Parables 2. Lamp

No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a bowl or hides it under a bed. A lamp is placed on a stand, where its light can be seen by all who enter the house. For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all. So pay attention to how you hear. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them.

Luke 8:16-18 NLT

Why did Jesus come into the world? And what is our purpose in life? These are deep questions, but Jesus provides some simple answers. 

Light drives away darkness. Jesus is the light. Jesus is the light produced by the lamp. When we put our faith in Jesus we become like lamps in which the light of Jesus has been lit. We become the vessel that contains the light of Jesus. 

Jesus came into the world to drive out the darkness. This process involves exposing that which is hidden. Darkness, of course, hides both good and evil things. When darkness is driven away the good things can be seen, which brings joy and gladness. But evil things are also exposed, bringing shame and embarrassment, sadness and sorrow. 

This parable is Jesus’ summary of why he came into the world – to tend his light in us, so that we in turn would shine his light in the world. The effects on us are the same as the effect on the world. The darkness of our own hearts is driven out, bringing to light both that which is evil, which needs to be removed, and that which is good, which God created in us from the beginning (we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he gave us to do. Ephesians 2:10). The darkness of the world is also banished by the light of Jesus, revealing both the bad, against which we must do battle, and the good, which we can cultivate and celebrate.  

There is another theme in this parable – that of the light being hidden. Jesus says simply that hiding the light of Jesus either by covering it with a bowl, or placing it under a bed, is not God’s intention, and neither should it be our action. Sometimes we are thankful for the light of Jesus being shone into our own lives, but we are reluctant about being a vessel for that same light of Jesus to be shone out into the world. Having received the light, we hide it, trying to keep it for ourselves, unconcerned that the world out there remains in darkness. This has never been God’s plan. He blesses us so that we can be a blessing. 

The other problem with hiding the light is that eventually it will go out. Light in Jesus’ time came via candles, or oil lamps. If a bowl is placed over a candle it is eventually extinguished for lack of oxygen. Hiding the light of Jesus in us will have the same effect. It will go out and we will be plunged back into darkness. The light of Jesus has not been lit in us in order to be hidden. It has been lit in us in order to be seen. We are the vessel through which the light of Jesus is seen, through which the light of Jesus drives out the darkness, through which Jesus allows all the beauty and wonder of the world to be seen.

This is the true “enlightenment” that the world needs. The places that need the light the most are the places where it is the darkest. If we are wondering what is our purpose in this world, the answer must surely be this – go to the place which is the darkest and shine the light of Jesus.

There is poetry in this. The disciple John, who was as much a poet as Luke was a historian, explores the idea profoundly in the opening chapter of his gospel. Let this be the poem of our lives – the light of Jesus in us. 

‘In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. ‘

John 1:1-5 NLT

Parables 1. Faith first

While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.” When he said this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” His disciples asked him what this parable meant. He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,“ ‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand …

Luke 8:4-10 NIV

Luke’s gospel contains 17 of the parables of Jesus. They are well known, and variations of some of them are repeated in other gospels. The parable quoted above is the first recorded in Luke, and introduces us to the idea of parables, and the question of why Jesus chose this way of teaching so much of the wisdom of the kingdom.

For us who are Christians this parable is well known, and we have no doubt heard it explained many times, so that its meaning seems almost self evident. We wonder at the ignorance of the disciples, who asked what this parable meant. Isn’t it obvious?

Apparently not, and that, it seems, was Jesus’s intention. He quotes an obscure verse from the prophet Isaiah – recorded in chapter six of that Old Testament book. It does seem odd. Jesus seems to be saying that he spoke in parables so that people would not hear, not see, not understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, not so that they would. This seems counterintuitive. We naturally imagine that Jesus was using parables because it would make it easier for his listeners to understand, not so it would be harder.

He goes on to say that his disciples, by contrast, were to understand, and that is why he explained the parable to them. But why this exclusivity? Why not explain it for everyone? Why speak in riddles? Why leave the masses wondering?

Something that has become clear to me over the many years I have spent listening and talking to people is that what people believe about God – or indeed about anything – is seldom based on careful explanation, the presentation of evidence, profound teaching. What people believe is based on experience. They then interpret the world based on their beliefs. The only evidence they accept is that which supports their worldview. The only teaching that makes sense to them is that which goes along with their experience.

When it comes to ultimate truth, which comes only from God, people tend to only accept it and believe it if they have encountered God in some way, experienced him, met him – and having met him, said yes to him in their hearts and minds. That was the difference between the disciples who followed Jesus and the casual crowds that had gathered around him. The disciples had said yes to Jesus, they had put their faith in him.

Faith comes first, then understanding; I think that is what Jesus was saying. Jesus understood this basic fact of human psychology, that once faith exists, people’s minds are opened to the deeper things of God. This principle is true even if people put their faith in other people – once they have given their allegiance to a person, it is difficult to shake their trust, even if to everyone in the world that trust seems crazy. Witness the rise of Hitler, or in our present world, the faithful followers of Putin or Trump. For those that believe, nothing the person can do or say is wrong.

So we must choose carefully who we put our faith in, for if we choose wrongly, we will be led astray. The religious teachers of Jesus’s day said Jesus was a false teacher. But the disciples knew Jesus, they lived with him, they listened to him, they experienced his love, forgiveness, compassion, healing, and his power, and they made the decision to follow him and not the religious leaders. Having taken that step, Jesus opened the mysteries of his teaching to them. He will do the same for us.

The one thing

Eighth in a series of ten reflections about the experiences of being a disciple. From Luke’s writings.

Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught. But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, “Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.”
But the Lord said to her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it and it will not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:39-42 NLT

Who do I identify with when I read this well known story of the sisters Mary and Martha? Well I have been Mary, and I have been Martha, as most of us will have been at different times. When I am Martha, I react just like her. Frustrated. Why should she get to ”just sit there” when I am doing all the work? It’s not fair. However, interestingly, when I am Mary, though I may be sitting with the guests chatting, I often have a nagging feeling of guilt that I am not helping in the kitchen.

Why is that? Is it because deep down I believe that service and self sacrifice are the “most important thing?” Isn’t that what Jesus taught? Wasn’t Jesus himself the greatest servant? (Luke 22:26-27)

But Jesus takes a different view. He says simply to Martha, “there is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be take away from her.”

But perhaps this preconception is more a reflection of my personality than of God’s priorities – I tend to be task oriented rather than relationship oriented. More concerned about achieving than just being. More focussed on getting things done than just “hanging out,” spending time with people.

When I was young (and still n ow when I am old) I spent a lot of time wondering what I should do with my life. What should I strive for?What should be my goals in life? What is life about? What does it mean? The answers I was looking for were task-orientated. I wanted a glorious quest, a crusade, a holy grail.

Jesus says simply that there is just one thing worth being concerned about, and that one thing has not always, I am ashamed to say, been the focus of my life. I have been distracted by much else. I still am. But according to Jesus, there is just one supreme purpose to life.

Mary had discovered it, but as I read this passage I wonder what exactly Mary had discovered. She appears to have been doing nothing, just sitting there, as Martha so pointedly observes. Mary was just sitting at Jesus’s feet, it is true, but was she doing nothing?

As I reflect more deeply I realise that Mary was far from passive. She had made a conscious decision to stop, to sit down, to look into the face of Jesus. As she did so she saw God. What could be of greater importance in life than seeing God? That surely is the greatest task of life, to see him, to know him, to rest in his presence, his love, his forgiveness, his affirmation. Mary was also listening, actively, intentionally. Jesus’s words helped her understand who God is, what is important to him, what are his priorities in everything. His words reveal the nature and character of God. As we listen we begin to understand his priorities, his purposes.

There has always been tension amongst followers of Jesus about how we should use our lives. There are the activists, who are out there getting things done, preaching the gospel, evangelising, planting churches, fighting for justice, serving the poor. Then there are the contemplatives, sitting quietly and meditating on God, the world and everything. The ones who are quick to point out that we are “human beings” not “human doings.”

There will always be this tension in our lives between doing and just being. It seems from this story in Luke’s gospel is that “just being” is of greater importance. Yet I believe that it should not be “either-or,” but “both-and,” and if Mary’s way is pre-eminent. Before we can ever begin to “do” we must be willing to “just be” in God’s presence, sitting at his feet, observing him, listening to him, enthralled by him. Martha’s way is simply not possible without Mary’s way. Our primary goal in life must always be to know God. What we do, what we say, how we behave, will always flow out of that, rather than the other way around.

Another way of understanding this is to say that yes, there is a task (some people like me can’t live without something to strive for) but the task is not the most important thing, and we will only ever know the task Jesus has for us if we cultivate a habit of sitting quietly before him, watching, listening and learning. Furthermore, if we are unable for whatever reason to engage in some glorious task, in the end it doesn’t matter, as long as we pursue a relationship with God.

Jesus said, “there is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it.” At some time or another all of us who follow Jesus have also discovered it – the joy and wonder of sitting with Jesus and being taught by him – but those times are easy to forget as we get caught up in the stuff of life. Let’s build a habit of going back to where it all began for us. Sitting at Jesus’s feet, enthralled by him and his words.

Representing Jesus

Then he said to the disciples, “Anyone who accepts your message is also accepting me. And anyone who rejects you is rejecting me. And anyone who rejects me is rejecting God, who sent me.”

Luke 10:16

This word of encouragement comes directly after Jesus had sent seventy two disciples “ahead in pairs to all the places he planned to visit.” He commissioned them – exhorting them to join him in his mission. They had a message – “the kingdom of God is near” – and a task – “heal the sick.” He gives us the same commission.

They went with fear and trembling. It is true, Jesus had impacted each of their lives with his message and his actions. But they had also seen that not everyone received him with open arms as they had. His disciples were very aware that some, not least their religious leaders, were at best skeptical, and at worst, murderous, towards Jesus. They knew that they would likely have the same kind of reception. They were uncomfortably aware that they did not have the same kind of charisma as Jesus. How would they carry it off?

Jesus knows their anxiety. Does he comfort them with the hackneyed words that we so often give to people going into uncertain circumstances, “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine, everything will be ok”? No, he is straightforward and honest with them: “If they accept you, they are accepting me. If they reject you, they are rejecting me. If they reject me, they are rejecting God.” He says, in effect, “everything might be ok, but everything might not… but remember… etc”

Although this might be thought of as “cold comfort,” I believe that there is great encouragement to be had from these words. There is an honest acknowledgement that presenting Jesus and his kingdom to the world may bring rejection. But at the same time Jesus’s words remind his disciples that in following his command and his direction they are becoming, in a sense, one with him, as he is one with God. Their identity is becoming enmeshed with his. They are becoming Jesus to the world. 

Wow, that’s an amazing, almost frightening thought… are we to be Jesus to the world? Can we ever give to the world, what Jesus has given to us?

For those who have tasted the wonder of relationship with God the Creator through Jesus and his Spirit, for those who have caught a glimpse of the wonder of the Kingdom he came to introduce to the world, the opportunity of becoming Jesus to the world can be nothing but a privilege, despite the rejection that might come from certain people. Such rejection will always be balanced by acceptance from others who, like us, accept Jesus for who he is and catch the vision for his Kingdom. 

