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Richmond Hill: The Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust, 1988) 10.

Today’s post has everything to do with generosity because in “the journey of the adult life” people can only hold on to one thing. Will they choose absurdity or obedience? A deaf life or a listening life? The top alternative people cling to instead of Jesus is money. Rather than use it faithfully, they grasp for it absurdly, deaf to everything else.

Some rationalize this behavior as “saving for the future,” ignoring that Jesus describes the person who does that as a “fool” (Luke 12:13-21). Others miss that the call of Jesus to “go and sell” possessions aims not at leaving us as His disciples destitute, but it teaches us to distribute God’s abundant provision. The obedient, listening life discovers Jesus wants us to depend on Him.

Today’s Scripture reminds us that we must keep ourselves free of the thinking that we need money to make it through life. In reality, Christ is all we need. As the week begins perhaps take some time in solitude today to listen to that still small voice that promises to neither leave nor forsake you. Once you hear His voice, do what He says!

‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Matthew 20:12-16

“The parable of the workers in the vineyard is a fine portrayal of God’s generous forgiveness and mercy. Jesus compares God to a vineyard keeper who pays the same wages to workers who sign on late as those who have been toiling through the heat of the day. Can we accept the idea of a God who is so merciful, so forgiving? Whose justice is so mysterious, so hard to decipher by ordinary rules?

For some of us, this is difficult to accept. But I think the best way to let go of our own judgmentalism is to remember the boundless mercy of God. Rather than make a list of our own slips, rather than chronicle our own self-righteousness, we should let go of even judging ourselves. Instead we should focus on the immeasurable love of God. To remember how deeply God loves us is to feel that we have love to give back, to others and to God.”

Emilie Griffin in Small Surrenders: A Lenten Journey (Brewster: Paraclete, 2009) 32-33.

On this Lord’s day in the heart of Lent, let us focus on the boundless mercy and immeasurable love of God, because when the last are first and the first are last, all people before Him are on the same plane. Only when we realize that all people are equal before God, do we “remember how deeply God loves us” and tap in to His abundant “love to give back, to others and to God.” Letting go of judging others and ourselves is hard. It does not follow the “ordinary rules” of this world.

The measure of the world, that is the value of people, is determined by earthly judging. Where our giving gets all messed up is when we give based on merit, which is the opposite of mercy. We judge one person as deserving of generosity more than another. Nothing could be further from Christian generosity. Alternatively, only when we grasp God’s boundless mercy and immeasurable love toward us, can we exhibit Christian generosity filled with mercy and love.

Do not set your hearts on the godless world or anything in it. Anyone who loves the world is a stranger to the Father’s love. Everything the world affords, all that panders to the appetites, or entices the eyes, all the glamour of its life, springs not from the Father but from the godless world. And that world is passing away with all its allurements, but he who does God’s will stands for evermore. 1 John 2:15-17

“There is a pervasive ambivalence throughout the New Testament writings wherever the church’s attitude to the world in which it exists comes to expression. On the one hand, the world is God’s world, created by God and loved by God, currently alienated from God, it is true, but destined to be redeemed and reconciled to God.

On the other hand, the world is dominated by a spirit totally opposed to God, organized in such a way as to exclude God, drawn towards unworthy goals of material status and self-interest, quite different from the goals towards which the Christian way leads. In this latter aspect, the world is, according to the NEB rendering, “the godless world”…

Everything the world affords, all that panders to the appetites and entices the eyes, all the glamour of its life, springs not from the Father but from the godless world. And that world is passing away with all its allurements, but he who does God’s will stands forevermore” (1 John 2:15-17).

The Christian is sent into the godless world to reclaim it for its rightful Lord, but while it remains “the godless world” it is an uncongenial environment for the Christian…in the world but not of it, involved and detached at the same time…Seeing you have come to know the truth, beware of imitations and refuse all substitutes.”

F.F. Bruce in “The Church in the World” in The Message of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973) 89-90, 99.

During Lent we fast from things that are temporal to broaden our bandwidth for the eternal.

