For a long time, I thought it was pretty harsh of Jesus to dismiss his family when his mother and his brothers came to talk to him that one time. And how he claimed that other people were actually his mother and his brothers and his sisters.
It’s an odd passage of scripture. But the more I read, the more of those I find. Especially with Christ
-Calling the daughter of the Syro-Phonecian woman a dog
-Telling us that he came not to bring peace but the sword
Certainly a very unexpected Jesus.

Was this an exclusion of his family for the sake of another? Well, kinda.
I think it goes back to Jesus telling us that we don’t judge things the way he does. Where the Jews around him might have judged the Centurion harshly, Christ saw the greatest faith he had ever encountered.

We see things differently that Christ does. Shocking, I know. And as obvious as that statement is, we don’t always believe it.
We say the fruit doesn’t fall from the tree meaning that if the parent is bad then the child is going to be bad too. But I don’t think that is in any way what Jesus meant when he talked about no good fruit coming from a bad tree.

You, for good or for bad, are more than the daughter or son of your parents.

Maybe you come from bad parents. A troubled home. A dysfunctional family.
Jesus is telling us that none of these things constitute a set in stone blueprint for a miserable life.
Maybe you come from good parents. A welcoming home. A stable family.
Jesus is telling us that none of these things constitute a set in stone blueprint for a blessed life.
There is something more than we can see. Jesus tells us that his family are
-Those who hear God’s words
-Those who put them into practice
Those are the ones who claim him as brother. Those who have a relationship with him.

This is not a knock on Jesus’ family but rather an expansion of who and what family is in the Kingdom of God.
When I take a bit wider view, I see a little more of what Luke was trying to convey. Right before this passage, Christ is telling his disciples a parable about what the Kingdom of God is like.
I think Christ’s idea of family and the Kingdom of God are directly related. They affect each other.
Right after this story is Christ having to calm the seas for the frightened disciples. They still haven’t understood what it means to have faith (like the Centurion) or understood Christ’s view of the Kingdom of God (life with his family).
I think this all leads to Christ’s view of the end, his eschatology. I think that for all of us, whatever our eschatology is and how strongly we believe it to be true affects how we live.
Whatever the disciples’ eschatology, it caused them to only be able to see what was happening to them right there in the moment. And so it filled them with fear.
Christ has an eschatology. He has a very clear view of what the end will look like. Jesus believed in the fulfilled Kingdom of God. And it was this fulfilled Kingdom of God that affected how he saw the world he lived in and how he lived in that world.

And yes, it looks different than the present we see. That’s why so many times we hear the words “You have heard it said… but I say to you…” or rather “You believe it to be… but I believe it to be…” Christ trying to give us the vision of what the Kingdom of God looked like to him. Christ continually worked and preached and taught and acted in ways to bring that fulfilled Kingdom of God to the here and now, where he was.
When Christ looked at the fulfilled Kingdom of God, he saw
-Good news for the poor
-Freedom for the oppressed
-Sight for the blind
-Unending favor of the Lord
He started his ministry telling us how he saw things to be. It’s amazing how often people will tell you what they mean right at the start.

And if this is Christ’s view of the end, then it should be our view as well.

Luke 6 tells us to love our enemies. Why? Because God is merciful to the wicked and therefore we should be merciful as our Father is merciful.
As Christ-followers, as the Church, we do things not because we believe they are right but because they are who our Father is.

We are to work for peace not because we have some human rationalized hope that in doing so we hope that all the wicked people will be nicer to us and we can live a happier life free from strife.
We are to be just not because of some belief that everyone and everything is equal and we have some “godly” authoritative knowledge of how to run the world better.
We help the poor and needy not because we think we can eradicate poverty and homelessness in our lifetime (or because we feel guilty when we don’t.)

To paraphrase the English Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon— Christ didn’t come to make bad people good or even good people better. Christ came to make dead people life.

In the fulfilled Kingdom of God, dead people live. So we do all these things not because of our human reasoning but because it is what our Father does, it is who our Father is and it is because that is how the fulfilled Kingdom of God will be.

Our job is to follow Christ, our example, and bring that Kingdom of God to the here and now, to us.

