Needs Analysis

If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. (Matthew 7.11-12)

A Bit of Housekeeping
Before looking at this truly fascinating passage, I apologize for dropping from sight this week. The early part of every year is very busy for me professionally—but this one is proving to be especially so. Over the next couple months I’ll be away from home more than usual. I left for my first assignment thinking I could carve out time to keep things up and running here. I was overly optimistic by half. Having learned my lesson, I’ll see everything is place for the normal three-posts-per-week schedule to continue uninterrupted. You mean very much to me and I personally can’t bear the thought of letting any of you down. With that, let’s dig into today’s text!

Exchange Rate
Matthew 7 finds Jesus rounding out The Sermon on the Mount, the most complete transcript of His teaching we have. It opens with The Beatitudes, a manifesto that lays out His doctrine of divine justice. Heaven’s reward belongs to impoverished and persecuted souls. Comfort comes to the sorrowful; honor is given to the humble; those craving righteousness are satisfied; and people who extend mercy obtain it. God reveals Himself to those who resist corruption, and He calls those who promote peace His children. Continuing on, Jesus shifts His focus from “them” to “you,” and in doing so, His message moves from rewards to responsibility. “You are the salt of the earth,” He says in Matthew 5.12—you preserve goodness. “You are the light of the world” (v14)—you illuminate lives. You forgive without being asked, you stay faithful to those you love, and you love everyone equally, enemies included.

Chapter 6 applies these principles to how we express faith, pray, handle daily anxieties, etc. Finally, chapter 7 marries both chapters to advance Christ’s doctrine of moral reciprocity. Everything He’s talked about so far has revolved around give-and-take. Now He defines the exchange rate, which basically comes down to this: determining what we need determines what we offer. If we want to be seen clearly and fairly, we look at others clearly and fairly. If we want our beliefs to be respected, we share them with those whose beliefs we respect. In this manner, what we desire will be granted, what we seek will be found, and doors we knock on will open.

Parents
A surface reading obstructs our view of what Jesus is really saying, though. It sounds like a pie-in-the-sky formula for happiness: be nice and everything will come up roses. That’s not His point. He’s instructing us to consider our needs and desires very carefully. Once we’ve distilled them to their essences, we can observe similar shortages in others and set out to fulfill their lacks and longings. Jesus reinforces this by completely reversing the perspective He establishes at the Sermon’s outset and uses up to this juncture. Instead of assuming the role of children of a beneficent Father, He urges us to take on the nature of our Father. He casts us as parents. In verses 9 and 10, He says, “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?” If we examine both examples, we find something truly astonishing.

Should our child ask, “Can I have a piece of bread,” it would never enter our minds to hand him/her a stone and say, “Here. Grind up some flour and bake your own loaf.” We’d automatically reach for ready-made food to meet his/her need. Should the child say, “I want some fish,” we’d never misconstrue that to mean, “Can I play with a cold-blooded, scaly animal?” The child craves protein; he/she wants replenished strength and energy. Why do we intuitively recognize the child’s true needs? We also get hungry and weak. We know exactly what he/she is feeling. Now, let’s listen to how Jesus ties all of this together: “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (v11-12)

Knowing What We Need
And there it is: knowing what to offer others starts with a thoughtfully executed needs analysis. When we take the time to identify core needs we often express in secondary ways, we become highly adept at detecting others’ basic needs. Here are some examples of how this works. Do we truly want to be popular? Or are we actually seeking acceptance? Is wealth really our goal? Or are we anxious about long-term insecurity? Must we always have the last word? Or are we looking for confirmation our views matter and others are listening? Once we realize needs for acceptance, security, and respect drive our fantasies and demands we also realize how often they drive the attitudes and actions of others. What first strikes us as unseemly, outrageous, and selfish in them becomes more reasonable. We look beyond their wants and find their needs.

