This week’s readings in Matthew’s Gospel included the call of Matthew the tax collector. I wrote about The Chosen’s treatment of this last July. For now, let’s just stick with our theme of the past few days of outsiders versus insiders. The Message account captures it beautifully:

Passing along, Jesus saw a man at his work collecting taxes. His name was Matthew. Jesus said, “Come along with me.” Matthew stood up and followed him. Later when Jesus was eating supper at Matthew’s house with his close followers, a lot of disreputable characters came and joined them. When the Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company, they had a fit, and lit into Jesus’ followers. “What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and riff-raff?” Jesus, overhearing, shot back, “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: ‘I’m after mercy, not religion.’ I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.” (Matthew 9.9 – 13, MSG, emphasis mine)

“I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.” For some of our churches, the opposite is true. We coddle the insiders and keep the outsiders, well, out! One large downtown church’s ushers were trained not to let certain kinds of people into the services. When the new pastor heard about that practice, he exclaimed, “You have to catch ’em before you can clean ’em!” The policy changed.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19.10, ESV)

Yesterday’s story about the Roman Centurion reminding Jesus that Jesus could heal his servant from a distance was about the faith of an outsider – a Gentile:

When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. (Matthew 8.10, ESV, emphasis mine)

I came across the same idea in the story of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:

And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly. (Matthew 15.21 – 28, ESV, emphasis mine)

Jesus rarely commended people for faith. Usually, when he talked to people about their faith it came out, “O you of little faith!” But here are two Gentiles commended for their great faith. The Roman centurion’s faith was demonstrated by his understanding of Jesus’ power to heal, even at a distance. This woman’s faith was demonstrated by her persistence and creativity.

(And for those of you worrying about why Jesus appears to put down this Gentile outsider, recall that he was around the Sea of Galilee when the story started, he walked up to “the district of Tyre and Sidon” – at least two days, I’m told. He healed the daughter and returned to the Sea of Galilee. What do you think he talked about with the disciples on the way back?)

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11.6, NKJV)

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. (Luke 18.1, NIV)

Here’s a practical follow-up to the “Living Word” series we started last Saturday. A key quote by Eugene Peterson was:

The intent of revelation is not to inform us about God but to involve us with God. – Eugene Peterson in Reversed Thunder as quoted by Jack R. Taylor

The Jews of Jesus’ day were certainly informed about God, but sometimes those who understood him best were “outsiders.”

As Jesus entered the village of Capernaum, a Roman captain came up in a panic and said, “Master, my servant is sick. He can’t walk. He’s in terrible pain.” Jesus said, “I’ll come and heal him.” “Oh, no,” said the captain. “I don’t want to put you to all that trouble. Just give the order and my servant will be fine. I’m a man who takes orders and gives orders. I tell one soldier, ‘Go,’ and he goes; to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” Taken aback, Jesus said, “I’ve yet to come across this kind of simple trust in Israel, the very people who are supposed to know all about God and how he works. This man is the vanguard of many outsiders who will soon be coming from all directions…Then those who grew up ‘in the faith’ but had no faith will find themselves out in the cold, outsiders to grace and wondering what happened.” Then Jesus turned to the captain and said, “Go. What you believed could happen has happened.” At that moment his servant became well. (Matthew 8.5 – 13, MSG, emphasis mine)

Some who think they know all about God from their study of the written word will find themselves “outsiders to grace and wondering what happened.”

And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, “Lord, lord, open to us.” But he answered, “Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.” (Matthew 25.10 – 12, ESV)

We know too much, do we not? Our news media reports not only on major events like the war in Ukraine but on local events such as an apartment fire in some faraway city (in other words, not our local). We are inundated by “information,” which, if we pay attention to it, is too much to handle. If we let it go, we may feel like we don’t care about others as much as we should.

Here’s a prayer to help. It was excerpted on Breakpoint, April 24, 2022. It’s long but worth it.

In a world so wired and interconnected,
our anxious hearts are pummeled by
an endless barrage of troubling news.
We are daily aware of more grief, O Lord,
than we can rightly consider,
of more suffering and scandal
than we can respond to, of more
hostility, hatred, horror, and injustice
than we can engage with compassion.