So maybe coming back to this passage, I can come to the understanding that Christ was in no way demeaning anyone.
He was trying to open our eyes to something beautiful.

Jesus talked a lot about how we should treat our enemies. He spoke about what our attitudes and actions should be to those who not only treat us badly but those who we have always seen as enemies.
Jesus then spent some time telling us that good fruit cannot come from a bad tree and bad fruit cannot come from a good tree. I think he has a pretty good idea of how much we as people like to judge things and how much that judging skews toward the negative.

And, of course, for us, the negative usually means those other people are “anti-God”. After all, we are Pro-God.

And into this we find the story of the Centurion. I think it’s amazing that I went 30 some odd years without ever realizing that Jesus and the Centurion never actually met. He sent his servants to Christ.
Really gives some heft to John’s words, “Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’”

It seems obvious that the Centurion knew about Jesus. He knew what he was doing–> miracles, healings, teachings. Not unusual to know and he wasn’t the only one to have heard this things.

Yet it appears that this Roman, this member of the Empire who was tasked with keeping the people in their place understood “who” Jesus was in a way that no one else did.

Surely the Centurion would have been considered a “bad” tree. How can anything good come from that tree? And weren’t those walking with Christ all good trees?
Before this, Jesus was talking about judging. How would those have judged the Centurion? Surely nothing true can come from this oppressor?

And yet, All truth is God’s truth.

Do we tell people in our churches that our little church or our denomination or our particular way of interpreting theology is not just the truth but the only truth? And that no truth can exist outside that box?

It’s a big reason why we lose so many youth when they leave high school.

It’s a big reason I left the church. We don’t do a very good job of teaching disciples to look for God in the world. We seem to spend so much more time teaching them that if they encounter something “other”, it can’t be true.

Jesus had a set of beliefs. Jesus knew about truth. Unfortunately, all too often we put our opinions and preferences over the top of those truths and defend them as if they were actual Gospel words.
Any dissenting view must be quashed because, of course, it’s then anti-Jesus.

We do this a lot when we label things “Christian”.
What if I hate your Christian music because it sounds awful?
What if I think your Christian art is tacky and lame?
What if I don’t agree with your Christian political party?
What does that make me? Anti-Christ? I think that’s how we tend to treat people.

I agree with the writer who wrote that for the most part Christian is a great noun but a terrible adjective.

I have to constantly ask myself if all my faith is in Christ, allowing me to accept truth where I find it and attribute it to God.
And not all the knowledge of Christ, just faith.
Faith in God has never required the most information about God.
That Centurion didn’t know all information about God but luckily for him, his faith was wholly based in Christ.

So what if we find that at this particular moment we don’t have the amazing faith of the Centurion? Are we just outta luck?

I am very grateful that the Gospel writers were wise.
The very next story is one of Jesus bringing someone back to life too. But here we see no one asking for Jesus’ help.
No falling down at his feet.
No sending of servants.
No bitter wailing and crying out to God.
No evidence of “faith” at all.
In fact, after Christ did it, it scared the tar out of them.

God noticed.
That was enough for right then.

But I never want to stop learning from the Centurion and his faith. I always want to keep asking if my faith is whole or is it parceled out in different places.

I hope there aren’t places in this world where I refuse to see truth simply because I think I know better.

I like to watch movies and tv. I’m a redhead who grew up on an island. Outside wasn’t my favorite thing in the world. Burning and pealing isn’t a fun occupation.
I would hear sometimes a character say “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Then someone would usually respond with “Or is the enemy of my enemy also my enemy?” And even though I’m pretty bright, that was always a pretty tough question for me. I knew that it was an important question because the outcome of the hero’s campaign hinged on correctly identifying who her enemies were.

Perhaps strangely, perhaps not, this is what jumps to mind when I read Jesus’ words about loving my enemies in Luke. As I have talked to people over the years and asked them about their enemies, I have heard a lot of answers, usually a coworker, classmate, neighbor, family member… And yet, Paul tells me that if my enemies have flesh and blood, then they, in fact, cannot be my enemies. So how can our enemies be people? I can turn on the tv everyday, any time of day and hear someone tell me who I am supposed to be at war with and why I am to think of this person or that group as my enemy.
Jesus tells me that God is kind to the wicked. And that messes me, to be honest. It goes against all my normal human rationalization.
I have to really think about mercy only being mercy if it is undeserved; grace being grace if it is undeserved.

