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Building on sand

By Glen on August 11th, 2011

Jesus splits the world in two.  But He does it by descending right into our midst.

There He is, the son of Mary, an itinerant preacher with no qualifications and no fixed abode.  Surrounded by the poor, the meek and the persecuted, He holds forth with His distinctive northern accent.  Yet as He concludes His sermon He speaks with insider knowledge about the end of all things.  Stunningly, Jesus portrays Himself as the fulcrum of time and eternity, of heaven and hell.

“21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”  (Matthew 7:21-23)

Jesus is the One whom all peoples will petition on the final day.  Jesus is the Lord whom the righteous will claim to honour.  Jesus is the name in which prophecy is uttered and “wonderful works” are wrought.  Jesus rules on the day of days.  Jesus will have the last word on judgement.  Jesus is the One who must know and be known by the saved.  Jesus is the definition of heaven and His absence is the definition of hell.

This Jewish carpenter splits the world.  He is not simply some wandering Rabbi discussing timeless precepts.  He is the Lord, the Judge, the Centrepiece of all creation.  And so His sermon is not about some other truth, like “the kingdom” or “righteousness.”  Jesus Himself is the ultimate content of the sermon.  The kingdom and righteousness only make sense when we see Christ as the content filling out those terms.  Jesus is and always has been the King in whom the kingdom is established.  He is the righteousness for whom we hunger and thirst.   He is the Fulfiller and Accomplisher of the law that He preaches.

And so, as He concludes His sermon, He makes it clear that everything revolves around Himself.  Jesus is the fork in the road dividing all humanity.  Depending on our relation to Him we’re either entering by the strait or the wide gate (v13).  We’re either travelling the broad or the narrow way (v14).  We’re either good trees producing good fruit or corrupt trees bringing forth evil fruit (v17).  And now, finally, we are either building our house on the rock or building on sand.

24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: 25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. 26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: 27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.  (Matthew 7:24-27)

Notice that everyone must endure the floods and winds.  The wise and the foolish alike must weather the storm.  Building on the Rock does not keep off the rain.  But through the judgement of the waters, like the family of Noah, we cling on to the righteous one and are saved.

But not the foolish builder.  He built on sand.  What does this represent?  Well it would be tempting to view the sand as transitory, worldly things – money, power, vainglory, etc.  And certainly those are foolish foundations for life.  Jesus has indeed preached against trusting in Mammon.  Yet the immediate context points to a more insidious false foundation.  ”Building on sand” is like trusting in your preaching, exorcising or healing ministry (v22).  The sand doesn’t just represent “worldly” confidence, it represents “religious” confidence too.

Yet however successful our religious CVs may be, they are no substitute for knowing and being known by Jesus. Without a genuine relationship with the Lord in which we do His words then we will fall when the great day arrives.  And great will be our fall.

Jesus ends on this calamitous note.  The sermon that began with “Blessed are the poor in spirit” finishes with the utter destruction of the foolish.  What are we to think?  That the grace, gushing so freely in the beginning, has now dried up?  In the end is it all down to us and our ability to do His words?

It’s crucial to see what happens straight after the sermon.  The very next incident shows how we should respond to this teaching.

When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. 2 And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 3 And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. (Matthew 8:1-3)

If ever there was a man unable to “do the words” of the Lord it’s this leper (see more here).  He belongs far outside the kingdom, outside the camp.  He should flee from the Judge of the world but he flees towards Him.  And Jesus does the unthinkable, He touches the untouchable and cleanses the unclean.

Here is our model and our hope.  We naturally choose the wide gate and the broad way.  We’re naturally corrupted trees bringing forth evil fruit.  We’re naturally fools, forsaking Christ’s words and building our own CVs.  Yet there is more grace in Jesus than sin in us; more cleansing in Christ than filth in our hearts.  And He is more than willing to give us the righteousness for which we hunger and thirst; indeed to give us Himself.  At the end of this sermon Jesus found a filthy sinner and stretched forth His hand – not for condemnation but salvation.  That is what He’s like and what His sermon is driving us towards.

If we’ve understood the words of Jesus at all, what should we do?

Our response must not be a steely resolve to do better.  Indeed that is the very essence of building on sand!  Our first response to this sermon must be to do what the leper did.  In brokenness we confess our sin and in confidence we worship Him who “canst make me clean.”

