Awkward!

Text: Matthew 5:1-12

Focus: The Beatitudes

Function: To help people live by Christian instead of worldly principles.

Form: GOK

Intro:

Perhaps you have seen the tire commercial about the guy who finally makes it to the top of the mountain to ask the guru a profound question and instead of asking “what is the meaning of life” he asks him what is the best tire to buy.

In the history of humanity, people have been seeking for answers to the biggest questions in life.

One of the biggest is this: “how can I be happy?”

What brings happiness?

Is Christianity about bringing happiness to people?

Is Jesus promising happiness in this passage?

Are the beatitudes, the title of this list of blessings, a formula for happiness?

You may say, "why use the word "happy?"

In the beatitudes, theologians and translators are mixed about the translation being “blessed are” or “happy are” or “fortunate are.”

I have met people who have been fortunate in their life and have equated that with happiness.

I have met people who attribute their good fortune to blessings, with the implication that the blessings are from “above,” and that has created their happiness.

I have met people who claim to be happy because they perceive that have no needs.

I have met people who are successful who are happy.

I have met people who have been successful and therefore they believe that they must be, or should be, happy but they doubt.

At the same time, we have met people who perceive themselves to be successful who are miserable.

We have met people who have little, or no money, and are very happy.

And I have met people who perceive themselves to be failures who are miserable.

I am not an expert on happiness, but the definition of happiness in our consumerist culture, and Jesus' are different.

What is our standard of happiness?

What is our measure of being blessed?

What is our standard of success?

Wouldn't life be easy if we could find some list of rules and principles that will insure that no matter what, we would be happy?

Wouldn't it be great if we could buy it?

Doesn't the book of Job teach us that God is not confined to some sort of box whereby if we do x, y and z in the right way, or right order, as if there is some sort of formula we are guaranteed success or good fortune?

Job's counselors were convinced that x, y, and z brought blessings and not x, y, and z brought curses, therefore Job must be a sinner.

But Ecclesiastes tells us that the battle is not to the strong, the race to the swift, riches to the wise, but time and chance happens to all of us.

Some people are lucky, some aren’t.

And we, I, have been guilty of promising happiness to people in order to convince them to trust Jesus.

People are the same, but our culture is different than the one to which Jesus is preaching.

We are living in a consumerist culture. We are constantly bombarded with the message that in order to be happy, we must have more.

I attended a conference where Don Miller, the author of Blue Like Jazz was speaking.

He is a Christian author with a wide appeal to the Millennial Christian crowd.

He told us his first writing gig was writing advertising copy and he was given this formula for marketing a product.

It is a simple two step process:

1. Convince people that they are not happy
2. Convince people that if they invest in our product you will be happy.

(pause after) Convince people they are not happy....

Consequently, in our culture, according to Don Miller, nearly 3,000 times a day, each day, we hear the message that we are not happy.

And then his lecture took a turn and he explained to us how at times the Church feels a need to sell itself, or to market ourselves, in order to be faithful.

For example we, I, have said: "there is a whole in your heart that only Jesus can fill."

"You can be the person God designed you to be."

"You can be fulfilled."

Listen folks, I have made those promises many times in my desire to preach the good news that Jesus came to save us.

But when Don said that, it confirmed a suspicion that was gnawing at my gut for quite a while.

Was I selling Jesus? Or was I inviting people into a relationship with Him? Was I using this same marketing principle to evangelize?

Have I been conditioned by our culture to sell Jesus?

As much as we want to resist this conditioning, it is hard to overcome because we hear the message thousands of times A DAY.

Now, let's go back to these beatitudes.

Because, in this consumerist culture perhaps we have created a sort of Pavlovian response to advertising. But the beatitudes expose values that are much different.

Back then they had markets with street venders hawking their goods, they had snake oil salesman with a lot of flash and style come into their towns, they probably even had door to door salesmen.

But there was no where near the 3,000 times a day when we are told that we are not enough, and are probably not happy unless we buy a certain product.

The Beatitudes introduce the Sermon on the Mount which we will be studying for the next few weeks. And Jesus was preaching this "Sermon on the Mount," these beatitudes to a people who were oppressed, virtual slaves to Rome, who were living in a sort of feudal system to their kinsman who were Roman collaborators.

These people knew hardship, pain and oppression.

And Jesus gives them principles about what it means to be His followers in the now present Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

These are the actions and consequences of Jesus' followers.

These principles are backwards, or upside down compared to the world's promises of blessings.

