The Christian Mishnah

I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written...

Paul, 1 Corinthians chap 4, verse 6

Read Matthew 23.  

The Mishnah is a written record of the oral tradition of rules – traditions – that were maintained by the ancient Jewish Pharisees (among others).  They used it as an add-on to the Law during Jesus’ time as a "safety net" to explain the Law and to help people avoid sin. The Pharisees were the legally strict lay leaders of Jesus’ day. 

And as well-intentioned as they may have been, Jesus took issue with the Pharisees’ and their traditions because: 

1. they lost the forest for the trees, i.e., loving God was overshadowed by expectations about keeping man-made rules, and
2. they created obstacles for the very people God wanted most to reach: ordinary people with all their problems: sinners. 

Jesus hated hypocrites as much as the next guy.  He denounced the Pharisees, and their preoccupation with their own traditions, their losing sight of the more important things like justice, mercy, and humility.  

So what about us?  

When are we the legalistic religious hypocrites?  When are we the judgmental ones?  What's our Mishnah?  What oral traditions, what unwritten rules, do we live by, forgetting to love God most and driving people away from God?  What barriers do we create for the unchurched, unreached messy ones among us, in the name of holiness, so they would never feel comfortable in our churches (nor we with them)? 

Could these be close?  

• Christians should be in the "correct" political party (and membership in that other party draws suspicion). 
• Patriotism requires a blank check for the military (while veterans struggle to secure benefits).  
• Christians can only be pro-life, and a pro-choice Christian is an oxymoron.  
• Christians should not send their kids to public ("government") schools.  They should send their kids to Christian school, or better yet, home school them. 
• Be an advocate for government to make/keep homosexual marriage illegal, but renounce any role for government to provide healthcare or to reduce poverty (heal the sick, remember the poor). 
• Make these a test of orthodoxy.

Mind you, it wasn't so much the positions themselves with which Jesus had a problem.  Go ahead.  Love your country.  Vote your conscience.  Educate your kids as you see fit.  Jesus alone is Lord of the conscience.  And that is precisely the point.

Just make sure you love God more.  Desire to reach people more.  Loving God is more important than how a person votes, period.  What will it look like to be as intentional about engaging with the unchurched as Jesus was intentional about welcoming the outsiders of his day?   He has a bunch of sheep, not from this herd, and he came for them too.

Open our eyes, God; open our hearts.

The Party Crashers

Two time Grammy winners DC Talk 

Read Luke 5:17-26  

Luke is a master storyteller.  He lets the events speak for themselves.  He’s done his homework.  He’s checked his facts.  He’s made his list and checked it twice.  He’s corroborated his account with secular events so that you can debunk the myth hypothesis.  And he leaves the conclusions to you. 

Since the launch of Jesus' ministry, the Kingdom of God is present; you know that. 

On this occasion, the Kingdom is present in the words Jesus is teaching (verse 17).  The crowd speaks for itself.  The Kingdom will be present in deed as well.  The power of God is with Jesus to heal.  It’s a double dose of the reality of God: words and deeds.  The two go hand in hand. 

And the Pharisees and teachers of the law have a front row seat.  They are there to toe the line. 

The Pharisees were not priests.  They were not Jewish clergy.  They were lay leaders, the “ruling elders” of the day.  The deacons.  The church board.  They were sincere, well-intentioned, fervent religious types who were there to prevent slippage.  They wanted to make sure God’s people stayed faithful and true, so they worked hand in hand with the scribes (the teachers), to make sure the Law wasn’t broken.  In fact, the Pharisees created a whole set of laws called the Mishnah (an early form of the Talmud) to make sure people didn’t break God’s law.  And by golly, they were going to make sure Jesus didn’t break the law either, the upstart. 

And some men show up with a plan.  They are bringing on a mat a paralyzed friend of theirs.  They are looking for a way in, but the crowd is too thick.  So they go up on the roof; they create an opening (dropping who knows what onto who knows who) and they lower their friend through the tiles right in front of Jesus.  Nice shot. 

