Of Grace and Law

Thursday, September 8, 2022

The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith.  But some people have missed this whole point.  They have turned away from these things and spend their time in meaningless discussions.  They want to be known as teachers of the law of Moses, but they don’t know what they are talking about, even though they speak so confidently.  We know that the law is good when used correctly.  For the law was not intended for people who do what is right.  It is for people who are lawless and rebellious, who are ungodly and sinful, who consider nothing sacred and defile what is holy, who kill their father or mother or commit other murders.  The law is for people who are sexually immoral, or who practice homosexuality, or are slave traders, liars, promise breakers, or who do anything else that contradicts the wholesome teaching that comes from the glorious Good News entrusted to me by our blessed God.  1 Timothy 1:5-11

The current mêlée in the United Methodist Church is the division which centers around sexuality and gender identification.  Somehow Paul’s counsel to Tiimothy is not sacred advice to a young minister anymore.  Rather, it has become an inconvenient truth, dropped from the comfort zone of denominational managers.  When it comes to what drives worldly, culture-pandering leadership to twist what Scripture means, even when that means obtusely ignoring what Scripture has presented clearly, it is, sadly, a weaponized form of teaching false doctrine.  Paul advised Timothy to steer clear of it at all cost.

When dealing with the Pharisees, (supposed) teachers of the Law of God, Jesus tossed aside their pedigrees and prestige in two short sentences:

Blind guides! You strain your water so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel!  Matthew 23:24

Swallowing the camel of law, and doing it in the name of grace, is what is wrong with the current practice of swatting the traditionalist gnats in the sexuality/gender-identification standoff, fueled by a higher commitment to political correctness and denominational survival, than fidelity to Scripture.

In the name of “grace” progressive thought says all humanity is exempt from law; there is nothing to forgive.  Yet, that kind of thinking lays aside the very substance of grace, as being forgiving that which is unforgivable.  It says perverted sexual practices are not sin…therefore, there is nothing to be forgiven, only embraced.  It belies the very essence of our vows in confirmation, to confess our sinfulness, and reject evil in every form.  Without accepting the grace of God, admitting our sins, and accepting that we deserve death, not a parade, we do not belong to Him, let alone get to presume upon His favor.  And that “camel” of false presumption that God winks at sexual perversion, is swallowed by unthinking (so-called) religious leaders every day.

For You Today

Continue to pray for leaders who are trying their best on both sides of this morass of sexual misunderstanding, especially in the halls of United Methodist leadership.  May God’s will be served.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Paul's Legal Review and De-railed

[1] Images:  via Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Essential Rivals

 

Thursday, September 3, 2020

The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body.  1 Corinthians 12:12a
The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.”  The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.”  1 Corinthians 12:21
If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad.  1 Corinthians 12:26

It is all so very connected; politics, religion, love, sex, money, breathing, or anything else you care to name.  The muse for this post is from a Facebook post of a friend, the pictured Native American’s wisdom about wings of the bird as part of the same body.  Of course, the older source would be Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church.  We are, indeed, the body, albeit connected in some very strange ways.  Yup...that same crazy bird in the middle is us…humanity.  We are an incredibly complex dodo bird!  And we need every part!

What plucks this analogy string so annoyingly resonant, today, is this time of year in a quadrennial political season.  Pandemic notwithstanding, the political push has been quieter, but lurking, nonetheless.  It seems to have ramped up lately, as the push toward November elections draws near. 

With limited space, and a huge subject (especially for a 5-minute devotional), let me get right to the point:

If we are so connected, how can we think anyone is useless?

Yet, you hear it every day: 

·       Republicans think Democrats belong in recycling. 

·       Democrats demonize Republicans. 

·       With every mention of, or sighting of Black Lives Matter, the Blue, White, Red, Asian, Gender-specific, Straight, or Whatever Lives cry for equal time. 

Preferential treatment, by definition, places one person’s value over another’s. 

And here’s the rub, in any arena, with any part of the analogy you care to push: 

Wings on the same bird were designed by our Creator to balance each other, to support each other, and keep us moving along, soaring, going higher.

But, when the wings on that bird are so busy swatting each other, that bird is going down!

From a Christian perspective, with all the backing of Holy Scripture to strengthen that previous statement, and empower the church to live it, even with the power to shame us into living it, we still can’t get it right.  Traditional-thinking Christians demonize Progressive-leaning Christians…and the blessing is returned.  And we get better at swatting each other as time passes. 

What a pitiful example of Christ’s love!

For You Today

If you’re of age, and inclination, this November you’ll cast a vote.  The election will be over, there will be a President.  Four years later (if the eagle hasn’t crashed and burned) we’ll do it again.

