You’ve noticed in the previous two blogs that I have been reading Life Is Messy by Matthew Kelly. By his own admission, the book itself is messy: no major parts, no chapters, just a series of 1-3-page sections such as A New Path, which I wrote about Sunday, and Slow Down, which was our topic yesterday. At the end of the book, he still had material left over from his journals, so he listed a number of ideas without comment.
The first one is haunting me, and I offer it here without further comment, just as he did:
You cannot live a meaningful life by filling your life with meaningless things and activities. – Matthew Kelly, Life is Messy, page 150.
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5.15, 16, ESV)
Yesterday I wrote that sometimes we have to choose a new path. Here’s one that we’ve all been offered before but that most of us have turned away from:
Slow Down!
Matthew Kelly in Life is Messy has a section called just that: Slow Down. It begins with the observation that he has been “Way over the speed limit of life.” I have written about this before. My friend and mentor, the late Skip Gray used to say:
Jesus had a 3-mile-per-hour ministry: he didn’t go jogging through Judea, sprinting through Samaria, or galloping through Galilee. He walked wherever he went.
Well-known author Dallas Willard said, “You must relentlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”
I really like the way Matthew Kelly frames it:
But here’s the real problem with racing through life. If you think of life as a race, every step sidewards and backwards, every pause, will seem like it doesn’t belong, like a waste of time.
Every step is part of life, and there is life in every step. Life isn’t a race. It’s a dance. Every step forward and every step back, stepping sidewards and twirling in circles, are all part of the dance we call life.
Great dancers are never in a hurry. They relax into the rhythm, become one with their partners, and experience the exhilaration of the dance. When was the last time your life felt like that? – Matthew Kelly, Life is Messy, page 38
Eugene Peterson captures the same idea in his rendering of Ephesians 4 in The Message:
He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christians in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ. (Ephesians 4.11 – 13, MSG, emphasis mine)
Today’s blog will go along with yesterday’s challenge to Stay Awake! Maybe if we stay awake, we won’t fall into a hole. What?!
I think I’m late to the party on this one, but I just saw for the first time an apparently well-known poem by Portia Nelson. Portia was a singer, actress, and poet, well known for playing the nun in Sound of Music who said, “Reverend Mother, I have sinned” (when she removed the distributor cap from the Nazi’s car at the end of the movie).
(If you can’t see the picture containing the poem, please scroll down. I have reproduced it at the end.)
Matthew Kelly writes:
It takes tremendous awareness and courage to embrace a new direction in our lives. It is so easy to sleepwalk through life. It is so easy to keep walking down the same street, so easy to keep falling into that same hole, and all too easy to adopt the posture of a victim and blame someone else. – Life is Messy, page 89.
Not to “sleepwalk through life” is exactly what Jesus is calling us to do. To embrace a new path is also what Jesus is calling us to do. Saul of Tarsus is an example:
I persecuted [Jesus followers] even to foreign cities. In this connection I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” And I said, “Who are you, Lord?” And the Lord said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. (Acts 26.11 – 19, ESV)
P.S. If you can’t read the poem in the picture above, here it is:
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters by Portia Nelson:
I I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost … I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes me forever to find a way out.
II I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in the same place. But it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.
III I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in. It’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.
IV I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.
Continuing with our readings in Mark, chapter 13 gives us the well known but hard to understand Olivet Discourse, Jesus’ explanation of the destruction of the temple:
And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?” (Mark 13.1 – 4, ESV)
One translation of one of these Olivet Discourses says that the temple will be “a pile of rubble.” I’ve been there, and I’ve seen the pile of rubble that was the temple, destroyed in 70 A.D. by Roman soldiers. This is the approximate view Jesus and the disciples would have had during the discourse except where the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim mosque is where the temple of Jerusalem was. The wall in front, especially the lower part is as it was when Herod built it, truly from “wonderful stones.” Very large stones.
My point today is we still struggle today with the meaning of the Olivet Discourse. In Matthew it starts:
As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24.3, ESV)
We all wish Jesus had said, “I hear two questions: 1. When will these things be (the destruction of the temple). 2. What will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” To the disciples, it was all one question. Naturally, to their minds, the destruction of the temple would be at the end of the age, at his second coming. But since the destruction of the temple occurred in 70, and Jesus hasn’t returned yet, those aren’t the same events.
Therefore, the discourse is hard to understand since we’re never quite sure which event(s) he’s talking about, despite this semi-amusing sentence:
But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. (Mark 13.14, ESV)
“Let the reader understand….” what?? The “abomination of desolation” is discussed in Daniel 9. Have fun.