Without adequate understanding of our needs, we can’t effectively do for others what we would have them do for us. The Golden Rule never transcends its proverbial idealism to become the definitive force in our lives that Jesus intended. To fulfill Christ’s principle of moral reciprocity, knowing what we need to do for others entails knowing what we genuinely need.



Transcending The Golden Rule’s proverbial idealism requires a thoughtful analysis of our needs. Doing for others what we would have them do for us starts by knowing what really drives our demands and desires.

(Next: Not Done Yet)

Gray Days, Bright Nights

By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light. (Exodus 13.21)

Turned Around to Move On
Did you know the Israelites could have taken a quicker, easier route to the Promised Land? The shorter road would have reduced their 40-year trek to a few months at the most. In fact, the other route went the opposite direction from the desert and circumnavigated the Red Sea altogether. Exodus 13.17-18 reads, “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, ‘If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.’ So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea.” The shorter road was probably the route Joseph and his brothers followed to Egypt. It was probably the road Moses anticipated taking. And its existence probably influenced the Israelites’ decision to go with him. Had they not known of the shorter route—if their only choice were tramping through the desert—would they have packed up and left the relative stability (miserable as it was) of Egyptian servitude? It’s doubtful.

The easiest, most familiar road wasn’t the best road. It steered Israel straight into trouble. Before getting far enough from Pharaoh to rule out turning back, they’d meet their perpetual enemies, the Philistines. Perilously unprepared to face the region’s fiercest warriors, they’d likely decide Egypt wasn’t so bad after all. Furthermore, if they did turn back, the experience surely would discourage trying to escape Pharaoh again. God’s people would never be free. His promise to deed Canaan to Abraham’s children would never be realized. The only way Israel could move on was by getting turned around. Weighed against interminable slavery, the 40-year hike was a bargain.

The Desert Road
The desert road was hardly a road at all. Everything we read about the Israelites’ wilderness experience indicates the road dropped them in the desert to find their way out on their own. Without maps and compasses, they were completely dependent on God’s guidance. And while we’re tempted to say, “Splendid! There can be no better way to travel than going with God,” we must also acknowledge having God as our pilot adds complexity to our travel plans. Speed, distance, and comfort are secondary to Him. What we learn from our travels matters most. The Israelites took four decades to figure this out. They continually refused to heed God’s counsel and obey His direction. And so He had no remorse about steering them down circuitous paths until they could get their heads on straight.

Like tour guides who keep their groups moving by holding up colorful umbrellas, God mobilized the Israelites in a most unusual manner. “By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light,” Exodus 13.21 informs us. This made for less-than-ideal traveling conditions—gray days and bright nights. Yet just as He decided to take the long route for Israel’s protection, God chose these guidance methods for their safety. Overcast weather shielded them from harsh desert sun and cooled the ground under foot. Meanwhile, though the fiery night sky made sleeping difficult, it also permitted the Jews to travel past sundown and illuminated their campsites so they could stay watchful for predators and thieves. When we put all of this together—the route God chose for His people, the weather He created for their journey, and the light He provided for their nights—we can’t help but conclude ensuring Israel reached the Promised Land intact and in compliance with His will took top priority.

Our Walk with God
Our walk with God is an experience, not an excursion. The conditions He sets for our journey have little to do with our preferences and comfort. While roads we know best may be quicker and easier, that He’s chosen a different path confirms our way isn’t the best way. Where we’re going, not how we get there, drives His decisions. From the start, God was very clear with Moses about the destination He selected for Israel, saying, “I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Exodus 3.8) He couldn’t turn over a country of such enormous wealth to a ragtag bunch of former slaves. Before Israel could inhabit the Promised Land, they needed to learn to trust God’s protection and obey His leadership. If that meant walking in circles, living under a cloud, and tossing and turning through restless nights, so be it.

