Lent Day 42 Holy Tuesday

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HOLY TUESDAY
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
         Jeff Lampl  

Begin 
Silence, Stillness, and Centering before God (2 minutes)  

Scripture Reading    Parable of the tenant farmers

“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. Then he rented it to tenant farmers and took a trip. ³⁴ When it was time for harvest, he sent his servants to the tenant farmers to collect his fruit. ³⁵ But the tenant farmers grabbed his servants. They beat some of them, and some of them they killed. Some of them they stoned to death.
 “Again he sent other servants, more than the first group. They treated them in the same way. ³⁷ Finally he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
“But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come on, let’s kill him and we’ll have his inheritance.’ ³⁹ They grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
“When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenant farmers?”
They said, “He will totally destroy those wicked farmers and rent the vineyard to other tenant farmers who will give him the fruit when it’s ready.”
Jesus said to them, “Haven’t you ever read in the scriptures, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The Lord has done this, and it’s amazing in our eyes? ⁴³  Therefore, I tell you that God’s kingdom will be taken away from you and will be given to a people who produce its fruit. ⁴⁴  Whoever falls on this stone will be crushed. And the stone will crush the person it falls on.”
Now when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard the parable, they knew Jesus was talking about them. ⁴⁶ They were trying to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, who thought he was a prophet."                         Matthew 21:33-46

Questions to Consider

When I think about this story, my mind immediately goes to how I am like the tenant farmers, how I act as if my world  is actually mine to do as I please, the ways in which I have "banished" God's, Jesus', rightful ownership of my life.  In what ways might you give ownership of your world back to God today?  Reason suggests that God is better at running what He has created than we are.

Prayer

"Lord, today, right now, I acknowledge in your presence that you own my life and my world and that your desire is that I trust you more than I trust myself.  Therefore, just as a driver at night can only see as far as his headlights shine, I will trust you for today, believing that tomorrow is in your hands.  I am relinquishing my need to determine outcomes.  They are now in your Hands.  Thank you Lord.  Amen."

Conclude with Silence   (2 minutes)

 
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Lent Day 41 Holy Monday

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HOLY MONDAY
Monday, March 30, 2015
  Jeff Lampl  

Begin 
Silence, Stillness, and Centering before God (2 minutes)  

Scripture Reading   The Parable of Two Sons

“What do you think? A man had two sons. Now he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’
“‘No, I don’t want to,’ he replied. But later he changed his mind and went.
“The father said the same thing to the other son, who replied, ‘Yes, sir.’ But he didn’t go.
“Which one of these two did his father’s will?”
 They said, “The first one.”
 Jesus said to them, “I assure you that tax collectors and prostitutes are entering God’s
 kingdom ahead of you. For John came to you on the righteous road, and you didn’t believe
 him. But tax collectors and prostitutes believed him. Yet even after you saw this, you didn’t
 change your hearts and lives and you didn’t believe him."             Matthew 21:28-32

 

Questions to Consider

What a shocking story! Belief always results in doing (however imperfectly) what it believes.  If you want to know what I actually believe, then simply watch what I do.  What does Jesus' story tell you about what you believe?  Are there places in your life where belief and action don't match?  Why?  On the other hand do you find it encouraging that those on the margins of society "get in" based simply on taking Jesus at his word? 

Prayer

"Lord, too often I'm like the second son.  You offer me the grace and gift of work and purpose and serving You and others in Your good world, yet so often I just don't feel like it.  Lord, help me not to be simply like the first son, rather help me be the kind of Jesus follower who says yes and then (however imperfectly) just does it not to earn Your favor, rather because I have simply decided to trust You more than I trust myself. Amen"

Conclude with Silence   (2 minutes)

 
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Lent Days 39, 40 Prepare to Keep the Sabbath

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Prepare to Keep the Sabbath
March 28, 29, 2015
         Jeff Lampl  

Silence (Two minutes)
 

Devotional      PALM SUNDAY 

When they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus gave two disciples a task. 2 He said to them, “Go into the village over there. As soon as you enter, you will find a donkey tied up and a colt with it. Untie them and bring them to me. 3  If anybody says anything to you, say that the Lord needs it.” He sent them off right away. 4 Now this happened to fulfill what the prophet said, 5 Say to Daughter Zion, “Look, your king is coming to you, humble and riding on a donkey, and on a colt the donkey’s offspring.” 6 The disciples went and did just as Jesus had ordered them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and laid their clothes on them. Then he sat on them.  

