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Helping People I Hate
Day 54 Today’s Reading: Luke 10 A politician finds their opponent on the side of the road with their car broken down, do they stop and help her? If a die-hard Yankees fan sees a Boston Red Sox fan at a check-out at a local store and he is short money, does the Yankees fan help him? More serious: if a racial justice advocate sees an adversary standing at a stop light with a legitimate sign that says that person needs food or assistance, do they keep on driving? This is not crazy talk, this is Jesus talk. And this is exactly what happens in Luke 10 where we come to one of the most intriguing parables Jesus ever told. These crazy contrasts are what the story of the good Samaritan asks and answers. But instead of Democrats and Republicans or sports rivals, He uses two people groups who disdained each other: Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?” He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?” He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.” “Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.” Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?” Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man. “A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’ “What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?” “The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded. Jesus said, “Go and do the same.” (Luke 10:25-37, MSG) This story is explosive because of the characters involved. The Jews and the Samaritans hated each other. And so Jesus asked the question: which of the men was a real neighbor? For me, I have been part of helping a lot of people in very needy inner cities. Let me confess . . . the ones I hate helping are ungrateful people. We bring them food, their response is, “That’s not enough” or “I don’t like that kind of meat” or “I wanted Sprite not Coke.” It’s frustrating enough to make me not want to help them, because I want to only help the people who say, “Thank you.” But Jesus does not give me that option. Jesus says, “You can’t pick and choose who you will help.” As Brennan Manning reminds us, “The litmus test of our love for God is our love of neighbor.” The apostle John puts it this way: “If anyone says ‘I love God,’ but keeps on hating his brother, he is a liar; for if he doesn’t love his brother who is right there in front of him, how can he love God whom he has never seen?” (1 John 4:20, TLB). What does that mean? It means that I love God as much as the person I dislike the most. In our story, we have an injured Jew, and no Jews help him. He is the victim of a crime. And two religious people pass by—a priest and a Levite—and they do nothing. And the one who finally does something is the Jew’s archenemy. The priest found an angle. The Levite avoided. The Samaritan saw someone, felt something, and acted. That’s called compassion. Jesus isn’t separating the men from the boys, Jesus is separating the real Christian from the merely religious. We take three philosophies from the good Samaritan story: 1. The robber’s philosophy was, What you have is mine, and I will take it. 2. The priest and Levite had the philosophy, What is mine is mine, and I will keep it. 3. The Samaritan’s philosophy was, What is mine is yours, and I will share it. In 1973 two researchers at Princeton, John M. Darley and C. Daniel Batson, told a group of theology students that they were to go across campus to deliver a sermon on the topic of the Good Samaritan. As part of the research, some of these students were told that they were late and needed to hurry up. Along their route across campus, Darley and Baston had hired an actor to play the role of a victim who was coughing and suffering. They discovered that 90 percent of the “late” Princeton Theology Seminary students ignored the needs of the suffering person in their hurry to get across campus. “Indeed,” the study reports, “on several occasions, a seminary student going to give his talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan literally stepped over the victim as he hurried on his way!” The lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” is not answered. Instead, Jesus answers the larger question, “To whom must I become a neighbor?” The answer: anyone in need. The Good Samaritan has lived in memory for centuries without a name. I think that is because any name can be inserted. It’s not, “Well, that’s Mother Teresa.” It’s left open for you to insert a name. In one of his sermons, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I imagine that the first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But by the very nature of his concern, the Good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’” Are you willing to insert your name in the blank of the story? Do you want to know how to be a good Samaritan? Do you want to know how to put your name in the blank? First, keep your eyes open on your daily journeys. People need help everywhere. Jesus told the man and tells us, “Go and do the same.” Second, you can’t be a Samaritan without the oil, time, and money. I see help coming three ways: oil for the wound; time to help; money for the hotel. It costs to be a good Samaritan. It costs to do God’s will. It’s a cost . . . but it’s worth it.
