Counting the Cost

I can relate to the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. Like that servant, I’ve acknowledged my poverty to a holy King and willingly accepted His pardon, but too often my attitude says, Because God made me and loves me so much, He’d do anything to have me back. Redemption is a right I claim. (Sometimes it’s like I’ve done Him a favor and allowed Him to save me.)

I have not grasped what mankind initially owed nor how much was the ransom paid nor what it cost the King. I have so little concept of the debt He cancelled. So is it any wonder if I struggle to forgive my brother or sister?

How much did we owe, anyway? What kind of debt was cancelled?

• The earth – that place of beauty of which the Creator said “It is good” - was trashed. Sin entered. Decay spread. Death reigned.
• Man and Woman – who alone were made in God’s image – were disfigured and shamed and polluted, stripped of their original dignity and glory, and doomed to eternal separation from God.
• The heart of God was so anguished He was sorry He had ever made us.
• The Son of God, the Glorious One of heaven, stepped into the tragedy, disguised in human flesh, and endured our disbelief and abuse and rejection.
• He died under the immeasurable weight of every sin ever committed, as God laid His hand upon the Scapegoat of the human race, and sent Him into the wilderness of death alone, bearing our sin.

Bearing my sin. My debt – mine alone. For such a tremendous price would have been exacted even if I been the only one needing rescued. It would still have meant an earthly life and an ugly death and agonizing separation from the Father. So there’s no sense shifting any of it onto any other sinner in the world. I was enough to cause it all.

So can I forgive the one who has wronged me terribly and repeatedly? In the words of missionary Amy Carmichael, “Count the cost. But when you do, take your figures to the foot of the cross and tally them there.” I must go and sit at the foot of the cross as I ponder the question. I must let the blood of Christ trickle down over my calculations. Let just a tiny fraction of the weight of sin He bore press on my heart. Let the jeers sound faintly in my ear. If I dare, for a nanosecond, I can even try to imagine what it felt like to be utterly rejected by the Father. Then I can compare the cost of forgiving my brother…

To be honest, the foot of the cross gives the matter a whole new perspective. From that vantage point, I feel like looking around my world for somebody, anybody, to forgive, and forgive again and again and again in response to God’s payment of my debt. It would still require His supernatural grace, but He promises to give it.

What better way to show my grasp of His grace and my gratitude for His mercy than to assure my fellow man, “Your debt to me? Paid in full.”

The Time for Faith

“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Faith pleases God (Heb. 11:6). But here’s what I’m (slowly) learning. Faith is only needed – and only possible – when I can’t see the outcome. Once I have the answer to my question or the solution to my dilemma or the blessing I was asking for, I have the “cash in hand.” The time for faith has passed.

So in every uncertainty there’s a window of opportunity, a time frame in which we have the opportunity to please God by showing faith. Poet Fay Inchfawn, writing about how the spirit of Jacob revived when he saw his sons returning from Egypt with wagons laden with provision, put it this way:

…Oh, man who walked by sight.
You should have known the darkest hour of night
Is just before the earliest streak of gray.
Your wagons, all the time, were on their way!...

And she turns the lesson on us…

Oh, sorrowful soul! Trust just a little longer.
Who knows, but o’er your bare, brown hill
The wagons may be coming nearer still?
Give faith a chance. For soon, how soon it may
Give place to sight; and then never again
Will you have opportunity to show
That you can trust, albeit you cannot know.

What is testing your faith right now? The wagons are on their way, and when they arrive the opportunity to demonstrate faith in that situation will be passed. Today is your chance to demonstrate faith in God, to please Him with your trust, and to believe that He exists and is the Rewarder of those who earnestly, persistently seek Him.

However feebly, however imperfectly, as much as you are able by His grace... trust now!

Imitating the Master

Is the parable of the vineyard (Mt. 20:1-16) a tale of injustice? Was it justifiable for the Master to pay the 12-hour worker and the one-hour worker the same wage? Depends on who you ask.

If Fox Network’s Sean Hannity assembled the parable’s key players for The Great American Panel this evening, he would be delighted with the lively exchange of opinions. Those who worked from sunup to sundown would be heated in their protest, “Unfair! Unfair!” Those who joined up halfway through would be defending themselves vociferously. And the objects of their scorn, those hired at the eleventh hour, would keep interjecting, “Hey, you got what you were promised! What’s your beef?” Hannity might get his best ratings ever!

But I’m guessing the owner of the vineyard wouldn’t put in an appearance, wouldn’t even be available for comment. He’d had his say, and he did it mostly through his actions. No one was cheated. The only crime was grace. The only logic was love.

