Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Looking up from the fire

Sunday, May 29, 2011

1 Peter 3:15-16
Loved ones, set apart Jesus Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do so with gentleness and respect, keeping your conscience clear.

This sounds easy in the classroom, but perhaps not so easy when the flames are licking at my feet, an Authority yelling at me ...

"WHY do you continue with this outrageous, impossible belief? Wouldn't you rather be accepted and live a normal life than get burned? Recant! Look at us, we're happy. Look at us, not at Jesus. Look me in the eyes; don't look up like that. What's there to see in the sky except stars?"

How did I get in this position, and how did my inquisitor get in his? We were both born and became children. We played and learned from the earth that we both have in common. But so many variables take us down different paths, into different beliefs, into different religions, into different politics. And enemies we can become.

What then? Jesus (and nearly every other religious teacher) requires me to lay down my enmity, lay down my coat, and turn the other cheek for yet another slap. There is no room to fight the sword with another sword. That always ends badly.

Speak softly, and carry a big ... smile. Show my interrogator, my warden, my executioner "gentleness and respect" in every circumstance. In his essay, "The Burden of the Gospels," Wendell Berry asks his seminarian-audience to respond to Jesus' command, "Keep my commandments." He wonders about himself and asks the students to ask themselves about this "burden."

Berry tells the 500-year-old story of a Mennonite named Dirk Willems, who was sentenced to death for heresy. He nearly escaped across a frozen pond. The man chasing him fell through the ice, and the heretic turned to rescue him. He probably knew what would happen after that. The law required that he be arrested and then burned at the stake. So it was written. And so it was done.

Would I turn back to love my enemy and save his life? Berry says that he, at least, does not know until it happens in a given moment to him personally. For that matter, would I have chosen to follow Jesus at all, had he been in front of my courthouse or my church, calling on the mayor and pastor to open their arms to sinners and love their enemies, then to follow him as the way and the truth and the life?

Because Jesus calls me to this commitment to himself and to the highest standard of love, I have the privilege and opportunity of living with these questions as a "sort of continuing education."

My first response to this education can and should be to treat myself with the gentleness and respect Jesus offers me. When I accept his gift in my own life, it becomes much easier to share it with others.

And ... I have a much better answer for their questions. I called to you with my mouth, and praise was on my tongue. Had I cherished evil in my heart you would not have heard, Lord. But you did hear and you did listen to my voice in prayer. Bless you, Father. You do not refuse me the kindness I seek in prayer. I shout joyfully to You, o God, and sing of your glorious name. (from Psalm 66)

Devotions Archive

Looking up from the fire

Sunday, May 29, 2011