Today, NT scholar, F.F. Bruce, reminds us that that we as Christians are here for purpose, to reclaim the godless world for its rightful Lord. To do this we must not be enticed by the things of this world, which are leading hindrances to generosity. We must have a “pervasive ambivalence” toward these things to keep our focus.

Can you identify things that allure and entice you? Perhaps after identifying them, when you see them the next time, remind yourself to “beware of imitations and refuse all substitutes” because the godless world and all its glamour is passing away, but the one who does God’s will stands for evermore!

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave Him up for us all — how will he not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32

“It usually takes loss or deprivation in some measure for most of us to count the blessings we so readily take for granted. The loss of material things is not to be compared with the loss of people we love, but most of us have experienced both, and it is things we are considering now…

The first lesson is that things are given by God. Make no mistake, my friends. All good giving, every perfect gift, comes from above from the Father of the lights of heaven [James 1:17]…

The second lesson is that things are given us to be received with thanksgiving. God gives. We receive…Because God gives us things indirectly, by enabling us to make them with our own hands (out of things He has made, of course), or to earn the money to buy them, or to receive them through someone else’s giving, we are prone to forget that He gave them to us…

The third lesson is that things can be material for sacrifice. This is what is called the eucharistic life. The Father pours out His blessings on us; we, His creatures, receive them with open hands, give thanks, and lift them up as an offering back to Him, thus completing the circle…

This lesson leads naturally to the fourth, which is that things are given to us to enjoy for a while…The Bible says, “God…endows us richly with all things to enjoy” [1 Tim. 6:17]. It also says, “Do not set your hearts on the godless world or anything in it” [Col. 3:2]. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should enjoy things made for us to enjoy. What is not at all fitting is that we should set our hearts on them. Temporal things must be treated as temporal things — received, given thanks for, offered back, but enjoyed. They must not be treated like eternal things…

And there is a fifth: all that belongs to Christ is ours, therefore, as Amy Carmichael wrote, “All that was ever ours is ours forever.” We often say that what is ours belongs to Christ. Do we remember the opposite: that what is His is ours? That seems to me a wonderful truth, almost an incredible truth. If it is so, how can we really “lose” anything?”

Elisabeth Elliot in Discipline: The Glad Surrender (Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1982) 105-117.

These five ideas serve as a basic theology for the “eucharistic life” for each of us. The term “eucharistic” celebrates that we acknowledge that all we have received  — gifts of grace upon gifts of grace — cause us to be filled with gratitude so that we gratefully receive, enjoy, and return everything back to God. When we live this way our lives reflect God’s generosity. We choose this way of living this because we have come to realize that generosity is God’s design for temporal things. When we hold on to them, we lose, but when we let go of them, and thus rightly relate to them, we gain.

God help us by your Holy Spirit in this Lenten season and beyond to exhibit these five lessons on things so that others may see our example and make the choice to join us in living eucharistic lives for You. Hear our prayer in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself up for us all, to purchase us with His blood on the cross. Amen.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. Ecclesiastes 3:1

“The most important aspects of our lives cannot be rushed. We cannot love, think, eat, laugh, or pray in a hurry…When we are in a hurry – which comes from overextension – we find ourselves unable to live with awareness and kindness.”

James Bryan Smith in The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love with the God Jesus Knows (Downers Grove: IVP, 2010) 180.

Jenni and I flew to California yesterday for a few days of rest and to see our daughter, Sophie, perform in the Spring musical at San Diego Christian College. We also get to spend time with Jenni’s parents, our niece and her husband, and Sophie’s boyfriend. Special occasions like these are gifts from God (speaking of gifts from God, last night’s sunset in La Jolla, pictured above, was amazing).

Our lives are full, that’s for sure, but we try to avoid functioning “in a hurry” because as Smith puts it, in that condition we are “unable to live with awareness and kindness.” We must have margin in our lives. The parable of the priest, the Levite, and the good Samaritan is a great example of this (Luke 10:25-37). Two appear in a hurry and one had space to be generous.

Are you in a hurry? Part of fasting in Lent is making margin for that which is best. Perhaps assess your schedule during this season so that after Easter – though life may be full – you will have time for loving, thinking, eating, laughing, praying, and giving.