The Two Sons in Jonah

“And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” – Jonah 4:11

Reading through the prophets, the book of Jonah feels refreshing, perhaps because, despite being considered a prophetic book, it only has one sentence of actual preaching. The rest is narrative. One thing many commentators have noticed about that narrative is how it correlates with the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15. In the first half of the book, Jonah plays the younger son. He openly refuses to obey God’s command to go to Nineveh, running away on a ship going 2,500 miles in the opposite direction. Then in the second half of the book, Jonah plays the elder son. He goes obediently to Nineveh and preaches his one sentence, but then when the people of Nineveh repent, he becomes furious, bitterly resenting God’s mercy.

It’s easy to disparage the younger son and approve of the older one, just as it’s easy to think Jonah learns his lesson when he finally makes his way to Nineveh—but in reality, both are wrong. We reject his love when we disobey in open rebellion. But we also reject his love when we obey in self-righteousness. Both fail to understand the meaning of God’s grace.

Grace is God “appointing” a fish to swallow Jonah when he should have perished in the sea (Jonah 1:17). Grace is the father running out to embrace his youngest son. Grace is God entreating the angry Jonah just as the father goes out to entreat his elder son. Grace is God appointing his son Jesus, who called himself the greater Jonah (Matthew 12:40) and like Jonah, would allow himself to be cast to death for the sake of others, only to rise in three days. But unlike Jonah, Jesus would weep for the city. He would go outside the city, not so he could see its condemnation, but so he could die on a cross for its salvation.

Timothy Keller writes, “Salvation belongs to God alone, to no one else. If someone is saved, it is wholly God’s doing. It is not a matter of God saving you partly and you saving yourself partly. No. God saves us. We do not and cannot save ourselves. That’s the gospel.” Our disobedience does not bar us from salvation. Nor can our own righteousness earn it. It is entirely God’s gift to us. 

Both stories end in mid-conversation. At the end of Jonah, God asks, “should I not pity Nineveh?” At the end of the parable, the father tells the elder son, “all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate…” But we don’t hear the response that God or the father receives. The stories stop suddenly, on a cliffhanger—as if the question is coming at us, too. As if God is waiting, too, for our response. Do you understand what grace means? Will you receive it? 

The Theology of Sex

“The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body… he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality.” – 1 Corinthians 6:13, 17-18

It is nearly impossible not to internalize some views of sex from the world around us. In our culture, sex is consumeristic: it is about self-gratification, feeling good physically or emotionally, or being used as a tool to get what we want. In our culture, sex is solely physical; it is an appetite to be met, and can be divorced from the mental, emotional, spiritual and relational. Pornography has made it even more about performance and objectification. Lastly, sex in our culture is idolatrous; it is portrayed as the ultimate source of fulfillment in and of itself.

But the Bible tells an altogether different story. God invented sex, as a good thing without shame. Have you thought much about why? Paul says that our body is meant for the Lord. Sex is a signpost that points us to God. J. I. Packer writes, “A signpost only helps those who will head the way it directs, and if you insisted on camping for life beside a lovely signpost, you would be daft; you would never get anywhere.” Sex points to the triune nature of a God who exists in a state of mutual, self-giving love and joy, a kind of constant union of which sex perhaps gives us a glimpse. It points to the wholeness of union we will have with God one day in eternity (Ephesians 5:32). And it points to the gospel itself, by acting out the creation of new life through the giving of self within a covenant. 

Rather than consumerism, sex is literally and symbolically about relationship, with God and with our spouse. Rather than being merely physical, sex is portrayed as a union of all levels of our being. Rather than implying that sex is essential for happiness, the Bible tells us about people like Paul (1 Corinthians 7:7) and Jesus who never had sex, and that there won’t be sex in heaven (Luke 20:35). Ultimately, sex is not all about us: there is something mysterious and wonderful here, something in the roots of our longings and the way our bodies are made that testifies to God himself. Don’t you know, Paul says, that your body is meant for God, that you are one with him, that the Holy Spirit lives inside you, that you are not your own? We aren’t to flee sexual immorality because of a low or fearful view of sex, but because of a high view of it, because we don’t want to do anything that would obscure what it is truly meant for. 

Emptying

“Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” – John 12:3

Every time we see Mary, she’s at the feet of Jesus: learning (Luke 10:39), grieving (John 11:32), and here, worshipping. Mark tells us that the ointment of nard came in an alabaster flask, which Mary broke (Mark 14:3). Nard was exported from the Himalayans, and this amount would have been worth 300 days’ wages; it was likely their financial security. But the nature of the jar was all-or-nothing: she could not have given just part of it, even if she’d wanted to; she had to break it apart and give it all. 

One chapter later, we once again see someone tending to the feet of those gathered for a meal, under the shadow of Judas. This time, it’s Jesus, enacting Philippians 2 by taking off his robe (“did not consider equality with God a thing to be held on to”), tying a towel on (“taking on the form of a servant”), washing feet (“humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death”), putting his robe on and returning to his place (“God has highly exalted him”). This downward-shaped parabolic movement is often called the “kenosis,” from the Greek word for “emptied” found in Philippians 2:7. Emptied. Like the alabaster jar.

I read somewhere, “Judas is following Jesus because of what it gets him. Mary is following Jesus despite what it costs her.” I’ve always been struck by the radical beauty of Mary’s act, but really, it points to the beauty of what Jesus is about to do for her. He emptied himself, at great cost. Sometimes we forget that Jesus existed before he came into our world. While he was fully God on earth, there were things he gave up to take on human form. And every step on earth was a step towards the cross, where he emptied himself of life and poured out his blood for my sake. I think of the smell that must have filled the room when Mary broke open the jar, and I think of how Paul put it: “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). 

