God of the Gaps: The Mystery of Good

The title of this sermon series, “God of the Gaps”, comes from the field of Christian apologetics. “Apologetics” is a theological term that has little to do with what we think of as an apology. For us, an apology is an expression of remorse, an aspect of contrition for a mistake or misdeed. However, the original Greed word apologia means a verbal defense, a proof of one’s innocence. While our apologies frequently turn into this kind of self-justification, generally speaking when someone begins by offering an apology and ends up defending what they did, we conclude that the contrition—such as it was—was not from the heart.

Christian apologetics has more of the original sense of an apologia. Many of Paul’s speeches in the NT, and many of the writings of the early church, were a defense of Christianity, explaining Christianity to non-believers (e.g. Acts 17:16-34). Christians frequently labor under the belief that a logical, reasonable presentation Christianity ought to convince people by its merits alone. Figure out what people need, explain how Christianity meets that need, and people will come. Figure out what about Christianity puts people off, explain to those people why they’ve misunderstood the essentials of the faith, and they will come. (Is this your experience—as a believer or as an apologist—or is something missing here?)

“God of the Gaps” was a term from Christian apologetics wherein Christians attempted to accept current scientific theories while ascribing all of the gaps in the scientific theories to God. For example, “Since we cannot prove how life started, it must have started due to an act of God.” The problem with this general approach was that it was spurious logic; as such, it convinced few scientific skeptics. Moreover, as science has advanced, the gaps in scientific theories have grown smaller.

This sermon series—which we’re about halfway through—is a series on Christian spirituality. How is it that we come to know God? What happens when we are spiritually stuck? Traditionally, holiness has been equated to perfection, and we have labored mightily to be perfect. However, a wrong-headed spirituality of perfectionism is neither holy nor healthy. Instead, what happens when we look for God in the gaps between who we are and who we are called to be? So far, what the messages have included:

If you would find God, begin by quit pretending to be god of your own life.

If you would find God, empty yourself of false gods, and wait for God to fill you.

If you would find God, admit that you’ll never be perfect (knowing that God will work in you anyway!).

If you would find God, look for God at work in unlikely places (in sin and in sinners).

If you would find God, look for where God is working and join him there.

If you would find God, stay with the unlovable person until you find something to love.

If you would find God, give up your stories for God’s stories.

Christian apologetics fails when it tries to find God in the gaps within natural science. Rather, God may be found when we look for him in the gaps in our spirit. We cannot force him to change us; we cannot fill ourselves with his Spirit. Instead of laboring to see him in our careful observation of virtue, we humbly wait to find him at work in that unlikely place: that part of our life that is still broken and hurting.

Mark 4:26-29

Commentary

Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the synoptic gospels, because they contain similar stories and have a similar style. Nevertheless, each of the three has unique stories and parables. Only Matthew recounts the parable of the wheat and the tares; only Luke recounts the parable of the prodigal son; and only Mark recounts this parable of the mysteriously-growing seed.

The parable contains 3 main actions: sowing; growing; & harvesting. These actions correspond to the spreading of the gospel, the response to the gospel, and the ultimate destiny of all who believe. The main point of the parable (and most parables have only one main point) is the disconnection of the three actions; neither the sower nor the harvester can force the middle phase. Growth within God’s kingdom is a mystery: it happens at its own speed; it happens in its own way; perhaps it doesn’t happen at all; but we know it when it has happened.

Application

The problem of evil has baffled mankind since Eden; perhaps because it can only be approached through facing the mystery of good, and we do not like to acknowledge that good is a mystery. — D.M. Dooling

If I have seen a movie (or read the book on which a movie is based) before Kathy has, my wife has the annoying habit of asking me what is going to happen in the movie. I’ve heard lots of rationalizations from her and others as to why I should “spoil” the movie by giving away the plot ahead of time:

I don’t want to get emotionally attached to characters that are about to die.

I don’t want to jump out of my skin when the villain appears (conversely, I don’t want to get excited if the scene is just a tease and the villain isn’t about to accost the hero).

