Luke 19 :: Jesus, the Holy Disruptor

Luke 19

For those of us who think that God is not personal and keeps his distance from us and basically lets us handle everything on our own, today's chapter has to mess with your head a little.  Our chapter today is full of Jesus stepping into other people's business.  He disrupts their lives to accomplish his purposes.  His disruptions push us, pull us and prod us into being something we aren't currently.  His disruptions are holy in nature and have purpose beyond our wants and our comforts and our plans.

Zacchaeus just wants to see Jesus.  Many people have made church services a spectator sport.  You come, sit, watch and move on, never really having to engage much more of your life than just your entertainment senses.  But when God has a bigger plan for you, you cannot just watch for long.  Jesus disrupts his entertainment and he responds with full devotion and action.

Jesus' disruptions are often higher callings.  While he had the attention of the people, Jesus tells them a story about his leaving them and their stewardship of the message he is leaving with them.  He explains that there is opposition. Two of the ten, turned a profit with their investment...they took risks and they paid off.  One did nothing with his, except protect it and he was reprimanded for his lack of doing anything.  It's interesting that we don't hear anything about the other seven who got minas also.  Jesus' disruptions are simply not part of his holy plan for us to sit on our hands and watch.

Jesus' disruptions are for normal people too.  Jesus needs a colt to ride into Jerusalm, but he doesn't have one.  He tells the disciples to go into town and steal one.  As they are getting the colt, the owners are taken aback by this.  Someone is stealing their colt!  But Jesus had something bigger planned for that colt than what the normal, everyday owners had planned.  They weren't just going to watch from the sidelines, but they made an investment, even if they weren't planning on it.

Jesus' disrupts when we are interrupting him.  At the end of this chapter, Jesus enters the temple and disrupts the whole place because people were interrupting his plan for the temple - he wanted it to be a place of prayer, but they had made it a commercial den of robbers.  Even our churches are subject to interruptions when we take the focus off of Jesus and place it on other people or in other things.

Have you had any holy disruptions in your life?  I have had several.  Looking back, I am grateful for every one of them, but at the moment I was not a happy camper.  Is your life getting disrupted right now by the loss of a job?  Maybe the illness of a family member?  Maybe the difficulties of parenthood?  Maybe God is using these things to disrupt your personal status quo.

Core Belief :: STEWARDSHIP

We believe that everything we are or own belongs to God.

"Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life." - 1 Timothy 6:17-19 (TNIV)

When I first began wrestling with this competency, I struggled because my "theology of stewardship" is more inclusive than just what we do with our money. The creed is great, but the attached verse seemed to resemble the money-hungry preachers I've watched on TV. Then I looked a little more closely.

First, I must realize that in Timothy's context, I would be considered wealthy, even though I am not so much here in America. In fact, if you are reading these words, you, too, would be considered among the wealthy. Now, if I am not going to be arrogant in my "riches" or place my hope in those "riches," then I must have a bedrock belief in something else. That something else comes in the middle of the verses. It plays out like this...

1. God richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment
2. There is a life that is truly life hidden behind a life of service and generosity.

It's easy to forget that God provides our enjoyment. Everything for our enjoyment is provided by God. This joy is not surface-level happiness, but lasting joy. The things that I need in my life to bring a lasting joy are things that can only be provided by God - relationships, contentment, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, hope, etc. I believe that the adversary of God tempts us with quick-fix happiness, so we don't get to taste the true enjoyment of life. It's sort of like filling up on the chips and salsa, then not really enjoying the main course. Haven't we all been there? My bedrock belief is that only God richly provides the things that bring me lasting enjoyment.

Another bedrock belief is that there is more going on in this life than what I can see. I believe that there is a "life that is truly life" out there. The access points to this life are not in accumulation of wealth and stuff, but in the giving it away and serving others. Oh man, I hate this part. I like the stuff and I want the wealth! But deep down, I know that there is more. Can't I have both, though? Maybe, but it's harder - maybe easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. My "riches" often cloud my perspective. They either consume me once I have what I want, or they consume me in my pursuit of more. Only when I back up and see my riches the way God sees them am I able to rest in His plans for me.

Our belief that everything we are or own belongs to God gives us freedom from worry, from want and from waste. Whenever we begin to worry, want or waste, we have lost focus. Are you seeing clearly? How are you wrestling with this core belief of the Christian faith?

Mark 14

You kind of knew this was coming, right? I mean, everything leading up to our reading today was pointing toward a showdown of sorts with the religious establishment. This man, Jesus, just didn't do what he was "supposed" to do. Today's chapter begins with a woman lavishing Jesus with expensive perfume. The disciples were angry with her because if she didn't want the perfume, she could have sold it and made money to give to the poor. Jesus saw her act very differently. She gave her best, not her left-overs. Are we as diligent with our best? Are we so diligent with our best time? With our best money? With our best gifts/talents? I can't say that I always am.

Jesus then declares that one of the twelve is going to betray him. It's funny that the disciples ask themselves if it is them that will do this. They were not even confident enough in their own thoughts about Jesus to know whether or not he was speaking about them. I can't say I would have been any clearer, though.