When God Is Not Obvious

“So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.’ So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight.” – Luke 24:28-29

In his book Discernment, Nouwen writes that he spends at least an hour in prayer and meditation every morning—without it, “my life loses its coherence, and I start experiencing my days as a series of random incidents and accidents rather than divine appointments and encounters.” He may not have a particularly “close feeling” with God, and often it’s not pleasant to his senses, but “the way I become aware of God’s presence is in that remarkable desire to return to that quiet place and be there without any real satisfaction. And I notice, maybe only retrospectively, that my days and weeks are different when they are held together by these regular and ‘useless’ times. God is greater than my senses, greater than my thoughts, greater than my heart. I do believe that God touches me in places that are hidden even to myself.”

Jesus remains hidden during most of his encounter with two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And that’s part of what makes this story so poignant, isn’t it? He looks at these disciples as they “stood still, looking sad.” He listens to their experience. And rather than immediately revealing himself in person, which would have made both logical and emotional sense, he takes them through the Scriptures so that they can see him there instead. It was only in retrospect that they saw the significance of that time: “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” 

It’s easy to have a consumeristic view of our daily times with God. It’s hard to keep reading the Bible or praying if we feel like we aren’t “getting anything out of it” or seeing results. But often, the effects of those times are only appreciated in hindsight. Often, God works in ways and areas within us that are hidden even to our own eyes. I don’t know why Jesus did not say to those two disciples, “it is I!” as he did to Mary. Instead, he walked them through the Word. He waited for their invitation. He took, blessed, broke, and gave the bread—the holy, in the mundane. Jesus takes an ordinary meal, that as his followers these disciples must have done with him many times in the past without anything at all remarkable happening, and reveals himself both during and through it. And then, he vanishes. Leaving them with the remains of dinner, perhaps. The dishes to do.

Sometimes, I have Mary-moments. More often, I have Emmaus-experiences: going along the road through the Word, carrying my confusion or sadness or weariness, wondering where Jesus went, moments of recognition mingled with periods of remembering. But he is no less working, whether I have a sense of it or not. He is no less present, whether I feel it or not. He is greater than my senses, and the decision I make to spend time with him matters.

Consolation

“When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.” – Psalm 94:18-19

When I went back to work after Eric was born, he refused to take the bottle. He would go on hunger strikes for days. At one point, my dad drove him into work so I could rush out between patients to nurse him. Eventually we got him to take the bottle (by filling it with orange juice), but I still remember him wailing inconsolably in the back seat of the car each time I ran out. 

There are two Hebrew words in this verse that are rarely used in the Old Testament, but that both occur again in succession in a passage in Isaiah 66. Tanchuwm, or “consolation,” is used as well in Isaiah 66:11: “Rejoice with Jerusalem… that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance.” Sha’a’, or “cheer,” literally means “to stroke” or caress in comfort, and is used again in Isaiah 66:12, where it is translated “bounce”: “and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip, and bounced upon her knees.”

When you are that crying infant, what you long for is something specific that only one person can provide. That’s how I feel when I’m sad sometimes: what I want is not just distraction or sympathy or even mere comfort. I want consolation. I want something that holds both grief and comfort in full view, together. I want a comfort that speaks to my grief, that tells me my grief is not meaningless and shows me my grief is understood. And that’s the beautiful picture these words create: there is an answer, that goes beyond comfort, in fact, to deep delight. That nourishes, gives life and satisfaction. That speaks without words, in exactly the way we cry for. The nature of my sadness is meant to point me to the Consolation of Israel (Luke 2:25), upon whom I can cast the cares of my heart (1 Peter 5:7), who will one day wipe away every tear from my eyes (Revelation 21:4).

Consolation that glorious seems too good to be true, and some days, too hard to reach for. It’s easier to be drowned in or drained by feeling down. But that’s why it’s good to hear the testimony of this Psalmist. He wrote these words in the midst of terribly crushing events (verses 5-7). His truth can be the same for us.

Discipline

“Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” – Proverbs 13:24

The question I get asked most frequently as a parent is: how do you discipline your children? Most people seem to be looking for technique, several kinds of which we’ve used. This verse is quoted with some controversy in the context of spanking: some claim the word for “rod,” shebet, refers to the kind of wooden stick used for physical punishment; others point out that it is the same word used in Psalm 23:4 of the comforting shepherd’s rod. Regardless, the main point is that disciplining our children is such an important part of how we love them that to avoid it is akin to an act of hatred. And most of the time, when discipline fails, it’s not a matter of improper technique as much as how we use them.

The word for “love” here, ahab, is the same word that describes how God loves us (Deuteronomy 6:5). We must always exercise discipline in a way that represents God: in the life of our children, we are the look of God’s face, we are the touch of His hand, we are the tone of His voice. Think for a moment about the glory of God’s utter faithfulness in how he reveals his authority and law to his children: that is how we are to discipline our children. Never inconsistently or affected by our own emotion or mood. Never selfishly or affected by how they make us feel or look. Never impatiently. Never with demeaning or condemning words.

In other words, before we discipline our children, we must discipline ourselves. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes, “When you are disciplining a child, you should have first controlled yourself… What right have you to say to your child that he needs discipline when you obviously need it yourself? Self-control, the control of temper, is an essential prerequisite in the control of others.” It does no good to have the perfect technique down if you use it sometimes but not others, or if you use it in anger. As we ask God to bring us into greater submission before Him, to help us overcome our own anger and frustration, we allow Him to reveal in us any sinful or selfish ways we view our children. The more we open ourselves to receiving His correction in our lives, the more we can rightly love our children through the correction we offer them. 

