The One to Whom I Will Give This Piece of Bread

Jesus was pretty well known for obtuse answers to simple questions. People were regularly befuddled when he answered their questions. We could look at the places where he confuses people.

But he kind of goes to some strange lengths when he's outing Judas as his betrayer, during the last supper.

John describes it in chapter 13 of his biography.

"8 “I am not referring to all of you; I know those I have chosen. But this is to fulfill this passage of Scripture: ‘He who shared my bread has turned against me.’

19 “I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am who I am.

20 Very truly I tell you, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.”

21 After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, “Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.”

22 His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant.

23 One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him.

24 Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, “Ask him which one he means.”

25 Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?”

26 Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.

27 As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. So Jesus told him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.”

28 But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him.

I've often wondered why Jesus was so cryptic about it. I was listening to it again this afternoon when it hit me: the answer is Genesis 1, isn't it?

In Genesis 1, God creates the whole universe in six days, and he does it by speaking. He says a thing, and then the thing is created.

In John 1, it's clarified that it was Jesus that was doing the speaking. And here, Jesus is sitting around the table, talking with his Boys, and he's NOT speaking the thing that every one of them is asking: Who is it.

Today it struck me that if Jesus had said, "Judas is going to betray me," then the power of Genesis 1:3 (and Mark 11:14) would be released & Judas might have been controlled by the creative words of the Creator declaring his future.

Jesus was carefully and intentionally leaving Judas's will untouched by supernatural power of the Creator's declaration, so he dances around the subject, and finally answers the question with actions, not with words. (And that is the closest thing to an interpretive dance in the Scriptures, I suppose.)

That is, by the way, the primary tactical difference between a legitimately prophetic word and good wishes: the word that is spoken from God, that is the true prophetic word, carries not only information about God's will in the circumstances, but also carries the power to cause it to come about.

We can discuss (and I have already strained my brain thinking about) whether Judas's God-given free will would triumph over Jesus God-empowered words: did Judas really have the free will to choose not to betray Jesus?

I think that is exactly the reason for the interpretive dance: Jesus wanted to leave no room for that accusation for the generations to follow. Jesus could NOT have influenced Judas with his words, since he didn't use his words to discuss Judas.

This shouts to me of God's impressive forethought, of course, but also of his remarkable kindness. By handing Judas a bite of dinner, he eliminates squabbles among his children for centuries to come. (Not that we haven't found other things to squabble about....)

Church Leaders and Pruning Vines

The other weekend, I discovered that while I had been out of town, my tomato vines had gotten completely out of control. Instead of neat and tidy plants producing lots of delicious fruit, they had turned into raging green monsters that were producing more and more out-of-control raging green vines.

I picked up my pruning shears and went to town. Before I was done, I had hauled away two large garbage cans full of unfruitful (or barely fruitful) vines. I reflected on a couple of things.

First, I realized that by not pruning the tomatoes gently and regularly, now I had to prune them fairly harshly, and the result showed: instead of a well-balanced fruitful plant, when I was done, I had plants with great gaps in their branches, but at least they had the potential for growing some fruit now.

Second, I remembered our Lord's promise: “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” John 15:2. The promise of his care for me (more consistent than my care for my tomatoes, I assume) in order that I might bear fruit.

Then this week, I saw that while I had been tending my tomatoes and weeding my garden and harvesting my garlic, my grapevine had gotten completely out of control as well. Another raging green monster, oh boy.

I picked up my pruning shears (and a stepladder this time) and went to work. And I thought about the lessons of pruning the tomatoes, and realized that those lessons applied here, too.

But I learned another lesson with the grapes. Unlike with the tomatoes, I really didn't know what I was doing with pruning the grapes. This was beyond my training, beyond my experience, and I knew it. Furthermore, I realized that while I was doing the best I knew how to do, the reality was that the pruning was harsh and probably excessive. And I knew it was my fault, but the grapevine paid the price for my ignorance.

It was at that point that I heard Father whisper, “You’ve just described a very large number of pastors, Son.” I can tell you I paused to think about that one for a good while.

And as I considered it, I realized that pastors are a lot like gardeners: their values are for the nurture and development of the garden entrusted to them. But occasionally, someone in their care gets excited and starts growing out of control. In my own history, I remember a staid little Presbyterian congregation with a dozen individuals stepping out of the pastor’s influence to participate in the Jesus People Movement.

We discovered intimate relationship with Jesus; we discovered the Holy Spirit; we discovered that the Bible really is interesting and practical. We got terribly excited.