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6:34
“Jesus, You Promised and Now I Can’t—I Don’t Understand”
Day 53 Today’s Reading: Luke 9 Can we have a promise from Jesus that doesn’t work for us? Can Jesus tell us what we are to do and then we can’t do it? That’s the situation we find in today’s reading. In Luke 9, we are filled with faith and expectation from the very first verses and then just forty verses later, we are overcome with failure in what we were told to do. “Jesus, You promised, and now I can’t. I don’t understand.” Let’s read so we see how both confusing and revelatory this is for us today: He called the twelve together, and gave them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases. And He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing. (Luke 9:1-2) Sent out by Jesus and given power and authority over all the demons. This is an exciting day. Then it all goes south. What Jesus tells them to do, commissions and equips them to do doesn’t happen: A man from the crowd shouted, saying, “Teacher, I beg You to look at my son, for he is my only boy, and a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly screams, and it throws him into a convulsion with foaming at the mouth; and only with difficulty does it leave him, mauling him as it leaves. I begged Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not.” (Luke 9:38-40) Verse 40 appears like an explosion. “I begged your disciples to cast it out, and they could not.” What? In verse 1, Jesus gives them authority over all demons. And by verse 40, they cannot get rid of one. What went wrong? In order to understand what happened, we have to understand what discipleship is all about. It’s hard to isolate the Luke 9 failure without adding a discipleship journey of seeing the demonic world crushed by the Kingdom of God. So let me give you the thirty-thousand-foot view of discipleship. Here are the three levels of discipleship: 1. Watch me as I do it 2. I help you as we do it 3. I watch you as you do it Here are examples of each: 1. Watch me as I do it Soon afterwards, He began going around from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God. The twelve were with Him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out. (Luke 8:1-2) In Luke 9, Jesus commissions the Twelve to do what He has already been doing and what they have seen Him doing. Watch me as I do it. He doesn’t just tell them something, He shows them something. Notice the important phrase: the twelve were with Him. Discipleship is more presence than information. Discipleship is more with Him than heard Him. We think discipleship is to sit in a classroom or a Bible study and get information. Discipleship calls for a bodily presence from the discipler and not just information. Discipleship is leading by example. It is not telling people to do what you yourself have not and will not do. Jesus tells them to preach the kingdom and to cast out demons and He models it for them. Watch me as I do it. 2. I help you as we do it Luke 9 is so important on the discipleship journey. Where the disciples fumble the ball on this, Jesus picks it up and delivers the boy. But more is happening. This is the tweaking stage. Luke 9 is the humility moment for them to realize, I’m called but I can’t get too far from the Teacher. These are teaching moments. Something both strange and familiar happens after the fumble. What they do next when they can’t cast it out is a learning moment for all: they get critical of others instead of examining themselves. A few verses later after their failure, they see others casting out demons with success and the Twelve don’t like that. Jesus is about to help them. Here we see two crazy verses thrown into the narrative, but these verses are so important to discipleship: John answered and said, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name; and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow along with us.” But Jesus said to him, “Do not hinder him; for he who is not against you is for you.” (Luke 9:49-50) These other guys are successful but the disciples aren’t. Therefore, their thinking goes, Let’s prevent them. Let’s get critical of their success because that is supposed to be us. This is an ego deal. A pride moment. We’re much closer to Jesus then they are, so why do they cast out demons? So ridiculous. Jesus is teaching them two things. He is helping them as they do it together. First, we must celebrate kingdom success in others and stop criticizing because they don’t follow along with our certain group. And second, we must question ourselves and not others when we face failure. Something the disciples don’t do here. They look at and get angry with others getting the job done. Jesus needs to help them. 3. I watch you as you do it and celebrate We’re moving into tomorrow’s reading, but look let’s look at Luke 10: The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And He said to them, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.” At that very time He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit. (Luke 10:17-21) Jesus is so joyful that His disciples are getting it. It says that, “He rejoiced greatly.” The word actually means that He jumped up and gushed out with excitement. I believe that Jesus still gets happy when we do what we were intended to do for Him. Don’t isolate a failing moment on your journey. These are just parts of the journey, not the whole. As Abraham Lincoln said: “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.” Always remember: failure isn’t final until you quit. Luke 9 is real failure but not final. It’s just part of your discipleship journey.
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6:33
Living a High-Def Life
Day 52 Today's Reading: Luke 8 A friend of mine said, “You’re only as sick as your secrets.” Christianity is not something that works well with secrets. In fact, in today’s reading we come to an amazing chapter packed with teaching, healing, and miracles. Tucked away in this long chapter is one thing that Jesus taught that particularly stands out to me: Nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light. (Luke 8:17) Or as The Message paraphrase puts it: We’re not keeping secrets; we’re telling them. We’re not hiding things; we’re bringing everything out into the open. Freedom happens when everything is out in the open. For us older folks . . . we remember growing up with television sets the size of a couch. A little white dot signified the television was warming up. We didn’t have cable; we called it “rabbit ears”—an antenna that sat on top of the set, and if you were tech savvy you put aluminum foil on the antenna to get “better” reception. And because there was no remote, just a loose knob to change channels, when the knob fell off and someone lost it—as always seemed to happen in my house—we had to change channels with pliers. Televisions have changed. Everything is HD, 4K. You can see everything. Every drop of sweat, every wrinkle in the skin, the spit coming out of a mouth— it’s all there in high definition. And in today’s reading, Jesus is challenging us to living a life in high def. Though it is not easy, it is the best way. Something liberates others when people go high def. Living in high def, we have no secrets. Why is living high def the right way? Because . . . • Secrets don’t work with God • Secrets always get exposed or get confessed (exposed by others or confessed by you) The bigger why is because sin grows in the dark. High def puts light on it and stunts its growth. When you put the light on something, you take the legs out from something growing bigger. You expose the lies that incubate in darkness. Let me challenge you with something: apologizers get exposed, confessors go high def. They tell the secrets before anyone else can. They build trust from vulnerability, not by portraying invincibility. I have learned this in my marriage and in any healthy relationship. When do I know there is growth in any relationship? When I confess my wrong before my spouse or friend confronts my wrong. I confess before I am confronted. I am convicted before they can get offended. That is a huge win and huge progress. This is putting light on secrets. This is living in hi def. Jesus warned us that all secrets are going to go public. As a Christian, I choose to make sure I have no secrets in my life, in my Christian walk, and in my marriage. It’s so much easier to be real than to pretend. It takes a lot of work pretending. I remember Jack Hayford, former pastor of Church on the Way saying, “The holier a man is, the more real he is.” I want to be a real Christian. A group of new Christians went high def and this is what happened: “Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done” (Acts 19:18, NIV). That’s high def, 4K. What did it do when they went honest? A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. . . . In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. (Acts 19:19-20, NIV) Transparency and confession do more than bring healing: they start a revolution. Openly confessed . . . affects a number of people in the occult to change. I’m too exhausted pretending. I don’t have that kind of energy to be impressive, but I do have just enough to be real. Do you?