As Christians, we live by a different set of principles, and if we are trying to market Jesus to a culture that has been conditioned to be consumer driven, then our sales tool is awkward.

Awkward. Listen to these statements of Jesus:

“If you want to live forever, you must die to yourselves.”

“If you want to be great among people, be their servant instead of their master.”

Blessed are the poor in Spirit, and just as inspired as the gospel of Matthew is the gospel of Luke, and Luke, in order to emphasize what he thought Jesus' meaning is left out the words “in Spirit” and says only, “blessed are the poor.”

“Blessed are the poor?” We'll get back to that.

Blessed are the sad, they get comfort. Notice, he never says their problems will go away.

Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those, who, in the NLT translation hunger and thirst for justice, a better translation of the Greek word Diakonos. Blessed are those who long to see the wrongs turned to right.

Blessed are those who work for peace instead of violence.

Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed are those who are persecuted for doing the right, especially those persecuted for following Jesus.

This is not a list of actions that if we do them they provide the automatic consequence of happiness. That is not Jesus' intention.

In our consumer culture, we want something we can do, something we can obtain, even something we can buy to maintain control so that we can finally rest.

But this list, this list of behaviors, this list of attitudes goes out to a group of people who in many parts of their lives have little control.

This is a list of some of the behaviors of Jesus' followers.

They are merciful, they care about doing the right thing, they hunger for the right things to happen, they are pure in heart, they are meek, and etc.

It isn't a set of promises to live a blessed life. It is a lifestyle that happens, that flows out of the hearts and spirits of those who have been given comfort and are restored to God through the power of the Holy Spirit and trust in Jesus.

When Jesus says that they are blessed if they are meek, it is huge. These people lived under the boot of one of the most oppressive regimes that ever rose to world power when they were under the boots of the Roman legions.

The Cross is the symbol of our faith, but at the time the cross was a terrible symbol. It meant: “Obey the Roman conquerors or face terrible results.”

They had to be meek in the face of their oppressors to survive, and Jesus tells them that resisting evil with violence is not the path to blessings.

Remember, the Kingdom of heaven is here and now, and it is not a human kingdom.

Blessed are the poor, “poor in spirit” or just “poor.” I look at it as blessed are the broken.

Blessed are the broken. You see, this is a contrast to worldly measures of success. Jesus said: "theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Broken people do not think of themselves are blessed. But theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

We do not think of it that way, but I can tell you that time spent away from our consumer driven culture shows me a lot. I have spent several weeks in the ghettos of Tijuana, or in the desolate villages of Haiti and in those two places, I have found the happiest people I have ever met.

The Christian communities and the interdependence among believers, is amazing.

I used to think: "well, they do not really know what they are missing."

But they are not bombarded with the 3,000 times a day message that somehow their lives are incomplete because....

They have time for each other.

The kingdom of heaven is here and now in their lives.

When we think about the broken, we have to remember that Jesus calls them “blessed.”

Blessed are those who mourn.

This is one that relates to a consumerist culture and a non consumerist culture.

We all mourn.

I did my chaplain residency in a downtown hospital in Indy.

It amazed me to see the difference in the way death is handled between believers and non believers.

What a great hope we have!

Blessed are those with that hope, because the pain of loss is still the same, but we know that it is temporary.

I love this. Jesus does not say blessed are those who mourn because they can claim a better outcome by faith, if they believe enough.

He doesn't promise deliverance from these painful human conditions.

Christianity is not a genie in a bottle that gives us some sort of outcome that transcends the problems of this world.

No, by faith, it gives us a relationship with Jesus Himself who lost a father at a young age, who was persecuted, who didn't even have a pillow to lay his head on.

By the standards of a consumerist society, he was a failure.

But by the standards that make human living possible, that make human living meaningful, that embraces both the messiness and ugliness of all the problems of deprivation in our culture, these beatitudes give expression to the life that God has for us.

(If time, share the Haiti Story)

That Never Dawned on Me!

  January 19, 2014

Text: Matthew 4:12-25

Focus: Kingdom of Heaven

Function: To help people understand the importance of living for heaven now.

Form: Story Telling

Intro:

I love Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of the Bible called “The Message.”

Let me read vs 16 from The Message: (SHOW)

¹⁶People sitting out their lives in the dark
    saw a huge light;
Sitting in that dark, dark country of death,
    they watched the sun come up.

This is the story of a new day dawning, a new hope.

That thought goes well with my favorite Christmas Hymn, “Oh Holy Night.”

There is this cadence to the song and it builds a sort of suspense and we get to one of the mysteries of the Nativity: “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoicing...”

