Category: Journey to the Cross

Early in the morning, as they were passing by, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up. Then Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.”

Jesus replied to them, “Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, everything you pray and ask for—believe that you have received it and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven will also forgive you your wrongdoing.” Mark 11:20-25 (CSB)

I’d rather not have this text in the Gospel, if I’m honest a it leads to Christian Science, or to the health and wealth Gospel. We’ve seen preachers on TV proclaim riches in the name of Jesus Christ, all the while swindling the flock. “Send in your money, and we’ll double your harvest.” 

Predatory preaching. 

More to the point, it redirects the subject of emphasis from being God to being us. If you can’t wilt that fig tree then you just don’t trust enough. Like it’s a Jedi mind trick that you really have to sense to accomplish. 

This becomes problematic quickly. The cancer is your fault, the loss of a loved one was due to a lack of your faith. Your ship hasn’t come in because you didn’t pray enough.

But it is there. Just like Jesus telling his disciples to go out and heal. Just like, during the feeding of the five thousand, when Jesus first tests his disciples by telling them to feed the crowd first (Mark 6:37), suggesting that they were able to do the very same thing he could do. It suggests that this is a reality we can operate in. 

Jesus isn’t a magician. In fact, magic is outlawed in scripture (Deuteronomy 18:10-12). What he is is fully human, as Adam was before his fall. He has man in perfect union with God, described by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. This is important for many reasons, but not the least of which being that in that perfect harmony with the Father—in that communion—the father and the son, man and human, interact conjointly. The son responds to the father, and the father to the son. Meaning, the will of the son is so rooted in the will of the Father, that the father senses and responds to the wishes of the son. So, in keeping with the will of the Father, if Jesus responds to something of nature (material), the Father responds, in part because the son wouldn’t ever act of order from the Father’s will to begin with. 

It’s not like he’s asking for a mansion, a pile of gold, or power. Therefore it’s the delight of the Father to respond. This is faith. There’s a completeness to the union that is entirely trusting. 

The most amazing thing about this, is this is our end. Jesus is the figure, or author, after which we are all being moded — that which we are all becoming. The beautiful Hymn in Colossians indicates that it is in, through, and for him that we exist, and to be like him is our end, as humans in union with God. Therefore, in such a union, nature does respond to us, because our faith in God is so complete. To fully be immersed in the will of the Father means that we will and can tell a mountain to move or a fig tree to shrivel. The key point being rooted in the Father’s will. For these actions all glorify God, and not ourselves. Again, it’s not magic, but an invitation into a full relationship with a God who responds to our heart, and teaches us to do likewise. 

Oh to have faith like that! And yet, someday, we shall. 

Jesus went into the temple and threw out all those buying and selling. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. He said to them, “It is written, my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of thieves!”

The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders that he did and the children shouting in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant and said to him, “Do you hear what these children are saying?”

Jesus replied, “Yes, have you never read:

You have prepared praise
from the mouths of infants and nursing babies?”

Then he left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there. Matthew 21:12-17 (CSB)

In yesterday’s text we saw Jesus enter by the way of the eastern gate. God was returning to his city and his temple, and he’s not happy with the state of things. 

The temple was the heart of Jewish worship. In it sins were forgiven, God was rightly worshiped, and lives restored. I’ve sometimes wondered about this text, and how it was fair. For the purposes of sacrifice, Jewish people had to come from all over Israel to rightly worship in the temple, bringing with them their ritual sacrifices of rams, bulls, and pigeons. It’s difficult to drag a bull a hundred miles, so people would bring coins and exchange it for the required animal at the temple, for a small price of convenience. 

What part of this made Jesus angry? The commercialism? The opportunism? The laziness? Or did he not really care about the sacrifices at all, and the temple was really to represent something different? 

Maybe it’s that the actions became so rote, that instead of conjuring the desired response, people thought they were accomplishing what they needed to do simply by doing their basic duty. 

We already saw that God didn’t care about sacrifices, he wanted transformed hearts. Worse that people commercialized the roteness. Religion, especially the sort that appease consciences without requiring much in return have always been good business. Most people want their life choices affirmed by God, and to be sent away with a blessing. Few love being told repentance and a change of life is in order.

I wonder how Jesus would feel if he walked into any church in America?  