And He does cleanse us and He does fill us with His righteousness and He does make us good trees and He does perform His word in us and through us.  So to Him be the glory, for ever and ever, Amen!

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By their fruits ye shall know them

By Glen on August 10th, 2011

Jesus has told us “Beware” of wolves in sheep’s clothing.  They look like Christians, they speak in Christ’s name but they are false prophets.  And their false teaching devastates the flock.

But how can we defend ourselves against this secret threat?  After all, these wolves look – at least from a distance – like sheep.

Jesus says, look closer.  In an abrupt shift of metaphor He tells us to examine the fruit of these so-called sheep.

“15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. 16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”  (Matthew 7:15-19)

It’s fascinating – faulty teaching is the problem, yet how does Jesus counsel us to detect it?  By studying faulty living.  Corrupted creeds are the issue.  But corrupted creeds will show themselves in corrupted deeds.  This flows from Jesus’ doctrine of humanity.

We are a crop meant to be fruitful and to multiply.  Yet in Adam we now produce thorns and thistles (see v16).  Separated from God, it’s not life but death that grows out of our Adamic nature.

What is the solution?  Well it can’t be a change of behaviour.  Leopards cannot change their spots.  Neither can you staple grapes onto thorn bushes to turn them into vines.  ”A corrupt tree [cannot] bring forth good fruit.”  Rather a corrupt tree cannot help but bring forth evil fruit.  New works are not the answer – only a new birth will do.

But this is how a false prophet can be detected.  The fruit will reveal the tree.  Their life will reveal their nature.  Intensive heresy hunts are not required.  A PhD in theology is not necessary.  If the life of Christ is not coming out of a bible teacher, alarm bells must ring.

This puts preachers in their place.  They are not to lord it over others, they are to be transparent to the flock.  How can we ever ascertain a preacher’s fruit if they are not open to those they teach?  Preachers must not assert their rights or stand on some kind of authoritative role as a platform for their speaking.  Their authority comes from their life.  And their life must be open to all.

This is not to downplay the role of doctrine.  It is false teaching which destroys.  It is sound teaching which brings life.  And we must be constantly testing the preaching of the church against Scripture.  But if you want to assess the health or otherwise of a suspect preacher, Jesus gives us the most immediate test of orthodoxy.  And it’s not a creed, it’s Christlikeness.

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Wolf in sheep’s clothing

By Glen on August 9th, 2011

In the sermon on the mount, there is a progression in Christ’s teaching about the scribes and Pharisees.

They begin as standard-bearers for outward righteousness.  If anyone is to enter the kingdom, they must have a righteousness that exceeds the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:20).  Of course that means that these do-gooders are not themselves in the kingdom – which would have shocked Christ’s hearers.  But it does mean that, in one sense, they “set the bar high.”  They have a “form of godliness”.

As the sermon continues we see how false that form is.  In chapter 6 Jesus refers to them as “hypocrites” – that is, masked actors (Matthew 6:2,5,16).  In chapter 7 Jesus speaks first in comical terms: they have beams in their eyes (v3).  Then he sticks in the knife: they are swine (v6).  Unclean.  Excluded.  The lowest of the low.

But it gets even worse.  Now in verse 15 Jesus says they are more dangerous than swine, they are wolves:

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

To be sure, “false prophets” come from many religious groupings – not just “Pharisees.”  But it’s sensible to assume that Jesus is referring to the same kind of ‘hypocrite’ throughout the sermon.  They might go by the name “scribe”, they might go by the name “Pharisee”, they might go by the name “Evangelical” (as I do).  But the name is not what’s important.  The real problem is what they are “inwardly” – Wolves.  Ravening wolves.

And there’s nothing more dangerous to sheep than a ravening wolf.  A prophet is meant to feed the sheep with the word of God.  False prophets feed on the sheep, all the while masquerading as one of them.

This is the chilling truth about the church’s greatest earthly enemies.  They come from within.  The hypocrites wear a Christian mask.  The wolves wear sheep’s clothing. They appear innocent.  They appear to belong.  Yet underneath there is devastating violence and murder.