But you, O Jesus, are not disquieted
by such news of cruelty and terror and war.
You are neither anxious nor overwhelmed.
You carried the full weight of the suffering
of a broken world when you hung upon
the cross, and you carry it still.

When the cacophony of universal distress
unsettles us, remind us that we are but small
and finite creatures, never designed to carry
the vast abstractions of great burdens,
for our arms are too short and our strength
is too small. Justice and mercy, healing and
redemption, are your great labors.

And yes, it is your good pleasure to accomplish
such works through your people,
but you have never asked any one of us
to undertake more than your grace
will enable us to fulfill.

Guard us then from shutting down our empathy
or walling off our hearts because of the glut of
unactionable misery that floods our awareness.
You have many children in many places
around this globe. Move each of our hearts
to compassionately respond to those needs
that intersect our actual lives, that in all places
your body might be actively addressing
the pain and brokenness of this world,
each of us liberated and empowered by
your Spirit to fulfill the small part
of your redemptive work assigned to us.

Give us discernment
in the face of troubling news reports.
Give us discernment
to know when to pray,
when to speak out,
when to act,
and when to simply
shut off our screens
and our devices,
and to sit quietly
in your presence,

casting the burdens of this world
upon the strong shoulders
of the one who
alone
is able to bear them up.

Amen.

This liturgy is from Every Moment Holy by Doug McKelvey. Posted by The Rabbit Room • March 16, 2020

“Move each of our hearts to compassionately respond to those needs that intersect our actual lives…Give us discernment to know when to pray, when to speak out, when to act, and when to simply shut off our screens and our devices,…”

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6.34, NIV)

At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them…At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” (Luke 4.40 – 43, NIV – unfinished business – not even Jesus could do it all)

Back to Matthew’s gospel, I was struck when I read one of the best-known sayings of Jesus:

Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7.12, NKJV)

The real “Golden Rule” – not, “he who has the gold makes the rules” – but a piece of wisdom it’s hard to see how we’ve missed. Missed?

• Were whites treating blacks the way they would want to be treated?
• When I was short with a store clerk the other day for something over which he had no control, is that the way I would want to be treated?
• Is Putin treating Ukraine the way he would want people to treat Russia?
• And here’s an interesting question: if someone were invading our country, would we expect an ally who had the means to stop them to act? Is the US supporting Ukraine the way we would want to be supported?

I don’t know the answer to the last question, and I’m well aware that principles that apply to individuals don’t always apply to nations, but still…

You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19.18, NKJV)

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And [Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22.36 – 40, ESV)

Bottles of A1 sauce always say, “Shake well.” Sometimes the bottles are more explicit:

We’ve spent the past two days talking about the importance of seeing scripture not just as the written word of God but as the living word of God. The word through which the Holy Spirit speaks today. Bob, is that important? To paraphrase from the A1 bottle, “Yeah, it’s important.”

Eugene Peterson, whom we quoted yesterday, explains why as he continues:

[A satanic subversion] unobtrusively disengages our imagination from God’s word and gets us to think of it as something wonderful in print, at the same time that it dulls any awareness that it is spoken by a living God. It has been an enormously successful strategy: millions of people use the Bible in which they so devoutly believe to condemn people whom they do not approve; millions more read the word of God daily and within ten minutes are speaking words to spouses, neighbors, children, and colleagues that are contemptuous, irritable, manipulative, and misleading. How does this happen? …The Enemy has subverted the spoken word into an ink word. The moment that happens, the imagination atrophies, and living words flatten into book words. No matter that the words are believed to be true, they are not voiced words – Spirit-voiced and faith-heard – and so are not answered. They go through the minds of readers like water through a pipe. – Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder, quoted in The Word of God with Power by Jack R. Taylor, pages 59 and 60.

Powerful…and scary. “They go through the minds of readers like water through a pipe.” I pray that we will all hear the living word, not just read the written word.

