Body – AD CAELOS

Priorities

Seven miles east of Wisdom, Montana. Summer 2023.

I’d like to share a few thoughts this morning about these verses from Luke:

“…great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.’” Luke 14:25-26 (ESV)

Did he really just say hate?

There is simply no getting around the fact that this is a very hard word from our Lord. Yes, it’s hard, but it’s not harsh. Look, as always, it is decidedly not the case that what Jesus says to us wasn’t thought through very well, or that it was uttered in anger or with malice.

The word is meant to stop us our tracks.

If we believe that Jesus wants us to despise those who by blood and marriage are closest to us, to turn and suddenly desire bad things to happen to our loved ones, frankly, we haven’t at all been paying very close attention. And it should also be readily apparent that, no, we are not being called to actively seek our own demise. Both would be quite unnatural. And wrong.

But it is true that Jesus is asking us here to do something unnatural: He is asking us to put him first. This is about inordinate loves, of putting good things ahead of the most important thing.

He does, however, want us to understand the very real possibility that in putting him first, we might very well lose our wife, our children, our brothers and sisters. And yes, even our own lives.

“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 16:25 (ESV)

A few thoughts on 1 Corinthians:12-13

“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. (ESV)

In the quoted sections in these verses, Paul is directly responding to statements made by the Corinthian church apparently intended to justify their actions, their misuse of God’s grace. Yes, we are freed from the legal consequences of our sin. But what rightly follows? How are we to respond?

What does Paul mean by “helpful”? That which leads to flourishing, which is what God desires.

What does it mean to be “dominated” by something? Well, addiction is an obvious answer. But we are dominated by anything to which we give inordinate attention or effort. (See Augustine’s “misordered loves.”)

What does it mean that God will “destroy” the stomach and food? It’s a reminder, I think, that we are but dust. It is a call to humility, a reminder of God’s power.

We do well to remember that God is both love, which in Christ’s acts on the cross liberates us from the bondage of sin, as well as holiness, without which we would not have needed liberation.

What is moral, sexually? Well, let’s look at God’s intention.

Sex is an innocently wonderful, pure gift that God gives to husband and wife. It is meant to be enjoyed, to lead to deeper spousal connection — and of course to produce children. It is a gift begetting gifts.

Now, married people, you might be telling yourself, “I’m good – I’ve never touched anyone other than my spouse.” If so, consider this: Our Lord tells us elsewhere that the standards are so high that even lustfully gazing on someone who is not your spouse rises to the standard of adultery.

I think the point here is that while we are now free from the condemnation that rightly results from our choices, we are not then “freed” to simply go on doing what our “flesh” desires. The changed heart that results from the knowledge of being made right with God will, as a consequence, be repulsed by immoral behavior.

How we think and act is evidence of that changed heart.

The natural result of being set free from rightful condemnation isn’t a desire to go on doing what got you to the point of needing salvation. If you’re in the habit of stuffing yourself with food that’s not good for you, you don’t go right back to the trough after you’ve been freed from that bondage. Let me put it another way: Only a fool would think that after being pulled from the fire, cleaned up, burns healed, it’s a good idea to run right back into the fire. To do so would be to be stupid and thankless.

How to find peace on the roads, part one

You’re a well-put-together person. You’re kind to strangers, hold the door for the person behind you at the shopping mall entrance, always tip well, and love your spouse and children. People just really like you.

All that changes when you get behind the wheel of an automobile. Have you ever stopped to wonder why?

How is it that you can be such an amazing human being off the roads, and then turn into either a) a selfish monster from hell — willing to mow down grandma in order to get a thirty foot advantage over the next car, willing to endanger the lives of a sweet, little family in a minivan just so you can get to your destination four minutes earlier — or b) a quivering ball of cowardly jelly?

Let’s say that early one Saturday morning, you decide you want to surprise your still-sleeping family with breakfast. Happy and hopeful for the day, you jump in the car to take a quick jaunt down to your favorite local donut shop. You don’t get a quarter mile from the house when some bozo in a jacked-up Ford F-350 decides that, of all the open spaces on the quiet streets of your little neighborhood at 6:30am, he likes the space about 48 inches from your rear bumper. Instantly, your mood goes from happy and hopeful to furious or scared. Or both.

Why do you respond this way? Why do we respond that way? The simple answer is that the threat represented by the jerk in the Ford causes an autonomic, physiological, biochemical response called “fight or flight.” Those are the two possible responses to such stress: anger and aggression, or fear and the need to quickly get away.

Fight or flight comprises the great messy stew that are the roads. Somebody cuts you off, you get angry, so you cut the next guy off. Somebody scares you by pulling up on your tail, so you speed up and tailgate the next guy. Next thing you know, you’re either fearfully pulled over to the far lane driving 30 when everyone else is doing 70mph, or you’re the one in the F-350, terrorizing good people.

It seems an inescapable cycle. But it is possible to decide to check out of the game and find peace on the roads. In the next post, I’ll tell you how.

Everybody worships

When your day is long
And the night, the night is yours alone
When you’re sure you’ve had enough
Of this life, well hang on
Don’t let yourself go
‘Cause everybody cries
Everybody hurts sometimes
So hold on.
R.E.M.

Whether you’re having a bad day, going through a bit of a rough patch, or having a bad life, I highly recommend watching R.E.M.’s 2008 Hyde Park performance of “Everybody Hurts” on YouTube. It’s wonderfully delivered and a very moving reminder of our common humanity. It’ll give you some comfort.

Everybody hurts. It’s also true that everybody worships. It doesn’t matter if you’re Christian, Buddhist, a New Ager, Agnostic, or Atheist, something in between or none of the above, if you’re a human being, you will inevitably worship.

Don’t be put off by the word. In this context, worship simply means to have something — a person or idea or philosophy, whatever — in which you place your hope, your identity, your meaning. What we put there often has to do with how deeply we hurt, whether we find ourselves moving towards despair.

At the end of the day, we’ve got two choices in terms of what we worship: the Creator or the created. Put your hope in the latter and you’ll be disappointed every single time. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but eventually you will be let down.

God will never, ever, ever let you down. Build your house on rock, not sand.

A Lord’s Prayer

Our Father in heaven, holy is Your name. May we utter it only in reverence

Continue to bring to earth the Kingdom You initiated that Easter morning so many years ago

May Your will be done here, as it is now and has ever been done in Heaven

Holy Spirit, this day, guide our steps that we may do the Father’s will

Give us that which will sustain our bodies, enough for today

We humbly ask that You forgive the evil we have done, just as we forgive all wrongs that have been done to us. No man, woman, or child owes us anything — we hereby release any and all such debts

Forbid that we should yield to temptation

And deliver us from the schemes of the evil one

It is in Jesus’ name that we pray

Amen.