A Priceless Collection

           What do you collect?

            I used to collect sandcastles. Not the ones high tide washes away. The permanent ones you can buy in shops on the boardwalk. Every summer on vacation in Ocean City, New Jersey, I carefully chose another sandcastle to bring home.

            Now I collect teddy bears. Most of them spend most of the year in plastic bins in the basement or attic, but they move to the living room in December. They are my Christmas bears, dozens of them. And my Hanukkah bears, three or four of them. And a few assorted non-bears like sheep and dogs and even a moose. But mostly bears. I often can’t resist adding to my plethora of bears; I especially like rescuing cast off bears from thrift stores.

A fraction of my bears

            Does Jesus collect anything?

            Today’s devotion in the Secret Place surprised me. Author John A. Fischer points out that we are God’s gift to Jesus. I had to read that sentence twice. And underline it. “…God has given us to Jesus as a gift.” I’m used to thinking of Jesus as God’s gift to me, but I never thought of myself as God’s gift to Jesus. And yet there it is in John 17:24, a sentence in Jesus’ prayer the evening of his arrest, “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”

            Jesus collects people given to him by his Father. He loves and treasures them. Even though he has a plethora, many sets of ninety-nine, Jesus searches for the ones who are cast off and ragged. (See Luke 15.)

See the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15.

            Who would have ever thought a girl from Park Ridge, New Jersey would become part of a priceless collection? And yet I am. And you can be, too.

The Secret Life of Mrs. Saint Peter: Imagining Between the Lines of Scripture

Simon Peter’s wife is never mentioned directly in the Gospels. We don’t even know her name, but we can imagine what a roller coaster ride of a life this woman experienced. She had lived an ordinary life as a fisherman’s wife in first century Galilee until Peter brought home a traveling rabbi, who healed her feverish, widowed mother. (Mark 1:29 – 31) Did Mrs. Peter put her faith in Jesus that day?

After that, she knew Jesus was someone special, but then Pete took off for months at a time and didn’t phone or Skype. He stopped fishing for fish and started fishing for people…and who paid the bills?

This continued for several years until Peter nearly got himself arrested skulking in a Jerusalem courtyard while Jesus was on trial. How did Mrs. Pete deal with a grief-stricken, shame-ridden husband…who then turned around in less than a weekend and claimed his dead teacher was alive? Just when life was going to return to normal, because Pete started fishing again (John 21), the risen Jesus gave him a new assignment:  be a shepherd to God's sheep.

Was Mrs. Peter in the upper room at Pentecost? (Acts 2) Did they have to pry her off the floor when the Holy Spirit filled her husband and he started boldly preaching to thousands of foreign visitors? How did she feel when Peter defied the Sanhedrin’s order to stop proclaiming Jesus and he spent his first night in jail? (Acts 4)

Fisherman mosaic at outdoor altar at Church of the Primacy of Peter Tabgha in Galilee Israel
http://catholichotdish.com/the-pastors-page/peter-takes-the-plunge-of-faith/

After keeping a kosher home and a separated Jewish lifestyle for decades, was she stunned when Peter bunked in the home of a Roman centurion and ate at his table? (Acts 10 – 11) Did she enjoy accompanying her husband on his ministry travels? (1 Corinthians 9:5) Did it make up for the three lonely years when Peter had left her and wandered with Jesus?

The imagination is not stretched too far in saying Peter’s first epistle reveals his family life. When he urged newborn believers to crave spiritual milk, was he fondly remembering his own infants nursing hungrily? (1 Peter 2:2)

Peter chose Sarah as the biblical example of a wife’s submission without fear—Abraham had selfishly handed Sarah to a king to save his own skin. (1 Peter 3:5 – 6) Was Peter remembering everything his wife put up with during his open-mouth-insert-foot days?

Peter’s description of a beautiful Christian woman reflects decades of living with his wife. It’s not about fancy clothes and fussy hair and sparkly jewelry, he wrote. It’s about the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, valuable in God’s eyes. (1Peter 3:3 – 4) He urged husbands to be considerate and respectful of their wives; after all, they—and Mrs. Peter—are joint heirs of the grace of life.

What is the silent Mrs. Peter trying to tell me? Maybe that in the seasons of life, a woman may at times be married to a fisherman, an unemployed wanderer, a crowd-wowing evangelist, or a jailbird…and they’re all the same man. No matter what she thinks she knows about her guy, only God can envision what he will become with a little patience and a lot of Holy Spirit power and polish.

When I doubt God can change and use someone close to me, I will try to remember Mrs. Saint Peter.

Who is He?

You may have read this in December 2013. Now you can read it again. 

May you have a blessed Christmas.

Who is He?

Storymaker

Demon bouncer

Tamer of churning seas

Grapeless vintner

Scoundrels’ crony

Charmer of loaves and fish

Medicine man

Grave pillager

Heckler of hypocrites

Betrayed brother

Sentenced outlaw

Tormented innocent

Mort immortal

Insensate corpse

First cent’ry Houdini

That night merely

Fragile newborn

Creator turned creature

Creation’s hope

Mary’s wonder

Seers’ dream swaddled in flesh

from the Nativity Story

Where does Jesus shop?