I don’t like messes—is this problem going to be fixed, or not?

I just want to know how much longer this movie is going to last!

Leaving Kathy out of this, many of us have similar desires to control the action. (Have you ever watched a movie or read a book and said, “No! It shouldn’t have ended like that!”?) Far beyond movies, we want to control our bodies, our minds, our lovers, our families, our workplace, our church, even our God. Sometimes control is beneficial—watching one’s weight, food intake, rest, and hygiene can be important parts of good health. Sometimes control in one area of life promotes mental health—I enjoy running because I feel that I have a degree of control in running (how far and how fast I run, how much I decide to press on through pain, etc.) that I lack in other parts of my life. Sometimes control is a necessary part of a relationship—taking care of children or parents. More often control is detrimental—we are prone to obsess about that thing that we wish to control absolutely. Weight and diet control give way to anorexia; running becomes a “positive addiction”; control within a relationship becomes manipulation.

In our wish to control the uncontrollable, we stake the claim to be God (or, at least, be as God). If science will do our bidding—if we can manipulate the world without hocus pocus—well and good. If science has no framework for dealing with our woes, then we resort to a spiritualism of prayer, chants, incantations, and ritual in our attempts to will what cannot be willed. However God waits for us to submit our will to his, and therein lies the difference between willfulness and willingness:

Willfulness involves the demand for change—usually some change in realities outside the self, but also, at times, the demand for change in oneself. Willingness involves the acceptance that one is not in absolute control, thus opening up the possibility of being changed—being open to what change is possible even if one is not in control. (The Spirituality of Imperfection, p 122)

You will find God in the process of becoming open to change and then being changed. You are the head of wheat in the parable; you cannot force yourself to bear fruit, but you can be open to God bearing fruit in you. You will find God in the process of being open to losing control and then letting go of control. You may sow or you may reap, but don’t for a minute believe that you can force the seed to bear fruit or ripen.

Points to Ponder

The Discipline of Openness:
Willing What Cannot be Willed

Evangelicals traditionally have emphasized personal decision and responsibility as a part of conversion and discipleship. However, any effort on our part to improve ourselves without God at work in our lives is just another attempt at playing God.

In 12-step programs, the 5th, 6th, and 7th steps read:

5) Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6) Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7) Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Where are you now dealing with trials and troubles? Are you willing change or are you willing for change?

So, growth and fruitfulness within the kingdom of God is a mystery of the Spirit. So why do we blame the pastor, the choir director, the Bible study teacher, etc. when we don’t feel fed at church?

I said that the “God of the Gaps” apologetic is spurious logic, since God is confined to the gaps left by science; however, at the same time I say that you should seek God in the gaps between the person you are and the person God is calling you to be. Will medicine or psychology ever be able to eliminate the gaps between the person you are and the person God is calling you to be? Why or why not?

God of the Gaps: Spiritual Orienteering

A couple of weeks ago, I preached on the 1st half of Matthew 16—the Pharisees’ and Sadducees’ demand for a sign and Jesus’ warning to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees (“God of the Gaps: WYSIWYG”). I said that WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) applies to our spirituality as follows:

What we see with the eyes of our heart determines the type of peace, or shalom, we are prepared to receive.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were looking for God’s blessing in one part of their lives, while God was at work elsewhere in their lives and they missed it. We need to have the eyes to see; even so, we still need to look in the right place to see God at work. Looking in the wrong place leads us to conclude that God wants nothing to do with us. Hasidic Judaism tells a story of two young boys playing hide & seek:

[One] hid himself for some time, but his playmate did not look for him. Little Yechiel ran to Rabbi Baruch and said amid tears: “He did not look for me!”

The Rabbi said: “This is also God’s complaint, that we seek Him not.”

(The Spirituality of Imperfection, p 107)

God gives us the ability to see him; however, we seek him not, or seek him in the wrong place.

