Bread – Adultery

Readings for Friday, March 6, 2015, designated by the 1979 Book of Common Prayer: Jer. 3:6-18; Rom. 1:28-2:11; John 5:1-17; Psalms 72, 119:73-96

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From our reading today in Jeremiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? … Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree.” Jer. 3:6-9

How does a nation commit adultery with stone and tree? Both represent worship of idols, gods of our manufacture which are not God. Both represent nature, the created as opposed to the Creator. So, one possible interpretation of this passage is “the nation Judah committed adultery with its idols.”

“Adultery” in the ordinary use of the word means sex outside of the marriage relationship.

In the broader definition, “adultery” is ignoring a covenantal relationship (marriage) in favor of satisfying self-desire (or lust). You can see, therefore, where this has potential huge meaning in our lives. In fact, in this broader definition, we commit adultery all the time.

Since this is Lent and a time for reflection upon our lives and our loyalty to our Savior, Jesus Christ, perhaps we should mediate further on all of the different ways we commit adultery. It first begins with identification of the people or organizations with whom you have contracts or covenantal relationships. Perhaps it is God. Perhaps it is with a spouse. Perhaps it is with a friend. Perhaps it is with work (employment contract). Perhaps it is with a customer or a client. Perhaps it is with a partner in business or other profit or non-profit enterprise.

Once you have identified all of these relationships, then it merely becomes a process of thinking about each person and asking yourself what you have done to ignore, bypass, defeat, or otherwise harm that relationship. In asking yourself what you have done, you will also answer the third question, which is with whom have you committed and are you committing adultery?

When we raise up an idol which we worship and follow, whether it be some other person, wealth, position, power, or some other object or objective, we are committing adultery with that idol because we have abandoned the relationship we have with God.

So, do you find yourself in the midst of adulterous relationships, following idols of man’s invention rather than the God of the universe? If so, Jesus has a question for you in today’s reading from the gospel of John: “Do you want to be healed?” John 5:6

If you want to be healed, Jesus says to you just like he said to the invalid at Bethesda, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” John 5:8 Through faith in Jesus’ authority over sickness, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the man stood up and walked.

For Christians who sin, the answer to shedding that sin and living in victory is the same answer given to the invalid by Jesus: “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” Walk away from your adulterous relationships. Flee sin. Abandon unrighteousness. Not in your own power, but in the power of the Holy Spirit applied in your life through faith in Jesus Christ.

Easy to say. Hard (and really impossible for man) to do. That is why we need supernatural help. “Lord, I need to be healed. I believe; help me in my unbelief. Come, Holy Spirit.”

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© 2015 GBF

Bread – Winds

Readings for Wednesday, October 1, 2014, designated by the 1979 Book of Common Prayer: Hosea 4:11-19; Acts 21:15-26; Luke 5:27-39; Psalms 101,109,119:121-144

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In our reading from Hosea today, there is a useful phrase – “A wind has wrapped them in its wings…” Hosea 4:19

Not only is this phrase poetic, it is visual and practical. You can just see the fingers of the wind blowing here and there, wrapping themselves around us, comforting us, supporting us, calming us, and even caressing us. Who has not thought or dreamed about being carried upon the wind from one place to another? Isn’t that what hot air balloons are about?

What winds have wrapped us in their wings today?

Maybe it is the wind of fear, wrapping us and enveloping us in a brew of suspicion, concern, and distraction. We here about new diseases, one of which has just come to our city, and the winds of disease and destruction swirl throughout the news media and our conversation, wrapping us up in today’s disaster.

Maybe it is the wind of work, wrapping us and enveloping us in a brew of busyness and business, wrapping us up in the wings of economics, jobs, money, position, activity, and “achievement.”

Maybe it is the wind of new ideas from the mind of man, wrapping us and enveloping us in a brew of self-satisfaction, intellectual treats, educational snobbery, and “thoughtful” pursuits.

