Showtime ...

Que the lights.  Set the sound.  The parable production is about to start.  This will be live streamed.  This will have major presence across all social media platforms.  Today, on this Sabbath, Bill Gates is coming to our particular church.  Now church might not be the first venue you think of as a “production” unless maybe you attend one of the Mega churches that has lighting and cameras and an active streaming ministry.  Small churches usually don’t have that kind of thing.  Mostly they can’t afford it.  But what if Bill Gates just up and decided one day to come to your particular church?  Might that not create a buzz?  Might just his very attendance boost yours?  Folks would come to see if Bill did.  Most folks know he is super rich, and gives away a lot of money to good causes.  If you knew he was coming to your church on your day of worship, you might choose to attend (masked up as needed, and spaced out as necessary) just hoping maybe some of Bill’s good will might rub off on you.  You may not even want money per se, you may just want a job.  I mean who would not want a job working for Bill Gates, and he is bound to have an assorted mess of jobs given his foundation and his former company Microsoft (where I am sure a personal recommendation gets you hired no matter what HR might otherwise have thought about you).

So outside of Jesus coming to church, having Bill Gates show up might just be the second highest grossing ticket of all time.  Now as a regular member, you know the offering plate is going to get passed right by Bill.  What will he do?  What will you?  Will he put in an envelope marked with a charitable contribution for the assorted ministries your church needs to fund?  Do you put in your envelope?  And when was the last time you were even here anyway, pre-covid, maybe years before that.  And back in those days, what were your giving practices.  Cause if you happened to be sitting near Bill when he shows up, you might be putting in an envelope just to show Bill that you are a generous person.  He’s not likely to hire you for a job at a charitable foundation if you can’t be bothered giving to charity.  But if you give big, that might just impress him and land you a spot of your dreams. 

Now if the offering plate comes to Bill, you kind of expect him to fund everything.  He has the money.  He has so much money, he could personally fund your church for 100 years and not even get out of pocket change.  You don’t.  You have bills to pay, a mortgage to keep up with, the loss of one income already due to this pandemic.  You have kids you are trying to feed.  You know, responsibilities.  And you reason that God must understand all this and not have very high expectations of your giving, cause you know, God has not done much to insure you had spare cash to give.  But that is where this whole parable begins to hit a little close to home.  How much do you have to give?  And how much of that are you willing to give?  Bill can give anything.  If he gives nothing we all sneer at his selfishness, for having so much and choosing to give none of it.  This is why we take up offerings before the sermon, or even the music, so people are not offended before they give.  Hit em right up front, then there are no excuses about what they heard or saw.  If Bill with all his money chooses not to give, we collectively call him selfish.  Does not matter that he gives in other venues; he did not give in ours, therefore selfish.  And we are all wrong.  But worse, we refuse to look in the mirror and ask that same question, especially while Bill is at services and could solve our church’s problems in one go.

But back to me and you.  With all that is going on, we figure God can’t expect too much of us, at least not yet.  Once we get our income under control, once we get our taxes paid, our bills normalized, our mortgages up to date, maybe then, yup, only then, could we ever think about giving what we know we probably should.  And Jesus watches all of us.  He watches Bill.  But He is also watching all the “rich” folks at our church, and all the “working” folks at our church.  He knows what we are all going though.  But He even watches the “poor” folks at our church.  Now as for the poor, you and I expect nothing from them.  Cause they do not have anything to offer (at least not monetarily).  If anything, the money we are giving should be going to help the poor, which very well might be some of our fellow church members.  Surely God does not expect them to give.  God expects us to give to them.

