Return Trips

Mark 11:12-25

      Have you ever gone back to a place and found it very different from what it was before? You have memories of the place, but when you arrive, it is nothing like your memory. You wonder if your mind could have been playing games with you. Or maybe you have the wrong place. Or maybe your mind attached the wrong images to the right location. Puzzling!

      Sometimes we remember a person a certain way, and then when we see them again, they seem totally different: different personality, looks, and attitude. And you wonder what happened to that other person. You wonder how they could have changed that much in such a short time.

      Jesus is on His final visit to Jerusalem, at least His final visit for a few thousand years. He has been welcomed by a very large crowd, proclaiming Him the promised deliverer, the Messiah. But His initial foray into the city is late in the day, so He returns to His lodging for the night. The city and its surrounding towns are filled with Passover Festival visitors, pilgrims, if you will. They will all travel into Jerusalem each day and then out after the day’s activities. Jesus does the same.

      Our text tells us of three of these journeys, two into the city and one out of the city. Morning, evening, morning. And during that day Jesus declares with His actions that Jerusalem has lost its ability to be fruitful. The Temple area is so filled with commercial enterprises that the sacred activity of prayer can’t happen. The central activity the Temple was designed to protect is the very thing it can no longer practice. Prayer, and the resultant repentance and sacrifices, was the activity of the Temple. Without prayer, the Temple might as well cease to exist.

      Jesus engages in some activity that flies in the face of the “meek and mild” image so many have of Jesus. He is downright violent. He could be charged with destruction of personal property, disturbing the peace. His anger rages. Sounds like He is starting a riot.

      But He is not out of control. His actions match His words. His actions raise the volume on His concern for the spiritual state of the Jews, and of the world. Something must be done. Complacency can’t continue. There has to be a change.

      I wonder if Jesus were to wander through our days, would He see our activities and declare us unfruitful? Would He notify us that our lives have lost their purpose, their eternal direction? Would He knock the activities and turn over our tables?

Hard Heart

Mark 4:15

      Have you ever met anyone who seems really cold and distant, untouched by emotions, both positive and negative emotions? They seem to float through social situation without ever really being touched by other’s stories and experiences.

      They might be the kind of person who never takes any risks. They live life on the “safe side.” They have “learned that lesson” and won’t be like that again. They like things to feel comfortable, so they don’t do things outside their comfort zone.

      In this parable of the soils, Jesus points out that the condition of the soil determines the growth of the seed. Today we look at what happens when God’s Word is heard by someone whose heart is hard. This is the person represented by the path, verses 4 & 15. The characteristic of this soil is that is has been compacted by walking. Life has impacted it in a way that seed can’t penetrate. But even more important the seed remains on the outside and is visible. Unlike the rocky soil, the seed can’t be hidden. The seed becomes easy pickings for the birds.

      As I am writing this, I am watching a very small bird attack and eat a small lizard. The lizard is now out in the open with no place to hide. The bird just keeps jumping around and attacking from behind. The lizard doesn’t stand a chance. Even with his mouth wide open, his neck puffed out with its bright colors, the bird just keeps spinning around to his blind side and eating pieces of him.

      The path has received no preparation for reception of the seed. It wasn’t tilled or plowed. There has been no effort to break up the hardness. It takes effort to break through someone’s hard heart. But unlike soil, it often takes hardship and kindness to work through that hardness. Often bitterness and anger take over

      People with hard hearts are often passive in their spiritual growth. If something comes their direction, and is easy, they will accept it. If it isn’t on the path, in their immediate vicinity, they won’t put forth the effort. They are often shortsighted in life’s pursuits. They are like Lot’s sons-in-law who though Lot was joking when he told them to leave because judgment was coming.

      People with hard hearts are often oblivious to the reality of God working right under their noses. They just can’t see God’s reality. They could bump into God on the street and never know it. They are out of touch with what others are going through because all they see is their limited world.

      Hearts like this take careful plowing, fertilization, repeated turning over in order to get through the hard layers. Often very difficult things will happen in their lives, and in those moments, they need to reach out, which is the opposite of their usual pattern. They have to admit their hardness and allow the Spirit to soften them. Often the Spirit uses us, the kindness of others, to help prepare them for the seed, God’s Word.

      If that doesn’t happen, Satan will surely take the seed away. It is easy pickings. It is as though the Word was never even present. The seed leaves no mark on the path.

Angry!

Mark 3:5-6

      What do we do with our powerful emotions? I mean the ones that drive us to action. How do we handle them? We all have powerful emotions. Some of us learned that expressing those emotions can be dangerous, physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. If we showed our emotions, we were disciplined even more harshly, so we learned to stuff them or turn them off completely.

      We read in our passage today that Jesus was angry and deeply distressed. These are very human emotions, common to every one of us. This is the only in the New Testament where it directly says Jesus is angry. It obviously doesn’t happen very often for Jesus. And perhaps it should happen very often for us as well.