Matthew 16:13-28

Commentary

After the obstinate refusal of the Pharisees & Sadducees to see Jesus for who he is, Jesus asks his own disciples, “Who do you say I am?”

v16,18 You are the Christ ... you are Peter. Two revelations occur here: the spiritual truth of Jesus, and the spiritual truth of Peter. When we come to a new awareness of God, frequently there is a corresponding awareness of ourselves. Given all that we read about Simon Peter in the NT, Simon appeared rash, an “act first, think later” personality, yet Jesus calls him “Peter” (“The Rock”, or better yet, “Rocky”). The second half of v18 is a pun on Peter’s new name and a vision for Peter of his calling. There will be times later when Peter will need to remind himself of the confidence Jesus had in him.

v23 Satan! A third revelation: in a split-second, The Rock can become evil; the sure foundation perilous. All it takes is for Simon to lose focus.

things of God ... things of man. Simon’s vision went awry, because he was reading the wrong blueprint, the wrong playbook, the wrong map.

v28 see the Son of Man coming. Is this referring to the Transfiguration (next chapter), the resurrection, the Second Coming, or something else? When the disciples started to die, their understanding of this prophecy needed reevaluation!

Application

In Boy Scouts, orienteering is the ability to navigate across the countryside using only a compass and a topographic map—no GPS, no Garmin, no signposts. Real hardcore types learn to navigate without even a compass, relying only on the changing position of the sun to indicate north, east, etc. An orienteering competition between scout troops might involve a long series of directions like:

From the starting point, go 600 yards on bearing 15 degrees to the next flag; from that flag, go 2,000 yards on bearing 150 degrees to the next flag; from that flag, go 1,000 yards on bearing 270 degrees; etc.

Each flag has an ID, and one records the ID of each flag visited. Many counterfeit flags are set up as well in the vicinity of the correct flags. If one is off a degree or two, or a few feet each 100 yards, one may well reach one of the counterfeit flags, and thus record the wrong ID. Worse yet, once a counterfeit flag is reached, since it’s in the wrong position, the chance of reaching the correct flag on the next leg is not good. Typically, once one is off the mark, eventually one ends up someplace where there is no flag at all—correct or counterfeit. At that point one must begin backtracking to ascertain where one went astray.

In our lives we go orienteering spiritually. We have a spiritual compass—God—and a spiritual map:

Using this map gives some sense of place, of how things are located and how they fit; and this flows into a developing sense of how we fit, of self as “fitting” ... fitting into some meaningful whole. That “meaningful whole” is twofold: It involves first our relationships, for that is one name for our “fittings,” but it also involves and, indeed, is our very identity—who we are. In a very real sense, we are defined by our relationships, our connections with all reality ...

(The Spirituality of Imperfection, p 115)

Psychologists call the maps we use to orient ourselves “framing stories.” Framing stories are the stories we tell, and re-tell, to interpret our lives and to guide us forward through life. Sometimes our framing stories are useful and help us find that next flag: That time I got sued, I prayed and felt that God was telling me to pray for the person suing me; it was completely illogical, but I knew it was exactly what Jesus would have done, so I did it! Sometimes our framing stories are not useful and need to be replaced: I was minding my own business driving down the road, and some jerk from out of state cut me off; it took me 10 minutes to find a break in traffic, but I floored it to 90 mph, got ahead of the jerk, and hit the brakes hard, because nobody gets away with cutting me off!

When Jesus calls Simon “Satan”, Simon has just revealed one of the framing stories that runs his life: I keep my head down; I stay below the radar and out of trouble; I might not agree with what the government wants me to do, but I know enough to not draw attention to myself, because that’s what gets you killed.

Simon knows that there’s more to life than staying out of trouble—after all, he keeps asking Jesus when God is going to sweep through the nation and remove all of the Romans. He knows enough to say that Jesus is God’s pick to get things done (“Christ” meaning “the anointed one”). And God is at work giving Simon a new map, a new framing story: a story full of grace; a story full of improbable heroes and villains; a story that proclaims a different way of getting from where we are to where we want to be; a story with a surprise new identity for Simon (now aka “The Rock”) with a new destiny that would have been impossible to imagine the way that Simon, now Peter, used to live.

