Getting Closer to God: Doing Things for Each Other

The scriptures referred to are in the text. Most of the quotations are from the NET.

(To see the pillow mentioned, you can watch the Facebook Live video of Morning Prayer and this sermon on the Facebook pages of either St. Francis in the Keys or Lord of the Seas. I have been doing these videos since the COVID-19 lockdown and will continue them until my churches reopen.)

My mom was a very crafty lady. By which I mean, she was into just about all the crafts: needlepoint, chip carving, jewelry making, Japanese calligraphy, model Z trains, cake decorating, etc. Her problem was she would get into something, read all the books, go to the craft store, start making stuff, not quite finish and move on. Many were the Christmas Eves when instead of giving us our gifts she would show us the progress she had made and promise to deliver them when done. We finally asked her to stop making us new gifts and finish the old ones! Which is not to say she never finished anything. She made me a pillow when I was going away to college and it still looks great. And I love the saying on it: “What you are is God's gift to you; what you become is your gift to God.” 

When you love someone, you give them gifts. And you do other things for them. If necessary you make sacrifices for them. Love is putting others before yourself.

This Lent we are talking about getting closer to God. Last week we talked about doing things together. This week we are talking about doing things for the other person.

Gift giving is universal, so much so that most societies incorporate it into their cultures. On holidays and special occasions, like weddings and birthdays, gift giving is the expected response from loved ones and close friends. Among indigenous people on the northwest coast of the US and Canada, one's status is established by a potlatch, the giving away of wealth and valuable items. Coronations are often celebrated by the giving and receiving of gifts by the newly crowned monarch. Those gifts are mandatory, however, rather than spontaneous.

The nicest gifts are the ones that are not triggered by any special occasion but when someone says, “I saw this and I thought of you.” Often such gifts reveal just how well or how little the giver knows the recipient. It's very awkward when someone gives you what they think you'd want and with a fixed smile on your face, you thank them while thinking to yourself, “They thought I'd like this?!?” Many a sitcom has an episode where some relative is coming and a couple frantically tries to unearth some awful gift they were given by their imminent visitor. They put the old dustcatcher in a hastily set up “place of honor.” My favorite version of this trope was on the Dick Van Dyke Show when boss Alan Brady makes a rare visit to his writers' room and asks where is the picture of himself he gave them. Rob retrieves it from where it has fallen from the door, only to realize he must quickly remove the darts embedded in it.

A good gift is one that you know the recipient will love because you know them well. As the saying goes, “It's the thought that counts.” But when it comes to God, some “Christians” seem to be as thoughtless as the givers in those sitcoms. And usually these clueless gifts fall into one of three categories: self-promotion, empty rituals, and atrocities.

Not only in the Dick Van Dyke Show but in other sitcoms, the so-called gift is an act of self-promotion: a portrait, a life-sized cardboard cutout or even a statue of the giver. Now most of us love to get a school picture of the grandchild or a wallet picture of our loved one but you would be nonplussed if your co-worker or boss gave you a large picture of themselves for your birthday. Nor would you be happy if, for your birthday, your friend gave you a pen or coffee mug or tote bag or T-shirt, emblazoned with their business logo and phone number on it. That would smack of narcissism.

Yet there are religious TV shows and ministries which are named after the “evangelist” and not, say, God or Jesus. I once caught a few minutes of a TV evangelist's show where he asked the people in his stadium-sized megachurch if they had their Bibles. They yelled back “Yes!” And then he asked if they had the right Bible. They yelled “Yes!” I thought maybe he was talking about, say, the King James version which some people think is a divinely inspired translation. But, no, he was talking about the study Bible he had published with his name on it.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter into the kingdom of heaven—only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons and do many powerful deeds?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you. Go away from me, you lawbreakers!'” (Matthew 7:21-23) Jesus sees through those who do things “in his name” but are just aggrandizing themselves and publicly declaring their love of themselves, not of God.

Contrast that with another Christian's attitude. Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker who lived through the Second World War. Her whole family felt it was their Christian duty to hide Jews from the Nazis when they occupied her homeland. She, her father, 2 sisters, her brother and other family members were arrested and sent to the concentration camps for what they did. The Jews they hid, however, were safe and later found by the Resistance. Corrie's father and her sister Betsie died in the camp. Corrie was released due to a clerical error, just before her group of women were executed. Her book The Hiding Place tells her story. And ever since the war, she had traveled the world as an evangelist. She spoke at a chapel assembly at my college and when she was done, she left the podium for her seat. The chapel, which held thousands of students, erupted in enthusiastic applause. Corrie rushed to the mic, looking distressed and said, “No! Not Corrie! Only Jesus! Only Jesus!” Chastened by her humility, we students fell silent.

Then there are those whose attempts to do something for God are empty rituals, devoid of real understanding. God doesn't want worship that is insincere or done by folks who are not in sync with his Spirit. In Isaiah God says, “'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?' Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. You fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and to expect your voice to be heard on high.” (Isaiah 58:3-4) Remember what Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well? That true worshipers worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. (John 4:23) If you aren't doing it in the right Spirit, you aren't really worshiping God. How can we say we worship a God who is forgiving if we do not forgive? (Matthew 6:12) How can we say we worship a God who loves sinners if we don't love sinners? (Romans 5:8) How can we say we worship a God who sent his son not to condemn the world but to save it if we condemn and do not seek to save the world? (John 3:17) To do so is hypocritical. And we all know how Jesus felt about hypocrites.

But the most tone-deaf way some people think they are doing things for God is to commit atrocities “in his name.” The Crusades, the Inquisition, the Wars of Religion, the conquering and colonizing of nations, the enslavement of people, the oppression of women and minorities, white supremacy and the unholy marriage of the commercial exploitation of the earth to Christianity, such as in the oil industry (click here), are just a few of the bad things “Christians” did and do and justify with bad theology.

