Karooso

Character Formation

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 23:00:00 +0000

In some ways life is a test to see what you are made of deep, down inside. The thing called character. Character is determined by what you do when no one is looking. It is related to integrity, living in alignment with what you believe to be true. If self-discipline is the first key to mastering the art of living, character is the offspring of self-discipline. Doing the right thing at the right time (self-discipline) day in and day creates a life that is true to your values (character).

The test of character is pressure. What do you do when you are under pressure to act? What kinds of decisions do you make when everything is on the line? Which way do you go when no one is looking? How do you react when everything is going wrong? These are the common pressure points in life that test your character.

So, how can you be sure that your character is being formed in a Christ-like way? It has to do with your values. The most important part of character formation is knowing the core values that guide every decision of your life. When it comes to developing Christ-like values there are three things of supreme importance:

1. The Bible

2. The Holy Spirit

3. Absolute Clarity

The Bible is God’s revelation to humankind. It is God’s love letter to us, giving us guidance in how to live our lives in such a way that God is glorified. This is what we were created to do – to bring honor and glory to God. So, the first step is to read the Bible daily. Consume its wisdom. Live and breathe according to its world view. This is what the Psalmist meant when he started his book of song by saying – “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his Law day and night” (Psalm 1:1-2).

The Holy Spirit is the second key in developing Christ-like values. Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth and remind us of His words (John 14:26). So the Holy Spirit is the voice of Jesus past and present.

Once you discover the values of Jesus by studying the Word of God and listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit who dwells within you, then you can begin to see clear guiding principles for living your life. There are many things in the Bible that are open for varying interpretations. It’s important to remain open and flexible in much of what we believe God is saying through his Word. Your job is to interpret his Word the best you can and in light of that, love God and love others with all our heart. That being said – there are certain core biblical beliefs – what I will call irreducible minimums – upon which you should build your life. I am talking about the rock solid core beliefs that Christianity is built on. These become your foundation, and the specific values upon which you live your life. These should be clear and unchangeable. Only then can you live with absolute integrity and character.

Mastering the art of living requires a balanced life. Living your life with integrity (true to who you are on the inside) is the key to a balanced life. It will build a character that is essential for a successful life.

The First Step -- Self-Discipline

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 17:09:00 +0000

For lack of discipline they will die, led astray by their own great folly.
-- Proverbs 5:23

If I had to identify the first key to mastering the art of living it would be self-discipline. Brian Tracy, in his book No Excuses, defines self-discipline as "the ability to do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not." It's the ability to think of the long term. It's the ability to eat dinner before dessert. Self-disciplined people are more concerned with the positive, long-term consequences of their behaviors, than with personal enjoyment and immediate gratification.

The bad news is that self-discipline is very hard for most people. The good news is that self-discipline is a habit, and like any habit it can be formed at any age. The more you practice doing the necessary thing, at the right time (which is usually NOW!), even though you don't feel like it, the stronger you will get, and the easier it will become.

Self-discipline requires three things:

1. Desire. I can't make you want it, but if you want to master the art of living I think I can point you in the right direction.

2. Hard Work. There are no short cuts. Everything worthwhile in life comes with a price. You have to be ready to work hard every day.

3. Clear Vision. You have to know what you are chasing after in life and why you are chasing it. Goals, priorities, and a plan for a balanced life are important. But even more important is for you to know The Why?

If you can get this right it will bring a host of incredibly rewarding consequences. Not only will you start to get balance in your life, but you will also begin to feel yourself growing in character and integrity. You will find yourself becoming less anxious and more confident in the future that God has for you. In the following weeks I want to share what the Bible says about how this works.

It's going to be a great journey!

The Sexualized Life

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Sun, 16 Aug 2015 02:25:00 +0000

What Can I Do?

Talk to your children.

Protect your home.

Get involved with a loving, healing spiritual community.

For help –

www.xxxchurch.com

Call the FBCR counseling center – 972-235-5296

Reading Resources:

Undefiled: Redemption From Sexual Sin, Restoration For Broken Relationships by Harry Schaumburg, Moody Publishers

One of the better resources out there on the topic of sexual sin and how it damages relationships. Dr. Schaumburg has a ministry that deals specifically with those enslaved with sexual sin, Stone Gate Ministries.

Thoughts for Young Men by J. C. Ryle

A classic from the great J.C. Ryle, this small book is one to be used in counseling, small group study, or for personal refreshment and encouragement.

Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is) by Joshua Harris, Multnomah Books

Harris’ original book entitled Not Even a Hint has been re-released under this new title. Perhaps one of the more well-known books written from a solid, biblical perspective, Harris wastes no time in identifying the root of the problem with pornography and other sexual sins.

Closing the Window by Tim Chester, IVP Books

Tim Chester’s recent offering on the topic if living porn free is a much-needed resource that balances the principles of God’s grace and the gospel with other resources that stress somewhat external precautions as it comes to pornography. Chester does an excellent work at connecting one’s motivation to be porn-free with the greater themes of God’s glory and beauty.

The War Within by Robert Daniels, Crossway Books

Daniels’ book offers a solid look at the interior of the heart where the struggle with all sexual sin lies. At the end of the book Daniels gives a helpful summary of his major principles as well as practical chapters on internet pornography and masturbation.

Sex and the Supremacy of Christ by John Piper and Justin Taylor

This compilation of chapters written from some well-known figures in the church is a treasure trove of wisdom and counsel in many different areas. David Powlison’s chapter and contribution on “Restoring Joy to the Sexually Broken” is one every counselor should read and think through.

CCEF Mini-Books by Various

CCEF has several minibooks that are commendable. The range from the topics of Sexual Addition: Freedom from Compulsive Behavior (David Powlison) to It’s All About Me: The Problem with Masturbation (Winston T. Smith). These small booklets are an invaluable resource for any counselor. Other helpful titles include What’s Wrong with a Little Porn When You’re Married (Nicholas Black) and What’s Wrong with a Little Porn When You’re Single(Nicholas Black).

Living in a Fallen World Counseling Booklet Series by Paul Tautges, Day One Publications

This series of booklets, similar to CCEF’s mini-books, is another helpful tool in the counselor’s toolbox of go-to helps on a variety of topics. Titles include, Help! He’s Struggling with Pornography (Brian Croft); Help! She’s Struggling with Pornography (Rachel Coyle); Help! My Spouse Has Been Unfaithful (Mike Summers).

Porn-Free Church (free e-book) by Covenant Eyes

Covenant Eyes has been a helpful partner in the process of aiding those who are enslaved to pornography to put up helpful parameters to guard one’s heart. This complimentary e-book has many helpful chapters in dealing with pornography, counseling those enslaved to pornography and the role of the local church. Authors and contributors include Luke Gilkerson, Alasdair Groves, and Tim Chester.

Sexual Detox by Tim Challies

This excellent book which originally grew out of a series of blog posts from Christian author and blogger, Tim Challies, is well-written, biblically-based, and gospel-centered. It is also available as an e-book.

The Social Costs of Pornography by The Witherspoon Institute

This short book (51 pages) is the result of a study done from The Witherspoon Institute at Princeton University. Although not written from a Christian and biblical perspective, their observations and recommendations are both startling and insightful as they recommend a course of action.

The Devalued Life

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Sun, 16 Aug 2015 02:20:00 +0000

God created all living things as a sacred work, and he considered it all “good.” Human life, therefore, comes from God and is of ultimate value to him. He not only created human life, he also redeemed human life from the power of sin (John 3:16), continues to recreate human life in procreation (Isaiah 44:2), and daily sustains it (Matthew 6:11).

Last Sunday we learned that God’s love for human life impacts how we view life, and how we treat other human beings. We value life only as much at the life we value the least (tweet this). This has an impact on what we do with guns, military might, the environment, our bodies, entertainment, hunger, poverty, and unwanted pregnancy, just to name a few.

Abortion is an example of how our culture has come to devalue life. The good news is that abortion rates have decreased over the last 20 years, from 1.6 million in 1990 to less than a million last year. This has been due, in part, to sex education in the public schools and a proliferation of Crisis Pregnancy Centers that provide support and help as they provide alternatives to abortion. These strides should be celebrated. The bad news, however, is that there are still close to a million abortions per year, most of which are abortions of convenience, as birth control.

What are ways we can help?

1. Join the Conversation, but do so, with kindness and respect.

2. Stand, unashamedly, for core Biblical values.

3. Speak (with kindness) for those who have no voice.

4. Love people, especially those who are hurting.

5. Be a part of the solution

(i.e., volunteer at a Crisis Pregnancy Center, reach out to someone who is struggling with an unwanted pregnancy, advocate for unconditional, non-judgmental love in your church community).

If you have been through this issue first hand and want someone to talk to, I would encourage you to take advantage of several opportunities:

1. Contact our Counseling Center – Call 972-235-5296, and set up an appointment to talk to a professional counselor.

2. Contact Lisa Lloyd at www.lisalloyd.com. Lisa had an abortion at the age of 18 and gave her testimony on Sunday. She is willing to minister to those who have been through it. You can hear her testimony on our podcast at www.fbcrpodcast.com. Her testimony begins 26 minutes into the podcast.

What Do We Mean by Prophetic?

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Sun, 17 May 2015 12:40:00 +0000

An Article by Christopher Heuertz and Sarah Kim

In the Word Made Flesh vision statement, we collectively commit to serving Jesus among those living in poverty. This calling is realized in being a holistic, incarnational community among, as well as a prophetic community for, those living in poverty. In previous Position Papers on The Cry, we have explored what we mean by “poverty,” “holistic,” “incarnational” and “community.” So, what do we mean by “prophetic”?

The Need for Understanding

Depending on differing faith traditions, the term prophetic may evoke a variety of meanings and concepts for different people. In WMF, “prophetic” is understood through the lens of the historic prophets from the Scriptures. WMF can only qualify as a prophetic community for those living in poverty as we reflect the examples lived out by the biblical prophets.

The prophetic is naturally drawn from what was embodied by the original prophets. “What Do We Mean By ‘Prophetic’” is a WMF Position Paper that seeks to establish and support a biblical understanding of the prophetic by identifying contemporary deformations in order to construct a biblical prophetic paradigm. The multifaceted character of the biblical prophets according to their office, nature, function, role and message informs this biblical prophetic paradigm.

Naming Contemporary Deformations

There is a crisis in our contemporary understanding of the prophetic. Go to most Western Christian bookstores, and you will be bombarded by countless titles from individuals claiming to have a prophetic message or a handle on explaining prophecy. Competing extremes claim that the prophetic is either something very propitious in a constructive and mystical way, qualified by the supernatural and miraculous, or that the prophetic is something very grave and ominous with a harsh message and merciless tone. This crisis has precipitated deformations that have led to great confusion regarding the prophetic.

Contemporary deformations of the prophetic are polarized between the liberal and the conservative, perpetuating stereotypes that caricature prophetic ministries as either overly social or hyper-personal. On one hand, a liberal deformation of the prophetic focuses solely on political- and justice-related concerns, suggesting that a social reading of the gospel and its subsequent application are signs of prophetic ministry. On the other hand, a conservative deformation of the prophetic is often future-oriented, attempting to speculate on answers and explanations to existing prophecies as well as making claims and predictions about new prophecies. The conservative deformation also has a tendency to become very esoteric and over-individualized, demanding special attention from God.

These liberal and conservative deformations of the prophetic are further aggravated when the prophetic lacks submission to the rest of the ministry gifts of the church. In Ephesians 4:11-12, Paul lists the offices or ministry giftings that are dispersed to help build up the church. In many settings, one of these five ministry gifts is leveraged against the others, setting it above the rest as if we are able to suggest a hierarchy within the list. When the prophetic is assumed to be the most important or trumps the impact and influence of the other ministry gifts, a new deformation takes place. The prophetic is merely one gift among a community of gifts that are dependent upon each other for the completion of the body.

Another common deformation is the perception that one can participate in a prophetic ministry from outside a worshipping community. It is often the case that individuals who perceive themselves and their ministry as prophetic lack the credibility of being an integral part of a worshipping community. This deformation assumes that one can volley prophetic messages into a worshipping community from the periphery. This often occurs when a worshipping community rejects a prophetic gifting or message, thereby pushing the prophetic presence from the center. However, the biblical model of the prophet was one who remained within the worshipping community – at times even going into exile with them.

Finally, a predictive element of things relating to prophecy is often assumed when speaking of the prophetic. Though this is one element historically related to the biblical prophets, the qualifying term “prophetic” speaks to a greater gifting and calling than merely speaking and interpreting prophecies. In fact, if the prophetic were to only apply to predictive abilities, then most “modern prophets” would have been stoned under the laws of the Old Testament for their inaccuracy. Sadly, future-telling, prophecy-explaining “modern prophets” give themselves license to get their own prophecies wrong from time to time, leading many in the church to become rightfully skeptical and weary of such prophetic mishandlings.