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4:04
What Do I Do With All These Tears?
Day 51 Today's Reading: Luke 7 Today we land on Luke 7. In the last story of the chapter (verses 36-50), Jesus is in a house with a number of religious people and a prostitute comes in and washes His feet with her hair. This is how pastor and author Chuck Swindoll explains it in a chapter titled “Jesus at His Best:” While families gather for dinner and close their door for the night, her workday begins. With saffron scarves and lavender veils, dangling earrings and a dab of perfume, she dresses herself for show. . . . [she] survives by her looks . . . and looks she’ll get. A leer. A scowl. A wink. A sneer. All sorts of looks, except one . . . love. She is a prostitute. How many times has her heart ached to be wanted for more than one night? To be valued instead of evaluated? To be prized instead of priced? Her scarlet letter will never rub clean. This day though, she will meet what she’s hardly dared to hope for. For she will meet love. She will meet kindness. She will meet Jesus. Into this refined religious party comes a woman, a prostitute, unclean and out of place. She has taken a risk: Now one of the Pharisees was requesting Him to dine with him, and He entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. And there was a woman in the city who was a sinner; and when she learned that He was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and kept wiping them with the hair of her head, and kissing His feet and anointing them with the perfume. (Luke 7:36-38) The thirty years I ministered in Detroit, our church worked with many prostitutes. We saw the hurt and brokenness and longing to be whole again. They all wanted freedom but were afraid. Many were scared to leave the business because of retaliation by their pimp. That is this woman in Luke 7. While men were looking at her, I too want us to look at her. Let’s look at three parts of her body—for all the right reasons. 1. Her Back The best seats at this kind of party were at the table and reserved for the host and his friends. This woman did not have a shot at getting near Jesus. While these kind of parties can have bystanders, they must stand with their backs against the wall as observers. This woman was one of them. Her back was on the wall. She must have thought about what happened earlier in her town, that a funeral was interrupted when Jesus resurrected the body. And now she is close to Him. If he raised someone from the dead, he must certainly be able to free her from her life and her choices. She has a decision to make: does she take her back off the wall and give Jesus a chance. She chooses well—she takes her back off the wall. 2. Her Hair Today if we want to know if someone is married, we look at their left ring finger. This wasn’t the case in the first century. It was their hair. If a person’s hair was up, they were available. If their hair was let down, they were married, taken. Every prostitute had their hair up but on this day, she found her man and let down her hair so she could wash His feet with it. She became a taken woman. 3. Her Eyes Or more specifically her tears. How much can a person really cry? Enough to wash Jesus’ feet? They say a good cry is 1 to 2 cc’s. This is not nearly enough to wash Jesus’ feet. But that is not what happened. She did not put her eyes on His feet, she broke open her tear bottle. In Strange Scriptures that Perplex the Western Mind, Barbara Bowen said that every person had in their possession a tear bottle and they would actually bottle their tears from painful situations. I saw these bottles when I went to Israel. Think about what this woman did—she held in her hand all those painful moments where she cried and did not know who was able to handle this pain. Who could she get to give her pain and tears to? She found Him. She broken open that bottle and put her pain at His feet. She had a choice either to try to manage those tears herself or pour it on the feet of Jesus. Why His feet? Hebrews 2:8 tells us that “You have put all things in subjection under his feet.” All things go to the feet of Jesus. She took her back off the wall. Let down her hair and broke open that tear bottle. And that day she found forgiveness. One person said this about tears: “Tears are prayers too. They travel to God when we can’t speak.” This woman found the feet of Jesus. That’s where her tears belonged and that’s where yours and my tears belong. It’s too much for us to manage our own tear bottles, so let’s break them open in the presence of Jesus.
