inclusion

Feeding on the Crumbs

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By Linda Rex

August 16, 2020, Proper 15—If there is one thing we are good at as human beings, it is finding ways to differentiate ourselves from other people. We seem to find ways to elevate ourselves while demeaning others, or including ourselves while excluding others. One of the worst things we as Christians do so often is to use the Word of God and our religious faith to create unhealthy boundaries between ourselves and other people.

The one place where we as followers of Christ should find common ground is at the table of thanksgiving—communion. Here we each acknowledge anew with gratitude that we participate in Christ’s death and resurrection, and that we find our true life in him. Here every person who trusts in him is bound to the community of faith, no matter his or her race, ethnicity, gender, economic or social status, or any other type of differentiation we might come up with.

The gospel passage for August 16th tells the story of a Canaanite woman who came to Jesus seeking deliverance for her demon-possessed daughter. Unfortunately for her, orthodox Jewish people of that day believed they had to separate themselves from the Gentiles. This meant she was excluded from any connection with the Jewish rabbis or synagogues. The fact that she sought help from Jesus showed an understanding and appreciation for who Jesus was that the Jewish authorities had denied. They ridiculed any possibility that Jesus was who he said he was—the Messiah.

Previous to his encounter with this woman, Jesus had been talking to the Pharisees. They had criticized Jesus’ disciples for not observing careful ceremonial washing before they ate. Jesus pointed out their nitpicking observation of their traditions actually prevented people from obeying God and loving others as they were supposed to. For example, they said if a person gave to the temple coffers the support which was meant for the care of their dependent parents, that it was acceptable. But Jesus said that doing so broke God’s command that parents be honored and cared for by their children.

Later Jesus explained to his disciples when they were alone that it wasn’t what a person put into their bodies that made them unclean, but what came out of their hearts. Whatever we eat eventually gets used or discarded by our bodies. But what comes out of us in what we say and do is often what defiles us. He said, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.”

Matthew, in his gospel, says that after this conversation with the Pharisees, Jesus left Galilee and made his way into the Gentile region of Tyre and Sidon. Was he trying to avoid more of these provocative conversations so he could focus on teaching his disciples? Perhaps. But what is interesting is that their next experience was meeting this Canaanite woman crying out to Jesus, “Have mercy on my daughter, Son of David!”

Here we have someone who is excluded from the Jewish fellowship who is calling Jesus “Son of David”, a title only appropriate for the Messiah. Why did she call him this? Was she a Gentile proselyte? In any case, she seemed to be much more in agreement with who Jesus was than the Pharisees were.

The disciples, though, seemed not to have learned much from their previous experience with the Jewish leaders. The Jewish scriptures spoke of the day God’s salvation would be known among all nations. A foreigner coming to Jesus and asking for mercy was welcome—it said so in the writings they read in the synagogue. But it was their traditions regarding the Gentiles which created the barrier between them and caused them to resist including this woman in what they were doing.

Yes, Jesus was sent first to his people, Israel or the Jews, but not to the total exclusion of others. Jesus came to his people first so that when all was said and done, every human being would have a place at his table—all could come to him in faith and be received.

Jesus’ comment to the woman about taking the table food and feeding the dogs could have been an insult. But she knew that in a family, even the pet dogs had a place at the table, picking up the scraps off the floor. Even today, we often consider our pets to be part of our family, included in our life and worthy of at least a few choice leftovers after the meal. Speaking in this way, the woman touched Jesus’ heart, and so, in compassion, he healed her daughter.

Jesus remarked on her faith. While the disciples were busy trying to avoid having her bother the Messiah, the Messiah was busy being who he was—the bringer of salvation to all people, both Jew and Gentile. She trusted him to be compassionate and gracious, and so he was. She asked for mercy and she received it, because she trusted him to provide it.

What joy there must have been as this woman’s daughter was finally free from what had brought such chaos, pain, and suffering in her family! What Satan had meant to steal, kill, and destroy was replaced by the love, healing, and mercy of God—the renewal of the family bonds. This was but a small reflection of Jesus’ eternal intimate bond of love with his heavenly Father in the Spirit.

Perhaps it would be helpful to take a few moments to reflect on what barriers we may have at work in our lives which need to be replaced by love, compassion, and mercy. Who do we know who needs the tender touch of our Savior? Perhaps instead of criticism, condemnation, or isolation, today we may offer prayer, understanding, and a kind word or smile. What barrier can we replace today with God’s love and grace?

