The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Luke (Page 14 of 24)

To Have Been Found!

February 11, 2015 / / 0 Comments

When Jesus is passing through Jericho in Luke 19, please notice that Zacchaeus does not invite Jesus over for dinner. Jesus invites himself.

“I must stay at your house today!” ~Luke 19:5

There were restaurants and hotels in Jericho. Jesus had friends in that town. Why did he say he “must” stay with this chief tax collector? Because Zacchaeus was lost and needed to be saved. And that’s what Jesus does: he saves.

True, Jesus was never one to turn down a free meal at the wrong place. But, the striking thing is that he invites himself. Jesus is always intruding, always pushing in to places where he might not be wanted.

“Today salvation has come to this house! ~Luke 19:9

So, according to Scripture, this is how we define salvation: when Jesus intrudes into your space and makes your sinful table the site of his holy feast.

This is Jesus’ great priority. It’s his initiative, his call. It’s his choice. It’s his undivided passion. And he’ll stop at nothing to see it through.

What a deal — this Kingdom of God! — where the main requirement for membership is to honest-to-goodness lost and the main claim for citizenship is not to have discovered, but to have been found!

Peace,

Allan

Which of You?

February 9, 2015 / / 1 Comment

Allow me to suggest a major twist to the ways we read and understand the familiar parables in Luke 15:

Jesus asks, “Which of you…?”

And then he describes this guy who loses one sheep out of a hundred. He leaves the ninety-nine sheep out in the middle of the desert exposed to who knows how many kinds of danger and peril. Then he beats the bushes all day long in the searing heat, climbing over rocks, crawling through the Acacia, to finally locate this one, single, solitary sheep.

Then Jesus describes a woman who loses one coin. She rips up all the carpet in her house, she pulls every cushion out of every couch, she cleans out every junk drawer and goes through every closet, she plunges the toilet, meticulously combing over every square inch of her dwelling to find this one, single, solitary coin.

Then Jesus describes a father who has a son who steals half his fortune. This son runs away from home, he squanders the family money on drugs, alcohol, and prostitution, and he winds up on nine different state criminal registries. This guy is broke, he’s gross, and he limps home after all this time, after blowing the family money and ruining the family name, he crawls back home and his dad throws him a huge party. He restores the son to his previous position with the family right there on the spot. No questions asked.

And Jesus asks, “Which of you…?”

I think we’ve traditionally answered Jesus’ question by saying, “Well, all of us! Anybody with a heart! We would all take these steps, we would all go to these lengths to find what is lost! Of course!”

Really? Is that really true?

I don’t know about you, but I’d probably keep my eyes on the ninety nine sheep and make sure they’re safe and write off the other one as a loss on my tax return. I wouldn’t get down on my hands and knees for more than a minute-and-a-half for just one coin, would you? And this son? Seriously? What would you do? I’d at least make this kid finish his apology speech. He’d have to earn the robe and the ring. He’d have to get a job. Enter rehab. Get some counseling. And it would be six months before I’d even consider letting him have his cell phone back! He’d have to earn my trust back.

When Jesus tells these stories and asks, “Which of you…?” I think the honest answers is, “None of us.”

None of us would really do these things. It’s too unseemly. Too reckless. It’s not responsible. It doesn’t make sense.

Ah, ha! Exactly! These are not stories about us, these are stories about God. Jesus is not saying God’s love and commitment is just like ours. He’s saying God’s love and devotion and determination to find what is lost is like nothing you’ve ever experienced in your whole life! Jesus is telling us that our God will stop at nothing — nothing! He’ll do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to find and rescue everybody who is lost.

Including you.

Like most of Jesus’ stories, this is a contrast, not a comparison. God will take great risks, he’ll go to foolish extremes, in order to save. And we’ve never, ever experienced anything quite like it.

Peace,

Allan

Eating and Drinking with Losers

January 26, 2015 / / 0 Comments

“When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.” ~Luke 14:13

“Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ~Matthew 9:11

“Bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame!” ~Luke 14:21

“Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” ~Matthew 11:19

The gospels show us that the Kingdom of God is a big party with a bunch of losers. Jesus wants us to see that God’s idea of a great time is a huge feast with a bunch of people you wouldn’t be caught dead with on a Saturday night. Or any other time of the week. Jesus came eating and drinking with losers.