A thrill of hope to people who are weary.

Isn't that why the word Gospel means “Good News?”

And thing is, the Good News affects every area of life.

It used to be that we only focused on the question of sin, eternity, heaven and or hell and that the good news was that we eventually get to heaven.

But there is more to it in this passage:

Look at verse 17, ¹⁷From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Jesus is picking up John the Baptist's message and repeats something exciting. Essentially Jesus is saying: The Kingdom of Heaven is not merely in heaven, it isn't something that will happen to you later, after you die, it's reality has already begun. Therefore, it is time to change you thinking.”

All of that is meant in the statement: “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

How do you feel when you hear the word “repent?” (pause)

I don't like the word.

It sounds religious.

It sounds judgmental.

It sounds like a word that may be abused by a form of false religion.

But Literally, the word means to change you direction, or your thinking.

And I believe that it is time for the Church, especially in the West, to change its thinking about how we present the good news.

Think about what Jesus was actually saying, not about context with which we have heard the word “repent” for most of our lives.

To be true to the text, to keep this in the context of Jesus' meaning, in order to communicate the idea in a way that can be heard in our culture, I like to rephrase it to “change your thinking, God's relationship with humanity isn't merely about heaven, it has already begun.”

I like to add, not that Jesus missed anything, but I like to add: “welcome to God's family.” “Welcome back.”

It isn't that the word repent is wrong, it's right there in the Bible, but it carries a connotation that relates to the abuse of shame as a means to motivate people.

But that isn't even the focus of Jesus proclamation. Jesus is telling us, “The Kingdom of God at hand. It is present, not merely future.”

And I think it is time for the church to rethink that.

Because, if the Kingdom of God is here and now, it changes the way we live.

When Jesus said that God's Spirit had anointed Him to proclaim Good News to the poor, to the prisoner, to the oppressed, to the captive and to proclaim the year of Jubilee, which was the 50^th year in the Jewish Calendar where every debt was canceled, Jesus was preaching good news.

The story in today's text goes on to say how James, John, Peter and Andrew were so awed by this good news that they left everything, family and business to follow Jesus.

The story includes how people from everywhere are excited by Jesus' teaching and miracles and they are flocking to Him for Good News.

For some reason, the idea that the Kingdom of God is here, as real in the present as it is in the future was a new teaching that hadn't dawned on people until John the Baptist started preaching it.

So, the word Repent, the idea of changing our thinking, comes out strongly from Jesus mouth.

Have we lost the present tense thinking of God's kingdom? Sometimes we have. Or at least, we haven't included it well enough when we proclaim the gospel.

I think at times that we in the Church are less aware of it as those who are outside looking in.

We live in a Post-Christian/Post-Modern world.

In many ways, we have been marginalized to the edges of our culture. In many places, we have even lost our seat at the table. And maybe, we are partly to blame.

This is the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry and He is causing quite a stir.

Now remember, Jesus died as an atonement for our sins, but they killed Him because His teaching about God's Kingdom being here and now instead of just in the future insulted the religious and financial powers in the system.

He spoke truth to religious values that subverted the Spirit of the Law, which is to love one another.

“Change your thinking” is what Jesus is telling them.

Think about what God wants to do with you, today.

How might it be partly our fault?

There are elements that try to motivate Christians through the fear of losing our power.

And it isn't any different now than it was then when Jesus makes this proclamation.

The religious leaders felt like they were the watchmen on the walls pointing out any hint of a violation against God's law.

In the Old Testament, they were right in doing so. After all, 400 years before, the nation was destroyed for ignoring God's law.

To them, it wasn't going to happen again on their watch.

More than likely, they were trying to do the right thing but they got so focused on the letters of the law that they missed God's grace completely.

And Jesus starts out telling them to stop thinking that way.

We live in a Post-Christian/post-modern world.

In England, there are 16,000 ordained preachers and 50,000 registered psychics.

It isn't the way it was when I was in Seminary.

In Seminary, I learned how to defend the faith against in the age of modernity.

The greatest challenge to faith were those who claimed that God, or the idea of God, is dead.

That isn't our culture today. Today, people are spiritual.

I believe that today's culture realized that Science and Reason, as wonderful as it is, cannot by itself answer all the questions of humanity. The most obvious one is this: “We can build a nuclear bomb, but should we use it?”

Somewhere spirituality needs to come in and help us figure out our moral dilemmas.

People are spiritual, but they are not necessarily looking for Christianity to answer the questions.

And some of that is our fault.