Holy Spirit, grant us the heart of Jesus towards each and every person we encounter in our lives. Enable us to see them as you do—one whom you came for, Jesus—one whom you love, Abba. Grant us the grace to love our enemies, to do good to those who treat us ill, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is only possible through you, Jesus, and by your Spirit. In your Name we ask this. Amen.

“Also the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, | To minister to Him, and to love the name of the LORD, | To be His servants, ‘every one who keeps from profaning the sabbath | And holds fast My covenant; | Even those I will bring to My holy mountain | And make them joyful in My house of prayer. | Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar; | For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.’ | The Lord GOD, who gathers the dispersed of Israel, declares, ‘Yet others I will gather to them, to those already gathered.’” Isaiah 56:6-8 NASB

“That Your way may be known on the earth, | Your salvation among all nations. | Let the peoples praise You, O God; | Let all the peoples praise You. | 4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy; | For You will judge the peoples with uprightness | And guide the nations on the earth. Selah.” Psalm 67:2-4 NASB

See also Matthew 15:21–28.

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Wilderness Musings

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By Linda Rex

PREPARATION FOR EASTER OR LENT—As we move into the season of Lent, I have been wrestling with the call Jesus has on my life right now to live in his grace and love in each moment. Letting go of old, incomplete, or inaccurate ways of thinking or believing regarding what has happened in the past is a struggle. The father of lies loves to blur the boundaries between what is true and what is false, so much so that it is hard to live and walk in the truth sometimes. Indeed, it is much easier to hold on to wrong and unhealthy ways of thinking about things than it is to embrace the reality that I may have misunderstood or may have (perish the thought!) been wrong.

Ooch! How much easier it is to wallow in my pride and self-defensive self-justification than it is to admit that I messed up and need a big dose of forgiveness! It is much easier to point the finger elsewhere or to blame someone else for what happened. But no, I must embrace the integrity and humility of Jesus which calls me to agree with the truth and to walk with him through his death and resurrection into the new life he bought for me and gave me in the Spirit.

Even though this season of Lent is an opportunity to reexamine the reality of our need for Christ, it is also an opportunity to see more clearly the spiritual reality of our inclusion in Christ. As we stand in front of the mirror, Jesus Christ, who is the exact representation of the Father, and see ourselves mirrored in him, we cannot help but see how far short we fall from being the perfect image-bearers of God. This can, at times, feel overwhelming and can lead to feelings of guilt and shame.

First, we need to ask ourselves—is this genuine guilt I feel? Or is it that imitation guilt and shame which the father of lies and his companions like to dish out to make us feel unworthy, unloved, and separated from God’s love and grace? Sometimes the events of our childhood or the way we’ve been treated by significant people in our lives create in us constant feelings of guilt and shame that aren’t in any way related to the truth of our actions or thoughts. When we tell the truth about these feelings, that their root is in a lie, we often find freedom and peace. But we may find ourselves wrestling with them for a time until that root is completely eradicated and replaced in our hearts and minds with the truth of our inclusion in Christ.

True guilt though is meant not to tear us down, but to bring us to the realization that we have moved away from our center in Christ. Because of Christ’s finished work, there really is no reason to wallow in guilt nor is there any reason to feel ashamed. Jesus has drawn us up into his intimate relationship with the Father, covered all our guilt with his righteousness, and given us a new life in himself by the Holy Spirit.

We need to view ourselves and those around us in accordance with the truth—we are included in Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension. We have been given the greatest gift of all, Jesus Christ—in and through the gift of the Holy Spirit—in us and with us. We need to stay focused on the reality that our life in Christ is a life of grace. God already knows the sin we are capable of and has covered it all in his Son. There is nothing so bad that God has not, cannot, and will not redeem and restore us. Rather than continuing to muddle around in the pig slop, we might as well run on home into his waiting arms. There’s no point in waiting around thinking if we tried a little harder, we could clean ourselves up on our own.

What about these “messies” we carry around with us and never seem to be able to get free of? What about the dark places we don’t want anyone to see? We like to keep our dark places dark. Bringing them into the light, letting others into the closet with us, is something we avoid like the plague. We prefer the darkness to the light. But Jesus tells us to bring the darkness into the light since God already sees it anyway. There’s no point in hiding what God has already seen, taken up in Christ, and freed us from. (John 3:18-21) Embracing the truth, living in this painful but liberating honesty and transparency on an ongoing basis, is the healthiest place for us to be.

