Tag Archives: Message

Chapter-a-Day

Oh! The Places You’ll Go!

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Oh! The Places You'll Go! (CaD Jer 29) – Wayfarer

This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.”
Jeremiah 29:10 (NIV)

It is mid-May. Yesterday was Mother’s Day. I believe that Mother’s Day weekend is the most popular weekend for colleges and universities to hold their graduation commencements. Social media was wall-to-wall young people in their caps and gowns this weekend. And, we’re not even close to being done. The coming weekends will be chock full of high school commencements, and there are exponentially more school graduates than college graduates. Punch bowls are getting pulled out of storage. White sheet cakes are being made en masse. Millions of greeting cards are being sold.

On Saturday morning, Wendy and I made a trip to her family’s gathering. She played for me a commencement address by writer and humorist, David Sedaris, who was receiving an honorary degree from a university. We laughed all the way to her parent’s house. It was a humorous take on the genre of speeches that millions of graduates will hear this month. Young people full of hope and optimism preparing to launch on their respective life paths with a fresh copy of Dr. Seuss’ Oh the Places You’ll Go tucked under their arm. That’s another thing you can plan on every May: the return of Dr. Seuss to the summit of the New York Times’ bestseller list.

I can guarantee you that a good percentage of graduates will receive at least one card of congratulations with a verse from today’s chapter. It’s the verse after the verse I quoted at the top of the post/podcast:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

This is a verse that is tailor made for a graduation card, a calendar, a daily planner, a personal journal, a wall plaque, or any number of gifts and trinkets. Somewhere, I’m sure there’s a well-worn frisbee with that verse inspiring the dog who’s retrieving it for millionth time.

But here’s the thing…

Jeremiah’s words were not intended for young people crossing an educational finish line with a lifetime of hope and opportunity ahead of them. His words were addressed to a people who’d been ripped from their homes, bound (some were likely even been led with a ring through their nose), and drug hundreds of miles to a foreign land. Among them was a young man named Daniel, who certainly would have read Jeremiah’s words from today’s chapter. He was among those for whom they were intended. Daniel may have been the age of many people graduating this month when Jeremiah’s letter arrived, but “Oh! The places you’ll go!” in his young aspirations did not include the city of Babylon in the service of a mad-king. Yet, that’s where he found himself looking at enrollment in the school of hard-knocks and a lifetime of servitude. Jeremiah’s letter promised Daniel and his fellow exiles redemption and return in seventy years. Imagine how that promise sank in. Daniel knew the odds were against him being among those returning. Subsequent generations would enjoy that promise. He was looking at a life-sentence of exile.

And, in the quiet this morning, I can’t help but think that this contrasting reality is perhaps a more honest and truthful message for any graduate who is a follower of Jesus to hear in preparation for the rest of their life journey. It’s certainly more sobering, and not as entertaining as the words of David Sedaris that Wendy and I listened to this weekend. My life journey as a disciple of Jesus has confirmed for me the truth of Jeremiah’s promise. God does have a plan and purpose for me. But, the plans and purpose God has for me are ultimately not about my earthly success or my prosperity, security, safety, or comfort, though all of those things may certainly be experienced along the way. Rather, God’s purpose and plans are about my life of exile and captivity in a temporal, fallen world. They are about my spiritual maturity, my obedience to the One whom I follow, and my increasing measure of sacrificial love and generosity to others all the days of my exile. The purpose, I’ve discovered, is really about my bit part in a story that is ultimately not about me.

I doubt many graduates will hear this. Oh, the places we want to go don’t include the failures, difficulties, setbacks, losses, mistakes, broken dreams, divorce decrees, terminal illnesses, tragic deaths, or the painful consequences of our own poor choices. Nevertheless, those are the requisite pathways to the plans and purposes God has for His children like Daniel, like me.

Of course, like the false prophets that Jeremiah addresses in today’s chapter, there are far more popular messages to echo that are far more enjoyable to hear by mass audiences.