And then there is homeless man Pete.  Pete never smells very good.  He does not have regular access to a shower or a place to wash his clothes, so you can imagine he probably would not smell very good.  Pete knows it.  He is very self-conscious about it.  So when Pete comes to church he sits in the very last pew on the side closest to the door, hoping as the door opens and shuts, it will carry some of his odor outside the sanctuary and refresh the air he is making foul by his presence.  Pete is usually hungry.  No one is willing to hire Pete because they assume he is mental, or lazy, or they just don’t want to smell him.  So Pete is never sure when he going to eat again.  Pete is not just poor, he is uber poor, he is broke, and has nothing.  On occasion, someone takes pity on Pete and hands him a dollar at a traffic stop.  Most folks think this makes Pete secretly rich.  It doesn’t.  Never enough for a hotel, thus the shower problem.  Barely enough for a single meal, once and a while, always eaten outside, cause no one will seat him.  This is his life.  Today when all the attention is on Bill attending services, Pete just quietly takes a place as far out of sight as possible.  When the offering plate last stops at Pete, he fumbles around in his pockets and finds 2 dollars.  He gives it.  It is all he has.  It means he will not eat today.  He reasons God will provide.  He reasons God can use Pete’s own money for the truly poor.  Pete does not think of himself as poor, because Pete knows even if nobody else loves him, Jesus loves him.  And that is enough for Pete.

I ask you.  Who in this parable loves Jesus?  Does Bill?  Would any amount of money be able to show you that Bill loves Jesus, or would you just expect him to give more?  Do you?  Could someone look at your financial priorities and easily see that you love Jesus by how you give?  Does Pete?  Pete gave far less than anyone else in church, he always does.  In Pete’s whole life he will never give as much as you could in a single week.  And if the only reason you ever do give is to be a key part of the “show” at church, you’re doing it wrong.  Giving is not about how much God asks.  God asks the same of everyone, ten percent of our increase, and offerings over that as we see fit.  What we give back then is a choice, why we make that choice is as important as what we wind up giving because of it.  Luke records the parable of a desperate widow going to the Mega church of her day.  It opens the 21^st chapter right up front in verse 1 saying … “And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.”  Jesus was at Temple.  And the show had already started.  A parade of rich men dropping large, and more importantly loud, gold coins in the collection bucket at the rear of the building.

Que the lights.  Stream the production.  The parade has started.  It is the rich of His day making an absolute show of just how generous each of them is.  Funds acquired not through the blessing of God mind you, but through the abuse of others, chiefly the poor.  But hey look, they are giving back in large, loud, measure.  For all to see, so to speak.  Let all behold the magnanimity of me, and what a generous guy I must be.  Spotlight over here please.  God are you watching?  I have bills you know, I could keep all these coins and be richer myself.  But no, I am giving them over publicly, in order to set a good example, to You.  Given my generosity, everyone around should be holding me in high regard.  This is how it is done.  This is why I matter.  This is why I am the most important person in this church.  Without me, funding dries up to nothing.  Look, look, everyone and give me at least an approving nod.  As for you God, you better be paying attention.  And God is.

Luke continues in verse 2 saying … “And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. [verse 3] And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: [verse 4] For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.”  What Bill Gates gives is between he and God.  As what these rich men give was also between them and God, even though it was the public spectacle and recognition they craved even more than their own money.  What this widow gave was also between she and God.  But God was watching.  And God used her love for Him, as an example of what giving everything means.  Widows were more at risk back then, than mythical homeless Pete in our parable would be today.  My question is why does it always seem to be those most destitute of the wealth of this world, those who need that wealth the most, who always wind up being the ones who most willing part with it back to God.  They give without fanfare, most of them embarrassed at low their numbers are, while giving everything they have to offer.

Not all widows were old.  Some lost husbands in the prime of life.  Some still had small children to take care of.  We do not know what else this widow was responsible for, what other bills, or needs she was supposed to cover financially.  We just know that in spite of anything else, she put God first in her heart and gave everything she had,  It was not to be noticed.  She would have been embarrassed to be compared with the sound of large gold coins falling endlessly into the bucket from the rich who seemed to never stop.  But God noticed.  And God zoomed in on her heart, and the hearts of us all.  Bill Gates has never been to my church.  And while he is ever invited, I sometimes wonder if by not coming he saves my fellow parishioners from relying upon his generosity to cover their own lack of it.  To cover my lack of it.  If we  all see ourselves as poor as widows then so be it, but can we all have her spirit of giving as well?  Can we all have her trust to give in spite of our other pressing concerns?