The word for “diligent” here is shachar, which means “to break forth as light, as the dawn,” which one lexicon describes as “a word altogether poetic.” It reminds me of when Zechariah speaks of “the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high” (Luke 1:78). We are to earnestly seek the dawning of the good news of Jesus into our lives. To look for the breaking in of God’s mercy. To diligently orient all our discipline so that it points to the gospel.

Lately, I’ve been thinking of discipline as opportunities God gives me to allow the Holy Spirit to work His conviction and grace in my children’s lives. God has given me authority over my children, but He has not given me the power to change them. I can’t fix them; it’s not up to me. Only the gospel has that power. If I operate on the assumption that I can change my children, then I see every misbehavior as failure, and I become over-focused on the behavior itself. But if I realize that only God can change my children, I look diligently for every opportunity to open their hearts to the work of the Holy Spirit: and discipline moments are exactly those kinds of opportunities. Nothing reveals the heart condition of my children like their misbehavior does, and if I modify their behavior but miss their hearts, I don’t really change them for the long-term, anyway. 

Orienting discipline towards the gospel means coupling any discipline technique with instruction, typically a brief conversation that helps them understand the heart struggle behind their behavior, presents the gospel in some form, and opens space for confession and grace. Most of the time, nothing seems to happen, and that’s normal. But sometimes His grace really does break through. It was during a discipline moment that Eric accepted Jesus as his savior. He has been our most difficult child to discipline, and it was an episode like any other, but somehow that day, when I explained that Jesus died not only to free him from the consequence of his sin but the power it held in his life, something clicked. I don’t know how many conversations after difficult discipline moments I’d had with him before that day—very many—and I’ve never had an experience quite like that with the other children—but I thank God I can look back now and see that it is always worth it. Being diligent in our discipline is one of the most important ways we love our children, even though it’s one of the hardest things we do. 

Naming Our Longings

“And when he came near, he asked him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ He said, ‘Lord, let me recover my sight.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.’” – Luke 18:40-42

Jesus’ question to the blind roadside beggar seems obvious. Why in the world does he ask it?

In our consumeristic society, we think about what we want people to do for us all the time on a superficial level: customize our coffee a certain way, give a certain gift or bonus, provide a particular service at a particular time. But that is not what Jesus is asking. The blind man did not make a public disturbance for a trivial reason. This is in some ways the most important question of all. It is the same one Jesus asks us when we are brought into his presence, because it forces us to confront our true desires, the ones so easily masked by superficial attainments. It invites us to peel back layers of pretense to expose what is truest about us, to face our vulnerability and need. It invites spiritual hunger and honest reflection. It legitimizes desire. God asks us this, and it’s okay to answer it. 

“Jesus doesn’t grant requests like a genie in a bottle,” writes Ruth Haley Barton. “He works with people allowing their desires to draw him into the core conversations of life… Why did Jesus ask such pointed and personal questions? Perhaps because he knew that such questions open up a world of possibility—the possibility of actually making choices that are congruent with what we say we really want.  He seemed to understand that being in touch with our true desire can be catalytic for one’s spiritual life because it is the most powerful motivator for a life lived consistently with intentionality and focus.”

Psalm 86 was also on our reading list for the same day, and it struck me that the entire Psalm is an answer to this very question. The entire Psalm presupposes this question was asked, and is itself a litany of expressed desires and longings that pierce through to the deepest longings of the Psalmist’s heart. “Incline your ear to me, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy,” he begins. Preserve my life. Be gracious to me. Gladden the soul of your servant. Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer. Teach me your way. Turn to me. Be gracious to me. Show me a sign of your favor. But mingled in are descriptions of God himself. There is none like you. All shall worship you. You do wondrous things. You alone are God. Great is your steadfast love toward me. You have delivered my soul. You are merciful and gracious. You abound in faithfulness. You have helped me and comforted me. Within the very answering of this question, he encounters God. That’s the difference between asking this question of ourselves without God’s presence, and hearing God ask it to us within his presence. It’s the difference between self-help and true healing.

In the end, I think our longings are what motivates us on our spiritual journey, far more than duty or obligation. And our encounters with God are what heals and changes us in those very places of longing. What do you want Jesus to do for you?

Receiving A Child, Receiving The Kingdom

“Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.’” – Luke 18:17

“It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.” - Charles Dickens

Infants in Jesus’ day were viewed more expendably and less sentimentally than they are in ours. It was common practice at that time to place a newborn at their father’s feet: if the father stooped and lifted the child, that meant he wished to keep it. Otherwise, the child was thrown out. Infant boys were not named until their eighth day of life, girls until their ninth; up to fifty percent of children died before their tenth birthday. It was not unusual for adults to have little to do with children, much less a single Jewish adult male, much less a leader on his way to Jerusalem with disciples waiting with bated breath for the establishment of his kingdom. But Jesus stops to say, this is the kingdom. 

I had always read this as: we must receive the kingdom of God like a child receives it. With humility, dependency, openness, unquestioning faith and uncluttered simplicity. I’m sure it does mean that. But I wonder if it could also be read: we must receive the kingdom of God like we receive a child. When Jesus came into the world, he came an infant. God didn’t have to do it that way. Jesus could have arrived a full-grown man, like Adam. 

But he didn’t. Actually, he arrived as an embryo, a morula, a blastula. He was carried for nine months. Caryll Houselander writes, “Working, eating, sleeping, [Mary] was forming His body from hers… Walking in the streets of Nazareth to do her shopping, to visit her friends, she set his feet on the path to Jerusalem. Washing, kneading, weaving, sweeping, her hands prepared His hands for the nails. All her experience of the world around her was gathered to Christ growing in her.” 

