Tag Archives: fools gold

Living Without a B Plan

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I would like to take a brief bit of your time today to sort of piggyback on last week’s blog: It’s Not Called Faith Until It’s Hard.  We wrapped up things, reiterating our main focus of the fact that faith is often times “hard”, yet we have been guilty many times of packaging the gospel in a more palatable fashion that harms more than helps.  The result has been massive attrition (some of which is natural), but that could be avoided at least partly by a presentation of the gospel that includes the costs associated should one give wholehearted alignment to it.  A case in point, and perhaps an addendum to our previous talk worth additional ponderance, comes from Peter himself.  A serious disciple of the Lord known for often getting it wrong, but who often got it “spot on” while the rest were simply trying to catch up.  Our text before us today captures this in a monumental way I believe.

Some Hard Pills to Swallow

Our story comes from John chapter 6, and particularly starting in verse 25, where Jesus begins relating the manna that was given to the Israelites in the wilderness as in fact “Himself”.  In other words, Jesus says He is the “bread of life” that in fact came down from heaven.  This of course starts an immediate ruckus among the crowd, with them first of all calling out his humble and unimpressive lineage from their perspective.  The additional gag reflex was in trying to get their arms and minds around Jesus asking them to “eat his flesh”.  And if that were not bad enough, Jesus seems to be commissioning them to drink some of his “blood” to wash it down with.  And as a result of this “hard teaching”, in verse 66 we find the words, “After this many of his disciples quit following him and did not accompany him any longer” (John 6:66 NET).  And I find it interesting to note here that there were many “disciples” that were following Him besides the 12, but it was at this point when the gospel and it’s “hardness” began to separate the men from the boys shall we say.  In fact, you can bet your bottom dollar part of this crowd that bailed as a result were also some of the same ones who later hollered “crucify him” and also chimed in “Give us Barabbas instead” assisting Pilate in deciding His fate.

But in light of this, understandably, Jesus looks out at the 12 and says these somber and profound words that I would suggest He is still asking today to those of us for whom the good confession we made before many witnesses is starting to lack any visible “benefit package”.  Additionally, for those of us who at a pivotal point in our walk begin to also wrestle with the things “hard to understand”, or in the navigation through times of difficulty that seem to have no current expiration date.  The stuff of which Jesus beckons us to not only file away until a later time of revelation, but to also embrace in patient waiting along with the more genteel admonitions that give us epiphanies of glorious light along the way.  And so He says to them, “You don’t want to go away too, do you”?  And I’m guessing at this particular instance you could have heard at least 12 pins drop!

Peter Graduates to Class 201

In fact, it is here that I envision all the disciples looking at each other, wondering who has the correct answer to this haunting question.  Or perhaps they in unison are contemplating whether there is even a right answer to give at this point.  Perhaps they were looking at each other much like you and I might do as schoolchildren when the Principal asks a suspicious looking group of us for an answer to a question that could incriminate the whole lot if answered incorrectly, and so no one lets out a peep; or else!  And yet Peter has already sifted this uncomfortableness through his own mind and heart proven by his epic response. For he has, if you will, already “burned all the ships” and “cashed in his chips”.  And his reply is captivating to say the least. Our text says, “Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom would we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God”.  And from my perspective, never have more profound words been uttered for our instruction to those of us trying to make it to second base on the oftentimes lonely narrow path of which we are embarking upon.  For Jesus’ question will continue to be one we also need to answer on the long trek homeward, and our needful repetitive answer will demand the basic tenets of Peter’s reply all over it.