I doubt that widow ever became rich.  At least not in this world.  But I will bet she knew more about love than most of us ever will.  I will bet she will be chief in heaven among the millions of servants of God.  And so she should.  For His love for her was not about how much she gave, but about how much she loved, how much she trusted.  Can we call ourselves Christians, and continue to do less, rationalize more, and leave ourselves empty because of it?  I would ask, who is truly homeless, and who is just here for the show?

 

Daddy Issues ...

A lot of unkind jokes use the phrase “daddy issues” to make a punchline out of lifelong insecurities.  Most conventional thinking attributes the ideas of daddy issues to young women inexplicably attracted to older men.  But that is far from where it truly ends.  Nearly every child of divorce has some inkling of what daddy issues entails.  And divorced or not, every child of workaholic type “A” personality go-getter dads knows what it is like to live in that shadow and possibility never live up to it.  Who you are cannot be explained in full without knowing where you come from; not just who composed your family members, but what life was like with them as well.  All of us no matter the age we recognize it, look for a degree of affirmation from our fathers.  We want that “stamp of approval”, perhaps “parental pride”, to lean on, and know it is there, and it is as solid as concrete.  Given the state of our society, I would say those of us getting this affirmation, and knowing we have it, is a good deal less than the majority of our populous.

But it gets worse ☹.  You have probably heard the expression (derived from scripture), that “we are made in the image of God”.  This tells us we tie the roots of our existence in similarity to the God who created us.  Some people say “we have a God shaped hole in each of us”.  This is meant to convey that we each seek a love that only God can provide.  No other substitute for it, no matter what level of self-gratification we try to mask that need with.  If you mirrored our local family needs of at least at some point looking for the affirmation of our earth-bound fathers – then it stands to reason we will look even harder for the affirmation of our Heavenly Father.  But there’s the rub.  Local dad can tell me he loves me, or if he is proud of me (if he ever chooses to).  But Heavenly Dad seems to have a harder time getting that message across.  We have a distance thing to deal with.  And if not the physical distance, we also have a distance between us in how we love.  He loves me absolutely.  But instead of loving others that way, I tend to heap all the love I get, right back on me (ahh the invention of selfishness).  So how could our Father God, ever be proud of me, when it is clear, my life could hardly ever be a source of pride in a heavenly kingdom (where selfishness is something long since extinct in the average heavenly heart, let alone in a God, who was willing to die for me, to show me how far His love would take Him).

I am a disobedient child at best.  Belligerent, noisy, insisting I know what I am doing, when history is clear I do not.  Any Father of a two-year-old can tell you when they are screaming and covered in poo, it is hard to pick that precise moment to state your pride in them.  I should imagine this is a dilemma God faces nearly every time He looks at me.  On the other side of that coin, any Father of a two-year-old can also tell you that sometimes even despite our bad behavior we can still look pretty cute to Dad.  Perhaps it is because we belong to Dad.  Perhaps because we are His.  Perhaps it is His love that is able to see through our shenanigans and see us for who we could be, rather than perhaps who we are.  And every dad wants to clean up our dirty; nurse the boo-boo’s; and point us in a direction where what will bring us happiness is right in front of us (instead on unnoticed by us).  The daddy issues we may find ourselves having with God, don’t come because of His lack of love, they come from us failing to realize “this” is not what was meant for any of us.  There is something so much better.  And we need to trust Dad, that He is trying to set our course on a path to that (no matter how it looks in the here and now).

Matthew in his gospel to his Hebrew contemporaries, in chapter 25, continues discussing what the second coming will be like from a readiness point of view.  The conditions we face here and how we might steer clear of paths leading in the wrong direction.  Jesus gives us a parable (a story that is), to show themes His audience would understand better.  This one picks up in verse 1 saying … “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. [verse 2] And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.”  So call me cynical but in today’s modern age the first thing that jumps out at me is the ratio of brides to husband, ten to one, if I read this right.  My cynical mind jumps right to the unkind phrase “daddy issues”.  Why else would any bride be willing to share their husband with another bride, let alone with nine others?  But then I remember, this is a story to make a point, not a word for word endorsement of multiple-partner-marriages.