How do we receive children? Just like that, with every step of our ordinary lives. We receive with intention and preparation, from baby showers to receiving blankets. We receive with thoroughness: more than anything, parenting transforms every other area of our lives. We receive with unavoidability: we can’t ever un-parent; it doesn’t ever stop. We receive with wonder: so much of conception and growth is a mystery. We receive with sacrifice and through weariness. 

Athanasius of Alexandria writes: “The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering men. For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been just to appear and dazzle the beholders. But for Him Who came to heal and to teach the way was not merely to dwell here, but to put Himself at the disposal of those who needed Him, and to be manifested according as they could bear it, not vitiating the value of the Divine appearing by exceeding their capacity to receive it.”

A baby is something we have the capacity to receive, isn’t it? An infant is within our hold. An infant invites our hold. And so it is with Jesus’ quiet ushering in of his kingdom on earth. This is his very grace to us, to come not with dazzling display, but in a way we could bear, in a way we could understand, and in that very way we see his love for us.

Power And Word

“And the angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.’” – Luke 1:35

Luke, who wrote both the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, begins both with an account of the power of the Holy Spirit: in Acts, with Pentecost, and in Luke, with conceptions. The Holy Spirit comes upon Elizabeth and Mary, two people who, as Eugene Peterson puts it, “stand at the extremes of impossibility regarding conception: Elizabeth a barren post-menopausal old woman and Mary a young virgin.” The Holy Spirit is mentioned seven times in the first two chapters of Luke (1:15, 35, 41, 67; 2:25-27), and each of those times are related to pregnancy and birth: an unconventional way to describe power. Pregnancy is slow, initially invisible. Birth is messy, wondrous. All of it is markedly intimate and utterly ordinary. This is a power that is the opposite of impersonal, flamboyant, or forceful. A power that works within the ordinary, everyday framework of our lives.

Laced with mentions of the Holy Spirit are five prayers within these first two chapters of Luke: the “Fiat Mihi” (1:38), the “Magnificat” (1:46-55), the “Benedictus” (1:68-79), the “Gloria in excelsis” (2:14), the “Nunc dimittis” (2:29-32). The first is Mary’s response to Gabriel: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” The last is Simeon’s response to holding the forty day-old infant Jesus: “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word.” The Holy Spirit is mentioned within the context of both prayers. Mary and Simeon both call themselves servants of the Lord. They both say kata sou rhema: “according to your word.” We see that the power of the Holy Spirit acts through the prayers of a young girl who begins in submission to God’s word, and an old man ending in submission to God’s word. 

The power of the Holy Spirit is a power that is received, that is deeply personal, that works sometimes slowly and invisibly—with the kind of growth that one can only see in the rearview mirror—and sometimes immediately and powerfully, like the moment an infant comes into the world. It is a power we experience in submission to God’s word, which the Holy Spirit himself reveals to us. May we think on what it means to receive and experience Him, as much as we think on receiving the Christ-child this Christmas week.

Entitlement

“So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” – Luke 17:10

During a physician training session at Stanford, the head of a surgical department shared about the challenges of clinical care in this area. “They basically see me as a technician,” he said. “They come in and say, ‘I’ve read about this. I want you to cut here, radiate here.’ I have to tell them, ‘well, I’m actually the expert here…’” Patients tell their doctors what tests they want ordered, what visual acuity they expect after surgery. This rises beyond optimization and control into a kind of entitled consumerism: a belief that we do not only know what is best for ourselves, but we deserve to have it. I see this in myself, when I lapse into self-pity about not having what I want, or complain about some first-world problem. I see this in my children, who expect food or laundered shirts or packed bags to be provided when they want it, and wonder if my good intentions to care for them have backfired. I see this in the consumerism of the holidays. We are like Sally in the Charlie Brown Christmas special, when she dictates her endless list of toys to Charlie. “All I want is what I have coming to me,” she tells him; “all I want is my fair share.”

These verses in Luke seem offensive to the modern reader: and if anything, the English translation has softened the original Greek, in which “unworthy servant” means literally “unprofitable slave.” We ought to understand, though, that slavery in Jesus’ day was different than slavery in the United States: slaves were not distinguished by race, could become highly educated and work in many sectors of the economy (as accountants, professors, physicians, chefs, craftsmen), and could be freed to become Roman citizens through several means of manumission. In fact, freedpersons would sell themselves into slavery knowing they could later regain freedom, and for this reason the word for slave (doulos) is sometimes translated “bondservant.” 

Slaves in that context were not worthless or of no value, but they were not owed anything. They were not indispensable; their service did not merit thanks or favor. And Jesus is saying that this is our spiritual reality. How easy it is for us to become spiritually entitled, to forget that God does not owe us anything. He does not “need” our aid, the grace to do his will comes from him alone, and we do not through our service deserve any favor. We have merited nothing.

Martin Luther was recorded to say once in response to the Church dispensing the merits of the saints: “Merit! What merit can there be in such a poor caitiff as man? The better a man is, the more clearly he sees how little he is good for, the greater mockery it seems to attribute to him the notion of having deserved reward.” I find the rest of his diatribe a bit humorous: “Till we are seven years old, we do nothing but eat and drink and sleep and play; from seven to twenty-one we study four hours a day, the rest of it we run about and amuse ourselves; then we work till fifty, and then we grow again to be children. We sleep half our lives; we give God a tenth of our time; and yet we think that with our good works we can merit heaven. What have I been doing to-day? I have talked for two hours; I have been at meals three hours; I have been idle four hours! Ah, enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord!”