I by nature want to live by the Law – an eye for an eye and everything neatly balanced and meted out equally (like little children who check to make sure their siblings weren’t given a bigger piece of candy), but Jesus melted that Law into two commandments, the Laws of Love: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The first commandment I understand – God has a right to our all-consuming love. But to love my neighbor as I love myself? What might that lead to? It might make me care about someone who’s considered worthless. It might distract me from the goals I’ve set, take a chunk out of my savings, lead me to lend or give something away that’s precious to me…

That kind of love might even make me say, “So he came at the eleventh hour. I’m sorry, for his sake. He missed the best part of the day. The sun was bright, the breeze was cool, and we had a great time in the fields. The Master worked right alongside us, and sang us through the hard parts… so hey, give him the denario. It’s what I’d want done if I were in his workboots.”

It might make me act like the Master Himself.

More Beggars!

Behind the house where I grew up, just at the back of our yard, ran train tracks… and those tracks carried more than conductors and cabooses and boxcars heaped with coal. One day a strange man showed up at our door, not the most dapper of fellows. He was a hobo who’d likely come from the train, perhaps dropping out of a boxcar when the conductor slowed for our crossing.

He knocked on the door and asked for a bit of food, which Mom supplied, then sat out on the side porch, downing his meal. When he was finished, without fanfare, he set out for parts unknown. But he was not the last to come. Somehow, others found their way to our door. Tramps had a way of “marking” houses, we children were told. Apparently one beggar had told another beggar where to find bread.

If spiritually I am a beggar (and I am), then I want to be like that first fellow – the kind who knows where the Bread is! Who has stopped there and tasted and found that it was good! Who trusts that the kitchen is big and the cook is gracious and that there will always be enough. I don’t even need to hesitate to call others to come and share the feast; there’s plenty to go around!

But if there’s anything that doesn’t sound important when the plate is empty and the tummy is full, it’s food. We don’t think about our own stomachs for quite awhile, let alone anyone else’s. And when we do… well, we’re camped at a place where we need never go hungry again! Life is great! So we quickly forget the beggars who have not yet found an open door and a kind reception. We forget what hobo-life was like. We forget the gnawing hunger pangs, the trembling weakness, the rising desperation for something, anything to fill the belly.

The Parable of the Great Banquet reminds me that the Father never forgets. That He can’t get enough beggars around His table. “More! Go out and get more!” He still urges His servants. It reminds me that I should be embarrassed to be found sitting here stuffing my spirit with all the good things He’s provided (long after my hunger is appeased), while fellow hobos are starving, and my Father’s heart is breaking for them.

It’s a sobering parable, and not just for the high-muckety-mucks who snubbed the Host. It should challenge some of us beggars who've already "arrived" to look around at all the empty chairs, put down our forks, and heed the urgent calls of the Father…

“More! Bring more!
My house must be full!”

True Followers

Pastor Rick and Kathy’s twenty years of ministry among us says a lot about God, His grace, and His power. It says a lot about Rick and Kathy. And it also says a little bit about FAC, too.

There’s a verse in Hebrews 13 that congregations don’t hear very much – probably sounds a little bit high-handed for a pastor to haul out on Sunday morning – but it talks about the role and responsibility of the congregation in relation to its leaders. I think “leaders” includes all those in positions of spiritual authority, not just senior pastors:

“Obey your spiritual leaders and submit to them, [continually recognizing their authority over you], for they are constantly keeping watch over your souls and guarding your spiritual welfare, as men who will have to render an account… [Do your part to] let them do this with gladness and not with sighing and groaning, for that would not be profitable for you” (Heb. 13:17 Amp).

Of course we can quickly point out that not all leaders are truly concerned about their followers’ souls, some have their own interests in mind, some are not keeping much of a watch over anyone or guarding anything very well. Of that they will have to render an account. I don’t think that is a huge problem at FAC.

The bigger concern, I think, is whether we are making our servant leaders’ jobs a burden or a joy. As far as we individually are able, are we letting them carry out their calling with gladness, or are we contributing to the sighing and groaning that they bring before the Lord? (I envision Moses, praying while each Israelite family wailed in discontent at the entrance to their tent: “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant?... If this is how you are going to treat me, put me to death right now...” I do hope no FAC pastor has ever been brought to that!).

What kind of report do they carry to the One we are trying to please? As the Living Bible expresses verse 17, “Give them reason to report joyfully about you to the Lord and not with sorrow, for then you will suffer for it too.”

That Pastor Rick and any other of our leaders can express joy in serving God here is itself cause for celebration. It means that maybe, by God’s grace, we have understood Heb. 13:17, at least to some degree. Or maybe God is giving them an extra degree of patience while we learn! Whatever the reason, let’s celebrate their gladness and continue to recognize that the joy of our leaders is partly our responsibility – and definitely our profit.

