Hear It on Sunday Use It on Monday

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

March 17, 2014 By Michelle 34 Comments

We are taking a bit of Lenten quiet on Mondays here until Easter. I’m posting a verse, a devotion I wrote for my church’s Lenten booklet and a prayer. Peace be with you, lovely friends…

But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor on me – and not without results. For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles; yet it was not I but God who was working through me by his grace. So it makes no difference whether I preach or they preach, for we all preach the same message you have already believed. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

I don’t know about you, but when things are going well for me, I often credit myself and my own efforts and forget all about God. I love this verse because it reminds me that God’s abundant and ever-flowing grace is behind every good and positive thing we do and receive. All of our accomplishments, successes and even “good deeds” are the result of God’s blessings and His grace – we can’t take credit for any of it. It’s not simply my good work; it’s the power of God working through me.

I appreciate this verse, too, because it seems like Paul might struggle with this concept of grace a bit. I see him wrestling here, wanting to take credit, reminding us that he has “worked harder than any of the other apostles,” yet in the next breath, acknowledging to both himself and us that he cannot, in fact, pat himself on the back. All the praise goes to God alone. The next time we feel smugly satisfied about a job well-done, let’s stop for a moment of thanksgiving to give credit where credit is due: to God.

Lord, You know my prideful tendency to want to pat myself on the back. Give me a humble spirit, Lord, so that I will praise only You. Amen.

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: The Most Exquisite Gift

March 10, 2014 By Michelle 11 Comments

For the next six Sundays I will be posting the Sunday devotional that I wrote for my church’s Lent devotional booklet. These will be a little bit different than my usual style: a little more reflection and devotiony, a little less story-based. I’ll also start with a Scripture reading and end with a prayer. This is my way of stepping back from the blog a bit during this Lenten season – thank you for your grace.

That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! Again, he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit…” (John 20:22)

Think about this for minute: Jesus gave the gift of the Holy Spirit to his disciples as they sat together on the evening of Easter Sunday, just hours after he had risen. The disciples didn’t do anything to earn this treasured gift. Jesus didn’t require them to perform a certain number of good deeds or even believe a certain doctrine. He didn’t even require that they profess their faith to him.

In fact, this very moment came on the heels of their betrayal of Jesus, just three days after they’d abandoned him to the Romans and allowed him to die on the cross.

But none of that mattered to Jesus. He didn’t hold it against them. Jesus simply offered his disciples peace, twice, signifying that he forgave them, and then breathed the essence of himself in the form of the Holy Spirit into them, no questions asked, no strings attached.

You know what’s even more amazing about this story? Jesus does the same for each one of us.

We all make mistakes. We all sin. We all separate ourselves from God through our thoughts, actions and words. Jesus knows this about us, and He loves us anyway – fully, completely and unconditionally.

We don’t have to jump through any hoops, prove ourselves to God, perform a certain number of good deeds, follow a certain set of laws or rules – we get the gift. Period. In spite of our past and even our present flaws, we get the gift of the Holy Spirit, no questions asked, no strings attached. Knowing full-well we will flounder and flail and fall, Jesus trusts us anyway. He trusts us with this most exquisite gift: himself.

Dear God, I am humbled by your generosity and your infinite grace. You know my flaws. You know my sins. Yet you lavish the ultimate gift on me, day after day after day. Thank you for trusting me with the most precious gift of all, the gift of the Holy Spirit in me, a gift I don’t deserve but still receive. Amen.

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: When You Think You Can See but You’ve Got It All Wrong

March 3, 2014 By Michelle 29 Comments

I pulled into the parking space just as the red pickup truck next to me turned sharply, clipping the neighboring car so hard it rocked on its wheels.

The pickup idled. Behind the spattered windows rolled up tight, a man and a woman looked down at the scraped Ford. There was discussion. Mouths moved behind the closed windows. They looked, talked some more, laughed. And then drove slowly away.

I ran across the parking lot and into SuperSaver. Tossing my purse onto crates of tomato juice, I wrote a note and the license plate number on the back of a used envelope. And then I hurried back outside to place it on the damaged car’s windshield.

I was pleased with myself. They deserved it, that couple. They’d done something wrong and had even had the gall to laugh about it. They’d looked like the type who would do such a thing: unkempt, rough around the edges. Justice needed to be served, and I was the one to do it.

Halfway across the parking lot, note in hand, I stopped. The woman who had sat in the pickup truck now stood in front of the little blue Ford, hands thrust deep in the pockets of her ragged jacket. She surveyed the front bumper and then turned and sauntered toward the grocery store. One row away the man waited in the passenger seat of the red pickup.

I stalled a few seconds before following the woman back into the grocery store. In the produce section I plucked six oranges from the pyramid. I pushed my cart toward the onions, checked my list.

“May I have your attention please,” the announcer garbled over the store intercom. I paused. “Will the owner of a dark blue Ford, license plate OGI 782, please come to the customer service counter at the front of the store. The owner of a blue Ford, license plate OGI 782, please come to customer service. Thank you.”

Although this incident happened more than two years ago, I still think about it a lot, and I was reminded of it again when I read this week’s lesson about the blind man.

“I entered this world to render judgment,” Jesus told the blind man after he had healed him “– to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see that they are blind.”

Jesus was talking about the know-it-all Pharisees, of course, who just moments earlier had chastised the healed man, a sinner, for daring to contradict them, for daring to teach them.

As much as I hate to admit it, I know Jesus is talking to the know-it-all me in this story, too. That day in the SuperSaver parking lot (and many other days since then) I was the worst kind of Pharisee. I was confident I had it all figured out. Those people – the ones who looked a little unkempt, the ones who were different than me, dare I say less-than me – they had needed to be judged, and I had appointed myself to do it.

