Comeuppance?

Micah 2:1-5

God’s plans will override those of the swindlers Micah describes. And that sounds only fair, doesn’t it? In fact, we get a certain sense of satisfaction when we read about the just deserts coming to these terrible individuals. It goes without saying that we can identify with the swindled, or at least that we stand with them in our righteous disgust over the injustice they are experiencing.

Pastor and author Bill Hybels points out in a sermon that each of us is born with closed fingers. He goes on to describe ways in which that grasping response stays with us until finally, in death, we relax our grip. That sounds pretty consistent with Micah’s oppressors. But Hybels is talking about you and me.

When we get to the Gospels, we see Jesus responding to peoples’ greed and oppression in a different manner than the judgment described in Micah 2:1–5. Hybels envisions a scene between Jesus and a certain swindler named Zacchaeus (see Luke 19:1-10):

Zacchaeus was a clutcher… until he had dinner with Jesus…

Here is what I imagine Jesus might have said over dinner: “Hey, Zacchaeus. What your heart yearns for will never be satisfied by that which you are hanging on to so tightly. Your heart was meant to be in deep communion with God and in loving community with other people in the Family of God. You have walked away from that kind of communion and are settling for something far less. You are settling for trying to meet the needs of your heart by clutching stuff.”

I think Jesus might have gone on, “You know what I am going to do for you? In the not too distant future, I am going to open up my hands and they are going to receive steel spikes so that guys like you with hands like yours can be changed. I am going to be so generous to you, Zacchaeus. I am going to take your sin and greed and lack of love and I am going to pay for it on the cross and present salvation to you as a gift.

“And I won’t stop there. I am going to adopt you into my family. I am going to answer your prayers. I am going to give you strength through the storms of life. And I am going to give you heaven on top of all.”

At a certain point in the conversation, I think the enormity of Jesus’ generosity melted Zacchaeus and something changed on the inside. Zacchaeus emerges with his voice trembling with excitement and newfound conviction …

When your heart gets transformed by generous grace, your hands have a way of opening up.

Maybe it isn’t so hard after all to see ourselves on the negative side of justice, at least some of the time. None of us looks forward to comeuppance, but “Come to me, … and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28) sounds inviting.

Think About It

•What weighs most heavily on you?

•Are you ready to let it go?

•Are you willing, like Zacchaeus, to allow your life to be transformed?

Pray About It

Lord, transform my life by your power and presence. Help me to fully realize the extent of Jesus’ gifts to me.

It Is Finished

Mark 15:33-39

And with Jesus’ last cry, redemptive history reached a watershed. The apostle John added that Jesus said, “It is finished” (Jn 19:30). Jesus had fulfilled God’s plan that the Father had “purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (Eph 1:9–10). Stewardship theologian A. C. Conrad comments:

When, in the far reaches of the past, God planned the creation of the world and man, he did so in connection with his Son, the revealed oikonomos, or steward … It is evident in this passage [in Eph 1:9–10] and others that the entire plan of the ages and scheme of redemption was in the mind of God in the far distant past … The essence and heart of God’s purpose is revealed in the redemptive work of Christ. [The kinship between God and humanity] is established in the presence of his Son upon the earth and fully sealed through his sacrificial death upon the cross.

In his death Jesus became the great high priest, fulfilling all the requirements of the old law, interceding between God and humans “once for all when he offered himself” (Heb 7:27). Says stewardship theologian T. A. Kantonen (1900–1993):

He is the High Priest who laid down his life on the altar of the Cross to redeem us from sin and death. He defines the central purpose of his mission thus: “[The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many]” [Mt 20:28]. Redemption presupposes that man is a sinner and as such he is cut off from the power to carry out the tasks growing out of that son ship.

Kantonen goes on to explain the ramifications of Jesus’ redemptive work for stewardship:

Those who accept the gospel of forgiveness in faith receive the power to become not only God’s trustees but also his children. The motive for their action is grateful love; the more livingly we know him who loved us and gave himself for us the more completely we give ourselves to him. And because genuine love is “[not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth]” (1Jn 3:18), we shoulder the responsibilities of Christian stewardship.