Jesus is still saying: Change your thinking about what the Kingdom of God means.

The fact that the Kingdom of heaven had come already is a fulfillment of prophesy. Let me re-read vs 16:

¹⁶People sitting out their lives in the dark
    saw a huge light;
Sitting in that dark, dark country of death,
    they watched the sun come up.

Something was beginning to dawn on them.

And this something was destined to change the world.

They saw it.

It was so profound that when Jesus invited Peter, Andrew, James and John to be a part of this present day Kingdom of God, this family, they left everything behind immediately to follow Jesus.

Good news was here!

People from all over start coming to Jesus to be healed, from pain, emotional problems, spiritual bondage, and physical illnesses.

And God's grace goes out to them with only one condition, believe.

And it wasn't to believe in a whole set of doctrines, creeds, laws, principles, political values, and religious duties. It was simple grace to believe in God's unconditional love for humanity.

It was a year of celebration where all debts were canceled by God.

Grace is a great story!

Why is it that our culture is becoming more Spiritual but less Christian?

Could it be that our message of Grace is getting overshadowed by our frustration with our lack of influence at the table of cultural ideas?

Perhaps if more Christians lived by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Christian principles of passive resistance and non-violence, it wouldn't be that way.

These were Christians who were really frustrated, but instead of rancor, they lived out Jesus' teaching and God starting working on their behalf.

But we, at times, are tempted to go back to that thinking that condemned the Pharisees whereby they were only willing to give grace to people they thought deserved it.

And they felt they were supposed to do it.

They thought that the sins of other people had lead Israel into calamity and it was there job to weed out irreligious practices.

And now, all of a sudden, Jesus comes into the scene and the crowds start following him in huge numbers.

And they follow because God's grace is dawning on them. A message they had not heard from their leaders.

Are we saying it well enough?

Or, are we proclaiming our frustration at our lack of influence?

The message of frustration isn't heard as good news.

So what if we are persecuted? Didn't Jesus promise us that very outcome?

We have got good news. We have the good news that God loves every single person no matter what.

Jesus is saying: “Change your thinking.” He is saying it to us.

Change our thinking.

The Old Testament, the society was condemned for not following God's laws. But the New Testament is a New Covenant and it has to do with what happens when we start living as if the principles of God's complete generosity and mercy.

You see. If the Kingdom of heaven has only to do with the future after we die, things like eternity, judgment, heaven and hell, then it is okay to live only for this world and its rewards.

We come to Church, we get saved, get baptized, we give our 10% and we, being saved by faith, are cleared for heaven.

I do. And this message is important. It is.

But the one on the outside hears a message about eternity, heaven, hell and has too many other questions that we may be forgetting to answer.

This Spiritual Culture is in love with the idea of who Jesus is/was, (SHOW PICTURE).

I hope the picture does not offend you.

It illustrates the idea that people love Jesus, or the idea of Jesus. But they are not sure the Church still reflects it.

Here is what changes when we consider the Kingdom of Heaven both in the present and the future instead of just in the future: “Redemption is holistic.”

Jesus came to heal the world.

He left us, the Church, here to continue the Work of Jesus, simply, peacefully and together.

And the message is good news.

Sometimes I think in terms of giving grace or help only to people who I think deserve it.

But in the weeks after 9/11, I had to force myself to look at a picture of Osama Bin Laden, pray for him, forgive him and remind myself that Jesus loves that man as much as He loves me.

It wasn't easy.

Here is my hope for the Church. I hope that people who are spiritual and are looking for answers will look again at the Church and say: “That never dawned on me!”

Maybe that is the disconnect that stops people from looking back to the Church for answers.

I am sure it does not happen here, but when preachers get on TV and condemn all of Islam because of the actions of about 10% of them, when preachers condemn the poor for being lazy, or the rich for being greedy, the right for being angry or the left for being naïve, they have forgotten this essential part of Jesus ministry.

Jesus gave grace to everyone without exception.

He healed the Synagogue ruler's daughter; He looked at the rich young man and loved him; He healed the Roman oppressor's slave; He even offered Judas a way out at the last minute.

He came to save and restore humanity.

His healing started right there and then, it wasn't merely for the future.

And I ask God all the time, how can I be a part of that present day healing?

How can we?

Author's note, do you want to hear it a little clearer? This article was published a few days after I preached this message.

So What?

  January 12, 2014

Text: Micah 6:8

Focus: Christian Living

Function: To help Agape COB understand my passion for ministry.

Form: Storytelling/exposition

Intro:

Micah 6:8

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

⁸He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?