“Wear sunscreen,” for example.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Tom's Messages

Beatitude Notes & Memory Tracks

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I’m posting this as part of a message series among our local gathering of Jesus’ followers who are being challenged to memorize Matthew 5:3-12 in the coming weeks. Here is the PDF outline of the message:

beatitudes-message-notesDownload


There is nothing like repetition in the process of memorization. To memorize several verses, I recorded myself reading the passage and put a little soft music in the background. I imported the .MP3 into my phone’s music app. Several times a week I go for a walk and play the track with the “repeat” feature on.

I start by just whispering out loud with the track as I walk. As it becomes more familiar, I try to start each line just ahead of the track. As I start to feel like I have it down, I hit the “pause” button and try to say the whole thing myself. Within a week or so, I pretty much had it memorized. Two weeks and it was not only was it memorized but it began to impact my daily thoughts as different situations would bring it to mind.

Yes! Sometimes my mind wanders as I’m listening and saying the words. I let myself ponder and think about what I’m listening to and saying and then I come back to it and pick up with the track wherever it is as my mind re-engages. Have grace with yourself. Let your heart and mind wander and chew on what you’re memorizing.

Here are my MP3 audio tracks for the Beatitudes. One is just the verses. The other adds “The Way” of each Beatitude from The Nine-Fold Path of Jesus by Mark Scandrette. That was the version I chose to memorize.

Beatitudes Nine-FoldDownload
Beatitudes Just VersesDownload

Chapter-a-Day

Alignment of Being

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Alignment of Being (CaD Matt 5) – Wayfarer

“Blessed are….”
Matthew 5:3a (NIV)

Wendy and I were on a cruise last week with our friends, Chad and Shay. Cruising has become Wendy’s and my favorite form of vacation, though perhaps not for the same reason that many enjoy it. Being on the water has always held a spiritual connection for me. To be honest, Wendy and I spent much of our time last week together inside our cabin or on our small verandah staring out over the vast ocean. It was heavenly.

I read a couple of books as we sailed along. One of them was called The Ninefold Path of Jesus by Mark Scandrette. It practically, simply, and deeply explores a familiar passage in the Great Story found in today’s chapter, traditionally known as “the beatitudes.” The beatitudes are the opening of the most thorough record we have of Jesus’ teaching, a message Jesus gave His followers on a hill by the Sea of Galilee.

Each of the nine beatitudes describes those whom Jesus says are “blessed.” What immediately stands out is the contrast to those whom we often think of as “blessed” in this world: the rich, famous, popular, powerful, influential, famous, privileged, talented, and elite. Jesus makes it clear that those who are blessed in the Kingdom of God look very different. In fact, they are much the opposite of what subjects of the Kingdom of this world typically consider blessed. In God’s Kingdom, Jesus states, those who are blessed are:

poor in spirit (trusting God for their provision)
mourning (lamenting their brokenness, and what is broken in this world)
meek (holding any personal power in check)
hungry/thirsty for righteousness (seeking justice in life and relationship)
merciful (having compassion, even for my enemies)
pure in heart (acting, speaking, and relating with right motives)
peacemakers (finding and choosing ways to deescalate conflict)
persecuted for doing the right thing (radically loving others)

Perhaps my choice to begin reading Matthew’s biography of Jesus on the chapter-a-day journey this week was subconsciously influenced by my meditation and contemplation of the beatitudes last week. As I read them anew this morning, my head and heart were still full of all that I pondered as I watched the ocean waves roll by this past week.

As I continued on into the rest of the chapter, and the continuation of Jesus’ message, I realized for the first time that Jesus subsequent teaching about murder, curses, adultery, lust, divorce, making oaths, revenge, and love for one’s enemy all connect back to the be-attitudes of trust, lament, meekness, mercy, motive, peacemaking, and radical love. In essence, the beatitudes are the table of contents for everything Jesus is going to say after. I realize that if I don’t have my “being” and “attitude” right, I’ll never act, speak, and relate as Jesus goes on to describe.