8 Now a large crowd spread their clothes on the road. Others cut palm branches off the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds in front of him and behind him shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” 10 And when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up. “Who is this?” they asked. 11 The crowds answered, “It’s the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”                          Matthew 21 Common English Bible (CEB)  

Question to Consider  

On “Palm Sunday” Jesus entered Jerusalem in a prearranged way which the Gospel writers obviously figured out because  they added the quote from Zechariah.  Everyone was expecting a Messiah who would rally the people in revolt against Rome as had happened a century before  (Hanukkah).  What they got was a Messiah who would not only not kill his enemies, he would let them kill him five days later.    How have your expectations and demands of God changed over the years?   Have you had disappointments with God, only to discover that through them you love Him even more?   

Prayer  

Lord, it seems as though you delight in upsetting everything I have staked my life on.  I praise you for that because I am slowly coming to realize that everything that I have valued apart from You is sinking sand.  Thank you for “ruthlessly” leading to the way that is everlasting.  May I honor the Sabbath this weekend.  Amen.


Silence   (2 minutes)

 
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Lent Day 38

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Begin 

Silence, Stillness, and Centering before God (2 minutes)  

Devotional     

My Favorite Way of Knowing
Friday, March 27, 2015 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is nothing in all of my experience in (?) years of living on earth that connects me to God and to Real and Actual life on Planet Earth and helps transport me out of my miserable little myopically perceived tiny realm of existence than the God given faculty given to all of God's image bearers.  It is the gift of imagination.

Perhaps the quote that describes best what Christianity has done for me is this one, the first part of which I have paraphrased for a little for clarity.  

"The waking world is considered by most people to be more real than the world of our dreams.  This is because it can contain within it the dreaming world: the dreaming world is judged less real because it cannot contain the world that I live in when I am awake.  

For the same reason I am certain that in passing from the scientific point of view to the theological, from pure reason to seeing things as God has revealed them to me, I have passed from dream to waking. Christian theology can fit science, art, morality, beauty, reason, and the sub-Christian religions into itself. The scientific point of view cannot fit any of these things into itself, not even science itself.  

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else."                      CS Lewis.  

It is the last line of the quote that has captured me.  

I have discovered what CS Lewis discovered.   Through the Christian Story I can now see all the things I never saw before.  It’s like history, science, literature, entertainment, nature, relationships, work, world conflict, how the world really works, all of it now has a “glow” beneath it, above it, surrounding it, permeating it.    It all now makes sense.    The world is not just something I’m in and I’m simply to make the best of.   It’s God’s world.  God is what it’s about.   God is what everything is about (even the worst of all evils is about God in the sense that it exists only as an “anti” thing.  Without its “anti”-ness” it wouldn’t exist, just as bad doesn’t exist without there first being a good off of which all bad and evil live as a parasite)  

In short, the only way a very primitive creature could ever know what is to be known about a very advanced creature is for the advanced creature to explain, reveal itself, to the lesser creature.   And in that explanation, in that self-revelation of the superior creature, the lesser creature could only apprehend what was revealed according to its limited capacities.    An eagle revealing itself to an earthworm, might result in the earthworm describing the eagle as gnat because that’s the only analogous thing the earthworm has experience.   

I’m the earthworm trying to comprehend what God is like based on what’s he’s revealed to me about Himself.   Therefore I use the faculty of imagination, just like the writer of revelation.    He didn’t make up anything, instead he described the indescribable with the best of what he could imagine, and that took him to the truth of God and God’s world.   

When I read the Chronicles of Narnia, for example, my mind, heart, passions, yearnings, and imagination all soar.   In so many ways there is more truth to be apprehended in our God given, God led imaginings than in any rational/scientific mode of discovering truth.  Of course imagination has to be driven and directed by God but ironically God’s “boundaries” are expansive, they end up taking our minds and hearts to God places we could never dream up on our own. 

