Christ Amid the Thorns of Our Relationships

Reading: Psalm 23

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for you are with me.
Psalm 23:4
Humans are created to live in relationships. Relationship to other people is basic, but Biblically
it is third in a sequence. Our relational world is a threesome: outside, inside, God-side. We see
it here in Psalm 23.
The Psalmist is in serious difficulty "on the outside." "The valley of the shadow of death"
confronts him. Whatever all that might be, it includes the enemies mentioned next. Personal
relations with these folks are not good.
But of "the inside" what do we hear? "I fear no evil." His self-perception is OK. He copes with
the bad news on the outside by means of a fearless heart on the inside. And what's the source for
that? His God-side relationship: "for you are with me; your rod and your staff -- they comfort
me."
None of us have permanent "green pastures." We have thorns on all three of these turfs snarling
our lives like the bramble that encircles Siegfried's work. On the cross Christ addresses the deep
one first, our root relationship with God. As those thorn-tangles break, he re-roots us in the
living God.
With that new root in place, new shoots grow, new perceptions of who we are and of our worth
in the world. And from those shoots come new fruits, life-bestowing transactions with those on
the outside. By the time Jesus breaks out full-blown at Easter, there is health and healing for the
whole trio.
Prayer: Heal us, Lord, in our relationships -- root, shoots, and fruits. Break open the thorns that
strangle our own growth -- in trusting you, in being pleased with who we are, and in keeping
faith with those you've given to surround our lives. Amen.

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The Thorn of Parenthood: The Parent's Side

Reading: Colossians 3:20-21
"Fathers, do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart." Colossians 3:21
The fourth commandment is a one-way street for children: "Honor your father and your mother"
(Exodus 20:12). No word there for parents. Not so the New Testament. Here parents get a
mandate too--on how to use their authority.
To be sure, parents are bigger than their kids--for a while, at least. But that's not what gives
them their authority. Biblically viewed, all authority is an assignment from God for a specific
purpose: to help some other specific person(s). God authorizes parents be God's sort of
father/mother to these specific children so that they do not "lose heart."
Authority is not tyranny. It's the requisite "clout"to carry out a task. Jesus even jolts his
disciples with his words in Matthew 20. Authority, he says, does not put us over, but under
others, to support, nurture, care for them. To do that you've got to be under those over whom
you have authority!
Parental authority is God's authorization to shape the next generation to be God's kind of grownups.
"Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" was how yesterday's reading
put it. The fallen world equates authority with privilege. No wonder there's a crisis of authority.
But authority as authorized service, as God's tender loving care, is God's calling for parents, and
our calling as well in any authority role we have.
Prayer: Your own exercise of authority, Jesus, brought you to the cross. And there you execute
that authority in coming all the way down to suffer our death, suffering it out of existence.
Inform our authority roles with that same lordly lowliness to be unto others as you have been to
us. Amen.

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The Thorn of Childhood: The Child’s Side

Reading: Ephesians 6:1-4

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." Ephesians 6:1
The first people we all relate to are our parents. Even if we are orphaned at an early age, or,
worse still, abandoned, parents (or their substitutes) shape us at the deepest level as we grow into
becoming human. No wonder the Bible gives them near-divine status. Not because they're
perfect, but because they do the work whereby God creates us to be who we finally are.
The Biblical word for faithful response to parents is "Obey." That word's not fashionable
nowadays. It signals the servile, the oppressive. Not so the Bible's perspective. Obedience is
"right", says our text. The root meaning of obedience signals the rightness. It's "ob-audience,"
with the root word "audio," listening, in it. Ob-audience is "listening in the right direction."
The "right" way to obey parents is to affirm their role as God's agents for creating and nurturing
us. That's faithfulness in this primary relationship. But, of course, this relationship has its
thorns. Ask any parent; ask any child.
Not until parent-child connections are "in the Lord" are they finally really "right." For his own
mother, here paradoxically "orphaned" by her son's death, Jesus cares. For us in our fractured
parent-child roles with thorns that pierce and scratch, the same is true: he cares. Faith in him
grounds fathfulness in all our relationships with significant others.
Prayer: Lord, increase our faith that we may be "right" in what we hear and "right" in how we
listen to the primary persons you've placed around us to carry out your work on us. Open our
eyes to behold our parents as Jesus does his mother in his last words to her. Amen

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Testing. Testing. One, Two, Three. Testing.