Peter’s problem is that he has not fully bought into this new way of living. As much as he wants to live by a new map, a new framing story we call the gospel, he reverts back to using the old map with disastrous results. Playing it safe when God calls us to follow into danger is more perilous than the danger itself!

There are at least 4 major airports into the Los Angeles area: LAX, Burbank, Ontario, and Orange County. I once had the misfortune to fly into one, rent a car, and fly out of another a few days later. Did you know that rental car agencies only give you a map that shows how to get back to the rental car agency at the airport you flew into? Having a map for the first agency was of no use whatsoever in getting to the second. What are your stories about when you tried to use the wrong map?

Like Peter, although God calls us to a new way of living (i.e., having in mind the things of God) we frequently revert back to our old habits (having in mind the things of man). We cannot pick and choose from moment to moment which way of living to follow and expect to get anywhere. That won’t work any better than using one airport map for a while and then using the map for the other airport.

Points to Ponder

The Discipline of Repentance:
Following a Better Map

Frequently repentance is described as changing one’s mind, or turning around 180 degrees. However, frequently the way we practice repentance is little more than remorse; if there is no change in action behind the change of heart, there is no real
repentance.

Picture repentance as the act of putting down your old map of how to get what you want in life and picking up a new map, for where you end up in life depends on several things:

which destination you choose: You might not achieve everything you want in life, but it’s a fair bet that you get more of those things that you pursue than those you don’t.

which map you use: The New Testament is full stories that speak about a different way to live and a different destination to achieve, e.g.: turn the other cheek (Matt. 5:39); life does not consist of the abundance of one’s possessions (Luke 12:15); frequently the first end up last (Matt. 19:28-30).

how well you learn to read it: The best map is worthless if you don’t read it, or read it poorly. You can know all of the Bible stories, but if you do not apply them to your life, the stories cannot save you. You need a map the most when the way is uncertain; but even when you know the way by heart, a map is still valuable when unfamiliar situations arise.

persistence in following directions: The more you are confused about where you are, the more you rely on your map, right? Repentance means sticking with the new map under stress.

learning to backtrack when you get lost: If part of repentance is turning around, then your job is to go back to the last place where you knew where you were and figure out where you took a wrong turn.

In v23, Jesus tells Peter, “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” In the next three verses, what examples of God’s framing stories and men’s framing stories does Jesus give?

Here are some examples of framing stories that we use to get what we want in life:

she kissed a frog, he turned into a prince, and they lived happily ever after;

he who dies with the most toys wins;

the worst day fishing beats the best day working;

hard work never hurt anybody, but why take the chance?

What are some of the stories you have used to get what you want in life?

The best map in the world won’t help you if it doesn’t include the destination you’re interested in getting to. What if some of our frustration with God, church, religion, and our spiritual growth is due to trying to use God’s map, but we haven’t wholly bought into God as our ultimate destination? If you still have in mind “the things of men” do you think trying to follow Jesus will really make you happy?

From how I wrote this sermon, do you think I have a GPS navigation system in my truck? What additional illustrations could I have made using a GPS?

End Notes
1 - I wondered if should talk about GPS systems, and I decided that enough people are still just using maps, and I didn’t think GPS systems invalidated the points in this sermon, so I left them out. (No, I don’t have a GPS in any of my vehicles. I resist having a machine tell me what to do, and I take pride in figuring my way around. Yes, that pride has occasionally gotten me lost and into trouble, but it has also taught me the value of backtracking and figuring out where I went wrong.)