I want to thank you, and God for this chance to serve you here at Agape Church.

When I think that I get to pastor a Church that is so passionate about what it means to be a Christian that they decided to name themselves “Agape,” “Love,” I am overwhelmed. I am.

Love... God's Love... Unconditional love... Love given in spite of who we are... What an ethos! What a great commitment! Jesus said: “You will know who truly is my disciple by the love they have for each other.” (John 13:35)

How Cool is that?

And here I am!

(look up) Thank you, Jesus!

Praise God. Thank you.

So thanks again for inviting me to share this journey with you.

Now, to date myself a little.

How many remember Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie?

There is a line in there where he says: “And they all moved away from me on the bench there...”

It was a reference to his being convicted for a petty crime when he was trying to establish credibility with a bunch of ex-felons.

I always thought it to be a funny line, “they allll moved away from me there...”

I have a few moments that I am sort of reluctant to share because “you all might move away from me on the bench...” and wonder about my credibility.

It has to do with a few times when I believe I experienced a very direct and personal moving by the Holy Spirit.

Some people find that hard to understand because it isn't in their experience, or they have experienced religious abuse by someone claiming to be moved by the Spirit of God.

But it has to do with the two foundational scriptures that form my life: Luke 4:18, 19 and Micah 6:8.

In 1979, I was called by God to help a brother plant a Church in Atlantic City, NJ.

A few weeks before we left Fort Wayne for the East Coast, I was in prayer and I believe that I heard in my head, very clearly, “Luke 4:18.”

It was the day that God confirmed my call into ministry. It informed the passion and direction that I believe that God calls the Church to.

After 3 years of assisting another man, and learning quite a bit, I began formal education right here in Fort Wayne at Fort Wayne Bible College.

As I was studying for ministry and learning the finer points of my theology we discussed which translation was the best, whether or not we had eternal security, when the rapture would occur and how to share the faith both in the context of the city we live in, in the suburbs and to the world as an whole.

Now the college had its roots in Mennonite Theology but its peace and justice position had sort of gone by the wayside after WWII.

Without being raised Brethren, I came to the college believing in the doctrines of non-resistance, turning the other cheek and foot-washing in the communion service.

However, there were elements that were trying to get back that peace and justice witness.

The Sociology and History teacher had a big impact on me. The first time I talked with him, he told me how important his Brethren Church back home was because he felt like they were an authentic Christian community.

I wondered what that meant and he explained it by saying that they were a New Testament Church.

Well, I thought “Aren't all churches New Testament?”

Then he got a little bit political. Just a little. He never attacked anyone. But, he would contrast what I call “Civic Religion” and “New Testament Christianity.”

And sometimes he would say things that were pretty controversial.

For example. One day he said that we didn't have the right to oppose abortion until women who were in a difficult pregnancy were welcome without judgment and the Church and society were prepared to care for the child.

And then he would duck behind the lectern, in jest, as if people were going to throw stones at him.

He ducked a lot, in jest.

He wasn't like TV political pundits on TV that exaggerate the perceived inconsistencies of the opposition. In a loving way, he made me think.

And my third year, they chose this verse Micah 6:8 as the “year verse.”

Do justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly. This is what God wants from us.

And it came at an opportune time in my life. Because at that time, as I was preparing to lead churches in Pastoral Ministry, I was faced with the big question: So What?

So What does God want from me?

So What does God want from us?

So What does God expect from the Church?

There is a worldwide divide in theology around the teaching of Jesus and what is important.

I call it the difference between the three days and the three years.

From Good Friday to Easter Sunday, for those three days, Jesus was providing salvation for us by His Suffering, death and resurrection.

The three years before the three days of Jesus' sacrifice, Jesus taught us how to live by the new commandment, the one that both He and Paul said would sum up the entire Old Testament. You know that new commandment, Love One Another.

Jesus spent three days saving us and He spent three years teaching us how to live, or how to love, whichever way you put it.

Around that time, in one of my classes, I heard a student say: “What good is it to feed a person who is starving, or to heal someone who is sick of all we do is prolong their life on earth before they die in hell. Missions should be about saving souls.”

And I said “Amen.” God forgive me.

Quickly, the professor reminded us of Jesus' teaching in Matthew 25 “welcome to the kingdom of God because when you fed an hungry person, you fed me...” and “depart from me because you saw a hungry person and refused to feed them. In so doing, you refused me.” The professor was quick to remind us that we do it because Jesus commanded it.

Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God.