Soil Testing

At the risk of sounding a bit self-satisfied, I confess that as I listened to the Parable of the Sower, I immediately identified with the good soil. (C’mon, didn’t you, too?) Well, surely I wasn’t rocky – hadn’t the Holy Spirit spent years dragging major boulders off the piece of land that was me? I wasn’t hard… didn’t I strive to internalize the truths I found every day in His Word and to live continually open to the Spirit? I wasn’t thorny… sure, the cares of life get in-my-face sometimes, but I don’t feel like they’re choking me or anything.

Probably the majority of us in the pews Sunday morning considered ourselves good soil. Could do with a bit of fertilizer, perhaps, but all in all pretty good stuff to work with.

But during the sermon a little arrow of truth shot through my self-satisfaction, and I realized something. I’m not all good soil. I mean, maybe there aren’t any mammoth boulders any more, but it doesn’t take a twenty-ton piece of granite to prevent seed from growing. A low-lying ledge of shale will do it, too. In a certain corner, could there be such a hardness lying just below the surface, preventing truth and transformation from penetrating deeply, taking root, and bearing fruit in that area?

And what about the well-traveled paths of my life? The exposed, worn-down places of daily activity, the busy and very practical places that lie open to the critical eyes of others, like the home and the workplace. Have I refused to let the Heavenly Farmer plow up those areas? Does He have to write any of those off as fruitless territory?

And hadn’t I noticed some thorns and thistles cropping up far out in left field? I tried to pull them out but they are stubborn! And it’s hard to see the harm in just a few. There’s so much wheat waving around them, I’ve been sure the good seed would eventually choke them out. Besides, how can the Farmer expect anything good to grow in that spot anyway – it’s pure clay there!

That doesn't deter Him. It’s easy to forget that there’s a richness and a tenderness and a yet a terrible ruthlessness in the sowing and cultivating work of the Holy Spirit. He intends to pour Himself into the soggy, discolored clay pits of my life, making them dark and rich and loamy; He purposes to dig up the shale, revealing untouched potential; He stands ready to clear away the brambles and thorns, giving the Truth room to breathe and stretch and grow in me.

But He awaits my go-ahead signal (we are ever soil-with-a-will, and He respects that). If I refuse Him that freedom, I am left with the stone and the thorn and the diminishing crop.

And if I grant it, who knows what can come from just a little plot of earth and a Heavenly Farmer?

Thoughts on Weeds

A couple of thoughts from the sermon on “Weeds”…

It was a good reminder of the dangers of worshipping “wheat.” Of putting any mentor or Bible teacher or missionary or similar seeming spiritual giant on a pedestal, thoughtlessly taking their word for gospel truth and mindlessly imitating their example. Even in the field of faith the tares are growing, and we need to be discerning. It’s not good enough to pick a good person and fashion our lives after him or her. There’s only One worthy of our unquestioning loyalty and veneration.

It was also a good reminder that “we have a yard, not a lawn.” That’s the oft-repeated saying of my brother-in-law, also our neighbor. People in subdivisions and city neighborhoods have lawns, Dan says, but we who live in the country and mow several acres of grass have yards. We don’t even plan to pull out all the dandelions and other assorted weeds - not if we want to get anything else done in the short Erie summer! Same for this ole earth, and for our individual lives. We’ve been planted in a yard, not a lawn. God has no intentions of weeding out all the tares – He’s letting us all grow together. I’m pretty sure the enemy is always pointing out the bad grass to Him, how well is it growing, how it is crowding out the good stuff and making a good showing… but the summer is short, says Jesus’ parable. The harvest is coming, the Day of Distinction, when His yard will become a lawn, perfect in beauty, without the tiniest sprout of a weed. Til then, bloom in His yard, by His grace, without insisting on perfect surroundings.

In my college days, a couple of us students were hired by a lawyer who had a fondness for gardening, and given a number of flower beds to weed. But neither of us knew much about flowers, and on what was not a Day of Distinction, my co-worker pulled out what was to the lawyer a very uncommon and prized plant. It hadn’t looked all that special, but it was, and suddenly my co-worker’s services were no longer needed.

That event reminds me that as for this world we live in, there’s nobody qualified to weed here, either. We unable to distinguish weeds from wheat. Even if we could, that prickly thornbush we long to grab by the throat and throttle with pleasure may be to the Gardener a prize in the making, just awaiting His transforming touch…

Therefore let us live by the Rule of Saint Benedict, and welcome everyone who enters our lives as if they were Christ Himself. As if they were tall, golden wheat growing on the perfect lawn of Heaven. For one day they just might be.