The Jerusalem temple would ultimately be destroyed by the Romans, with all that’s left being the Western Wall, or the “Wailing Wall”. But Jesus had a different vision for his temple. Tear this temple down and I will raise it up in three days (John 2:18-21) Jesus cries while overturning tables in John’s gospel. The ultimate temple he’s talking about didn’t have walls. It didn’t have money changers, or pigeon sellers. It was himself. 

And this temple would be incorruptible. Its worshipers would also come to it to rightly worship, and receive forgiveness, and to have their lives restored. But this temple wouldn’t and won’t be found in a building. Rather it is in the Holy Spirit dwelling within us that draws us to Christ and allows these things to take place. Don’t you know that you are the Temple of the Lord? Paul cries to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). 

Yesterday we saw the prophecy given to Ezekiel that God was indeed coming back to his temple. This temple will not be destroyed or corrupted, because God himself is forming himself in his people. His mercy seat is upon His Spirit which rests in you. Don’t subject God’s holy temple to profane or disreputable things! But allow it—you—to be the very ministry of reconciliation to those who need and don’t yet know God. For this is the very temple that Jesus came to rebuild.

When he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples and said, “Go into the village ahead of you. As you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say this: ‘The Lord needs it.’”

So those who were sent left and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

“The Lord needs it,” they said. Then they brought it to Jesus, and after throwing their clothes on the colt, they helped Jesus get on it. As he was going along, they were spreading their clothes on the road. Now he came near the path down the Mount of Olives, and the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen:

Blessed is the King who comes
in the name of the Lord.
Peace in heaven
and glory in the highest heaven!

Some of the Pharisees from the crowd told him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”

He answered, “I tell you, if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out.” Luke 19:28-40(CSB)

In some ways, I find this particular moment as sad as what will follow in the city. 

Jesus knows.
He knows the cheers will fade. 
He knows the celebration will end. 
He knows the cries of hosanna will turn to cries to “crucify him!” 

All within a week.

How quickly the mob shifts its opinions.
How quickly it lusts for blood. 

How taunting those looks of celebration must have been for him, the lauds of great glory. It’s the welcome of a King, but the whole things was backwards, intentionally. Instead of a war horse, he rode a poor colt. Instead of an entourage, his gangly group of disciples. Instead of arriving through the Western or Northern Gate where the Emperor or Kings would enter, he came through the gate facing east. 

Little did they know who was actually returning. 

He led me to the gate, the one that faces east, and I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east. His voice sounded like the roar of a huge torrent, and the earth shone with his glory. The vision I saw was like the one I had seen when he came to destroy the city, and like the ones I had seen by the Chebar Canal. I fell facedown. The glory of the Lord entered the temple by way of the gate that faced east. Ezekiel 43:1-4 (CSB)

Just before Babylon decimated Jerusalem, Ezekiel has a vision of God leaving the temple, and then leaving Jerusalem by the gate facing east, heading past the Mount of Olives. The temple was the very heart of Judaism and Jerusalem. God sat within it, on the mercy seat, between the cherubim in the Holy of Holies. And Ezekiel sees him leave, predicting the fall of the city. But he has the above vision some time later. At the right time, God would come back to his temple (tomorrow’s reading), by way of the Mount of Olives, through the gate facing east again.

God’s long absence, had finally come to an end. And yet, the great tragedy was, they didn’t recognize who he was. For they wanted a different kind of King. A different kind of ruler. And so they would brutally, and horrifically, kill him.

They often wanted to replace God with a King (1 Samuel 8:7). Are we any different? We all frequently prefer worldly power to the servant God. I imagine Jesus looking at them in this moment as he would look at me. He sees me for who I am, and yet he comes.

Let’s read the whole famous John 3:16-21 quote again, and see if we see it in different context in light of this: 

For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.”

As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem, and they thought the kingdom of God was going to appear right away.

Therefore he said, “A nobleman traveled to a far country to receive for himself authority to be king and then to return. He called ten of his servants, gave them ten minas, and told them, ‘Engage in business until I come back.’

“But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We don’t want this man to rule over us.’

“At his return, having received the authority to be king, he summoned those servants he had given the money to, so that he could find out how much they had made in business. The first came forward and said, ‘Master, your mina has earned ten more minas.’