What must communion have been like on that night? The last time that communion would be observed as a forward looking event would be that night. Since then, we have all participated in communion as a remembrance of what Jesus went through, not what he would go through. Everything is about to change.

Falling asleep while praying? C'mon guys. What were you thinking? How familiar these three guys had become with Jesus. He was not "God in a Bod" to these guys, he was Jesus. Sure there was something different about him, something special, but that much consistent contact with some breeds familiarity. Whether Jesus wanted them to experience the sorrow he was feeling, or he wanted them to keep watch for the one who would betray him is not clear, but it doesn't really matter. They fell asleep on the job. Is there any correlation to our lives today?

Then they come. They come to take Jesus. They are accompanied by Judas, one of the twelve. I've read this story before, I've read Mark before and I've even seen The Passion of the Christ, but today this part of the story sucker-punched me in the gut. In the past twelve months, I've lost two grandparents and walked with friends as they've lost parents. I don't know if it's because I am closer to pain right now or just spending the past 14 days with Jesus, reading his story. Either way, I wasn't quite ready for what I felt this morning. I am actually not ready to move to Chapter 15.

Priority of Time v. Time Management

Yesterday, my message was entitled Marginal Time :: Creating Space in a Crowded Schedule.  As I was planning out the message over the past couple of weeks, one thing that struck me is not that we need to learn how to manage our time better, but how to prioritize our time better.  All of the tools to help us manage our time better will do us absolutely no good, unless we are better "prioritizers" of the time we've been given.  If I tell you I don't have time to go to the mall this afternoon, then it's because going to the mall is not high enough on my priority list to go.  If I come to your birthday party, then I discerned that your birthday party ranked higher during the hours of 5-8 on that day than anything else in my world at that time.

I once heard a teacher say, "If Satan can't make you bad, he'll make you busy."  I'm not sure Satan is the one making me busy all the time, but I can allow busyness to consume me if I'm not careful, thus ruining my effectiveness for kingdom purposes.  If I practice the core Christian practice of "giving away my time" then I must have time to give, and if I really belief that "everything I am or own belongs to God" then that includes my time as well.  These priorities ought to shape my calendar.

If you came yesterday looking for a quick fix solution to your calendar problems, I am sorry if you walked away disappointed.  My intention was to go beyond the surface quick fixes (that don't seem to really work anyway) and get to the root issue of managing time - How did God set up our time and why does it matter that we pay attention to it?

If you weren't at the Y for the message, I encourage you to stop reading and listen here.  When you are finished come back and join the discussion.

The ancient Hebrews constructed their days according to a divine day-timer.  Their days began at sundown, not sun up.  They placed significance on what you and I might call the "end of the day."  For them it was the first part of the day, and for the Hebrews, "first" always carried a sense of sacredness to it.  In the evenings they would share a meal together with family and friends and enjoy good conversation over the course of the evening.  Their bodies were adjusted to the natural light patterns and they would begin to "shut down" after the sun set.  Did you know we actually have a light-sensitive gland in our brain that tells our bodies when it's time to shut down?  After a good nights rest, they would wake up ready to finish the day strong.

You may be asking what the big deal is about this, so let's dig a little.  Why I believe it's so important to understand this is because we either believe that the time between our work and our sleep is sacred or left-overs.  If you view it asleft-overs then it's easy to check out on your family or waste it away everyday going from event to event.  If you view it as sacred, then you will protect that time rigorously and save it for family and friends.  It's a priority issue not a management issue.

Our goal as Christ-followers is to replace our priorities with God's priorities over the course of time.  Our journey on this earth is full of small priority shifts that slowly transform us into His likeness.  When our priorities are right, then our "time management" begins to take care of itself.

So, if you buy into what I'm saying about the sacredness of the after-work hours, primarily between sundown and bedtime, what will look different about your schedule?  You tell me?  I have some ideas, but I'd really like to hear from some of you that have made the transition and are seeing positive strides in your scheduling as a family.  Here is one big one to get you started, though:

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University released a study in 2005 indicating benefits of family dinners.  Here are 10 benefits they found in kids regarding family dinners.

The survey notes 10 positive trends for teens who eat dinner often with their families:

• Less likely to smoke cigarettes
• Less likely to drink alcohol
• Less likely to try marijuana
• Less likely to have friends who use illicit drugs
• Less likely to have friends who abuse prescription drugs
• More likely to get mostly A's and B's at school
• More likely to say they would confide in one or both parents about a serious problem
• More likely to report that their parents are very proud of them
• More likely to report lower levels of stress and tension at home
• More likely to talk to their families during dinner and have the TV off during the meal

Those findings come from comparing teens who have five or more family dinners per week with those who have three or fewer weekly family dinners. (In the 2006 release, findings weren't any different.)

Because of our belief in the sacredness of evenings, coupled with our learnings from this report and others like it, we have set aside our evening for family dinners.  It's easy for us right now, but we are setting precedent for years to come that our family table is central.  Now we may share family meals with friends and/or family, but it's very high on our priority list.

So...let's hear some of your opinions and thoughts on the sacredness of our after-work, after-school times?  How do you demonstrate this in your family.