When walking with God proves tougher than we anticipate, we ask for wisdom to understand why it’s necessary to lead us as He does. It’s highly probable His reasons for us are no different than those for Israel. Often there are unavoidable dangers on the well-trod, shorter road. Being ill equipped to defeat enemies we’re sure to cross puts us at risk of turning back to our old lives as slaves. We may not be happy about going in circles until we recognize God is actually preparing us for where He wants us to be. We may not like gray days and bright nights. Yet God is in the cloud and fire to ensure we reach our land of promise intact. Our safety and success are His top concerns. The longer we take to grasp this, the longer our journey will be.

The shorter route may not be the safer one. Often God leads us out of the way to teach us to trust Him and prepare us for where He wants us to be.

(Next: Needs Analysis)

Courage

Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it. (Ezra 10.4)

Home from the Front
The Best Years of Our Lives, William Wyler’s 1946 masterpiece, tracks the lives of three World War II GI’s who come home from the front. They grapple to reconcile three conflicting images of the small town they left: as it was, as it is, and as they idealized it while they were away. On top of that, each man has undergone profound changes. All three are emotionally scarred; one is severely maimed. So while their home isn’t as they remembered it, neither are they remotely like their families and friends recall. Everyone strives to help the soldiers’ reentry into civilian life, reassuring them they can pick up where they left off—tacitly overlooking where they left off is long gone, never to return. Until the men summon the courage to grieve their losses at home, however, their loved ones will never understand what must be done to lift their hopes.

Ezra’s story puts me in mind of The Best Years of Our Lives. Born to a Jewish priest in Babylonian captivity, he’s never seen his homeland or met any Jews outside of those in exile. All he knows is what his elders told him and he’s read in Hebrew texts. Still, he aches with homesickness. He gains permission to lead 5,000 captives back to Jerusalem. But when he reaches the city, he’s stunned to find it’s nothing like he imagined. The Israelites have abandoned God’s statutes, permitted His house to fall into disarray, and disavowed their heritage. Like the soldiers, Ezra’s anxiety is two-pronged. Life in exile ineffably heightened his awareness of all that was right and good in Israel, and the loss of what he idealized plunges him into sorrow. Rather than acclimate to the changes, he becomes a first-rate activist. He mounts a campaign to rebuild the temple and restore Hebrew life according to what the texts say it should be. For the first time in nearly a century, Israel is challenged to live by the Book.

Good Grief
By returning with 5,000 exiles and expensive gifts from Cyrus, the Babylonian king, Ezra becomes someone worth watching. He doesn’t disappoint. He’s astutely demonstrative. When he learns the Jews have flouted prohibitions against intermarriage with pagans, he tears his clothes, falls facedown in the temple, and wails with grief. But it’s good grief—the kind of sorrow that garners attention and chastens those who’ve played so frivolously with the Law. What shakes them are Ezra’s objectivity and pure motives. As a well-informed observer, his response to Israel’s disobedience is undeniably apt. Many Jews rally around him. They ask God’s forgiveness for their sin and encourage Ezra to take the initiative to press for widespread change. “Rise up,” they tell him. “This matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it.” (Ezra 10.4) They authorize Ezra to conduct a nationwide investigation and identify every improper marriage. A spirit of penitence sweeps over Israel as Ezra leads the nation he loves back to the values it lost.

Ezra Moments
We all happen on Ezra moments at various times—if not on the same scale, most certainly of the same sort. We’ve been raised on principles of faith and morality that we expect to find in lives and situations we encounter. Any time we realize people we trust and respect don’t honor what they taught us to value, we’re shocked and filled with sorrow. This is especially true for those of us who’ve gained deeper understanding of our values while living apart from those who share our heritage. Returning to find they’ve abandoned principles we cherished from afar, our first inclination veers toward confronting them or criticizing their hypocrisy to willing listeners. Ezra shows us a much more effective response. Instead of venting outrage over wrong attitudes and actions, it’s far better to express our grief over what’s lost because of them.