      What gives rise to this anger? The stubborn hearts of His opponents bring out His anger. He wants everyone to respond to His message of forgiveness and mercy. To anyone who wants God’s will, healing someone is the right thing to do, no matter what day it is. And yet, the right thing is exactly what these religious leaders think they are defending. Their definition of right is very different from Jesus’.

      So how do we get a stubborn, hard heart? If these leaders got one, and we don’t want one, we had better know how to avoid it. These leaders had been exposed to God’s Word all their lives, and yet, they had not responded in faith. They had not trusted in God’s faithfulness. Just like the Israelites when they left Egypt, the miraculous signs were all there, signs of the LORD’s presence, and ye the missed them. Instead of responding by trusting Him more, they responded in grumbling and complaining.                                                         

      Jesus sees and hears their insensitivity to this man’s plight. They would know exactly what this handicap meant to this man, and yet they want him to stay in that condition. I can imagine they would feel very differently if it was their hand that caused them to be an outcast. If it were their son, I am pretty sure they would want action now, rather than later.

      Jesus was angry at their lack of compassion for this man. Their hearts are revealed in this moment. They would rather kill Jesus than admit that their narrowly focused application of the Law was wrong. They could do rule-keeping. They had difficulty believing.

      Grace prevails in this man’s life. Jesus speaks the word and his hand is restored. But it is more than his hand. His whole life is restored. We would say, he gets his life back. Aren’t there times when you would like to get your life back?

      And the reaction from the religious leaders is simple. They want to kill Jesus. They are willing join forces with the Herodians, people who have collaborated with Rome, the enemy of the Jewish people, the taxer of Israel’s citizens, the crucifier of dissidents. They are willing to sleep with the devil to get their way.

Pressure Relief Valve

Proverbs 15:18

      Some people have a way of stirring up trouble. When they enter a room, or when they come into a new situation, they seem to find the center of the record and start it spinning. They don’t seem to be happy, and of course they never really are happy, unless they can stir things up.

      Many of us have family members who are like that. They stir up conflict and strife. Perhaps they always swing the conversation toward controversial topics. Perhaps alcohol, what I call “liquid stupid,” gets flowing and they don’t know how to shut up.

      By contrast there are some folks who just seem to bring calm to any situation. They don’t get “spun up” when others seem to be spinning out of control. They have a way of bring a non-anxious presence into the room. I like it when these folks are around. They seem to have a perspective about the current struggles that make them seem small and manageable. They exude quiet confidence.

      Because they have perspective, the current struggle is relatively small. They are able to enter a conflict and help all sides gain some perspective. They don’t take the aggression and anger being directed at them personally. They act as a pressure relief value for the parties. Instead of reacting to the anger, they let it pass right by them and out of the room. And when that happens, the temperature in the room drops.

      The one quality mentioned for these kinds of people is patience. If we are willing to wait, to hear people out, to not react, then we are able to diffuse the tension. But patience must be practiced. It takes effort to not react, even on the inside. Some things just push our buttons, and it takes effort to find the buttons in our life and figure out how to unwire them. Many people don’t take time to do this. They don’t take time to pay attention to their own reactions and then figure out why they reacted they way they did.

Relational Shock Absorber

Proverbs 15:1

      This proverb is one of the most obvious truths, but one that is very difficult to carry out in our lives. It is a challenge to not reply to an angry accusation with anger. When we feel attacked, we most often want to attack back. We use this counter-attack to create a safe space between ourselves and our attacker.

      It takes discipline to not answer with these defensive words, to realize that they are not necessarily attacking us personally, but that they feel as if they need to use anger in order to be heard. What they are saying is so important to them, that they feel they must be heard. They have not been heard in the past, so they raise the volume so that they can be heard, or at least this is what they think and feel.

      If we become a “shock absorber” for these kinds of attacks, not answering in kind, but instead answering gently, the mood gets defused. Remember, it is not a personal attack. You just happen to be in the firing range at that moment. You are standing there, but their anger comes from somewhere else, often another time. If we can learn this simple truth, that the anger is not an attack, we can answer with compassion and understanding instead of anger.

      Our need to protect ourselves can make things worse. If we fire back with an angry reply, even if justified, the argument continues to escalate, often spinning out of control.

      Couples often get into this kind of dance. So do parents with teenagers! Instead of responding in anger, we can reflect the other person’s emotional engagement by validating their emotion. “I can see you are really angry about this.” “This seems to be really important to you.” “It seems like you don’t feel like you are being heard.” If we are able to slow it down and talk about what is really going on, rather than reacting to the emotion of the moment, the conversation can become very productive rather than destructive.

      So next time someone comes at you in anger, as long as you are not in danger, give a gentle answer and see what happens. Slow down and respond, realizing that the anger is probably not really directed at you because of something you have done, but you are just a convenient target. Be a bull fighter and hold the cape and allow the bull to pass right by thinking he is hitting something important.