Friday May 29, 2020

10 I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned for me, but had no opportunity to show it. 11 Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me. 14 In any case, it was kind of you to share my distress.

15 You Philippians indeed know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you alone. 16 For even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs more than once. 17 Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that accumulates to your account. 18 I have been paid in full and have more than enough; I am fully satisfied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. 19 And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 5:10-19 (NRSV)

---

Philippians 4:13 is a bible verse that has been used as motivation for athletes, students, musicians, and many others. It is sometimes written on shoes, cleats, jerseys, banners, and anywhere that can be easily seen.

But the verse is used by Paul here in a deeper way than a lot of people have viewed this verse. Paul was in prison, and he had been sent a financial gift from those who he had ministered to, so that his time in prison wasn’t as bad as it could have been without their help.

He’s not sure whether he would be set free from this prison, or if he would remain in prison until he would be executed.

He’s already processed in chapter 1 that if he were to die, that wouldn’t be the worse thing; in fact, if he would die, he would go to be with our God in paradise. If he lived, and was released, he would be able to continue to minister to others so that they continue to grow in faith.

And so, when Paul writes “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”, he is saying that whether he lives, or dies, whether he is in prison for a day longer, or until his death, that Paul was content with whatever the Lord decided for his life. He was recognizing that no matter what happens, he can get through it through the help and strength of Christ.

---

It is hard to get to the point where we are as content as Paul was.

The littlest of things that happen can wreck our day, and cause us to only focus on the negative.

Drastic and real challenges will face us, and we will seldom see any good that could come out of it.

To get to the point where we accept what has happened, and are content with the outcome, usually takes us a long time, and it generally only comes after whatever it was that happened has already sealed our fate.

But Paul was content WITHIN his trial, within prison, and within the uncertainty of whether he would be released or whether he would be executed.

But he was ONLY content because of his faith in Christ, who gives him the strength to keep going, no matter what might happen.

---

We can learn from Paul when we face things that cause us stress, fear, and anxiety, when we turn to God in prayer.

We can join Paul’s hope when we realize that Christ understands whatever we may face, and offers us empathy, and the hope of paradise.

We can find comfort in the midst of trials and hardships when we acknowledge that no matter what, we are still a child of God that is cared for and loved.

We can do all things, we can get through anything, through Christ who strengthens us. Amen.

-Jon Bauman

³⁸ Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. ³⁹ She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” ⁴¹ But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; ⁴² there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:38-42 (NRSV)

---

One of my favorite and least favorite things is to host a cookout or dinner at my house. I love them because I enjoy spending time with friends or family, and I also enjoy grilling up whatever delicious food we will be enjoying that day.

However, besides the usual tidying up, and grocery shopping that is needed ahead of time, I dislike hosting these events because I am constantly running around the house and to the firepit to make sure everything is cooked at the right time, and to make sure that all of the people there are having a good time.

When I’m running around, I tend to have short conversations with everyone, rather than more significant conversations with a few. The shorter conversations I do to address the needs of the people there, but they come at the expense of me not being able to relax and enjoy my time with those around me.

I found myself being absent-minded in a social gathering that is meant to make all feel satisfied in the present. I reminded myself of the stress that my family members would feel during big family holiday meals as they were preparing the meal and the table, and I had always felt bad for them that they couldn’t relax and enjoy the moment.

Have you ever felt that way?

---

Today’s scripture reading has to do with two sisters who welcomed Jesus, and likely some of his followers, into their home.

Martha welcomed Jesus inside and likely washed his feet right away (as was the custom), and then I can picture her making sure he had a clear place to sit, straightening up the room Jesus was in, and then moving on to the start preparing a meal for them all to eat.

Mary, on the other hand, was so excited that Jesus was visiting with them that she didn’t want a moment to pass by. She wasn’t thinking about tidying up the house, she wasn’t thinking of rushing to help Martha prepare a meal, she was only focused on spending time with Jesus and listening to all that He had to say.