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5:10
A Christian’s Retaliation Response
Day 50 Today's Reading: Luke 6 I know there is a lot of folklore that goes with the masterpiece of the Lord’s Supper painting by Leonardo Da Vinci. Whether this is true or not, I love this story I read recently about the painting. When Leonardo Da Vinci was working on this famous Last Supper painting, he became angry with one of his assistants, berating the man without mercy. After banishing his assistant from his studio, he went back to work. As an act of revenge, he used the person’s face who had offended him for the face of Judas. He continued his work until he tried to paint the face of Jesus, and he couldn’t do it. No matter how hard he tried, he was unable to paint Christ’s. So he stopped painting, went to his assistant and asked his forgiveness. Only when the man forgave him and they reconciled was Da Vinci able to return to the table of the Last Supper and paint Jesus. When Leonardo showed mercy and pardon to his assistant, Jesus became a lot clearer. This is where we land in today’s reading. Jesus becomes clearer to us and the world around us based on how we respond to people who hurt us or take advantage of us. In fact, when we read this chapter, we recognize that it’s about Christian retaliation. Listen to Jesus’ words from Luke’s Sermon on the Mount: I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. (Luke 6:27-31) Here is the Christian retaliation: Do good to those who hate you. Pray for those who mistreat you. Notice I didn’t say to post about it on social media. We are to pray, not post. If a person hits you on one side, offer the other side. If they steal, give them something else they didn’t ask for. Give to everyone who asks of you and don’t demand back. This seems unnatural to do—and it is. It’s supernatural. This is where the face of Jesus shows up clearer for you, on you, and for others. A number of years ago, Dr. David H. Fink, a psychiatrist for the veterans’ administration, wrote a book titled, Release from Nervous Tension. In his book, he outlined his research into the causes of mental and emotional disturbances in people’s lives. From more than ten thousand case studies, he discovered a common trait among all his patients who suffered from severe tension. They were habitual fault-finders, constant critics of people and things around them. Those who were free from tension and anxiety were the least critical. His conclusions were that the habit of fault-finding is a prelude or mark of the nervous, or the mentally unbalanced. Those who wish to retain good emotional and mental health should learn to free themselves from a negative and critical attitude. Thank you, Dr. Fink, but Jesus already mapped this out for us two thousand years earlier in His Sermon on the Mount. Instead of Jesus coming from a case-study standpoint, He came from the Creator standpoint. He already knew what was best for the people He created. So Jesus said, “Here’s how you respond to the craziness of people’s actions and reactions . . . instead of being critical and negative, do the supernatural.” And here is the result: when we do that, we get what we give and we will get more of it. If we show love, we will get a lot more back. If we show mercy, we will get it overflowing back. If we show pardon, we will be forgiven many times over. Jesus was telling us to let someone off the hook today. You may “have them” and have a screenshot of a text they sent, for example. You have a smoking gun. But how about showing mercy and pardoning them? Your goal every day is not to convict and find evidence on how bad people are to you. Instead, Jesus wants your goal to be to pardon when you have the evidence to convict. Here are the rest of Jesus’ words to those who retaliate this way: Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the most high; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. (Luke 6:35) Did you catch that? Your reward will be great when you retaliate God’s way. What kind of reward was Jesus referring to? He tells us in verse 38: Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return. I have heard this verse in regards to money. If this is how you’ve interpreted this verse, I hate to break this to you, but there are no dollar signs around this verse. Instead read the prior ten verses to see what verse 38 means: • It has to do with what you give to people who hurt you • It’s a new level of relating to people • It’s Christian retaliation Over the years, leaders have preached that the “give” in verse 38 is money, but not according to Jesus. There are enough verses on money in the Bible that we don’t need to make square pieces fit into round holes. Jesus is not talking about giving money but giving pardon and mercy to people. In New Testament times, men wore their outer garment in such a way as to have a pocket on the front, which was used for holding wheat that had been purchased. They would buy a pocket full of wheat and pour it into the pocket and press and shake it down so as much as possible would fit in. If the purchaser received so much wheat that even after doing all that pressing and shaking it still overflowed outside of his garment, he was considered to be especially blessed. Jesus was saying that when you show mercy, pardon, love, and generosity to those who deserve the opposite, you are about to get a whole bunch of mercy, pardon, love, and generosity coming your way. Retaliate the right way—the Jesus way—and you’ll find the rewards are amazing. I could have saved Dr. Fink the time and government money he spent in studying those ten thousand cases and just had him study the Sermon on the Mount in Luke 6.
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7:01