Nor is figuring out how God would stand on these things unknowable. Jesus said that those who live by the sword shall perish by it. (Matthew 26:52) Paul asked church leader Philemon to free his runaway slave. Jesus taught women, something frowned on in his day, (Luke 10:42) and Paul let them pray and prophesy, provided their heads were covered. (1 Corinthians 11:5) In Jesus' own ancestry there are 4 non-Jews. And Paul said, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) The labels and divisions the world puts so much store in are not important in the kingdom of God. Even if you construe certain people as enemies, Jesus said we are to love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-45). God created all people. Jesus died for all. (2 Corinthians 5:15) We must love them all.

So what are the proper ways to do things for God? Strictly speaking, God doesn't need us to do things for him. But he does want us to do things for his creatures and especially for those made in his image. Thus picking up from Isaiah 58, God says, “Is this not the kind of fast I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to clothe him, and do not hide from your own flesh and blood?” (Isaiah 58:6-7) He says in Micah, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

To act justly is to be fair with everyone. To treat certain people worse is injustice. For instance, even though they were divorced in the late 1950s and remarried in the early 60s, my mom and dad had to act as if they weren't married so my mom could buy her car and her home in her own name. A woman couldn't buy those things by herself but had to have her husband as co-signer. The government red-lined certain communities making it harder for African Americans could buy houses. While the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution supposedly gave women the vote in 1920, Native American women were barred until 1924. Chinese immigrants didn't get the right to vote until 1943, Japanese Americans until 1952, and it wasn't until the 24^th Amendment was ratified in 1964 that the remaining barriers to African Americans voting were removed. And in 1984, Mississippi became the last state to ratify the 19^th Amendment giving women the right to vote.

Right now some people are actually attacking Asian Americans, apparently thinking that the virus somehow has a preferred race as a carrier. Eugene Cho, the president-elect of the Christian charity Bread for the World, has seen 2 members of his family assaulted. And after 9/11 people attacked Sikhs, mistakenly thinking they were Muslims, and further confusing all Muslims with terrorists. I hope the assailants weren't calling themselves Christian because in Leviticus 19:34, just 16 verses after God commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves, he says, “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” And in Matthew 25, Jesus includes the foreigner as one of the least of his siblings whose treatment is counted as the way we treat Jesus. Treating our fellow bearers of the image of God fairly is something we can do for our Lord.

We are told to love mercy. A strictly just society would be intolerant of any breaking of the rules, any unjust impulse or word. But we all screw up. And we all want mercy and forgiveness at those times...for ourselves. We tend to be less likely to forgive or ask for mercy for others, unless they are close to us. Yet in the prayer he taught us Jesus told us to ask God to forgive our failures to do what we owe him to the same extent that we forgive others their failures to do what they owe us. Do you ever forgive those who have failed to fulfill their social contract with you? Have you forgiven those politicians whom you rail at while watching the news or while scrolling through social media? You should. According to the Lord's Prayer, the unforgiving person is an unforgiven person. Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7) Showing mercy to others is something we can do for God.

Finally we are told to walk humbly with our God. How is that something we can do for God? For one thing, nobody likes being with an arrogant person. Don't you hate it when you have a client or a customer or even a relative who acts like they know your job better than you do? As the joke goes, those who think they know everything annoy those who actually do. And God actually does know everything! Yet we love to tell him how we think he should run the world. It's the ultimate in the Dunning-Kruger effect, the psychological phenomenon in which the less someone knows about something, the more they think they know. And if you think you know it all, you don't think you have anything to learn. I don't know about you, but I've never created a universe. So the proper attitude towards our Creator is to be humble and listen and learn.

And in this time of plague, one thing we can do is sheltering in place and social distancing. Quarantine is not new. It's in the Old Testament as a way of dealing with contagious diseases. (Leviticus 13:4) In response to a plague that was spreading during his time, Martin Luther wrote, “I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence.” Wise words. And unlike him, we can call others, Skype or Facetime with them, let them know we are thinking about them and see if they need anything. They may just need to talk to someone.

And we can pray. No matter what we can always pray.

When reconciling with Peter, who had denied him 3 times, Jesus asked him 3 times if he loved him. And each time Peter said he did, Jesus told him how to show that: “Feed my sheep.” What we can do for God is take care of one another. We can love one another. And if you truly love others, you are willing to make sacrifices if necessary. There are a lot of people right now who are doing that: truck drivers and law enforcement and those who work in grocery stores and pharmacies and doctors and nurses and researchers and 911 operators, some of whom are writing their wills ahead of time just in case they are called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice.

I have been watching the Netflix documentary series Pandemic. And on IMDB, someone reviewing it complained about the sections that showed the family lives of the doctors and epidemiologists, and the fact that some were people of faith. But that is part of who they are. And that motivates them. I remember especially the small town doctor, who, during her 72 hour shifts, is joined at the local hospital by her husband, who sleeps there with her when she gets a rare nap. They read the Bible together and pray together. And you can see that this is what keeps her going. She is doing this for God. Because of what God has done for her. For all of us. Which we will look at next week.

Getting Closer to God: Doing Things Together

The scriptures referred to are in the text. Most of the quotations are from the NET.

C.S. Lewis pointed out that while lovers are usually depicted as facing each other, friends are depicted as standing side by side, looking in the same direction. Lewis felt that what frequently binds friends are a mutual interest or activity. It can be sports, or movies, or building and flying model planes, or photography, or gardening, or a million other things. In Lewis' case it was fantasy. That, as well as writing and Christianity, were at the center of his friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien. And around those interests gathered other friends, who came to be called the Inklings. They met in Lewis' rooms at Oxford on Thursday evenings and read their latest works to each other. In fact, it was Lewis and his group that encouraged Tolkien to continue his Lord of the Rings saga. If I had a time machine I would definitely set aside my Thursdays to visit that group.

