Author: danefowlkes

Scripture Reading: James 2

Meditation:

Thoughtfully consider the following expressions on humility at work:

“This visible, earthly world is still God’s creation: one should not condemn it as a valley of tears; it is really the miracle work of God. And this earthly life is the life that God gives us, which it is our task to develop. Here is our place of work, the vineyard in which the Lord calls and places us.…Here are the neighbors whom we ought to love; whether we have been true to the realization of the talents entrusted to us will be decided when we are called to give an accounting. Therefore we must, so long as this life still lasts, give our whole attention to it and confidently allow what awaits us on the other side of death’s line to come upon us when it comes.”~Emil Bruner (I Believe in the Living God)

“I have experienced many human weaknesses, many human frailties, and I still experience them. But we need to use them. We need to work for Christ with a humble heart, with the humility of Christ. He comes and uses us to be his love and compassion in the world in spite of our weaknesses and frailties.” ~Mother Teresa (No Greater Love)

Scripture Reading: St. Mark 8:31-38; Exodus 19:1-6

Meditation:

Christ’s definition of discipleship contains three successive steps, each building on the previous. The final one in the sequence is “Follow me,” and may be accurately translated, “Obey me.” The order of these is critical–if I jump to obey without having first denied myself and accepted a cross, my obedience will be spotty at best. Following Jesus on my own terms is another word for disobedience. 

Obedience is both a thought process and a pattern of choosing. If disobedience is the name of the game before we are Christians, then certainly obedience is the name of the game after we become Christians. A great chasm yawns between disciplined believers and spiritual couch potatoes. Grace was never intended to produce sluggish, flabby Christians. Although we rightfully gorge ourselves on an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of mercy, Scripture expects the opposite of spiritual obesity, out-of-shape believers lumbering lethargically through their spiritual journey. Grace results in heightened passion to pursue God, or we misunderstand its divine intent; grace and hunger are not only compatible, they are conjoined at the heart. The Bible unapologetically urges those who are being saved to strive, and those who have been found by grace to stay after the search for greater intimacy with the Grace-giver.

Following Jesus requires that I come to the end of myself; understanding how to get to the end and live beyond is the key to discipleship. Jesus lays out a clear sequence to follow that begins with, “let them deny themselves…” What he doesn’t say here is as important as what he does communicate. Notice that he does not state, “Let him hate himself.” Christ is not asking us to deny our basic humanity, our personhood. If you take it that way, you have missed the point. The word “deny” means to “disavow any connection with something, to state that you are not connected in any way with whatever is in view.” Interestingly enough, it is the very word used to refer to Peter’s denial of Jesus a little later on. As he was standing in the courtyard of the high priest, warming himself at a fire, a little maiden asked him, “Do you know this man?” (Mark 14:66-72). Peter denied that he had any connection with Jesus, said he did not know him, and affirmed his disavowal with oaths and curses. This is exactly the word Jesus chooses for our first step in following him.

Scripture Reading: Mark 8:31-38

Meditation (The following is an excerpt from this morning’s sermon for the second Sunday of Lent):

I have tremendous respect for and embrace the official UMC mission statement: “Make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” No matter how you read or listen to it, this sounds great, until you stop and think about it. Wait just a minute. Hold everything. Is he saying what I think he is? Is this going to hurt? What exactly does Jesus have in mind when he calls us to be his disciples? If this is our mandate (and it is–check out the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20, “Go into all the world and make disciples”), what does it look like? The answer to that question is found in the clearest statement on discipleship, in all the Bible, the one made here by Jesus and recorded in St. Mark’s Gospel: “If any want to become my followers (disciples), let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

Here in St. Mark’s eighth chapter, Jesus begins to speak about his death. This was startling to the disciples, and represents a turning point in this evangelist’s Gospel. From this point, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, to the darkness of Gethsemane’s garden, to the judgment hall of Pilate, to the whipping post, and to the bloody cross; yet, on the way, he still ministers to individuals, still healing, still comforting, still cleansing, restoring, and blessing people. After Jesus had announced the cross to his disciples, been rebuked by Peter, and had rebuked him in turn, Mark recounts our Lord’s declaration of what it means to choose to follow him. “Christ does not pull his sheep by a rope; in his army are none but volunteers” (E. Frommel). Volunteering to be Christ’s disciple requires three progressive steps, each building on what went before:

1. Denial
2. Humiliation
3. Obedience

Following Jesus means coming to the end of myself and adopting a radically new way of thinking and living.