God of the Gaps: Seeing Ourselves without Shame

I have spoken before about the late Henri Nouwen, Catholic priest, seminary professor, and writer about Christian spirituality. Late in life, Nouwen left the university scene for humbler work as the pastor for a L’Arche community in Canada called Daybreak. L’Arche is a network of faith-based communities for people with developmental disabilities. Nouwen speaks of the shock of discovery of learning that he did not take Christ to the profoundly developmentally handicapped; rather, he found Christ already at work in their lives. Nouwen found that not only did the residents need to receive love, but that they needed to give love as well. Nouwen found spiritual healing from the hands of the people he had come to serve. As L’Arche founder Jean Vanier said of one of the profoundly cripped L’Arche residents:

Because he is so broken, in some easy we can allow him to reveal to us our brokenness without getting angry ... He is so broken that I am allowed to look at my own brokenness without being ashamed. (The Spirituality of Imperfection, p 85)

What is it that Nouwen and Vanier understood about grace and healing that we need to learn?

Matthew 7:1-6

Commentary

Today’s passage is a bit messy, because it appears in three of the gospel accounts, but the context is slightly different for each. Mark 4:24 sounds a lot like v2 in Matthew’s account; however, the context—Mark 4:21-25—is very different. Mark is more focused on progressive revelation that comes through one’s response to the gospel—the more we respond to what we have seen, the more we can see. Luke 6:37-42 has more in common with Matthew’s account. [1] In fact, gives a fuller interpretation for v2 in Matthew. However, v39-40 contain a warning not to follow blind guides, which Matthew lacks (pop quiz: Where have we seen that recently in Matthew?) Also, only Matthew’s account contains the warnings given in v6.

v2 judge...measure. An unfortunate attempt at parallelism in English subtly obscures what’s going on. A judge determines: (1) trial procedure; (2) verdict (guilty or not guilty); and sentence (probation, fine, jail time, etc.). Each of these actions requires a judgment, but they are distinct actions.

v4,5 take/remove. In these two verses, three times an object is taken out, or removed, from one’s eye. Strangely, the verb here is the same verb commonly used for casting out demons (e.g. Matt. 7:22; 8:16,31; 9:33,34; 10:1,8) and exiling the unworthy (e.g. Matt. 21:12,39; 22:13; 25:30)—but also for sending forth a divinely-inspired force (e.g. Matt. 9:38)! The verb is forceful, frequently used for God-sized actions, and conveys a sense of the zealousness by which we go after those specks the eyes of others—zealousness which Jesus is willing for us to use to attack the log in our own eye!

v6 Only Matthew gives us this statement by Jesus, which neither seems to fit nicely with the verses before nor after. The general consensus, by Matthew Henry et al, is that Jesus is warning the disciples not to mediate God’s secrets to the coarsest of persons. (Does that even remotely make sense—not to give God’s grace to those in greatest need?). What is the context for putting this verse here?

Application

Christians have problems with justice. On one hand, we are told to love our neighbors; we are told that God loves mercy, not sacrifice. On the other hand, we are told to be pure, to have nothing to do with idolaters and divisive persons. The experience of many Christians having confronted others (Christians or non-Christians) about a problem is a rebuke, "Who are you to judge me? ‘Do not judge, lest you be judged!’" In this post-modern age, where the growing norm is a lack of norms, many Christians are increasingly wary of trying to hold any one to any standard. Who are we to judge?

A few possibilities have been offered up over the years:

Yes: We are to be light in the darkness, and that includes judging sin as such. Of course, the world won’t appreciate us; but we’re not called to be appreciated, we’re just called to be obedient. (Call this the church-against-the-world approach. Is this combativeness Christ-like?)

Sometimes: We are called to judge those in the church, not those outside the church (1 Cor. 5:12). By this logic, the ‘brother’ in v3,4,5 is a real brother or sister in Christ, and we should judge them in the right way, after examining ourselves first. However, non-Christians are dogs and pigs (v6) and we shouldn’t waste our time with them. (Call this the church-outside-the world approach. Is this isolationism the way that Jesus ministered?)

No: Church judgmentalism and legalism are false teachings brought into Christianity by the former Pharisee Paul. The "real" teachings of Jesus found in the gospels speak of mercy and love, while most of the places speaking of judging those in the church, excommunicating people from church, etc. are in Paul’s letters. (Call this the church-is-love approach. Does Jesus ever enter into peoples’ lives and not change them?)