Lewis was very fortunate in finding a mate who was also a friend. Poet Joy Davidman was an American fan of Lewis who wrote him. Considering this part of his ministry Lewis always wrote back. But this correspondence grew to be something other than a duty. For one thing they shared a love of the fantasies of George MacDonald. And for another she was his intellectual equal. When she visited England, their friendship grew. Eventually they married and Lewis adopted her sons. He wrote the preface to her best known work, Smoke on the Mountains: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments, and she inspired the central character of his last novel, Till We Have Faces. The loud Irishman and the brash New York Jew were truly soulmates. Lewis wrote of her: “She was my daughter and my mother, my pupil and my teacher, my subject and my sovereign; and always, holding all these in solution, my trusty comrade, friend, shipmate, fellow-soldier. My mistress; but at the same time all that any man friend (and I have good ones) has ever been to me. Perhaps more.”

Part of getting closer to someone is doing things together. You see them in a different light than you would merely chatting with them. And since this Lent we are talking about getting closer to God, let us look at doing things together with him.

Ever so often you run into “Christians” who say that God does everything; we should just sit back, let him work and be grateful. Part of this is based on the idea that we are saved by grace, not works. They might even quote Ephesians 2:8-9 to prove it: “For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast.” But if we continue, the very next verse says, “For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.” (Ephesians 2:10) We are not saved by good works but we are saved for good works. It's like repairing a car. There are people who restore old cars and then just put them in museums to be looked at. But that's not what they were made for. They were designed to go places. God gave us our brains and bodies and talents in order that we use them for good. And he intends to work with us on that.

Actress Octavia Spencer got her start working as a paid intern on a movie set. She was in charge of the extras. Sometimes there would be a part where an extra was given a single line. She wanted to be an actress and she could have auditioned for the one line part. But she didn't because of her stage fright and so she would suggest another extra do the role. It wasn't until Director Joel Schumacher insisted she play a nurse in the movie A Time to Kill that she actually had her movie debut. She then worked for 15 years in both movies and TV before getting her Oscar winning role in The Help, a part that had been written with her in mind. In both pivotal roles, it was a matter of the person in charge offering her the opportunity and her choosing to take it. As I've said before, God's saving grace is participatory. He offers it but we must accept it.

The same is true of God's everyday grace. We cannot live the Christian life under our own power. We need God's help. In Philippians Paul says something that sounds confusing at first. He writes, “...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is working in you to desire and to act for his good purpose.” (Philippians 2:12-13) C.S. Lewis points out that the first part of the verse, where we are told to “work out your own salvation,” makes it sound like it is all our doing. Yet in the second part of the verse it looks like it’s all on God. To illustrate this paradox Lewis uses the example of a teacher helping a child having trouble writing the letters of the alphabet. She might put her hand around the child's and move the hand to form the letters. The child is holding the pen but at first the teacher is controlling the writing. It can happen when learning any activity. A coach might use his feet to widen your stance at the plate when you learn baseball, or use her hands to reposition your arms or straighten your back when learning to dance. When learning to reuse your legs your physical therapist will be right beside you, keeping you from falling, correcting your gait, pushing your foot farther ahead as you walk. If you resist, they tell you to relax, loosen up, let them move you until you get it.

God works with us and through us like that. Even someone like Paul said, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been in vain. In fact, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” (1 Corinthians 15:10) Paul also wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20) His words recall what Jesus said the night before he died: “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me—and I in him—bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing.” (John 15:5)

That's a real slap in the face for those of us raised on the idea that we are or can be totally self-sufficient. We aren't and can't, as this current pandemic shows. If you get sick, you will need doctors and nurses and hospitals and medical equipment to beat it. The reason for the social distancing is to not overwhelm our ICUs or run out of ventilators, as has happened in Italy. There, in order to save those they can, they are writing off others, mostly the elderly with additional ailments, as unable to be saved. Even those who are sheltering in place by themselves could not do it without houses built by others, food harvested and prepared and delivered by others, water and electricity and news provided by others. Even “preppers” generally get everything to build their bunkers from businesses who make and sell the materials, plans, food, guns and the survival manuals they use. “No man is an island, entire of itself,” wrote John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. He spoke of our connection with our fellow human beings. We are also connected to our Creator who gives us everything we need to live: our bodies, minds and talents.

Now at a certain point, the coach or therapist will loosen his grip a little and step back a bit to see what you can do. After Jesus sent out the Twelve to preach the gospel and heal people, and after they returned astonished at what God did through them, they find themselves facing 5000 hungry people. And what does Jesus do? He says to them, “You give them something to eat.” But they balk at how impossible the task he's given them is. So Jesus shows them how to do it. But I think he sincerely meant it when he told them to feed the 5000 themselves. He knew he had given them the ability. He offered them the role and they had turned it down. They were thinking in human terms. They forgot that Jesus had given them power to restore the sick to life and health. Couldn't that same power be used to nourish and sustain life and health?

God wants to do things together with us. As St. Augustine said, “Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not.” God could choose to set everything right in this world without our involvement. But we are not the passive audience in the theater of God's mighty acts. From the beginning we have had a role. In Genesis 2:5, it says, “Now no shrub of the field had yet grown on earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.” The Hebrew word translated “cultivate” literally means “to work.” Just 2 verses later God creates humanity. The implication is that human beings are to take care of the paradise given them, to be gardeners in the Garden of Eden. And when in Genesis 6 we are told that God regrets making humans and wants to start over, the reason given is “Now the earth was ruined in the sight of God; the earth was full of violence.” (Genesis 6:11) No gardener is supposed to ruin the garden, nor are the gardeners to get violent with one another. So God could simply wipe us out and make things better all by himself. But he chooses Noah and his family to survive and start over. He is determined to achieve his better world, through the cooperation of people.

And the rest of the Old Testament is God trying to work through people to make known what kind of God he is and what he is doing to make the world better. He chooses Abram who cooperates when God tells him to leave home and civilization and go to Canaan. God tells him, “...all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:3) God then works with Abraham's grandson Jacob or Israel, and then through his descendants by his son Judah, and then through his descendant David and finally through his descendant Jesus. And after Jesus completes his work, he doesn't start the last judgment but entrusts the good news of what God's done in him to the Twelve, who tell and enlist others, first Jews, and then Samaritans, and then Gentiles. Jesus holds off returning until the task of giving every person the chance to join in his work is completed.