Constructing a Prophetic Paradigm

In WMF, our attempts to cultivate the prophetic do not merely seek to deconstruct contemporary deformations, but hope to build up a biblical alternative to these contemporary misunderstandings. Further, rather than suggesting a disembodied conceptual understanding of the prophetic, it is necessary to live into a reality that is guided by the biblical prophets.

Biblical scholar Irving Jensen suggests that though the prophet was “a combination preacher, herald, teacher, ]spokesperson], intercessor, reformer, and even shepherd (Isaiah 40:1-2),” the prophet was also “the moral conscience of the people, exposing and rebuking their sins (Isaiah 58:1; Ezekiel 22:2; 43:10; Micah 3:8).” We draw our understanding of the prophetic from the biblical texts and biblical prophets. Avoiding a fragmented and caricatured view of the prophets, we integrate the office, function, nature, role and message of the prophets in an effort to extrapolate our understanding of the prophetic. This composite understanding demonstrates the prophetic and offers a holistic view of the complex tensions that are held together by the prophets. Here we will seek to hold in tension writings on the prophetic from both the Protestant Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann and the Jewish Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel to work out the implications of a Judeo-Christian prophetic understanding.

In his groundbreaking work The Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann postulates that the task of the prophet is simultaneously to criticize and energize while working toward the formation of a new community. He writes, “The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.”

Brueggemann suggests that the prophet should not only criticize social and spiritual shortcomings, but also energize people with the hope that alternatives are possible: “Prophetic ministry seeks to penetrate despair so that new futures can be believed in and embraced by us.”

In the introduction to his work The Prophets, Heschel states, “The prophet was an individual who said no to his [or her] society, condemning its habits and assumptions, its complacency, waywardness, and syncretism. [The prophet] was often compelled to proclaim the very opposite of what [his or her] heart expected. [The prophets] fundamental objective was to reconcile [humanity] and God.”

Reconciliation, bringing humanity back into right standing with God, is ultimately the purpose of the biblical prophets. We find in even a cursory reading of Scripture that God called forth prophets when the people had simultaneously turned their back on God and those living in poverty. The task of the prophet was then to criticize the spiritual and social fallout of this turning as well as to energize the hopeful reconciliation and restoration of God’s people.

In recent history, the martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero illustrated this beautifully and tragically. Archbishop Romero fought to reconcile the church with those living in poverty. In 1977, Oscar Arnulfo Romero became an unthreatening choice to be the Archbishop of San Salvador. An oligarchy of 14 families controlled El Salvador, owning nearly two-thirds of the nation’s arable land. Through a series of stifling laws and systemic repression, those who were landless and living in poverty in El Salvador were routinely detained, tortured and executed. An academic who was uncomfortable challenging the status quo, Romero dutifully went about his clerical responsibilities. Not until two of his friends, also priests, were assassinated by the government did Romero have a conversion to those living in poverty as a symbol of his desire to see true reconciliation take place.

In one of his many passionate pastoral addresses, Romero stated, “To the oligarchy, I repeat what I said before: Do not look on me as a judge or an enemy. I am only the shepherd, the brother, the friend of this people, the one who knows of their suffering, of their hunger, of their affliction. In the name of their voices, I raise my own to say: Do not make idols of your riches; do not preserve them in a way that lets others die of hunger. One must share in order to be happy.” In yet another address, he said, “The church is calling to sanity, to understanding, to love. It does not believe in violent solutions. The church believes in only one violence, that of Christ, who was nailed to the cross. That is how today’s gospel reading shows him, taking upon himself all the violence of hatred and misunderstanding, so that we humans might forgive one another, love one another, feel ourselves brothers and sisters.”

Prophetic proclamations bolstered by his simplicity and solidarity with those living in poverty are what ultimately led to Romero’s assassination. But even in the face of death, Romero kept his hope on the promise that God’s purposes for humanity could be realized – a hope that many dismissed as impossible. His hope was purely an imagination of what could be. As Brueggemann writes, “The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before the implementation.” Oscar Romero was shot and killed on March 24, 1980, while celebrating the Eurcharist. His death is a witness to Christians everywhere of a prophetic hope in the body and blood of Christ.

“Hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion; and one does that only at great political and existential risk,” Brueggemann writes. “On the other hand, hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretension of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now called into question.”

In the face of death, disobedience and disunity among humanity and with God, the prophetic finds its integrity and authenticity from within the worshipping community of God. The prophetic must remain connected to the living body of Christ as a reminder of the presence of Jesus within the message of the prophet. This solidarity is a sign and symbol of the love that drives all things prophetic. It also validates the truth that “The prophet does not scold or reprimand. The prophet brings to public expression the dread of endings, the collapse of our self-madeness, the barriers and pecking orders that secure us at each other’s expense, and the fearful practice of eating off the table of a hungry brother or sister.” Thus, the prophet is a truth-teller, demonstrating God’s love for all humanity.

This compels us in WMF to keep the imagination provoked and hopeful. This reality and calling, grounded in our solidarity with the oppressed and our commitment to the church, provides the framework for our service with and among those living in poverty to be hopeful and simultaneously remain prophetic. As Brueggemann writes, “It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing alternative futures.”

Five Distinctions of the Prophetic Essence

Modern examples such as Oscar Romero boldly embody the form and function of what the biblical texts offer in terms of introducing the irreducible characteristics of the prophetic. In an attempt to understand the prophets’ divinely appointed purpose as revealed in the Scriptures, we have named five distinctions. These are mere signposts to help guide this study of the prophets’ multifaceted attributes and responsibilities. We present the clearest defining features of the prophetic essence: the office, the function, the nature, the role and the message of the prophets.

The Office

The prophetic office was the prophet’s position of authority, which was appointed specially by God. Historically, the Scriptures directly correlate the phrase the “Word of God” with the calling of a prophet. This direct encounter with the Word of God initiates prophets with instructions for a prophetic task. The prophets’ experiences with the Word of God authenticates the divineness of the prophet’s appointment to office, and the prophet uses the Lord’s Word to identify the message as God’s words rather than the prophet’s own. Simply using the prophetic phrase “Word of God” does not validate a man or woman’s position as prophet – the prophesy actually coming to pass confirms it.

The office of the prophet can be seen in many Scriptural examples. In the days of Samuel’s youth when he served under Eli in Shiloh, the Word of God was rare due to a vacancy in the prophetic office (1 Samuel 3:1). Later, Israel recognized Samuel as a prophet of the Lord because God ensured that “none of Samuel’s words remained unfulfilled” (v. 19). The Lord was revealed to Samuel through God’s word and was with him (v. 21). Similarly, the prophet Deborah acted as the mouthpiece of God and communicated God’s command to lead a revolt against Sisera based on God’s promise to put the enemy into the hands of the Israelites (Judges 4). This prophecy came to pass, and Deborah led the rebellion.

Moses, the archetype of biblical prophets, conveyed God’s words of how God appoints a prophet: “I will put my words in their mouth, and they will tell them everything I command them” (Deuteronomy 18:17-18). For Jeremiah, the Lord reached out and touched his mouth and said, “Now, I have put my words in your mouth,” to appoint him as prophet (Jeremiah 1:9). Again and again, it is when the Word of the Lord comes to the prophets that they are designated to their offices, and from this established position the prophets are able to speak with authority.

There was a point in biblical history when the concept of the “Word of God” had a significant shift. Originally, this phrase signified the divinely commissioned speech of prophets; but, this notion changed with the temple priests and scribes in the Persian period. With this change, the “Word of God” is used for citing the Mosaic Law. Thus, a radical modification occurs as the “Word of God,” which was once a technical term for prophetic revelation, becomes a description of the Law of Moses, establishing the Mosaic Law as a new authoritative source. The books of Chronicles affirm the writings of the prophets as new authoritative religious texts. In the process, the concept of the “Word of God” transformed into a means of referencing sacred, authoritative Scripture more generally.

In the New Testament, John the Baptist lived and spoke from his appointed office as a prophet as he quoted the words of Isaiah when preaching to the Jews. The Gospel of Luke explicitly states that the Word of God came to John, who then began speaking prophetically with the words of Isaiah. Similarly, Jesus Christ spoke as a prophet to the Jews when he pointed at himself as the fulfillment of the prophet Isaiah’s words (Luke 4:17-19).

T. Austin Sparks states, “Prophetic ministry is not something that you can take up. It is something that you are.” Hence, the office of the prophet is appointed by God for a prophetic purpose, and finds its fulfillment when receiving and living out the Words of God through word and deed to God’s people.

The Function

The prophets functioned according to the message they were sent to deliver from God. Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (referred to in the West as Maimonides) writes, “Their function was that of preachers who called upon the people to obey the Law of Moses, threatened those who rejected it, and held out promises to those who were firm in observing it.” These words usually carried the weight of life or death, hope or despair, restoration or destruction, mercy or judgment. Once Israel strayed from centering God in life and society, the prophet was sent forth to urge the people to obey their one true God.

Walter Brueggemann summarizes the various functions of the prophet in two foundational categories: energizing and criticizing. Brueggemann points to the grieving of the prophet Jeremiah as prophetic criticizing – lamenting the wrong in society. He holds this in tension with the prophet Isaiah’s hopeful prophetic energizing for things to come. The present in its brokenness and the future with its promises create the simultaneous prophetic functions of energizing and criticizing. The prophet cannot merely criticize the present reality without pointing to the potential for God to restore and redeem it. However, simply hoping for better things and claiming the promises of God without critiquing systems, structures and people who prevent the in-breaking of the Kingdom also lacks prophetic integrity. Functionally, prophetic criticizing is a radical form of truth-telling, while prophetic hopefulness is a proclamatory naming of things gone wrong. This has been widely deformed because “prophetic hope easily lends itself to distortion. It can be made so grandiose that it does not touch reality.” Prophetic criticizing and energizing must hold one another accountable for “Hope expressed without knowledge of and participation in grief is likely to be false hope that does not reach despair.”

The functioning duties of the prophet have been compared to being a watchperson, a servant, a messenger of God, an assayer and tester of the people’s ways, and as one who hears the words from God’s mouth and gives warning. They appeared at some of the most crucial moments of Israel’s history to anoint kings, to act as military advisors and to dethrone some of Israel’s rulers. They could be seen as God’s own people’s most oppositional forces. They were commonly seen as charismatic miracle workers, leaders and teachers of a band of prophets, and noticeably as those caught up in God’s Spirit of ecstasy.

One underlying function is consistent in all of the prophets’ duties. They declared the judgments of God and denounced the sins of God’s people. For instance, Nathan confronted King David about his affair with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12:7). In their respective biblical books, Amos attacked the social abuses in the north, and Hosea condemned syncretism and apostasy. In the South, Isaiah criticized the religious appearances and injustices (Isaiah 1:11-15). Jeremiah rebuked unfaithfulness and idolatry (Jeremiah 1:15-16). Similarly, Micah berated false religion and inequity (Micah 3:5-12).

These accusations spoken through the prophets all have a common theme. The people were guilty of forsaking their God, and as a result injustice and unrighteousness became rampant. The cause was the corrupt and unrighteous ways in which the leaders and people conducted their lives. The ones who suffered most from the injustice caused by the unrighteous were the most vulnerable in the land – those living in poverty. The oppression of those in poverty infuriated God, as it is a direct assault against God: “Whoever oppresses [those in poverty] shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to [those in need] honors God” (Proverbs 14:31). As biblical scholar and prominent rabbi, Abraham J. Heschel notes, “To the prophets even a minor injustice assumes cosmic proportions.”

Still, the sins of the people were highlighted against the background of God’s gracious and merciful acts of the past. The mercy of God was an alternative to confronting the wrath of God if only they repented. The prophets’ lives were often personifications of the analogous relationship between God and Israel. We find the husband-wife relationship as portrayed by Hosea; father-son and owner-vineyard relations in Isaiah; shepherd-flock in Ezekiel; potter-clay in Jeremiah. The prophets illustrated the desire for God to lovingly embrace people with mercy and grace, and lead them back to the path of justice and righteousness. Yet, the people usually responded by silencing the true prophets and listening to the false ones. Heschel makes it clear why they would be silenced: “The prophets remind us of the moral state of a people: Few are guilty, but all are responsible. If we admit that the individual is in some measure conditioned or affected by the spirit of society, an individual’s crime discloses society’s corruption.”