What is the right answer?

First, Jesus says that some sorts of judgments are to be made by his disciples in dealing with others’ sins. v5 implies that we are to deal with the specks in another’s eye—that is an exercise of judgment. However, we are to first deal with our own sins in order to see clearly.

The stumbling block to righteous living is not dealing with our own sins first. We want the lifestyle, we want the accolades, without doing the work or dealing with the pain. We imitate the righteous lifestyle, while Jesus wants us to identify with his lifestyle. Imitation is only form without substance, while identification entails the desire, the openness, and the willingness to do whatever is necessary to become like the original. Identification with Jesus demands that we put aside every pretense of goodness and wait for God to raise us up.

When we do not deal with out own sins first, the sin in others that we find so troublesome is frequently something about ourselves that we hate. Gossips hate gossip by others; tellers of white lies hate the lies of others; adulterers are scandalized by the adultery of others. What we hate about ourselves, we cannot stand to see in others. When we see it, we can be brutal in our zeal to expunge it in others, because we know how hard we have unsuccessfully fought to expunge it in ourselves. However, Jesus says we are blind guides in our zeal; we cannot see clearly to remove the other’s speck. The guilt and the shame of the log in our own eye cloud our vision and impair our judgment. We cannot help; we cannot heal.

I wonder if, "Do not judge, in order that you will not be judged," does not have a more practical interpretation. We are familiar with the moral failures of famous Christians, like Ted Haggard. Christians hypocrites are excoriated by the secular press for judging others for the same sin the hypocrites have in their own lives. When the dogs and pigs of the secular press get a whiff of this sort of hypocrisy, they judge the hypocrites ferociously! Would Haggard and others have been judged more mercifully if they had dealt with the sin in their own lives first? Would they have been judged more mercifully if they had shown more mercy to others?

The Discipline of Identification:
Listen until You Can Love

Judgment sets us in opposition to the one being judged—it is difficult to love someone to whom we are opposed! We listen to somebody until we make a judgment about the person, and then we shut down; we stop listening.

Is it possible to listen to a person past the point of judgment? Can you persist in listening to a person until you find something within them that you can love?

The mystery is that the lovable thing that you find is almost always something you have in common with the other person—a point of identification. The thing in common is sometimes a virtue, but more often it is a shared weakness—brokenness that allows us to look at our own brokenness without being ashamed. Identification will lead to love; love will lead to mercy; mercy will lead to forgiveness and healing ... first for the other, and then for yourself.

Points to Ponder

Vanier said, "Community is the realization that evil is inside. Not only inside my community, but inside me." What might happen if ...

... during an argument you listened past the point of judgment until you could find something lovable in the other person?

... you looked within yourself for that thing you find so offensive in other people?

End Notes

1 - Even the larger context is similar. Matthew’s account is part of the Sermon on the Mount, while Luke’s version is part of the Sermon on the Plain, Luke’s parallel to the Sermon on the Mount.

God of the Gaps: WYSIWYG

As I mentioned last week, we have this misconception that holiness is primarily about purity, and this misunderstanding leads us to be dogmatic in our thinking and isolationist in our actions. In contrast to the Pharisees, who probably wouldn’t have eaten with non-Jews on a bet, Jesus (presumably as holy as they come) ate with sinners, drunkards, prostitutes, and all sorts of "impure" people. Could our ideas of holiness need some revision?

The peace, the shalom, that God desires for us has been described as:

The experience of harmony and connectedness that is a part of spirituality—the "feeling good" that flows from the sense of be-ing "good"—derives from a vision of life that sees self in perspective, as somehow fitting into a larger whole ... as somehow linked. This sense is, perhaps, the most important human experience. It is certainly the deepest human desire.

During the atrocities that accompanied the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, thousands of bewildered suspects were randomly arrested, rounded up, stripped naked, and shot one by one in the back of the head. One eyewitness account captures the depth as well as the poignancy of our need to feel linked, joined together: "Most of the victims usually requested a chance to say good-bye; and because there was no one else, they embraced and kissed their executioners." (The Spirituality of Imperfection, p 72)

The peace that God desires for us goes so far beyond our way of living that that peace will ultimately lead us to forgive our enemies, to embrace our executioners, to get dirty with some pretty unsavory people.

