Faith Venture

It’s finally here. Not Thanksgiving, but Black Friday.

The build up has been intense. My email inbox has been at least half Black Friday promotions. Some even talk of Black Friday week, as though Thanksgiving doesn’t even exist.

I guess that we can bless four-day holiday weekends. If you don’t have to go to work, you can shop for Christmas presents–oh, and pick up something for yourself while you’re at it.

This is of course not a new phenomenon. Since the rise of retailers in the 19th Century, they’ve needed Christmas sales to boost the year’s income statement from red (a loss) to black (a profit).

Christkindlesmarkt begun in Nuremberg in 1545 has much more charm as a Christmas celebration and retail experience.

We’ll visit the one in Chicago which squeezes the Nuremberg experience into one plaza with people packed so tightly that you can’t find the end of the queue for mulled wine. But there are also interesting things from much of Europe on display.

Maybe we get the rush of Black Friday week, Cyber Monday (which was really Cyber Wednesday and Thursday this year), and minds filled with Christmas shopping behind us, so that we can pause a little each day to reflect on a greater purpose. Make that part of the daily discipline.

Jesus once healed 10 men. Two returned to thank him after they discovered they had been healed. The other eight? Who knows?

Not everyone will thank you for the work you do.

But all will be blessed.

If you are doing work according to your call and your gifts. And if you do work to serve others.

Maybe you build a product. Or maybe you offer a service or give advice.

In America we set aside a special day originally to thank God and those who provided a bountiful harvest so that we may live another year.

But making every day a thanksgiving day increases our health and well-being. And those around us.

We pray for guidance. “God please lead us today into what is pleasing in your sight.”

Yet…

An opportunity to serve appears before us.

We ignore it.

We see someone who could use a helping hand.

We say we’re too busy to stop and pass by.

Someone needs an encouraging word.

We tell them to pray about it–and continue on our way.

Does it make sense to pray for guidance and then ignore opportunities God has placed before us?

The Bible and other Christian literature is filled with stories of people who did the first little act of service leading to a life in the spirit.

I’m finishing work on a talk I’m giving later today at a technology conference. Amidst the discussion of where technology has come from and where it’s going, I point out that first you need to understand where you are and where you want to go. Only then do the work.

“If I have an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend the first 55 minutes defining it and 5 minutes solving it,” Albert Einstein said.

Jesus wanted to bring people into a way of living with God, into the dominion of God, or usually translated the kingdom of God.

Who did he need to talk with to offer the invitation? Well, people who are not there, yet.

He talked about mercy before sacrifice (see Tuesday’s post) because religious leaders–people who thought they were already in the kingdom–criticized him for associating with unclean people–tax collectors and sinners.

Jesus knew what he wanted, studied what to do, then he did it.

Maybe you live in a village where everyone goes to the same church. But maybe you live in a world where many different kinds of people live. You want to introduce them to living under the dominion of God. Whom do you associate with?

Do you only associate with people like you and wish (pray) for others to join you? Or do you join those who need the help and do the work?

The Apostle Paul writing a letter to the Roman followers began his section on what to do after acknowledging Jesus’s resurrection and God’s grace began with “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.”

The people would have had a little cognitive dissonance with that phrase. Sacrifice meant killing and burning something as a ritual acknowledging the power of God.

Yesterday I started with Jesus’s admonition quoting from Hosea, “I (God) desire mercy not sacrifices.”

Paul brings these together suggesting that the way we live points to our acknowledgement of the power of God.

Are we living only for ourselves? Or are we living as a blessing to others?

Would someone watching us discern that we are disciples of Jesus? Or would they think we are selfish, immoral, spiteful, angry people?

The best of the contemplatives were also great doers of the Word. It is wise to follow their example.

Humans love their rituals. Maybe it’s just a morning cup of coffee. Or the certain gestures and prayers we practice at church.

In the ancient world, ritual included animal sacrifice. Abraham ritually killed lambs as an acknowledgement of his worship of God. Some 2,000 years later the Jewish people had evolved Temple worship and sacrifice into a finely honed commercial enterprise.

And we thought we were original with our commercial celebration of Christmas!

Religious leaders evolved into an attitude that the manner and practice of ritual mattered more than the status of their hearts.

Jesus kept doing things that were ritually unclean. He never seemed to care about his own “ritual cleanliness.”

One time he was dining with well known “tax collectors and sinners”. Formal dinners were public affairs where other people could come and walk around and listen to the conversation or see who was invited and who was not most likely as fuel for gossip.

The religious leaders were shocked. How could he do that?

Jesus quoted God the Father, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” He followed up by saying he was more concerned with people who were spiritually ailing, not those who were already perfect. (Of course, that was a backhanded slam at people who think they are perfect, but…)

Even today, are we more concerned about gathering with people who are like us and participating in comforting ritual than we are about going out among the poor and sinners and showing mercy?

We cannot buy off God with a couple of prayers and ritual gestures. God loves a merciful heart.

I recently read Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth E. Bailey. This book sets the story of Jesus in the local context to help explain some of the cultural story behind the story.

It didn’t take me long to realize that almost half of his descriptions are not limited to Middle Eastern life. He describes life in a rural village. I grew up in a rural village. He could have been describing all the rural villages in the area where I grew up. By extension, that must describe village life.

We all knew who the “sinners” were. We knew the “rich” people. We knew the most athletic, the most scholarly, the ones always in trouble.

In my life I’ve traveled through a great part of the US and chunks of the world. I’ve met a diversity of people.

We are more alike than we realize.

Maybe different geographies. Or languages. Or religions. Or sexual orientations. Or genders.

As we develop personal attitudes and political attitudes, we forget this at our risk.

We are also at risk as much as we forget that every human being is created in the likeness of God. We need to be praying for each other instead of killing each other.

It is ancient wisdom still true today. And will be true tomorrow. Love the Lord with all your heart, and all your strength, and all your soul, and all your mind. And, love your neighbor.