In the death of Christ on the cross, not only humanity, but indeed all creation is set free from bondage (see Ro 8:20–23); Christ’s redemptive work establishes his victory over all the powers in this world opposed to his purposes. These are at work in individual sinners and in the world’s systems to produce injustice, lawlessness, cruelty, faithlessness, greed, jealousy and death. God is liberating his people by redeeming them and his creation from individual sins and from the dominion of darkness (see Col 1:19–20).

Think About It

•How was the passion of Jesus a part of God’s plan even before creation?
•In what ways was Jesus a steward?
•What is your response to Jesus’ redemptive and liberating work?

Pray About It

Lord, thank you for your perfect plan for the world and for me.

Rewards by Grace

Mark 10:28-31

Jesus, says stewardship theologian T. A. Kantonen (1900–1993), is pointing out in this passage and in the parallel passage in Matthew 19:28–30 that the disciples will have a reward in heaven. He tells the disciples that they will “also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Mt 19:28).

The Lord first directs the attention of the disciples away from the expectation of an immediate earthly recompense and places the thought of reward in the context of the final consummation of the kingdom. A steward of the kingdom, a partner of the Messiah, is not “[like a hired laborer waiting to be paid]” (Job 7:2). His eye is upon the glorious fulfillment of the divine purpose in which he is privileged to share. The point of this phrase of the reply may be illustrated by the replies of three men engaged in a building project to the question of what they were doing. One said, “I am laying bricks.” Another said, “I am making twenty dollars a day.” But the third replied, “I am building a church.”

While the ultimate goal is the heavenly kingdom, Mark’s version indicates that there is also to be recompense “in this present age” (Mk 10:30)—but “with persecutions.” Kantonen remarks:

The joys of the kingdom are experienced here and now, not merely in some distant future. But they do not provide a carefree utopia, but strength with which to face the hardships of a hostile world. To emphasize the unique character of the reward as a sovereign gift of God, which does not depend on men’s own efforts, both Matthew and Mark conclude with the Lord’s words, “But many [who] are first will be last, and the last first.” Matthew then proceeds to record the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, in which every trace of merit disappears altogether, and everything, the reward as well as the opportunity to work, is a matter of divine grace. In the light of this teaching it is obvious that the gospel gives the concept of reward a new meaning quite different from its ordinary connotation of compensation or remuneration for services rendered.

Author and personal wealth adviser Alan Gotthardt maintains that this is a vital issue for the Christian steward of material resources: “Without question, the rewards for Christians who are faithful in this life will be great. This includes faithfulness with their material possessions.” But Gotthardt also asks another question worthy of reflection: “Is it selfish for a Christian to seek eternal rewards? … It is certainly possible to have wrong motives related to giving—or anything else we do as Christians, for that matter … [However Paul] was clear in his writings that salvation is by faith alone. Crowns and other rewards result from our actions here on earth.”

Think About It

•Do you think it is selfish for a Christian to seek eternal reward?

•How does knowing you have a reward in heaven affect your actions here and now?

•How easy is it for you to keep your divine purpose in mind?

Pray About It

Thanks for mercies past receive,
Pardon of our sins renew;
Teach us, henceforth, how to live
With eternity in view.

Sabbath-Keeping Stewards

Mark 2:23-28

The Pharisees wanted to make the Sabbath all about showy self-denial, but Jesus reiterated that the Sabbath was a celebration of God’s graciousness and provision—whether in gathering grain or in feeding a hungry army. The Sabbath is God’s gift to us. We need rest and everything that comes with it, but we are no longer bound by refraining from certain activities one day in seven (see Col 2:16–17). Being stewards of Sabbath means, as theologian and educator Marva Dawn comments, celebrating God’s gift and letting it enhance our life with him.