Wendy and I have been repeatedly asked this week how our cruise went. We’ve enjoyed sharing our experiences, though I sometimes wonder if people are surprised by our description. We spent a lot of time in our cabin. We slept a lot. We read books. We talked about life on our verandah. We stared at the ocean. We watched a dolphin jumping in the water. We saw the distant, misty eruption of a whale’s exhale. As I continue to look back on it, Wendy and I spent the week trying to get our “being” centered and aligned so that the onslaught of “doing” that faced us upon our return might look more like “the nine-fold path of Jesus” and less like the vain pursuit for what the kingdoms of this world describe as the “good life.”

Note: If you’re normally one who reads my blog post or listens to my podcast, but you don’t actually read the corresponding chapter, let me encourage you to take a couple of minutes today and the next couple of days to actually read Jesus’ message on the hill in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. I think it’s worth it.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The Inflection Point

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The Inflection Point (CaD Mk 8) – Wayfarer

[Jesus] then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Mark 8:31-33 (NIV)

Inflection point has become a buzzword in business during my career. And, it’s often misunderstood. The inflection point is the point on a line where the line changes its sign. It’s when the curve of that line reveals a shift of direction. When it ultimately shifts direction, that’s called the “turning point.” The turning point happens later. The inflection point is the subtle shift that precedes the turning point. If you see the inflection point, you can predict the turning point.

When the moving line turns red, that’s the inflection point.

In today’s chapter, the narrative of Mark’s version of Jesus’ story hits an inflection point. The majority of the first eight chapters is an endless stream of miracles, wonders, and exorcisms seasoned with Jesus parables and teachings. It has been all about Jesus interacting with people’s lives in this world. He’s feeding hungry people, healing sick people, delivering possessed people, and teaching people spiritual principles of God’s kingdom in contrast to the human religious system controlling most of their lives.

Out of the blue, Jesus tells his followers quite plainly that He will be rejected by the religious power-brokers in Jerusalem, He will be killed, and then in three days He will rise from the dead. We’re just half-way through Mark’s biography of Jesus and Jesus let’s fly with the greatest spoiler of all time without once issuing his listeners a Spoiler Alert.

This event is a narrative inflection point. From this point forward, Mark’s version of events will drive towards the very events Jesus predicts.

What really resonated in my heart and mind this morning was Peter’s reaction. Upon hearing Jesus explain the end game of His mission on earth, Peter pulls the master aside and “rebukes” Him. In the quiet, I imagined what Peter’s rebuke might have been…

“You can’t die! We’re just getting started!”

“The twelve of us have left everything to follow you assuming this was a long-term gig! How are we going to retire if you leave us in the lurch?”

“Jesus, dude, you’ve got what it takes to ride this wave all the way to the throne. With your powers and the people behind you, there’s nothing that can stop you from ruling the world!”

“Look! Your parables and stories are confusing, but they’re great. People love them. The miracles and the free fish sandwiches, that’s what the people want. If you go off-message and start tweeting about your death like some crazy-man, it’s over. You’ll lose your momentum. These people will stop following you. Then where will we be?”

He’ll be right where the powerful men atop the human religious racket can arrest Him, usher Him through their kangaroo court, and leverage their local power to convince Rome to execute this threat to all that they care about.

He’ll be right where He just predicted He’d end up.

It struck me this morning that this is more than just an inflection point in the storyline. This is also a spiritual inflection point in Jesus’ teaching.

I am so focused on this life. I am so concerned with my immediate circumstances. Virtually every moment of my day is concentrated on my place in this world. My time, energy, and resources are spent trying to make this earthly life last as long as possible (even if it ends up being no Life at all). I do all that I can not to think about death, talk about death, or consider the undeniable truth that my body is going to die.