The Nature

The nature of the prophet refers to how the prophets lived out and became the message they were given to deliver. Once a prophet was called by God and appointed for a task, the prophets not only proclaimed the Word of God but embodied it. They intimately experienced and incarnated the Word of God, rather than merely being hearers and deliverers of the Word. As Heschel puts it,

“It would be wrong to maintain that the prophet is a person who plays the role of “the third party,” offering his or her good offices to bring about reconciliation. Their view is oblique. God is the focal point of their thought, and the world is seen as reflected in God. Indeed, the main task of prophetic thinking is to bring the world into divine focus.”

We do not need to look far to see how the prophets actualized the Word of God in their own lives in order to communicate God’s message. The prophet Hosea is well-known for his prophetic calling to marry an adulterous wife to illustrate the love of God for God’s unfaithful people (Hosea 1:2). Hosea himself experienced God’s unchanging devotion to Israel, as he was called to retrieve his wife after she prostituted herself (3:2-3). The prophet Isaiah was called by God to go naked and barefoot for three years to prophetically portray what would happen to the Egyptian and Cushite exiles, those whom Israel sinfully relied upon (Isaiah 20:2-3). As for Ezekiel, he received a prophetic calling to lie on his left side for 390 days, bearing the 390 years of sin for the house of Israel (Ezekiel 4:4-5). Jesus Christ, operating out of his prophetic nature, is the Word who became flesh-the One who came as the incarnation of God to manifest Immanuel, or God with us (John 1:14).

As the prophet embodied the Word of God in his or her life, the prophet usually became a target of scorn among his or her people. “To be a prophet is both a distinction and an affliction. The mission the [prophet] performs is distasteful to [them] and repugnant to others; no reward is promised them and no reward could temper its bitterness. [The prophet] bears scorn and reproach (Jeremiah 15:15). The prophet is stigmatized as a madman by [his or her] contemporaries, and, by some modern scholars, as abnormal.”

The prophets shared an intense understanding with the heart and Word of God, and it consumed their entire being. The prophet Jeremiah was mocked and ridiculed for his words of violence and destruction, yet felt the burning Word of God in his heart when he attempted to withhold it from Israel (Jeremiah 20:8-9). Isaiah expressed his intimate sympathy for the anguished heart of God over his people Israel in his song about the vineyard of Israel (Isaiah 5:1-7). Jesus typifies His oneness in heart with the Father as He embraced the fulfillment of God’s Word by willingly dying for the sin of all humanity.

The Role

The role points to how the prophets postured themselves to accomplish their prophetic duties. In the words of Heschel, “The main vocation of a prophet is ‘to declare the crimes of Jacob and Israel to their faces” (Micah 3:8), to let the people know ‘that it is evil and bitter…to forsake…God’ (Jeremiah 2:19), and to call upon them to return.”

As portrayed in Jeremiah 2, the prophet describes how the Israelites had forsaken the Lord by: chasing after worthless idols (v. 11); committing the two sins of forsaking the spring of living water and digging their own cisterns, which points to the illusion of creating a means of self-sufficiency or dependability (v. 13); and continuing to live in apparent corruption – although they “washed themselves with soap,” the stain of guilt was before the Lord (v. 21-22).

Most importantly, the lifeblood of the innocent poor was on their hands, even though the Israelites thought they were blameless and God was not angry with them (v. 34). The people assumed they were innocent of guilt and sin. Even so, God promised to pass judgment on the people despite their ignorance (v. 35). It is in this similar scenario when the prophet speaks out to God’s people. “The prophet disdains those for whom God’s presence is comfort and security; to him it is a challenge, an incessant demand. God is compassion, not compromise; justice, though not inclemency.”

The human condition’s capacity to deceive one’s self from reality is astonishing. The prophets led the people to face what it truly means to know the Lord as God defines it. God declares, “[They] defended the cause of [those in poverty and in need], and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?” (Jeremiah 22:16). Likewise, Heschel reiterates that the Prophet Samuel stressed obedience over sacrifice. Amos and the prophets who followed him not only emphasized the primacy of morality over sacrifice, but even proclaimed that the worth of worship is contingent upon moral living, and that immorality that prevails in the midst of worship is detestable. The prophets challenged the people’s right to worship through offerings and songs by showing that the primary way of serving God is through love, justice and righteousness. Again in the words of Heschel, “Instead of dealing with the timeless issues of being and becoming, of matter and form, of definitions and demonstrations, he is thrown into orations about widows and orphans, about the corruption of judges and affairs of the market place. Instead of showing us a way through the elegant mansions of the mind, the prophets take us to the slums. The world is a proud place, full of beauty, but the prophets are scandalized, and rave as if the whole world were a slum.”

The Message

The prophets held a radical view of the message entrusted to them by God-not only did they live out and relay the message, but they demanded a response from the people of God. The prophets amplified what was of utmost concern to the Living God: “He has showed you, O people, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). In the process, they expressed the worthlessness of religious practice in the midst of injustice. The practice of sacrifice in itself was not condemned, but the deeds of injustice overshadowed both sacrifice and prayer. Heschel affirms, “Men [and women] may not drown the cries of the oppressed with the noise of hymns, nor buy off the Lord with increased offerings. The prophets disparaged the cult when it became a substitute for righteousness.”

The message of justice and righteousness is inherent to the character of God, and equally central to the message of the prophets. Injustice is not an outside moral virtue, or another problem of evil that exists unnoticed by God. The attributes of justice and righteousness are at the core of God’s essence. They are who God is. God embodies these in God’s own person and they are identified in all of God’s ways. The Scriptures declare, “Yhwh is a rock, whose works are perfect and whose ways are just-a faithful God who does no wrong, who is always upright and just.” (Deuteronomy 32:4). The prophets reminded the people of this fundamental truth. Hence, the prophets urged the people to renounce their opposition to God in their unrighteous and unjust ways of living, which oppressed those living in poverty. “Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the [those living in poverty] who have been plundered, to the profaned riches of the world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man. God is raging in the prophet’s words.” The prophets pointed out that the stench of injustice which exists in the world is a direct affront to God, or in other words “the oppression of [humanity] is a humiliation of God.”

More importantly, the prophet’s message was spoken to direct the people toward the goal of God’s redeeming activity. God was ultimately preparing the people to actualize the heavenly vision of God’s Kingdom. This includes complete salvation for God’s people through the Messiah, and the ability to live out God’s righteousness. Jeremiah speaks of everyone from the least to the greatest as knowing the Lord (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Hosea depicts God’s people as being betrothed to the Lord in righteousness, justice, love, compassion and faithfulness (Hosea 2:19). Ezekiel describes this preparatory process as a resurrection of dry bones and the giving of a new heart (Ezekiel 37:4-10; 36:26).

The prophets made known the coming day when God will establish absolute sovereignty and will be King over all the earth. The Lord alone will be exalted, and will personally reign on earth (Isaiah 2:11; 11:9). God promises to wipe every tear from the people’s eyes, and death, mourning, crying and pain will be abolished (Revelation 21:4). Simply stated, Apostle Peter calls it the home of righteousness (2 Peter 3:13).

With this vision in mind, the prophets could do no less than call out the people’s unrighteous state of affairs. In Lament For a Son, Nicholas Wolterstorff speaks of mourners as “aching visionaries.” He writes, “The mourners are those who have caught a glimpse of God’s new day, who ache with all their being for that day’s coming, and who break out into tears when confronted with its absence.” Thus, the prophets ached and mourned for the day of the Lord as they lived in the reality of its overwhelming absence amidst injustice and corruption.

The central message is the same today as it was when Jesus first proclaimed the Good News. “The spirit of our God is upon me: to bring good news to those who are [living in poverty]. God has sent me to proclaim liberty to those held captive, recovery of sight to those who are blind, and release to those in prison- to proclaim the year of our God’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). The demonstration of this truth, love and mercy secured in justice and righteousness is the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, for God is behind this very task of reversing the order of this world into the standards of God’s Kingdom.

This is a message of conversion. As Oscar Romero taught, “we need someone to be a prophet…and call us to conversion and not let us set up religion as something untouchable. Religion needs prophets, and thank God we have them, because it would be a sad church that felt itself owner of the truth and rejected everything else. A church that only condemns, a church that sees sin only in others and does not look at the beam in its own eye, is not the authentic church of Christ.”

Conclusion

So what do we actually mean by “prophetic”? We can conclude that the prophetic is not caricatured by contemporary deformations that overly define it with predictive proclamations, generalized liberal concerns with society and politics, or hyper-conservative exaggerations of personal mystical experiences with the Divine. The prophetic as portrayed in Scripture is one among a number of ministry giftings that must remain submitted in Christian community. The prophetic as defined through the lives of the biblical prophets was simultaneously an office appointed by God, a function of radical grief and hope, a nature of humility and understanding embodied in truth-telling, a role of necessity taken on for the spiritual vitality of a specific community, and an integrated message of interiorized righteousness with an expressed call to justice–all pointing back to the character of God.

Deborah as Leader Over Israel

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 19:48:00 +0000

Deborah was a prophet and a judge, and unlike other judges, was the undisputed leader of Israel (Judges 4:4). Thomas Schreiner contends that Deborah was a special case because (a) she was the only judge who was not a military leader, (b) she only prophesied privately, and (c) there is no explicit reference to her having been “raise up by the Lord,” as with most of the other judges.¹ Others dismiss Deborah as only an exception to the rule of male headship by pointing to a vacuum of male leadership in Israel at this time. In other words, Deborah was leader only because there weren’t any men who wanted to do it. Schreiner focuses on what Deborah didn’t do, compared to the other judges. The judges were each very unique. If we applied that same approach to each of the judges we would have a long list of differences.

First, Schreiner characterizes Deborah as different from the male judges in that she was not a military commander. There is no doubt that Deborah worked in tandem with Barak, her military captain. However, the narrative is clear that Deborah was Barak’s leader (Judges 4:6, 14), and her leadership was a matter of public knowledge. Deborah, in fact, seemed to act more as a combination military general and prophet, creating strategy, giving orders to her military commander, Barak, and making prophetic announcements. Moses, David, and Elijah all acted in the same way at one time or another. Moses is never recorded as directly leading armies into battle, yet his leadership and authority are never questioned.

Deborah’s leadership over Barak is clear, and her orders being carried out by someone else no more diminishes her authority or leadership than it did for David, Moses, or Solomon when they did the same. On another note, Deborah is shown to be a capable prophet when she predicted that the enemy would be handed over to a woman, and in short order her prophecy was fulfilled (Judges 4:9, 21).

Scheiner further argues that Deborah’s leadership was different from the men because there is no explicit reference to her being “raised up” by the Lord. However, the Scripture is clear that the phrase “raised up by the Lord” applied to all the judges. The narrator reported that whenever there was a crisis the Lord would “raise up” a judge who would deliver the people from the crisis (Judges 2:16, 18). Deborah certainly fits this description.

Schreiner also fails to note that several of the other judges are not explicitly introduced with the phrase “raised up by the Lord.” Shamgar, Abimelech (who seems to have been self-appointed), Jair, Jephthah, and Samson, to name a few, are not characterized directly as having been “raised up by the Lord.” The evidence is overwhelming that the absence of that particular appellation does not in any way indicate a differentiated leader. It is simply used with some, implied with others, and not used at all with still others. It could also be argued that Judges 5:7 used the same terminology (raised up) to imply that Deborah did “arise” as a Judge commissioned by God.

Schreiner also bases his case on the claim that Deborah did not prophecy in public, but rather “her prophetic role seem to be limited to private and individual instruction.”² He uses Judges 4:5 as a proof text. Yet, it was obviously public knowledge that Deborah was ruling from her position in Ephraim. How else would all “the sons of Israel” know to go there in order for her to pronounce her rulings (Judges 4:5)? It is erroneous to characterize the palm tree under which Deborah sat, as a private consultation, when (a) everyone in Israel knew about it; and (b) it was outdoors in plain view! Clearly, the men of Israel saw Deborah as their leader and judge. That’s why they travelled from afar to see her. How can that possibly be seen as a private endeavor?

In fact, the portrait of Deborah judging under the palm tree as all of “the sons of Israel” came to her is akin to that of Moses. Moses also ruled (the same word – judge – is used of Moses and Deborah) as all the people of Israel came to him so that he could hear their cases (Exodus 18:13-16). Deborah was operating like Moses, the greatest and most authoritative prophet in Hebrew history.