It seems that love, especially of my enemy, has to be born out of relationship but how do I have a relationship with people I don’t know? What is it that binds us together.

Jesus tells me this story in Luke about the Good Samaritan. A story I have heard many times. I have often heard about the Samaritan. Heard Jewish purity laws put into context for the first two religious people. I have even heard a sermon about the inn keeper. But I wonder about the beaten man and his status as enemy.
What if the beaten man wasn’t a good man?
What if he was the neighborhood rumor monger?
What if he was a wife beater?
What if he had just stolen the life saving and trust funds of the elderly and school children?
What if he had gotten away with blowing up a building killing lots of people?

Does that change the story?
Does that change how we feel about the Samaritan for unconditionally helping him?

I guess we can chalk some of it up to the Samaritan not knowing any of that when he helped him initially but, see, there is this nasty piece of work about him promising to come back and clear the debts of the beaten man. So what if the Samaritan got to the next town and as he was telling this story, the people there explained to him just who this man was?
Does that affect the promise?
Would it for us?

Just as painful is the fact that Christ tells us to “do good” to our enemies. This is more than the absence of hate or the emotion of love. It’s more than just remaining calm as we let their words and action bounce off us. It’s more than saying, “Poor you, I will certainly be praying for you.”

Do good to those who hate you. It’s an active seeking out of those who the world would have us see as enemy.
Love, blessing, prayer– none of these things can come from pity. We were never meant to be a people who reach our hand down to lift out the sad, poor heathen but to be people who lift up from underneath.

To be servants.

And it’s here that we find another thorn in the rose of the Gospel. Christ says that it is “Then” our reward will be great and we’ll be children of the Most High. After we have done good to those who hate us, “then”…

I don’t know all the theological ramifications of that but I know that it seems to be important to Christ. I wonder how important it is to me.

In my life, I have seen a lot of people place themselves into two camps.
There is the Jesus Truth camp. These are people who know theology but whose lives reflect no love. People who can tell you a scripture for every argument, who can recite the words of the greatest of theologians… but because all they have focused on is truth, they lead lives that lack mercy.
They confine God and people into a box of legalism from which no love escapes or enters. Before we talk about how terrible and ungodly these people are, we should remember that this is what Paul encountered with Peter once upon a time.
The saddest part is when this group uses theology and Scripture as reason for lack of action. Too busy saying that “God is in control” or too busy defending their faith from all the would-be brick-stealers.
There is also the Jesus Way camp. People who give of themselves to everyone for everything but whose beliefs sway with the wind. There is no foundation or roots, so when trial comes, or maybe even just the “next best idea”, they shift like the sand. Again, we see Paul confronting this with the Church in Corinth.
The Truth camp—> Heaven is the only goal
The Way camp—> Nothing is more important than today, here, now
Jesus coming to give us life abundant, life to the full. Life in the kingdom of God here, now; life in the kingdom of God in eternity.
The combining of both that leads to the Jesus Life. One that creates for us assurance of an afterlife and also allows for the will of the Father to be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
So often when someone starts to fall into the Truth camp or the Way camp, they begin to experience that they are somehow unqualified, unequal, lacking… maybe feeling dumb for not knowing every truth in the world or maybe feeling guilty for some missed opportunity for action.
There is a drift away from the Jesus Life and therefor a drift away from our sense of wholeness and worth. Being in the Jesus Life tells us that we aren’t inferior to those whom we might deem as more “learned”, that we aren’t inadequate to those whom we might deem as having some “Godlier” vocation.
It’s this Jesus Life that constantly impresses upon us that we are not what we know or what we do but who we are to Christ.
When I think of those stories about Peter and Corinth, my initial reaction is to want to get on to them but I know I need to temper that righteous indignation.
It’s easier to hold fast to our actions, which we can quantify, or to a rock solid set of impersonal theological beliefs.
It feels safer, more comfortable
To step out into Christ’s life, to only cling to a life that says you are nothing more or nothing less than exactly who Christ says you are, that’s uncomfortable, maybe even downright terrifying.
But it’s the only real life there is. and as it is lived, I think that we find it is the Jesus Life that leads us to the believe in the Jesus Truth and to act in the Jesus Way.
It’s something we need to examine every day. Are we living out the Jesus Life? Are there truths that we need to look at again?
Are there actions we do that can better reflect our example?
Do those truths and actions flow out of the Jesus Life or from somewhere else?
These are questions we should always ask of the Church as well.
Christ calls the church his body and as such is a living organism. The church can fall prey to the same temptation to think it only needs to focus on Truth or to think that beliefs don’t matter as long as it’s invests in it’s world.
“I am the way the truth and the life.” Oh, that I not choose to follow just one of those words