And then it also occurs to me, perhaps the Bridegroom, was the one NOT given a choice in the matter.  What? You ask.  Think about it.  Traditionally the bride(s) represent a church of some kind.  In this case we presume a Christian church.  And perhaps at the end of all things (i.e. in our modern age), there is more than “one” Christian Church who qualifies as being a bride of Christ.  Imagine that my Baptist friends, it could be that you will be sharing your virginal bride status, with our Catholic friends, and Mormon friends, and Adventist friends, and so on, and so on.  I know a good number of Christian denominations (my own no exception), that believe “they” are the only “virgin” – all the rest are sluts at best.  All of us Christians are quick to adopt the idea that our particular church is the virgin talked about in scripture, and any other church can get thrown into the “whore” category, also discussed elsewhere (and out of context).  But if Jesus was coming back to reclaim all the believers who follow Him, then perhaps He has an appointment with ten virgins instead of one, because our foolishness and pride over doctrines have left Him no choice but to find ten of us walled off from each other, each thinking we are “all that”.  When in truth, we each have only a portion of “the Truth”, too stubborn to accept that others might have other parts of “the Truth”.

Consider too, Jesus does not say the Bridegroom was coming to marry 2 virgins, 3 concubines, 2 divorcee’s, and 3 good old-fashioned prostitutes.  Instead all ten are virgins.  Which given our doctrinal differences (that cannot possibly “all” be right), it might be that the only thing that makes one a virgin is in how they truly “follow” Jesus Christ.  Not, if they have scriptural understanding perfect, or every prophecy coded down to a gnat’s behind.  But even in virginity, there is a distinction between the wise and the foolish.  Jesus tells us what that is continuing in verse 3 as he goes on stating … “They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: [verse 4] But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.”  Daddy issues again perhaps?  This time however, it is more about how we listen to Dad, than whether His instructions are clear.  Think about it, virginity is not in question.  The fact that you are bride destined to marry our Lord is not in question.  This is about whether you carry the oil you need for a moment, or whether you plan ahead for any contingencies.  It is a subtle difference.

Everybody has oil on day one.  If we were to interpret that the “oil” was a reference to the Holy Spirit, then you could assume every believer has a notion of the role of the Holy Spirit and is at least initially happy to invite Him into our lives.  But when you invite God in, He comes.  And when you invite God in, He starts changing things.  Before you even realize it, sin is on its way out, and joy is backfilling the void.  Most of us would say bring it on.  But for each of us who has some sin we are not quite ready to give up, we may not want “that much” Holy Spirit in our lives and hearts.  What if the Holy Spirit begins taking the cherished sin out?  He might knock that sin right out of our hearts before we are ready to lose it.  For us foolish virgins, we want a “controlled” measure of the Holy Spirit in our lives, not a full measure of it.  We are still too foolish as to try to give up “all” our sins, we just want most of them gone, and keep only a small few we are so desperately fond of.  And so we create daddy issues when that was never the plan.

Jesus continues in verse 5 saying … “While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.”  Yeah that is one of the more painful scriptures in the Bible, and such a clear commentary on how we various Christian churches keep dropping the ball.  It’s not so much that we “ALL” slept (the foolish and the wise).  It is that we ALL were more comfortable falling asleep from a delay in His return, than in pointing others to the light and love of Jesus Christ.  That is supposed to be the number one mission of any Christian church.  And yet, nope, each of us virgins, (insert a collective reference to yours and my church here), were all too happy to sleep on the accomplishments of our founders, than to get out there and help with the redemptive work.  That just hurts.  And it is not like we can blame this on a miscommunication from some random prophet in scripture, this is Matthew recording the very words of Jesus Christ Himself, that other gospels would seem to coordinate.  So even when our virginity is in tact (we truly follow Jesus), even when we are wise and invite a full measure of the Holy Spirit’s oil into our lives and hearts, we are still taking all that testimony and witness and sleeping on it, rather than sharing it.