Jesus came into this world in a manger. The king of all kings, laid in a feeding trough for animals: a far cry from the sterile fields and personalized birthing plans of our day, or even what was normal in his day. I can’t think of anything less entitled than that. The one to whom everything was due did not demand it. Neither should I.

The Parable Of The Dishonest Manager

“The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” – Luke 16:8-9

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” – Jim Elliot, October 28, 1949 journal entry

This parable, found only in Luke, can be confusing. In it, Jesus tells the story of a manager who, on finding out he is being fired for wasting his master’s money, rewrites the contracts of his master’s debtors to decrease their debts so they might help him after he’s unemployed. The master then, surprisingly, commends him for this. Of note, “unrighteous wealth” refers to worldly wealth—earthly wealth that is part of this unrighteous world—not wealth gained through unrighteous means. Some have speculated that the manager reduced the debts by cutting out his own commission or interest, which would explain why his manager praised him. 

Regardless of how dishonest or not the manager was, the main point of the parable is the same: we “sons of light” need to be at least as shrewd about how the kingdom of God works as the “sons of this world” are about how the earthly world works. The word for “shrewd” here, Greek phronimos, is only ever used this once in the Bible, and is translated in some versions “wise.” Jesus commends not potentially dishonest means, but the kind of shrewd wisdom behind it. And being wise means understanding that, like the manager about to lose his job, worldly opportunity and wealth is fleeting. Most of us who are relatively young don’t think on this, but it is a sure thing: Jesus says “when it fails,” not if. The most intelligent plan we can make is to use our earthly money to buy what will last eternally. 

How do we do this? Jesus goes on to explain that we earn “true riches” in eternity by proving ourselves faithful with worldly wealth (Luke 16:11). If fund managers are not using money the way their clients want, or are taking more for themselves than was agreed upon, they’re not being faithful with the money given them—one could even say they’re stealing, and the same is true for us. We manage, but do not own, all we have in this world. In our meritocratic culture, this can be difficult to work into our hearts, but it is no less true. What matters is being faithful to the intent of our master in stewarding what we have. One day we too may hear, “turn in the account of your management” (Luke 16:2).

But this parable has something more specific to say about how to invest in what lasts. It comes right after the parable of the prodigal son, and if you layer them together, a similar parabolic narrative emerges. Both the younger son and the manager squander money; the same Greek word diaskorpizo is used. But both learn that money is not as important as relationship, whether between father and son, or between friends. Michael Wilcock puts the point of the parable in Luke 16 this way: “Although these things—your property, ability, and time—belong to this life only, Jesus says, what will happen to you then, when you pass into the afterlife, will depend on what you were doing with them here and now. Make sure that the use of your money brings you into a fellowship of friends which will survive beyond death.”

Thinking on this, I keep recalling the last scene in Monsters, Inc., the way Sully’s entire face lights up as he opens the door to another dimension of reality, not because of any object or reward, but because he sees his friend. Which friends will welcome me home in eternity? In the end, none of the material things around me will last: but the souls around me will. This parable is a good reminder that it is always worthwhile to invest in building eternal relational capital, to deepen and widen that fellowship of friends which will survive beyond death.

The Manure Story

“‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” – Luke 13:6-9

“The greatest temptation of our time is impatience, in its full original meaning: refusal to wait, undergo, suffer. We seem unwilling to pay the price of living with our fellows in creative and profound relationships.” - Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

Dave and I wrote letters for months before we first met in person: he from California, I from Boston. After we finally met in person (and I told him I felt “neutral” when he expressed interest), we began talking on the phone. One day years into our marriage, I found an old notebook of his from med school, and scribbled into the margins, next to “basic immunology functions and disorders of the immune system,” were notes for our phone conversations: “be silly. Have fun. Flirt.” At the bottom of the page, below “septicemia, Hep B, TB, meningitis,” a paragraph: “Don’t expect too much, or demand any promises, affirmation, time, attention—it’s a free gift from her to me, God’s gift of companionship, fellowship, and friendship. Don’t think too far ahead.”

Nowadays, he and I are more liable to text than write letters or call, sometimes even from one room of the house to another. Back then, neither of us had text, much less whatever dating app is trending, and I can’t help but think there was something valuable in the slower pace that forced us to take. We live in an instant society, and I appreciate certain conveniences as much as the next person, but it can cause changes we hardly realize. Rather than allowing more time for rest, our efficiency increases what we’re expected to produce. Boundaries between home and work blur. I find myself getting upset if someone drives below the speed limit, when I see the rainbow pinwheel on my computer, or when I can’t get anything in the world shipped to my front door within two days.

Dropped cold into this chapter, without any kind of context or prelude, is this curious parable, which Eugene Peterson calls “the manure story.” He writes, “Manure is a slow solution. When it comes to doing something about what is wrong in the world, Jesus is best known for his fondness for the minute, the invisible, the quiet, the slow—yeast, salt, seeds, light. And manure.” Manure is dead or unwanted organic matter, which works into the soil to fertilize it, adding nutrients, increasing microbial growth, making it richer so it can bring life. It doesn’t require anything but strategic placement and time. It is unhurried. It is silent: as Saul Bellow writes, “The more you keep your mouth shut, the more fertile you become.” It is a submission to the workings that bring death to life.