When we mourn sin’s losses rather than malign its practitioners, we demonstrate its impact. What grieves Ezra are bald discrepancies between what he knows is correct and what he witnesses. The Jews don’t need a good talking to—they need to ask God’s forgiveness and mend their ways. Israel has grown so comfortable with its errors that Ezra’s distress takes everyone by surprise. If he can see the harm of their disobedience, and if he cares so deeply for his nation that he weeps because of it, how can the Jews possibly dismiss it? His grief surpasses condemning them; it convinces them. While others might put them down, Ezra lowers himself to lift them up. And they answer by lifting him up. “We need your help with this,” they confess. “And we’ll help you do it. Take courage.”

In Matthew 23.12, Jesus says, “For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Humility reveals true courage. It also exposes the cowardice hiding behind condemnation. Genuine grief for moral or ethical shortfalls reduces our self-importance in order to raise the minds of those who’ve fallen into indifference. To cite a current example, finding believers who put political ideology above compassion for those without healthcare, we’re tempted to challenge their Christian claim. We take issue with them, when the suffering of millions is what’s really at risk. Mourning what’s lost by unconcern gets to the point. Identifying the harm disobedience causes reaches the heart. We see this in Ezra. His pain is empathic—not in the shallow I-feel-your-pain sense, but as one who authentically mourns what the Jews have let slip away. Ezra moments call for courage to care more about the problem than our pride. They tear down logic’s scaffolds to uncover the truth about sin. It hurts.

Courage to weep for sin's sorrows is what we need.

(Next: Gray Days, Bright Nights)

Stick with Your Competencies

We have different gifts, according the grace given us. (Romans 12.6)

Graced with Gifts
Steve, my younger brother, is a gifted athlete. He shouldn’t be. He was born with a stomach defect that caused him to eliminate food before his system processed it. My parents spent the first weeks of his life trying to save him from starving to death. The doctors suggested surgery—saying if it worked, he’d live, but never develop into the strapping boy all parents want their sons to be. Mom and Dad took this to mean, “It’s time to trust God.” Much to the doctors' chagrin, the baby who was supposed to grow into a scrawny boy became a first-rate jock. A stockpile of trophies trailed him from Little League to college.

I turned out to be the skinny klutz nobody wanted on the team. While classmates teased me mercilessly, it never fazed my parents, Steve, or me. Although I ascribe most of this to my parents’ wisdom, I believe it also had to do with Steve’s proof we are graced with gifts. Rather than pressure us to be like anyone else, Mom and Dad urged us to discover our talents and master them. While they deserve high praise for this, they’d be the first to dismiss any pretense of innovation in it, because Paul says the same thing in 2 Timothy 1.6: “I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you,” And his well-known treatise on the Body of Christ in Romans 12 is founded on this philosophy.

Sacrificing Conformity
Paul begins with a bold statement too rich to be summarized or condensed:

I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12.1-3)

This is a daring and radical concept by itself. To a “mixed” congregation of Jews and Gentiles openly practicing their faith in Roman society, it was revolutionary. Contrary to belief, first-century Rome was admirably tolerant of foreign ethnicities and religions. Yet, as often happens, Rome’s diversity was constructed of stereotypes each group felt compelled to embody. Thus, notions of what made Christians unique exerted great pressure to live up this “pattern.” Conformity within the Body became an issue. Specific talents God placed in the congregation went woefully underdeveloped, crippling its unity, health, and tolerance of one another. A new stereotype affixed itself to Christians, who became known as an obstreperous group of uncaring people. Indeed, insistence on total conformity sparked internal brawls that spilled into the streets and disturbed the peace. More than anything, the Christians’ reputation as troublemakers seeded the prejudice that escalated into persecution.