Jesus doesn’t see the tiles that just hit him in the head.  He fails to notice their poor manners.  He misses their importunity.  What Jesus sees is their faith.  He probably got a kick out of their pluck. 

When is the last time anyone saw your faith?  When is the last time Jesus got a kick out of your pluck?  Faith acts, you see. 

The Kingdom was present then, and it is present now, in word and in deed.  These men set a great example because theirs is a faith that acts on behalf of someone else.  It’s not for themselves.  It’s not even for their synagogue.  It is for their hurting friend. 

Faith without action is no faith at all. 

A guy I know once stepped out in faith and with a handful of people put on a free evangelistic rock concert featuring Grammy Award winning artists for 6,500 people.  He also led little kids to Jesus.  He counts one as cool as the other. 

You may show your faith in big ways.  You may show your faith in little ways.  You may have done something fifteen years ago. 

Faith will show itself today, too, same as then, and sometimes before a critical audience like Jesus’ Pharisees. 

How will your faith work today?  It’s here, you know.  Right inside you. 

My Church is the Golf Course

Read Luke 5:12-16

Mount Cheam, near my home. 

Ever hear that?  Ever say that?  Time alone in the wilderness comes naturally to me.  Church, not so much. 

Jesus made time for both. 

Jesus heals a man, then tells him to go to church.  “Go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” 

That’s more than a lot of people would say. 

One out of four adults (23%) in the US are what the Barna Research Group calls Unattached – people who in the last year neither attended a conventional church nor an "organic faith community (e.g., house church, simple church, intentional community)."

Some of these people are what you might call Facebook Christians.  They use religious media, but they have no personal interaction with a regularly-convened faith community.  About one-third of these folks have never attended a church, ever. 

Six out of ten adults in that Unattached category (59%) consider themselves to be Christian. Even more surprising was Barna’s finding that 17% of the Unattached group meet Barna’s definition of “born again Christian:”  people who have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that they consider to be very important in their life, and who believe that they will experience Heaven after they die because they have confessed their sins and accepted Christ as their savior.

Jesus endorsed participation in local organized religion.  But it was not a “do as I say, not as I do” thing.  He backed it up.  He went to synagogue regularly.  “As was his custom, [Jesus] went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day" (Luke 4:16). 

He met God in the wilderness too.  “But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray” (chapter 5, verse 16).  Maybe that’s how he maintained his sanity. 

So if you want to say that your church is in the backcountry, or the golf course, or your favourite fishing spot, Jesus understands that.  But he was intentional about organized religion too. 

Opportunity

How little do you have to work with? How big a setback are you facing? 

What is your Big Excuse? 

Opportunity, by Edward Rowland Sill tells the story of a single tool, a weapon, in the hands of a coward and then, in the hands of a wounded, yet noble, warrior. 

Note: Craven means unwilling to fight; lacking even the rudiments of courage; extremely cowardly. 

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:—

There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;

And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged

A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords

Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner

Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.

A craven hung along the battle's edge,

And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel—

That blue blade that the king's son bears,— but this

Blunt thing—!" He snapped and flung it from his hand,

And lowering crept away and left the field.

Then came the king's son, wounded sore bested,

And weaponless, and saw the broken sword

Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,

And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout

Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down

And saved a great cause that heroic day.

You can look at how little you have to work with, your wounds, your inadequate resources, your physical limitations, whatever they may be, and slink away defeated before you have even started to fight. 

How much heart do you have?  It’s what’s inside that counts. 

Then came the king's son, wounded sore bested,

And weaponless, and saw the broken sword

Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,

And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout

Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down

And saved a great cause that heroic day. 

Your disability is your opportunity.  

Take up your tools, whatever they are, your weapons and your woundedness, and stand on your feet, and with a battle-shout of your own cut your enemy down (especially the one within).  Your cause is no less noble.  Enjoin the battle on this hero's day.