Keep the perspective that governments, movements, news cycles and your 401K are all temporary; the soul of another person is permanent.  Act with care accordingly!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

VIDEO

Title image Facebook post from a friend, Fran Grabowski 9/1/20  The title for this post borrows on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s work, Team of Rivals, how Abraham Lincoln turned his political opposition into a team that helped save America as a union.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on 1 Corinthians 12 see: We Are the Body of Christ and Holy Mixtures - Part 5

 

Playing with Fire

Friday, March 13, 2020

Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. You were called “uncircumcised heathens” by the Jews, who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts.  In those days you were living apart from Christ.  You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them.  You lived in this world without God and without hope.  But now you have been united with Christ Jesus.  Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ.  For Christ himself has brought peace to us.  He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.  He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations.  He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups.  Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.  He brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near.  Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us. Ephesians 2:11-18

In the early 1970’s Elizabeth and I lived in a neat little one-bedroom apartment.  Fondue was a hip thing for gatherings, so we decided to try it…gobs of cheese, tasty seasoned bread and a grease pot over the fire…what could go wrong?  The short answer is A LOT!  Russell hadn’t figured out that not knowing you don’t throw water on a grease fire was as bad as intentionally playing with fire.  The good news is nobody died, and we were allowed to keep our lease, IF Russell stayed away from the fondue pot!

The Apostle Paul covered this lesson for the church at Ephesus.  Whether you’re an insider or outsider, practicing your pride is not Christlike.  The Jews came to believe their circumcision was a matter of entitlement; they were God’s chosen, and that gave them special insider privilege to look down on the Gentiles.  The Ephesian group were Gentiles, outsiders to the Jews.  Paul told them they were also loved by God and accepted in Christ.  The contentiousness of insider and outsider pride began to obscure the whole point of God’s gracious forgiveness.

It’s as dangerous as playing with fire to let pride mingle in your midst; more so, actually!  Pride was Satan’s downfall[1] and the tendency to be prideful has been the eternal undoing of people ever since. 

In the current contentious spirit which exists among the tribe Methodist, pride is the fire-danger that is going to cost more than a few casualties.  In an elementary way pride permeates the tribe in two categories: 

1.     Traditionalists align with Pharisaical Jews, who claim we were here first!  To say that there is no room for progressives, or the pawns in this game, LGBTQ persons, is to exclude God from the possibilities.  The God who doesn’t change is also the author of all things new[1].

2.     Progressives imagine they understand the totality of what should be, throwing away everything the past has taught.  There is no room for restrictions on behavior, God’s Word notwithstanding.  The God who extends His grace and forgiveness also says go, and sin no more[2].

To dwell in either the righteousness of tradition, or the freedom of grace, without acknowledgement in our heart and behavior of the other is to play with fire.  To echo an old saying, fundamentalist rules-keeping destroys the grace of God, and licentious loose living tramples the grace of God. 

For You Today

I do pray we Methodists wake up before the fondue pot catches fire…again!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO 

Title Image:  James Tissot via Wikimedia  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For another post on this topic see The Strength of a Marriage

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[1] See Isaiah 14:14

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[1] See 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Revelation 21:5

[2] See John 8:11

Wise Snakes; Harmless Doves

Friday, October 24, 2014

“Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves.  So be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves.”      Matthew 10:16 (NLT)

Jesus knew that idealism in the extreme accomplishes little other than gridlock or martyrdom.  

Every harmless dove needs a little shrewdness; every shrewd snake could use some harmless tempering.  This may be have been John Wesley’s muse for developing the Middle Way. 

While I’m no expert on Wesley (or much of anything else) it seems the founder of Methodism understood “moderation in all things” to be something we should take seriously.

Current day Methodists seem to miss that.  We are embroiled of late in a push from sociological (not theological) extremes:

          ·        On the right, weighing in at 320 lbs of pure conservative Pharisaism are those who would ban anyone who isn’t heterosexual from planet earth.

          ·        On the left, weighing in at 320 lbs of purely liberal progressive humanism are those who would do away with every commonsense appraisal of Scripture’s take on sin.

Neither group gets Wesley’s understanding of “hearts holding hands”.

The Middle Way understands that we are not all cut from the same cloth, and always will differ in opinion on issues.  We stay together and work together because the middle is where you meet to find common ground to finish the mission; the fringe is where plans are made to dismember the body of Christ.

I hate hidden agendas. 

Having revealed my “snakey-shrewd” pessimism, I will temper it with “dovey-nice-nice” – we all have our agenda issues.  Progressives who twist Scripture to validate sinful behavior, and Traditionalists who react with hatred in self-righteousness are moving more on agenda than Spirit breath.  Church life becomes all so agenda-driven

Cutting to MY real agenda today:

I just hate the falseness of when someone hides their real intentions to gain your trust; it’s then that the rug underneath gets shaky.  I am of the opinion, and willing to stand there – that every person who holds a different point of view than I hold, is welcome to stand with me in worship and in working for the Kingdom of God. 

I really mean that.

And by that I mean – worshiping God, not self’s agenda.  If you’re into that, I’d rather not be in the room.

The “baggage” of our sin (progressives and traditionalists alike) only belongs on an altar – not on a calendar of issues for the Judicial Council to bless or ban.

At this point I have to say shame on we Methodists for calling ourselves United!

OK…Rant over!

For You, Today…

To my traditionalist friends:  Have you worked through the Pharisee-hardened side of your heart?

To my progressive friends:  Have you worked on that Zealot-humanism side of your heart?

Let’s be shrewd; let’s be harmless…there’s a middle way.

An invitation:  Let’s go to the altar, place our sins where they can be handled by the proper authority…and then let’s do communion; let’s be communion.