“You’re right, Tom,” Jesus says through the text of today’s chapter. “Thanks for being honest. Because that is what needs to change. That is the inflection point…“

“Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?”
Mark 8:34-37 (MSG)

If I follow Jesus at this inflection point, then down the road a whole bunch of turning points in my words, decisions, actions, and relationships will reveal themselves. Consider Peter. It’s at Cornelius’ house in Acts 10 that the turning point is revealed.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself contemplating this spiritual inflection point at which Jesus asks me to consider God’s eternal Kingdom more real than this physical life, more important than the things of this world, more valuable than anything this life could afford.

This is also a point of tension. It doesn’t mean that I ignore this life, coast through this journey, live as if nothing on earth matters. It does! It matters enough for Jesus to come and do exactly as He predicted. The spiritual inflection point gets down to the motives at the core of my being.

What is it I want?

What is it I’m living for?

What does my head answer? What does my heart answer?

If there is ultimately no evidence of a turning point on my calendar, on my credit card statement, and on my task list, then the truth is that I missed the inflection point.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Divine Call, Human Reluctance

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Divine Call, Human Reluctance (CaD Ex 4) – Wayfarer

But Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”
Exodus 4:10 (NRSVCE)

The first time I publicly spoke about my faith I was just shy of 15 years old and had been a follower of Jesus for two months. I was young, uneducated, inexperienced, and naive. It was a church “youth” service and I was one of three young people who each had ten minutes to share. Within months I was unexpectedly given more opportunities to speak, which turned into even more regular opportunities. Again, this was not something I expected at all.

I made a lot of mistakes along the way, and I still do. I also learned a lot of valuable lessons in the process.

In the past few years, I’ve volunteered to lead and mentor others who give messages among our local gathering of Jesus’ followers. The vast majority of individuals express fear when they start, which is natural given the fact that public speaking is one of the most common fears in all of humanity. There’s the fear of not knowing enough, saying something stupid, looking stupid, people pushing back, offending others, et cetera, and et cetera. It is not hard for people to find reasons to decline the opportunity.

I have always loved the story in today’s chapter. Moses, on the lam and living as a shepherd in the land of Midian, is confronted by God and called to return to Egypt and lead the Hebrew people out of slavery. As I have already noted in the previous chapters, Moses “has ‘hero’ written all over him.” In today’s chapter, we find our hero receiving a clear, miraculous “call” from God to lead a historic and heroic endeavor.

Moses doesn’t want to do it.

“What if my people don’t believe that you called me to this? What if I get pushback?”

“I’m not a great public speaker. I struggle enough in regular conversation. Speaking in front of a group of people would be a disaster!”

“Seriously. PLEASE call somebody else.”

It is such a human moment. Fear, reluctance, pessimism, and defensiveness are common human responses to the call. Moses is like all of us.

Along my journey, I’ve had three interrelated observations:

First, God’s Message makes it clear that every follower of Jesus who “answers the knock and invites Him in” is given a spiritual “gift” by the indwelling Holy Spirit with which they are to serve the larger “body” of believers and carry out Jesus stated mission to love everyone into God’s Kingdom. This is true of every believer regardless of age, gender, race, education level, social status, economic status, or experience. Peter called every believer a member of a “royal priesthood.”

Second, most human beings are, like Moses, reluctant to embrace the notion that they have any gift, talent, or ability. They are quick to decline any opportunity to take responsibility for serving the larger “body” or accepting the responsibility of loving others like Jesus in their circles of influence.

Third, for 1700 years the institutional church has largely entrenched the thinking that serving the larger body is almost exclusively a professional career for a select group of educated individuals who have successfully navigated the prescribed institutional education and bureaucratic hoops. Those who have not done so (all the rest of us) are, therefore, largely off-the-hook other than regular attendance and financial giving necessary to provide for the livelihood of the aforementioned ministry professionals.