Imagine a wolf luring another sheep to itself, mimicking its mother’s bleeting.  Imagine the sheep blissfully unaware of the danger.  Now imagine the frenzy and blood of a vicious attack.  What have we just witnessed?  A Sunday sermon.  A best-selling book.  An archbishop’s address.  A popular conference speaker.  Simply the speaking of lies in God’s name.  And the flock is torn apart.

How seriously do you take false teaching?  Is it simply a doctrinal miscalculation?  Merely damaging for the church’s credibility?  No, it’s life or death.  Because the word of Christ is life or death (v24-27).

Therefore, says Jesus, Beware!

Next time, we’ll see how to spot such wolves.

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Strait and narrow

By Glen on August 8th, 2011

“He used to be a junky, now he’s on the straight and narrow” we say.  And by that we mean that he’s cleaned up his act.  Now he’s behaving.

When Jesus coined the phrase “strait and narrow” He didn’t quite mean it like that.

This is what He said:

“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”  (Matthew 7:13-14)

It’s a saying that brings the sermon on the mount into its concluding phase.  We have been introduced to the kingdom through the beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12).  We’ve been told of our counter-cultural identity as disciples (Matthew 5:13-16). In the longest section of the sermon, we’ve been taught the way of Christ as the fulfilment of the law (Matthew 5:17-7:12).  Now Jesus will conclude by laying before us two ways for the listener to respond.

There are two gates (v13)

There are two paths (v14)

There are two trees (v17)

There are two houses (v24-27)

In each pair there is one that represents the pathway of life, the other is the way of destruction.

At this point it would be easy to conclude that the right way is the way of doing good and the wrong way is the way of doing bad.  Yet when we consider the rest of the sermon, that cannot be the teaching.  The rejected way of life throughout the sermon has not simply been unrighteousness.  Far more it has been self-righteousness.  It is the scribes and Pharisees who Jesus has had in His sights ever since Matthew 5:20.  Such people give and pray and fast – and love to do so (Matthew 6:1-18).  Jesus’ hearers would have identified them as the best of the best.  But in the context we need to see that Jesus puts them on the broad road to destruction.

Thus the “strait and narrow” is not about cleaning up our acts and behaving better.  Jesus is calling us to a whole new path.  Not unrighteousness and not self-righteousness.  The narrow road is a way of Christ-righteousness.

It is the path that Jesus trod – whose righteousness surpassed that of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:20). Ultimately only Jesus can walk this road.  Later in Matthew He would make that point very memorably.  Our chance of travelling this path is as likely as getting a camel through the eye of a needle (Matthew 19:24).  ”Who then can be saved?” ask the disciples.  Jesus answers, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:25)

In Jesus, God makes the impossible possible.  Jesus walks the path and then Jesus becomes the path for us.  He is the Door (John 10:7) and He is the Way (John 14:6).  And He invites the unrighteous and the self-righteous to renounce their own way and to join Him.

The “strait and narrow” is not about moving from immorality to morality.  It’s about moving from self-sufficiency to Christ-dependence.  And few there be that find it!

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Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

By Glen on August 7th, 2011

Here is a famous phrase from the bible.  Yet it’s not in the bible.  Not in as many words anyway.  Here’s how the King James Bible renders it:

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”  (Matthew 7:12)

As a phrase, “the law and the prophets” is short-hand for the whole of the Hebrew Bible.  And “the law and the prophets” book-end this middle section of the sermon on the mount. More than 70% of the sermon lies in this explication of the heart of the law.

Jesus begins by telling us He is the Fulfiller of the law.

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”  (Matthew 5:17)

Whatever we read concerning Christ’s way, first we reckon with the fact that Christ accomplishes it in His own Person and work.  To hear this law in all its blazing purity is to read of the character of Christ Himself.  He is the peace-loving, pure-hearted, devoted, forgiving, perfect Man of Matthew 5.  He is the guileless, giving, praying, fasting, self-denying, generous, worry-free Believer of Matthew 6.  Without hypocrisy and without superiority, He is the single-minded, asking, seeking, knocking Pray-er of Matthew 7.  And if you want a more pithy summary of it all, verse 12 sums it all up for us:  Jesus does not wait for others to treat Him well, He takes the initiative in treating them well.  He does to others what He would have them do to Him.  Instead of saying “Your life for mine.”  Jesus says to the world, “My life for yours.”

