My friend Hanh, a Jesuit priest from Viet Nam, has accepted another assignment and will be moving soon to Louisiana. I will miss him. He doesn’t really want to go: he enjoys his work at the Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat Center in Sedalia, Colorado, and his family lives nearby in Denver. His father was imprisoned for 10 years by the communists after the fall of Saigon in 1975. In 1990 the US government had an agreement with the Vietnam government to bring all political prisoners and their families to the US.  So the family came to Denver as refugees on Oct. 23, 1991.

When he told the family he was being reassigned to Louisiana, his mother was clearly disappointed and just said, “That’s a long way from here.” His father has dementia, and this is what his father said:

It’s far away. But you are a priest; you should go where the church needs you. Think of the missionaries who left their homes and families to go to Viet Nam. If they hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t know about God.

Did you catch that his father has dementia? Hanh took that as a direct word from God, speaking through his father.

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. (Matthew 19.29, ESV)

It’s Memorial Day whose purpose was succinctly summarized by our former pastor John Ed Mathison last week:

We can casually sit back and enjoy backyard barbecues, boat rides, and beach bashes, but the meaning of Memorial Day is that almost 1.5 million men and women have died so that you and I might enjoy our freedoms. We look to Thanksgiving as a day when we pause to give thanks for the things that we have. Memorial Day is a day when we pause to give thanks to the people who fought and died for the things we have. – Dr. John Ed Mathison, May 25, 2022

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. (John 15.13, ESV)

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5.6 – 8, ESV)

Romans chapters 1 – 3, specifically 1.18 – 3.20, leave us with a dreadful problem:

• We have all sinned
  • Non-religious people have sinned (1.18 – 32)
  • Religious people have sinned (2.1 – 29)
  • All have sinned (3.1 – 18)
• We are all guilty (3.19)
• We are all helpless to do anything about it (3.20)

None is righteous, no, not one…Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Romans 3.10, 19, 20)

It’s amazing how many people, many of them church people, don’t understand these basic facts. My friend Jim Singleton, former senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs, used to tell this story – maybe it was a composite. Jim would say:

So I’m visiting Mary in the hospital. She’s old, a lifelong church member, and on her deathbed. I say to her, “Mary, it’s unlikely you’re going to get out of here alive. When you meet Jesus, and he asks you why he should let you into heaven, what will you say?” And Mary replies, “Oh, pastor, I’ve worked as hard as I could. I taught children’s Sunday School, I served on every church committee they asked me to, I’ve been as kind to my neighbors as I know how. I hope I’ve done enough.”

Jim continues:

At this point, I have a choice. I can pat Mary’s hand and say, “Mary, of course, you’ve done enough. You’re a faithful Christian.” OR, I can tell her the truth: “Mary, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you haven’t done enough. Do you have a backup plan?”

The good news (that’s why they call it “The Gospel” – the good news) is that there is a “backup plan” – really the main plan, and it’s right there in Romans 3:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus… (Romans 3.21 – 24, ESV)

“For all who believe” – no matter who you are or what you have done.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2.8, 9, ESV)

On the heels of the sins of Romans 1, we have this promise opening Romans 2:

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? (Romans 2.4, ESV)

“God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.”

• God’s KINDNESS… Maybe, if we’re trying to lead people to repentance, we should try kindness instead of yelling at them. Maybe we should tell them God loves them. Maybe we should be leading the way in kindness and temperance if we insist on posting our opinions on social media, which I’m not sure is a great idea no matter how we do it!
• God’s kindness is meant to lead you to REPENTANCE. God’s love is not a mushy sort of love. It’s a love that says, “I love you just the way you are, but there’s no reason for you to stay that way.” Paul calls for repentance in no uncertain terms:

But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. (Romans 2.5, ESV)

Jesus calls for repentance too, also with love:

Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. (Revelation 3.19, ESV)

I don’t think I have ever repeated a blog, especially within a month of writing it, but exactly one month ago, April 27, I shared the Liturgy for those flooded by too much information. The deaths of 19 children in south Texas in yet another school shooting surely tug at our hearts, and we wonder what we are supposed to do. A tragic event, to be sure.

We forget, however, that barely 100 years ago unless we lived in or near that town, we wouldn’t know about such a thing until days later, if at all. And then it would be tucked into the newspaper somewhere without videos of grieving parents. I’m pretty sure we weren’t designed to handle all the grief of the world – that’s God’s job, and Jesus was there, in that classroom. One perspective on such a tragedy is in The Shack, about a child abducted and murdered, devastating the parents. Where was God?