While the Romans persisted in pursuing a uniform identity, Paul saw this would be their undoing. Sadly, this phenomenon is no less common today. Each of us struggles to balance personal faith with what we’re told Christians believe and do. It’s essential we listen very closely as Paul debunks the cookie-cutter myth. There is not one kind of Christian, he says; there is one Body comprised of all kinds of Christians. “These members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others,” he writes. (v4-5) Conforming to Christ’s ideal demands sacrificing conformity to popular perceptions. “We have different gifts, according to the grace given us,” verse 6 says. Neglecting talents God gives us for a one-size-fits-all persona negates His purpose for endowing us with special gifts. It weakens us and deprives others. Adhering to stereotype serves no one.

In Proportion
After urging us to identify our gifts, Paul rolls out a litany of examples that startle us with the Body's diversity of talents. “If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.” (v6-8) His picture hardly portrays a crowd of clones who reject individual passions and skills to do everything the same way. As Paul sees it, conformity destroys the Body’s effectiveness. Diversity celebrates and bolsters its primary objective: “Do not conform… but be transformed.” When we recognize and refine the gifts God has entrusted to us—when we stick with our competencies—they become something far more unique than passions and skills. They’re transformed into what verse 3 calls the ability “to test and approve what God’s will is.” Doing our best with what we know best proves God’s purpose in our lives. But more than that, it attests to His providence in providing for the entire body’s needs by placing us in it.

The key is found in Paul’s instruction to use our gifts in proportion to faith. Success in what we’re designed to do starts with believing we can, and allowing others to excel in areas where we lack faith. Appearance may indicate we’re better equipped than someone else. My uneventful medical history actually favored me becoming the jock instead of Steve. Had we followed this reasoning, his success would have been compromised and my real talents would have gone ignored. In the same way, having more at our disposal doesn’t necessarily mean we have a talent for giving, or possessing leadership aptitude doesn’t make us gifted leaders. Many notable attributes are secondary to actual gifts. Realizing this spares us guilt over not using certain assets in obvious ways—and frees us to use them as we fan the flame of God in us. When all is said and done, that’s what separates conforming to artificial patterns from being truly transformed.

To this day, society and religion endorse a cookie-cutter myth, which Paul directly opposes. Diversity--not conformity--is the Body of Christ's greatest strength.

(Next: Courage)

Coming Soon

You must also be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. (Luke 12.40)

A Touchy Subject with Urgency
The Second Coming is a touchy subject, a doctrine strongly influenced by personal factors like upbringing, life philosophy, and chosen faith community. That Jesus may come any moment is extremely vivid for many. They live in a state of heightened alert constantly reinforced by churches they attend, books they read, music they listen to, and believers they fellowship with. Others view the Second Coming as a prophetic eventuality unlikely to occur before they die, a common view in their circles. And some regard it as a quasi-metaphor—less an actuality than a message to inspire vigilance. If you’re among Christians holding widely divergent opinions about this, take note. Simply broaching the topic may topple the apple cart quicker than you imagine, as the Second Coming gets wound up in profoundly individual implications. For instance, are we following Jesus out of expedience—what’s happening—or expectancy—what may happen? Does belief in a literal rapture versus a looser interpretation reveal respective weaknesses in either? And on it goes.

For unity’s sake, let’s agree to disagree about the whens and hows in hopes of reaching consensus about the Second Coming’s whys. Jesus obviously has major reasons for promising to return, and the Apostles’ insistence He will figures prominently in Early Church culture. Since the doctrine threads through the New Testament, from Matthew to Revelation, we can’t minimize it as we do specific religious, social, and sexual mores mentioned here and there. Faith in Christ’s return is a universal mandate. However we choose to interpret its mechanics, we must infuse its essence with urgency. The Second Coming matters. A lot.

Keep Busy
Varying views on the subject don’t really affect our grasp of why it matters and why it’s urgent. While introducing the concept with three parables in Luke 12, Jesus clearly addresses our fondness of haphazard procrastination and frivolous pleasure. In a sense, the sophomoric “Jesus is coming—look busy” almost gets it right. The real message isn’t look busy, though; it’s keep busy. Relaxed attitudes, reckless behavior, and delays in rectifying them will not stand. Jesus’s stories convey the urgency of doing our best with an ominous moral: taking it easy inevitably leads to being taken by surprise.

