Lent '09 - Day 11: Interesting Woe

Jesus' woes to the Pharisees in Luke 11:37-53 are startling. They remind me that I'm not dealing with a pushover in Christ. One thing that stood out when reading them this time, was when Jesus said:

Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But give what is inside the dish to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.

This giving what's "inside the dish" is what struck me. I need to research this to understand what was meant exactly, but given the context of the Pharisees looking good externally, I assume that "inside the cup" refers to internal things like one's heart or mind. If this is the case, then Jesus isn't pushing them to just give their money to the poor, but also themselves in relationship.

Lent '09 - Day 10: Responsibility System

If there are things to do or responsibilities to take care, I feel the burden to take care of them. I expect the same of others. My thinking is, "Let's work, and when we get the work done, we can relax." Personality differences cause people to approach work and responsibility differently, and while I can't say my way is right, I don't think it's wrong. That said, there's an important exception to make, which Jesus reveals when mediating between Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42.

Martha is definitely responsibility minded, and the todo list for things to take care of with Jesus and his cohorts in town are on her mind. "I'll enjoy and learn from Jesus after all this work gets done!" Mary, Martha's sister, doesn't have the same responsibility sentiment, and instead spends time with Jesus before the work gets done. This peeves Martha, who was probably fuming inside for some time before she finally blurted, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" I know I would have had the same exasperation. Jesus' response is very important for us responsibility-minded folk:

Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chose what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.

Jesus understands Martha's feelings, but the sense of urgency Martha feels from responsibility is off base. The literal transalation of the Spanish rendering of this response from Jesus is, "Marth has chosen best, and nobody will take it from her". Despite Martha's plea, Jesus himself will not tell Mary to get in the kitchen and help with the tasks at hand.

For those of us who feel responsibility's weight, we must be willing to make exceptions for other people and ourselves. While playing video games should probably not fly as an excuse to get out of work, feasting on Christ and expanding the Kingdom should.

Lent '09 - Day 9: Praying Tired

Does anyone else struggle to pray or read Scripture when tired? I will be mid sentence, and just blank out. In observing Jesus, one sees him go and pray after long/hard days or through the night, and I wonder how he did it. I find it strange because I can do pretty well working when tired. Maybe because it's more active? Designing or thinking hard about a problem though are more difficult when tired, but answering questions or writing code for things I'm very familiar with is not so impaired. In thinking about it more, it's the higher level functions that are affected by being tired (e.g. listening, relating with feelings, studying, etc.). There are definitely times to forgo on sleep and bank on God to provide the energy to get through the day, but when it's within our control to get good sleep, we owe it our relationships (including with God) to do so.

Lent '09 - Day 8: What does this mean?

Do you see how these words from Jesus in Luke 8:16-18 connect?

• ¹⁶No one lights a lamp and hides it in a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light.
  
• ¹⁷For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.
  
• ¹⁸Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him.

They make sense to me on their own, but they're clearly connected with words like "for" and "therefore". If you have any comments or thoughts, please share.

Lent '09 - Day 7: Rejecting your purpose

In the middle of chapter 7, Luke makes a comment about how "the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves" (Luke 7:30). Isn't that startling? A hammer's purpose is to drive in or pull out nail, right? But a hammer cannot prevent itself from being used to pound nails into 2x4's. A hammer cannot reject its purpose. On the other-hand, we as humans can. We can live counter to how we were intended to live, and the religious elite in Jesus' day did exactly that.

Luke 7:30 also states that their purpose rejection was related to not-being baptized by John. John's baptism was one of repentance, making an about-face in one's life. Repentance is a correction to the course of living out God's purpose. We all can get off track from God's purpose, and need to make adjustments (or overhauls). If we are consistently un-willing to make these changes though, our actions demonstrate that we reject God's purpose.

Lent '09 - Day 6: Choosing not to think

Some of the people I've been getting to know most at work are the security guards and janitors. They're wanting to learn English and I'm wanting to learn Spanish, so we are a good match for each other.

Additional people are continuing to be hired down here, which means more technology purchases, which also means more boxes. There was a very large accumulation of boxes within boxes across from my office as a result of IT's latest hardware installment. When walking back to my desk, I saw one of the janitors starting in on the pile. As there were 100+ boxes to break down, I asked if she needed any help. "¡Sî!"

The whole box breaking endeavor took longer than I expected. While working, the thought crossed my mind: "is this the best use of my time?" I definitely don't by any means see myself above menial tasks like box breaking, but there were so many things for my team that need to get done where my more specialized skills are required. Why then was I taking time to do break boxes where anyone could fill in? Questions of priority also arose, like "is this the most important thing for me to be spending my time on?" Scripture crossed my mind too, like "Do to others as you would have them do to you" (Luke 6:31), but those thoughts had a hard time being heard amongst the productivity thoughts.

In my heart, I knew that asking to break the boxes was the right thing to do. My head thought of many reasons why not to do it. When I hit this internal conflict, I have to choose not to think so that I can have a heart override. Once the heart override has occurred, the mind can be engaged again to realize, "I have a lot of flexibility with work. I can just work longer to compensate for the lost time."

Lent '09 - Day 5: "You want me to do what?!"

This is what I imagine Peter thinking when Jesus tells Peter to head to deep water and let the nets down, despite the fact that Peter and his partner's have worked all night and haven't caught a thing (Luke 5:4-5). I can relate with the feeling of working long and hard but not being successful. I'm usually closer to the end of my rope and my patience is short. If some non-fisherman told me, a fisherman, to then go back out, I think I'd snap. I'm not sure what enabled Peter to keep his cool; maybe it was out of respect for the traveling rabbi or the words that he'd just heard Jesus speak. Either way, his response to Jesus is both encouraging and challenging: "because you say so, I will".

I know God has asked things of me that don't make sense on the surface: "pull over and see if that person needs help", "ask how that stranger is doing", "get up and write an email to check in on that person", etc. When I'm at my best, I respond to these requests, despite how illogical or inconvenient they seem. I've been thinking this morning about if there's any nudges recently where I haven't given the "because you say so I will" response. The thing that has come to mind is the empty lot on our walk to the bus stop that is becoming a trash heap. In the grand scheme of things, this doesn't seem like that big of the deal, but maybe it's a pre-requisite for hearing other requests. What about for you? What things do you need to do, simply because He asked? Are you listening for them?