It is completely contrary to our impulses, this kind of working. We are more like the man who says, cut it down! And less like the vinedresser who says, let it alone. This word for “let alone,” Greek aphes, means “to let go, let it be,” but interestingly, is also translated “forgive,” as in the Lord’s prayer in Luke 11:4: “and forgive us our sins.” Not long after Jesus shares this parable, we see it playing out in the events of the cross. We hear another violent indictive: “Crucify him!” And we hear a similar bid for life in Jesus’ words: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

God is a God who acts, but he is also the God who waits. His purposes, the workings of the gospel and of resurrection life, the delight and gifts he gives us, can sometimes only be realized and received when we are willing to let it all work slowly into the soil of our lives. We tend to want to control, to direct, to act, when what we really need to do is listen to the vinedresser. And sometimes the answer is to let it alone. To let the manure work. To give it more time.

The Cross Is Daily

“And he said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” – Luke 9:23

“In Luke’s version of this saying of Christ the adverb daily is added. Every day the Christian is to die. Every day he renounces the sovereignty of his own will. Every day he renews his unconditional surrender to Jesus Christ.” – John Stott

I don’t know that I can really imagine what it was like for Jesus’ audience to hear him say this. Jesus had not been crucified yet. Back then, the cross was not the sentimental, religious symbol it is now. Crucifixion was the most painful and degrading form of capital punishment in the ancient world. There is no real modern parallel, not the electric chair, not the gallows or lethal syringe. The cross represented a protracted process, from scourging to bearing the crossbeam to nakedness to nailing to slow and public death, that was carefully calculated to maximize suffering and humiliation. What would Jesus’ listeners have thought? 

I read in one article, “the victim was forced to bear the crossbeam to the execution site in order to signify that life was already over and to break the will to live.” Yet Jesus is saying here that we must voluntarily do this, and even more shockingly, that this one-time event was to be a metaphor for our daily experience. Why does Jesus not say, “let him deny himself and be nailed to the cross”? He says, take up our cross. It is the part of the crucifixion process that is the most active. It is a step-by-step journey. It is a leaving of the city, a conscious yielding of the self, perhaps the most thoroughly public part of the process. Jesus says we must do this in a way that is personal to each one of us. To bear our cross each day is to walk every step in surrender, at any cost.

What would it look like if I lived my day with an expectation of surrender? Surrendering my self-centered impulses, my pride or how I look to others or even if they like me? Surrendering my plans, my comfort? That is what Jesus did for me. That is what following him means. This is the great paradox, that to find my life I must walk the road to lose it.

Specks And Logs

“How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.” – Luke 6:42

My pastor in college used to say, “if something bothers you about someone, ask what same thing God is trying to reveal in you.” It was generally annoying advice. I recall attempting to apply it a few times, but finding it easier to avoid bothersome people. But lately, I’ve been thinking about this in parenting, where one can’t exactly avoid annoyances. 

Have you considered that when your children sin, God is dealing with you as much as with your child? He is showing you something about this sin and its consequences in your life, as much as in your child’s life? He is revealing something about his grace for you as much as his grace for your child?

I’m not sure this is true in every instance, but it seems a principle worth considering. Jesus doesn’t say, just ignore the speck in your brother’s eye: he says, first take out your own log so you can see better how to take out the speck. The prerequisite for communicating the gospel to our children is that we have an ongoing experience of it ourselves, and the more we experience it in a particular area of sin, the more clearly we can show our children the gospel in that area. After all, that is the point. It’s easy just to point our children to the law when they sin. To issue an order, throw out a punishment, and walk out of the room. But that’s not parenting. Our kids sometimes do need negative consequences, but it can’t stop there. The law is not a change-agent. I am not a change-agent. I can only point my kids to the gospel. It is grace that changes them.

For some reason, when confronted with misbehavior in our children, it’s so easy to become self-righteous. To say, “Why did you wait until the last minute?” when we too procrastinate. “Why are you fighting over such a small thing?” when we too lose perspective on what’s important. “Why can’t you just stop and let your brother have his way for once?” when we can be just as stubborn about what we want. But when we see these things in ourselves, it’s easier to come alongside our children. It’s easier to see that the heart of the problem is not only the immediate situation but what that situation reveals about the sin in us. That what we need is not only a situational fix but utter rescue. It’s easier to say something like how Paul Tripp puts it: “I know exactly how you got into this mess because I’m like you. But hear me, son. There’s help for you and me. Because God sent his son to live the life that we could never live on our own, to rise again and conquer sin and death, we can be rescued from ourselves.”

As we ask God to show us the logs in our own eyes, he transforms us too. Through Eric, I’ve seen how self-centeredness and pursuing goals to the detriment of relationships has led to losses in my past, and I’ve asked God to help me live differently. Through Ellie, I’ve seen how I tend to sinfully judge emotional women, and how part of God’s rescuing story is allowing me to experience my own emotions and worries within his loving presence. How have you experienced the sins you see in your children in your own past? What trace of those sins do you find now in your life? How has God revealed his grace to you in these areas? 

ABC's Of The Word

“And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.” – Luke 8:14

One of my most memorable rotations in medical school was working on the surgical trauma team in the emergency room of Massachusetts General Hospital (or “Man’s Greatest Hospital,” as we liked to call it). As a third-year medical student and the lowest on the totem pole, my job was to carry around a right-handed glove and a packet of lubricant and basically stay out of the way until the team did a log-roll, at which time I would check for rectal tone. I loved it, though: the pace, the variety and intensity of the cases we handled. No matter what came in the door, the first thing we checked was always the same: the ABC’s, or airway, breathing, and circulation, in that order. Is the airway blocked? Are there spontaneous respirations? A regular rate and rhythm? The most basic thing to life is oxygen getting to tissue cells: hypoxia can lead to irreversible damage in neurological cells within minutes.

The word of God, Jesus says, is not information we download of a Sunday morning. It isn’t an injection we take during a few devotional moments. It is life that grows, and to grow, it needs continual air and circulation. It is capable of being choked, its purpose in us aborted. The Greek word for “mature” is the same used of pregnant women. What suffocates the life of the word within us? Jesus identifies three things: cares, riches, and pleasures.