For many of us, rejection is our greatest fear. For whatever reason, most often a perception as very young children that we are not good enough for the important people in our lives (parents, siblings, wider family or friends) – that we are not loved and accepted for who we are – we develop strategies for gaining acceptance as we get older. It is easy for this drive for acceptance to become the controlling spirit of our life: one of the ways we achieve this is by hiding who we really are, or what we really believe, in order to project an image of which others will approve. Gradually we become controlled by something the Bible calls “fear of man,” rather than “fear of God.”

Then, through one thing or another we become Jesus followers, believers in his way. We experience the wonderful acceptance of Jesus and also of others who follow him. We become part of a community of believers where we feel at home, comfortable, loved. We find the acceptance that we have so long craved. Until suddenly Jesus sends us out, as he did those first disciples, with the honest advice that like him we may be accepted, but we may also be rejected, as we do what he wants us to do in the world. He realistically prepares us for rejection. What are we to do, those of us for whom acceptance and affirmation are our greatest desires and goals? Jesus gives us these words as we head into the fray: “if they reject you, they are rejecting me. If they reject me they are rejecting God.”

That is to be our comfort, knowing that we are identified with Christ, one with him. Our job is simply to be obedient to the direction of the Holy Spirit. We cannot predict or control peoples’ responses. Whether we are overjoyed by the willingness of the world to accept us and our message, or hurt and broken by the hardness and cruelty of that same world as they reject us, our comfort is simply this: we are one with Christ, we are on God’s side, we are engaged in the greatest mission on earth, joining in the greatest task that has ever existed, the task of bringing God and his kingdom to a broken, hurting world. 

Whatever acceptance or acclamation we might have gained from the world if we had never chosen Jesus will pale into insignificance compared to the acceptance and tender love of the Father. Whatever great task we might have set for ourselves to achieve fame and fortune in the world will be as nothing compared to being one with Jesus in his great commission. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians, 

I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him… I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!

Philippian 3:7-11

Here was a follower of Jesus who had come so far in his understanding of the wonder of salvation and the glory of the kingdom of heaven that he didn’t just endure the suffering of rejection and persecution, but rather welcomed it, because in so doing so he was becoming one with Jesus, knowing him more deeply then ever before. Is it not always the truth that the ones we are closest to in this world are those with whom we have come through the greatest suffering?

What we gain as we obey Jesus and follow him into the fray is so much greater than the acceptance and affirmation that we might otherwise have had from those we don’t even respect. As a wise man once said, shortly before he was killed by a remote people group in the Amazonian jungle to whom he had come with the message of Jesus,

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Jim Elliott

Witnessing the miraculous

The experience of discipleship 1.

When the apostles returned, they told Jesus everything they had done. Then he slipped quietly away with them toward the town of Bethsaida. But the crowds found out where he was going, and they followed him. He welcomed them and taught them about the Kingdom of God, and he healed those who were sick.
Late in the afternoon the twelve disciples came to him and said, “Send the crowds away to the nearby villages and farms, so they can find food and lodging for the night. There is nothing to eat here in this remote place.”
But Jesus said, “You feed them.”
“But we have only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. “Or are you expecting us to go and buy enough food for this whole crowd?” For there were about 5,000 men there.
Jesus replied, “Tell them to sit down in groups of about fifty each.” So the people all sat down. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread and fish to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers!

Luke 9:10-17 NLT

Being a disciple of Jesus is not just about what we do or how we think, it’s about experience, about what we see. This was one of the things that convinced the first disciples that Jesus was who he said he was – one with the Father, the Creator God. For most of us, an experience of the reality of God in some way or another is also what moves us to believe in Jesus and give him our allegiance.

On this occasion he fed over five thousand people with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish, and the left overs were more than what he started with! It’s a story so well known that we read it without reflecting. But to the disciples it was mind boggling. They witnessed an impossibility, something that just couldn’t happen. An experience like this is never forgotten. An experience like this is life changing. It is the only miracle that is recorded in all four of the gospels. Each of the writers must have know that a story like this would be viewed with skepticism by later readers, but this event had over 5000 witnesses and could hardly be contested. At the time it happened it would have been the talk of the whole community.

That was what the disciples’ lives with Jesus were like. Miracles became their daily fare. Whether it was healing from illness or deliverance from demons, walking on water, unexplainable and huge catches of fish, the disciples were constantly witnessing extraordinary events. No wonder they were drawn to this man. He was hard to ignore. Who was he really? What kind of man functions that way? He seemed unrestrained by the laws of nature that governed everyone else. How could he perform such acts? When he began to reveal to them that he was the Son of God, one with the Father who had created all things, they began to understand. Jesus was “above nature,” functioning in two paradigms, both the natural and supernatural, just as he had a dual nature, God and man. Things impossible for human beings were quite possible for God.

Perhaps we too have glimpsed at times this other realm, the miraculous, the supernatural, and recognized the hand of Jesus. Perhaps we have prayed for healing and it has happened in a way that could hardly be attributed to “natural” processes (though I continually marvel at the miracle of “natural” healing). Perhaps we have prayed and seen circumstances or people change in ways that we can hardly believe were just coincidence. There is a whole literature out there, just waiting to be read, that deals with “signs and wonders” in the time since Jesus, and in our own day, if the events recorded in the New Testament are not enough for us.

Of course, we live in the “modern world,” which denies the miraculous and laughs at the supernatural, relegating Bible stories like this to the realm of imagination, fantasy, wishful thinking – myths created by people to build a foundation for a religion with no basis in reality. Modern humanity works within the naturalistic worldview, denying the supernatural. But a purely naturalistic view of the world is as much a thing of faith as a supernatural understanding of reality. The challenge is to hold to these two worldviews at the same time – the natural and the supernatural – while acknowledging that the rules governing one do not apply to the other. That is one of the tensions of the Christian life, but it does not have to lead to the abandonment of faith, as some would maintain.