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10.17, NKJV, emphasis mine)

But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'” (Matthew 4.4, NKJV)

Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to help folks experience transformation by showing them how to spend time with God through the Word and prayer. Occasionally, I’ve had men do everything I’ve told them to do: daily time with God, Bible study, and even scripture memory, but “it” doesn’t work. Why?

I’ve always supposed there were two possible causes: one, the person didn’t really have a relationship with God. The Holy Spirit didn’t reside in them, and going through the motions had no effect. The other problem was that the person wasn’t submitting to the authority of the Word. They read it, but they didn’t submit to it, and there was no traction.

Yesterday’s blog on the Living Word offers a third possibility. A person can believe in the authority of the Word but doesn’t believe that God speaks through the Word today. God spoke in the past, it got written down, and that was that. Decades ago, when I first came around The Navigators (1967!), I tried to share the joy of personal time with God with someone very close to me. He didn’t get it. He was stuck for over a week in Psalm 1, where I recommended he start, trying to interpret it, get the full meaning out of it, plumb its depths, but he never heard from God. The Word did not reach him at a heart level. Now, I think I have the language for what happened: my friend didn’t believe God speaks today. For him, the Word was not ALIVE.

Oh, the joys of those who do not follow evil men’s advice, who do not hang around with sinners, scoffing at the things of God. But they delight in doing everything God wants them to, and day and night are always meditating on his laws and thinking about ways to follow him more closely. (Psalm 1.1 – 2, Living Bible)

My friend wasn’t thinking about ways to follow God more closely, he was trying to be sure he understood the text.

I said that God spoke to me about the living Word twice. I shared one of those yesterday. The other was the end of chapter 5 in The Word of God with Power by Jack R. Taylor. Jack has a lengthy quotation from Eugene Peterson’s book Reversed Thunder, 1988, a book I haven’t read. You will remember Eugene Peterson as the translator of The Message, which I quote from time to time. Here are a few snippets of Jack Taylor’s quote, ending his chapter entitled “The Word in the Now.”

As God’s word written (scriptura) the scriptures are a great, but mixed, blessing. They are a blessing because each new generation of Christians has access to the fact that God speaks, the manner of his speaking, the results of his speaking. The scriptures are a mixed blessing because the moment the words are written they are in danger of losing the living resonance of the spoken word and reduced to something to be looked at, studied, interpreted, but not heard personally…

Words, separated from the person who spoke them, can be beautiful just as seashells are beautiful; they can be interesting just as skeletons can be interesting; they can be studied with profit just as fossils can be studied with profit. But apart from the act of listening and responding, they cannot function according to the intent of the speaker…The intent of revelation is not to inform us about God but to involve us with God…Some of Jesus’ sharpest disagreements were with the scribes and Pharisees, the persons in the first century who knew the words of scripture but heard the voice of God not at all…For them the scriptures had become a book to use, not a means by which to listen to God… – Eugene Peterson, quoted in The Word of God with Power by Jack R. Taylor, pages 58 and 59.

There’s more, and it’s too important to leave out, so we’ll continue this tomorrow.

These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock. But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards. (Matthew 7.24 – 27, MSG)

As happened a few weeks ago when two pastors in two different meetings shared the same life lesson, I read the same message in two disparate sources. That always gets my attention, and in this case, it wasn’t the message that was new to me, it was the fact that they had to write it. Here’s the first one, and we’ll follow up tomorrow with another:

The word of God is a living Word, and each time I turn to it with an open heart, I find there the living truth. I find there a human being who was born and grew up surrounded by other men and women, who worked and played, and who always did what the Father wanted done. Followers of Christ have discerned him—found him waiting—in the Scriptures for nearly two millennia. – Excerpted from Always Discerning by Joseph A. Tetlow, SJ

I write here often that we need to “hear from God” through the scriptures or “spend time with God” in the scriptures and prayer. I assume that my readers know that it’s more than paper and ink – it’s the living Word conveying the thoughts and presence of the living God. I firmly believe, with Joe Tetlow, that God speaks today as I meditate on the Word.