That third observation is bovine fecal matter. And, I believe that it contributes to the impotence and decline of the Jesus Movement being witnessed in current society.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself appreciating Moses the reluctant hero. I also find myself appreciating the fact that God both made allowances for Moses to depend on the giftedness of his brother-in-law, Aaron, to accomplish the task. That’s the very picture of the “body of Christ” the Jesus Movement adopted. Everyone has their “gift” and contributes to the whole of the mission. Moses was a gifted leader. Aaron was a decent public speaker. They depended on one another.

I can always find an excuse to not serve. There’s always something that I can conjure up as an excuse that I am “lacking” (education, knowledge, experience, calling, opportunity, training, etc.). The truth is that all God requires is simple trust and obedience. Which brings to mind a song from many years ago…

Then in fellowship sweet we will sit at His feet,
Or we’ll walk by His side in the way;
What He says we will do, where He sends we will go;
Never fear, only trust and obey.

Chapter-a-Day

Reflections on a Sneeze

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“Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted?'”

“This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.'”
Zechariah 7:5, 9-10 (NIV)

I was thinking about sneezing the other day. On a plane, heading down the runway amid the thunderous roar of the jet engines, I sneezed. A couple of seats over, a man who was obviously from a different culture and who was embroiled in what he was doing stopped what he was doing, looked at me, and said, “Bless you.”

“Blessing” someone who sneezes can be traced at least to the first century AD. There are many legends as to the motivation of its invention. History records that Pope Gregory I issued a command amidst the plague of 590 that anyone sneezing be blessed, as it was a common, early symptom of the plague. I find it fascinating that no matter where I am in the United States if a person sneezes then complete strangers will proactively, verbally offer a blessing to them. It’s a fascinating cultural ritual.

Back in the days of Zechariah, it was a common ritual to observe disasters with a period of fasting that might include saying or singing certain prayers of lamentation. When Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple were destroyed and the Hebrew people were taken into exile, they began observing a ritual fast each year that corresponded with the month of their city’s destruction. This continued each year for 70 years.

In today’s chapter, exiles have returned and Jerusalem and the Temple are being rebuilt. The people come to the Temple and inquire whether or not they should continue their ritual fast.

God’s reply through the prophet Zechariah is first to question the motivation of those who are fasting. “Why are you doing this?” God asks. “Are you doing it for me, or has it become some personal religious pageant to show how “good” you are?” God then pointedly offers what His heart’s desire is:

“Treat one another justly.

Love your neighbors.

Be compassionate with each other.

Don’t take advantage of widows, orphans, visitors, and the poor.

Don’t plot and scheme against one another—that’s evil.”

Zechariah 7:10 (MSG)

In other words, it’s like saying to “Mr. Bless You” on the airplane, “Why did you just say ‘Bless you’ to a stranger from whom you just hoarded all the overhead bin space so he had to gate check his carry on? Do you really care about the person who sneezed, or is your ‘Bless you’ just a rote ritual that isn’t about being a blessing at all?” [Note: The nice dude on my plane didn’t steal my overhead bin space, I’m just using the example as a parable.]

This was the exact message that Jesus came to proclaim:

“The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer.

“Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next.

Matthew 23:2-6 (MSG)

One of the reasons that Christendom has been criticized, and rightly so, is that for centuries we’ve been great at making religious, ritual displays while flatly refusing to do the right thing by others. I can’t think of a better example than the Roman Catholic church’s gross mismanagement of the sex abuse scandals and refusal to deal with it as it was happening for decades.

But, that’s an easy target. In the quiet this morning, I confess that what is hard is for me to honestly examine my own heart, my own life, and my own religious rituals. I write blog posts. I stand up and teach others. I put my faith on public display. So what? Why do I do it? And, will I write nice words this morning only to go out into my day and take advantage of a client, treat an employee contemptuously, refuse to help a stranger in need? Do I worry so much about income, status, and possessions that I offer nothing of tangible value to others in need of real love, kindness, mercy, justice, and compassion?