A Flunky Disciple’s Pilgrimage

I concluded last week’s blog with a short video about the story behind the song I sung as a child, still wrestling then with what it meant to be a follower of Jesus and what that would look like in Mark Prince clothing.  And though I wouldn’t totally embrace the narrow path until the age of 27, I would spend the next 28 years afterwards learning what that continual decision would cost me personally.  And though I skinned my knee many times throughout that journey through my own spiritual clumsiness, by God’s grace I have been able to say, “I have decided to follow Jesus” and “though none go with me, still I will follow”.  In fact, that has often been the case in moving pictures so to speak.  For I have watched many of my friends who were once “brothers in arms” in the fight of faith on this narrow road become casualties of that same raging battle before my very sad blue eyes.  Men and women who because of trials, toils and snares and a variety of brokenness are those who finally call it quits and say, “enough already”.  For the road is much, much too difficult.  Those costs have also included God’s very own churchmen treating me as an outsider, part of the rebellion, or as someone simply unwilling to kiss their ecclesiastical ring.  A ring of whose glitter did not reflect the gold that had once been projected as a given.  It’s also cost beloved friends and family who both quietly and even boisterously conjured up spells given spiritual names for my demise.  Added to these were my own flaws being worked through cruciform necessities to drive my roots deep and wide and ready for a later more worthwhile rumble with the demons just outside my door.  And then not to be excluded were the loss of all things often unequally mixed with restoration and hope, along with “dark nights of the soul” that lasted more akin to days, weeks and years; along with dates with death to then be postponed until further notice.  And yet here I am, still talking about and walking with Jesus, albeit with a very distinctive limp.

The Decision to Abort Plan B

And as you guessed it, all of us face this same pivotal moment in our lives if we dare to dream about walking on the path of our Lord and what it might entail for us.  For there are a plethora of never-ending options alluring us to its beck and call, all the while making continual boasts of its cure to whatever currently ails us.  And yet sooner or later like Peter, and like the rest of any would be disciple who endeavors to embark on that self-same path, we’ll have to answer a difficult (yet with God’s grace and help) life altering question.  And the answer has only one reply once we have been beat up one too many times with the pleasures of sin for seasons, and man’s endless tirade of pragmatic plans that promise to lead us anywhere but a cross that will need to be carried.  And it is at that time as we stand watching the crowds teeter-tottering between this way and that, sifting through the vast array of best made plans, that we finally understand that He alone has the words of eternal life.  And then consequently resigning to the fact that in light of that stark and yet beautiful reality, there simply is nowhere else that we can go!  And when that happens; when we finally “fish and cut bait” for the last time, life without a B plan becomes the absolute safest place in the world we could possibly be; and one in which we finally begin to actually live!

Selah

I Can Never Be The Same

 

 

 

If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don’t Want To Be Right

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Rod Stewart Theology

As I thought introspectively about the impetus for this blog, I couldn’t escape a flashback of the cover Rod Stewart did of the song “If Loving You is Wrong, I Don’t Want To Be Right” for some reason.  In fact, I can remember listening to that song for the first time in 1977 somehow knowing it was not just saying something about an affair between a married man and a woman that he is erotically smitten with.  Also lurking there was somehow something much deeper in my mind that told me this song was about much, much more as it relates to an age-old problem most of us seem to never shake.  And perhaps understandably so.  For the very real but unquenchable pull of what we feel, see and touch is a powerful seduction that most of us fall prey to time and time again; causing us to howl like a cat in heat, repeatedly choosing the satiating temporal over our perception of the inaccessible eternal.  Is it any wonder then that when the disciple that Jesus loved tells us to “love not the world“, we would prefer to cast our lot with those on the “highway to hell” instead.  For after all, the cure for what ails us seems nowhere in sight, and often times the world feels pretty damn good—for a season that is.

John is trying to tell us something though in I John 2:15-17.  The text reads,

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, because all that is in the world (the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the arrogance produced by material possessions is not from the Father, but is from the 

world. And the world is passing away with all its desires, but the person who does the will of God remains forever” (NET).

This is something that we must pay attention to very closely.  For if loving the Father is right, and yet we choose to be wrong (in bed with world), there is a juxtaposition that cannot be reconciled on the narrow path laid out for us.  And it is this paradox that constantly wars against our soul, beckoning us to draw straws for that which we actually believe gives us the best bang for the buck in the here and now, in stark opposition to the best the Father has for us.  And according to biblical history and our collective human experience, our public record is replete with examples that matter-of-factly illustrate the fact that our allegiances to one or the other do matter; both in the here and now (which is a point we often miss), as well as in that everlasting place that our hearts both secretly and restlessly long for. Yet for the life of us, it often is a day late and at least a dollar short in our ability to somehow let it under our skin.

