June 30
Matthew chapters 13-15
Today is my dad's birthday. He would have
been 95 this year. He died in 2007 from cancer, but he had lived a
long, full life. But on his birthday, I'm always a little melancholy. I
know he would be proud of me being the choir director, because whenever
the Pastor talked about replacing someone in music ministry, my dad
would always tell him "My daughter can do all that." I got that
straight from Pastor Les. It is encouraging for me to remember this as
I remember my dad.
And my body clock again waked me at
4:30-ish. I have to get up around now to get ready for work (I leave
the house by 6am to commute quite a ways on public transit), but it's
Sunday! I don't have to be at work (church) until 9:30! And I can
drive! Oh well, the cat was licking me in the face as well, so he knew
it was wakey-wakey time.
So I got up. It's getting easier to get
up to do this quiet time, but not so easy to read and ponder. Matthew
is so rich, and three chapters a day is like "wow!" I wish I could
write my thoughts down completely, but I ask the Lord to guide me, help
me to understand and write the words He gives me.
In other
words, these are not necessarily going to be full summaries. Perhaps
that's an incentive to dig into the Word yourself, see what I maybe
missed.
Parables about the Kingdom. Great crowds were following
Jesus. But they were there for the miracles, the healings, the Show.
Jesus didn't mind that, though. He got their attention and then hit
them with the Word. These stories, parables, were to delineate between
God's kingdom and, well, everyone else. God, being perfect, He
definitely had the authority to tell us what wasn't going to cut it.
Seeds that were sown, weeds that looked the same but in the end were
gathered and burned - we're all here on earth together, and we're all
given the opportunity to hear the Gospel, but depending on how receptive
our hearts are, it grows or it doesn't.
He also admonishes us
to do anything to preach the Gospel. Give up our goals to be rich and
famous with the things we have - then there's room in our hearts for the
treasure that He has for us. And then spread the good news, so
everyone, every bit of ourselves inside and out, is permeated with the
Lord.
Wise words - just gotta keep the weeds and worldly cares from choking me.
Grief.
The unthinkable has happened - Jesus' cousin and the greatest of the
prophets, John the Baptist, has been executed by Herod. The story of
how it happened is a minor footnote - don't make promises you aren't
happy keep. Herod dies a gruesome death later on, but who really
cares? He had his chance and blew it.
Jesus grieves. He
honestly needs, as a human being, to take some time to himself and be
sad. Sadness isn't a sin - worry is sinful, anger can be very sinful.
But sadness is natural and right. Scripture tells us in other places
that God was saddened by the behavior of His people. It was okay for
Jesus to want to draw away for a bit.
But the crowds wanted The
Show. The followed him, begged him to heal them, teach them, anything
to be a part of the spectacle. They even forgot to eat.
God, who
takes care of our every need, wants them to be physically satisfied as
well as spiritually blessed. He tells the disciples to send them home
to eat, but they are in the middle of nowhere and the only food anyone
can scrounge up is some fish and chips, enough for a late night snack if
the pub is still open.
Jesus says, "Feed them." The disciples
say, "What, now? With this?" But they aren't as dumb as they sound.
They don't understand it, but they do it. And the crowd is fed,
physically satisfied. Unfortunately, they're still spiritually hungry,
so they camp out for The Show.
Jesus still needs His alone time.
Now, when I say alone, I mean alone with God. He didn't just take off
for a kip behind the rocks, he went away to pray. He needed this time
to recharge, just as we need time alone with the Lord to allow Him to
bring us back to full-power again. So He sent the disciples away and
told them to get things ready in the town across the water.
The
Storm Rages. It's interesting to me that Jesus never prevented the
storm from happening. It wasn't necessary for things to be peaceful,
just for them to believe and obey. Old hymn - "Trust and obey, for
there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey."
His
batteries recharged, Jesus decides to join his friends in the boat. So
He takes a stroll. On the water. In a storm. Not a miracle as much
as just Jesus is God. And His disciples, who are somewhat more faithful
than the masses, are still scared out of their wits - "It's a ghost!"
Sometimes,
even when the Lord is talking to us, reassuring us of His presence, we
still are panicky. For me, this is a daily occurrence. But by golly,
I'm gonna bluff my way through it, show the rest of them that I'm not
really afraid. So Peter jumps out of the boat and walks on the water
too. Until he realizes he's out of the boat. On the sea. In a storm.
Oh dear, glub, glub.
Jesus takes Peter's hand (my hand) gently
and says, "Here I am, what were you so afraid of?" I don't think there
are any more comforting words anyone can say to another person than
"You're safe."
The traditions versus the Law. The disciples were
ordinary men. They washed their hands before eating, that was a given,
but they didn't follow the cleansing rites of the Jews every time they
did. The Pharisees in our lives love to point out the little mistakes,
the insignificant details that no one else cares about.
Being
Highly Sensitive, I notice all that little stuff, too. Bad grammar, one
drop of ink astray, the faint whiff of cigarette smoke from the guy 25
feet away, the idiot who is whistling indoors on the other side of the
building - I am sensitive to so many things that I also tend to be
judgmental. And the God reminds me that I grind my teeth, fidget, talk
to myself constantly, fidget, chew my nails, fidget. All the stuff that
others do around me that get on my nerves. I traditionally use good
grammar, but just because someone says "You and I's" instead of "Mine
and yours" doesn't mean that what he says is invalid.
The
disciples ate what God gave them. They figured, if it's from the Lord,
it's a good thing. Well duh! But the Pharisees were too focused on the
how and not on the why or Who. In my house, no one whistles, good
grammar is used, and the routines are comfortable. Outside the door, I
just have to deal, because this is what God has asked me to do. But, He
doesn't leave me to do it alone.
More food. Jesus has great
compassion, something I think is lacking in my heart. "Dumb-arses,
don't make a plan, nothing gets done right, did you think you could camp
out in the desert without supplies?" But Jesus, in His infinite love,
just gets on with it and feeds them again. He knows what they'll do to
him in the end, but they're hungry now. Perhaps they'll remember this
later and believe that they were part of something more important than
just The Show.
He does this for me every day. I try to remember.
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