Anyway, I offer, again, The Liturgy for those flooded with too much information:

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,…”

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. (Matthew 10.29, ESV)

Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5.7, ESV)

People like to talk about “root causes” these days sometimes coming up with things like poverty, lack of education, and discrimination. The apostle Paul was clear about the root cause of bad behaviors. See what you think:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him…Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity…because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator,…For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions…And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (Excerpts from Romans 1.21 – 31, ESV, emphasis on “root cause” mine)

Some would say that if we don’t give up all these bad behaviors, God will judge us. Make no mistake, this is the judgment – judgment for failure to acknowledge God.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (Romans 1.18, ESV)

Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols. (Jeremiah 2.11, NIV)

We’re into Romans in our New Testament reading program, and we won’t be able to do anything but catch a few highlights in what a friend of mine called “dense text.” There’s so much here.

We talked about power all the way through Acts, and Romans opens with it:

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord… (Romans 1.1 – 4, ESV, emphasis mine)

Then this:

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (Romans 1.14 – 18, ESV)

Here are some key words, all worth meditating on:

• Obligation
• Eager
• Gospel
• Power (there it is again!)
• Salvation
• Righteousness
• Faith
• Wrath
• Ungodliness
• Unrighteousness
• Truth

Here are just a couple of thoughts – you fill in some more!

Verse 14: Greeks, barbarians, wise, foolish…everyone (verse 16). The gospel is for everyone. And Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 9 that he presents the gospel and himself in different ways to different people.

Verses 17 and 18: The gospel brings righteousness through faith. The opposite is ungodliness and unrighteousness, which suppresses the truth.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth…For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1.14, 17, ESV)

We often make fun of the “weather guessers,” but sometimes they get it right:

Two pictures, taken 38 hours apart: 5:20p, Thursday, 81 degrees, and they’re predicting 13 inches of snow within 48 hours. It was actually 16 inches at my house – I took the second picture Saturday morning, about 7:30a. Thursday was a beautiful day to take some out-of-town friends to see Garden of the Gods and Glen Eyrie. I’ve never seen Garden of the Gods so crowded. I think all the tourists in town knew that they had to see it Thursday. No chance over the weekend!

God thunders wondrously with his voice; he does great things that we cannot comprehend. For to the snow he says, “Fall on the earth,” likewise to the downpour, his mighty downpour. (Job 37.5, 6, ESV)

Here’s a nice follow-up to yesterday’s observation that the Great Commission was given to doubting disciples…but that’s OK because they had Jesus’ power and presence.

The other day I was reviewing one of my “goal” verses, which reminds me that important work requires effort:

Now go up into the hills, bring down timber, and rebuild my house. Then I will take pleasure in it and be honored, says the LORD. (Haggai 1.8, NLT)

In Haggai’s day, the temple needed to be rebuilt, but going up into the hills and bringing down timber sounds hard! I’ve had two knee replacements, and I’m always reminding myself, “rebuild the house”…physically, spiritually, mentally. The apostle Paul is clear that our bodies are today’s temple:

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6.19, 20, ESV)

But the other day, I was thinking, “But I’m getting older. Things are just not what they used to be,” and I remembered another verse in Haggai that was helpful: even when things don’t look like much, God’s power and presence are available:

The LORD sent another message through the prophet Haggai. “Say this to Zerubbabel…and to the remnant of God’s people there in the land: ‘Does anyone remember this house—this Temple—in its former splendor? How, in comparison, does it look to you now? It must seem like nothing at all! But now the LORD says: Be strong, Zerubbabel…Be strong, all you people still left in the land. And now get to work, for I am with you, says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. My Spirit remains among you, just as I promised when you came out of Egypt. So do not be afraid…The future glory of this Temple will be greater than its past glory…’” (Haggai 2.1 – 5, 9, NLT, emphasis mine)

God’s presence and power are available, and the future is brighter than the past!

That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. (2 Corinthians 4.16, NLT)

I promised that today we would look at the meeting in Galilee of the risen Lord Jesus with his disciples:

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28.16 – 20, ESV)

I’ve written about this before, but it’s always worth remembering to whom Jesus gave what we call “The Great Commission.” Eleven men, the cream of the crop, brave, highly trained spiritual warriors! Ah, no. “When they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.” Doubted?! Doubted the resurrection when the risen Jesus was standing right in front of them? Doubted his identity? Doubted their abilities? What did they doubt? The text doesn’t say. But as my friend Bill Mowry says:

They doubted, but they showed up!

And to those doubters who showed up he promised…

• His POWER (“all authority on heaven and earth has been given to me”)
• His PRESENCE (“and behold I am with you always”)

…as they carry out his PURPOSE (“make disciples of all nations”)

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1.8, ESV)