The Root of the Problem

We are in fact given more insider insight to the age-old problem we’re forced to grapple with in Genesis chapter 3, when the author alerts us with a news flash across our cerebral screens that “when the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it” (Gen. 3:6 NET).  The temptation of course was deeper than the sensuality of the forbidden that summoned her that we just mentioned, but went much deeper into the human psyche of the very distinct possibility of becoming the master of her own destiny, and of somehow putting herself in the spot of the God who was somehow holding her back from “my body, my choice” or, just fill in the blank.  Evidently Adam also thought this was an equally grand idea; and coupled with the thought of sleeping on the couch, the passive male now entered onto the world stage for our abiding education.

But let’s not give Adam and Eve too much of a go of it, for if we had stood in proxy, we would have eaten the whole damn tree; roots and all!  For it is in the very raw and organic nature of mankind to run like a moth to a flame to grab hold of anything that we have been told is off limits for us.  Thus to deny the instantaneous satiety of the smoldering red stew on the fire, the Delilah-like “brick-house” promising ecstasy for the night, or the subtle lure of calling one’s own shots; this is indeed the trifecta that has told the sad tale of mankind’s unhealthy love for the world, rather than for the creator who understands the rules it mercilessly plays by.

The God-like Fool and His Money

John however adds some additional insight that is equally helpful to us in discerning a better way forward from the shape we are in. In fact, we learn that it is not only the trifecta aforementioned, but also lurking behind “calling one’s own shots” is “the arrogance produced by material possessions”.  It would seem that the very god-like characteristics that money exemplars gives us the added ammunition to tell God to “take the job and shove it”, while adding a heaping teaspoon of pride that makes man think he’s “gangsta-rich” and thus invincible, even when he hasn’t got an eternal pot to piss in!  And if there is such a thing as “creating a monster”, this is one now full grown and ready to rumble.

So then, at the risk of being repetitive, we already learned that the biblical story and our own tells the tale well.  Yet for our further reflection on the matter,  Ezekiel 7:19 also reminds us that just like our current lesson, part of the Israelites own dilemma, and a direct result of their exile was in recognizing that it was their “god-like” wealth that was actually the “obstacle leading to their iniquity”.  Several chapters later Ezekiel even goes so far to say that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was much deeper than we assume at the surface, as he chimes in that the Lord’s very own chosen had now given them a run for their money.  In fact, in chapter 16:48-50 we learn that it was their “haughtiness” and “carefree ease” that caused them to not only neglect the weightier matters of giving a damn about others less fortunate than they, but also was the main ingredient that ultimately caused them to do the “abominable deeds” that wiped them off the map in the first place.  And then I all of sudden remembered this prediction that has still yet to come to fruition.  Ruth Bell Graham once said (paraphrased) “that if God doesn’t punish America soon, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah”.  But let’s not give America too much credit.  Because the real problem with the world, as G.K. Chesterton once so eloquently put, is in fact just plain ole (you) and “me”.

Who’s Your Real Daddy?

So the question we must answer then is both a simple and complex one I’m afraid.  But you probably already figured as much.  For John clearly tells us to make a decision as to “who’s our daddy”, and we know the right answer.  We’ve been in that class for far too long I’m afraid.  The eternal difficulty however lies in dealing head-on with the enigma I put before us at the outset of our brief talk today.  For if it is in our DNA to prefer loving what we know is wrong because of its temporary yet aphrodisiacal nature, and thus consequently continually choosing not to be right instead; then the answer, like the snake that should have already bitten us, has to be both a daily and disciplined choice.  A choice of putting in our lot and our love with the right family.   The family that we are told first loved us with a whole lot of blood poured out to prove it.  For the world promises much yet delivers little once our finite dust is settled, and thus choosing who you will love is of a most epic proportion!  And yet if we cannot learn from our own mirrored history, then as one wiser than I once said, “we are eternally destined to repeat it”.

Selah