Other scholars point to a vacuum in male leadership during the time of Deborah. There is simply no biblical evidence for this. There is nothing in the text that indicates a lack of male leadership. Some would point to the wickedness of the land during this time. After the death of Ehud, the people turned away from God. But this in no way indicates an abdication on the part of men to lead Israel. This scenario is repeated throughout the history of Israel, and never indicates a lack of male leadership. In fact, in most other cases, a male leader does arise to lead Israel out of the moral morass. To imply that there was no such leadership available at the time of Deborah is to make a groundless assumption. It is a circular argument that goes something like this – God calls only men to lead. Deborah was a woman. God called Deborah to lead. Therefore, there must not have been any men willing to lead. The argument only works, with the faulty a priori assumption. And it has no basis in the Scripture text.

Others would point to the abdication of responsibility on the part of Barak. He refused to go into battle without the presence of Deborah, thus indicating his refusal to lead. This, some would point out, was representative of the state of male leadership in general in Israel at this time. Again, this is a circular argument, at best. I believe it is also a misinterpretation of Barak’s action. Barak was not abdicating his responsibility or role as a military leader. He was facing an impossible battle. He was outnumbered and out manned, against a technologically superior force. He was simply following in the steps of Joshua who wanted the prophet of God (in that case, Moses) at the battle with him. As long as Moses was present the Israelites would win the battle. Deborah was Barak’s “Moses.” He wanted her close by in the battle, as she represented the presence of God.

Deborah did not chastise Barak for abdicating his responsibility. She chastised him for his lack of trust in her word, and in the word of the Lord. Because of his lack of trust, Sisera would be handed over to a woman.

Schreiner admits that the leadership of Deborah poses the most difficulty for the case of male headship. In the end, his argument that “she exercised her prophetic ministry in a way that did not obstruct male headship,”³ seems like wishful thinking and is not supported by the most natural reading of the narrative. Although she had no desire to emasculate her male subordinates, she was clearly their leader, and everyone knew it.

Dealing with Anger

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 01:41:00 +0000

Excommunication and Shunning

To understand Jesus' words in Matthew 1815-17 you have to understand the world that he lived in. The first century Mediterranean culture was centered on community and driven by an honor/shame code of ethics. When there was division in the community it threatened the well-being of the entire community and brought shame upon it. That’s why eventually Jesus advises getting the community involved in personal issues of sin.

The other cultural trait that comes into play with these verses is that of the honor/shame basis for community. People have written dissertations on this subject. All of first century Greco-Roman life was built on the idea of honor and shame. In a nutshell it goes like this – when you did things that the community considered good, you brought honor to the community and you were rewarded by the community. When you did something that the community considered bad or offensive, you brought shame upon the community and you were punished by the community. The punishment – public chastisement, public announcement of your betrayal against the community, exclusion from certain community events or leadership positions – in worse case scenarios it could include public whipping or beating (see Paul), shunning, excommunication – and in the most extreme cases, capital punishment by stoning. All of these "shaming" punishments were enacted as an attempt to maintain control and order in the community. The goal was conformity to community moral/ethical standards, and the restoration of those who erred.

This idea of honor/shame was powerful because it permeated everything. Those who brought honor to the community were treated almost like gods. Those who brought shame were rejected. Most people living in the honor/shame culture would rather commit suicide than shame the community. It was that powerful.

The other thing you have to understand is that in the first century world a person depended on their community for survival. You could not survive long outside the community. Literally, physically – you could not survive. There were no grocery stores. No restaurants. No homeless shelters. Anthropologists estimate an average 2 year life expectancy for those who were, for whatever reasons, abandoned by their community. So excommunication from the community was a death sentence. It was reserved for only the worse offenses.

So, in the first century, if a person was excommunicated or shunned, they had no where else to go. They were forced to look at what they had done, and find a way to make it right. The alternative was unthinkable. Therefore, excommunication and shunning was a powerful wake-up call, and had the ultimate end of restoration and reconciliation.

That is no longer true today. If a person is shunned by one church community, they can simply walk across the street to another church community and be welcomed and helped. If their family disowns them, they can simply live apart from the family and can easily survive without family.

In fact, the disciplinary method of "shunning" or "excommunication" actually has the opposite effect today -- not only does it NOT bring reconciliation to the person, it causes the community to outsource its problems to some other community. There is no real "working at it" in order to bring reconciliation. It's too simple to just walk away and go to some other community.

A better and more biblical approach is to keep the person in the community and allow the community to continue to speak into their lives. If the person continues to sin, their sins will catch up to them (that's the tough love part) and the community will be their to help them pick up the pieces.

For more on the Honor/Shame culture of the first century see:

Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture by David deSilva

Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew by Jerome H. Neyrey

St. Paul Returns the to the Movies: Triumph Over Shame by Robert Jewett

Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification by Gerhard E. Lenski

Tools for Dealing with Anger

(for more on these click HERE)

Relaxation

Simple relaxation tools, such as deep breathing and relaxing imagery, can help calm down angry feelings.

Cognitive Restructuring

Simply put, this means changing the way you think. Angry people tend to curse, swear, or speak in highly colorful terms that reflect their inner thoughts. When you're angry, your thinking can get very exaggerated and overly dramatic. Try replacing these thoughts with more rational ones. For instance, instead of telling yourself, "oh, it's awful, it's terrible, everything's ruined," tell yourself, "it's frustrating, and it's understandable that I'm upset about it, but it's not the end of the world and getting angry is not going to fix it anyhow."

Be careful of words like "never" or "always" when talking about yourself or someone else. "This !&*%@ machine never works," or "you're always forgetting things" are not just inaccurate, they also serve to make you feel that your anger is justified and that there's no way to solve the problem. They also alienate and humiliate people who might otherwise be willing to work with you on a solution.

Problem Solving

Sometimes, our anger and frustration are caused by very real and inescapable problems in our lives. Not all anger is misplaced, and often it's a healthy, natural response to these difficulties. There is also a cultural belief that every problem has a solution, and it adds to our frustration to find out that this isn't always the case. The best attitude to bring to such a situation, then, is not to focus on finding the solution, but rather on how you handle and face the problem.

Better Communication

Angry people tend to jump to—and act on—conclusions, and some of those conclusions can be very inaccurate. The first thing to do if you're in a heated discussion is slow down and think through your responses. Don't say the first thing that comes into your head, but slow down and think carefully about what you want to say. At the same time, listen carefully to what the other person is saying and take your time before answering.

It's natural to get defensive when you're criticized, but don't fight back. Instead, listen to what's underlying the words: the message that this person might feel neglected and unloved. It may take a lot of patient questioning on your part, and it may require some breathing space, but don't let your anger—or a partner's—let a discussion spin out of control. Keeping your cool can keep the situation from becoming a disastrous one.

Using Humor

"Silly humor" can help defuse rage in a number of ways. For one thing, it can help you get a more balanced perspective. This will take a lot of the edge off your fury; and humor can always be relied on to help unknot a tense situation.

The underlying message of highly angry people, Dr. Deffenbacher says, is "things oughta go my way!" Angry people tend to feel that they are morally right, that any blocking or changing of their plans is an unbearable indignity and that they should NOT have to suffer this way. Maybe other people do, but not them!

There are two cautions in using humor. First, don't try to just "laugh off" your problems; rather, use humor to help yourself face them more constructively. Second, don't give in to harsh, sarcastic humor; that's just another form of unhealthy anger expression.

What these techniques have in common is a refusal to take yourself too seriously. Anger is a serious emotion, but it's often accompanied by ideas that, if examined, can make you laugh.

Changing Your Environment

Sometimes it's our immediate surroundings that give us cause for irritation and fury. Problems and responsibilities can weigh on you and make you feel angry at the "trap" you seem to have fallen into and all the people and things that form that trap.

Give yourself a break. Make sure you have some "personal time" scheduled for times of the day that you know are particularly stressful. One example is the working mother who has a standing rule that when she comes home from work, for the first 15 minutes "nobody talks to Mom unless the house is on fire." After this brief quiet time, she feels better prepared to handle demands from her kids without blowing up at them.

More Anger Management Tips

(for more on these click HERE)

1. Think before you speak

In the heat of the moment, it's easy to say something you'll later regret. Take a few moments to collect your thoughts before saying anything — and allow others involved in the situation to do the same.

2. Once you're calm, express your anger

As soon as you're thinking clearly, express your frustration in an assertive but nonconfrontational way. State your concerns and needs clearly and directly, without hurting others or trying to control them.

3. Get some exercise

Physical activity can help reduce stress that can cause you to become angry. If you feel your anger escalating, go for a brisk walk or run, or spend some time doing other enjoyable physical activities.

4. Take a timeout

Timeouts aren't just for kids. Give yourself short breaks during times of the day that tend to be stressful. A few moments of quiet time might help you feel better prepared to handle what's ahead without getting irritated or angry.

5. Identify possible solutions

Instead of focusing on what made you mad, work on resolving the issue at hand. Does your child's messy room drive you crazy? Close the door. Is your partner late for dinner every night? Schedule meals later in the evening — or agree to eat on your own a few times a week. Remind yourself that anger won't fix anything and might only make it worse.

6. Stick with 'I' statements

To avoid criticizing or placing blame — which might only increase tension — use "I" statements to describe the problem. Be respectful and specific. For example, say, "I'm upset that you left the table without offering to help with the dishes," instead of, "You never do any housework."

7. Don't hold a grudge

Forgiveness is a powerful tool. If you allow anger and other negative feelings to crowd out positive feelings, you might find yourself swallowed up by your own bitterness or sense of injustice. But if you can forgive someone who angered you, you might both learn from the situation. It's unrealistic to expect everyone to behave exactly as you want at all times.

8. Use humor to release tension

Lightening up can help diffuse tension. Use humor to help you face what's making you angry and, possibly, any unrealistic expectations you have for how things should go. Avoid sarcasm, though — it can hurt feelings and make things worse.

9. Practice relaxation skills

When your temper flares, put relaxation skills to work. Practice deep-breathing exercises, imagine a relaxing scene, or repeat a calming word or phrase, such as, "Take it easy." You might also listen to music, write in a journal or do a few yoga poses — whatever it takes to encourage relaxation.

10. Know when to seek help

Learning to control anger is a challenge for everyone at times. Consider seeking help for anger issues if your anger seems out of control, causes you to do things you regret or hurts those around you.

HOPE THIS HELPS!!

Where is God?

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:44:00 +0000

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

- Psalm 139:7-12

Our hearts break for those who have lost so much this week in Moore, Oklahoma and the surrounding area. The images that flash across our television and computer screens make us wish we could be there. We hold our collective breath hoping against hope that there will be no more fatalities, knowing that there are likely more who have perished. Jesus once said, “Blessed are those who mourn …” (Matt.5:4). It hurts to watch people hurting. Our hearts break over the things that break the heart of God.

Tragedies of this magnitude give way to a lot of questions concerning the existence of God. Even if you assume that God exists, there are still questions about his role in the tragedy. From a Christian perspective there tends to be two different approaches: (1) God causes everything to happen and therefore, caused the tornados to rip through Moore, Oklahoma. Typically, this is followed by some variation of “God has his reasons and we are not to question him.” (2) God did not cause the tornados in Moore, Oklahoma, but he allowed them to happen. This is usually justified by drawing a fine line between God’s specific will and his permissive will. God in his sovereignty allowed it to happen, even though he didn’t necessarily want it to happen. This seems only to remove God one step away from culpability.

If God did this, how can we call him loving? If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, how could he let this happen? These are natural, and frankly, fair questions. There are no easy answers. The problem of evil and suffering in our world has baffled theologians for centuries. The prophets asked the same questions, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” and “Where is God?” (see Jeremiah 5:19a; 12:1; Habakkuk 1:2-4). An entire branch of theology, called “theodicy” has developed to deal exclusively with these questions about evil and suffering. For a succinct overview of how people have tried to answer these questions throughout history I would recommend the excellent article by Jim Denison found here.

I do not believe that God caused the tornados to happen. We know how tornados happen. Any freshman in high school can explain the meteorological conditions that cause tornados to form. The truth is our planet is a tiny cocoon in our universe. We live in a universe with violent and powerful physical forces. Move away from our plant in either direction and it gets worse. Move away from our galaxy (our cosmological cul-de-sac) and I’m told things get radically violent. Life as we know it is impossible in most regions of our galaxy – the physical conditions are simply too violent. Sometimes, even in our little cocoon the violent forces of the universe break in and remind us just how good we have it … most of the time.

That may not help much when it’s your child who has died in the tornado. Frankly, nothing is going to help much when it’s your child who has died in the tornado. Tears and prayers and hugs and good friends are the only approximation to a magical salve for that kind of suffocating emotional pain.

But that leads us back to the bigger question: Where is God?

Elie Wiesel in his book, Night, details his Holocaust experience at Auschwitz. He writes about how, at 14, he was taken to the death camps. They traveled by train for 3 days, eighty people in each cattle truck. Arriving at Auschwitz, men and women were segregated. Elie never saw his mother or sister again.