In the first parable, the master of a house goes to a party and stays out later than usual. Jesus says he will reward servants who stay awake and occupied until he returns—“even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night” (roughly from 10 PM to dawn; v38)—by serving them. The second story concerns a homeowner who’s unaware a thief is casing his house, leaves it unlocked, and comes back to find it ransacked. “Had he known when the thief would strike,” Jesus says, “he’d have taken proper precautions.” (v39) In the third story, a master leaves one servant to manage the others in his absence. If he takes the job seriously, Jesus says the master will make him manager when he returns. But if suspicions his master is delayed cause him to abuse his authority and indulge in excessive pleasure, the master will catch him off-guard and destroy him. (v46) Jesus applies these tales to His Second Coming in verse 40: “You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

No Time Left to Lose
Our conflicts about the Second Coming arise from a common—and convenient—misreading of its purpose. We presume it’s meant to ensure we behave without supervision. If we respond to this kind of discipline, we avidly embrace the Second Coming’s “Gotcha!” aspect. It works exactly as we think it should by using fear and uncertainty to create faith and hope. But if we resist (or resent) negative intimidation to achieve positive ends, we find it out of character with everything we know and love about Christ. So the same faulty understanding ends up justifying everyone’s perceptions, which makes all of us right and none of us wrong—or, more accurately, none of us right and all of us wrong.

The reason why Christ will return, as well as why it’s urgent to believe He will, becomes apparent in how it alters our sense of time. When Jesus establishes this doctrine, He effectively cancels tomorrow. We no longer can excuse what we do and need to do now on the premise we can compensate for it later. When we glance at a clock or calendar, all we see are the present hour and date. There’s no time left to lose. Because our Master hasn’t returned, we keep busy and stay awake. Because we don’t know when He’ll walk through the door, we take care that everything we’ve been given remains protected. Because we suspect His coming is delayed, we maximize the added time to nurture those around us and clean up our act. Jesus doesn’t say, “Get ready.” He says, “Be ready.” The Second Coming was never intended to focus our attention on an undefined future moment. It’s about remaining steadfast and responsible in the very real and present now. Jesus is coming soon—maybe not as soon as some think. But when He does, whether it’s today or a million years from now, no doubt it will be sooner than expected. Be ready.

Almost right. Instead of looking busy, though, Jesus teaches us to keep busy. Instead of getting ready, He tells us to be ready. The Second Coming is about the very real and present now.

(Next: Stick with Your Competencies)

In With the New

New wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, “The old is better.” (Luke 5.38-39)

Uncommon Vintages
A June 2003 visit to Paris ended in several days of oppressive heat. Though Paris is many things, heat-friendly isn’t one of them. Its stone architecture, narrow backstreets, and inland location turn the city into an oven. So we spent our last days in air-conditioned museums and stores, when we’d rather have roamed outdoors. Back at home, French news reported the heat hadn’t lifted and Western Europe was in full-on crisis. Death tolls overwhelmed undertakers and forced families to place loved ones in makeshift morgues. Calamity also loomed for France’s vineyards. If conditions didn’t cool, one of Europe’s leading industries and economic drivers might actually die on the vine.

The heat hung on through August, causing nearly 15,000 deaths in France alone. It also reduced harvests by 15-20%. But a most interesting thing occurred. In some regions, scorching conditions improved the grapes. Critics hailed many of that year’s wines as exquisitely uncommon vintages. As older, highly reputed bottles gathered dust, 2003 wines flew off the shelves. Buyers happily paid more for typically cheaper labels. Lastly, while wines produced under more stable conditions tend to improve with age, atypical factors affecting the 2003 vintage raised suspicions it might degrade over time. Instead of waiting for an occasion to bring out a fine bottle, opening a 2003 wine turned into an occasion. Rarely has newness ranked so high among a wine’s qualities.