(We will consider each of these steps in the Lenten meditations for this week)

Scripture Reading: Romans 12

Meditation:
Consider these thoughts on surrender from C. S. Lewis and Thomas Merton:

“Now we cannot…discover our failure to keep God’s law except by trying our very hardest (and then failing). Unless we really try, whatever we say there will always be at the back of our minds the idea that if we try harder next time we shall succeed in being completely good. Thus, in one sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort, of trying harder and harder. But in another sense it is not trying that is ever going to bring us home. All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, ‘You must do this. I can’t.'”
~C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Scripture Reading: St. Luke 19:1-10

Meditation:

Change in me should always elicit change in others. If we’re not careful, discipleship can become toxic. Toxic discipleship transpires when our spiritual formation is entirely self-absorbed, disconnected from those in need nearby. There is a stark difference between revival and retreat; revival is the desperate need of our day. 

One wonderful example of how simple individual renewal can lead to sweeping revival is the revival that transformed Wales in 1904-1905. At the turn of the twentieth century a little over one million people lived in Wales, a principality of Great Britain about the size of Massachusetts.   Many worked in the coal mines there, and most attended church services regularly, but something essential was missing. Form supplanted substance; they had lost the passion for their profession. In February of 1904, Joseph Jenkins saw a breakthrough while speaking to the young people of his church. They weren’t delinquents; in fact, they were good, moral kids. Jenkins asked them, “What does Jesus mean to you?” There was a long, awkward silence and one young boy spoke up and said, “Jesus is the Light of the World.” Jenkins replied, “No, that’s not what I mean. What does Jesus mean to you?” An awkward silence followed.

Jenkins turned to a fourteen year old girl named Florie Evans, who had come to visit him the week before, troubled about her soul. He asked: “How are you on the Lordship of Christ?” Florie stood and said: “I don’t know what I can say this morning, but I love the Lord Jesus with all my heart. He died for me.” 

According to historian J. Edwin Orr, a hush of God spread across that little meeting. Young people were overcome as they realized how far their hearts were from God, and intense conviction led to sincere repentance. Jenkins seized this momentum, these stirrings of God, and organized his young people into groups as he went out to preach. They would come and pray for his preaching, and they would sing for him. Over the next few weeks, this confession by a young girl became the fuse that lit the Welsh Revival. Jessie Penn-Lewis wrote, “In the life of faith in London, a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand had arisen in the west – The Hope of Revival.”

How am I on the lordship of Christ, and what difference does my response to that question make on someone else?

Scripture Reading: Psalm 96

Meditation:

At this tender stage of another Lenten season, I have a confession to make. I do not attend Roman Catholic mass, but I do make an occasional visit to Catholic churches, usually during the noon hour, for the purpose of prayer, or just to enjoy lunch from Taco Bell in my Jeep under the towering oak to the south of the sanctuary. Although I don’t exactly stealth my way in with paranoid glances over either shoulder, this incognito custom goes against the religious grain of everything my mother instructed and practiced–stay away from anything liturgical as one would a staph infection. She didn’t come out and say ‘They’re of the devil,” but her eyes betrayed the sentiment. In light of my upbringing, stopping by a Catholic Church to kneel and pray is as out of sync with my past as was the woman that stopped by our Ash Wednesday service at the Methodist church and declined to receive the imposition of ashes simply because she was “a Baptist.” What draws me to these forbidden zones is not the confessional booth or any other particular Catholic procedure. I don’t consider myself a Protestant–I’m not protesting anything–but I’m not Catholic either, simply a follower of Jesus Christ wanting to be fully his. So, that which beckons to me irrepressibly is the otherworldly artwork, transcendent glass windows containing a kaleidoscope of heavenly hues, candles and incense, statues that both inspire and humiliate, and peace–most of all the peace. For the few moments I allow myself to battle my childhood training and bask in the divine shadow of extravagant artistic expression tuned to whisper Christ’s glory, I am transfigured. Utilitarian architecture has its place, I guess, but my soul always longs for more. I think this is what I edge closer to when the peace and filtered light wrap around me like a favorite blanket. And at that moment, maybe for just that moment, I lose sight of everything except that God is beautiful.