The sadness continues as Jesus states in verse 6 saying … “And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.”  At midnight, that is to say, when we are deep in sleep, and completely unaware something is coming.  Or as Jesus stated earlier, in an hour when we think not.  A cry is made.  Well guess what, the cry is NOT coming from one of the virgins.  They are ALL asleep.  The cry would most likely come from an external, heavenly, or heavenly inspired source.  Perhaps there is a group of Christians who are as we speak, learning to submit to Jesus, and experiencing a level of transformation from His love, that put them outside completely of all the known churches.  Or perhaps there are so few of them, it takes an angel to get things kicked off.  Either way, every church finally wakes up, and is told to begin to go out to meet the bridegroom.  Time to kindle up that oil.

Jesus continues in verse 7 saying … “Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. [verse 8] And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. [verse 9] But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.”  The foolish virgins, by wanting to cling to a few precious sins, have let their lights go out.  But they have some idea of what needs to be done.  They go to those who embraced the Holy Spirit fully, and ask them to give them some of that attractive sin killing oil.  But the time for acquiring oil requires an education the wise do not have time to give.  The foolish must go back to basics, and figure out how to get a full measure of the Holy Spirit so they too can get out there to meet the Bridegroom.  When Daddy teaches you how to trust Him, it is not a one-day process.  It takes time.  It takes a full submission.  You must learn how to recover from bumps in the road, we bring about by trashing the victories He gives, with our stubborn failures.  It takes the humility to come again to Dad, ask forgiveness, and start the process again.  And as we go through this process, we learn what it really means to trust Dad.  The daddy issues start to dissipate.

Jesus continues in verse 10 saying … “And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. [verse 11] Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. [verse 12] But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. [verse 13] Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.”  When Jesus comes, they that are ready will go with Him.  Those who are not ready, those who still cling to sin, any sin, do not understand the degerative disease they have chosen to hang on to.  It is like wanting to keep just a little bit of terminal cancer.  It is like being a cocaine addict and only keep a closet full of it (even though the rest of the house is clean).  When we cling to sin, it is a disease that overwhelms us.  It changes us.  It makes us self-centered.  And our self-centered-ness grows until that is all we really are, no matter what banner we claim as our belief system.

It will not be the moniker “Catholic” or “Baptist” that saves you in the end.  It will be whether you allowed Jesus and the Holy Spirit to wipe the sin out of you, in heart, mind, and body.  It will be whether you submitted to Jesus, and learned how to love like He loves.  When that happens you develop a passion for other people.  When you delay it, you embrace apathy for others, and love for yourself.  It leads to those horrible words coming from the foolish virgins who ask to be let it, and finding the Bridegroom saying “I know you not”.  In another parable, those words were uttered by Jesus associated with Christians who carried the name, but never did anything for the poor or needy, because they frankly did not care about the poor, imprisoned, or needy.  They were too busy in church to make time for people in need.  They were too busy performing miracles in the name of Jesus, too busy planning worship services, and offering sermons.  They did much in the name of Jesus (just not anything from a genuine love of others, only a need to be seen as great themselves).  And so Jesus says to them, I know you not.  A lack of embrace of full transformation leads to behavior that results in the ultimate of daddy issues.  It leads to losing Dad forever.

That is not what our Heavenly Dad wants.  The mission of Jesus was not to see us lose to sin, it was to see us let Him take the sin out of us.  We were not meant to live in pain, and suffer death.  We were meant to live in bliss, and know the true joy of loving others never even thinking of yourself.  The command to “Watch” by Jesus is not a veiled threat to those who understand transformation.  It means the clock is ticking, and we only have so much more time of participating in His redemptive mission to point others to the light and love of Jesus Christ.  Once Jesus returns, the clock is done.  No more time to help others.  Only time to return with Him.  Whoever we missed, whoever we did not love enough, is now a lost opportunity.  A fate no child wants to see.  And an issue for our heavenly Dad He just cannot bare to think about.  It is why He delays, desperately hoping each of us will come to Him.  The delay was not a punishment to those waiting His return, it was a desperate plea to those who could care less.  That kind of love that just does not want to give up, on even one poo-stained child, is where the heart of our Daddy is.

And the affirmation we seek from our Father, will one day come in person from Him, and forever more in person from Him.  And then, the idea of daddy issues will be gone forever.

And Jesus was not yet done trying to prepare us for His second coming …