He wrote: “Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget those flames which murdered my God and my soul, and turned my dreams to dust.”

One day the guards made them watch as they hanged a boy. Wiesel recalled just before the hanging someone behind him whispered: "Where is God? Where is he?" It took the boy half an hour to die. Behind Elie the same voice asked: "Where is God now?" and a voice inside Elie said: "Where is he? Here - hanging on this gallows."

Wiesel was saying that God was dead, powerless to help. The Holocaust made him rebel against God for allowing people to be starved, tortured, butchered, gassed, burned.

But later in life something changed the Professor of Humanities at Boston University. Wiesel, in a speech confessed: "Rooted in our tradition, some of us (at Auschwitz) felt that to be abandoned by humanity was not the ultimate. We felt that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him. Better an unjust God than an indifferent one.. man can live far from God, but not outside God. God is wherever we are." Elie then asked: "Even in suffering?" and quietly added "even in suffering."

So where was God at 3pm on May 20th? You know where he was. You have read the news reports and watched the interviews. God was in Moore, Oklahoma. He was in Plaza Towers Elementary School … in Rhonda Crosswhite, the sixth-grade teacher who covered her students with her own body to shield them from the showering debris (read here). He was in Becky Jo Evans, the first grade teacher who did the same (read here). He was in all the teachers who acted quickly to shield and save young lives. He was in all the neighbors who immediately began to rescue hundreds from the rubble. He was in each child who died. And he will be in every one of us who reaches out to help.

The psalmist says, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” He concludes that even the darkest night cannot conceal him from God’s presence, because even the darkest night is light to God. I don’t know much, but I know that to be true ... especially in Moore, Oklahoma.

NOTE:

If you want to know about ways you can help the Oklahoma victims through FBCR please see Pastor Brett’s blog here or you can visit our website here where we have set up a page just for this ministry effort.

Happy Mother's Day ...

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:16:00 +0000

Yesterday was mother’s day. It’s always a difficult day in the pulpit. Primarily because it is impossible to put into words what motherhood means to the world. It’s also a difficult day for those who have lost their mother or those who desperately want to be mothers but, through no fault of their own, have been denied that possibility. It can have the effect of creating a class system among women – those who are mothers and those who are not. In venerating motherhood we can inadvertently send the message that those who have experienced motherhood are superior to those who haven’t. All of this, of course, is not true. But that is the weekly difficulty of preaching – bringing the sacred text to life in such a way that it reflects all the complexities of real life.

Anyway … in honor of Mother’s Day I wanted to reflect on my own mom and share just a snippet of what she means to me. No 500 word blog could ever do her justice. But here goes …

Growing up in Pasadena, Texas in the 1960’s and 70’s, my mother was a stay-at-home mom. She was always encouraging and supporting us (my sister, two brothers and I). She was the president of the PTA. She was the head of the booster club. She was at every school event and she saved and framed every report card. She was constantly pushing us into piano lessons, voice lessons, and guitar lessons. She was always correcting our English, and drilling us on vocabulary words. When my sister won the school spelling bee it was my mother who worked with her for hours each day. When my little brother played in the band it was my mother who drove him to music lessons and stood over him to make sure he practiced his scales. When I made the football team it was my mother who sat in the stands at every game and cheered me on – winning or losing (and it was mostly losing). And for the six years that my siblings and I were all trying to get through college, it was my mother who took a job outside the home, and never once bought herself a new dress.

After all the children in my family were finished with school, it was my mother’s turn. She ran for the Pasadena Independent School District Board of Directors. She won the election on her first attempt and became the first Hispanic and only the second woman to be elected, in what was then the 50 year history of the Pasadena Independent School Board. She served on the School board for 20 years, never having lost a race, and retired in 2008. A few years ago, the Pasadena School District completed the construction of a new educational facility for the purpose of providing on-going training for teachers. They named it the Carmen Flores Orozco Educational Training Center. They named it after my mom. She deserves it.

You see, my mother didn’t just tell us that education was important … she lived it … she breathed it … and she showed it … in her willingness to make any and every sacrifice, no matter how difficult, in order that we would have a chance for a higher education. Her ceiling was our floor. She made sure of it.

So that whatever accomplishments I manage to attain – whatever accolades might come my way – whatever successes I might experience – I am never alone. They belong to her as well (and my Dad). Their lives have lifted my life higher, and my life, as I know it, would be impossible without their sacrifices. And for that I will be forever grateful. Happy Mother’s day, mom.

They're Alive!

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Wed, 08 May 2013 20:28:00 +0000

"The Thief comes only to kill and steal and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full". -- John 10:10

"But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." -- Luke 15:32

As I write this blog I am listening to the CNN reports about the return of Gina De Jesus to her family after almost ten years of captivity. I can see the balloons, yellow ribbons and placard signs all along the street where her family lives. The reporter just told me that the faded, weathered picture of a fourteen year old Gina nailed to the side of the De Jesus house has been there since she went missing ten years ago. Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight, and Gina De Jesus were all abducted within weeks of each other, ten years ago. Gina was fourteen years old when she was taken off the street, in broad daylight, on her way home from middle school. She had asked her mother if she could spend the night with a friend. Her mom said no, and then Gina was gone.

My daughter is fourteen. I can’t imagine. I don’t want to imagine. This story is too hard to watch.

And yet, we can't take our eyes off of it. It's a heartbreaking story. It captivates the nation on several levels. First, most of these abduction stories don’t end with happy reunions. So we are thankful for that. We get to see families reunited after ten years of worry, frustration, unimaginable pain and heartbreak. After ten years most family members have resigned their hearts to the inevitable. Amanda Berry’s mother passed away without knowing whether her daughter was dead or alive. This is a story fraught with an inextricable mixture of joy and pain. It’s a lot like life, I guess. The balloons and yellow ribbons and weathered pictures are a reminder that life is full of pain and joy, heartbreak and hope. This story is not over for these young ladies and their families. I’m sure there is a lot of pain that must be processed over time. But for now – today – they know deep down joy. And that’s something to hold on to and remember for the lean times to come.

On another level, we are horrified by the pure evil of the perpetrators. I won’t even mention their names because they deserve neither fame nor infamy. They deserve to remain nameless and should pay for their heinous crimes with the full force of the law. If I were in charge of the world they would be placed unarmed in a large room with all the armed relatives of these three young ladies. That's probably why God won't let me be in charge of the world. But the story affirms that evil is real and alive in our world. It is a wake-up call to remind us that we live in a fallen world where people live with ugly inner demons. And sometimes those demons spill over and cause terrible damage. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.

On yet another level, it is a reminder of the incredible endurance of the human spirit. These young ladies are already an example of the will to survive and endure. That's part of the reason we want to hear their voices and know their stories. Their stories will come out over time. It is much too early to speculate about the horror they have endured. I’m sure there will be a made-for television, unauthorized movie within the next few months. I can picture the Hollywood producers salivating as even now they board planes for Cleveland. I’m sure the Los Angeles casting calls have begun. The movie will be made – count on it. I won’t watch it. I can’t watch movies about children being kidnapped. It hits a little too close to home. But whatever the details of the story – this much is sure – the human spirit is an amazing thing … and these young ladies, in one way or another, are an example of that.

Finally, the story speaks to us about the grace and goodness of God. The CNN reporters have temporarily shifted to the Jodi Arias trial and the news that the jury has reached a verdict. What a world we live in. Soon they’ll turn to yet another story because somewhere in the world, tragedy is striking again. I want to go back to the days of Gilligan’s Island and I Dream Of Jeannie after school, with Oreo cookies and a tall glass of milk. Simpler days when I was a kid and didn't have to reflect on these kinds of things.

My stomach is queasy now. I don’t think it's the China Express buffet. It’s the story. It’s such a happy and sad story at the same time. It captivates us because down deep we know that it’s our story. As I have mentioned several times, it is a horrifying story. But life in a sin-driven world can be very horrifying. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Boston Marathon bombing, Wisconsin Sikh Temple shooting, Benghazi massacre, Aurora Colorado Movie Theater shooting, a Chicago man kills his bride on their wedding night, Portland Oregon Coffee Shop shooting -- and these are just within the last twelve months. Add to that all the wars of the last two thousand years, and you can’t escape the fact that mankind has a propensity towards violence and destruction and evil and sin. But there is a way out. The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy … but Jesus has come to give life. And perhaps that’s why we keep watching this story. These young ladies got out. Their families thought they were dead, but now … they’re alive. It’s a story that rings true and good and right.

A Week of Tragedy

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 19:50:00 +0000

Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won't lose out on a thing. -- Matthew 10:42

Boston on Monday and West, Texas on Wednesday -- there is a lot to be thinking about this week. How does a Christian respond to events of tragic proportions?

The first response is prayer. Even if it's just the short desperate prayer of shock and dismay -- "Oh God, please help them." It's the prayer I pray when I see a car accident on the side of the road. I rubberneck only long enough to say a quick prayer for everyone impacted by the accident. Sometimes the short, breathless prayers (that don't know exactly what to say) are the most powerful. The lips don't move much but the heart is moving mountains. Pray ... even if it's one simple line.

The second response is to grieve with those who are in pain. Our tendency is to avoid emotional pain at all costs. So we move quickly to minimize it. This is a big mistake. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who mourn ..." (Matt.5:4). I think he meant that those who grieve on behalf of others are blessed because they are a blessing. Chaplains learn that there is something very powerful about "the ministry of presence." It means just knowing that you are with me is more powerful than anything you will say. Paul told us that we are one body, with many parts. And that all the parts belong to each other (Rom.12:4-5). When one part of the body hurts, the rest of the body hurts with it. Don't dismiss the collective painfulness of what has happened this week. We should all own the pain.

But grieving does more than just bring comfort to the hurting. It also acknowledges the weight of what has happened. It stands beside people to say, "What you are experiencing is BIG." It refuses to minimize the tragedy with theological gymnastics or trite spiritualism. "God will bring something good out of your pain," and "All things work out for the good of those who love God," may or may not be true in the long run, but in the moment they absolutely do not apply. And when you grieve with others you recognize that their pain is real, appropriate, and hard. And in so doing you name their suffering as sacred.

And finally ... I would look for a way to help. It may be something very small. A cup of cold water, Jesus said, is often much appreciated (Matt.10:42). Give blood. Send some money. Make a phone call. Volunteer at a local shelter. I have friends who jump in a truck and rush to the scene of disasters to help in courageous ways. They have been trained to do so. And they are good at it. I wish I could be more like them. But we can't all rush to the scene (it would make things worse). And we can't all be that brave. And I suspect that, in the end, what you do to help is almost irrelevant. What is important is that you do something to make the world a little better ... a little more sane.

There are weeks (like this week) when that may be the best we can hope for.

Maundy Thursday

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 20:50:00 +0000

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going. Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:1-6)

Today is Maundy Thursday. It is the day the church remembers the "Maundy" (foot-washing) and Last Supper of Jesus Christ. On that night, knowing he would die the next day, Jesus gave his disciples these anchors with which to remember him. He acted out the essence of his teachings -- The two great Laws of Christ crystallized in the most intimate of ways. He washed their feet and commanded them to love each other. And then he gave them bread and wine and commanded them to love God (do this in remembrance of me). Jesus wanted them to remember their connection to each other (foot-washing) and their connection to God (Last Supper).

Jesus had some profound work to do on Friday. Friday would change the world. Friday was about carving out a space for hope. But I think the disciples were changed on Thursday. Thursday was about carving out a space for remembering. It's funny how the two so often go together -- hope and remembering.

In some ways, forgetting is not the opposite of remembering. The opposite of remembering is despair. Just spend some prolonged time with someone who is in the advanced stages of alzheimers. If you are with them long enough you will see it in their eyes -- despair. They can't remember ... and because they can't remember they can't make connections -- they don't (to their knowledge) have a history, and with no history there is nothing to build on -- no hope -- despair.

I am thankful for my parents. They have given me so much. My hair, eyes, and complexion from my Dad. My nose, lips, and ears from my Mom. But not just the physical. My tenacity from my Dad. My love for justice from my Mom. My hard work-ethic from my Dad. My ability to stand in front of a crowd and speak from my Mom. Most everything we have comes from somewhere else. It's important to remember. Remembering is a building block for hope.

Jesus tells his disciples that on Friday he will leave them because he has a different kind of work to do. It is a preparing work. But he is not leaving them alone ... nor is he leaving them for long. He'll be back three days later. And after that he will never leave them again. In the interim what they can do is remember. He asks them to trust him. Trust is built on hope and hope is built on remembering ... remembering Jesus' promise ... remembering his sacrifice ... remembering his love.