Yet miracles are still not our daily fare. They are the exception rather than the rule. There are some Christians who would say that “the age of the miraculous” ended with the apostles, and that we should not expect miracles today. Even for those who see no indication of this in the Bible, and whose experience says otherwise, as much as they may try, it is impossible to formulate “laws” of the supernatural, in the way that we have come to understand the “laws of nature.” Unlike natural phenomena, miracles cannot be predicted or guaranteed, because they do not follow any rules that we understand. Miracles seem to often be random, and as much as we long for them in certain situations they do not always happen when or in the way we desire. They are the domain of God, and his ways are a mystery to us.

Nevertheless, even in the absence of miracles we can see God at work in the world, and as we look at the history of the Christianity, we see much that is extraordinary, much that points to a power higher than ourselves. We see people doing things that are are “unnatural” like giving up their lives for their friends (or even more bizarrely, for their enemies). Since the beginning of the Christian movement, believers have been involved in caring for the sick and the outcast, lifting up the poor, working for justice, standing against evil. Such actions challenged the ancient world, which was so different from that, to adopt the ways of Jesus, and as the centuries passed, Christian values transformed the Western world. Many of the things that we take for granted as being good – such as telling the truth, putting others before ourselves, caring for the sick and the poor, the equality of all humanity, being people of integrity – have their roots in the teaching of Jesus. Christian values and behaviour, modeled on the teaching and example of Jesus, have surely led more people to put their faith in Jesus than miracles ever have.

Witnessing the miraculous, whether supernatural or natural, is the experience of the disciple of Jesus. The first disciples saw Jesus perform extraordinary supernatural miracles, but they also experienced the miracles of his love for the poor, the sick, the disabled, the outcast. Perhaps those of us who now follow Jesus have seen supernatural signs and wonders that point to his power and divinity too, perhaps we have only seen the Spirit of Jesus in the “natural” words and actions of contemporary Christians. Whatever the case, it is such things that cause us to marvel at the wonder of the one to whom we have entrusted our lives.

It is good that we have the record of the Bible to remind us of the miraculous works of Jesus when he walked the earth. Reading these accounts shows us what an impact Jesus made on the world in which he lived, and may help build our faith. It is good too that we have the records of thousands of years of Christian history to inspire us with the amazing works of the Spirit of Jesus since Jesus the man left our world. It is worth getting to know our Christian history, reading accounts of what people indwelt by the Spirit of Jesus have done down through the centuries.

But perhaps the thing that impacts us the most is when we experience firsthand the miraculous deeds of Jesus – either supernatural or natural – in our own day and age – both around us and within us. A good practice for all of us followers of Jesus would be to keep a journal of any extraordinary acts of Jesus that we experience in our own lives. That is what the first Christians did, and their records have survived to inspire us. We could leave the same kind of legacy for our children and our grandchildren.

Compassion

There are two stories of healings recorded in successive chapters of Luke’s gospel (chapters 13 and 14) which teach us something absolutely foundational about Christian discipleship, namely compassion. Disciples of Jesus are people who care for those who are suffering. Let’s look at those two stories.

One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God!
But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.”
But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water? This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?”
This shamed his enemies, but all the people rejoiced at the wonderful things he did.

Luke 13:10-17 NLT

One Sabbath day Jesus went to eat dinner in the home of a leader of the Pharisees, and the people were watching him closely. There was a man there whose arms and legs were swollen. Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in religious law, “Is it permitted in the law to heal people on the Sabbath day, or not?” When they refused to answer, Jesus touched the sick man and healed him and sent him away. Then he turned to them and said, “Which of you doesn’t work on the Sabbath? If your son or your cow falls into a pit, don’t you rush to get him out?” Again they could not answer.

Luke 14:1-6 NLT

When we read these stories, it’s easy for those of us who work in healthcare to be distracted by clinical questions: what was the diagnosis in each case? Ankylosing spondylitis? Heart failure? We can also be puzzled by Luke’s willingness to perpetuate a supernatural worldview since he was purportedly a doctor. How could a doctor, being a scientist, accept that disease could be caused by satanic bondage? Yet Luke’s worldview was very different from ours, and he does not question the contemporary understanding that here was a woman “crippled by an evil spirit.” But what makes us so certain that our modern “naturalistic” scientific rationalism is superior to Luke’s worldview? There is no evidence, I hear people cry! But philosophically such a viewpoint is hard to justify. Our modern understanding of evidence is lacking in many areas. I could write a whole reflection on such questions.

But I don’t want to be distracted by such questions, because I believe that Jesus’s focus in these situations was not these questions was not medical or philosophical debates, but the teaching and demonstration of one of the most important attitudes of the disciple, namely compassion. 

The interaction between Jesus and the religious leaders serves to highlight the difference in their priorities. Jesus sees a woman who is suffering, and moved by compassion, heals her, without regard to which day of the week it is. The leader of the synagogue does not see the woman, or the need for deliverance from Satan. He sees only an infringement of Sabbath law. At a time when there were not medical practices and hospitals scattered through the community the synagogue was probably the natural place in the community to seek healing. But not on the Sabbath, because then the sick person would be asking the synagogue leader to work, since healing in their minds was work, not something for the Sabbath day. Jesus, however, did not see healing that way. For him, physical healing was as much a thing of the Spirit as of the body. And such things belonged to the Sabbath as much as to any other day. Jesus was not plagued by the Greek idea of separation of body, mind and spirit. He understood that a person’s sick body could be as much a malady of the spirit as of the flesh, and the healing of the body was as much a spiritual thing as the healing of the body. Furthermore, he understood that there were laws of the Spirit that were over and above the laws of the Sabbath.