The word for “care” here, merimna, comes from a root meaning “to separate into parts” or “to cut into pieces”: this is an anxious kind of care, that comes from feeling drawn in different directions. Seems like this describes the baseline temperature of life here, where we’re expected to be simultaneously excellent in all areas of life. I love bullet journaling, but the fact that I need one to keep track of all the threads in my life says something, surely. The word for “riches,” ploutos, comes from a root meaning “filled,” referring to not merely possessions, but an abundance of them. The word for “pleasures,” hedone, means not merely pleasure but the insatiable desire for it; not merely concupiscence, but any lust that drives us to quarrels and distorts our prayers (James 4:1, 3).

These are thorns. Weeds are not plants that are bad in and of themselves: they are simply growing in the wrong place or to the wrong degree. They have become, as Augustine put it, disordered loves. But weeds do tend to be plants that proliferate easily and propagate effortlessly when unchecked. I love the mint in our plant beds, but I keep it in a pot within the earth because otherwise it would take over the entire space. And so, cares, riches and pleasures are not bad things, but they tend to take over easily. They can strangle all the life out of the word planted in us.

How do we weed out the garden of our souls? There is a lot to be said for learning to curb our appetites, our possessions, our anxious cares, and many times, I’ve regretted not doing that earlier or more habitually in my life. But ultimately, I think we have to love the plant that is growing. We have to care about its life and desire its fruit so much that we are always checking its ABC’s. Reordering loves is a matter of being pierced with love for Jesus, who wore a crown of thorns so that we could cast all our merimna on him (1 Peter 5:7). As Augustine wrote: “The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.”

All-Night Prayer

“In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve.” – Luke 6:12-13

What was the most important decision you have made in your life? In your ministry or career? How did you make that decision?

Luke tells us something none of the other gospels do: what Jesus does the day and night before making the most important decision of his ministry. He doesn’t consult for advice, take a survey, conduct interviews, bullet journal, list out pros and cons, review studies. Not that any of that is bad, but Luke describes with bracing simplicity the one thing he knows Jesus did: leave the city, seek solitude, and pray. The Greek for “pray” here is proseuchomai, and can refer not only to prayer, but a prayer-house. The Jews had these places away from the cities (Acts 16:3), on river banks, groves or hills; they usually consisted of a rough enclosure made of stone or trees, below an open sky. 

To be honest, I value my sleep, perhaps more so the older I’ve gotten. The only time I’ve pulled all-nighters have been the rare night before a major exam, or when required to during rotations in medical school and residency. I’ve never prayed all night. Yet that is what Jesus models for us here: whatever else you may do before an important decision, pray. Pray in a way that is marked by solitude, by extensiveness, perhaps by retreat to a sacred space.

Being compelled to spend an entire day and night in prayer is not something that rises out of the blue. It comes from a regular experience of God in prayer, and we see this as well in Luke, who describes Jesus praying more than all of the other gospels combined (Luke 3:21, 5:16, 6:12, 9:18, 9:28, 22:32, 23:34, 23:46). Too often, we do anything but pray. We worry or analyze. We make our own decisions and ask God to postscript a blessing.

I think about the important decisions I face in my life. As a parent, I think about perhaps the two most important decisions my kids will make: deciding to follow Jesus, and deciding whom to marry. Am I praying about these things, with at least some of the fervency and consistency they require? When was the last time I retreated to spend more extensive time in prayer? 

Jesus And Jubilee

“… to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’” – Luke 4:20-21

In the perfect rhythm of God’s rest and restoration, every seventh day was a sabbath day. Every seventh year was a sabbath year. After every seven sabbath years was a Jubilee year, the sabbath of sabbaths. Leviticus 25 tells us they were to count “seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years.” And then, in Daniel 9, we are told that the anointed one, the prince, will come in “seventy weeks” of years, seventy times seven years. The Jubilee of Jubilees. “This predicted 490 years,” writes N. T. Wright, “haunted the minds of devout Jews in the centuries immediately before and after the time of Jesus. There is plenty of evidence to indicate that people were calculating, as best they could, when that time would be up.”

It is in this context that Jesus announces his public ministry, a moment most clearly defined here in Luke 4. Jesus reads from Isaiah 61, and when he gets to the part where Isaiah refers to Leviticus 25, when he gets to the Jubilee year, he stops. He sits down and says, today this is fulfilled. The Jubilee of Jubilees, the prince of Jubilee, is here. 

There is some shadow of the Sabbath in our culture, but we don’t really have a good grasp of Jubilee. None of us have experienced it, and it is unclear whether or not the Israelites ever did; they certainly weren’t by the time of the monarchy. The Jubilee was only experienced once in a lifetime, every fifty years. It taught the Israelites that the land on which they lived belonged to God; that life was to be lived in community; that each person had equality and personal dignity in their shared identity as God’s people; that life had a rhythm of worship, work and rest. The Jubilee countered tendencies towards inequality and poverty through socioeconomic restoration of people and land. But it was also rooted in spiritual restoration; its beginning was marked by the Day of Atonement.

Jesus arrives at this time, reading this passage, to show us that he is all that the Jubilee points to. Rest, redemption, forgiveness, justice. This is what his public ministry will be about. What does the Jubilee mean to you? How is Jesus this for you?