It is often noted that this ethical principle – generally called the Golden Rule – exists in countless religions and philosophies.  Everyone seems to have this sense of reciprocity.  It’s the kind of morality founded on that universal parental lecture: “You wouldn’t like it if Billy did that to you would you??”

And so it would be easy to think that Christ’s way is just one more expression of a more basic ethical principle.  But that would be to forget two things.

Firstly, Jesus repeatedly preaches within the sermon that those to whom this teaching applies includes our enemies.  He is not advocating a simple reciprocal arrangement between citizens who more or less want to get on in the same kingdom.  His way includes counter-conditional love that is initiated by the wronged party.  The command comes into sharp focus when you remember Christ’s teaching on turning the other cheek, etc.  When every inclination within us is to do to unto others just what they have done unto us (retaliation), Jesus commands us to break the cycle of violence and do to them what we wish they had done to us (reconciliation).

The second factor to remember is that Jesus does not simply lay down this law – He is its Fulfiller. Jesus is the Lord of heaven who comes into His world to treat His enemies with the love that He should have received.  And that is astonishing!

Muhammed may have been recorded as saying ”That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind.”  Yet he would never dream of putting those words in Allah’s mouth.  Allah does not seek for mankind the very glory he desires for himself.  Still less does he seeks such glory for his enemies. Yet this is the wonder of Jesus.  He is not simply one more man espousing love and respect for humanity.  He is the God who, at His own divine initiative and in expression of His own divine nature, loves the world when the world hates and rejects Him.

Jesus does not come to bring us some generic moral principles.  He comes out of sheer grace, to do to the world what the world should have done to Him.  If we’re in on this astonishing love, perhaps we can begin to pass it on:

We love because He first loved us.  (1 John 4:19)

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Seek and ye shall find

By Glen on August 6th, 2011

Everyone prays.  At least when they’re desperate.  But no-one seems to know why it works or how it could.

It’s an uncertainty that keenly afflicts westerners labouring under three false assumptions.

1) We think of “nature” as a closed system, grinding along according to iron laws.

2) We consider ourselves to be self-sufficient masters of our fate.  We know where our next meal is coming from so we’re just not that desperate.

But perhaps most troublesome of all is,

3) Our concept of God is deeply affected by philosophical theism.  God, if He has any kind of a role, simply pulls the levers, right?  Far off in heaven He doesn’t inter-act, let alone re-act to His creatures, does He?  And so we are plagued by the suspicion that “God already knows what I need and He already knows if He’s going to give it to me.”  So why pray?!

None of these hang-ups seem to affect Jesus.  He paints prayer as a continual and confident petitioning – asking, seeking, knocking.  And He paints God as an eager respondent to our prayers:

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.  (Matthew 7:7-8)

Here is a vibrant and dynamic give-and-take between the pray-er and God.  There is heart-felt need – desperation even – as the requests turn to searches and the searches turn to hammering on heaven’s door.  But it’s not the desperation of doubt.  As we bang on the door, Someone is most certainly home.  He is about to open that door and to pour out heaven’s blessings.  So Ask! Seek! Knock!

This is a revolutionary idea.  When we think of desperate praying we imagine reluctant deities.  Or if we consider bountiful gods we conclude there’s redundant praying.  But Jesus puts the two notions together – desperate prayer and a bountiful God.  How can Jesus speak like this?

Because God is Father.  That’s how Jesus explains it in the following verses:

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?  Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?  (Matthew 7:9-11)

Pray because it is “your Father which is in heaven.”  That makes all the difference in the world.

Imagine if God were like the philosopher described – a distant individual, high on power, low on personality.  Before there was a universe this god existed in unopposed majesty.  Such a god orders every atom and act from a single centre of divine agency.  This god is always acting and never reacting.  If we ever prayed to such a god it could only be a pre-ordained request to receive a pre-ordained reply.  Essentially prayer is pageantry because this god does not and cannot genuinely respond.  Any appearance of prayers being answered is just that – appearance.  When we trace all things back to their root cause we only see divine action, never divine reaction.

Now imagine the God that Jesus describes – a Father.  Before there was a universe, this God was Father because this God has always had a Son.  Therefore this God has always been acting and reacting.  From eternity the Father and Son have enjoyed give-and-take and back-and-forth by the power of the Holy Spirit.  In the beginning there was prayer.  Now we are invited into the prayer life of God.  In the Son we pray to the Father and His answer to us in Jesus is not pageantry – it is a genuine response.  And it is the genuine response of the ultimate Father to His most beloved Son.