Question to Consider

In what ways do you allow your mind and heart to soar as you imagine God’s great world both transcending and breaking into yours?   What kinds of things might you do in order to meet God through imagination, beauty, or truth bearing fiction?

Prayer

“Lord, thank you for the gift of imagination.  I believe that imagination is not a truth avoiding faculty, rather a truth discovering one.  Help me Lord to be attentive to all the ways you want me to be able to encounter you, be it in a move, taking in an art show, walking through the woods, or sculpting a clay pot.  May you give me the gift of encountering you in every aspect of my life.  Amen."

Conclude with Silence   (2 minutes)

 
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For more:   follow on Twitter @jefflampl  

Lent Day 37

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Begin 

Silence, Stillness, and Centering before God (2 minutes)  


Scripture Reading

“Who can know the LORD’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?” But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.”      1 Corinthians 2:16 (NLT)


Devotional     

Is There  More than One Way to Know something?  Part 2
Thursday, March 26, 2015

There is more than one way to know something! 

On Tuesday I wrote about reason, history, science, love, suffering and beauty as ways to know the truth about the world.   One is not more valid than another, I argued, yet science and reason have been elevated in the 21^st century to King and Queen of all the different ways of knowing.  Personally I find this to be incredibly limiting and to be one of the reasons that Christianity is harder and harder to fathom for modern Americans.  NASA scientist and self-proclaimed agnostic, Robert Jastrow, founding director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in, made what I find to be an incredibly important statement,  

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries"  

This implies that human beings will come close to a “theory of everything”, but will end up with just that, a theory.  We, like the builders of Babel, seek to make humans the creators and sustainers of life, replacing God.   Yet there will always be the image of God in us always beckoning us to God who can’t be found by looking at how things work and seeking to manipulate them to our preferred ends.  We may gain power as the decades and centuries pass and the transhumanists may find great “successes” in material terms, but at the height of human capacity to learn and create, we will still stare over the peak and not have discovered why we are here.    

While all means of knowing have their limitations.  I would like to suggest a way to know what is true and real and eternal that has worked for me.   It’s a way of knowing, an epistemology, that has reaped incredible dividends for me personally, and for believers for millennia.   That will be the topic of tomorrow’s blog.

Question to Consider

In what ways do you see human beings rebuilding the tower of babel (Genesis 11) and in doing so, attempting to make a name for themselves (Gen 11:4).   Have you allowed yourself to be co-opted into building this tower?

Prayer

“Lord, it seems to me to be simple wisdom that to know anything, the starting point is to know You, the creator and sustainer of all things, and Jesus Christ, Lord of Heaven and Earth.  Give me the will to spend the kind of time with You that leads me in the life everlasting.  Amen."

Conclude with Silence   (2 minutes)

 
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For more:   follow on Twitter @jefflampl  

Lent Day 36

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Wednesday, March 25, 2015
         Jeff Lampl  

Begin 

Silence, Stillness, and Centering before God (2 minutes)  


Scripture Reading

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us trip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.  And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us."          Hebrews 12:1 (NLT)


Devotional    A letter to you, the CLC Family, from Chris Wolfe  

Chris Wolfe writes this message to the entire church family after having suffered a stroke in January.   Chris is rehabbing well and will working hard to regain mobility on his left side, not only in order to walk but also to hold his guitar with his left and rejoin the worship team on Sunday mornings leading us to worship our great God, something he’s done with us for more than 15 years.  

Dear CLC Family,
I want to thank all of you for your many, many loving prayers for me and my family.  As most of you probably know, in mid January I had a stroke, underwent an induced coma for 4 weeks, and am now recovering in Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital.  My family and I are overwhelmed by the outpouring of love by so many brothers and sisters, in so many ways.  I literally sense a cloud of God loving kindness surrounding us as we travel through this adventure. 

Thank you all for being led by God’s Spirit, living lives of grace and compassion, and reaching out to those in need.  You are exhibiting the best of what the church is called to be.
In Christ,
Chris

       

Question to Consider

What is the greatest thing for you in being part of a church family, what the Bible  calls the "Body of Christ"?  Are you allowing yourself the gift of committing to some deeper relationship in God's family?