Tomorrow is Good Friday. Tomorrow is the hard work of crucifixion. But today, Jesus offers us a towel and some water ... he extends an invitation to some bread and wine. And in so doing asks us to remember the things that are most important: Love God. Love each other. Today we remember.

Holy Week -- The Messy Life

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 19:48:00 +0000

"In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness ..." (Phil.2:5-6).

Growing up my mom was always fighting me about my messy room. No matter how hard I tried (OK ... I really didn't try very hard) my room always seemed a mess. I guess it was a metaphor for life. Life is messy.

We are entering the holiest week of the year for the Christian church. For six days, from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, we are reliving the journey from "Hosanna, to the King of David!" and "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" to "Crucify him!" and "Cursed is the one who hangs on a tree." It's not a pretty journey. It's a painful journey because it reminds us of who we are and what (at our most selfish moment) we really are capable of doing. Saturday is spent in shocked silence. Jesus is in the tomb. We can't believe that everything could change so dramatically in the span of seven days. How did we get here? How did life get so messy? What is it about us that can't seem to get things right? If it's true, as Merold Westphal claims, that self-suspicion is the "hermeneutics of Lent," then this is the perfect time of year to confront the messiness of life.

The New Testament Scripture text for this Sunday is the Christological hymn from Paul's letter to the Philippians. In beautiful poetic style the hymn describes the descent of Christ into our world. It is a descent that is comprehensive, ending with death of a cross. In some small way, it is a descent that reflects our Holy Week journey -- From the high of Palm Sunday to the low of Good Friday. Jesus travels from the highest place, perfect and equal communion with the Father, to the lowest place, fleshly death on a cross. It is a hymn that reflects the way Jesus embraced the messiness of being human and loving humans.

I'm not sure what part of your messy life you're dealing with right now, but Holy Week teaches us that we are not the first human beings to deal with it, and we won't be the last. It teaches us that Jesus loved us enough to enter into our messiness, and died to overcome it. Jesus' descent into our world teaches us what true love does. It gets down into the messy parts of life, and speaks to us there. Maybe that's what I need most when my life is a mess. I don't always trust myself to get it right, and I don't trust you for the same reasons -- you are human just as I am. I don't need someone to clean up my mess, as much as someone to come along side me and live with me for awhile -- to speak words of love and strength in the midst of the messiness.

That's what Jesus did. He entered the messiness that is "being human." And he lived in it all the way to the end. This week I want to remember that -- while I was still "messy," Christ died for me.

Heaven and Death

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 21:07:00 +0000

"So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view ..." (2 Corinthians 5:16a)

I've been thinking a lot about death lately. Not mine in particular. Death in general. I know it's not exactly a popular subject and not something you want to dwell on for any length of time ... but, it's a part of what I do. I had two funerals last week. And two the week before. Someone I hold very dear is eighty-eight years old and in the hospital. Hopefully, he'll rebound ... but when you're eighty-eight ... the odds are quickly moving away from you. My father turned eighty-one a couple of weeks ago. Every time I see him he looks a bit older and moves a bit slower ... which means he's getting older ... which means I'm getting older. We're all getting older. So. There it is staring at me again, with its beady little black eyes. Death.

In his second letter (which was actually his third letter, that we know of) to the Christians living in Corinth Paul is trying to help them understand what it looks like to live in heaven. Here we see the Platonic influence on Paul's thinking. He makes a sharp distinction between the earthly mortal body and the spiritual eternal soul. We all live in this earthly thing called a body (Paul calls it a tent, and elsewhere refers to dying as taking down a tent), but one day we will live in a new, heavenly body. There is a stark contrast between what we have now and what we will have then -- now a broken, pathetically limited body; then, "an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands" (2 Cor.5:1).

Sounds great. What Paul says is true -- the older I get the more I long to trade in this body for a new, heavenly body. Frankly, any kind of new body would do. And in case you're thinking I just have a poor body image ... let me assure you, that's not it ... I used to have a great body, and was quite proud of it! But that was about 20 yeas and 40 pounds ago. So, a new body is sounding really good right about now.

But Paul doesn't linger on the new body and heaven for very long. He mentions it only to address how it impacts what I do with the body I have here and now. He says that we now see everything with different eyes because we know that Christ died for our sins and gave us eternal life. The resurrection of Jesus (which Paul talks about in his first letter) defeats death, once and for all, and is a real game-changer. It changes everything. Not just heaven. Not just spiritual things. It changes everything about what I'm going to do with the life I have left on earth. It changes me -- my priorities, my proclivities, my pecadillos, my perspective.

So, Paul says, we no longer see people from an earthly perspective. We don't see them as dying, decaying bodies. We see them as infinitely loved by God with eternal potential. And God wants to love them through us. Jesus wants to draw them to himself ... through us!

According to early church tradition Paul died in Rome in the year 67 A.D. He was beheaded -- most likely for causing unrest with his preaching of Jesus. The fire that almost consumed Rome in 64 A.D. was being blamed on the Christians. Although the most severe persecution had ended by 67 A.D., the memories lingered. Anyone associated with Christ was suspect. And anyone vocal about Christ must have had a death wish. Paul was probably arrested for his preaching. He just couldn't keep his mouth shut about Jesus. He didn't see death the way some do. "Where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:55).

Shortly before his death he wrote these words: "For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness,which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day ..." (2 Timothy 4:6-8).

It's as if he could already see it ...

Assignment: Find someone who needs Jesus and then BE Jesus for them.

Whom Do I Fear?

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:29:00 +0000

"The LORD is my light and my salvation -- whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life -- of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27:1)

The Psalmist asks the question that Paul asked, "If God is for us who can be against us?" (Rom.8:31b). Who will bring any charge against us? Who will condemn us? Who will separate us from God? Paul's answer: no one or nothing. The implication, of course, is that we have nothing to fear. Just like the Psalmist says, "of whom shall I be afraid?" Scriptures answer to rhetorical question -- no one. My answer -- how much time do you have? My list is long. Do not be afraid, says God.

Easier said than done.

Lent is the season for reflection on God's saving act in Jesus Christ. It gets us ready for Easter. It's the time when I confront my fear and doubt. I name it. I confess all my sins. I name them. I bring them out of the closet and air them out. I sweep them from the dark shadows of my life into the light. Nothing is ever as scary once it is out in the light. Yet everything inside of me shutters at the thought of bringing my sins into the light. I know God forgives them. I don't care. I don't want them in the light.

The Apostles' Creed ends with:
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic (universal) Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting,
Amen.

But do we really? Do we really believe in the forgiveness of sins? I want to believe.

Easier said than done.

Psalm 27 was the Psalm reading for last Sunday. It is a psalm of David. Tradition has it that it was a royal psalm sung before the king went into battle or possibly at the annual celebration of his coronation. The king would sing the first six verses, then the congregation would respond with verses seven through thirteen, and finally, the priest would pronounce a divine oracle, which is verse 14.

In later practice of Judaism, continuing to this day, Psalm 27 has played a central role in the "Days of Awe" (Yamim Noraim), being recited in the synagogue during each of the Ten Holy Days. The Ten Holy Days consist of Rosh Hashanah ("Jewish New Year"), Yom Kippur ("Day of Atonement"), and the eight days in between. They are part of the 40 day penitential period in the Jewish Calendar, which leads to the Holiest Day (Yom Kippur) -- the Day of Atonement when the High Priest enters the Holy of Holies to intercede for the people's sins.

The Ten Holy Days are a time in which the Jews mediate on the meaning of God's forgiveness and atonement. It is also a time to ask forgiveness from anyone they have wronged -- To get their sins out into the light. Psalm 27 is recited at the end of morning and evening prayers. And the shofar (ram's horn) is blown at the end of morning prayers throughout the week.

It is a beautiful ritual designed to focus the people on their own sins and failings and, more importantly, the forgiveness found in God. The ritual reminds them of what happens to our fear and doubt when we get it out into God's light. The ritual and the Psalm are designed to draw our attention to the ONE who is in ultimate control of our destiny.

It's interesting to me that the Psalm begins with a statement of confidence. When the enemy attacks me, "they WILL stumble and fall." Even if an overpowering army comes against me, "my heart WILL NOT fear ... even then WILL I be confident!" (v.2-3). But the psalmist isn't confident all the way through. At one point the song begins to plead with God for protection. "Hear my voice ... answer me ... do not hide your face from me ... do not reject me or forsake me ... do not turn me over to the desires of my foes ..." (v.7-12). These are the desperate pleas of the singer who has lost his confidence. It's no wonder that the Psalm ends with the encouragement of the priest, who is saying, "Wait for it ... it's coming ... don't give up ... don't lose hope ... waaaaaaaaaaaaaait for iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit."

Easier said than done.

We learned on Sunday that Abram was losing hope of ever having a child. He was plagued with fear and doubt. At the pinnacle of his fear and doubt he made the decision to believe God anyway. He decided to keep on living as though the child were already his -- as though the promise were already fulfilled. And because of that "trust against all odds," God pronounced Abram, "Good Enough." Abram didn't need to be afraid because God was in control of his destiny.

Abram was still afraid. He still had doubts. But his destiny was secure. If God's salvation depended entirely on my faith, I would be in big trouble ... and so would you. God saves us in spite of ourselves. We will still have fear. We will still have doubt. But we don't HAVE to. God has pronounced us "Good Enough!" God has saved us! Easter shows us that it wasn't easy. But it is DONE.

Assignment for this week:

Do something to encourage someone who might be losing hope.

2nd Sunday of Lent -- Doubt and Fear

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 16:15:00 +0000

"O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless ..." (Gen.15:2)

The Scripture text for this Sunday is about doubt and fear in the face of God's promises deferred. It's about what happens when faith experiences loss of hope. Is it possible to lose hope and keep faith intact? That seems oxymoronic. Yet, the writer of Genesis doesn't seem to have a problem with it. Abraham loses hope. It had been a number of years since God first promised Abraham an heir (Gen.12). More than an heir, he promised Abraham that his descendants would be like the dust particles of the earth -- too numerous to count (Gen.13:16). Abraham was in his seventies when the promise first came to him. His wife, Sarai, was in her sixties. Now Abraham is in his eighties and Sarai in her seventies. The promise is yet to be fulfilled. You have to admit -- It doesn't look good. Abraham loses hope. Who can blame him?

Maybe he doesn't lose hope completely. Do we ever? As much as it may hurt us we don't ever completely give up hope in those we love. A wayward child. An angry, bitter parent. A cold marriage. When we love, we try to understand. Maybe that's what Abraham is doing. He's trying to understand. Perhaps what he is experiencing is not so much the loss of hope, but rather the attack of the twin enemies of hope -- doubt and fear. Loss of hope is a tough one for me. It's in my nature to be optimistic and hopeful. I cling to hope like a mountain climber clings to his rope. But doubt and fear? That's another story. Those pesky twins are constantly yapping at my heels.

It's no wonder, then, that this chapter beings with God saying to Abraham, "Do not fear." Twice in this passage, Abraham expresses his fear that the promise is impossible to keep. He wants to believe. But he has his doubts. A decade of no results has a way of breeding fear and doubt. Optimism wilts. Faith punts. Hope suffocates. It can happen to the best of us.

Paul said, "We are more than conquerors through him who loved us" (Rom.8:37). And John said, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear ..." (1 John 4:18). And a man who wanted Jesus to heal his son said, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24). And Abraham, with fear and doubt gnawing at him, silently accepts God's response to his lament, and "because he put his trust in God" it was counted as righteousness (Gen.15:4-6).

I don't know what you are going through right now. I'm not sure which doubts and fears are plaguing you today. If everything is going perfect for you -- Great! Enjoy it because it won't last. Doubt and fear are a part of life. Lent is the season where we embrace that. We understand that to doubt and fear is to be human. To lose hope from time to time is to take part in the great human experience. Abraham experienced it. Moses perfected it. Deborah, Saul, David, Elijah, Jeremiah, Esther ... they all fought the twin demons of fear and doubt. They all had moments when they lost hope.

It's still dark outside. Easter isn't here yet. So turn around and face the twins that are hounding you. Fear and doubt are no match for the One who lives inside of you.

Don't forget the assignment for this week:
1. Do something Selfless.
2. Do something Spiritual.
3. Do something Sacrificial.

Not by Bread Alone ...

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:34:00 +0000

"He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread" (Luke 4:2b-3).