Important questions for me to ponder as I walk out of my hotel room this morning.

Bless you, my friend. Seriously. Bless you. Thanks for reading.

Chapter-a-Day

Weeping and Joy in the Valley of Infertility

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No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.
Ezra 3:13 (NIV)

For the past month, our local gathering of Jesus’ followers has been in a series entitled “Summer Stories.” Each week an individual has shared experiences from their own personal stories and the spiritual lessons they have learned from them.

Last Sunday, it was Wendy who chose to stand and share a piece of her personal story. When she and I married almost fourteen years ago, she was 33. She not only gained a husband but two teenage daughters. Nevertheless, having children together was something we wanted to do. We tried for many years.

Trekking together through the valley of infertility may be the most difficult stretch of life’s journey that I have experienced to date. I’ve heard experts say that tremendous stress either brings married couples closer together or it tears them apart. Looking back, I can certainly appreciate why many marriages don’t make it through the valley of infertility. It is a long, lonely and trying slog on multiple levels. We plumbed depths of grief and relational stress I didn’t think was possible during those years. Wendy’s message, however, was not about the pain as much as it was about her discovery of joy at the end of that journey.

I couldn’t help but think of her message as I read the chapter this morning. The exiles return home to Jerusalem and begin the arduous task of rebuilding God’s temple which lay in ruins after it had been destroyed decades before by the Babylonians. After laying the foundation for a new Temple, the people gathered to worship and praise God. Those who were old enough to remember the original temple wept while the others shouted their praise until “No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping.” 

Yeah. I get that. That description captures our journey through the valley of infertility pretty well.

In the quiet this morning I’m thinking of one of the points that Wendy made in her message: “One can’t simply ‘choose joy’ any more than you can simply choose to get up off the couch and run a marathon.” As Jeremiah observed in his lamentation (over the destruction of the same Temple the exiles are rebuilding in today’s chapter): “Weeping lasts through the night, but joy comes in the morning.” In the valley of infertility Wendy and I learned that you can’t always distinguish the sounds of weeping and the sounds of joy, because they are often the same thing.

For any interested, here are both the audio and video of Wendy’s message, posted with her permission:

Chapter-a-Day

Same Story, Different Age

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Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”
Jonah 3:4 (NIV)

One of the things I’ve experienced in my continued and repeated reading through God’s Message is that every time I read through a section it is layered with new meaning simply because I am at a different place in my life journey than I was before. I’d like to think that there is some increased depth of wisdom, knowledge, and maturity to account for it. There are times, however, that simply being in a different place on life’s road experiencing different circumstances and challenges offers the opportunity to see things from a different perspective.

I am once again struck this morning by the foreshadowing in the story of Jonah of the experiences of Paul as recorded in the book of Acts.

Reading the ancient prophets can always feel like a long slog in this chapter-a-day journey. They repeat their messages of warning, judgment, instruction, and encouragement over and over again to God’s people. They perform shocking acts of public performance art as metaphorical word pictures. On and on and on they preach and proclaim, and the people rarely responded. While there were periods of repentance and spiritual renewal, most of the story is about God’s people hard-heartedly refusing to listen to God’s Message.

In Jonah’s story, we have a single prophet who proclaims a simple message of eight words. It doesn’t even name God, provide instruction, or offer encouragement. The entire city of Nineveh, from the least to the greatest, repents and seeks God’s forgiveness. An entire city of non-Jewish, Gentile people who are the key enemy of Israel, respond to one minor prophet who proclaims eight words from God.

In the book of Acts, we read of Paul going from city to city proclaiming Jesus’ message. He always began at the Jewish synagogue. More often than not, his message fell on deaf ears and hard hearts while those who were not “God’s chosen people” received it heartily, just like the Ninevites who heard Jonah’s eight-word sermon.

