The Best Gift

Mark 14:8-9

      One decision can alter the course of history. I had an experience recently driving a car in Scotland. It was my first time driving in the United Kingdom where they drive on the opposite side of the street. Now you might thing that is no big deal, but believe me, it was tough. For over 41 years my brain has been trained to drive on the right side of the road, to watch for danger coming at me from the left side, to turn right when I want to turn right, not go left around the roundabout and then turn left. My brain screamed at me “danger, danger, danger” for two full weeks.

      On day 10 of my driving, it had had enough. All the vigilance I could muster had been used up. I let my guard down for a moment. I didn’t double check my turning decision. Crash! My driving record of thirty years ruined in a moment. Luckily I paid the extra for the rental car insurance. No one was hurt. And so far I haven’t been summoned back to the UK for a trial.

      I am glad to be back on US soil again, where people drive on the right side of the road! My brain has gone out of high gear, back into normal mode. Driving makes sense again. People aren’t trying to kill me every moment of every trip.

      Jesus is at the supper at Simon’s house and a woman has come in and poured very expensive oil on His head. The disciples have gotten very upset over what they perceive as a waste of valuable resources. But Jesus sees beyond the cost.

      Jesus hears in this woman’s act an act of love. She knows something that the disciples seem to constantly miss: Jesus is going to die. She poured the fragrant oil as a way to prepare Jesus for His upcoming death. I imagine that the fragrance was still present a few days later when He was crucified and buried. They didn’t have the same shampooing routine as we do. They probably only washed their hair occasionally. They certainly didn’t do it every day. And Jesus betrayal and death are only a couple days away. The fragrance would have still been noticeable.

      What I find wonderful is that Jesus honors this unnamed woman. Her act of kindness is remembered. She has a memorial, unlike so many others of her day. So many who had contact with Jesus faded into history. Her memory is still alive. Her act of kindness wrote her story in the pages of history, not just human history but eternal history. And yet she remains nameless.

      I want to be an unnamed man. I want what I did for Jesus to be remembered. I don’t care if my name is attached. I want Jesus to be the center of all that I do. But I am not there yet. There are still times when “I” get in the way. I want my way. I want the glory. I want the credit. I want the spotlight focused on me. Forgive me Lord!

      Do you ever want the credit for something you did?

Investment Portfolio

Proverbs 13:21-22

We all know people who seem to always be in trouble. It often begins very young in life. They don’t seem to understand the rules, or they choose to ignore them. The amount of trouble compounds over time until it overwhelms them.

We often nickname them “train wrecks waiting to happen.” Other people see it clearly, often warning them, but they don’t listen. Even as the wreck begins to happen, they ignore the inevitable. Trouble really does pursue them.

They are not the only ones affected by their choices. The results are often passed along from generation to generation. I see this clearly in certain segments of our society where the men are simply not involved in the lives of their children. They are there for conception, but after that they are gone, leaving the woman to raise the children. Generations have followed this pattern of male absence.

So what happens when young men don’t have responsible men influencing their lives? They end up being influenced by a culture that is created for them and sold to them by the entertainment industry. And the entertainment industry is about profit, so it wants to perpetuate their audience. They don’t want to create good human beings, they just want more customers. They don’t really care about the consequences of their products. They just want their bottom line to go up.

We saw this recently with the anti-gun debate. The Hollywood stars made a commercial demanding the politicians did something about gun violence. These were the same stars who made their millions by portraying violence with guns in their movies.

I want to leave a positive legacy for my children’s children. It may not be monetary wealth, but there will be wealth passed along. My investment portfolio is expansive in love and caring, but a bit thin in the money.

What do outsiders think of your life? Are you a train wreck getting ready to happen?

Pigpen

Proverbs 10:6-7

One of my most memorable cartoon characters is Pigpen from Charlie Brown. He carried his own atmosphere with him, a dust cloud. Everywhere he went the cloud went with him. It would arrive a few moments before he got somewhere and lag a few moments after he left. Some people carry their mood like they have their own weather system. They enter a room and the mood in the room changes.

Verses six and seven talk about what kind of cloud that accompanies both the righteous and the wicked. The righteous carry around blessings with them. We call this their reputation. Their reputation paves the way for blessings to come. Blessings are something that get shared. They overflow and positively affect those around us. You can’t contain a blessing. I don’t know about you, but I like being around this kind of person. I feel better about myself and about life after they have been around.

I don’t really like being around people whose mouths spew ugliness. I don’t care whether it is foul language or foul content; if I have a choice, I will leave. This kind of cloud pulls the whole crowd down. It can pull a family down as well.

Have you ever noticed that it can be very hard to pull a conversation upward, but very easy to turn it downward? Once one person starts complaining, it seems that everyone follows. It takes very little to get it started and a whole lot to get it stopped.

And the color of a person’s life does not automatically change when they die. We call this after effect someone’s legacy. Even the memory of the righteous person carries a blessing, while the wicked rots. Think about that for a moment. Have you ever left garbage in a trash can and gone on vacation. What was it like when you returned? Stink? Crawling, squirming things, flies? That is what it is like with a wicked person. Even after they are dead, it can take a while to get things cleaned up.

What kind of reputation do you have? What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind? Now is the time to do things that create both.

What have you passed on?

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Several years ago I found an exercise that helped me focus my energies in life. It was while I was working with very ill hospital patients. If there is one thing terminal illness can do is to focus us on what is really important. Patients and family members just want to say “I love you” one more time. They want to weep in each other’s arms. They want to arrive before the little green line goes flat.

The exercise I learned is to think about my funeral and my gravestone. What do I want written there? What do I want other people to take out of my life with them? What will be my legacy? Paul passed on what was most important to him. The risen Jesus had changed his life. Nothing was more important to him.

Paul served others. He led a life of self-sacrifice and exceptional hardship. He did this so that other people would experience the life he had found in Jesus. Verse nine points out his great conflict. He used to kill Christians. Now he has become one. He received the grace that changes a murderer into a humble servant of others. He excelled at persecuting others. Now excels at allowing God’s grace to flow through him.

Notice that Paul says that God’s grace affected him (v10). He states in a backward way “not without” effect which means “with” effect. When we allow grace to have its effect, we change. But what changes and what does that look like?

For Paul it meant he switched sides in the battle raging within Judaism of his day. When grace works in our lives, we might have to switch sides as well. Some of the political issues of our day are grave moral issues, and might require a switching of sides when grace is embraced and experienced.

But we might have to stitch sides in our personal lives. We might have to stop battling with our spouse over things that aren’t really important. We might have to become vulnerable with them, and allow them “in”, perhaps for the first time. Some behaviors might have to go into the “used to” category. I used to do drugs. I used to look at porn. I used to use food for comfort. I used to insist on having my own way. I used to waste my life pursuing success. I used to live for the moment with no thought about the consequences. The “used to” category must be replaced with the “but now” category.

When people talk about you at your funeral, what will they say? Will they have to lie in order to say nice things? Or has your life been transformed by grace? You get to decide.