Martha grew frustrated at Mary not helping her, and I can picture her trying to get Mary’s attention subtly until finally she bursts out a plea for Jesus to tell her to come help Martha prepare the house and the meal for their guest(s).

Jesus responds by saying something along the lines of, “Martha, you are stressed about all these little things while Mary is paying attention to the main point of me coming here, to spend time with you”.

This reminds me of when a good friend would pull me aside at these gatherings that I would host and say, “hey, calm down and relax – you don’t have to go through all this trouble for me – I’m just glad to be here.”

It’s not that Martha was doing anything wrong – she was trying to be a good host in the way that she knew how. Its just that Mary recognized that spending time with Jesus was more important than trying to tidy the house or prepare a meal.

---

Being busy feels good sometimes. It feels productive to have a set schedule, to accomplish tasks that you need to do in an orderly fashion, but as we all know, when we focus on the busy stuff, it never stops.

There’s a song I grew up listening to by Harry Chapin called “Cat’s in the Cradle” about a relationship between a father and son where the Father was too busy to spend time with his son when he was younger, and how the son grew up to be too busy to spend time with his father when they were both adults.

It’s a sad song, but it points to a lesson to be learned: Building important relationships with others is of greater importance than the stress and busy schedules that we make for ourselves.

This way of thinking requires us to place building relationships with our loved ones and our friends within our important schedules, even if it means having people over while there are dishes in the sink, even if it means not checking our email after a certain time of the day, and even if it means saying no to some things so that your relationships with those you care about grow stronger.

---

As we have been sheltering-in-place as a society, some people are still working their normal hours, some are working more hours, some are working more at home then they did in the office, and a lot of us have been watching TV so much that we are becoming bored.

Yet even still, the majority of us are spending more time at home than we were before. If you are fortunate to live with other people, whether they are spouses, family members, or roommates, don’t become so caught up in the stress of the every day that you can’t invest in these relationships now.

If you are living alone right now, make time in your day and evenings to reach out to family and friends. A couple weeks ago, three of my friends and I met over zoom to talk about our lives in the ministry (we are all clergy), the books we have been reading, and to catch up on life in general. I was surprised by how much joy meeting with those friends gave me, even though it was not in person.

---

And while we are on the topic of building relationships, this is also a time for us to focus on Jesus wanting to meet us where we are.

It doesn’t matter if our lives are messy. It doesn’t matter what dishes we may have in the sink. It doesn’t matter if we haven’t talked with him in a day, a week, or a few years.

What matters is that Jesus wants to meet us where we are at.

He doesn’t want us to be so distracted by our busyness, or our efforts to make ourselves seem more presentable, that we miss the fact that:

Jesus wants to meet us where we are at

Jesus wants to spend time with us

Jesus wants to remind us of His love, the blessings He has given to us, and that He is there in our times when busyness, stress, and worry are consuming our lives.

So in this time, let’s be more like Mary and less like Martha.

Wednesday May 13, 2020

19 And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.
20 In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. 21 Then Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” 22 Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23 Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. 24 So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Mark 11:19-24 (NRSV)

---

Have you ever bitten into an apple and found that it was rotten?

You expect the apple to be delicious, crisp, juicy, and you end up biting into something disgusting, mushy, or dry. You then spit the rotten fruit from your mouth, and throw the apple into the trash.

---

One day, Jesus was hungry and walked past a fig tree that did not yet produce fruit, and he cursed it (Mark 11:12-14).

They then entered into Jerusalem, and that is where the author of Mark records Jesus entering the temple, seeing its corruption, and its taking advantage of the poor, and declared that they had turned his Father’s house into a den of robbers.

As they left Jerusalem, Peter saw that the fig tree that Jesus had cursed before has withered; its bark likely looked unhealthy, its leaves were probably blowing away with the wind, and it would certainly not produce fruit again.

Jesus used this opportunity to tell them that just as he had the power to curse that fig tree, that prayer is just as powerful of a force to change the circumstances around them. That they do not have to doubt the ability of God to change the impossible to the possible.