Reading: Deuteronomy 8:1-3

“Remember [O, Israel,] the long way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in
the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart.”
Deuteronomy 8:2.
This Sunday’s forty days have God (not the Tempter) doing the testing. What’s God testing for?
To know what’s in his people’s heart, the text says. But doesn’t God already know that apart
from giving us an exam? The answer, of course, is yes. So why the testing? Answer: for the
same reason that schoolteachers give tests: so that students will know the truth about themselves.
God tests Israel for forty years so that (finally!) God’s people will know what’s in their own
hearts, and that it is at best a mixed bag. Learning that is indeed humbling. But not to know is
even worse. Human hearts are unknown territory, not to God, but to humans themselves. We
need God’s X-rays to show us our own pictures. To be humbled thus is not to be put down, but
to be confronted with the truth, typically unknown, so that we might be healed. Such tests,
however, are only half of God’s testing program.
Another kind of testing God does in the Scriptures is called “testing our faith.” Here too
the test is not for God’s benefit, for God to see how strong or weak our faith is. God knows that
without tests. The beneficiary of faith-testing is the one being tested. God tests our faith so that
we can see what faith can do when we trust God’s promise. God’s faith-tests increase our faith.
As Christ’s disciples we benefit when we “take the tests” God gives us. That’s true of
both kinds: the ones that expose the defects in our own hearts and the ones that show God’s
power and call us to trust it. During Israel’s forty years these two were most often one and the
same exam. For Lenten disciples the same is true.
Lord, increase our faith. Encourage us to take the tests you place before us. Dislodge the
prideful ego that occupies our hearts. Replace it with your words of forgiveness and mercy.
Nudge us to shift our allegiances from our agendas to yours, from our self-made achievements to
the good news you offer. Let Lent’s forty days be “time enough” to get the job done in us--
again. Amen.

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Remembering How God Remembers Us

Reading: Psalm 25:1-7

According to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness' sake, O Lord! Psalm 25:7
In the old church calendar the second Sunday of Lent had a Latin name, Reminiscere. On that
Sunday the liturgy called on God to reminisce, that is, to remember his people the way the
psalmist prays. It's not that God might forget his mercy and loving-kindness toward us. Isn't the
trouble rather our own amnesia, our forgetting how God remembers us?
We so easily get the wrong "mindset," as St. Paul likes to call it, not just when we think about
others, but when we think about ourselves. It regularly slips our mind just how God keeps us in
mind.
For one thing, God remembers that we are marked with the cross of Holy Baptism -- even when
we forget. God is mindful that his own Son Jesus now calls us his own brothers and sisters --
even when we forget. God remembers Jesus going around that full circle of thorns--for us.
It is not God's memory, but our own, that needs regular prompting. "Keep in mind," the canticle
sings, "that Jesus Christ has died for us." Artist Siegfried does it visually in his second word.
How does he see God remembering us? With angelic mercy, an open hand, an open door to
God's own paradise.

Prayer: Remember us, LORD, the way Jesus remembers us. When the hustle and bustle of daily
life feed our amnesia, remember us as Jesus remembers us--together with him, in his kingdom.
Amen.

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Saving Yourself

Reading: Luke 23:35-38

"If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" Luke 23:37
From the days of Israel's first great monarch, King David, the rule for the ruler -- God's rule for
the ruler -- was not to save yourself. The assignment was just the opposite. Remember how
David got into royalty?
He was last in line in Jesse's big family. When none of his big brothers passed the test, the
prophet asked if there were any more boys. "Oh, yes, there's the youngster out with the sheep.
But he's no palace material." Well, it turned out he was. His fieldwork had prepared him to be
King of Jews.
Here's how. When the wolf, the lion, the rustler zero in on the flock, it's the shepherd's job to see
to it that the sheep stay alive, even if it should mean that he does not. Jesus' own words in John's
gospel have always been the job description: "The good shepherd lays down his life for the
sheep." David was never quite that good. But Jesus is.
Since he really is the last in David's line, the words "save yourself" are a temptation. He must
say No. The truth is that because he is this King of the Jews, he cannot save himself. Saving us
is his calling. He cannot save himself and still be King of the Jews.
Pilate doubtless wrote "King of the Jews" and put it over him for ridicule. But he wrote the
truth. He saves others, that's why he cannot save himself.
Prayer: Thank you, Jesus, for saving us by sacrificing yourself. Put your shepherding spirit into
us to be your sub-shepherds with those who surround us in daily life. Nourish us by your self giving
to lose ourselves for the welfare of others. Amen.

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The Thorn of Justice

Reading: Romans 6:20-23
"And we indeed have been condemned justly; for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds."
Luke 23:41.
"The young demand justice. The old will settle for mercy." Someone coined that saying in the
sixties. Of course, everyone wants justice, wants a fair shake. But there are premises in that
demand-- that the demanders are innocent, are being gypped out of their due reward, a reward
that's good.

The old will settle for mercy. The more experience we have, the more we know how flimsy
those premises are. No one of us is all that innocent.
In Arthur Miller's play "After the Fall," we see a group of characters typical of our society. All
are demanding justice in their own lives. Yet no one is innocent. They all live "after the fall,"
the fall into sin. In the difficulties they face they are getting what they deserve. But it is not very
pleasant.
The believing criminal in our text does not demand justice. Instead he acknowledges that it is
already happening to him. But then he has the chutzpah to ask for mercy from the Man in the
Middle. Apparently he knows something, trusts something, that the other criminal doesn't. He
clearly trusts that mercy is happening on the middle cross. So he goes for it. "Jesus, remember
me--dirty hands and all." He'll settle for that. So can we.
Prayer: Strengthen our hold on your mercy, O Lord, to take our due rewards in faith. When
justice awards us good things, ignite our thankful response. When its rewards bring pain,
empower us to take them too in faith. Banish our pretended innocence. Keep us settling for
mercy--with you and with each other. Amen.

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