What I didn’t realize until almost too late was that I’d judged wrong; I’d been blind. I’d only thought I could see. And those people? The ones I’d deemed the sinners? The ones I’d considered less-than?

They taught me.

Questions for Reflection:
Have you ever wrongly judged someone? Have you ever considered that it might be you that Jesus is talking to in this story, or do you always assume it’s someone else?

Part of this post originally ran as a guest post two years ago at Emily Wierenga’s place.

If you are looking for a daily devotional to accompany your walk through Lent this year, consider Beneath the Tree of Life – a collaborative effort between my church, Nebraska photographer Curt Brinkmann and me. It’s available as a free downloadable e-booklet to email subscribers of this blog. Click here for more details. {If you already receive these blog posts in your email in-box, scroll all the way down to the very end of the post to the blue box, where you’ll find directions for how to access and download the Lenten e-devotional.}

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Different Doesn’t Mean Wrong

February 24, 2014 By Michelle 28 Comments

A black and white photograph of my maternal grandparents hangs on the wall in my parents’ living room. In the picture my grandfather stands handsome in pin-stripes, a white corsage pinned to his lapel. In front of him, their shoulders barely touching, is my grandmother. Her floral hat is angled just so, her porcelain skin framed by a spray of ribbons and gladiola across the shoulder of her suit.

It’s their wedding portrait, but there’s no tuxedo, no white dress, no lace-trimmed veil. On the day they married, my maternal grandparents didn’t walk down a church aisle or stand before a congregation of friends and loved ones. Instead, they were married in the rectory adjacent to the church. My grandfather, born Baptist, was not permitted to marry my grandmother, a Roman Catholic, inside the church.

I used to sit in the blue chair in my parents’ living and stare at that wedding portrait of my grandparents. Truthfully, it made me sad. I mourned the fact that my grandmother hadn’t been allowed the kind of wedding most girls dream about. I mourned that my grandfather, one of the most faithful men I ever knew, had been barred from marrying the girl he loved in a proper church wedding.

For a long time I railed against what I perceived as the Catholic Church’s intolerance of other denominations. When, after many years of unbelief, I returned to faith and religion as a Protestant, I naively assumed my new religion was free of division and divisiveness. Turns out, I was so blinded by my new love for God; I couldn’t see that some Protestants drew their own lines, with Catholics, and others, on the other side. I was disappointed. It was a different “enemy,” but the same old dividing lines.

“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink,” Jesus told the crowd gathered in the Temple on the last day of the Feast of the Tabernacles. “Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way, just as the Scripture says.” (John 7:37-39)

Like Brad observed last week, Jesus chooses the most basic, elemental symbols to make his case: hunger and thirst; bread and water. Water comprises 70 percent of the Earth and about 57 percent of the human body. It is the most basic, but also the most fundamental component to our survival. We all thirst, every last one of us. Jesus chooses the symbol of water for this very reason – because he extends the invitation to everyone.

I love how Jesus always cuts straight to the chase. It’s simple, isn’t it? If you thirst, you are welcome. If you thirst, you’re in.

Yet it’s easy to forget this, isn’t it? It’s easy to forget that Jesus wasn’t about doctrine and creeds, rules and regulations. He simply opened the door and offered the invitation. To everyone.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t advocate that we all adopt a milk-toast, one-size-fits-all religion. I value and appreciate the differences unique to our denominations. I love how we all have a slightly different take on the body and the blood, the bread and wine, the sacraments and the rituals and the prayers and the creeds.

Maybe I’m naive, maybe I’m simplistic, but I believe we can celebrate these differences without deeming one or the other wrong. I believe we can find a way to embrace and appreciate doctrine without allowing it to trump Jesus.

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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: The Bread of Life

February 17, 2014 By Michelle 26 Comments

In a fit of panicked work overload, I asked Brad to write this week’s #HearItUseIt post, and he graciously agreed (with a little begging on my part!). Thanks, Bradster!

When I was about sixteen years old, a friend and I attended an event at a local non-denominational church. The event may have been a concert or a talk by a well-known athlete. I don’t recall. What I do remember is that it was all a bit of a set up.

At some point, counselors came through the rows asking about the state of our souls. My designated evangelist chatted a bit before staring seriously at me and asking “Are you a Christian?” That kind of personal question was strange to me, but I knew this was one I could get right.

“Yeah, I’m a Lutheran,” I responded.

He looked at me and said, with just a touch of sadness in his voice, “I used to be a Lutheran before I became a Christian.”

He then turned to my friend and asked the same question, to which my friend responded, “I’m a Catholic.” The counselor had no response, suggesting that my popish friend might require intervention beyond mere evangelism.

It’s a real temptation to feel like we have all the answers, to think that the ones in some other group are a bit naive or downright wrong. After all, when Jesus describes himself as the bread of life, he uses some exclusive sounding language. In verse 44 he says that “no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws them to me” (NLT). This seems to suggest that God selects some to be brought to Jesus, while others are, by implication, rejected before they get a shot.

Fortunately, the central metaphor of the story is bread — “Anyone who eats this bread will not die . . . ” (v. 58, NLT) If God offers Jesus as the bread of life, he brings people to that bread through hunger. It’s hard to imagine a more universal image since we are all programmed to get hungry and thirsty, just as we are all programmed to seek meaning in our lives.

Jesus did not proclaim, “I am the obscure password of life. If you can produce the secret knock, the door shall be opened to you.” Instead, he offers himself as the most basic fulfillment of the most basic need.

Questions for Reflection:
Have you ever felt spiritually excluded? How can we be welcoming of people who hold different beliefs while still remaining true to our own?

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