Prayer

 

"Lord, Thank you so much for the Body of Christ.  Thank you for those who care about me, for those I have the privilege to get to know and care about myself, and for those with whom those things are more difficult.  You are growing me up and one of your most powerful tools is a local church family where I can learn to give when I don't want to give and to receive when it's hard to receive.  You are so wonderful, Lord.  Thank you. Amen" 

 

 

 Conclude with Silence   (2 minutes)        

 
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For more:   follow on Twitter @jefflampl  

Lent Day 35

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Begin 

Silence, Stillness, and Centering before God (2 minutes)  


Scripture Reading

“But, strange as it seems, we Christians actually do have within us a portion of the very thoughts and mind of Christ.”                                                      1 Corinthians 2:16 (TLB)

Devotional     

 Is There  More than One Way to Know something?  Part 1
Tuesday, March 24, 2015

How does anyone know anything?”   

The baby in the picture has adopted a taste based epistemology (a way to know something)!    

Historians have called the 1700’s the period of the “Enlightenment”, when influential European thinkers such as Renee Descartes, Immanuel Kant and Ludwig Feuerbach adopted reason based,  scientific, empirical knowledge as the “gold standard” for how we can know anything to be true.  Since that time even much of European and American Christianity has adopted this view of how to know things.  

This is evident at Easter when most Easter sermons teach the resurrection as an epistemology, that is as a “proof”, as the primary way to know that Christianity is true.    I have done myself so many occasions.   Easter gets reduced to a proof of the veracity of Christianity.  

In the last few years there have been many public debates, now viewable on YouTube, between Christian apologists and the “new atheists” and the debates are almost always along the lines of reason, proofs, scientific evidence, logic, reason and the accuracy of historical records.   It seems to me, however, that our brightest and best Christian apologists are tacitly ceding the argument for Christianity in favor of their opponents by inadvertently debating on the epistemological turf (reason, science, proofs, physical and historical evidence) of their opponents.   But this is not the only turf on which the game can be played.   In fact it may not be the best turf at all.  

There is more than one way to know something! 

There is an epistemology of love, where I learn what is true only in a relationship of mutuality and self-giving love with another person.  In giving myself away in this way I have entered a realm of existence which is God’s realm.  There I can know things that the mind cannot conceive (1 Cor. 2:9).  In mutual self-giving and dependence I have entered into the “Divine Dance” of God’s world.  Just as Father Son and Holy Spirit are in a continual self-giving relationship, so also the entire cosmos as well (obviously since it is God created and God reflective), right down to and especially to the world of strings and quarks.  

There is an epistemology of beauty.   Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. That would be the view of Descartes and Feuerbach.  Beauty is a thing in and of itself into which we enter by invitation and when it captures us we are changed.   We’ve experienced something “out there” which beckons us and works on us and transforms our tastes, indeed works to conform them to the beauty which existed before the foundation of the world and which now breaks through into our broken worlds.  

There is an epistemology of suffering.   When I lose my life I find it.   Only those who are humbled and suffer and actually release themselves to God can ever know the deep treasures and mysteries of the real world which exists beyond all of our wantings and demands and cries of entitlement.  Paul wrote of knowing the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, not in a martyrdom kind of way, but in the only way that Jesus said we could ever truly know anything, that is, when I Iose all things for his sake I then gain all things.   

There are also the epistemologies of imagination, yearning, and incompleteness.   To those I will turn tomorrow.

Question to Consider

How have you come to know the most important things in your life?  Was it through empirically tested rational processes?  Or some other way?

Prayer

"Lord, I wonder if I can know anything about the real without you revealing it to me.  Forgive me for trying to know you by way of my narrow and incomplete ways of knowing, which inevitably put You into a box of my own making.  Help me Lord to meet you on your terms, not mine.  In the name of Jesus Christ, through whom You have revealed yourself to the world.  Amen."

Conclude with Silence   (2 minutes)

 
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For more:   follow on Twitter @jefflampl