“‘Well done, good servant!’ he told him. ‘Because you have been faithful in a very small matter, have authority over ten towns.’

“The second came and said, ‘Master, your mina has made five minas.’

“So he said to him, ‘You will be over five towns.’

“And another came and said, ‘Master, here is your mina. I have kept it safe in a cloth because I was afraid of you since you’re a harsh man: you collect what you didn’t deposit and reap what you didn’t sow.’

“He told him, ‘I will condemn you by what you have said, you evil servant! If you knew I was a harsh man, collecting what I didn’t deposit and reaping what I didn’t sow, why, then, didn’t you put my money in the bank? And when I returned, I would have collected it with interest.’ So he said to those standing there, ‘Take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.’

“But they said to him, ‘Master, he has ten minas.’

“‘I tell you, that to everyone who has, more will be given; and from the one who does not have, even what he does have will be taken away. But bring here these enemies of mine, who did not want me to rule over them, and slaughter them in my presence.’” Luke 19:11-27 (CSB)

I’ve read this passage over a hundred times, and I’ve always missed the part in bold. He told them this story because they thought the Kingdom was coming right away. 

Interesting, as it was told to those as he is approaching Jerusalem. People assumed something big would happen once he got there. The whole triumphal entry, which we’ll see in the coming days, was an expectation of the coming Messiah to rule militarily. Here Jesus is not only tempering expectations, but also speaking of what the faithful should be doing in the meantime. 

Jesus wasn’t coming to kick out the Romans. He wasn’t coming with Angels and fanfare to destroy the occupying force. In fact, the type of revolution that he was bringing would likely not be recognizing by those looking for one. A suffering messiah is not the type of hero we’re looking for, and a Kingdom of God that starts in the hearts and spirits of his followers who will themselves be martyred and tyrannized for centuries is hardly the muscular religion that draws people to it. It’s one of the reasons most will abandon him in the end.  

I saw a survey recently about the number one characteristic that people are attracted to in their churches. Overwhelmingly, representative of our culture, people were drawn to winners, however you may define that. Successful churches, big programs, massive buildings, huge budgets and followings. Celebrity pastors are a real draw. They want victory. Just like our culture, these symbols of success are representative of a religion worth following. 

No one, and I mean no one expects or wants a church that is struggling to get by with volunteer staff and few to no programs. If they’re not successful, they must not have anything worth having. Who wants to go to that? The same is true of a suffering messiah. Who wants to follow someone who allows himself to get killed and humiliated. It’s the opposite of success. It’s not what we want.

Despite this, Jesus lays out the nature of the Kingdom as it is, not as they want it. It’s not the outward appearance of success, but what is taking place within it that matters. It’s not in kicking out the Romans, or Angels appearing out of nowhere, but in the small actions that we take. Are you still willing to serve him, even when it doesn’t look successful or grand? What you do matters. More so than you realize. And what we do will be acknowledged and rewarded. It doesn’t matter what you belong to. Whether your church is huge, or tiny, whether your community is rich or poor. That we approach the areas of life over which we have control and influence with zeal and energy for the Gospel, that is what matters. 

The Kingdom of God is not about size or appearance, or even about success. Rather, it’s about the lives we live in the midst of the conditions in which we find ourselves.

Said differently by Mother Teresa, “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” 

He entered Jericho and was passing through. There was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was not able because of the crowd, since he was a short man. So running ahead, he climbed up a sycamore tree to see Jesus, since he was about to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down because today it is necessary for me to stay at your house.”

So he quickly came down and welcomed him joyfully. All who saw it began to complain, “He’s gone to stay with a sinful man.”

But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, I’ll give half of my possessions to the poor, Lord. And if I have extorted anything from anyone, I’ll pay back four times as much.”

“Today salvation has come to this house,” Jesus told him, “because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:1-10 (CSB)

This story has always touched me, even from a young age. And I’ve written about it before. Perhaps it’s that he was physically unable to see the Lord pass through because of his stature, and so had to debase himself by climbing a tree. Some have said that by hiding in a sycamore he was trying to see privately, and yet the Lord looks right at him and calls him out anyway. 

He sees Zacchaeus, like he sees us. We cannot hide.

A part of me is deeply humbled by a man who was so desperate, he didn’t care about looking stupid by doing something men shouldn’t do. Men were dignified. They didn’t run, and they didn’t climb. Boys do that. And yet this rich chief tax collector climbs a tree.