This morning I find myself reminded of the message we heard this past Sunday. It reminded me that life can often be like a new movie that tells an old story with different players. The Lion King is simply the story of Hamlet in the jungle with animals. In the same way, life often repeats itself. How often today are Jesus’ followers like God’s people in ancient times? Do we sit isolated in our holy huddles choosing to hate, condemn, and cast off any concern for those outside the walls of our church building as we ritualistically repeat God’s message of Jesus dying and returning to Life for all people?

“Love God,” Jesus basically said as he boiled down God’s commands, adding, “Love people; All people.” God’s Message in six words. Jonah had eight. Pretty simple, if my ears and heart are open to hearing it, believing it, and living it out.

 

Chapter-a-Day

The Crazy Man in the Ox Yoke

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This is what the Lord said to me: “Make a yoke out of straps and crossbars and put it on your neck.”
Jeremiah 27:2 (NIV)

The language of God is metaphor. Remember metaphor from middle school English class? A metaphor is something which represents something else without using “like” or “as” (which would then make it a simile).

Consider this:

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Romans 1:20 (NIV)

In other words, all that God made is a metaphorical expression of who God is. We can find Him by simply looking at the universe and all that is.

When Jesus talked about Himself  He used metaphors:

  • “I am  the water of life.”
  • “I am the bread of life.”
  • “I am the light of the world.”
  • “I am the gate.”
  • “I am the good shepherd.”
  • “I am the vine.”
  • “I am the way, the truth, the life.”

Other metaphors are used in scripture for Jesus such as:

  • “Word” or “Living Word”
  • “Lamb of God”
  • “Righteous Branch”

When Jesus instituted the sacrament of communion He said:

“This is my body.”
“This is my blood.”

God regularly gave the ancient prophets metaphors to convey His message. In today’s chapter, God tells Jeremiah to strap an ox yoke around his neck. An ox yoke is the crossbar placed around the neck of an ox to control it when using the ox for pulling a cart, a plow, or some other task. Jeremiah was then to tell the envoys of the neighboring kings who were visiting Jerusalem that if they will all become servants of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon they will be spared the humiliation of being defeated by him.

You have to imagine that for a second. A man standing there strapped to an ox yoke in front of these high-powered diplomatic envoys telling them that they are going to be oxen strapped to a yoke, so they would be strapped in servitude to Babylon. No wonder people thought him crazy.

Just yesterday Wendy and I were talking about a message I gave this past Sunday among our local gathering of Jesus’ followers. She once again echoed what I have heard over and over and over again across the many years I’ve been a public speaker: “People love your stories.” I recall a client one time telling me “Just keep telling stories. You tell the best stories.” Stories are metaphors with a “moral” or a meaning larger than the story itself. That’s why Jesus told parables. When talking about God’s kingdom Jesus didn’t give dry lectures on systematic theology. He told stories about lost coins, scattered seed, lost sheep, a priceless pearl, and a runaway son.

Metaphors are powerful. Everything is metaphor. Metaphor is the language of God.

This morning in the quiet I’m thinking about another message I have to give in a few weeks. I’m thinking about a training session I have to present to a client’s Customer Service team tomorrow. I’m not thinking about the truths I want to communicate as much as I am the metaphors, the word pictures, and the life stories that will best communicate those truths.

After 40 years of public speaking I can tell you that people will quickly forget a list of dry bullet points, but they never forget a good story or word picture that made them feel something. The diplomatic envoys in today’s chapter could easily have tuned out Jeremiah’s words, but they would never forget the crazy man strapped to a yoke. When they returned to their respective kings you know that they said, “Oh king, I have to tell you about this crazy man we saw strapped to an ox yoke.”

Exactly. I’m reminded again this morning that if I want to be an effective communicator I have to continually hone my craft at wrapping my message in stories, word pictures, and images.

The language of God is metaphor.

(FYI: Last Sunday’s message has been added to the Message page)