As I look at the things Jesus believed in and try to shape my beliefs to match, I think it only right that I also look at the way he lived his life, the actions he took, what he did and see if my actions match.
So, again, not an exhaustive list by any means but here are some of the things Jesus did..
-He grew up
-He knew the Scriptures
-He worshiped in a wide variety of places
-He prayed constantly
-He had emotions
-He had a sense of humor
-He acted in very unexpected ways
-He admitted that he didn’t always know everything
-He went out of his way to acknowledge the outcasts of society
-He healed the sick
-He recognized when people wanted him and when they didn’t and respected their decision
-He gave people room to succeed or fail
-He delegated authority and responsibility
-He found solitude
-He made time to talk with people
-He knew how to talk to people as people
-He provided for needs, both spiritual and physical
Do my actions during the day, week, month echo the actions of God?

All these different denoms, sometimes all in the same town.
All with varying degrees of differences.
All these groups with their ideas of truth.
All these groups with their ideas of what should be believed.
I’m not a conversionist. Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans don’t need to be Baptists but I do have a set of beliefs and I have them because, of course, I think they’re right.
I’ve gotten into some heated, nasty, not very Godly arguments about how decent, upright Godly people should think about these beliefs.
Once in a while I even have a respectful conversation about them.
Over time, through study and reasoning together with my community, some of these beliefs have changed while others have grown more solid.
What I would hope though is that whatever beliefs I choose to cling to or dismiss, I do so because I believe they line up with what Christ believed.
While far from an exhaustive list, I think Jesus believed…
-That all truth was God’s truth
-In God
-That he was the Son of God
-In the Holy Spirit
-In the Law
-That it wasn’t his job to decide matters of political governance or judicial law
-That sin is important
-In an upside down world
-In heaven and hell
-In God’s forgiveness
-In being born again
-In the Kingdom of God, both here and there
-In doing the will of his father
-That doing the will of the Father superseded even earthly family designations
-That God holds a special place in his heart for children, orphans, widows and the poor
-That God’s way isn’t always the popular way
-In our ability to forgive
-In prayer
-That what you say is important
-That just because you claim him, that doesn’t mean that you’re “in”
As I struggle with issues in the church such as baptism and communion and atonement,
As I struggle with issues outside the church like separation of church and state, how to react at the death of another..
I would hope that my beliefs fall in line with my example and his idea of what is true.