---

I think that we can draw two things from Mark 11, in looking at the context of the chapter that precedes the passage for today’s devotional:

ONE: We are meant to bear fruit. Faith is not meant to be all about us, for that can lead to selfishness at the expense of others, like it did in the Temple of Jerusalem that Jesus cleansed. Instead, our faith is meant to grow within us so that we can bless others like a fig tree that bears fruit that gives others nourishment.

TWO: We are to meant to actively pray for our world, and those around us. To bear fruit is to bless those around us with our faith that inspires us to not only share the hope of Jesus to the world, but to also be people who help others through the actions that our faith calls us to take to help others. However, if we seek to bless our world, we are not expected to do so alone; we have direct communication with God through prayer, and God hears the requests and pleads from God’s people. Answer’s to prayer may be a yes, it may be a no, it may be a “not yet”, but we should still earnestly believe that we can pray to our God.

---

We are to be people that provide nourishment to our world through being a people that seeks the Lord in prayer.

If we are not voices of faith and hope, and we claim to be, we are like that apple we thought about earlier, or that fig tree that looks promising, but isn’t.

We won’t be perfect at this, but that is why we pray.

Our world needs faith and hope right now; it needs to know that there are still people in our world who care about them, and what they are going through, and it needs to know that there is God who listens to their prayer.

Tuesday May 12, 2020

10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; 12 for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. 13 Through the testing of this ministry you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ and by the generosity of your sharing with them and with all others, 14 while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you. 15 Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

2 Corinthians 9:10-15 (NRSV)

---

On Instagram, a social media service, there is an account called “PreachersNSneakers” that has pictures of the chosen footware and clothing of the nation’s most popular preachers, and pairs those pictures with a screenshot from the a company that sells them for people to see how much these Preachers spend on Sneakers.

It is a really funny page to follow, but its also causes some questions in your mind. Why does a preacher need seemingly regular shoes that cost over $1,000? I’m not saying that a person can’t do what they want with their money, but it’s just an odd thing to consider.

Some of these preachers would say that if you do the Lord’s work, then you will be blessed tremendously, and that these blessings are meant to be so big that they overflow. All you got to do is have a little faith.

But something about that doesn’t line up for me. If all we have to do is follow the Lord and we will be blessed, then doesn’t that imply that anyone who is homeless, in poverty, or even up to middle-class, are people who do not TRULY put their trust in the Lord? And wouldn’t such thinking further promote classism, greed, and the quest for power and control if the rich believe that God is on their side, and not others?

If I am wearing my $60 shoes, am I less of a faithful Christian than the person who is wearing $600 shoes? What about the person who is wearing $10 shoes – do they view me like I view those buying several hundred dollar shoes?

---

This is what happens when we compare ourselves with others: we think we are superior to some, lower than others, and there’s judgement all around.

I do not believe that God works in the ways that some would argue; that God would financially bless people in abundance according to their good works on earth.

Jesus was a traveler, and would often sleep in cramped rooms, or outside. His disciples were regular men who would go on to continue this hard life of missionary work, and who would suffer and die because of their faith in Jesus. The Apostle Paul may have supplemented his own ministry by being a tent-maker by trade, and he also suffered and died as a criminal because of his commitment to his faith in Jesus.

And so when the Apostle Paul writes that God will bless those who have given money and resources to him in support of his ministry, I do not think that he means that God would give them riches of material wealth that would “overflow”, but that God would show them the power of their faith, and their hope, through their sacrifice of giving. This supreme gift is not silver or gold, but the Grace of God that surpasses our own understanding, that comforts us when no one else is around, and that teaches us to be content, no matter the circumstance. The God who was the source of hope to Paul in his suffering is the same God who is with us at every moment.

---

Right now, we are suffering as a society.

We are afraid of a virus that could affect our health, and we are afraid of economic hardships that could affect our families, and our nation.

There are those of us who know people who have been affected by the virus, and there are those of us who have no direct experience with the virus yet.

