Daily Liturgy and Scripture

Probably my favorite part of this ending of the Sermon on the Mount is when Jesus says, basically, "You know how to give good gifts. You think God doesn't?" I remember a preacher I knew growing up who once said, "Think of the best person you know. God is even better." Certainly God is. Amidst all of our imagination of God's power and majesty, he is still greater than all of those. It also remains true that this is the omnipotent creator who wishes to bring good things into our lives.

Today starts the season of Lent, which brings us into Easter in a little over a month. It's worth thinking about the masters we serve as we enter into this season. Jesus calls out money, because that's an obvious rival to God. It's certainly not the only master we choose. As we approach our Savior's sacrifice, let us examine our own lives to see what might lie between us and him, what might be stealing the allegiance we should be giving to God.

Ash Wednesday is about humbling ourselves. Whether you're going to a church today and receiving ashes on your forehead or not, it's a good time to commit to being open before God, allowing him to purify us by the Spirit. As our Savior humbled himself to death on a cross at Easter (and Ash Wednesday starts the season leading up to that remembrance), so we should follow his example and be humble as well.

It's kind of funny that Jesus had to say early on in the Sermon on the Mount (what Matt. 5-7 is generally called) that he didn't come to abolish the law. The opposite seems to be true. Doesn't it almost seem that he is making the law... worse? Every time he says, "you have heard it said... but I say," he is making the law seem so much more impossible to keep. But that's the point. The law is impossible to keep. The law doesn't redeem us, only God can do that. So when Jesus seems to be making things seem hopeless, he is. Because without him, things are indeed hopeless.

It's tempting to see the "God blesses this kind of people" list (called the Beatitudes) as some kind of checklist. We may think, "if I'm more humble or merciful or pure, I'm hitting it." Be careful, because that's what the rich young ruler was trying to say. Certainly, it's a list of good traits (incluiding mourning... how do you make that happen on purpose?), but it's not a checklist. This list is full of people probably get passed over, left behind. Left out. That's not how it works in God's economy. When the last are first and the first are last, nobody is forgotten.

What if Jesus had shown up like Superman, leaping tall buildings and being bulletproof? That wouldn't be much help to us in our daily lives. Our Savior was tempted, hungry, beaten, sad, and killed. He joined us in our humanity to show us what humanity can really be. 

We all owe the person we've become to someone. Certainly Jesus was the Word incarnate, sent according to the plan of God... so why was John needed? Wasn't Jesus fine on his own? No. None of us is. Jesus didn't come to be a one-man show, dispensing wisdom and dispelling demons without needing anyone else. He came to share the work he shared with the Father, and he didn't even take for himself an introduction. John was necessary because at every turn, God intended to share what he was doing with humanity.

Under normal circumstances, a newborn baby and his family taking on the King of a country might have a predictable ending. Not so when the ruler sets himself against the will of God. And who does God use? Outsiders. Magi from the east, not even those from Israel. These are the travelers we remembered a few weeks ago when we celebrated Epiphany, and today we remember them again. God is at work in people we would never suspect.

Today's gospel reading is short, but pretty important. Joseph sometimes gets sidelined in the nativity, he seems like kind of a bystander. That certainly wasn't true. This little piece of the story of Jesus' birth is important because it gives Joseph a stake. Remember that whole list of names we read yesterday? Naming matters, and a Biblical man's name was often connected to his father. That God came to Joseph in a dream and told him to give Jesus his name means that God was asking Joseph to connect himself to Jesus, taking part the the generations of fathers who named their sons. God didn't wish to operate outside the human realm, he includes humanity in the story of Jesus at every point.

Reading the list of fathers and sons for dozens of generations isn't exactly what most of us are after when we look for a verse to guide our lives. But don't miss the value in this: Jesus was connected to a real family. Not just a family, but a family full of scoundrels, prostitutes, and cheaters. This is a great relief. Even Jesus had some nuts in his family, and many of their stories are told throughout the Old Testament. The way God chooses to form his people doesn't always make sense, but we can find peace in the fact that God is in all of it.