In Hosea, it was the wind of whoredom which has wrapped Israel in its wings, sending Israel into both spiritual adultery (where idols made by man become more important than God) and physical adultery (where man’s conduct devolves into immorality and satisfaction of base passions).

We know as Christians that the only wind we should have wrapping us up in its wings is the wind of the Holy Spirit, the breath of life, the power to engage the world without becoming polluted by the world.

And yet, what wind do we let wrap itself around us? The wind of change, the wind of politics, the wind of activity, the wind of intellectual curiosity, the wind we create ourselves, the wind that others create for us?

It is Wednesday and the week is half over. What wind have you let envelope you this week? What wind will you let cover you this week going forward?

You know, my earlier reference to a hot air balloon sticks with me. Man makes the balloon and he makes the hot air which fills the balloon. When filled with hot air, the balloon will carry the man over far distances, limited only by the amount of hot air the man can generate from his machines. When the hot air runs out, the balloon lands on the ground and the trip is over.

But when we fill our spiritual balloon with the wind of the Holy Spirit, where can we go? To infinity and beyond, to eternity. Will the wind of the Holy Spirit go away? No (We might fail to use it; we might even fail to see it, but the wind of the Holy Spirit remains.)

So, ultimately, there are two winds which can enfold us. One is from God and the other is of the world, of man, of Satan. One is the breath of life, and the other is the wind of idolatry.

Both winds can fill our sails, but one sustains us on the journey of life and the other on the journey of death. Which wind will you let wrap you in its wings today?

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© 2014 GBF

Bread – Wisdom

Readings for Friday, August 22, 2014, designated by the 1979 Book of Common Prayer: Job 2:1-13; Acts 9:1-9; John 6:27-40; Psalms 140,141,142,143

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The three non-Psalm readings today are powerful readings and each would support many, many Breads and sermons. In Job, Satan strikes Job with sores and Job responds to the urging of his wife to curse God, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” Job 2:10 From the reading in Acts, Saul (to become Paul) asks for permission to imprison the women and men who believe in Christ, receives that permission, and on the Damascus road on his mission sees a light from heaven and is directly confronted by Christ. In our reading from John, the disciples hear Jesus say that the work of God in a man’s life is “that you believe in Him whom He has sent” and then says, without qualification, that “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst … All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never cast out…For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:28-40

In fact, these are so powerful, I have no clue about where to even begin, so I decided to begin with “Wisdom.”  But rather than offer my own commentary on this, let me offer instead the commentary from the English Standard Version Study Bible and the article which preceded Job called “Introduction to the Poetic and Wisdom Literature,” of which Job is considered a part:

“Some choose simply to define “wisdom” by the literature…this approach is unhelpfully restrictive. Others choose to define “wisdom” as an outlook, almost a philosophy of life. But different “wisdom” writings have different emphases, so this approach seems to fragmentary.

What does the [Biblical wisdom] books and outlooks have in common, however, is a keen interest in the way the world works, humanity’s place within it, and how all this operates under God’s creative, sovereign care.

Biblical “wisdom,” then, might be defined as skill in the art of godly living, or more fully, that orientation which allows one to live in harmonious accord with God’s ordering of the world.”

We know that “wisdom” is much, much more than education, knowledge, or intelligence. Instead, as brilliantly described in the ESV Study Bible, wisdom is “that orientation which allows us to live in harmonious accord with God’s ordering of the world.”

We actually exercise wisdom all the time, but is it Christian wisdom? We know how to live in harmonious accord within our neighborhood (so-called “street smarts”). We know how to live in harmonious accord within our businesses (so-called “business smarts”). We know how to live in harmonious accord within our political structures, our economic structures, our social structures, our educational structures, and even our religious structures. And if we have a lot of wisdom in these things, we can work them to our advantage.

But where is God in the exercise of these kinds of wisdom.

What would happen to us if we asked the question “Lord, help me live today in harmonious accord with Your will; help me Lord to understand Your ordering of the world so that I can live in harmonious accord with it; Lord, how do You want me to live today?”