There are those of us who continue to have a source for income, and there are those of us who have lost our jobs, or who are forced to work lesser hours.

We will be tempted to compare ourselves with others during this time of societal uncertainty. We will be tempted to ask God why this happened to us, and not to others.

But the passage today reminds us all that we are called to both give of ourselves to support others, financially, or just by making a phone call, AND we are assured that no matter where life may take us, that God is always with us, and that we can rest in knowing that that God’s grace is comforting to all of us – we are ALL blessed.

-Jon Bauman

Monday May 4, 2020

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

Matthew 25:31-40 (NRSV)

---

The Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are four separate accounts of the life, teachings, ministry , and truth about our Lord Jesus Christ. Different Christian traditions tend to emphasize different parts of these Gospel writings as more informative of their own faith as far as how they are to live in the present moment.

For some, the dramatic calling of Christ to live a life of peace, forgiveness, and understanding that they see in the Sermon on the mount in Matthew 5-7 is how they believe they ought to live.

For others, the calling of Christ on the disciples to go and make disciples of all nations and baptize them from Matthew 28 informs their mission of evangelism.

And for others, the calling of Christ to care for the poor, the widows, the orphans, the foreigner, and the outcasts from this passage from Matthew 25 informs their mission of working towards social justice, as well as their mission to directly help others in the form of soup kitchens.

These three examples of emphasis are all good ways in which Christians are called to live, but if we only emphasize one part of the Gospel’s calling on our lives, at the exclusion of the others, we miss the full picture.

Every person in our churches and in our Christian communities is unique. Some will be those who will remind us to live lives that strive for holiness, some will be those who remind us of the call to share our faith with others verbally and through intentional relationships, and some will be those who remind us of the need to care for those in need. A healthy church has people within it that see the value of all three of these callings and other callings from the Gospels, and it has those in leadership who support those in their church who are passionate about each of these callings, while reminding the congregation that Christians are called to believe in and see the value in all of the callings on the Christian life.

If we live lives that seek right living, but we don’t leave our own circles, we miss out on the mission to evangelize, baptize, and care for the sick, hungry, and oppressed.

If we live lives that are dedicated to evangelism, but we don’t strive for right living, and we ignore the needs of others, we miss out on those missions.

If we live lives that are dedicated to the care of others in need, but don’t strive for right living, or sharing out faith with others, we miss out on those missions.

---

Today’s scripture reading reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from a pastor I used to know about the importance of caring for and loving others:

“Nothing in the Bible permits me to be a jerk.”

– Pastor Gary

Jesus’ ministry, message, and the Gospel message of the cross and resurrection itself, all display that the goodness of God should be available to all people, and that all people should live according to the will of God, should share the goodness of God with others through evangelism and through caring for others. Jesus, in Matthew 25, is speaking of addressing religious people in the day of judgement who intentionally ignored the needs of those around them, likely because they saw the people in need as less of a human being. To me, this kind of behavior doesn’t seem to be permitted by Jesus.

Pastor Gary, his wife, and the elders and deacons of his church met with college students weekly to give them a meal, and to talk about our lives, our shared faith, and to encourage us to share our faith with others through the ministry of conversing with and praying for the homeless of Bristol, PA, and through opening their church services to anyone and everyone.

Through challenging times, through hurtful words said, and when ministry got tough, I was reminded of Pastor Gary’s words, that NOTHING permitted him to be unkind to anyone he was speaking with.

---

In this time as we are spending more time in our homes than we had before, it is a good time for some self-reflection.

We should ask ourselves what we are doing right now to seek out right living in our personal lives, to ask ourselves what we are doing to share our faith, and what we are doing to help those around us.

Then, we should ask ourselves what we CAN do to improve our Christian living in these and other areas, while committing to being kind and loving to all people that we come across.

Lastly, we should examine ourselves to discover where our natural passions are, and how they could align with the missions of our Church and Christian community, both now, and when we are able to reconvene.

-Jon Bauman