We all experience constantly how much our own time crunch is aggravated—and the pace of life accelerated—by the technological milieu in which we live. In such a cultural context, the first Sabbath gift for us to celebrate is its realization that the Bible presents an entirely different sense of time …

Many biblical passages in the Scriptures underscore this freedom from the anxiety of too much work. More positively, many biblical texts highlight the attitude demonstrated by Jesus that all the work committed to us by God can be done in God’s timing, for the grace that entrusts the work to us also empowers it.

Most notably, Jesus models this when the disciples worry that He wants to go to Judea again (after Lazarus’s death), and He responds, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? [Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light]” (Jn 11:9–10). Sabbath keeping fills us with the light of God’s presence so that the work of the following days can match their hours. Sabbath keeping gives us the opportunity to discern what really is God’s will for our lives and service so that we don’t try to do more than twelve hours’ worth of tasks (nor less either).

Theologian Jürgen Moltmann also comments on this idea of Sabbath as a means of God’s grace.

On this day of the week, the nature which human beings process and utilize should be allowed to breathe and come to itself again. Our mental and purposeful concentration on reason and will is relaxed. On this day the mind or spirit can return again to the body which it had made its instrument. The body becomes the temple in which God’s Spirit can live and rest …

The holy place of God’s silent presence is no longer the space of the Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem. It is now found in time, in the time of the holy rhythm of the Sabbath days. God lives in time, and interrupts the plans and purposes of human labor through his resting presence … It is in the rhythm of the times and the alternation of work and rest that we find the pulse of life. That is the spirituality of the lived life.

Think About It

•How does your attitude toward work relate to keeping the Sabbath?

•In what ways does setting aside a day for God become a sacred space?

•How might you honor God’s provision of a day of rest?

Act on It

If you keep a Sabbath day, spend time this week reflecting on how it is a holy place. If you do not regularly keep a Sabbath day, determine to do so this week.

Spread the Joy Around

Malachi 4:2
Have you ever actually watched a cavorting calf? You’d probably think you were witnessing the worst possible case of bovine ADD. Human children act similarly. Position yourself outside an elementary school just before the day’s final bell. Whether a child has to traverse ten feet to queue up for a bus or ten blocks to burst into her door, you can’t fail to miss a common behavior: They run.

When was the last time you leaped? Don’t count the day you were in range of an automatic sprinkler system just chugging into action. When did you dance like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof or like King David upon the return of the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem (see 2Sa 6:14–15)?

In Psalm 28:7 David asserts: “My heart leaps for joy and with my song I praise [God].” That inner jubilation works well for some of us, but we can’t all see ourselves physically leaping. Our hearts, though, alive in Christ and inspired by joy, can bound and jump.

Preacher and writer Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) knew the joy of being right with God:

No language can express the ineffable blessedness of the supreme reward that awaits the soul that has taken its supreme climb, proved its supreme love, and entered on its supreme reward. What an imperturbable certainty there is about the man who is in contact with the real God! Thank God, the life of the Father of the Faithful is but a specimen of the life of every humble believer who obediently follows the discipline of the life of faith. What a depth of transparent rightness there must be about the man who walks before God, and the meaning of the Atonement is to place us there in perfect adjustment to God. “[Walk before me and be blameless (see Ge 17:1)],” not faultless, but blameless, undeserving of censure in the eyes of God.

Chambers concedes that no language can adequately describe such euphoria, but he doesn’t suggest that we hold back in expressing ourselves in whatever way is appropriate. Are you the “let it all hang out” type, immune to easy embarrassment? Do you gravitate like a moth toward the limelight, or are you continuously aware in a public setting of the impression you’re making—or not making, if your goal is anonymity?

The fact is that it doesn’t matter. As Christians, we revere God’s name. And we’ve been healed and forgiven. When God looks at each of us, washed in the cleansing blood of Christ, he sees something incredible—absolute perfection! We’ve been “released.” How can any of us consider keeping such news to ourselves?

Think About It

•When you think about what God has done for you, what is the first emotion you feel?

•How does your rightness before God allow you to experience joy?

•Who needs to hear about this joy of yours?

Act on It

Someone out there needs the kind of joy that you as a Christian experience. Share that joy with someone.