I never knew I wanted a Keurig coffeemaker. I’d played with one in the orthodontist’s office over the years, always treating myself to a free cup to compensate for the thousands of dollars invested beautifying the teeth of my four sons. But I was never willing to get a second mortgage to own a Keruig.

A quick Google search has prices ranging from $129.99 at Bed, Bath, and Beyond to $61.99 at…Tonerworld? I’m not sure I want to drink coffee associated with toner.

Then one day a few years ago my son Kevin procured a malfunctioning $5.00 Keurig from a thrift store and fixed it. I quickly became an addict of the high-priced, wasteful little K-cups, which I buy much cheaper, but just as wasteful, at the Surplus Outlet, which is blessedly close to my new job.

Anyone want to diagram that last sentence? No, me neither.

A few weeks ago, we thought Old K had brewed its last, but Young K whipped out his smart phone and ordered a replacement part, which arrived from Rhode Island by way of San Diego while we waited most impatiently.

This blog post is not really about coffeemakers, but when my pastor used a two-dollah-and-fitty-cent theological word at our Maundy Thursday service, I thought of my Keurig.

If you don’t like theology, skip these paragraphs.

The word is R-E-D-E-M-P-T-I-O-N, a noun, and the verb is “to redeem.” Dictionary.com offers these definitions for redeem:  1. to buy or pay off; clear by payment: to redeem a mortgage. 2. to buy back, as after a tax sale or a mortgage foreclosure. 3. to recover (something pledged or mortgaged) by payment or other satisfaction: to redeem a pawned watch.

Redemption happens to us humans; we are the pawned watches that need to be recovered. God is the one who buys us and the price he pays is the blood of Jesus.

To my surprise, the website included a long paragraph from Easton’s 1897 Bible Dictionary: 

There are many passages in the New Testament which represent Christ's sufferings under the idea of a ransom or price, and the result thereby secured is a purchase or redemption…The idea running through all these texts, however various their reference, is that of payment made for our redemption. The debt against us is not viewed as simply cancelled, but is fully paid.
(redemption. Dictionary.com. Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/redemption (accessed: April 05, 2015).

Okay, come back now.

Hoping to make my point less muddy than three day old coffee, I want to answer my own question, “Where does Jesus shop?” Where does he shop for followers, for converts, for disciples, for younger siblings to join his family?

He shops at thrift stores, secondhand stores, yard sales, and flea markets. He even picks through the garbage dump. He doesn’t go to Macy’s to look for perfectly functioning people in their original boxes, because there aren’t any anyway. He picks up rusty, crusty, broken people, pays for them with his own life and takes them home and fixes them up.

Jesus shops at the Salvation Army. Bask in the irony.

You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
1 Corinthians 6:19b – 20, NIV

You might be a pagan if…

What is a pagan, anyway? If you don’t like words and word origins as much as I do, you might want to skip a few paragraphs.

Dictionary.com offers these definitions, with the warning that points two, three, and five are disparaging and offensive.

noun

1. one of a people or community observing a polytheistic religion, as the ancient Romans and Greeks: no longer in technical use.

2. Disparaging and Offensive. (in historical contexts) a person who is not a Christian, Jew, or Muslim; a heathen.

3. a follower of any of various contemporary religions that are based on the worship of nature or the Earth; a neopagan.

4. Disparaging and Offensive. an irreligious or hedonistic person.

5. Disparaging and Offensive. an uncivilized or unenlightened person.

(pagan. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pagan (accessed: October 28, 2014).)

The word pagan appears fourteen times in the NIV New Testament; three of those times, it’s Jesus speaking in what’s commonly called the Sermon on the Mount. (I call it Kingdom Torah, but that’s a blog for another day.)

Jesus said, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:46 – 47

Here the translators used “pagans” to translate telonai, literally tribute collectors. So how come they came right out and said “tax collectors” in verse 46, but used “pagans” in verse 47?

Jesus said, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.  And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.  Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him”. Matthew 6:6 – 8

Jesus said, “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:31 – 33

In both Matthew 6 passages, the translators used “pagans” to translate ethnikos and ethne, which mean “adapted to the genius or customs of a people, peculiar to a people, national suited to the manners or language of foreigners, strange, foreign in the NT savouring of the nature of pagans, alien to the worship of the true God, heathenish of the pagan, the Gentile.” (Love me some British spelling!) (http://www.biblestudytools.com/search/?q=pagan&s=References&rc=LEX&rc2=LEX+GRK) 

Non-word lovers, join us here.

All this to say, in first century Israelite usage, the Jews were “the people” and everybody else was “the peoples.” The outsiders. The goyim of the Old Testament. The pagans.

So what would you have to do for Jesus to call you a pagan? Worship multiple gods? (See definition one.) Worship nature or the Earth? (See definition three.) Be an uncivilized and unenlightened clod? (See definition five) No. None of those.

You might be a pagan if…

• You only love those who love you first.
  
• You only say howdy to your own peeps.
  
• You babble on in your prayers, telling God what he already knows.
  
• You worry about what you’re going to eat, drink, or wear when God has promised to provide all that.
  
• You don’t seek God’s kingdom and righteousness before your own concerns.

You might be a pagan. Don’t get mad at me; I didn’t decide the criteria. Jesus did. 

Besides, I might be a pagan, too.