And you are one of those losers. So am I. We are all losers together at the table of our King.

We’re all coming to the table with a limp. We’ve all got a wound or a chronic pain. We come to the table with a horrible story or a distorted view or a serious issue. All of us are maimed. Or dysfunctional. Or disabled. And broken. All of us.

The Pharisees at these dinner parties — the ones “watching closely,” the ones criticizing Jesus and complaining — are so self-righteous and smug with their nice and tidy lives in their pressed and flowing robes. They set themselves apart from and above the losers. “They’re sinners; but we’re saved. Their lives are a mess; but we’ve got it all together. They need a whole bunch of God’s grace and forgiveness; we just need a little grace to get us over the top.”

No! In Luke 14, Jesus says, at these dinner parties, don’t choose a place of honor for yourself. You’re not as great as you think you are. And these people you categorize as losers are my cherished children.

We are all sinners, every one of us. We have all sinned and fallen terribly short of the glory of God. And we are all being saved together by the lavish grace of our Father. Yes, the ground is level at the foot of the cross. And, yes, all the seats are the same around the table of our Lord.

Scripture says we’re all going to eat and drink together with Jesus forever. We’re all going to take our places with him around the table at the wedding feast of the Lamb. And I think Sundays are the warm-up. I think Sunday mornings are party practice. Sunday mornings together are like the chips and hot sauce to the fajitas and enchiladas. Eating and drinking with sinners, sharing a meal with broken losers, with each other, together on Sundays, teaches us how to live together. It’s one of the places we learn to bear one another’s burdens. We learn to help each other, to encourage each other, to challenge each other.

We look at all the faces around the Lord’s Table on Sundays and they’re all looking back at us. No doubt, seeing very clearly our messes, knowing fully our sins. And, yet, still choosing to eat and drink with us. And we know at that moment that Jesus was crucified for the lousy company he kept. And he still is.

Peace,

Allan

It’s About Today

January 20, 2015 / / 0 Comments

“Today this Scripture is fulfilled.” ~Luke 4:21

The good news of the Gospel is not just helpful advice or even truthful statements. Scripture is all about what God is doing right now. Right here. Today. I think Jesus’ sermon in that synagogue in Nazareth really hits home when he says “Today! Today this Scripture is fulfilled!”

It’s one thing to say God will move. God will act. God will save. It’s quite another thing to say God is moving today! God is acting right now today! God is saving right here today!

Today!

That’s exciting. It’s immediate. It’s right now, in your face, all around you, in your space, and it demands a response. Look at it. God is speaking, he is doing, he is disrupting things, he is changing people, he is saving men and women, he is renewing the world! Today!

Do you read the Scriptures the way Jesus and his disciples read them? Do you look in the Bible for what God did back then or for what it says God is doing today? It’s all about today. Do you see his potential in your today? Do you feel his possibility in today? Do you know what he is doing in you and through you right now today?

Take a minute today and read a psalm or two out loud. Real loud. Pray a passage from Matthew 5-7 or John 17 or Ephesians 1-2 out loud. Real loud. Ask God to speak to you. Ask him to show you. Now praise him. Give him thanksgiving and honor. He is not distant or aloof. Our God is not uncaring or inactive, hesitant or restrained. He is gloriously at work right now today!

Peace,

Allan

Preaching the Word

January 17, 2015 / / 0 Comments

“The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.” ~Luke 4:17

When he took the pulpit that day in his home church, notice the congregation at First Nazareth didn’t ask Jesus to share his feelings or talk about the news or quote a best-selling author or show a movie clip. They handed him the Holy Scriptures and demanded that he work from that. Jesus preached God’s Word.

God’s Word.

The same Word that created everything out of nothing. What else would we possibly want to preach?!?

When God speaks, things happen. God’s Word gets things done. God’s Word accomplishes the impossible. It defeats the invincible. It moves the unmovable. God does things — mighty things, eternal things, unbelievably wonderful things — with his Word. He can do anything just by saying a word.

And that’s one reason I preach.