Zacchaeus was already ashamed, and cut off, and was hungry for home. Hungry for relationship. While Rome was certainly one of the bloodiest empires in history, it lured far more people with its cultural carrot than with its military stick. Come and be like us, you’ll be happy. See our culture? See our money? See our power? See our status? This is what you want. 

The promise of empires.

Zacchaeus bought in, and it cost him, deeply. The promise proved to be false. And he wanted help, but found none in the community who shamed him for being a traitor.

There was no grace there, until Jesus looks at him.

At this moment, with get the proto-gospel. Jesus looks at him, and offers Zacchaeus what he truly wants. Not power, status, or money, but forgiveness and redemption. Mercy and Grace. To once again belong to the story of God. And Zacchaeus eats it up, as everyone who encounters Jesus does. It only takes a look, the conscience speaking to the heart, with both mercy and truth, for Zacchaeus to offer it all back several times over. Half of what he has to the poor, and four times to anyone he has stolen from, the very value required in the law (Exodus 22:1). He wants to do what is right, and Jesus enables it. It’s what Jesus does, when His Spirit touches ours. 

Grace is fire. Purifying fire. 

Salvation came, Jesus says. Notice, it’s not a promise of life in the sky after he dies. That’s not the salvation Jesus is talking about (although life forever with him is certainly true). But rather, it’s once again to be a child of Abraham. Heaven has come to rest once again in the life of Zacchaeus. The promise is born again.

It’s a proto-gospel because it’s a shadow of the fullness offered to us. Not just return to community, but life fully reconciled to God, with the living Holy Spirit as down payment.

When we’re honest and quiet, and allow the conscience, that great Aboriginal Vicar of Jesus Christ within us to speak to us, we may find the same invitation from our Lord. To come home. To once again belong to the story of God, should we desire it. And when we hear that, with joy, we respond abundantly. 

Grace brings us back to life and saves us. 

Then he took the Twelve aside and told them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. Everything that is written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished. For he will be handed over to the Gentiles, and he will be mocked, insulted, spit on; and after they flog him, they will kill him, and he will rise on the third day.”

They understood none of these things. The meaning of the saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said. Luke 18:31-3 (CSB)

The brain has a fascinating limit to how much it can process. While it is more biological than a computer and can adjust, it has working memory capacity, which limits how much brains can process data input. I’ll include a GIF as the image for this post (you might have to go to the website to see it) that shows off this interesting phenomenon, described as the troxler effect. If you stare the cross in the middle of the photo for longer than a minute, you will see what your brain does. In order to process the rapid image changes, the brain filters out data that it determines irrelevant and actually fills in the space with what it believes should be there. Similar limits happen every day. In order to operate in a world that overstimulates us, our brain has to take shortcuts regularly to survive. It means it assumes things and fills in the blank automatically. 

The brain does the same thing for thoughts or ideas. It comes up with an understanding of reality and intentionally shortcuts those things that disrupt the construct it has created. It would be too overwhelming for our cognition if we had to constantly adjust for the variables that conflict with its overwhelming determined course. We’d never be able to walk or make a decision! Not only that, but it’s why we fall so easily into ideological camps, and have such a hard time seeing outside these camps. It’s why we categorize and simplify to reduce the overall burden. The brain makes assumptions and ignores things which contradict those assumptions. Beyond ignore, it can actually create the illusion that there is coherency when there isn’t, especially by adding or taking away what it assumes is noise. The visual representation can be seen in the effect of the image posted. The brain just simply makes up what it thinks it should see as it focuses on simplifying for the sake of comprehension. 

We call this confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance. We see what we think we should see, and we adjust reality to make it fit. This quirky characteristic of the brain is one of the reasons I have no problem accepting miracles. Firstly, the fact that they are seen indicates something so extraordinarily different that it shocks the brain into seeing it (just look at some of the description of angels and God in the Old Testament). Secondly, Jesus walking through a wall, or suddenly appearing, or the coming of the Holy Spirit is the brain’s attempt to process a reality that is well beyond’s it’s comprehension or understanding. It’s going to sound weird or differently described, because the disciples literally couldn’t cognitively process what was happening fully. They didn’t have the ability.  

