Lord, Lord

Lord, Lord (Matthew 7:21-27)

'It is not those who say to me, "Lord, Lord", who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven.’ (Mt 7:21)

          This warning of Jesus is addressed, not to the unconverted, but to his followers.  And paradoxically, it is these followers who are most unaware of their need to hear it.

         Jesus then takes them to the Last Judgment: ‘When the day comes many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, work many miracles in your name?”  Then I shall tell them to their faces: I have never known you; away from me, you evil men!' (Mt 7:22-3)  This is a most perplexing Word –Jesus has called men evil that spent their lives doing very good things in his name.

         How can this be, especially since he had just finished teaching about how we will be judged by our fruits? (Mt 7:19)  Would not prophesying, casting out demons, working miracles –all in the name of Jesus- be considered exemplary fruit of a Christian?  At first sight it might seem like we are literally damned if do and damned if we don’t –those who did not bear good fruit are condemned, and, those who did bear good fruit were also condemned.  A superficial reading of these neighboring verses might leave one conflicted.

         A startling encounter, over three decades ago, has given me an insight into this perplexing Word of Jesus.  I had crossed paths with a renowned evangelist who was an inspiring preacher with a ministry for healing eyes –which my wife personally experienced.  The last night of his ministering, after a particularly moving healing service, he invited me to dinner.  We talked about the Lord and the wonderful things that had happened, but then, the conversation took a surprising turn -he was propositioning me!  I was stunned as I stumbled away from that dinner table.

         It took a while to process what I had witnessed –how God allows the sinful to speak and do wonders in his Name.  I came to see that I was not all that different from the fallen evangelist.  As a leader in Christian community, I too spoke and did good things in the Name of Jesus; and I too struggled with sin not known to others.  All of the Twelve did wondrous things in the Name of Jesus; and all of them struggled with inner weakness and sin; but only one was eternally defined by betrayal.  What can explain the difference?  Could the answer lie in Jesus’ concluding parable on Judgment Day?

         He tells the story of two men who each built a house. The sensible man’s was on rock and the foolish one’s was on sand.  Both weathered severe storms –only the one built on rock remained.  The house symbolizes the sum total of our life.  The ‘falling’ or ‘standing’ is our eternal destiny.  And the foundation (not the storm) determines that destiny.  

         The house on sand is a life founded on serving selfish desire.  The house on rock is a life based on the Father’s Will.   Our house may be magnificent, but if it is built on sand, it will fall when subjected to the Storm of flood and wind –the Last Judgment.   But the house built on the Rock of Faithfulness, even if it appears small and simple, shall endure into Glory.  So it is that we cannot judge by appearances.  A Life that appears tidy and secure may be in grave danger of damnation; and a life that seems amiss may be silently forging Eternal Reward.

         So what can we learn from this alarming Word of Jesus?  For one, ‘Faith without works’ is dead, and, ‘works without Faith’ is just as dead.  But for me, the most urgent lesson is the insidious nature of Sin.  The “Lord, Lord” followers of Jesus were on the path to damnation.  They were beguiled by the good works in their lives.  Blinded to their sin, and justified by their righteous works, they came to believe the lie that they lived, instead of the Lord they served when first begun.  What makes this so dangerous is that these Deceived Souls, active in ministry, forgot their need for a Savior.

         This deception does not happen overnight.  It begins with our tolerance of “small” sins.  Maybe we excuse a sinful behavior because of the stress we are under as a result of doing good things; or maybe we justify a shady act in order to accomplish a good that we want; maybe we just feel like we “deserve” this one little sin.  Imperceptibly, but inevitably, if not repented of, these “small” sins define the character of our soul. The exception becomes the norm –Sin rules our soul and our house is now destined to collapse if subjected to Storm’s Truth.

         Jesus provides the answer: “Therefore, anyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like the sensible man who built his house on the rock.” (Mt 7:24)  To listen to and act on the words of Jesus is the definition of Obedient Faith.  Obedience is a binary choice –yes or no.  It is never ‘mostly’ or ‘maybe a little not’.  We can never allow ourselves to willfully choose to disobey the Will of God.  Likewise, Faithfulness is a binary condition –we are either Faithful or Unfaithful.  