How easy it is for all of us, like the religious leaders, to ignore suffering when we focus on the wrong thing, or when we ignore God’s priorities. How important it is for us, like Jesus, to keep our focus on the people around us and the mind of God, rather than getting preoccupied wth our own agendas, whatever they might be. 

Jesus is hard on the leader of the synagogue, pointing out his hypocrisy. He knows that this very same person would not hesitate to “work” on the Sabbath if one of his own children or animals was suffering. Jesus confronts him so bluntly because the man is not prepared to treat an ordinary person in the same way. Jesus is angry because this religious leader places rules above compassion, thus showing his misunderstanding of the nature and character of a loving God. His message is clearly not intended for this one individual synagogue leader, but for all the religious leaders who had been watching him, trying to find fault, trying to catch him out. Jesus’s response, according to Luke, “shamed his enemies.” 

In the second story, the Pharisees are more circumspect. They are simply observing as Jesus is faced with a similar situation, and Jesus is very aware that they are watching him closely, looking for some legal infringement for which they can condemn him. Jesus knows their thoughts and their intentions and this time challenges the Pharisees before he acts. He puts the ball in their court, asking them what is right to do, since it is the Sabbath, when there is a man suffering from a disease in front of them, and Jesus has it in his power to heal him. Having learnt from the previous experience, the Pharisees this time say nothing. Jesus heals the man. He gives his onlookers the same advice, presenting his onlookers with a question: “which of you doesn’t work on the Sabbath?”

What do we learn from all this? It would seem that there are two laws, two principles, which govern our behaviour as people of God. There is the law of the Sabbath, set down in the Old Testament, a law given to Moses by God – remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Do no work on the Sabbath, just as God did no work of the seventh day. Jesus never contradicts this law. But there is also the law of compassion, the law of love. You shall love your neighbour as yourself. 

Jesus seems to imply that there is a hierarchy of laws, and that there will be times when the Sabbath law will need to be put aside for the more important law of compassion. I wonder if this is what Paul the Apostle was thinking about when he wrote the following words, many years later:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 8:1-2 NIV

The Pharisees were all ready to condemn Jesus for his apparent infringement of the Sabbath law, but Jesus invokes the “law of the Spirit who gives life,” which sets us free from the “law of sin and death.” It was this “law of the Spirit” which the Pharisees did not understand, and the outworking of the law of the Spirit in this case was the attitude of compassion, leading to acts of mercy. In the mind of Jesus, the law of compassion trumps the law of Sabbath. Both laws come from the heart of a loving God, but it is love and compassion which is supreme.

The Pharisees had not yet come to understand that they were enslaved to the “law of sin and death.” They did not understand that there was a “law of the Spirit” that could set them free. One Pharisee, namely Paul, would come to understand that some years later, and would spend the rest of his life expounding the concept.

As I examine myself I find that I am often more like the Pharisees than like Jesus. There is something about black and white rules that I like, and perhaps that is the nature of humanity. We prefer the “law of sin and death” to the “law of the Spirit,” because it is easier to manage. When we think of something as vague and fluffy as compassion and mercy we get tied up in knots, and find ourselves starting to wonder who is worthy of mercy, who deserves it… and there it is again, our defaulting back to the law of sin and death. But we can’t help wondering to whom we should show mercy. Is the person who has smoked all his life worthy of an operation to cure his lung cancer? Is the person with hepatitis C worthy of a very expensive treatment to cure him when his disease is the result of iv drug abuse. Is the murderer or rapist or pedophile worthy of compassion and mercy?

For Jesus, the demonstration of mercy is nothing to do with the worthiness of the recipient. Compassion is simply an integral part of Jesus’s nature and character. He can’t help himself. It is simply who he is. Perhaps this is the crux of the matter, and it is the take home message from these stories in Luke’s gospel. If we are to be disciples, followers of Jesus, compassion and mercy need to become part of our very nature, part of who we are. Working out who is worthy of this treatment or that treatment will be far down on our list of priorities. 

The Pharisees saw Jesus healing on the Sabbath and saw a sin being committed, a sin that was worthy of punishment. Jesus’s actions imply that what he did was not a sin. In fact he implies that the attitude of the Pharisees was the greater sin in this situation. Here we are confronted with this idea of situational ethics: what is a sin In one context is not a sin in another context. But that is a philosophical and ethical minefield, creating all sorts of dilemmas. It is almost a frightening concept if it is carried to its logical conclusion. 

Such discussions must always come back to the two laws that Paul writes about, the law of sin and death, and the law of the Spirit who gives life. Working out what that means in each situation that we face is the ongoing challenge of our lives. I believe that our focus must always be to understand the law of the Spirit, which can only happen as we allow the Spirit of God to control our minds as well as our hearts. Compassion is not just a feeling, but a way of thinking. It is the way of Jesus, the way of God.

Public Christianity

“I tell you the truth, everyone who acknowledges me publicly here on earth, the Son of Man will also acknowledge in the presence of God’s angels. But anyone who denies me here on earth will be denied before God’s angels. Anyone who speaks against the Son of Man can be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. And when you are brought to trial in the synagogues and before rulers and authorities, don’t worry about how to defend yourself or what to say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what needs to be said.”

Luke 12:8-12 NLT

Since the very beginning, perhaps the very essence of following Jesus has been acknowledging him. But what does that mean? And more specifically, what does it mean to acknowledge him publicly?