And what is the work he has given us to do? To love God with all we are and all we have. To love our neighbor, which is anyone we encounter, as ourselves. (Luke 10:25-37) To love our enemies. (Matthew 5:44) To serve Jesus by clothing the poor, feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, caring for the sick, visiting the imprisoned, and welcoming the foreigner as if they were Jesus' brothers and sisters. (Matthew 25: 31-46) To be peacemakers, to be humble, to be pure in heart, to be merciful, to hunger and thirst for righteousness. (Matthew 5:3-9) To make disciples of all nations, to baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and to teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded. (Matthew 28:19-20)

But we are not alone in this gargantuan task. Jesus assured us that he would be with us always, that he would in fact be in us. Because of that, he promised that we would do greater things than he had (John 14:12, 20, 23). And indeed the body of Christ on earth has built and runs hospitals and schools and food panties and homeless shelters and disaster agencies and other works of love. And most of those things do not pay for themselves and so there is a lot of praying to meet the budget and even to increase the ways we serve the least of Jesus' siblings. We rely on God's help and understand that we are not on our own but are working with him in doing these things.

God has given each of us talents, and skills and experiences. He has put us in different places in life and in society. And he wants to do things with us in these different circumstances using these gifts. He wants to bless the world through us, the spiritual children of Abraham. And let me tell you, when you start cooperating with God it is a bit scary but also exciting. He will take you places you did not expect and give you challenges you did not foresee. But he will provide what you need to do what he wants you to.

Some of those resources will be other people. Because he wants all of us, his friends, to do things together as well. We are not to be “Lone Ranger” Christians but part of a vast team, a worldwide family, all working together with love. Indeed when Jesus spoke of the identifying mark of his followers, he did not say it would be exceptional righteousness, or doctrinal purity, or uniformity of ritual, but he said, “Everyone will know by this you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)

Seeing that God is love (1 John 4:8) doing things with love are doing things with God. And anyone who really loves knows that love is not always easy. You can love people even at times when you don't like what they are doing. Any parent knows that. But love helps us overcome those obstacles. There are limits, however, to our natural capacity for love. God's love is necessary to surmount the highest barriers. And often when we fail to overcome them, it is because we neglect to work together with the God who is love.

That God's love is greater than ours is shown in how he sent his son to a violent and ungrateful world, knowing full well that it would kill him. He did it anyway. Because when you love people you do things for them.

That is another way to get closer to someone: do something for them. We will talk about how that helps us get closer to God next week.

Getting Closer to God: Sharing Friends

The scriptures referred to are John 4:5-42.

Generally speaking we don't like to compartmentalize our closest relationships. You usually want your parents to like the person you're going to marry. You want your friends to accept the person you're dating. You want your friends from work to like your old friend from high school who's come to visit. It can even act like a reality check: do these people see what I see in this person? If they don't, are they wrong or am I? Given how many bad relationships there are out there, it seems that we rarely think we might be wrong about someone. And yet we often scratch our head over what some people see in certain others. There's even a Joe Jackson song about it. Part of it goes, “Here comes Jeannie with her new boyfriend. They say that looks don't count for much. If so, there's your proof. Is she really going out with him? Is she really gonna to take him home tonight? Is she really going out with him? Cause if my eyes don't deceive me there's something going wrong around here.” Granted the point of view is someone who is jealous of the fortunate guy, but we've all had times when we said, “Those two? Really?”

And sometimes your friends or your parents or your coworkers are right. They see things you don't. They see things about the other person that, in your infatuation, you don't. They see things in you that you are blind to. But sometimes they are wrong. There are times when the new friend is a good influence on you. An old girlfriend got me into recycling way back in the 1970s, a habit I have kept up. Friends have helped people ween themselves from drugs or alcohol. Their old friends, who indulge in and encourage bad habits, might not like the new “Goody Two-Shoes” friend. In such a case, you cannot trust “the wisdom of the crowds.” Do not give up what is good for you just to maintain a popularity that is toxic.

We are talking about getting closer to God in Lent and this week we are looking at the sharing of friends. In this context, it is sharing Jesus with your friends. Sadly, Jesus has gotten a reputation as someone who spoils everybody's fun. Which is weird because Jesus loved to go to parties and they weren't always with religious or respectable folks. In fact, he knew what people said about him. “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Look at him, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'” (Luke 7:34) But as Jesus said, “Those who are healthy don't need a physician, but those who are sick do.” (Matthew 9:12) Indeed, I have found that people in jail are more willing to talk about their spiritual needs that some who are walking around free because their sins are not illegal.

Introducing Jesus to friends, however, is not generally easy. Getting past the whole wet blanket reputation, a lot of people resent what they feel is religion being pushed upon them. And this is not necessarily because they aren't religious. Many Americans feel they are already Christian, regardless of their actual beliefs, behavior or church attendance. If you seem too keen on Jesus, they may think you are a zealot. Or they may erroneously assign other social and political opinions to you.

It takes a deft touch. You would not choose to introduce your boyfriend or girlfriend to the family at a meeting called to decide whether to put Mom in a nursing home. Unless your significant other was a doctor, nurse, lawyer, or nursing home employee. Then they might have a useful contribution to make—provided the rest of the family wanted such help. Timing and empathy are vital in talking to others about Jesus.

And if you are in situation where you think Jesus would help, the best approach is the personal testimony. “When I was dealing with a similar situation, what helped me was...” And then share how God or Jesus or the Spirit or the church or some practice or prayer was of great help. People usually won't question what you say helped you.

If the situation calls for professionals, however, don't imply that the person doesn't need doctors or therapists or medicine or treatment if they just have faith in Jesus. God usually works through people, including experts. Remember that Luke was a doctor. Paul never says he didn't need him because of his own great faith. In fact, Paul called him, “the beloved physician.” (Colossians 4:14) Provided the “thorn in the flesh” that afflicted Paul was physical, Luke may have treated him for it. (2 Corinthians 12:7-9; cf. Galatians 4:13-15) So do not dismiss the idea that healing from God cannot come through professionals. God calls people from every walk of life and, as we said, can work through them.