Really, this is all summed up in the realization that Christ is the center. We live in him, for him, and by him. As we are assaulted by the lies Satan and others speak into our souls, we need to turn to Christ who is the truth of our personhood and our existence. We will be tempted to resolve our failures on our own—we need to turn to Christ who already has resolved our failures in his finished work and in his very person. Satan will call out our shortcomings, sins, and weaknesses, but we need to listen instead to what the Father says to us through Jesus by the Spirit: “You are my beloved child. You are forgiven, accepted, and forever included in my perfect relationship with my Son in the Spirit.”

The season of Lent is an opportunity for us to embrace fully the reality that now and forever, we need Jesus. Daily we need the Spirit poured into us afresh so we can more fully live out the truth of who we were created to be—the image-bearers of God himself. Indeed, what Paul said is so true—in him we do live, and move, and have our being. Apart from Christ, we are a mess. We are preoccupied, indifferent, greedy, broken, hurting, self-absorbed, self-centered—you name it. We can live life pretty comfortably on our own for quite some time, but inevitably we will come face to face with the truth—we need Jesus.

I hope during this Lenten season we will come to that place in a new way. I hope we will see our need for the love of God and the redeeming grace we have in Jesus as well as how empty we are without the indwelling presence and Person of the Holy Spirit. We can be sober and realistic, but I believe we can also rejoice—for we know what happened after the cross. We know the end of the story, and we’re included in it. Spoiler alert! … We rose with Christ—and we are new in him. Praise God!

Our dear Abba, thank you. Thank you that we can run home to you because you are waiting. Thank you, Jesus, for doing all that is needed so we are welcome at home with Abba. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for making this real to each of us individually, for enabling us to know we are God’s beloved children, forgiven and beloved. Holy Spirit, enable us to see our need for Christ as well as the reality of our inclusion in Christ. Enable us to turn away from ourselves and to turn to Christ. Thank you, Holy Trinity, for your love and grace through Jesus our Lord. Amen.

“Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for forty days.” Luke 4:1-2a NLT

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Our Response to God and his Grace

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Stream Scene from trip to AR, taken by Linda Rex
Stream Scene from trip to AR, taken by Linda Rex

by Linda Rex

At our last group meeting in Hermitage we talked about the concept of inclusion. We in our denomination have been accused of being universalists due to our belief that God has brought all humanity into union with himself through Jesus Christ and has made his transforming Spirit available to all. The key element to this discussion is humanity’s individual response to the gift of salvation he is offering us in Jesus Christ. (For an excellent discussion of inclusion and our acceptance in Christ, see this article on the Grace Communion International website: https://www.gci.org/jesus/acceptance.)

So, how does a person respond to this gift of grace? As I was asked earlier this week: “How is the response to Jesus different from someone saying the sinner’s prayer? I thought that the sinner’s prayer was you making the decision to accept Christ and you bridging the gap between yourself and God. How is the response to Jesus’s acceptance different?”

This is a very important question and it speaks to the whole understanding of separation vs union with Christ. Saying the sinner’s prayer is indeed seen as bridging the gap between you and God, with the idea of repentance and faith bringing about a change in our position–from separation into union. It requires the process of repentance, faith, baptism, new behavior in order to be valid. Dr. Wauchope in his series on “God, the Who and Why” (there is a link for it on my blog site), explains how this method of bridging the gap between the spiritual world and our human world actually has its roots in Aristotle and the philosophers. It is as though we change the heavenly realities by our human efforts–which we know is a falsehood. Only God can change God.

So what does it mean that we respond to Jesus? Do we need to say the sinner’s prayer? I don’t believe that a particular prayer is necessary–the Ethiopian merely asked whether and where he could be baptized, and Philip baptized him. I think that is significant.

Baptism isn’t done in order to change our status with God. It is done as a sharing in Christ’s baptism, a sharing in his life and death. Peter called people to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins–what Jesus did when he was baptized for us in our place. He was calling them to receive the gift already given to them in the life, death, resurrection of Jesus–to participate in what Christ had already done for them.