My point is this: the discourse itself may be tough, but the ending is clear:
But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake. (Mark 13.32 – 37, ESV)
There are two central messages at the end:
No one knows…you do not know…you do not know (verses 32, 33, 35)
Be on guard, keep awake…stay awake…stay awake (verses 33, 35, 37)
“You don’t know” should be a clue that we ought not to waste too much time trying to figure out all the nuts and bolts of the end times.
“Stay awake” …for what? Here are some suggestions.
Don’t be overwhelmed by culture.
Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold. (Romans 12.2, Philips)
Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (Ephesians 5.14 – 17, ESV)
Be awake for opportunities to advance the gospel.
At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4.3 – 6, ESV)
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Matthew 5.9, ESV)
Keep awake and pray!
Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. (Mark 14.38, ESV)
Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. (Ephesians 6.18 – 20, ESV, emphasis mine)
If you’re following our 5x5x5 reading plan, you will have read Mark’s account of the Triumphal Entry. I thought Mark’s account was a bit underwhelming. We give an entire church service to this every year? (But it’s the same basic account in Matthew and Luke except for one thing that Matthew adds – I’ll get to that in a minute.) Note that most of the press is given to the selection of the donkey – verses 1 – 7! Verses 8 – 10 describe the actual “triumphal entry.” Verse 11 is a rather flat close to the story.
Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. (verses 1 – 7)
And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” (verses 8 – 10)
And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. (Mark 11.1 – 11, ESV)
What’s the significance of this underwhelming account, mostly about a donkey? I’m not sure. We know Mark’s gospel is Peter’s perspective. Maybe Peter had expected this to be the beginning of the visible Kingdom, and it wasn’t. Therefore, no big deal. Just one more time that Jesus walks away from a big event.
Jesus himself needed to do it to fulfill Zechariah’s prophecy, but he also knew it wasn’t a big deal. He could have been thinking, “These same people are going to clamor for my death in just a few days.” Re Zechariah’s prophecy, Matthew wants us to be sure not to miss it:
This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’” (Matthew 21.4, 5, ESV, quoting Zechariah 9.9)
So what is the takeaway? Jesus needed to fulfill prophecy, and the donkey was a big part of it. Jesus didn’t own a donkey, so the three gospel writers take pains to let us know how he acquired a borrowed donkey. And most kings ride into town on a magnificent stallion. The prophet and the gospel writers make it clear that Jesus wasn’t “most kings,” and his “triumphal entry” was on a donkey. He fulfilled the prophecy, rode in, and went “home” with just his small entourage.
Maybe we need to be reminded that God uses ordinary things to accomplish his purposes. My grandson and I just watched The Star, a whimsical animated movie about the birth of Christ, featuring, you guessed it, a donkey. I recommend it if you don’t take it (or yourself) too seriously.
Jesus riding in on a donkey may have been a minor event, but we remember it every year. There will be another event, yet to come, and it won’t be a donkey:
Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. (Revelation 19.11 – 16, ESV)
Here’s an interesting paragraph from the life of Jesus:
Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. (Mark 6.33, 34, ESV)
When’s the last time you saw people running to hear someone? It’s interesting to think why the crowd valued Jesus’ teaching so much. Mark doesn’t even record what he taught. But we know he taught simply, sometimes in parables, but mostly just practical stuff.
There’s a church where I speak from time to time. Everyone likes the pastor, but I’ve heard him preach, and he gives them too much content, little of which is applicable. When I’m there, sharing simple, applicable stuff, people tell me how much they appreciate it. My friend Ray was the guest speaker at a church once, and people came up to tell him how “clear and relevant” his sermon was. Ray told me, “So they’re used to unclear and irrelevant?”
Regular people crave simple teaching that they can put into practice. Andy Stanley lists “practical preaching” as one of the five catalysts for growth. He writes in his book Deep and Wide, “You’ll remember the first time you heard practical preaching.” I remember. I was raised on solid “Bible teaching,” which was interesting but mostly not applicable. I heard a guy preach for a week from a chart that compared the seven dispensations to the seven churches of Revelation and the seven stages of Paul’s journey by ship in Acts 27.
When I first went to a conference hosted by The Navigators, I heard ordinary men challenging me to put the Word into practice. Here’s an example I’ve blogged about before: old-school Navigator Max Barnett, 82 years old at the time, sharing the importance of quiet time. Or go to discipleshiplibrary.com, search for Skip Gray and pick any message!