Now people suffering from feelings of guilt, the need for forgiveness and/or reassurance of God's love are usually open to you sharing your story about how Jesus helped you in that regard. People who are adrift in life, who need a reason to live and a purpose to pursue are also likely to be interested. Whenever someone's chief problem extends beyond the material, when it comes to the meaning of life or the direction of one's life, Jesus is the best friend to have and to share with others.

That's not to say that Jesus is more troubleshooter than friend. He can be a delightful presence in one's life. One way to experience this is to look at everything as a gift from him: a beautiful view, a lucky break, a wonderful smell, your children or grandchildren, a good laugh, your pets, music, the fact that you awoke today, etc. One way to brighten your day is to thank God every time you encounter something good. And when things are hard, don't forget to include the good things in your inventory of assets you have for dealing with problems.

Sharing friends goes both ways. Not only should we introduce Jesus to our friends but we should invite them to meet his friends, namely, your faith family. If this group is a good thing in your life, why not share it with others the way you would a good restaurant or an enjoyable activity?

I recently watched the HBO documentary series McMillions, about how for 12 years most of the big winners in the McDonalds' Monopoly game were part of a huge scam. It was masterminded by 1 man who reached out mostly to family and friends and gave them million dollar pieces in return for a slice of the winnings. And why did these people, most of whom were not criminals, come to break the law and risk the inevitable discovery of the fraud, imprisonment, defamation, financial restitution that continues to this day, and the destruction of their families and the trust of the community? Because someone who knew them asked them. Human beings are social animals, for better or for worse.

On the better side, a study shows that 82% of unchurched people said they were more likely to come to church if they were invited. Most of the people not in this or another church said they would be willing to come if invited. So why aren't we inviting them?

The Samaritan woman in today's gospel was probably an outcast, possibly because of her checkered marital history. That's why she was coming to draw water at noon, the hottest part of the day. Everyone else came in the morning or evening when it was cooler. She was probably avoiding them. Then she encounters Jesus, a man and a Jew, who despite the social and religious rules he would be breaking, speaks to her. And in spite of the fact that we know Jesus sees divorce and remarriage as adultery and she's done this multiple times, he nevertheless doesn't make a big thing about it but keeps bringing the conversation back to eternal life, the Spirit and the Messiah. The woman then goes to all those people she normally avoids and tells them about Jesus. And they come to him and invite him to stay and they listen to him. And eventually they say to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

Our part is not to argue people into the kingdom of God. It is simply to introduce them to Jesus. Let him and the Spirit take over from there.

God is love and we are created in God's image so love is part of who we are. Showing love is revealing God. And friendship is a form of love, as is romantic love and love of our family. On the night before he died Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this—that they lay down their life for their friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you servants, because the servant does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because I have revealed to you everything I heard from my Father.” (John 15:13-15) As we said last week, friends share good news with each other. So we should share the good news of God's love revealed in Jesus with our friends.

Getting closer to God means sharing friends, introducing him to ours and introducing ours to his.

Friends also do things together and that brings them closer. We will talk about that next week.

Getting Closer to God: Talking to God

The scriptures referred to are noted in the text. Most of the quotations are from the NET.

There is a very common way in movies in which they denote the evil leader. His followers are afraid to contradict him or bring him bad news, lest he just up and kill the messenger. The good leader is usually approachable, and will tolerate a certain amount of questioning of his plan. He is usually open to suggestions and will at times change his mind and trust his team.

A lot of people talk to God as if he is the evil leader. They will fawn and praise him, not so much out of gratitude but out of fear. And they are afraid to question him or complain about what is happening to them. They do not get this idea from the Bible. In the story of Abraham, the father of our faith, God reveals that he is going to evaluate and possibly pass judgment on the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham questions whether it is fair to punish the good people with the bad. And he gets concessions from God. The Lord will not destroy the towns if there are 50 godly people. The he gets him down to 45. Then 40. Then 30. Then 20. Then 10. (Genesis 18:16-33) It's a sad commentary that not 10 godly people could be found in 2 whole towns. Apparently Lot and his family were the closest thing. But this establishes a principle we see throughout the Bible. God can be reasoned with. He does relent from taking action against sinners if they repent or if someone intercedes for them, as Abraham does.

Last week we spoke about listening to God. This week we are discussing talking to God, or praying. And when we do, we need to be honest. Far from provoking God's wrath, God welcomes honesty. In the book named for him, Job wishes to debate God on the unfairness of the world. He says, “But I wish to speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God.” (Job 13:3) His so-called “comforters” defend God, saying that bad things do not happen to good people, so Job must have deserved his misfortune. In the end God does speak to Job. And to his “comforters” God says, “My anger is stirred up against you and your two friends, because you have not spoken about me what is right, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job will intercede for you and I will respect him, so that I do not deal with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken about me what is right, as my servant Job has. ” (Job 42:7-8) God values our honesty in speaking to him and about him.

You see this in the Psalms. The psalmists express their every emotion, good and bad, to God. They complain about the delay in God's justice. Psalm 13 begins, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” (Psalm 13:1-2) The writer is feeling forsaken by God. Perhaps the most vivid example of this is Psalm 22, the first line of which Jesus quoted from the cross. “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? I groan in prayer, but help seems far away. My God, I cry out during the day, but you do not answer, and during the night my prayers do not let up...But I am a worm, not a man; people insult and despise me...My strength drains away like water; all my bones are dislocated; my heart is like wax; it melts away inside me. The roof of my mouth is as dry as a piece of pottery; my tongue sticks to my gums. You set me in the dust of death.” (Psalm 22:1-2, 6, 14-15) This is a person close to despair. They are not prettying up the language when talking to God. They are letting him know exactly how they feel.