Responses to Jesus

Since Jesus walked the dusty roads of ancient Israel during the days of the Roman occupation 2000 years ago, people have been divided in their response to him. Either people have believed in him, and the claims he made about himself, the world, and the nature of all things, or people have denied him, written him off as deluded, a madman, saying that his claims are ridiculous and he is at best, pathetic, at worst, dangerous. Today, despite the fact that in a large part of the world his name is well known, many choose to ignore him altogether. They live their lives as if he does not and did not exist. If they were asked what they thought about Jesus, they would see the question as irrelevant. The name of Jesus is for them just an exclamation mark, used in conversation much like many swear words. 

Acknowledging Jesus

When Jesus spoke of people “acknowledging” him, he was not speaking of people who simply drop his name into their conversation as a punctuation mark, nor was he speaking of people who acknowledge that he exists but write him off as a madman. Rather he is speaking of people who acknowledge that he was who he said he was, and who believe the things he taught about God and the world, the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of earth. 

Such people are nowadays generally called Christians, for obvious reasons – they acknowledge that Jesus was the “Christ,” the chosen one of God, sent into the world to make it possible for those in the world to know and live in relationship with the creator of the world. They acknowledge that Jesus is, in fact, the human expression of the eternal God, and that his death was sufficient payment for the sins of the world, and that his resurrection was evidence that death has no power over him, because he is, in fact, God. They acknowledge too that an ongoing “relationship” with God is possible because his Spirit relates to our spirits, communicating with us in a supernatural way by bringing to our hearts and minds the words, direction and love of God, while he listens intently to the words of our hearts and minds directed to him.

Jesus made clear that it was not only important to acknowledge all this in our hearts and minds, but in our words. That is what he meant when he spoke of acknowledging him publicly. It is clear that Jesus was saying that if we want God to be proud of us “in the presence of his angels” then we should be proud of him in the presence of our fellow human beings. 

What prevents us?

God is good. Jesus’ words and actions are wonderful. That we can have a relationship with the creator through his Spirit is amazing. Why ever would we be ashamed of him? Why would we deny him? Why would we “blaspheme” the Holy Spirit? (Here I take blaspheming as being the action of denying that there is a Holy Spirit, of actively working against the Holy Spirit’s actions or words. In other words, of actively opposing God. I have to admit that I don’t really understand what Jesus was getting at when he differentiated between speaking against the Son of Man and blaspheming the Holy Spirit, which in some ways seem to be the same thing.)

Surely the main obstacle to us publicly acknowledging is simply this: fear. I have written about fear before, and it is a very real force in our lives. What it boils down to is this: which do we fear most, man or God? The reality is that we often fear man far more than we fear God. It is because we derive so much of our identity and value from what others think of us and say of us. We are terrified of being disliked, judged, excluded, laughed at. We do anything to ensure the approval of others, because that is what makes us feel good about ourselves, what makes us feel that we are worthwhile, valuable. 

In the midst of our desperate search for love and acceptance and approval, we literally forget God. We forget that his love and acceptance and approval is freely available to us if we simply acknowledge Jesus. We forget that his Holy Spirit is waiting to communicate that love to us on an ongoing and continuous basis, because we can’t see him. We are so focussed on the things we can see and touch and feel (and own) that we forget the most important thing.

How can we acknowledge Jesus publicly in our day to day life? I believe that the most foundational level of this is simply to be willing to talk about Jesus as if he is real and present and active in this world and in our lives. To include him in our day to day conversations, not just with Christians but with everyone. 

Trouble

We know that this will bring trouble. Because we know that some of the people to whom we talk will have responded to Jesus and his claims in a different way to us. They are the ones who have written him off as a madman, pathetic or dangerous. And if we speak of him as alive and well and present and active in the form of his Holy Spirit communicating with our spirits we know that people will write us off as mad, pathetic or dangerous too. This is quite a common response to Christians in the “post-Christian” Western world in which I live.

What is more we know that since the very beginning of the Christian movement 2000 years ago, Christians have been actively persecuted and in many cases killed for their beliefs. They still are in different parts of the world. And though there is little if any physical killing of Christians in the Western world, there is no shortage of psychological punishment being inflicted on Christians every day by bullying, mockery, exclusion, ignorance, rejection, dismissal by a world which discounts Jesus and his words. We are, if we are honest, afraid of such treatment, and afraid that we will not know what to say when such experiences beset us. Better to be quiet than to say something stupid. 

Supernatural lessons

But Jesus says that if we are willing to stand in that place, the place of trial – by our friends, our families, the governing authorities, anyone – that the Holy Spirit will give us the words to say. He will teach us, Jesus says. Teaching, it might be added, is not only a sudden supernatural dropping into our minds of words that have never occurred to us before (though it might well be that). If we want to be able to speak in the time of trial, then we need to live our lives willing to be taught, constantly and continually, by the Holy Spirit. 

This teaching of Jesus shows us much about the attitudes of the disciple. We need to have attitudes of willingness (to speak publicly about Jesus), of boldness (to lay aside our fear of man and replace it with the fear of the Lord), of teachability (to live constantly sitting at the feet of Jesus and allowing ourselves to be taught by the Holy Spirit). The rewards are great. Jesus will be proud of us, and will acknowledge us before God’s holy angels. 

So much depends on our willingness to live as much in the reality of the spiritual world (“the heavenly places”) as in the reality of the physical world. That is the key to avoiding blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

Fear of the Lord

“Dear friends, don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot do any more to you after that. But I’ll tell you whom to fear. Fear God, who has the power to kill you and then throw you into hell. Yes, he’s the one to fear.
“What is the price of five sparrows—two copper coins? Yet God does not forget a single one of them. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.