Matthew 16:5-12

Commentary

The context is key. Jesus’ comment in v6 only makes sense given the encounter with the Pharisees and Sadducees in Matt. 16:1-4. Also, given that the last of the miraculous feedings that Jesus refers to in v9-10 appears at the tail end of (Matt. 15:29-39) one really has to look at these three episodes as a group; otherwise Jesus’ comments seem random and hard to fathom.

v6,11,12 the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. In preparation for Passover, an observant Jew would go through the whole house removing any hint of fermented grain and all fermenting agents. Not only would yeast be used, burned, or sold, but beer, cakes, leavened breads and sourdough as well. Presumably, Jesus is arguing for this type of scrupulousness in guarding against the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Since the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees are lumped together, Jesus is not simply warning about a single doctrine. Rather, there is something about how both groups work, how they look at the world, that is wrong. Worse, through the metaphor of the yeast, Jesus implies this wrong-headed way of dealing with spirituality tends to corrupt and contaminate others and should be avoided.

v7 They discussed this among themselves. I love this verse! I think being a disciple of Jesus must always have been a struggle to understand, a challenge to keep up, and a frustration whenever one totally misunderstood. Isn’t that what our spirituality is like from time to time? Does God frequently say that you are doing it correctly, or do you get challenged to continue to grow?

Application

Jesus had just fed over 4,000 people on a mountainside. Jesus, who elsewhere had called himself the Bread of Life, didn’t just feed a huge number of people from a small offering of 7 loaves & a few fish. He gave them a picture of the wonderful grace of God as the blessing of bread was given out to everybody: the ritually clean and the unclean (how many of these 4,000+ washed their hands before eating?); the godly and the ungodly; the inner group of disciples and the strangers; the Jews and the non-Jews; sinners; prostitutes; outsiders. He gave them a picture of the superabundance of grace, as the cleanup crew afterwards collected seven large baskets full of scraps. [1] He gave them a picture of how that grace was multiplied—just as seeds multiply by falling to the ground and dying to produce more seeds, the Spirit of the Bread of Life would be multiplied in the breaking of Jesus (and us).

Right on the heels of this tremendous event, the Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and asked for a sign. In all fairness to the Pharisees and Sadducees, the feeding miracle did happen out in the middle of nowhere, while presumably they caught up to him in Magadan. Would they have been asking for a sign if they had been there? Had they heard about, or seen, the miracle and wanted him to repeat it for their whole group? Or where they unaware of the miracle and just interested in having Jesus prove his prophetic credentials? [2]

One thing is certain: God operates on his own schedule, following his own agenda, and—although he is gracious enough to attend to our prayers and sometimes answer our prayers in ways that we can see—he is not a trained pet performing tricks at our command. The skeptics ask for a sign and Jesus says, "[Y]ou cannot interpret the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah" (Matt 16:3-4).

So what is the sign of Jonah? In a similar tirade in Matt. 12:39-43, Jesus says:

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here. (Matt. 12:40-41)

The bane of humans is that we argue over the sign and miss the big picture—the real action that the sign is supposed to be pointing us to in the first place! We argue over how Jonah could have survived three days in the belly of a great fish, and miss the fact that the real action in the book of Jonah is the salvation of Nineveh! We argue over Jesus’ death and resurrection—the "sign of Jonah" that Jesus refers to—and miss the fact that the real action in the gospels is the salvation of people estranged from God. The people of Nineveh—pagans!—will be amazed that we could have missed what God is doing right in front of us!