It seems to me that if I tried to live in harmonious accord with God’s ordering of the world, instead of mine, that things would go much better for me. To do this, though, I need to know what God’s ordering of the world is … I need to understand Scripture, because it is there that God’s ordering is revealed.

There are three people in today’s readings who lived in harmonious accord with God’s will. The first is Job … remember he ends his sorrowful journey with great joy, exclaiming “I know my Redeemer lives.” The second is Paul … once confronted by Christ and studying Him during his time afterward, he emerged as apostle to the Gentiles, to us. The third is Jesus Himself, who knew God’s ordering of the world required Him to sacrifice Himself for our sins on the cross.

Wisdom begins with knowing that there is a God and that I (and you) are not He.

Are you there yet?

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© 2014 GBF

Bread – Plenty

Readings for Wednesday, June 18, 2014, designated by the 1979 Book of Common Prayer: Num. 11:24-35; Rom. 1:28-2:11; Matt. 18:1-9; Psalms 81,82,119:97-120

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There is an episode in Israel’s journey through the wilderness toward Canaan which is described in today’s readings from Numbers. With my translation of the measurements into English measures, the reading is, in part, as follows:

“Then a wind came up, and it brought quail from the sea and let them fall beside the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a day’s journey on the other side, around the camp, and about [six feet] high. And the people rose all that day and night and all the next day, [36 straight hours] and gathered the quail. Those who gathered at least gathered [60 bushels]….and the Lord struck down the people with a very great plague…” Num. 11:31-33

There is a tendency among us to horde, to gather up and store not only enough to be plentiful, but enough to be truly independent. And yet God tells us to ask Him for “our daily bread,” recognizing that we are truly dependent upon Him and not ourselves. Without this dependence, we make idols of our stuff, the means to obtain our stuff, or ourselves.

In Numbers today, God teaches us an object lesson. When God provides plenty, pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.

What should the Israelites have done? How much quail can one person eat in a couple of days? Surely not 60 bushels. Then why pick them all up?

God overwhelms us with riches beyond our dreams. Do we take them all and put them in our storehouses? Or do we take what we need for the day, leaving it in God’s hands to provide for tomorrow?

This is not an e-mail urging you to not plan for tomorrow, because that would be dishonoring to God as well. What it does mean is that, if you have been blessed with plenty, remember Israel and the wilderness and don’t gather all 60 bushels of quail.

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© 2014 GBF

Bread – Self-Esteem

Readings for Friday, June 13, 2014, designated by the 1979 Book of Common Prayer: *; Gal. 5:25-6:10; Matt. 16:21-28; Psalms 69, 73

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Paul in his letter to the church in Galatia says this in our readings today: “For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” Gal. 6:3

What a put-down. What a self-esteem destroyer!

“Self-esteem” means what it says – that we esteem (think highly) of ourselves. It is not other-esteem (thinking highly of others) or God-esteem (thinking highly of God), but thinking highly numero uno, number one, me, myself, and I. The world worries constantly about whether we have enough self-esteem. It is the reason there are no winners in the modern age, because with winners there are losers and nobody can be a “loser.” They might lose their self-esteem!

But Paul is blunt, these people are self-deceivers – “For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”

Almost all secular “wisdom” focusses on building up the self, on strengthening our ethnic, social, religious, tribal, family, self-identify. If we can identify our heritage, we can build our self-esteem. If we can graduate from school, we can build our self-esteem (whether you know anything or not is, of course, irrelevant to this argument). If we can more closely identify with our community, our people-group, we can build our self-esteem.

And all the while, Paul would say that we are not building self-esteem, we are building a wall of deception which deceives only one person – me. The world’s efforts to build my self-esteem fool only one person – me.

In our reading today from Matthew, Jesus tells His disciples that He will be delivered into the hands of men to be killed, and that after three days He will be raised up. He then says “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” Matt. 16:24-26

What good is self-esteem if it brings you profit in the world and lose to eternal death?