The bad side of this, like our ideological camps, is that once we think something to be true, short of shock, it takes a lot to convince us we’re wrong. And that’s where we clearly find ourselves. The disciples didn’t want to be convinced that Jesus was going to die, and this is the third time he is telling them. Despite all the miracles, despite the teaching, despite the repeated warnings, the text says, they still didn’t get it. They still wanted him to be a military hero who was coming to kick Rome out of Israel. 

In our own lives, being able to hear and understand the Lord is hard. Super hard. In fact, one of the few ways he ever gets through is through our emotional and physical suffering (Romans 5:3-5; James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 1:6-7). It is regularly only through the shock of pain or loss that we are finally able to hear what he is saying. Another, it turns out, is relationship. Deep, deep relationships. It is incredibly important to surround ourselves with others who are listening and following after Jesus and seeking him. It’s one of the reasons the church believes marriages are sacramental. The goal of a spouse isn’t merely companionship, but spiritual partnership. 

The good news is that God is faithful. He knows this about us. Look for him in the suffering, and look for him in the relationships he sends us. Attune yourself to those in your life who love Jesus, and thank God for bringing them there. 

A ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him. “No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not bear false witness; honor your father and mother.”

“I have kept all these from my youth,” he said.

When Jesus heard this, he told him, “You still lack one thing: Sell all you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

After he heard this, he became extremely sad, because he was very rich.

Seeing that he became sad, Jesus said, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

Those who heard this asked, “Then who can be saved?”

He replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

Then Peter said, “Look, we have left what we had and followed you.”

So he said to them, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left a house, wife or brothers or sisters, parents or children because of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more at this time, and eternal life in the age to come.” Luke 18:18-30 (CSB)

One amazing thing about this walk of Jesus’ is the sheer number of people who come up to ask him questions along the way. Granted, he was a traveling Rabbi, but I’ve been to many of the same places he walked, and very few people asked me anything except whether I wanted to buy something. 

They’re asking for two reasons: Partially to test, and partially to seek. And this rich young ruler was obviously seeking. The characteristics of a seeker are obvious, as they have a voracious desire to find God. It’s a characteristic lauded by Jesus, who says, 

“Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8 (CSB)

Seekers ask those who exude the characteristics that they desire. There’s a phrase for it in some circles of the church, “Spirit attracts Spirit.” And this deeply spiritually seeking man — one who clearly wants to know the way, finds himself before the Lord.

We’ve talked about Jesus’ answer to his question, before. If you want eternal life, you have to be like God. To express this, he uses the ten commandments, or at least, the second half of the commandments which represent the moral summation of the law. The young man is pleased, because he has been a moral person all of his life, Jesus continues, but you still lack one thing: Sacrifice the thing that stands between you and God, and come follow me. Of course, commentators, and sermons everywhere point out that effectively Jesus summarizes the first half of the ten commandments — the spiritual elements of the law, as abandoning all else and following after him. This is shown later when he praises his disciples for what they have left behind for him. The clear indication is that following Jesus completes the spiritual necessities of the law. Paul will point this out later when it comes to the spirit. 

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Galatians 5:18

Jesus is saying, it’s not enough to be perfectly moral, you must be perfectly spiritual as well. And no one is that without him (or his Spirit). And the Spirit cannot (or will not) complete us, if we continue to hold things of more value than it. 

My own belief is that this becoming like God is itself an eternal process of ever-becoming. Like C.S. Lewis expresses so vividly in the conclusion to his Narnia Series, this perfection cycle is never accomplished but is eternity itself — to become more and more like God and to know him more is eternal life. It’s at the very heart of the Trinity, which preexists all time. Ever becoming, ever loving.

It’s something His Spirit is doing within us, drawing us into that nature. Whenever we run into anything that hinders, or when we allow a block to rise up within us because of hardened hearts, the process is interrupted until we allow the Spirit to overcome it. We must surrender our idols to become perfect.

So, Jesus tells the young man, there is no Eternal life without God, and there is no Eternal life, without allowing him to make you complete. To settle for anything else is not Glory.

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee was standing and praying like this about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I’m not like other people—greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get.’

“But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even raise his eyes to heaven but kept striking his chest and saying, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this one went down to his house justified rather than the other, because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18:9-14 (CSB)

My experience of church is that there can be people whose theology is spot on, and who have impressive resumes and experience, and who appear to be upstanding members of society but they’re just jerks. Really, jerks. 