As I reflect back to more than 50 years ago, that was the perspective The Navigators brought into my life. When led by God, they claimed the promises for themselves and their current ministries even though the texts often referred to ancient Israel:

A little one shall become a thousand, And a small one a strong nation. I, the LORD, will hasten it in its time.” (Isaiah 60.22, NKJV) Navigators used this verse as a picture of the power of spiritual multiplication (see 2 Timothy 2.2).

I had invited my friend Tom to help me lead a class in how to read the Bible in this way. At first, he was reluctant, thinking himself not qualified. The very next day, during his regular time with God, he read this verse:

I know that you are wise and good, my brothers, and that you know these things so well that you are able to teach others all about them. (Romans 15.14, Living Bible, emphasis mine)

Tom wrote to me:

If He thinks I’m ready enough and guides me to this passage at this time who am I to resist? I will help you facilitate the Bible Reading class.

This is God speaking through the Word. Listen for Him! More tomorrow.

Blessed are those who listen to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway. For those who find me find life and receive favor from the LORD. (Proverbs 8.34, 35, NIV)

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4.12, ESV)

Yesterday, I wrote that instead of devoting all my energy into being upset at what’s going on in the world, I might consider asking God what I need to repent of. Here’s another approach, straight out of Matthew 6.

…so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6.4, ESV)

But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6.6, ESV)

…that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6.18, ESV)

Easy to summarize:

• Give, pray, and fast in secret
• My Father sees in secret
• My Father will reward me

First, this speaks to God’s omniscience. He sees in secret. Next, it raises the question: what is the nature of this reward? Do I pray to be rewarded? Or is the reward the answer to prayer? Or are there rewards in heaven for people who give, pray, and fast? (I don’t know!)

In light of all of my complaints right now, articles and blogs pointing out injustice in the world, especially those violating my “rights” as an American Christian, maybe I should be giving, praying, and fasting in secret rather than loudly complaining.

We just experienced Passion Week. Jesus gave his life in the cruelest way imaginable.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. (Isaiah 53.7, NKJV)

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2.5 – 8, ESV)

There seems to be plenty to complain about these days. For one thing, our government apparently encourages gender confusion:

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network, an entity of the Department of Health and Human Services, issued a release proclaiming that “gender-affirming care” is neither “child maltreatment nor malpractice.” Around the same time, the Department of Justice sent a letter to all state attorneys general saying that opposing HHS guidance is discrimination, is essentially an attack against “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, nonbinary, or otherwise gender-nonconforming” people, and that such actions “may be unconstitutional.” – Breakpoint, April 11, 2022

For another, it doesn’t seem right that if I wanted to see Fantastic Beasts without any reference to Dumbledore being gay, I could do so in China, but not here:

Warner Brothers studios, in a sequel to its Fantastic Beasts spin-off, decided to add some gay undertones to Albus Dumbledore’s character. When China found out about the unnecessary addition of an LGBT relationship, they asked producers to cut it. Hollywood, ever the compliant partner of the communist regime, obliged. “We want audiences everywhere in the world to see and enjoy this film,” a Warner spokesperson said, “and it’s important to us that Chinese audiences have the opportunity to experience it as well, even with these minor edits.” In other words, it’s okay for a global abuser of human rights to demand an end to LGBT indoctrination, but not American parents? If China says sexualization is off limits, it’s “responding sensitively to a variety of in-market factors.” If parents do, it’s a “hateful form of bullying” that hurts children. No wonder the grassroots are upset. – Family Research Council, April 13, 2022

When I read the first one, a week ago Monday morning, I went to my daily reading with the question, I wonder what John the Baptist has to say about that? His message was clear:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (Matthew 3:2 (ESV)

Interestingly, Jesus started his public ministry the same way:

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4.17, ESV)

That’s always the message, isn’t it? Repent. And repentance starts with me. I can’t repent for the government or Warner Brothers, but I can listen for what God wants to change about me.

The Word is given for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3.16) The process is continuous. After the Master’s, Tiger Woods said, “I have more work to do.” Here’s where your swing is off. Here’s what you can do to get it back. Now train! 

Tomorrow we’ll look at another possible response to today’s happenings.

Train yourself for godliness. (1 Timothy 4.7, ESV)

No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. (Luke 13, verses 3 and 5, ESV)