In Psalm 137 the writer is very frank about his feelings during the exile: “By the rivers of Babylon we sit down and weep when we remember Zion. On the poplars in her midst we hang our harps, for there our captors ask us to compose songs; those who mock us demand that we be happy, saying: 'Sing for us a song about Zion!' How can we sing a song to the Lord in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:1-3) You can feel the heartache and homesickness of the writer. But then it ends like this: “O daughter Babylon, soon to be devastated! How blessed will be the one who repays you for what you dished out to us! How blessed will be the one who grabs your babies and smashes them on a rock!” (Psalm 137:8-9) Shocking! Even when you consider what the Babylonians did to king Zedekiah when they conquered and burned Jerusalem. We are told: “They captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where he passed sentence on him. Zedekiah's sons were executed while Zedekiah was forced to watch. The king of Babylon then had Zedekiah's eyes put out, bound him in bronze chains, and carried him off to Babylon.” (2 Kings 25:6-7) The writer of Psalm 137 may have been wishing for poetic justice, a child's life for a child's life. All I can say is that it is better to confess such feelings to God than to act on them.

Indeed, how can the Lord deal with our feelings if we are not honest with him and bring them before him? An inmate once said to me, “I know we are supposed to forgive everyone. But there is this one guy I can't forgive. He is a serial killer. He is in prison in California, and one of his victims was my sister.” I was stunned. I wasn't sure what to say. And then I remember what a little old Lutheran lady had pointed out to me: on the cross, Jesus doesn't say to the people in the process of executing him, “I forgive you.” He says, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” So I pointed this out to the man who lost his sister and said, “I am not going to ask you to forgive him now. I've never had anything like that happen to me and I don't know if I could at this point. So, like Jesus, ask God to forgive this man. And then ask God to help you get to the place where you can forgive him.”

Which brings us to the reason why we need to be honest with God. It is for our own good. How is this man to heal if he lets what the killer did to his sister torture him for the rest of his life? But at least this man was honest about his problem. In the TV series House M.D. the title character operated on the principle that “everyone lies.” Often the key to a diagnostic quandary lay in some truth the patient was reluctant to reveal. Once House discovered it, he could heal the person. In the same way, we need to tell God everything so that he can heal it. Make no mistake: he already knows what's wrong. But until we acknowledge it and invite him into the situation, it will continue to fester and make us sick, spiritually, psychologically and possibly even physically. The human being is a body/mind/spirit unity and a problem in one area tends to bleed over into the others.

Of course we can also share our good times with God when we talk to him, as you do with anyone you love and who loves you. When you get good news you can't wait to share it with those you are close to. In fact, sharing everything with someone can cut our sorrows by a bit and increase our joys tremendously. And with God, we can thank him for them as well.

And this leads to another principle to observe when talking to God. Remember who he is. That doesn't mean we have to drop into King James English or say “Lord” every other word. It means showing the proper respect for our creator and redeemer, while still remembering he loves you. Even when Job is angry with God, he is never disrespectful. That is a good thing to remember when talking to human beings, too. Never diminish or dismiss them, no matter what they do or say. And that is especially true with God because we often project onto him our failures and blame him for things we ourselves have done or neglected to do. Don't blame God for the car accident you had because you were texting or forgot to buckle your seatbelt. Instead, be grateful that you are still alive to complain to him about the aftermath.

Again as we compliment those we love (at least we do at first) we should also compliment God. When we praise someone we remember why we are with them. I heard a recording of an older couple, Danny and Annie, on Story Corps. Danny wrote a love letter to Annie every day they were married. For 27 years he did this until he died from cancer. I'm sure they had their problems. I'm sure they had arguments. But he wrote his love letters everyday just the same and you could hear their love for each other in their voices. (By the way, Danny died the day the story was broadcast on NPR. And listeners wrote Annie thousands of letters of condolence. She reads one each day in place of the one she would usually get from Danny.)

Saying that you love someone and why you love them reminds you what brought you together and keeps you together. We do not say these things enough to each other and we do not say them enough to God. We should correct that in both cases.

For an example of respectful but honest talk with God I submit Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. As he speaks with God about his wife and his daughters and his troubles, the Jewish milkman expresses his fears and his confusion over solving his problems, with both humor and respect, as if speaking to an older, wiser friend. And like an old friend, Tevye anticipates what God would say to him. In regards to his second daughter and a young man simply declaring that they will marry each other, Tevye says to God, “He loves her. Love. It's a new style...On the other hand, our old ways were once new, weren't they?...On the other hand, they decided without parents, without a matchmaker!...On the other hand, did Adam and Eve have a matchmaker?...Yes. They did. And it seems these two have the same Matchmaker!” Tevye knows God so well he knows how he would respond. And we should grow to become like that. Soren Kierkegaard said, “The function of prayer is not to influence God but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” I think he understates our influence on God (remember Abraham bargaining for Sodom) but I do think that just as conversing with a friend influences your thinking, so should talking with God. If it is a true conversation, that is.

Since the purpose of following Jesus is to become more like him, to recover the image of God in us that has been marred by sin, talking with God is a part of the process. Which means sometimes trying to reconcile what you think or want with what God thinks or wants. If you never disagree with God, you are either perfect or you have remade God into your image. In which case, you are worshiping a false idol, a magnified version of yourself. Because even friends disagree. And if you are a flawed human being, you will definitely find yourself at odds with God at times. Jonah really did not want to follow God's call to go and preach repentance to Nineveh. Moses did not want to be God's spokesman to Israel. Peter did not want to preach to the Gentiles, like Cornelius. God had to persuade them.

That's why when talking to God we need to pause and wait for him to speak to us. As I said, last week it will not necessarily be audible. It can be a thought, a realization, a strong feeling pushing you in another direction. It can be in the form of a question that makes you think and search the scriptures and talk to other people who are spiritually wise. Jesus often answered questions with questions. When asked, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answers “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” (Luke 10:25-28) When in the house of Simon the Pharisee, and a notorious woman washed Jesus' feet with her tears and hair, Jesus told the scandalized host about a moneylender who forgives 2 men their debts, one enormous and one relatively small, and then asks, “Now which of them will love him more?” (Luke 7:36-50) After being awakened in a boat about to be swamped by a storm, Jesus calms the winds and waves and asks, “You of little faith, why are you afraid?” (Matthew 8:23-27)

Why indeed are we afraid to talk to God? Because I think that is the reason we avoid it. And I think it is because we are afraid of what he will say or how we will feel in his presence, knowing we are not faithful servants to him, nor exemplars of love or courage or integrity. We are troubled by the contrast between him and us.