When something is dead, its dead. No more blood pumps through the veins. No more air is pulled into the lungs. No more breath is pushed out of the mouth. The eyes cannot see beauty or the ears hear a whisper. And the nostrils will never again know the smell of bacon cooking in the morning.
Dead
is
dead.
We know what dead looks like. What it smells like.
It’s conditioned in us. We even honor the dead through funerals and wakes and aulogies but when it comes down to brass tacks, we all know that
dead
is
dead.
Sure, the ruler’s daughter, Lazarus, even Jesus all died and came back to life but they were a long time ago and I’ve never seen it happen.
Dead
is
dead.
We know it
We know how to react to it
And for the most part, we know how to move on from it.
This doesn’t just apply when we come across the physical death of people or our animals or our plants.
I think that we are conditioned to believe, think, and act the same way when we come across other types of death.
How many of us know what it is like to have a dream die? Or hope? Or faith?
How many relationships have we watched wither and die?
I know I have been a part of churches that have died.
The signs of death, in all its forms, are all around us. And how many times has our conditioning kicked in that tells us that
Dead
is
dead.
Whether it is a particular relationship, with someone else or maybe even with God, or a piece of our hope or our faith, there is nothing to be done.
Dead
is
dead.
We find Ezekiel in the same position. Surrounded by what was once alive but now not just dead but so dead that the bones were “very dry”.
Then the Lord asks Ezekiel a question (Because God is fond of asking questions). “Can these bones live?”
My first response would probably be- “Are you kidding me?”
Then, “Why would you even want them to live again? What good could come from it even if it could be so?”
-Can this relationship live again?
-Can your hope live again?
-Can your faith live again?
What would our answers be to these questions?
After all,
Dead
is
dead.
And even if it could be so, why would it matter?
But Ezekiel, in all his wisdom, doesn’t really answer God- “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”- That’s pretty smooth.
So the Lord tells Ezekiel to get to work. And pretty amazing things happen. The long dead bones rattle and come together. Muscle and flesh grow over the bones and what was once dead now has the appearance of something alive. But just the appearance.
The work wasn’t done. This state wasn’t good enough.
So the Lord puts Ezekiel back to work. And breath enters the bones and they stand up. That which was dead and gone now stands up and is alive again.
But the work wasn’t done. This state still isnt good enough.
It wasn’t enough that the bones appeared to live. It wasn’t even enough that they lived again.
It’s the same with what we face. It isn’t enough for our relationships to look alive or are even up and walking around.
For God the purpose is to pull those things that were long dead back into a redemptive relationship with him.
We know that God doesn’t bring all of our relationships back or breathe life back into all our sorrows but I wonder how many of those were because we saw reality through our own eyes that believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that
Dead
is
dead.
Let us leave room for God’s redemption, for God to work with us to stitch bone back together. Let us think carefully about the power of our surprising God when he asks us if these bones can live again.

We talk a lot about prayer and whether or not God answers prayer or how God answers it. I think that sometimes we get into a certain kind of “prayer mode”.
I remember The Hunt for Red October when the sub was trying to defect and the Russians were chasing it in the Atlantic. One of the characters says something to the affect that even though the Russians were dropping tons sonar buoys into the water, they were going so fast they would never hear them. The Russians were using the pings to drive the defectors to an ambush site.We do the same sometimes with our prayers to God. We ask and ask and ask, not really listening for an answers but hoping to drive God to the place where we want God to be. There is indeed a difference between authentically bringing our concerns to the Lord and just lobbing complaints. One way shows a genuine willingness to participate in life with God and the acceptance that God is participating in that life with us. The other shows that we have forgotten that. We have placed our wants and needs over our relationship with God. It may even mean that we don’t really want those questions answered or our needs met. It’s funny how God decides to answer us sometimes. In Micah we see that God’s people were pinging away at God, not really listening for an answer but wanting to drive God to where they wanted to be.
It’s here that God stops them and in God’s most loving/sarcastic/fatherly voice says to them, “You’re so anxious, so nervous, so worried but do you not remember what I have done for you? I guess you don’t.
Do you remember being slaves? Maybe a little. I think I brought you out of that. Not only got you out but had you take all kinds of treasure with you.
Did I let you go by yourselves? No? Oh, yeah, I sent Moses, Mariam and Aaron to lead you.
How about as you traveled through Moab? What about Balak wanting to curse you? That’s right. I made a donkey talk and he didn’t curse you as you traveled with Joshua.”
Something that stands out to me in the questions of God is that they are all reminders of movement. Maybe the people of God had stopped traveling their road. Maybe they had become content to stop where they were. And in doing so, had become content in their struggles and trials.
Winston Churchill once said, “If you are going through hell, keep going”.
The way of the people of God is a journey. God knows that when we are static, we can become comfortable, we begin to want the comfortable even if it is bad for us.
God tells the people that they have forgotten their relationship with him.
And Micah does what most of us would do, he begins contemplating a list of might just be good enough to make it up to God. It starts out small but veers wildly into the ridiculous. Because really, there is nothing we can do to “make it up” to God. It’s not complicated.
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