Luke 12:4-7 NLT

In this short discourse, Jesus speaks about fear. Fear is one of the most powerful human emotions. Where does it come from? What are we afraid of?

The context that Jesus spoke into was very different to ours. He lived in a society in which the common people experienced the oppression of both the Romans, who were foreigners, and the Pharisees, the religious authorities, who were Jews. Fear ruled their lives from both without and within. Both of these oppressors used death as a punishment for infringements of their respective laws. The Romans crucified offenders. The Pharisees stoned them. The common people obeyed the rules out of fear of punishment and death.

Jesus said simply, don’t be afraid of these authorities, because they can only kill the body. Their power over you stops there. Rather fear God, who can kill the body and the soul. Get some perspective, he says, somewhat brutally. Why fear the little people, when there is something so much bigger to fear?

But then he goes on to teach us something about God, and he uses the example of sparrows, for whom God cares with tenderness. He does not forget a single one of them, Jesus says. And human beings are of much greater value to God than the sparrows. God knows each one of us intimately, and cares for us deeply. He knows the very number of hairs on our head – in other words, he knows us better and more completely than we know ourselves.

Jesus says Fear God because he has infinite power. He also says Don’t fear God, because he has infinite love. This can be a bit confusing!

There have been times in human history when believers have focussed much more attention on the first aspect of God: his infinite power. But because we humans tend to associate power with cruelty and oppression, there is a danger that focussing too much attention on this attribute of God will lead us to the conclusion that God is cruel and oppressive, without mercy. That is what we have so often seen in humans who wield much power. We imagine God is like them. But God is not like that, as much as we might worry that he is.

Right now in human history there is perhaps too much focus on the infinite love of God, which can lead to the conclusion that God doesn’t mind what we do, that no matter how far our lives stray from the will of God, it doesn’t matter, because God loves us and will forgive us. We can end up disregarding God’s standards and laws completely, and living exactly as we see fit, in whatever way feels good to us. We imagine that God’s love is like our love, in which it can often happen that when we love someone we give them exactly what they want and make life as comfortable as we can for them, make no demands. But God is not like that, as much as we might like him to be.

In both cases we create God in our own image, rather than seeking to get back to his image created in us. When we create God in our image, we end up with a picture of God which is nothing like the God that Jesus showed us. We perceive him as either cruel and oppressive, without mercy, or weak and insipid, without backbone.

There is an expression that is used in the Bible that describes a foundational attitude of the believer: the fear of the Lord. We see it, for example, in the Psalms of the Old Testament: “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” It is a concept that is often forgotten in our day and age, when we tend to focus on God more as a person to cuddle up to than one to fear. But how can it be, since God is both to be feared and not to be feared according to Jesus?

The fear of the Lord means many things, but at its root it is about seeing God, acknowledging him, respecting, honouring, worshipping, loving him. If we fear God we will not ignore him. We will “seek his face,” to use Bible language. We will make efforts to know him, to understand his rules and regulations as well as his love and mercy. We will seek to be like him. We will seek to love him. We will build his kingdom, a place where he is known for who he is, honoured, respected and obeyed. A place where his love and mercy and peace flows like a river over us.

As much as anything, the fear of the Lord frees us from the fear of death, whether it is temporal or eternal. Jesus teaches us that we do not need to fear physical death, because there is an eternal life that exists beyond it. We do not need to fear eternal death, because God has given us the key to overcoming it, a simple key called faith.

The key to freedom from the fear of death, either physical or spiritual, is, quite simply, the fear of the Lord.

Distraction

There are pitfalls in the life of the believer. I wrote the other day about how easy it is to miss the “great” because we become enamoured with the “good.” Today I have been reflecting on one of the occasions Jesus came into conflict with the Pharisees. He was uncompromising in his criticism, but why? Once again it seems that it was because they had missed the point. They had succumbed to one of the pitfalls of the Christian life, becoming distracted by rules rather than focusing on inner holiness. They had become so focused on appearances that they had neglected the real thing – being clean on the inside. In fact, they didn’t even seem to care about the inside, as long as the outside looked good. But Jesus was exactly the opposite, less interested in the outside than the inside.

You can read the whole story in Luke 11. Jesus had been invited to the home of a Pharisee for dinner. Before they had even started eating a conflict arose, over the matter of washing hands. It was not really about hygiene, but about religious ritual. Jesus simply neglected to perform the customary hand washing, raising questions in the minds of the Pharisees. He knew what they were thinking, and used it as an opportunity to launch an attack on the religious leaders. It was embarrassing and offensive, but Jesus didn’t seem to care. The crux of the matter is in the following few verses:

Then the Lord said to him, “You Pharisees are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and wickedness! Fools! Didn’t God make the inside as well as the outside? So clean the inside by giving gifts to the poor, and you will be clean all over.

Luke 11:39-41 NLT

The Pharisees were the ultimate keepers of the Jewish law. They knew the ancient scriptures back to front – not just the books of the Old Testament with which we non-Jewish Christians are familiar, but the books of rules which remain central to the Jewish faith to this day. The Pharisees were experts in these writings, memorising them, studying them, interpreting them, debating them. They were the academic theologians of the day, and they were held in the highest regard, much as are university academics of our day.

The Pharisees were not “bad people” any more than any of us are bad people. One of the greatest Christians who ever lived, Paul the apostle, was a Pharisee. The problem was simply that they had missed the point of the ancient writings, they had missed the point of the law, they had missed the point of God’s commands. They had chosen to focus not on God, but on the rules that they understood to be from God. They were experts at keeping the rules, but they were far from God. Jesus shows, by his response to them, that keeping the rules, as important as it may be, is not the key to God’s approval. Keeping rules is not the pathway to salvation.