Even we “evil men” know how to give good gifts to our children.  How much more will the Father give to His children good things – most essentially His Holy Spirit.  Therefore Ask!  Seek!  Knock!

So allow Jesus’ revelation of the Father to re-configure our thinking:

1) The world is not the product of a solitary power-god.  This is the creation of the triune God.  It is an open and relational reality.  Our world does not run on principles, it runs on prayer.

2) We may not lack anything materially, but in ourselves we are absolutely bereft of the Spirit.  We have the Holy Spirit in Christ – the Anointed One.  In myself I have nothing.  In Him I have everything.  Therefore I need to know my desperate need as well as God’s bountiful provision.  Prayer is the articulation of my Christian life.  I am empty in myself (therefore knock) and full to overflowing in Jesus (therefore the door is open to me).

3) God is not some distant administrator.  Our prayers are not request forms lost in layers of bureaucracy.  He is our Father.  And we pray in the name of Jesus, His Son.  Therefore we pray with total desperation and complete confidence.  He knows, He hears and He responds.  With a Father’s heart.

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Pearls before swine

By Glen on August 5th, 2011

The most precious of jewels and the filthiest of animals are combined into a single memorable phrase:

“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.”  (Matthew 7:6)

There are people who, at some point, prove themselves unworthy recipients of our “pearls”.  To continue to engage them is foolishness and counter-productive.

There are two things to note about this.  The first is that Jesus is speaking against any masochistic desire in His disciples to provoke their own persecution.  He has already warned us that we will be persecuted for righteousness’ sake (Matthew 5:10-12).  But we are not to invite it.  When hearers of the gospel turn nasty there can be a perverse pleasure in baring our necks and martyring ourselves.  But being persecuted is not the point.  The point is spreading the gospel which is as precious as pearls.  And so Jesus counsels later in Matthew:

And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.  (Matthew 10:14)

There comes a time when we close our mouths, stop preaching and move on.  And so we should pray for wisdom, asking the Father that we would know when to “let our light shine” and when to stop casting pearls and start “shaking the dust off our feet.”

That is the obvious implication of Christ’s teaching.  But there’s a surprising point to note also.  Consider for a moment who are the “swine”.  In the context, there is only one enemy which Jesus warns against – the religious.  Jesus has been preaching  against the hypocrites throughout the sermon and particularly through Matthew chapter 6.  It is the judgemental and hypocritical religionists who will be threatened by the gospel of Jesus.  The grace of Christ demolishes their self-righteousness and pride and, in the context of the sermon, it is they who will be the ones to “turn again and rend” the disciples.

The Apostle Paul found this truth playing out again and again.  Whenever he came to a new place, he would go to the synagogue first (Acts 17:2).  There he would declare the good news that the Messiah for Whom they had waited had come and His name was Jesus.  All was fulfilled, the shadows have given way to reality, rejoice!

Yet, almost universally, he would find them turning on him to tear him to pieces, sometimes literally.  Therefore he would often make speeches like this one in Acts 18:

Paul… testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ.  And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles.  (Acts 18:5-6)

The pearl was the gospel of the LORD Jesus Christ.  But the swine who tore him to pieces were not the immoral and irreligious.  They were the most moral, the most religious.  They were the very people of the Messiah.  Obviously not all of them.  Paul himself was Jewish and he was “clean.”  Yet through rejecting the Christ, these so-called keepers of the faith have become unclean.  And Paul will go to the Gentiles.

Ironically the synagogue would have considered the Gentiles to be the dogs – they were the unclean ones.  But Paul stops arguing with them and simply takes the pearls of eternal life and casts them before those who will receive.  And the moralists are left in the pig-sty of their christless piety.

Clean and unclean is not a matter of birth-rite, not a matter of nationality or religious fervour.  Whether we are clean or unclean hinges on one question: will we receive Jesus?

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The Mote and the Beam

By Glen on August 4th, 2011

George Carlin once noted a universal rule of the road: Everyone who drives slower than you is an idiot.  And everyone who drives faster is a maniac.

To the speeding driver, everyone’s an idiot.  To the slow driver, everyone’s a maniac.  But one rule applies to all:  My speed is just right.