I think I can shake you. I think I can change your life. Sometimes I think I can make you jump up out of your seat and shout “Amen!” or “Hallelujah!” with nothing but the Word of God. I preach because I think Christ Jesus can get a hold of you with nothing but the Word of God.

God’s Word is just as powerful and transformative today as it was when Jesus opened it up in front of his church two thousand years ago. And I get to do it again tomorrow.

How cool is that?

Peace,

Allan

The Gospel is for All

January 15, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Jesus was a preacher. Jesus preached all the time. And, like every preacher I’ve ever met, he had a couple of common themes he returned to over and over again in his sermons. His favorite was the Kingdom of God. Jesus preached the coming of the Kingdom of God. Constantly.

“Repent, for the Kingdom of God is near!” ~Matthew 4:17
“The time has come! The Kingdom of God is near!” ~Mark 1 :15
“I must preach the good news of the Kingdom of God !” ~Luke 4:43

As he heals the blind and the deaf and the crippled, Jesus proclaims the Kingdom of God is near. As he sends his disciples to preach all over Israel, he directs them to declare the good news of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God was the steady beat that drove Jesus’ preaching, it was the flag at the front of his sermons: the good news of the Kingdom of God.

So, what was Jesus trying to show us in these sermons? What does he want us to know about God and the eternal Kingdom of God? What are we supposed to see?

I think Jesus’ main point in all his sermons is that the Kingdom of God is for everybody. The Gospel is for all. It was a radical idea then, and it’s still very much a dramatic idea today.

In his very first (and, I assume, last) sermon in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus preached that the Kingdom of God was for all people. He reminds the listeners that there were many poor widows in Israel during the great famine, but Elijah didn’t feed any of those good Jewish women. He only fed the one alien woman of another nation and race. He points out that there were lots of suffering lepers in Israel, but the only person Elisha healed was a violent, non-Jewish army officer of the occupying Syrian forces. Jesus preaches that, yes, God has come. But he’s not really come in exactly the ways you expected. God really enjoys working the other side of the street.

This sermon and all the others like it didn’t go over so well in front of congregations full of people who believed they were the only ones who had gotten it right. When Jesus says God is doing a new thing, it doesn’t fly with a bunch of people who are holding tight with a white-knuckle death grip to things that are old.

The Kingdom of God is for everybody. That’s what Jesus wants us to see.

Jesus made friends with the poor and oppressed. And we celebrate that. But he also made friends with the rich and the oppressors. And that’s maddening to us because we’re always trying to divide the world up between us and them. Good and bad. Worthy and unworthy. Called and not called. Those who might accept the Lordship of Jesus and those who never will. Those who are a good investment of the church’s money and energy and those who would be a waste of the church’s time and resources.

Jesus wants us to see that his Kingdom is for everybody. Everybody! The curtain is torn! The walls are down! The barriers are destroyed!

That’s the message. It’s what Jesus preached. It’s what he lived. And it kept him in hot water. It got him disfellowshipped from his home church and nearly killed.

And Jesus sends us out to preach and to live the exact same good news. In the exact same ways.

“As you go, preach this message: the Kingdom of God is near!” ~Matthew 10:7
“He sent them out to preach the Kingdom of God.” ~Luke 9:2
“Go and proclaim the Kingdom of God!” ~Luke 9:60
“Tell them, ‘The Kingdom of God is near you!'” ~Luke 10:9
“The gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations!” ~Matthew 24:14

Jesus calls us to speak and to live this same message. We spread this word around liberally. Lavishly. We live it out with others generously. Abundantly. We forgive. We love. We share. We help. We compliment. We bring the gospel to everybody without reservation. We treat everybody like Jesus the Christ came to this earth to save them. We treat them like the Kingdom of God is for them. We speak to a mean neighbor like they belong in God’s Kingdom. We talk about the terrorists like God loves them. Like the rain that falls on the just and the unjust, whether they want it or not, whether they ask for it or not, whether they accept it or not, here it is! The love of God. The forgiveness of Christ. The mercy of the Holy Spirit. Freely and joyfully we proclaim and live the good news of God’s Kingdom with all.

Because that is God. That is the Kingdom of God. It’s the truth. And if we live it, it will truly set us and everybody we know free.

Peace,

Allan

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