I am discovering that part of the power of observing Lent is the way it keeps uncovering my lust for control. The giving up of one of my mini-addictions grades on my penchant to manipulate and therefore, control my life. I can no longer control my affect by anesthetizing my true feelings. And that has a way of driving me crazy. I don't want to feel sad so I reach for a bowl of blue bell ... but wait ... oh, that's right ... I gave that up. Now I have to embrace my sadness and in so doing, try to understand it. And that makes me anxious. I don't want to feel anxious so I reach for a diet-coke ... but wait ... oh, that's right ... I gave that up too. Now I have to embrace my anxiety and in so doing, try to understand it. And that makes me grumpy. I don't want to feel grumpy so I reach for ... well ... you get the point. Control.

Luke tells us that after forty days without food Jesus was hungry. I'll bet he was grumpy too. I would be. Satan tempted him to reach for a stone and turn it into bread. It was a temptation to take matters into his own hands. Later Jesus would say, "What father, if his son asks him for bread, would give him a stone?" The idea being that if earthly fathers know how to take care of their children, then surely our heavenly father knows how to take care of us. But in the wilderness Satan told Jesus -- "Obviously, your heavenly father doesn't know how to take care of you. You're hungry, and all your father has given you are these stones. Why don't YOU turn them into bread?" Control.

Bread had a long and historic place among the sacred Hebrew symbols. And the Hebrew people had a lot of sacred symbols. Bread symbolized physical sustenance and health. It symbolized God's blessing. Melchizedek, the king of peace, brought Abraham bread. Abraham gave bread to the angels who visited him. Esau sold his birthright for some stew and bread. Jacob stole his brother's blessing with some tasty food and bread. The sons of Jacob first went to Egypt in search of bread. The people of God ate bitter herbs and bread as the angel of death passed over them. They were sustained in the wilderness each day with manna (bread) and quail. Bread was perpetually placed before God on the table of presence in the tabernacle. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life." And the night before his death Jesus took the bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, "This is my body."

Satan wanted Jesus to make bread -- to take God by the collar and shake the blessing out of him. Satan wanted Jesus to take control. Jesus will get bread ... all the bread he wants ... he'll feed thousands with just a few loaves. But before Jesus can do that -- before he can say, "I am the bread," he has to know what it feels like to be without bread. He has to know the desperate feeling of the loss of control. Whatever Jesus was feeling after forty days of fasting -- sad, anxious, grumpy, or whatever -- he had to embrace those feelings and know the full weight of them. Before he could BE a savior he had to know what it feels like to need one.

Jesus answered Satan, "Man does not live on bread alone." Whatever it is that you are trying to control today ... try letting go. Life does not consist of the things you control. Those are typically the things that help you cover up what you are really feeling. And what you are really feeling is the place where life is lived to the fullest.

Three suggestions for this week from Sunday's sermon:

1. Do something selfless.

2. Do something spiritual.

3. Do something sacrificial.

The First Sunday of Lent -- In the Wilderness

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 21:33:00 +0000

“And Jesus … was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.” (Luke 4:1)

The Scripture text for the first Sunday in Lent pushes us out into the wilderness with Jesus. This dry, barren place is where Jesus began so it seems fitting that we too start with the wilderness. Paul tells us that the pre-incarnate Christ emptied himself in order to take on flesh (Phil.2:1). In the wilderness Jesus’ flesh was being tested to see how it fit. Jesus was stretching his wings and learning how troublesome this flesh stuff can be. The writer of Hebrews said that Jesus was tempted in every way just as we are (Heb.4:15), and because “he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Heb.2:18). In other words, in the wilderness Jesus learned what it meant to be human … what it really feels like to be one of us … to be finite and limited and frail and scared and paranoid and heartbroken and angry and gullible and passionate and willful and stubborn and all the other crazy things that make us human. And that skin must have felt very strange to Jesus.

One of my favorite writers, Frederick Buechner, in his book Whistling in the Dark, wrote the following: “After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question what it meant to be Jesus. During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves.”

In his baptism, Jesus experienced an overpowering show of solidarity with God. The voice from heaven boomed, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). God’s affirmation must have been an intoxicating elixir. The human thing to do would be to grab hold of that power and use it. For good, of course, but use it, nonetheless. Jesus didn’t do the human thing. He did just the opposite. He did the Spirit thing. “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan (his baptism) and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Luke 4:1). He left the refreshing waters of his baptism and lived for a while in the dry dust of the wilderness. And in the wilderness the Beloved in whom God was well pleased … emptied himself. He stretched his human skin and resolved himself to make it fit.

His response to the temptation was, in essence, “this is not about me.” Satan: Are you hungry? Make stones turn to bread. Jesus: Of course I’m hungry, but this is not about me. Satan: Do you want to change the world? Worship me and I will give you the world. Jesus: Of course, I want to change the world, but this is not about me. Satan: Do you want people to believe you? Throw yourself from the pinnacle of the temple and let them see the angels save you. Jesus: Of course I want people to believe me, but this is not about me.

Jesus knew exactly what any human being would do. He felt it in every strand of his human DNA. And he did just the opposite. I agree with Buechner – Jesus wrestled with what it meant to be Jesus.

But what does that mean for us? It means that we too have to wrestle with what it means to be us. What it means to be both human and Christian. What it means to empty ourselves. What it means, in light of Jesus, to now live in this skin of flesh.

Joan Chittister, in her book, The Liturgical Year: the spiraling adventure of the spiritual life, says that the temptation of Jesus reminds “us not to be surprised at our own struggle with the will to have power, the desire for things, the propensity for the morally malign – all of which threaten to deter our giving ourselves to the things that count in life. As Jesus triumphed over the seductions of the world and the limitations of being human, so must we.”

Next week – How do we begin?

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:32:00 +0000

Today (February 13^th) is Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent in the Western Christian calendar. It falls 46 days before Easter. While not specifically instituted in the Scriptures, Lent is roughly analogous to several 40 day periods in Scripture. It has been compared to the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness enduring temptation from Satan (Matthew 4:1–11, Mark 1:12–13, and Luke 4:1–13); the 40 days Moses spent fasting and repenting after the making of the golden calf (Deut. 9:18); the 40 days Moses fasted on the mountain top as God gave him the Law (Exodus 34:28); and the forty years that the people spent in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land. In the spirit of these biblical moments Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of a 40-day period of prayer and fasting (called Lent), before entering the great celebration of Easter.

To me it was always the time of year that all my Catholic friends had grey smudges on their foreheads. It seemed a strange and unfamiliar practice. Ash Wednesday, of course, derives its name from the practice of placing ashes on the foreheads of Christians as a reminder and celebration of human mortality, and as a sign of mourning and repentance to God.

The symbol is ancient. Ashes were used in ancient times to express mourning. An ancient example of expressing penitence in this way is found in Job 2:12 and 42:3–6. The prophet Jeremiah calls for repentance this way: "O daughter of my people, gird on sackcloth, roll in the ashes" (Jer. 6:26). The prophet Daniel recounted pleading to God this way: "I turned to the Lord God, pleading in earnest prayer, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes" (Daniel 9:3).

Other examples are found in several other books of the Bible including, Numbers 19:9, 19:17, Job 2:8, Jonah 3:6, Matthew 11:21, and Luke 10:13. Ezekiel 9 also speaks of a linen-clad messenger marking the forehead of the city inhabitants that have sorrow over the sins of the people. Those with the mark are spared destruction.

So … TODAY marks the beginning of a journey to Easter. TODAY I'm working past my childish and xenophobic view of the ritual to reflect on what Ash Wednesday means for me -- a life-long, die-hard, Baptist. You see ... the ashes are a symbol of something deeper and wider than any one Christian tradition. The ashes are a symbol of our own frail humanity … they are a remembrance of our desperate need for God -- “for dust you are and to dust you will return” (Gen. 3:19).

Later this week I’ll write on some practical things we can do to observe Lent. But for now, in light of Ash Wednesday, I leave you with Gen. 3:19 … and some profound thoughts on that verse by Fr. Walter Burghardt, S.J.:

“Pretty grim, isn’t it? Only if you stop there; only if you stop with the symbol that is dust. But that symbol is incomplete. When I dust your forehead, I dust it with another symbol: the sign of the cross. And that symbol declares that dust has been redeemed. Redeemed not in some shadowy sense but with startling realism. . . . And so, ever since Bethlehem and Calvary, this speck of humanity that is you, this is now “charged with the grandeur of God.” You are brothers and sisters of God-in-flesh. Your dust is literally electric with God’s own life; your nothingness is filled with God’s eternity. Your nothingness has Christ’s own shape.

With this new shape, the sentence “You are dust and to dust you will return” ought no longer terrify us. We no longer have to despair at our ceaseless downward movement to death. Of course we shall die; and I, for one, am not anxious to die — I love this life with a passion that is perhaps unchristian. But the sign of the cross cries to us that death is not the end of our dust.”

FRIDAY of PASSION WEEK -- When Darkness Reigns

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:31:00 +0000

At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour.

-- Mark 14:3-5

The most startling thing about Friday, of course, is Jesus hanging on a cross. He hung there for six hours, from 9am till 3pm – A relatively short period of time to hang on a cross before dying. It would typically take 12 to 24 hours for a person to die from crucifixion, depending on two things: (1) How badly the person had been beaten before being placed on the cross, (2) How quickly the Roman officials wanted the person to die. If they wanted to speed things up they would break the person’s legs and stab them with a sword. The stabbing would have the affect of draining the blood, and thus weakening the victim, and the broken legs would make it harder for them to lift themselves up on the cross. Unable to do that, the person would quickly suffocate to death. Jesus dying within six hours on the cross meant that they had already beaten him to within an inch of his life before placing him on the cross. It meant that everyone was in a hurry to get this crucifixion over with. So … six hours wasn’t very long. Of course, if you’re the one being crucified, six minutes on a cross is too long.

Early Friday morning, while most of Jerusalem was asleep, Jesus was apprehended – Sold out by one of his closest followers. He was taken to the house Annas, the patriarch of the High Priestly class. Annas bought and controlled the high priesthood for more than thirty years. For most of the first half of the first century Annas or one of his sons sat on the throne of the High Priest in Jerusalem. And he had become unimaginably rich in the process. Imagine controlling a $500 million-dollar-a-year business for more than 30 years. At the time of Jesus’ arrest, it was Annas’ son-in-law, Caiphas, who was tapped to actually hold the title of High Priest. But make no mistake about it – Annas was the power behind the High Priesthood. That’s why Jesus was taken first to the house of Annas. Annas then sent him to the house of Caiphas, so that he could be officially charged.

According to Jewish law, the trial of Jesus was illegal on numerous grounds. It was held at night. There were strict rules against that. The full council was not there. They didn’t have a quorum. They had decided that Jesus needed to go. It was a setup. Everyone knew it. The false witnesses. The chief priests. Pontius Pilate. Herod. They all knew that it was a setup. Of course, none of that matters when you believe that the ends justify the means. Jesus has become too popular as a prophet and potential Messiah … he was too much of a threat to the ruling elite in Jerusalem. He had to go.

The crucifixion, then, was no accident of circumstance. It wasn’t a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a well-orchestrated, strategic move by the Jerusalem ruling elite to protect and solidify their power base. Jesus was someone they had been concerned about for a considerable time, and as that concern grew to a fever pitch it became simply a matter of waiting for the optimum moment. Timing is everything. Once Annas gave the green light, the dominos started falling. But the dominos had been in place for quite awhile.

By nine, Friday morning, Jesus was hanging on the cross, dying in agony. Three hours later, at noon, everything went dark. God covered the sun with his hand. If you have ever suffered a devastating loss you can probably understand how the light seems to go out of your life. Friday was the day that darkness reigned.

It would take a generation of post-resurrection witnesses to interpret exactly what happened in the darkness.

Here are some of their conclusions:

“For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:24-28).

“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Jesus), and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation …” (Colossians 1:19-22)

“He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Romans 4:25).

“Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin” (1 Peter 4:1).

In the darkness Jesus took all our sin into himself so that when he died, it would die with him. Thank God it worked.

Reflection and Action

Take time today to reflect on how your sins have hurt you and those you love. Thank God that he has eradicated those sins and will heal your pain.

Call someone you love and tell them how you feel about them.

THURSDAY of PASSION WEEK -- A Reason To Die

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:29:00 +0000

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a palce for you. And if I go and prepare a palce for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

-- John 14:1-4

There was something strange about Thursday night. There were a lot of moving pieces. There were the groups that wanted Jesus dead – the Sadducees (the priestly class with their power centered at the Temple in Jerusalem. They controlled the single greatest economic power in all the land – the sacrificial system at the temple – in today’s monetary system it would have been the equivalent of a 4-5 billion dollar enterprise), the Pharisees (the party of the people they tried to balance the power of the Sadducees, and they were the moral police of their day), the Herodians (they wanted the house of Herod back on the throne. They felt that any local ruler was better than a foreign one, and they would want to get rid of anyone who threatened to take the throne), and the Zealots (they wanted a revolution against Rome; once Jesus proved he wasn’t interested in that, they were ready to move on to other things).