And the common people heard Him gladly. (Mark 12.37, NKJV)
They read from the Book of the Law of God and clearly explained the meaning of what was being read, helping the people understand each passage. (Nehemiah 8.8, NLT)
When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority—quite unlike their teachers of religious law. (Matthew 7.28, 29, NLT)
One of the men in the crowd spoke up and said, “Teacher, I brought my son so you could heal him. He is possessed by an evil spirit that won’t let him talk. And whenever this spirit seizes him, it throws him violently to the ground. Then he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn’t do it.” …Afterward, when Jesus was alone in the house with his disciples, they asked him, “Why couldn’t we cast out that evil spirit?” Jesus replied, “This kind can be cast out only by prayer.” (Mark 9.17, 18, 28, 29, NLT)
My son David’s question was, “If this kind of spirit can be cast out only by prayer, why is there no record of Jesus praying during this incident?”
It’s a good question, and David suggested some good answers:
Jesus didn’t pray during the incident because he had prayed before the incident. We have many explicit references to Jesus’ habit of prayer:
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. (Mark 1.35, ESV)
But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray. (Luke 5.16, ESV)
Jesus lived in a spirit of prayer and dependency on his Father:
Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” (John 11.38 – 44, ESV, emphasis mine)
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. (John 5.19 – 20, ESV)
There it is: “pre-prayer” and a spirit of dependency and prayer. Let us do likewise!
Pray without ceasing. (1 Thessalonians 5.17, ESV)
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might…praying at all times in the spirit… (Ephesians 6.10, 18, ESV)
One of the men in the crowd spoke up and said, “Teacher, I brought my son so you could heal him. He is possessed by an evil spirit that won’t let him talk. And whenever this spirit seizes him, it throws him violently to the ground. Then he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn’t do it.” …Afterward, when Jesus was alone in the house with his disciples, they asked him, “Why couldn’t we cast out that evil spirit?” Jesus replied, “This kind can be cast out only by prayer.” (Mark 9.17, 18, 28, 29, NLT)
“This kind can be cast out only by prayer.” I think the disciples had started to believe their own press reports. They had returned not that long ago from a successful ministry assignment:
So the disciples went out, telling everyone they met to repent of their sins and turn to God. And they cast out many demons and healed many sick people, anointing them with olive oil…The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught. (Mark 6.12, 13…30, NLT)
I believe they forgot by whose power they were working! “Why couldn’t we cast out that evil spirit?” The answer could have been, “What gave you the idea that you ought to be able to cast out an evil spirit?”
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. (Ephesians 6.10, ESV)
P.S. My son David, also following our 5x5x5 reading plan had a different take on this passage. Why is there no record of Jesus praying in this story? We’ll look at David’s observation tomorrow.
It’s Martin Luther King Day, and it almost slipped past me…
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Good words, and believers should be leading the way.
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1.5 – 8, ESV, emphasis mine)
Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. (Romans 12.10, ESV)
Let brotherly love continue. (Hebrews 13.1, ESV)
And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. (Revelation 5.9, ESV)
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands… (Revelation 7.9, ESV)
Let’s think about “playing to win” – illustrated both by the Las Vegas Raiders in last Sunday night’s game AND, in a more important venue, the British divers bolstered by the U.S. Air Force operations officers in their daring and successful rescue of all 12 boys and their coach trapped 2.5 miles from the opening of a water-filled cave. The cave divers’ goal was, essentially, way beyond reach, and my friend John Ed Mathison suggested in his weekly blog of January 5 that a beyond-reach goal is precisely what we should have. Here’s the way it begins:
HOW BIG IS YOUR VISION?
When you think you might see God’s vision for you for 2022, you can test it with two choices. The first choice is to see the vision opportunity as something that would be a “piece of cake.” You can assume that you have everything necessary to accomplish it. You know how well you have been trained and educated, and doing this would not be a problem. If you see it as an easy vision and one you can handle–it’s probably not God’s vision for you.
The other choice is to see the vision and immediately think that you are inadequate to accomplish it. That vision appears to be so big. You are eager to follow God’s will, but it just seems too big. That means that it is probably what God is calling you to do! – John Ed Mathison, January 5, 2022.
Jesus sent the first disciples on a VERY big mission – one clearly out of their reach:
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1.8, NIV)
Most, if not all, of those Jewish boys had never been outside the borders of Israel and Samaria, and Jesus is talking about “the ends of the earth.” And tradition tells us that they took their commission seriously. We think Thomas went to India, for example.
But the commission in Acts 1 also contains the secret to its success: “You will receive POWER when the Holy Spirit comes on you…” It’s his power, not ours. What does God want you (and me) to do this year? I’m still working on writing some goals, and I want to be sure to include some that are “unattainable.”
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us… (Ephesians 3.20, NIV)