Worse, perhaps, is that we’ve created a theology that justifies both being a jerk with no need to stop. God loves me anyway, and promised me heaven, therefore it doesn’t matter how I act some say.

Ugh. 

It’s the same attempt to game God that existed in the Old Testament. There was a mechanism for dealing with sin under the temple system. If you did something wrong, you took a sheep or a pigeon and you made a sacrificial offering. In effect, the animal stood in for what you deserved. Great, but once people realize there is a mechanism, they start to game the system. “Wait, so you’re saying I can do whatever I want, and all I have to do is sacrifice a pigeon, and I’m okay with God?” So they would do just that. Especially easy for the wealthy for whom the expense cost little. They could live horrible lives, offer up a sacrifice and be on their way. 

It’s important to note that the sacrificial system predated the Jewish people, and was a culturally symbolic way of representing repentance. Sacrifice as repentance is what the Ancient near easterners, Jewish or not, knew as a way of truly repenting. In that way, it was a symbol God adapted for His purposes, rather than required. However, it was never about the sacrifice, and always about the changed heart. 

God knew the game, and after a while God said, enough with your dumb sacrifices. I don’t need them. (1 Samuel 15:22-23, Psalm 40:6-8, Psalm 51:16-17, Isaiah 1:11-17 are just a few. There are many more.) 

It was never about the sacrifice. In Psalm 50:10-12, he tells his people, If I were hungry, I own bulls on a thousand hills, and I know where every bird and insect is! I don’t need your sacrifices! And again in Amos, I hate your festivals. I hate the smell of your sacrifices. I won’t accept them … this is what I want: let justice flow like water, and righteousness like an unfailing stream.  (Amos 5:21-24). 

Perhaps my favorite, addressed to the very people Jesus is talking to, is when he quotes Hosea 6:6 which says

“For I desire faithful love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” 

He quotes as 

“I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:10-13 AND 12:1-8)

Later, within the Christian era, they would do the same thing. Rich people would build chapels, and pay for people to pray for them well after their death, hoping their great tributes could win their way in.

God isn’t dumb. He knows your heart. I’d rather bet on a humble heart, and a changed life with devotion to Christ, than a thousand paid people praying for me.

Our self-righteousness and our perfect church adherence is not what God wants. It doesn’t please the Lord, regardless of what the systematic theologians say. But humility, and contriteness; A broken spirit, and honesty before the Lord does. Rather than gloating about how great you are before him, or taking pride in your confessions and actions, stand before him openly and honestly, recognizing your own weaknesses and your own failures. The irony of that is, not only will God see your humility and lift you up with greater dignity than you can muster (James 4:10), but, seeing yourself for how you really are, your kindness will also be amplified towards those around you who struggle. It’s super hard to belittle others when you recognize how you are just like them, if not worse (1 Timothy 1:15-16)

While traveling to Jerusalem, he passed between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten men with leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and raised their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

When he saw them, he told them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And while they were going, they were cleansed.

But one of them, seeing that he was healed, returned and, with a loud voice, gave glory to God. He fell facedown at his feet, thanking him. And he was a Samaritan.

Then Jesus said, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Didn’t any return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” And he told him, “Get up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.”  Luke 17:11-19 (CSB)

Like most of scripture, context matters for this healing passage. Luke is trying to say something here, and the interjection of a story amongst teaching matters. While lepers in scripture evoke strong response as we imagine them isolated outside of their communities unable to interact with their loved ones, in this instance, the healing takes place to emphasize two lessons on faith. One the precedes and one that follows. We’re in the midst of Jesus’ teaching on the nature of the Kingdom of God. Luke just told the story of the rich man and Lazarus (16:19-31), and then Jesus’ warning about those who bring the temptation to sin (17:1-4).

Terrified that they might be in the wrong because of the implications, the disciples beg Jesus to be given more faith (17:5) 

Jesus then emphasizes the power of faith with these lepers.