And that's where the Holy Spirit comes in. Paul writes, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how we should pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.” (Romans 8:26) Like a translator, like a vocal coach helping us express ourselves better, like an advocate putting forward our story, the Spirit helps us make our needs and fears and pain clear to God. 

And Jesus is also involved. In the same passage Paul says, “Who is the one who will condemn? Christ is the one who died (and more than that, he was raised), who is at the right hand of God, and who is interceding for us.” (Romans 8:34) Again it says in 1 John, “(My dear children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.) But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one...” (1 John 2:1) And as it says in Hebrews, “For we do not have a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) So we have the Spirit inside us and Jesus next to the Father making our side heard. And altogether they make up our loving and forgiving God.

To get closer to God we must talk to him. God is loving and forgiving and is in us and beside us, helping us express ourselves and making us into the persons we were meant to be.

Another part of the process of getting closer to someone is entering into their life and them entering into yours. And part of that is sharing friends. Which we will talk about next week.

Getting Closer to God: Listening

The scriptures referred to are Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7, Romans 5:12-19, and Matthew 4:1-11.

Profound hearing loss runs in my family and so, of course, I was tested a lot as a kid. My hearing was always fine. So the joke around my house was, “Chris can hear; he just doesn't listen.” (To which my wife says, "Amen!") And that's one of the most frustrating things about relationships: when people don't listen. Folks miss things; they get things wrong; they give the impression that they just don't care about the other people in the relationship. A man on NPR said that the worst thing about his father's marijuana habit was that, while he was physically there, he wasn't really present. Sure, a harder drug that would have physically incapacitated or killed him would be worse. But this man and his siblings felt their father was in his own world and didn't listen to or even take notice of the rest of them.

Listening is a key component of good communication. And I don't mean merely waiting for the other person to take a breath so you can talk. Nor does it mean just noting the words and saying “uh-huh” at various intervals. It means actually taking in everything about the person's communication: not just the words but the tone, the emphasis, and the context.

Tone matters because using the very same words, a man telling a woman, in a romantic way, “I will always find you,” comes across quite differently if said in a menacing way, “I will always find you!” I was once in a mystery play where I as the detective was romantically involved with the chief suspect by the final curtain. Neither I nor my leading lady could figure out how we got together seeing as I was interrogating her intensely throughout the rest of the play. When we realized it made more sense if the detective and the governess were attracted to each other at the opening curtain, it changed everything. Instead of trying to put her away, it sounded like I was trying to find a reason to eliminate her as a suspect. Literally the whole play came together with that change of tone.

Emphasis is important. Again listen to this sentence when I change the position of one word. “Only she said she loved him.” “She only said she loved him.” “She said only she loved him.” “She said she only loved him.” “She said she loved only him.” The meaning shifts with the placement of one word.

Context is important. When your beloved says, “I could just eat you up,” it comes across quite differently than if Jeffrey Dahmer said it!

This Lent we are looking at getting closer to God. Just like getting to know anyone, a key part of it is listening to him. While some people apparently have the gift of hearing God speak to them as I am speaking to you, the vast majority of us don't. For me, it is, as someone said, more like the Holy Spirit tapping me on the shoulder and pointing something out. I hear God mostly through his Word.

Of course, almost every Christian says God speaks to them through his Word, but some seem a bit tone deaf. Or they miss his emphasis. Or they don't pay attention to the context in which he is speaking. If we want to get to know God, we need to learn to listen to him properly.

Tone is important. God is loving but he is just. Any parent with more than one kid knows you have to state the rules and enforce them fairly. You don't let one kid bully another. And when they do, you get upset with that kid. Not because you hate them but precisely because you love them and want them to be better than that. Sometimes the kids with the cool parents, who let them do whatever they want, wish their folks would lay down the law and ground them occasionally. Because they don't feel loved; they feel neglected. They feel their parents don't care what they do because they don't care about them.

When God is scolding the Israelites or Jesus is talking sternly to his disciples, it is said in love. Again, you want the best for those you love and you want them to be the best person they can be. God's rules are designed to spare us from inflicting unnecessary pain upon others and upon ourselves. I picture God being more sorrowful and disappointed when he is telling the Israelites what they are doing wrong.

And notice that God usually gives negative commandments. Those give more freedom than positive commandments. They don't require you to do something, just to refrain from doing something. It's like your mom telling you not to play in the street. She's not saying you can't play at all—just not there. Because the risk of harm is greater. So when God says, “You shall not steal,” he is not saying you can't have what you want; you just can't take it from someone by force or deception. You can always see if they will sell it. Or you can find out where they bought it and get one of your own. Or you can make your own if you are creative enough. In the same way when God says, “You shall not commit adultery,” he is not saying, “don't have sex” or “don't enjoy it.” He's just saying, “don't mess up your relationship or another person's by stealing their mate.” Play in your own yard and then you can have all the fun you like.

Emphasis is important. A lot of people concentrate on things that are mentioned infrequently in the Bible or not at all. Jesus accused his critics of doing that. “You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill, and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness.” (Matthew 23:23) It would be as if the county sheriff was so focused on the traffic laws that people were getting away with murder. In his parable about the Last Judgment, Jesus emphasizes how important it is to feed the hungry, give the thirsty water, clothe the threadbare, take care of the sick, visit the imprisoned and welcome the foreigner. Because they are his siblings and what we do to them we do to him. The Bible mentions our duty to the poor and disadvantaged more than 800 times, far outweighing the mere 7 passages about homosexuality. Yet which do we hear more about from certain prominent Christian leaders? How is it people miss Jesus' and God's emphasis?