The Sadducees wanted a spirituality that happened on schedule in the temple. The Pharisees wanted a spirituality that came through their careful observance of the Law. What sort of spirituality do we want? The grace of God—like bread in the feeding miracle—is being given out willy-nilly all around us! Do we see it happening, or are we missing it through a careful observance of a spirituality of our own making? Pollsters say that over 90% of Americans believe in God, and most of them at least believe in a historical Jesus as a good and wise teacher. Could it be that the grace of God is being given to them—and to us!—but we do not see it, because it doesn’t come right the right religious trappings? What would the pagans from Nineveh say to us?

WYSIWYG is an old computer programming term, meaning that what you see while editing a document looks like the final product. (For example, when I type up these sermon notes on the computer, what I am looking at on my screen looks like what I print for people in church.) However, I think there is a spiritual WYSIWYG principle as well: what we see with the eyes of our heart determines the type of peace, or shalom, we are prepared to receive. (Remember, I started out by talking about shalom!) For the Sadducees, the eyes of their heart had compartmentalized spirituality to the temple; they were only prepared to receive shalom during that time at temple. But what if God was at work outside that time and place? For the Pharisees, the eyes of their heart had compartmentalized spirituality into an exclusive practice; they were only prepared to receive shalom from other "insiders". But what if God was at work outside of the inside group? For us, the eyes of our hearts are focused—by tradition, by habit, by guilt, by sin, by fear—and we are unable to see the many places where God is at work outside of our small focal point. How long are you going to wait for God to work here when he is calling you to join him there?

Points to Ponder

Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does" (John 5:19). Do you think you are doing what God is doing, or just doing your own thing? If your usual way of going through life—doing your own thing—is frustrating you, why not try doing what you see God doing?

What you see is what you get. The eyes of your heart will only see the type of grace you are prepared to receive. Think of somebody you have a grudge against. Is it possible that God is actually working in their life? If so, does it make more sense that God would have you work against them, or work for them? If you changed your focus, working with them instead of against them, how much more grace might you begin to see in your life?

So, if the yeast, the wrong thinking, of the Pharisees and Sadducees that Jesus was warning about was compartmentalizing God—only looking for him to work in special places or with special people—where do you see that yeast, that wrong thinking, at work at church, in your study time or prayer time, or in your life?

The Discipline of Meditation:
Attend to a Difficult Object

William James, philosopher and author on the psychology of religious experience, said, "My [spiritual] experience is what I agree to attend to [i.e. set my attention to]."

Our attention tends to be drawn to the negative instead of the positive. The Egyptian monk Evagrius described our fatal way of seeing—seeing through the perspective of our own egos—that resulted in bad thinking. Because we tend to focus on the wrong stuff, our minds later tend to be drawn in the wrong direction. Evagrius came up with a list of fatal ways of seeing that eventually evolved into the 7 Deadly Sins.

Meditation attempts to change our minds by changing those things on which we focus. We are not "creating our own reality" as the new age mystics promise. Rather, by meditating on God, we are attempting to open ourselves up to where God is at work, and asking him to open the eyes of our heart to him and where he is at work. For example, the one feeling impoverished may wish to meditate on reviewing where God has provided and giving thanks for God’s provision. The one feeling shame and guilt may wish to meditate on stories of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

Choose what you want to think about, both Evagrius and James counsel, and choose it wisely, because that choice determines the way you live your life (The Spirituality of Imperfection, p 79).

End Notes

1 - In theology there are arguments over something called "limited atonement" which says that God must chose who is saved and who is not saved, for otherwise some of God’s redemptive work is squandered and goes unused. For proponents of limited atonement, the idea of God’s work being wasted is unacceptable. However, I see in Jesus’ actions—like the many baskets of scraps—plenty of evidence to indicate that some of God’s grace is in vain. The real tragedy is not that some go to hell, bad as that is, but that they go to hell when God’s saving grace is all around them—like a person drowning while a lifesaver is within arm’s reach.

2 - Remember, a prophetic sign is visible evidence that something invisible (or in the future) proclaimed by a prophet is true. For example, in Matt. 9:1-8, when Jesus tells the paralyzed man that his sins are forgiven, the prophetic sign is that the man is healed. Read that account again, and pay attention to v5-7.