Utterly Innovative
Having grown up with Christian values, we're hard-pressed to appreciate how utterly innovative Christ’s message and methods were. Mark, writer of the first Gospel, hastens to drive this home in the first miracle he describes. Jesus is teaching in the Capernaum synagogue, where we’re told, “The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as teachers of the law.” (Mark 1.22) As He teaches, a man vexed by an unclean spirit interrupts Him. Jesus silences the man, who undergoes a seizure and the spirit flees. Mark writes in verse 27: “The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, ‘What is this? A new teaching—and with authority!’” Mark ends by saying news of Jesus spread quickly.

Now, imagine Jesus walks into our church, stands in the pulpit, and preaches His doctrine of selfless, pure love. Would we not also be amazed? Suppose a disturbed individual jumps up to dispute Him and His reprimand triggers a fit that cleanses his/her heart of evil. Would we not be shocked? Lastly, consider the response of church officials. Would they not rush to discredit Him as a radical? That’s what happens to Jesus. But in Luke 5.38-39, He concedes His message isn’t conducive to traditionalism: “New wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’” In matters of faith, experts and enthusiasts are often less astute than wine critics and connoisseurs. They aren’t as willing to allow uncommon factors can create a rare vintage vastly superior to the established standards.

Strength to Expand
Storing new wine in unused skins is necessary because the finishing process isn’t complete. Fermentation generates gasses that test the wineskins’ strength to expand. It creates new pressures that burst their seams. What’s more, drinking new wine before “its time” challenges people accustomed to flavors and nuances of older vintages. They believe old wine is better because that’s what they’re taught and all they know. In many ways, they’re no different than old wineskins. Processing traditional beliefs saps their strength to expand. The old wine tastes better because it’s safer and easier to digest. That Jesus’s critics adopt a similar distaste for His doctrine hardly surprises Him. Yet it’s important to realize He doesn’t use this analogy to criticize traditionalists. Indeed, His explanation softens our regard for them. Jesus raises the topic of new wine and wineskins to encourage us to be strong and open-minded enough to receive His doctrine—to develop palates for its new flavors and fortitude to withstand the pressures it creates within us as it matures.

More than ever, I’m convinced Christ is pouring new wine into our hearts. Believers trained to prefer vintages of condemnation and exclusion can’t stomach Christ’s doctrine of inclusion, while we who’ve developed a penchant for new wine struggle to accommodate it in skins weakened by previous faith processes. Pressures to judge pushes hard at our seams. Every believer must pray for strength to expand. In Romans 7.6, Paul explains, “By dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit.” In Ezekiel 36.26, God speaks to our hardened attitudes: “I will give you a new heart and a put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” In the closing hours of 2009 and dawning moments of 2010, we ask God to finish this work in us. More than ever, need His new wine. We need to serve in the new way of the Spirit. We need soft hearts that expand with compassion and tolerance. More than ever, we need to proclaim, “Out with the old, in with the new.”

With prayers and hopes for a healthy and happy New Year to you all.

Christ's new wine tests our willingness to develop uncommon tastes and accommodate differing views.

(Next: Coming Soon)

Yes

“Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” (Malachi 3.10)

What Lies Beyond What Is

We’ve been on a Liza kick lately. It started when Walt latched on to “Ring Them Bells,” a Kander and Ebb novelty about a girl who goes to Europe and discovers an opportunity that lurked under her nose all along. Walt’s one of those people who can play a song they love again and again. So, hoping to add some variety to his playlist, I dusted off the DVD Liza with a Z, a TV concert she filmed in the wake of her Cabaret triumph. It opens with “Yes,” another Kander-Ebb tune with a similar message that knocked me off my heels in spite of it pushing the kind of hard-sell, show-biz sunshine that normally gives me the willies. In this case, however, knowing Liza performs it at her peak adds conviction to its brazen optimism. As she belts, “What lies beyond ‘what is’ is not. So what? Say, ‘Yes!’” I’m a believer.