         To say that I know Jesus, and yet willfully choose to violate his Word, is to place those horrific words into Jesus’ mouth: “I have never known you; away from me, you evil men!”  Imagine this scenario:  I have publicly professed to be a follower of Christ, yet willfully invite Sin into my life.  I die suddenly and find myself exposed to the Light of Truth.  Could I have the audacity to look into the Face of God and beg for Mercy?  Could I lie to Him and say I do not deserve condemnation?  And, if finding myself in the Flames of Hell, would I be eternally consumed with the question “What was I thinking?”  Is this the Price of Sin?

         Jesus, save me from my sins.  Holy Spirit, instill in me a hatred for Sin and a Love for my Father’s Will.  Father, I desire to be a Faithful Son.  Possess me and displace all Selfishness with your Love.  I give you permission to do whatever it takes for me to be conformed to your Purpose for my life.  Make it so, Lord.  Make it so.

The Rich Man And Lazarus

The Rich Man And Lazarus (Luke 16:19)

         Jesus had just given a teaching on the right use of money.  The Pharisees, seething from their exposed hypocrisy, mocked him.  Unable to refute truth, they ridiculed him instead.  Jesus responded with a parable.  St. Luke titled it The Rich Man and Lazarus, but it could just as well have been called The Man Who Would Not Listen to the Voice of God.

          The rich man, who lived a self-centered life, did not earn a name in this story.  In contrast, the poor man -a hungry beggar covered with sores- was knighted “Lazarus”, which means “God is my help”.  His hope had to be in God, for the rich man did not lift a finger to raise him up.  Lazarus’ only solace was the dogs that licked his wounds.  Though he trusted in the God of heaven, he found only misery on earth.  While the rich man, with less love than the dogs, and with no trust in God, was steeped in comfort.

         Indeed, this parable seems to hide the merciful hand of God, while revealing the Sovereignty of his Justice to an unfair world.  It is a story about Eternal Recompense, about the impassable chasm between two destinies waiting to be chosen.

Lazarus’ life was the story of Job minus the happy ending.  Yet, he never stopped hoping in God.  The rich man was flooded with God’s blessings to the end, yet he never turned to their Source.  Lazarus, who clung in faith to his God, found himself in the Bosom of Abraham, the father of his faith –he was found pleasing to God.  The rich man, who sought only to please himself; found himself in the unending torment of eternal poverty -divorced from the Love of God he had spurned.

         Jesus ends his parable with the rich man becoming the beggar: pleading for Lazarus to be sent to warn his five brothers, that they might repent of their selfish ways and avoid the torment of hell.   “Then Abraham said to him, "If they will not listen either to Moses or to the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead".

Moses and the prophets are the Voice of God, beckoning from millennia.  If the pursuit of self, so blinds us to God’s Voice, then neither would the miracle of one rising from the dead pierce our darkness.  Our sin, freely chosen, can do what Satan cannot: deny the power of the Cross and Resurrection.

         Not only was the Voice of God’s Word calling the rich man to a life of Love, but God was shouting to him -in the Poverty of Lazarus camped at his door.  The hardened heart can only be unlocked from within.  And the proud, find the key of Repentance, too reviling to pick up.  Pride will choose torment before submission to God.  It will cover its ears, lest it hear the Truth and change.

         This parable, this fiction of Christ, is both truth as well, foretelling a Darkness Yet Born: when the same Pharisees, would later, plot Jesus’ death after witnessing him raise a man from the dead.  The Lazarus of his parable, was the namesake of his beloved friend -the Lazarus he was to call forth from the tomb. This Lazarus fulfilled the wish of the rich man pleading for a resurrection miracle to prove God’s Word to be true.  And true to the Word of Jesus, it did not open their eyes. What pain our Savior must have endured; as he watched the Pharisees blindly cement their own tomb with bitterness, a torment of their own making.