Hypocrisy is not limited to the highway.  It thrives in religion.  And Jesus saw the hypocrisy of religious leaders all around him.  They couldn’t give to charity without blowing a trumpet to announce it (Matthew 6:1-4).  They couldn’t pray without standing on a street corner to advertise it (Matthew 6:5-15).  They couldn’t fast without disfiguring their faces so that all would know their ascetic piety (Matthew6:16-18).  And such self-righteous pillars of the community could not help judging the hoi palloi (Matthew 7:1-2).

They had invested so much in their own displays of righteousness.  If they sensed that others did not match up, they were quick to find fault and boost their standing even further.

When Jesus saw their hypocrisy, He likened it to an opthamologist tutt-tutting about the speck in his patient’s eye – all the while a plank of 4-by-2 protrudes from his own.

3And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 4Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

It is an image both comical and painful.  We can imagine a convention of hypocrites, a tangle of eye foliage and grumbling as they bemoan the dust they’ve spotted in others.  ”Sheesh”, “Typical”, “For shame”, “Who said that?”, “Bill is that you? I can’t see.”

What’s the way out of such hypocrisy?

Firstly, laugh.  Not at others, at yourself.  This is what Jesus encourages with His humourous word pictures.  See the absurdity of your own smugness.  Bring to mind your over-inflated sense of self and burst that bubble with a sharp dose of self-ridicule.  What am I like?  I look like a human Dalek with a tree-trunk poking out of my eye-socket murmurring about the state of someone’s eye-grit.  I am ridiculous and need to stop taking myself so seriously.

Secondly, get proportion.  I have the beam.  You have the moat.  In every relationship that’s the proportion.  The problem is 99% me, 1% you.  Of course from your perspective it’s 99% you, but I leave that for you to figure out.  My burden is the beam.  Always.  That’s my priority.

Therefore, thirdly, every time I feel a critical spirit rising it’s an opportunity, not for conceit, but for contrition.  When I see sin in others my response should not be “Phew, at least I’m not as bad as that!”  It should be to question: “How is my sin reflected in this?”  Perhaps I do the same thing.  Perhaps I commit some equivalent sin – the modus operandi changed, the motive the same.  Or perhaps my superority complex is what needs addressing.

Finally look at Jesus.  When He came among us, He was the only one to see clearly.  Being sinless He is the only human who has ever truly appreciated the human condition for what it is – depraved, distorted, dead.  And yet His response was not to fold His arms, shake His head and say “Shame on you.”  He opened His arms, bowed His head and said “Shame on me.”  It’s astonishing grace.  And it shatters our pride.

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Judge not that ye be not judged

By Glen on August 3rd, 2011

In the last week the BBC, CNN, the Daily Mail, The Telegraph and many other news sites and blogs have reported a hoax as fact. The hoax was this: Internet Explorer users are less intelligent than those using other web browsers.

It is a lie that has spread like wildfire despite the thinnest of fabricated “evidence” produced by a website cobbled together in the last month. Why did this lie find such instant and universal acceptance (amongst the web-savvy anyway)? Because we love to judge.

We are inveterate self-justifiers who need to feel righteous. But before we paint that beautiful word in sordid colours, let’s think about why we need to feel righteous.

We need to feel righteous because we were made to be perfect, as Jesus has just told us (Matthew 5:48). The trouble is, we know that we are evil, as Jesus is about to say (Matthew 7:11). So how do we cope with this vast gulf in righteousness? Jesus counsels us simply to hunger and thirst for His righteousness and we will most certainly be filled (Matthew 5:6).

But we don’t like to hunger. We don’t like to admit any lack in ourselves. We want to be the ones who deal in righteousness. We don’t want to be justified in that passive sense. We want righteousness to be something in our own possession which we wield and apply to others. So we choose the only other option for unjust justifiers. We judge others.

Having rejected a merciful justification we mete out legal judgements. By sheer grace we have been invited out of the dock and onto the side of the Judge as a forgiven yet sinful child. But instead we prefer to remain in the context of earning and merit. So we stay in the dock to fight our corner. And we imagine that somehow we improve our position by turning around to our co-conspirators with an accusing finger. If we play the part of the judge perhaps everyone will forget that we are the accused.