There are those who always think they are right …

Then there was the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, who knew nothing of all the plotting. He would find out in the early hours of the morning, and all he wanted was peace. There were more than a million Jews in Jerusalem during festival. It was a Roman ruler’s worse nightmare. What if someone found a way to unite all of them against Rome. Rome would crush the rebellion, of course, but Pilate would have been lynched long before Rome could come to his aid.

As the Roman Governor, Pilate could do anything he wanted to do. Whatever he thought he needed to do to keep the peace. He could kill anyone he wanted to kill and the powers that be in Rome couldn’t have cared less. But the one thing for which he would pay dearly would be a riot or, even worse, a revolution. Pilate didn’t want to upset the one million Jews in Jerusalem who were there to celebrate the Passover Feast. He would do whatever he had to do to placate them … to keep them happy. He wanted an uneventful Passover feast.

There are those who are always trying to please the crowd …

And then, of course, there was Judas – Disenchanted with the Jesus movement because, as it turns out, Jesus didn’t come to Jerusalem to fight. He came to die. That wasn’t what Judas had in mind when he joined the movement. He thought Jesus would be a triumphant Messiah, a conquering king. He had no idea that Jesus was going to be a suffering servant. Whatever Judas’ motives, I don’t think it was the money. The money was symbolic – 30 pieces of silver was the going rate for a slave. His motives were deeper than that – it was ideological. Judas had his own agenda … and when it didn’t match Jesus’ agenda, Judas chose his own.

There are those who always have their own agenda …

And then, of course, there are the disciples. They wanted to follow Jesus … they wanted to do the right thing … but they were going to need a lot of help.

Jesus tells two of them – go into the city and there you will find a man … it was all very clandestine … very mysterious. If there is one driving theme to this scene – one certainty about what is happening on that Thursday – it would be this: Jesus knew that he was going to die … and he knew why. He knew that they were looking for a way to get him and he knew that they would find it. And in spite of all of the human drama and political motives and personal agendas swirling around him that night … he knew that in the eternal scheme of things it was all irrelevant. He knew the real reason he had to die.

And so Jesus spends his last night before death with his closest disciples. He washes their feet. He tells them to trust in God. He warns them of the coming firestorm. He gives them something with which to remember him – the bread and the wine – a way for them to draw strength from his Spirit. The bread and the wine were to remind them of the faith community that Jesus was building with his sacrifice.

Thursday night Jesus spoke truth into their lives. He reminded them that they had each other, and that no matter what happened next, HE would never leave them nor forsake them. He reminded them that there was a reason for him to die. Jesus is still reminding us of that … every day of our lives.

Reflection and Action

Reflect on all the places where your agenda is overriding God’s agenda for your life.

Take stock of all the places where you are trying to please people, instead of God.

Tell someone how you feel about Jesus? Share with them what Jesus has done for you in the last month.

WEDNESDAY of PASSION WEEK – The Calm Before the Storm

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:50:00 +0000

While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.

-- Mark 14:3-5

Wednesday was the day of silence. There is nothing recorded about Wednesday. It’s as if the day just dropped off the calendar. No movement from Jesus. No words from his lips. Just silence. It was the calm before the storm. It must have been anything but calm for Jesus.

The last thing we know about Jesus before the mysterious silence of Wednesday happened Tuesday evening. Jesus was reclining at the supper table in the home of a friend, Simon the Leper. A mysterious woman slips into the scene, breaks open a jar of very expensive perfume, and pours it over Jesus’ head.

The pungent aroma of pure nard must have quickly filled the room. Those who missed the action must have been asking, “What’s that smell?” When the disciples realize what has been done, they are stunned. Their first thought is, “What a waste.” There are so many ways the perfume could have been leveraged for good. The perfume could have been sold for a handsome price and the money used to help the poor.

Apparently, Jesus had taught them well. They knew that their primary responsibility was for others. Their reasoning was sound. If the woman wants to donate the expensive perfume to the Jesus ministry, the best use of the gift would be to liquidate it and use the cash to help the poor. After all, isn’t that what Jesus taught us to do? It was sound reasoning – but, on that day, it was wrong. Any other day the gift should have and would have been used to help the poor. But not that day … that day was different … that day the most pressing need was to anoint Jesus for his burial (14:8).

And there’s the clue we have been looking for. What was Jesus thinking about Tuesday night when he went to sleep? His own death and burial. And what did he spend Wednesday doing? I don’t know for sure. But, I suspect he was preparing himself for crucifixion and burial. Maybe he talked to Joseph of Arimathea – a man of some wealth and a secret follower of Jesus. Maybe he spent time with his mother and his brothers, trying to explain the trajectory of his life. I don’t know. Maybe he spent it with The Twelve, trying to prepare them for the firestorm that was coming. I don’t know. Surely, he spent some time talking to God. Maybe he spent the whole day talking to God. I don’t know. Silence bothers me. I don’t like it. That’s why I fill my life with constant motion and noise – so that I won’t have to deal with silence and the insecurity of not knowing. I don’t like not knowing.

That’s what Wednesday stands for. It stands for not knowing. It stands for waiting silently on God, not knowing what comes next, only that it will be hard and require more than what you have. It stands for doing the hardest thing possible – stopping the constant movement and noise of your life to listen for God. And then … when you hear nothing … trusting anyway, that God knows what he is doing.

Reflection and Action

Why do you find it hard to make time for quiet reflection? What really keeps you from moments of prolonged silence?

Take time to listen for God. Wait for him and if he asks you to do something … do it!

TUESDAY of PASSION WEEK -- The Cost of Discipleship

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:30:00 +0000

Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on.”

-- Mark 12:41-44

Tuesday was a very busy day for Jesus. He spent the entire day in the temple courts, arriving early in the morning. He spent most of the day teaching his disciples. A few times he was recognized and confronted by the priests and teachers of the law. Looking for a reason to arrest him, they tried to trap him in his words. It must have been a stressful day for Jesus.

Jesus was increasingly using parables to make his point. They had the double advantage of making the students work to get the message, and always a bit cryptic, they kept his enemies guessing at what he actually meant to say. Jesus talked a lot about investing in the Kingdom of God. He was confronted on the issues of paying taxes to Rome, the concept of the afterlife, the true character of the Messiah, and the meaning of the Law. At one point he goes into a pointed tirade against the sinister machinations of the Pharisees. He exposes the hypocrisy of the religious leadership. He reveals the signs of the end of the age. Jesus covers a lot of ground in about ten hours on Tuesday.

Late in the afternoon, as the crowd at the temple mound began to swell, Jesus positioned himself, sitting near one of the clay pots placed at each entrance to the court of women, where the people would enter and deliver their offerings. This was the act of almsgiving. It was a special offering for the poor, always collected at the festival. Almsgiving was one of the three most important outward manifestations of the inward spiritual life. The other two were prayer and fasting. Jesus taught that in each case we are not to engage in these spiritual acts ostentatiously. At the temple he is witnessing the very thing he taught against – the ostentatious giving of the religious elite. They give “to be seen by men” (Matt. 6:1-4). Jesus is turned off by that kind of show.

Jesus makes two important points when he sees the widow give her offering. He was comparing the “takers,” with the “givers.” His first point was about the takers. In fact, he had just finished teaching about the “takers.” Jesus said, ‘Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers’ (Mark 12:38-40). In the very next verse Jesus was watching the people give and he saw the poor widow place in the offering plate “all she had to live on” (i.e., her whole house).

On the one hand, Jesus wants us to see the horrible violation of the “takers.” Even when they give, they are taking more than they give (they do it for the honor, fame, and adulation). They “devour widows’ houses,” means that their insatiable appetite for more strips the truly spiritual ones from their last ounce of dignity in this world. They “devour widows’ houses,” is possibly the worst indictment that Jesus every issued against a group of people. It is the most shameful act. And it is reserved for those who are constantly taking and never really giving.

Of course, in contrast to the religious elite, Jesus pointed to the poor widow. She is the epitome of one who gives without reserve. She invests in the Kingdom of God without hope or expectation of receiving anything in return. She gives everything she has. All of it is spent on God. She holds nothing back.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his classic work, “The Cost of Discipleship,” explains the difference between what I have called the “takers,” and the “givers.” It is the difference between what he calls, “cheap grace,” and “costly grace.” Here is what Bonhoeffer says:

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son … Costly grace is the Incarnation of God (Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, p.47-48).

The religious elite of Jesus’ day knew only cheap grace. The poor widow with her two copper coins understood costly grace. So did the woman with her alabaster jar. So did Jesus with his cross.

Reflection and Action

What is God’s call on your life? Why did he create you? What did he fashion you to do?

Undoubtedly, you will spend some money this Easter – Easter clothes; Easter baskets; Easter toys; Easter candy; An Easter meal. What will you spend on God?

MONDAY of PASSION WEEK -- God’s Love for All Nations

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:21:00 +0000

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations?” But you have made it “a den of robbers.”

-- Mark 11:15-17

Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was short lived. The next day he was in direct conflict with the religious leadership in Jerusalem. Jesus cleared the temple court of the money changers and those who were selling doves and other animals for the sacrificial system. Why did he do that?

His quotation from Zachariah as he cleared the temple is a clue as to his motive. Jesus had an understanding of what God wanted to do in saving the world. He understood that God’s salvation was for the entire world, Jew and Gentile alike. Everyone knew that the temple was a house of prayer. However, they had lost the vision for the universal nature of the house of prayer. Jesus reminded them that God said, “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” The word he used for “nations” could also be translated “races.”

Caiphas, the High Priest, had moved the money changers and sellers of sacrificial animals from the Kidron Valley into the court of the Gentiles on the temple mound. He had done this for political and economic reasons. The sacrificial system in Jerusalem had become an extremely lucrative business and moving operations into the temple area had the double advantage of increasing business and efficiency. However, according to some (including Jesus), the move had polluted the court of Gentiles. Any business that deals with selling animals has to deal with the excrement produced by the animals. For some (like Caiphas) it was justified because, after all, it was just the court of the Gentiles. Jesus wanted to remind them that God’s house of prayer was for “all races.” The court of Gentiles was just as important as any other corner of the Temple.

Jesus was fulfilling the prophetic promise of Zechariah: “there shall never again be a trader (merchant) in the sanctuary of the Lord of hosts at that time” (Zech. 14:21). He saw the vision of Zechariah as definitive for his day and time. The time when God would share his love and grace with all races had come. Jesus was the embodiment of that vision. “And the kingdom of the Lord shall be revealed upon all the inhabitants of the earth; at that time they shall serve before the Lord with one accord, for his name is established in the world; there is none apart from him” (Targum Zech. 14:9).

The love that God was now manifesting through his Son, Jesus, was a love that could not be packaged and sold. It was a love that could not be pocketed and marketed as the exclusive right of one people group. It was a love that was for all races. Jesus wanted everyone to experience the love of God.

Reflection and Action

Reflect on ways that you can share God’s love with others.
Share God’s love this week with someone who comes from a different part of the world.

New Sermon Series

noreply@blogger.com (Ellis Orozco) — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 20:06:00 +0000

The story of Jesus could be told in many different ways. The Bible uses four writers to give us a multi-dimensional feel for the life and times of Jesus. Every moment of the story counts for something. John tells us that he had to pick and choose which moments to tell us about because if everything that Jesus did were written down, "even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written" (John 21:25). The Gospel writers may have had their reasons for including parts of the Jesus story and leaving other parts out. Matthew, Mark and Luke include a lot of the same scenes. John approaches it from a completely different perspective. For this reason the first three gospels have been labeled the synoptic gospels (the word synoptic means, "to see together"). But even these three writers who seem to be somewhat interdependent, diverge and converge in ways that are not always easy to understand. They don't contradict each other ... they simply refuse to be pasted into the same mold. Like four witnesses standing at four corners of an intersection watching an automobile accident -- their stories diverge and converge because they saw it from different angles.

We recognize that every moment of Jesus' life was an act of love for his Heavenly Father. At one point toward the end Jesus prayed, "I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began" (John 17:4-5). Jesus lived every moment of his life for God and was the perfect reflection of God. He said, "I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world ... Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you" (John 17:6-7). Jesus lived a life of perfect worship.

In this sermon series we will examine four critical moments in Jesus' life -- four moments so intense they reveal the eternal relationship between Father and Son. In these four moments Jesus teaches us what it means to worship an all powerful God. Jesus teaches us about the depth of God's love.
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