News, Not Advice

“So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.” – Luke 3:18

When was the last time you received news? For me it was last Wednesday afternoon. I was at home on the computer when a text ran across the upper corner of the screen: “Your children are at school waiting for you – Roni” Roni is Elijah’s kinder teacher, and it suddenly occurred to me that Wednesday was an early pick-up day! I was operating under the assumption I had another hour to prepare after-school snacks and pick them up, when in reality I was already thirty minutes late. Needless to say, I dashed out the door.

The word “gospel” in the Old Testament is Hebrew bisser ("herald") and besorah ("tidings"), and in the New Testament is Greek euangelion, a compound of eu (“good”) and angelion (“announcement”). Luke here uses a form of that word, euaggelizo, which the ESV translates in a nicely literal way: good news. Martyn-Lloyd Jones contrasts advice with news: “Advice is counsel about something that hasn’t happened yet, but you can do something about it.  News is a report about something that has happened which you can’t do anything about because it has been done for you and all you can do is respond to it.”

The gospel is received as news, not advice. Advice is something you use to help you live the way you want. News is something to which you respond and change. Advice places the burden on you, to do something to achieve salvation—but the gospel is news that it all has already been done. Yet neither is the gospel advice you can pick and choose from—it calls for either rejection or response. Elijah’s teacher did not text me a suggestion. She texted a statement of fact: I either believed it or not, and the evidence of that belief was action.

The gospel is shared as news, not advice. The messenger doesn’t create the content but reveals it. Too often, we think about information as something we must make palatable: the right phrasing or tone so as to not be too off-putting. There is strategy in how we share the gospel, but at heart it’s not up to us. The gospel is not advice to be packaged for consumer comfort. It’s a truth to be revealed, unveiled, pronounced. Sometimes boldly, sometimes quietly over time, but news nonetheless.

Listen to the angels in Luke 2: “Behold, I bring you good news.” The Christmas story is an announcement. It is not a story about moral examples, ethics, aphorisms, or a systematic theology. At the core, it is something that blazes into our lives like the text box across my screen: here is news you should know. What are you going to do about it?

Mary Sings A Prayer

“My soul magnifies the Lord.” – Luke 1:46

What does it take to know scripture so well that its words are the ones that you think and speak during the most critical moments of your life? 

Mary’s song in Luke 1 is very similar to Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel chapter 2: too similar to escape notice, yet not an exact replica. Both are about God exalting the lowly and bringing down the proud, about the poor versus the rich and the hungry versus the full. Both rejoice in God’s holiness and have the same movement from personal to corporate deliverance. But the phrases are never exactly the same. “My heart rejoices… in your deliverance,” prays Hannah. “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior,” sings Mary. “The bows of the mighty are broken,” prays Hannah. “He has brought down the mighty,” sings Mary. “My heart exults in the Lord,” prays Hannah. “My soul magnifies the Lord,” sings Mary.

It’s almost as if Mary has taken Hannah’s words and internalized them so deeply that they can rise back out of her, transformed now by Mary’s own experience. And Mary was, well, a nobody. She was a poor peasant girl from a small town nobody cared about. She was no Jewish scholar. When she goes with Joseph later to present Jesus at the temple, they bring two birds, meaning they couldn’t even afford one lamb. She calls herself someone “of humble estate.” Yet at this significant moment in her life, words rise out of her that Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls, “the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung.”

What does it take for scripture to rise out of us like that? The picture I get is a steepening, a saturation, a deep kind of working-through. The way tea leaves steep in water: received, unfurling, releasing, until every part of the water is changed, the new aroma rising up into the air. This is no momentary encounter. Think of the things that rise unbidden in you: lyrics of an oft-played song, stanzas of a well-loved poem, words spoken by someone loved but now gone. Who knows if Hannah was a person like that to Mary, a mentor perhaps, who gave her hope through her own trials? Are there people in the scriptures who have been that to you? How do you saturate yourself with scripture?

Intercession

“And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped.” – Numbers 16:36

This is an incredible picture if ever there was one: Aaron, clad in the robes of the high priest, holding the censer with holy fire and incense (see Exodus 30), running into defilement and death, through over fourteen thousand corpses, to stand at the live front of the contagion. Standing between the living and the dead. Surely Aaron prefigures Christ: he loves his own people though they rejected and spoke out against him. He leaves a place of safety for uncleanliness and exposure to possible death. Even Moses could not go: only Aaron, the appointed high priest, could act out the very essence of what his office entailed, literally interposing himself between the deserved death of his people and the wrath of a holy God. 

Christ acted as our high priest through his incarnation and atoning death: but he also continues to intercede for us. “Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8:34). “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). He intercedes for us as our advocate (1 John 2), and also through his prayers for us (Luke 22:32, John 17).

“I’ll pray for you” has become over-spoken to the point of meaninglessness—a while ago, I decided never to say those words unless immediately followed by said prayer, lest I forget—but this notion is not a platitude for Jesus. He exists perpetually to make intercession for us. His work for us did not stop at the cross. He prays for us. And not only Jesus, but the Holy Spirit: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). You would think if we didn’t know what to pray for, the Spirit would help by, well, telling us what to pray for—but he intercedes for us instead. He himself speaks for us.

I tend to think, and I’m constantly told, that I can speak for myself most of the time, but the truth is, I am beset by the plague of my pride and my sin. I don’t just need coaching; I need someone to speak for me. And that is what God does. I consider how encouraged I feel when I know or feel or hear someone praying for me, or acting on my behalf. I think, what does it mean to me that Jesus is advocating for me in the heavenly realms, right there before God? That the Spirit himself groans in intercession for me? That all of this happens now? How could I not feel deeply and undeservedly loved? I think of Aaron, who despite being around 100 years old is not walking, but running, into the plague. How could I not desire in Christ-like-ness to intercede for others with the same sense of fervency and love?