We human beings love rules. We love to know what the rules are so that we can know whether we are being good or bad. There are those who take great pride in keeping the rules, because it makes them look good to the world. There are those who love to break the rules because that can makes them look good to others whose approval they crave. But without rules we would all be lost. We would not know what was good or bad, and we would not know where we stand.

Rules are not bad in themselves. But an unhealthy focus on the rules is. Keeping the rules is not bad. But if that becomes the sum total of our lives we can end up, according to Jesus, being filthy on the inside, even when we look great on the outside. Keeping the rules does not make us into the people God wants us to be. Rules easily become a distraction from the real thing.

But what is the real thing? What is important to God? Surely he wants us to know his rules and follow them? Surely that will win his approval?

Actually, no. The thing that brings God’s approval is that we are clean all over, not just on the outside, and according to Jesus, on this occasion, the key to inner cleanliness is “giving gifts to the poor.” Pretty simple really. Yet apparently this was something the Pharisees had neglected. They knew that there were many poor people in their communities, but they accepted this as the way things were, and they did not see that they needed necessarily to do anything about it. If they did give alms to the poor, it was because it made them look good. You get the feeling that their giving was more about themselves than the people they were giving to.

Following rules is so often about ourselves, about being justified, approved of, in our own eyes and the eyes of the world. It can easily be a form of “virtue signalling,” showing the world how good we are. The rules that we follow in our own day and age are different to the rules the Pharisees followed. In the contemporary secular community, following the rules is called being “politically correct.” We do what we think will gain the approval of others. In the Christian church community, following the rules may be about saying the right things at the right times, looking good, engaging in activities that will gain the respect and approval of church members or leaders.

But God is not interested in any of our “political correctness,” or our “looking good,” in the world or in the church. He is interested in whether we are “clean.” And it would seem that becoming clean is not about how we appear to others, but what we do for others, especially the poor, and how we do it, the attitude that lies behind it. Not to look good, not to be approved. Not even to be seen. God is not interested in the flags we fly at our workplaces to signify that we welcome any particular kind of person. He is interested in whether we actually welcome such people.

We live in a world that is obsessed with appearances. We strive to look good, we strive to achieve, we strive to be recognised. We are awestruck by people who have it all, beauty, wealth, success, knowledge, expertise. But Jesus clearly says that what is seen on the outside is not the important thing. Rather it is the inside of a person which is important. The world may not see it, but God sees it. We too can discern the inside to a certain extent by looking at a person’s deeds, what they actually do, though only God really knows the heart of a person. Inner cleanliness is about our attitude to others, especially those less fortunate than ourselves, the people the Bible calls the poor.

Where we focus our attention in life is supremely important to God, and is a reflection of what we are really like on the inside. Where we focus our attention will be shown by what we actually do from day to day. It is easy to get distracted by things that are not important – rules, the way other people see us. The Pharisees did that. We do it. We may think it leads to success. But in God’s eyes it is worthless. It is the inside that is most important to God.

Teachability

Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

Luke 11:1 NLT

The whole of his life, Jesus was on show. People were watching him. In this short passage, it was “one of his disciples” who had been observing Jesus as he prayed “in a certain place.” The disciple is not named, and his name does not matter. But he was clearly fascinated by Jesus, by the words that he spoke, by the things that he did, not least by the way he interacted with the people around him and the unseen but longed for Heavenly Father.

The observer in this story was a disciple of Jesus, a follower. How and why had he become that? We are not told. But the fact that he had become Jesus’ disciple implies that sometime, somehow, his life had been profoundly impacted by Jesus. Jesus had seen him, spoken to him, listened to him, challenged him. That experience had been life changing for this person.

Isn’t that the way all of us become followers of Jesus? At some time, for all of us who are called by his name, our lives have been profoundly impacted by an encounter with Jesus. We have seen him at work, we have heard his words of life, and the Holy Spirit has made those words and actions go deep into our hearts and minds, so that we cannot forget Jesus, we cannot ignore him. We have felt seen and heard, and above all loved, by a person who is so much greater and better than us that we can barely conceive it. We have responded by putting our faith in him, by becoming his follower, his disciple. We have transferred ownership of our lives from ourselves to Jesus. We are no longer our own, we are his. Servants, slaves, soldiers of Jesus.

Am I teachable? The disciple in this story was, as his request to Jesus clearly indicates: “Lord, teach us to pray.” An attitude of teachability is one of the central attitudes of discipleship. A disciple is a person who places themselves under a teacher.

The first requirement for teachability is admiration of the teacher, to have seen Jesus and to have recognised in him life and truth and wisdom. We are people who, like the disciple in this passage, observe and are fascinated by Jesus. We find ourselves wanting to be like him, because we are impressed, overwhelmed, by the kind of person he is, by the way he speaks, the way he acts, and the way he makes us feel so valued, so loved, so cherished.

Teachability requires a certain humility. To be teachable we need to be able to admit that we have much to learn. This can be a sticking point for some of us. We think we have it together, we think we know, we think we understand. Jesus can only teach us if we are humble enough to admit that we don’t really know much at all.

We also need to be willing to change – our attitudes, our actions, our words. Lessons taught are lessons wasted if they are never applied, never put into practice. Jesus didn’t teach his disciples to pray just so they would know, but so they would do. Having given them the pattern for prayer, he challenged them to start praying immediately in the way he had taught them.

To be teachable is the essence of discipleship. It requires that we have been somehow personally impacted by Jesus, so that we have given our allegiance to him, put our faith in him. It requires that we continue to observe him – our lives become gripped by the study of this man, by all he was and all he did and said. It requires a desire to be like him, and a willingness to change from what we are to what he wants us to be, which is what we were born for.

How teachable am I?