I was in the midst of a sort of crisis of understanding and one day I was praying hard about it because I wanted to know that it was alright to focus on the entire Gospel, the three days of salvation, and the three years of living to glorify God by loving others.

The scripture is: What does God expect? What does God require? What should a bible/theology teacher/preacher focus on?

I was in a sort of angst.

And here is the second moment where you might move away from me on the bench.

Now, I have preached Micah 6:8 a few other times in my years, generally when I was candidating at a Church because it defines my passion.

But this will be special for you because only you can understand the next part.

One day I was driving East on Jefferson Street downtown Fort Wayne and I have to confess I wasn't paying as much attention to my driving as I was to my prayers.

I was crying out to God about this question and about what was important to Him and what He wanted me to do with my life.

I was wrapped up in prayer. I had my head down and was only watching the brake lights on the car ahead of me as I was calling out to God about what all this meant. I was contemplating that scripture: Micah 6:8 and asking God: “So What?”

I again heard a voice speak to me.

The voice said: “look up.”

I was just crossing Calhoun street, Clinton St was the next light and Lafayette St was a block and a half away.

When I looked up I saw the sign for the Matthew 25 Clinic. It is a ministry ran by St Mary's Roman Catholic Church.

Remember my Brethren Sociology professor?

He had a representative from the organization speak to our Chapel service at Bible College about their ministry.

They are still doing it. They see on average 115 people a day to provide nearly free dental, medical and vision care. It is all run as an outreach of that Church.

I'll never forget this moment.

Now, I love what they are doing and I am very ecumenical in my Christian faith. But I wasn't always.

I understood salvation and how to be saved pretty well. And for the most part, that understanding, at that time, did not include Roman Catholics.

I wish I could tell you that I had this great epiphany, maybe like Moses at the burning bush, but all I remember is that in my prayer I said to God: “That can't be, they Catholics.”

Folks, pray often. And when you do, don't argue with God.

God reminded me of Jesus' teaching, “I have other sheep who are not of this fold...”

I was blown away with a profound new understanding of the bigness and greatness of God.

His passion is saving, healing and redeeming humanity. And He loves us. And God is full of mercy. He is full of justice. And next to Him, we need to be humble.

Do Justice.

You know the phrase by Edmund Burke: All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

Don't “not do anything.” Do justice.

This is an active command. Like Jesus with the woman caught in adultery. He did justice and spoke up for her.

It is our responsibility.

There is an anonymous quote that drives the passion of Richard Stern, the President of World Vision:

“Sometimes I would like to ask God why He allows poverty, suffering, and injustice when He could do something about it.”

“Well, why don’t you ask Him?”

“Because I’m afraid He would ask me the same question.”

Doing Justice is an active command.

Do this: Justice.

Then have a corresponding passion: Love Mercy.

Love Mercy. This is my favorite of the three.

Rejoice in mercy. When someone, even your enemy succeeds, be happy for them.

Love mercy.

You know the story of the prodigal son.

I love it because it tells the story of how the Father ran to meet the son who did not deserve mercy.

But the story is told by Jesus in response to the Pharisees who were upset at Jesus giving mercy to people who they didn't think deserved it.

The story is really about the elder brother who is bitter about God's forgiveness.

And Jesus tells the story to expose the religious leaders resentment toward grace.

Don't resent mercy.

My son Philip and I work with a prison ministry called Kairos. It has a foundational principle, “Listen, Listen, Love, Love.”

Some of the guards are happy about our work. Some of them are resentful and others are hopeful.

But we have big, huge, tough and scary looking men stand and weep before their inmates when they realize just how much God loves them.

So the action is “doing justice,” the passion is “loving mercy,” and the attitude is “walking in humility before God.”

We have a great big danger of being to proud of our faith.

Remember my argument with God: “But they are Catholics?”

God is in the business of saving, healing, restoring both people to Him and people to each other.

What arrogance for me to think that I have the corner on truth.

God saved us because of His mercy, not because of our wonderful ability to believe.

The Pharisee and the sinner were in the temple praying. The Pharisee was saying to God, “at least I am not like this guy...” And the sinner was saying “God be merciful to me...”

I have to confess, I am still working on this. It is simple when I remember that God is God of the poor and the rich. God is the God of those on right and on the left. God is the God of the liberal and the conservative.

Sin bugs me. It is an offense to the cross of Christ.

But it is my own sin that bothers me the most. So, instead of saying: “love the sinner, hate the sin,” I say, “love the sinner, hate my own sin.”

If we succeeded in living a Christian life, it is by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.