There are a lot of ways we struggle for peace.
Gandhi’s story is oft told.
Ana-baptist churches have upheld peace even in times of war.
We look for peace in places like the beach or the mountains.
We travel to monasteries, take journeys of self-discovery
All done to find Peace.
Love, forgiveness, mercy, grace– all virtues to have but I think the base of those start with peace. Being at peace with God.
Romans 5 tells me that in spite of all the world’s history of murder, war, and hatred
In spite of each country’s history of slavery, oppression, and search for power
In spite of my own individual history of anger, jealousy and pride
“We have peace with God”
Not by the choice of the offender, but by the choice of the offended.
It’s the very reason that we can accept and stand in God’s grace and beauty and the beauty of our lives.
But it is also, for me, where peace makes sense, in a solid and practical way, in our lives.
See, there is motion to peace. The suffering we experience, all the junk and pain and hurt, has already been redeemed through that peace with God that allows us to endure it as he endured it. And it is that endurance that shapes and forms who we are and who we are to God and it is that relationship of who God is to us and who we are to God that allows us to hope.
And hope that cannot disappoint because we, now and all times, are at peace with God.
It is this hope that we roll out into our futures that lets us know that when we face trials, we will already be standing in that hope.
Hurt and pain and suffering don’t wait for us to be ready for them. They don’t schedule themselves at our convenience. God doesn’t wait for that either.
If God had waited for us to be ready…
So in those times that you believe yourself weak, God is proving his love. Not in spite of our weakness but because of it

What is Paul talking about when he calls himself the worst of sinners? He doesn’t say that he was the worst but that he is, now, the worst or foremost of sinners. I guess he could be using reverse psychology on himself but I don’t think so. I think he means it. And if he does mean it, is he just being overly dramatic?
Self-deprecating?
Does he actually feel himself to be a terrible person?
I think Paul knew what it meant to accept who he was to him and more importantly to God.
It’s different than not thinking you have things about yourself that might need to change— a temper, cheating on your taxes, being an unforgiving person. But how do we look at those parts of ourselves alnd what do we do with them?
Maybe we come from a rough past, either through our fault or someone else. When we think we have parts of us that we hate, I wonder if that means we think we have a part of us that Christ hasn’t redeemed or can’t redeem.
Was that part of us not laid in the grave and brought back up again with Christ?
Are there relationships we have with others that don’t involve the whole of who we are? Now, I realize there is a difference between openness and wholeness. I’m not talking about giving out our PIN numbers or violating well-placed boundaries. But I wonder if we can begin to grasp a little bit that we should be in a “whole” relationship with ourselves and others, what would that mean for our wholeness with God? What form would that take?
We come to church sometimes with our emotions and feelings white-washed to make it all look and sound right for those around us. Why is that?
Do we deny God parts of ourselves because we think they will be unacceptable to God? Do we divide ourselves in our relationship with God?
Deuteronomy4, Psalm 6, Matthew 22 all talk about seeking, searching or loving God with our whole hearts. We usually interpret these to mean that we should do them as hard as we can, at the highest volume we can, for as long as we can.
While I don’t think that those are necessarily wrong ways of looking at it, I wonder what if God is looking for something different in those verses?
Christ talks about having the faith of a mustard seed. I don’t think he is saying that we should look to that because even if our faith is small (which is less than ideal) it can grow into something huge (which is ideal). I think he is saying to us that even though it is small, it is all mustard seed. Every bit of it is devoted to being a mustard seed. It’s not the intensity of its seediness, but the fact that the whole of it, big or small, is pointed towards one goal, one direction.
What if God is telling us to come to him with a wholeness of heart, the whole of everything we are?
So it is not necessarily the intensity of our actions but the unity of our hearts.
So the question becomes how do we come to a place of wholeness.
I imagine that we first have to understand that there are places in our relationships where we do not exercise wholeness. Then maybe we can start to accept who it is that God loves and whose sins he nailed to a tree once and for all eternity.