In other words, at some point God is going to bring each of us to the point where we see that apart from Jesus, we have no hope–that without Jesus we are lost. Jesus said in his preaching–repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand (ie. I’m the Messiah and I’m here bringing in God’s kingdom), and he told his disciples to preach the Word, teach the Word and to baptize and disciple. That means there is a point of turning away from ourselves and our world and our way of living and being and a turning to Christ (ie. repent and believe, and receive the gift of life in him), at which point, symbolically through baptism, we identify with Christ, acknowledging that our life is in him.

This is why when someone comes to me and says, I believe in Jesus Christ and I want to be a Christian, I ask them, “Have you talked with God about this?” And then I will pray with them and encourage them to pray about their commitment to Christ and his will. And I will then talk with them about baptism as a sign of their commitment, as an acknowledgement of their participation in Christ’s finished work.

But Barth and the Torrance’s are real clear that there is a definite turning away from oneself and a turning to Christ at some point. It’s a point in time and a process where a person acknowledges their need for and reliance upon Christ and a turning away from themselves and their ways, and a turning to Christ, and a submission to him as Lord of their life. This can take some time with people and may occur well after their initial understanding at baptism.

This is why discipleship of new believers is so important. They need to come to know and rely on Jesus and to begin to live their life in him. It is his life they are participating in–the new life they live is defined by Christ’s life, not by them. A person’s response to Jesus is, therefore, not just an event in time, but a whole turning of their life and being away from themselves and to Christ throughout the rest of their life–as Jesus said, a dying to self and a living in him.

As you can see, the latter approach does not at any point bring up some form of separation, but rather says that Jesus is our life. In God, through Christ and in the Spirit, we live and move and have our being. Christ did for us in our place all that is needed–so believe it and receive it, and then live it out. It’s all in terms of participating in the life Christ made for us in our humanity as a sharing in his divinity. I think this is a much more hopeful and joyful word of life.

The following is a response to a related question, “Does the Holy Spirit work on each person individually at some level continually or is God not working with everyone yet?”:

Sometimes our inclusive language can be a little too free. Yes, we need to keep the concept of inclusion in our language. All are included in God’s life and love. That is a given. All are united with God in Christ.

But our calling and full participation in that is something the Spirit does in a unique time and way for each of us. The communion of the Spirit is a different story from our union with God in Christ. The communion of the Spirit is experienced by the body of Christ through whom God is bearing witness to the world about Jesus in the Spirit today.

It does not mean that all do not have the Spirit but rather that there is an awakening of some to the calling to bear witness to Jesus Christ as a community of faith. We want to let all people know they are included in God’s love and life. But the thing is–if a person is living and being in a way that does not coincide with how God is and how Christ is for them, then how can they fully participate in God’s love and life? There is a call to repentance–to a change of mind and heart in how we look at God and who we think he is and a turning away from ourselves to Jesus, trusting in him for life and godliness rather than in anything else. The Holy Spirit does a work in a person’s heart, mind and life that is transformational–it is real.

My friend Bob likes to say, “all are included, they just don’t know it yet.” That’s not really a bad thing to say–but there is still the call to repent and believe. Barth and Torrance say the best way to present the gospel is to say, “God loves you so much he sent his Son to live, die, rise again in your place. He’s done all that is needed for you to be reconciled to God and redeemed. Jesus Christ stands in your place, interceding for you with the Father, and he gives you his Spirit so you can share in God’s life and love. You are loved and forgiven. [ie you are included] Therefore, repent and believe.”

The gospel continues to require a call to repent and believe, even when all are included. The thing is, this repentance and this faith is taken up in Jesus Christ just like everything else–it comes as a gift from God through Christ in the Spirit. It’s not on us as humans to find something within ourselves to be able to repent and believe. Christ gives us his own repentance and faith as a gift of God through the Spirit. So it’s not all up to us–it’s all of grace. Really the only response left for us gratitude or grateful obedience, and even that we participate in with Christ. It’s all of grace.

When we think of the work of the Holy Spirit in terms of inclusion, we see that because the Spirit is poured out on all, he is available to all. He is working even now in and with each person. But as far as the transformational work the Spirit does in bringing someone to faith in Christ and into the body of Christ and into the obedience that comes with faith, that is something that is unique–it is a setting apart of certain persons for the purpose of bearing witness to Jesus Christ and to share the gospel. All are included in the kingdom of God, but not all are willing and obedient participants.

Father, I thank you for including all in your life and love through your Son Jesus and by your Spirit. Grant us the grace to receive and fully participate in your precious gift. Through Jesus our Lord, amen.

“After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mk 1:14–15 NIV

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