These views are exclusive. One (the world) says that I am good and can be made better, thereby building my self-esteem. The other (God) says that I am sinful and and must sacrifice my self-esteem, my exalted view of myself, on the rocks of repentance, turning away from myself toward Christ, and accepting the mercy and forgiveness extended to me by Jesus’ sacrifice for my sins on the cruel cross and God’s sovereign will and work to bring me to faith.

The truth is that self-esteem is one of the worse things we can have, because it leads us to believe that we are king, that we are master, that we are God. It leads us to eternal death. On the other hand, less self-esteem leads us to recognition of our sin, our powerlessness, our hopelessness, and our desperate need for help – it leads us into the arms of Jesus.

And the wonderful thing about God’s miracle in our life at our lowest point, when we realize that we have nothing to give, is that we realize that we are in fact esteemed, not by our puny selves but by the Creator, by God, who so loved us that He died for us and saved us.

And that builds our self-esteem … but not on the deception of self and the world … but on the solid rock of faith in Jesus., on the knowledge that God so loved us, so thought us worthy, that He saved us from ourselves.

And that is self-esteem worth having.

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© 2014 GBF

Bread – Help

Readings for Monday, May 5, 2014, designated by the 1979 Book of Common Prayer: Exod. 18:13-27; 1 Pet. 5:1-14; Matt. 1:1-17, 3:1-6; Psalms 9,15,25

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We all need help, but how often are we willing to ask for it or, even if we have asked for it, take it? Somehow there is an element among us which whispers in our ear, “If you ask for help or take it, you are not a man…you are not competent…you are not strong enough…you are not a leader…you don’t know what you are doing.” You get the drift.

Not wanting to appear less a man, not wanting to appear incompetent, not wanting to appear weak, not wanting to show that we are not a leader, not wanting to show failure, we therefore not only reject the help which is offered, we never look for help or cultivate it in the first place. There is a name for this condition – pride. And there is a saying about how pride relates to success – “Pride goeth before a fall.”

In our reading from Exodus today, Moses has been made the chief go-to guy by God and so, as a result, he is sitting listening to all the people’s problems and disputes, judging between them. He is, to himself, merely doing what he has been told to do – answer inquiries about God, judge disputes (bring peace), and make known the statutes and commands of God. Moses’ father-in-law, however, tells him “What you are doing is not good” because he and the people will get worn out, and then Moses will be worthless. Moses is told the truth – he needs help. But not just any kind of help; he needs help from “able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe…” Exod. 18:21.

Moses needed help, but he needed it from the right kind of people. However, they all had common traits. They were people from all walks of life and representing “all” the people, and not just some particular tribe. In other words, they were people of diversity, from different backgrounds, training, education, and skills. They understood that there was a God and that they were not that God; in other words, they had a correct connection to the universe. They were all competent; what they did they did well, as an excellent offering unto the Lord. They were people who could be trusted – they could be expected to maintain confidences, not gossip; they could be expected to do what they said they would do. Finally, they were people of integrity – they could not be bought with money or with promises of special relationships or treatment.

We all need help. Our question for Monday is not whether you have surrounded yourself with help, because if you haven’t then you know you are getting worn out. The question is what kind of help have you surrounded yourself with? Have you surrounded yourself with people who fear God, or people who fear you? Have you surrounded yourself with people of integrity, who will say “no” to bribes of all kinds, including those from you, or have you surrounded yourselves with “yes,” people, who are guaranteed to reinforce your idyllic and idolic picture of yourself? Have you surrounded yourself with “able” people from diverse backgrounds, or does everyone look like you or have less skill than you?

What kind of help have you surrounded yourself with?

We have focused today on the advice which the father-in-law gave Moses, but not on the source of that advice. Did the advice really come from the father-in-law from nothing, or did it come through the father-in-law from God?

The truth is that our real helper in all times – need, plenty, failure, success – is God Himself, the Holy Spirit.

And the neat thing is that Holy Spirit-provided wisdom is but an “ask” away!

So ask for help, first from the One who provides all and second from those who the One points out to us to ask.

And the week will go a lot, lot, lot better.

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© 2014 GBF