         My Lord Jesus, I pray you will rip from my heart all selfishness and pride.  Its power is so fearsome that I hide it from my sight.  Like a child refusing to look under the bed at night, I am afraid to shine light on my darkness within.  Only you God are my help.

         Lord, do not let me pass by the Lazarus’s you place at my door.  Let me not pretend to not see or hear them.  Let me not turn away my eyes, nor close my heart.  Let me not fail the test.  Lay bare my heart.  Give me the courage to embrace your forsaken -even Lord, if I must let loose of my comfort, if I need to be made humble.

         Holy Spirit, by your grace, make it so.  Bring me into the Bosom of my Father.  Make me into the likeness of his Son.  Give me a listening heart that is drawn to your Poor.  Give me eyes to recognize your Beauty in their face.  Give me ears to hear your Call to Love.

         Father, oh that I might be known in Eternity by a new name: “The Lowly One who Listened to Voice of God”.

He Was Tempted

He Was Tempted (Luke 4:1-13)

          “Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordon and was led the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.”  So it was …the Father’s Will led his Son into temptation.  In becoming incarnate, Jesus took on our weakness, and that meant becoming susceptible to temptation, to having to struggle to put his Father’s will before his own desires.  Like all humanity, he had to learn obedience.  Just as muscle cannot grow unless pushed to the point of tearing, so virtue cannot grow unless it is tested.

          Depravity, the absence of virtue, can be achieved by merely giving way to what is easy or expedient.   Virtue though, can only exist as a state of resistance.  Faith cannot exist outside its battle with doubt.  Nor can Hope have meaning, unless despair is tearing at one’s heals.  And love is ever challenged by selfishness.   These virtues are the summit of human potential, the image of God.   But, we are born for virtue, not with it.

          It is the nature of water to run downhill, and it is the fallen nature of man to sin -to give way to the desires of our Self, rather than to the desires of our God.  The End and Source of all virtue is God.  Those who find virtue find God, and so it is that Satan wars against us.  The virtuous then, are warriors: ever engaged against Forces vying for their allegiance, ever saying no to the downward path of least resistance.

These forces are both natural and supernatural.  The natural can be from within, as in sensual needs; or from the world, as in the selling of greed.  The supernatural, as in the Devil testing Jesus, can be direct, as in planting a temptation in the mind; or indirect, as in orchestrating our sinful tendencies with those of others –with a synergistic effect toward evil.  In the end, how we label or diagnosis sin is immaterial.  The heart of the matter is whether we resist sin, or embrace it.

          The Forty Days in the desert wilderness is a snapshot in the life of Jesus, in the life of all humanity.  Every day we are engaged in battle.  Easy Street is no one’s address.  Selfishness, Pride, Fear, Resentment, Suffering, Despair and Doubt –these are the temptations, the gauntlet through which all must pass, by which all must be tested.  We will overcome or be succumbed, pass or fail.  

          Our Forty Days will rage till Judgment Day; seeming to never end, then seeming to have been a thousand days ago; seeming to blot out the sky, then bringing tears of joy with wisdom and light.  It is the Gift of Life, the Mystery of the Cross, the Redemption of Sin, and our Transcendence to God.  

Lord Jesus, that you are my Savior, who is like me in all ways but sin, who intercedes for me On High, is my cause for Hope.  This Hope delivers me into Faith.  And this gift of Faith, opens my heart to know your Love.  Now when I am tempted, like you, I too can cling to the Word of our Father.  I can now, believe the Promise of your Truth, more than the scream of my senses, more than the hunger of my dreams.

Though my eyes may see an abyss waiting to swallow me, I know my feet are planted on Rock.  Though I feel the Suffering of this present mortality, I rest secure in your whispered immortality.  Though my temporal wantings refuse to die, your Mercy calls me to Life.  Your Gift of Peace carries me to Tomorrow.

          Though the Enemy surrounds me, I shall walk through them, as though they are shadows on foggy mist.  For you have born the weight of my sin; your Cross has broken Death’s power.  It is for me, but to follow your footsteps, to learn obedience, to trust only in you.