Temptation and Necessary Things

The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." 4 But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" (Matt 4:3-4)

In Luke's telling of Jesus' dinner with the sisters, Mary and Martha, Jesus challenges me to distinguish between those things which are urgent and too often life-draining and those which are essential and life-giving.  In Matthew's telling of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness, Jesus challenges me to an even deeper and more critical discernment.  This passage challenges me not only to distinguish but also to CHOOSE between necessary and primary things.  Bread is necessary, but it is not primary.  God is primary.  And Jesus allows nothing, not even necessary things to distract him from or interfere with that primacy.   Jesus will not use God the Father or his own power as the Son of God to obtain what he wants no matter how necessary it might seem.  Rather, he submits himself to the Father's will.

Oh how this convicts me!  How often I push God aside for what is "necessary" and justify it.  I cringe to think of the ways, especially under the guise of good intentions, that I deny the primacy of God in pursuit of that which is necessary or, worse yet, use God to satisfy my own needs or desires.

I know that I am to bend to God's desire and will, that I am created in the image of God.  The goal of this pilgrim journey is to be evermore conformed to Jesus life.  Still, my life seems to be repeated attempts to create God in MY image and twist God's word to justify my life, and use God to satisfy my desires and wants.

So I will continue to identify the areas of temptaion in my life; the necessary things (and the unnecessary ones) that I choose instead of giving God primacy in my life. 

What are the wilderness temptations and necessary things that challenge you to push God to the side or try to conform God's will to your desires?

Journey on!

Dearest Lord, protect me from the temptations to choose necessary things ahead of you and use you to satisfy my own desires.  Through your gracious Holy Spirit create in me new desires - a hunger for righteousness - that will be satisfied by your word.  Keep me ever mindful that your Word, Jesus, is the source and foundation of all life.  Amen. 

Blooming and Threshing

"I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."  (Matt 3:11-12)

For my bedtime reading, I am spending the year with Jesus under the guidance of pastoral theologian Eugene Peterson.  It is one of those "simple" devotional books in which the day's devotion can be read in 5 minutes.  The thing with journeying under Eugene Peterson's guidance is that even the simple things are not all that simple.  Both his short reflections and closing prayers can challenge my thinking and make me see things in a passage that have never ocurred to me before.  Often my 5 minute reading ends up leading to 30 - 45 minutes of reflection.  Such was the case with the above passage which I encountered the other night.

The image of threshing and winnowing is an uncomfortable one.  Threshing is the process of loosening the edible part of cereal grain (or other crop) from the scaly, inedible chaff that surrounds it. Threshing may be done by beating the grain using a flail on a threshing floor.  It is the step in grain preparation after harvesting and before winnowing, which separates the  loosened chaff from the grain. Threshing does not remove the bran from the grain. Winnowing is the actual process of separation.

Often we read this passage as a statement of Jesus' judgment and promise to separate the "good" people (like us) from the "bad" people at the end of the ages.  But if we truly understand the idea of threshing and winnowing, it can provide a different perspective for us.  Threshing and winnowing are to grain as pruning is to a tree or shrub.  In winnowing, that which is productive and useful is "pried loose" from that which is unfruitful.  Not the most pleasant prospect when we realize that WE are the grain.  We are the ones who John promises will be threshed and winnowed.  But as Peterson reflects - the results are good.  Who wants to be mixed with chaff - scaly, nasty, 'dead' stuff - forever?

I understand this on an intellectual level and even understand the necessity for it.  What caught me up short was Peterson's closing prayer. 

"I am grateful, God, that you take me with such seriousness and labor over me with such care.  I see myself now thrown into the air by your threshing shovel, sifted and cleansed by the wind of your Spirit, ready for use in your granaries.  Amen."
 

I am struck by the concept that this unpleasant process is one by which God exhibits the seriousness with which we are regarded and so deeply cared for.  We know that Jesus came into our existence so that we might have life and have it abundantly.  But how can one expereince abundant life with all of the dead, scaly stuff that encapsulates our lives, just like the chaff encapsulates the grain?  And so as we grow in our relationship with Jesus, God continues to free us from the confinement of the chaff so that we might more fully burst forth and be fruitful. 

When I was a young child, my brothers and I would occassionally get into trouble and be punished.  My parents would usually dispense punishment with the words that it hurt them as much as it did us.  At the time, we weren't buying it.  As I have grown older and wiser, I not only buy it, I understand it and appreciate it immeasurably.  When we hurt, our parents hurt.  But they loved us and wanted for us to grow into responsible, mature adults so much that they would punish us and endure our pain, their pain, and our momentary anger and resentment in order for us to be all that we could be.

I think of that as I reflect on this passage from Matthew and Peterson's prayer.  A friend often says that God loves us enough to accept us exactly the way we are and loves us SO MUCH that he will not leave us there. What that means is that God loves us SO MUCH that he is willing to thresh and winnow us in order that our lives might burst forth abundantly.  God is willing to suffer through our pain and endure our anger and resentment in order that we might experience abundant life through Jesus. 

But this should come as no new revelation or surprise.  "For God loved the world SO MUCH ..."   This Jesus who will thresh and winnow is the same one who would go to the cross and the grave in order that the world might be reconciled to the Father.  He is the same one who would rise from the grave and conquer death giving us abundant life now and into eternity. 

Oh dearest Lord, the depth and breadth of your love is unimaginable.  I truly AM grateful that your take us so seriously and labor over us with such care.

May you be threshed, winnowed, and burst forth abundantly in God's kingdom!

Moving from Martha mode to Mary time

³⁸Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. ³⁹She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying. ⁴⁰But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me." ⁴¹But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; ⁴²there is need of only one thing.

Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away.  (Luke 10:38-42)

I seem to be caught in Martha mode these days.  I know better.  I have preached about the importance of engaging in "the better part."  I have chastised and nagged colleagues and friends about nourishing their souls and caring for themeselves as a child of God.  I have taught about the importance of discerning between urgent things (those things that scream for attention NOW) and essential things (those things which are living giving and soul quenching).   But I have been busy paying attention to all of the screaming urgent things lately, to the neglect of those essential things.  I find myself wanting to tell somebody to find themselves a different Martha because this pilgrim wants some Mary time.

The problem is, there is no one at whom I can scream.  I am the culprit here.  I can stop Martha mode.  I can close my ears to the screaming of the urgent and allow the song of the essential things to echo deep in my soul.  And I have not.  The question I have to ask myself is why.  Why is it that I am unable (unwilling?) to put a halt to Martha mode and make my own Mary time?  I can make all sorts of excuses, but the real reason is sin.  Sin is what causes me to neglect the single-most important relationship in my life and be wooed away by louder voices, shiny baubles, and the praise of people that comes with being a hard-worker and over-acheiver.

Listening to music while exercising tonight, I heard these lyrics:  "All I want to do is give this life to you, and let your will be done, until its all I want to do."  (Ginny Owens: All I Want to Do).  My initial thought was, "Me too!"  But then it hit me.  I cannot give my life to God.  It was God's in the first place.  Given to me and redeemed by Jesus.  And God's will, WILL be done - with or without me.    That is where my doggone sinfulness creeps in.  I forget that who I am, what I am, every day, every breath, and everything I do is God's and NOT mine.  I actually think that this life is my own.

So maybe for a few days or a few hours, more likely for a few minutes, the Holy Spirit will move me from Martha mode to Mary time.  Your will be done, Lord.