This tactic is as old as Adam. As soon as sin entered in, man hid and sought to cover himself by his own efforts. The Lord came to expose him and, ultimately, to clothe him in acceptable coverings. Yet in his excruciating exposure man rejects the way of repentance and receiving. Instead he goes on the attack. Man blames the woman, the woman blames the serpent and (as the old joke goes) the serpent doesn’t have a leg to stand on. This has been the way of man ever since.

And Jesus says:

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. (Matthew 7:1-2)

Francis Schaeffer taught this truth by imagining an invisible tape recorder hanging around our necks. These days we might update the illustration and call it an iPhone app. Imagine that it records every moral judgement you ever make about another. Each time you hold another person to account, each time you tell someone they mustn’t, each time you bemoan a colleague or institution it records your judgement. Imagine the litany of judgements – scores every month, hundreds every year, thousands in a whole life-time. Imagine that on the last day Jesus retrieves these recordings and hits play. Imagine if every standard you’ve held the world to was applied to you. Who could stand??!

When we are humbled by that prospect, then we are ready to stop ranking everyone. Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains it in these terms:

Judgment is the forbidden objectivization of the other person, which destroys single-minded love. I am not forbidden to have my own thoughts about the other person, to realize his shortcomings, but only to the extent that it offers to me an occasion for forgiveness and unconditional love, as Jesus proves to me.

That’s an important qualification. Jesus is not commanding me to abandon all discernment. Yet in every discernment of my neighbour, their shortcomings move me to pity not pride. When I see how the Judge has justified me, I am freed from the realm of judgement. I leave the dock and I leave my imagined judge’s bench. I come to Jesus, loved in my wickedness. And now every difference I see in others is an opportunity, not for superiority, but solidarity and service.

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Seek ye first the kingdom of God

By Glen on August 2nd, 2011

Some people are good at multi-tasking.  No-one is good at multi-seeking.

Jesus has been teaching us that we have only one heart.  And our hearts attend to what we treasure.  Essentially we can treasure God or we can treasure the things of this world, Mammon.

To invest in earthly treasure is the way of worry.  But, as the lillies themselves testify, care-free abandonment to God is the true path to peace.

At this point our flesh rises up and cries out, “We can’t survive on prayer and good intentions!  How will our daily needs be provided?”  To this Jesus responds:

31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.  (Matthew 6:31-33)

Our Father has not forgotten our needs.  And He does not despise our needs.  As Father He provides.  But that’s how it has to be.  Godless folk seek things.  Jesus’ people seek God.  And therefore they appreciate “all these things” for what they are – gifts.

The atmosphere of a “Gentile” life is toil.  Everything is their own doing.  All that they have is because they have sought it.  The atmosphere of a Christian’s life is grace.  ”All these things” are enjoyed as a gift.  And of course God’s kingdom and righteousness are also gifts, as Jesus has made clear in the beatitudes.

The Gentile seeks to earn their essentials while they lack the one true Necessity.  The Christian seeks the grace which is already theirs, and even more is given.

CS Lewis was always speaking on this topic.  And I can’t say it better than him:

“Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.  It seems a strange rule, but something like it can be seen at work in other matters. Health is a great blessing, but the moment you make health one of your main, direct objects you start becoming a crank and imagining there is something wrong with you. You are likely to get health provided you want other things more–food, games, work, fun, open air. In the same way, we shall never save civilisation as long as civilisation is our main object. We must learn to want something else even more.”  – Mere Christianity [New York: Macmillan, 1960] 118-9.

The woman who makes a dog the centre of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog-keeping.  The man who makes alcohol his chief good loses not only his job but his palate and all power of enjoying the earlier (and only pleasurable) levels of intoxication.  It is a glorious thing to feel for a moment or two that the whole meaning of the universe is summed up in one woman—glorious so long as other duties and pleasures keep tearing you away from her. But clear the decks and so arrange your life (it is sometimes feasible) that you will have nothing to do but contemplate her, and what happens?

Of course this law has been discovered before, but it will stand re-discovery. It may be stated as follows: every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made. . . You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first.  —C.S. Lewis, “First and Second Things,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Eerdmans, 1994), p. 280.

“Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things. We never get, say, even the sensual pleasure of food at its best when we are being greedy.”  – A letter to Dom Bede Griffiths (April 23, 1951)