Context is another thing to take into account when listening to God's Word. When Paul says, “If a man will not work, he shall not eat,” (2 Thessalonians 3:10) he is not endorsing Social Darwinism. The context is that some people were so obsessed with the second coming that they had quit their jobs and were just waiting for Jesus to return. And they were scrounging off other church members. There was a similar movement 200 years ago in America. Followers of William Miller believed his prophesy that Jesus would return on October 22, 1844. Some people quit their jobs, sold their homes and possessions and went up onto mountaintops waiting to be raptured. What followed is what historians call the Great Disappointment. In 1^st century Thessalonica some church members did the same thing, though neither Paul nor any of the apostles had set any date for Christ's coming. So Paul is talking about that specific situation. He is not saying anything either way about welfare, much less those who can't find work or who, through disability or the necessity of caring for small kids or family, can't work. As someone once said, “A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text.” In other words, you can use the Bible to prove anything if you take things out of context. As we see Jesus' adversary do in today's passage in Matthew.

There is a joke about this. A man is at a crossroads in his life and he decides to do whatever the Bible says. So he opens it at random and he reads Matthew 27:5: “Judas went out and hanged himself.” That's was disturbing so he closes the Bible, lets it fall open on its own and reads the first thing his eyes light on—Luke 10: 37: “Go and do likewise.” Now he's really upset. So he simply sticks his finger between the pages and reads what it points to—John 13:27: “What you are about to do, do quickly.”

That sounds absurd but some people do approach scripture like that. One Bible scholar called it Knight's Jump Exegesis. A knight in chess moves in an L shape, two spaces in any direction and then one move laterally, ending on a different colored square. And some people will take disparate verses wrenched from their contexts and end up with an interpretation that is novel to say the least, if not downright perverse.

This is often how cult leaders use scripture. They will take a verse that, say, is describing a situation, like the polygamy practiced by the patriarchs, and portray it as prescribing the practice. You may have noticed that not one of the polygamous marriages in the Bible is happy but that all are instead plagued with jealousy and rivalry. The cult leader will ignore the context as well as the intention of the passages he cites.

The model we should follow is that of the people of Berea. We are told, “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11) A preacher who's done his homework and is speaking the truth has no problem being fact-checked.

Reading the Bible a lot gives you a good feeling for what is and is not in there, and what the tone, the emphasis and the context is in each book or passage. And if you need it, there are lots of study Bibles, Bible dictionaries, concordances, commentaries, and other books that can help you understand the Scriptures better. Many of them are online and free.

Before we leave our discussion of listening to God, let's pivot from the written Word of God to the living Word of God, Jesus. He gets that title from the first verse of John's gospel. I love the way J.B. Phillips translated it: “At the beginning God expressed himself. That personal expression, that word, was with God, and was God, and he existed with God from the beginning.” (John 1:1) Jesus is God's expression of who he is. So if we want to know what God is really like, we look at Jesus. And if we do that, we should be able to pick up on God's tone and his emphasis.

And we see that Jesus is not all sweetness. He does not turn a blind eye to hypocrisy and self-righteousness and cruelty and greed and deceit and violence and stupidity and lust and envy and slander and stupidity. (Cf. Mark 7:21-22) But he also does not turn away from sinners. In fact, he was accused of being too chummy with them and hanging out with the worst kind of people. (Matthew 11:19) He loved sinners but hated sin, the way you love your children despite the fact that you might hate some of the things they do. Think of the mothers of the boys who shot up Columbine High School. Jesus assured a man crucified for murder during an insurrection that he would be with him in paradise. (Mark 15:7; Luke 23:40-43)

Which brings us to something revealed very late in the Bible but which helps us understand the whole thing, rather like the vital clue at the end of a mystery. In 1 John 4:8 we are told that “God is love.” That explains everything. To illustrate I would like to cite the film Love Actually which I saw again recently. Everyone remembers it as being about romantic love, like the Prime Minister and his aide or the Englishman and the Portuguese maid or the little boy and his school crush. But it is also about the widower mourning his late wife, the woman who passes up romantic love to take care of her mentally ill brother, the man who avoids his best friend's new wife not because he hates her but because he loves her and doesn't want to ruin his friend's marriage, and the aging rock star who realizes the person closest to him is his frequently disapproving but ever loyal manager.

The Bible shows us God's love for all kinds of people under all kinds of circumstances. He loves the couple to whom he gives everything but who can't do one simple thing for him. He loves the immigrant who bargains persistently with him over whether a notoriously sinful city should be punished. He loves the conman who steals his brother's birthright and blessing and who wrestles with God. He loves the arrogant dreamer who is enslaved and imprisoned in a foreign land but who rises to be the second-in-command in Egypt. He loves the stutterer who doesn't want to lead his people. He loves the prostitute who hides Israelite spies though they intend to destroy her city. He loves the Moabite woman who follows her mother-in-law to a foreign land, renouncing her own people and gods. He loves her grandson, a shepherd who becomes a warrior and a king and an adulterer and murderer. He loves the righteous man who loses everything and demands to debate God over the injustice in the world. He loves the fisherman whose emotions rule his head at times, ricocheting from loyalty to denial and from courage to cowardice. He loves the Samaritan woman with a checkered love life who must go to the well in the heat of the day when those who would be scandalized by her wouldn't be there. He loves the religious zealot who is hunting down and persecuting his followers but whom he intends to turn into a missionary. He loves the runaway slave who must be returned to his master with a plea that he be forgiven for theft and released. He loves the world so much he will enter it and die for it and remake it, person by person, into the paradise it was always intended to be.

God is love and that must be the primary lens through which we see him and it must be that tone for which we listen in his words. What we hear as accusations are really pleas that we drop our pretenses of innocence and accept his forgiveness and return his love. What we hear as anger are really warnings from a loving parent wishing to save us from sorrow and pain. What we hear as proscriptions on certain behaviors are really prescriptions for living a healthier life and having healthier relationships. Often when we are in the wrong or feel bad we project those feelings onto God. We see him as spoiling our fun when he is really trying to head off any efforts that can damage ourselves or others. We can see him as shoving us in anger when he is really pushing us out of harm's way even if it means he will bear the brunt of it.

To get closer to God, we must listen to him. And we must be more perceptive when it comes to picking up on his tone, noting what he emphasizes above other things, and seeing everything in context. 

Of course we also want to talk to him. We'll discuss that next week.