I was raised on the power of “yes,” though not in the same sense as Kander and Ebb’s song. Instead of being told I could do anything I set my mind to, my parents taught the only answer to “No, I can’t” is “Yes, God can.” So what if what lies beyond ‘what is’ is not? Saying “yes” turns a blind eye to impossibility and unleashes our Maker’s power. Romans 4.17 says God “calls things that are not as though they were.” Inability to detect anything beyond options we see has no bearing on His means and methods. When no viable solution exists, He creates one. All He needs from us is belief. When we say, “Yes, You can,” He proves it.

Faith and Surrender

Re-reading the above raises trepidation some may consider it nothing more than a religious twist on the same cockeyed notion that songwriters have served up for decades. In all honesty, it does ring them bells, and I spent most of my thirties hatching rationales in favor of this view. Drunk on self-confidence, I decided countermanding life’s “no’s” with divine “yeses” was beneath me. I was too sophisticated to believe God actually preferred to intervene in my impossibilities rather than trusting me to live with them. (Imagine that—God trusting me, not me trusting Him!) While I muddled along, however, I kept noticing people who knew no better than saying “yes” got out of trouble, not through it. Still, I wouldn’t accept it could possibly be so simple. I rifled through variations on the theme: happy coincidence, self-fulfilling prophecy, or cosmic beneficence—anything but faith and surrender.

Faith and surrender distinguish “Yes, God can” from “Yes, I/we can." When we turn our “no’s” into God’s “yeses,” we must sincerely believe He can do the impossible and let go so He will. We dismiss what we think in order to rely on what we know. That’s how it worked with me, anyway. In His amazing kindness and wisdom, God sent a raft of unbelievable opportunities and impossible situations my way. All at once, I faced the fact I was neither smart nor talented enough to seize chances I’d been given, let alone resolve crises I’d stumbled into. “What should I do?” eased into “I can’t possibly do it,” which left no alternative to confessing, “I can’t, but I know You can and believe You will.” Once I said, “Yes,” things began turning around. One Sunday morning, the choir hauled out an oldie I’d never been crazy about, “I Tried Him and I Know Him.” And in that moment I understood something I’d never put together: I tried Him because I know Him. I said, “Yes,” because “Yes” made total sense.

Tests

In getting to know God, we learn He often tests us so we can test Him. We see this in Malachi. The Jews have reassembled after 80 years of exile and foreign occupation. They scrape together what’s left of their assets to pay enormous reconstruction costs. With “no’s” at every turn, it takes all their resources just to keep going. In the process, devotion to God’s work and House wanes. So what does God do? He asks the impossible, demanding Israel sacrifice one-tenth of its income to restock Temple coffers. “Test me in this,” He says, “and see if I won’t bless you beyond your capacity to contain it.” Building Temple reserves while struggling to put roofs overhead and meals on tables doesn’t make sense. God has asked more than they can possibly do or afford. It takes time for Israel to forget saying, “No, we can’t,” and agree, “Yes, God can.” But when they conclude savvy and skepticism are merely fear in fancy dress, they take Him up on His offer. They test Him because they know Him. Just as He promises, prosperity and security are restored. What was impossible for Israel proved entirely possible for God.

“For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God,” Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1.20. With a fresh year approaching, there’s no better time to know that we know God—to know tests that look like big fat “no’s” to us are really grand opportunities to test Him. He will prove there’s more than “is not” behind “what is.” There are promises we can trust and creative power we can’t see. Every promise God makes is an automatic “yes.” Our “yes” declares faith and surrender. We say, “Amen”—it is so. I pray 2010 becomes our Year of Yes, that we enter it with minds to trust God’s power and leave it having seen Him prove Himself with every test.

Having nothing left to say but “No” is the exact moment we should say, “Yes!”

(Next: In With the New)

Postscript: “Yes” and…

Minnelli’s optimistic booster and “I Tried Him and I Know Him” by Perfect Praise.