Faith, of course, is not belief, but an entrusting oneself to another. Pistis (noun) and pisteuō (verb) have the same root and have to do with trusting another, in the way that you might both believe and trust a pilot to fly you safely. It’s not just esoteric assent to an idea, but it has real world tangibility. Empty faith, or mere belief, doesn’t do anything, for even the demons believe (James 2:19). Luke is emphasizing that these ten lepers had the type of faith that changes things. When Jesus commanded, they responded. It wasn’t going to priest that saved them, but their trust. They believed and trusted in Jesus, and Jesus responded. To articulate a bigger message, and foreshadow the nature of the Kingdom, it was the foreigner who came and gave Glory to Jesus for what he did. A clear slight at how often Jesus has been and will be rejected by his own people. 

But then another equally import lesson on faith follows: 

When he was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them,

The kingdom of God is not coming with something observable; no one will say, ‘See here!’ or ‘There!’ For you see, the kingdom of God is in your midst. (vs. 20-21)

Already in Jesus’ day, people were hoping for escapist solutions. They wanted salvation from elsewhere. Someone else. But Jesus is telling his disciples, You are the Kingdom of God. My Holy Spirit within you IS the reign of God. Yes, I will be returning he continues and there will be an end. As mentioned earlier, those who continue to live rebellious lives contrary to the Kingdom will not be a part of the promise of the union of Heaven and Earth. However, look for the coming of the Holy Spirit to understand what the reign (kingdom) of God is really about. This is one of the reasons Luke is a two part book and includes the Acts of the Apostles. With the Spirit, comes the reign (kingdom) of God, also known as the Church.

He also said, “A man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me.’ So he distributed the assets to them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his estate in foolish living. After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he had nothing. Then he went to work for one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. He longed to eat his fill from the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one would give him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have more than enough food, and here I am dying of hunger! I’ll get up, go to my father, and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired workers.”’ So he got up and went to his father. But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son.’

“But the father told his servants, ‘Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then bring the fattened calf and slaughter it, and let’s celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate.

“Now his older son was in the field; as he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he summoned one of the servants, questioning what these things meant. ‘Your brother is here,’ he told him, ‘and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

“Then he became angry and didn’t want to go in. So his father came out and pleaded with him. But he replied to his father, ‘Look, I have been slaving many years for you, and I have never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me a goat so that I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.’

“‘Son,’ he said to him, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” Luke 15:11-32 (CSB)

Perhaps one of Jesus’ most well known parables, the Prodigal Son speaks for itself and is of course about God’s overwhelming mercy for the lost, with a side warning for the merciless rigidity of the older brother. 

On the road to Jerusalem, Jesus made a point to spend time with, eat, drink, and stay at the type of houses that most people wouldn’t dare stay at, and it caused a stir. People were arguing and people were talking. The type of people that are socially acceptable to spend time with, to eat and drink with, are always those who represent the values that we aspire to.They have what we want. They’re the ones that people want to eat with. In the highly religious and rigid Ancient near east, that was people who displayed exterior characteristics of religiosity, while shunning those who fell short. Divorced? Tax Collector? Forget about it, shun them. 

Is it that different today? 

We might be far more lenient towards sexual purity and the love of money in our culture, but that’s not what Jesus was addressing with the parable. It wasn’t to accept people as they are, in some kind of live-and-let-live approach to life. Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors because he wanted to draw them to health and wholeness. To repudiate their choices like Zacchaeus will when we meet him in upcoming days. Jesus ate with the lost because he saw them as his prodigal children who he hopes would find their way home. He wasn’t affirming their lostness, he was saving them from it.

Is that why we go to dinner parties and cocktail parties? Because we hope for the spiritual renewal of the hosts and we dream of talking to them about the depth of their despair, offering them a clearer vision of God’s purpose for their lives?

And who is it that we won’t eat with? Who is beyond the pale for redemption in our own society? 

Those with different political party affiliations? (I”m sure God is very glad and he really needed you to vote the way you voted. Really. He has no other way to save creation but your ballot and opinions). 

What about criminals? The poor, and hopeless? Desperate asylum seekers? Have any of these tasted from your pantry or sipped your fine vintages? 

The dinner table continues to be representative of our political, moral, and spiritual life, and who we eat with represents what we truly value. Perhaps, this Lent, consider eating with someone you wouldn’t dream of eating with, and try remembering why Jesus did so as well. 

And, in the meantime, we might all revel in the fact that our Lord, the true King of the Earth, would debase himself so much to be able to do so for us. Because he sees us as his lost children.