And the pastors didn’t know what to do with this revival. This was beyond their training, beyond their experience, and they knew it. And as a result, their responses to our untidy, out-of-control enthusiasm was harsh and probably excessive.

And Father pointed out to me that they actually realized their limitations, they regretted the damage they were doing, but they had to do something! We really were turning into out-of-control, raging monsters (the fact that we were teenagers didn’t help matters any).

But suddenly I was more sympathetic for those pastors, and for pastors today that are dealing with congregants who get excited and start growing much faster, maybe even irresponsibly.

Some of them are panicking, dealing with situations beyond the training of their seminary or Bible school. They feel (whether rightly or wrongly) that they need to bring that raging, out-of-control enthusiasm under control, and they respond more harshly, more damagingly than they would if they had more experience (or better training).

Some of the church leaders you and I have encountered (and it’s not all pastors, is it?) have been threatened by our excitement, our enthusiasm, our vigorous change. That doesn’t mean we quit growing, of course. And it doesn't mean we get angry, take our ball and go away, either.

Some of these leaders will never understand. Some will, like the leaders of Jesus' time, declare, “If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.” [John 11:48] Some will wish they could throw it all away and join us.

But a whole lot of leaders will be open to learning more, even if we scare them, even if it’s difficult. I’m encouraged to work on building bridges, so the whole Body can grow.

EVERY Good Gift

I hold a belief that I don't think I've heard others talk about before. So of course I need to talk about it.

This is one of those things that I *think* I believe. I observe that I live my life as if it's true.

Jesus' younger brother, James said this: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” [James 1:17]

So I've been thinking about that verse for a few years (like you do).

+  *EVERY* good and perfect gift is from Father. If it's a good gift, then Father is behind it. If my Mama gave me a cookie, then I'm (very) careful to thank her for it, but I still figure that God was behind it, because that's who He is. So I give thanks to Him as well.

+ Every gift that comes from Father is good and perfect. This does Not assume that everything that comes into my life comes from God. If it's bringing stealing, killing and/or destruction, then it's from somebody else. What my Father gives is always good and perfect.

+ “Heavenly lights.” I still don’t know what to do with that, so I try not to let it distract me from what God IS saying to me in this. (Don’t get sidetracked on this one, please.)

+ God does not change like shifting shadows. Someone else has said that he’s the same yesterday, today & forever. That works for me.

One of my personal goals is to increase my thankfulness. This integrates with that pretty nicely. Any good thing comes to me, I give thanks to my Father, regardless of who handed it to me.
 

Jesus Misdirects the Literalists

I recently stumbled over yet another place where Jesus sets up the literalists for failure. It seems he did that a number of times.

One time was in John 2. He had just made a whip out of cords (a slow and tedious process, by the way) and cleaned out the temple of the religious merchants who were taking advantage of the worshipers.

"The Jews" (the religious authority figures) were demanding to know his authority for such a disruptive action; they asked for a sign to demonstrate that authority.

"Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days," he replied [John 2:19]

That's kind of a pretty black-and-white statement, isn't it. There's nothing in the context to give away that this needed to be interpreted metaphorically, though Scripture tells us that detail [2:21].

Now let's be honest, this particular group of people were not experiencing a teachable moment. Rather, this was one of those times that they were not particularly disposed to hearing the truth from him. These people were apparently so committed to their authority (and to their profits) that they were unwilling to hear the truth. So he hides it in metaphor, but he doesn't tell the unteachable ones that he's hiding truth from them. 

Another situation was in John 6, where he was trying to speak truth about spiritual matters to people who had just had one free lunch and were looking for another. These guys were asking for a sign, too (v30), though they were not very subtle about the fact that they really wanted the free lunch (v31), and Jesus knew it (v26).

In all fairness, he spent quite a lot of energy (v35 - 51) trying to communicate actual truth with them. It seems to always happen: when their source of free food made it clear that there will not be any free food today, they turned on him (v51), and so he does it again: he speaks truth in metaphor, but doesn't tell them that it's a metaphor. (If you pay attention, you can maybe see this happening in our Federal government these days, too.)

"Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." [John 6:53, and repeatedly through v58].

From the hindsight of the New Covenant and the Last Supper [See Luke 22], we know that he's talking about eating the bread and drinking the cup of the New Covenant; people who do not join with Him in the New Covenant don't have life in them. But they thought he was talking about literal cannibalism, and they had every reason to think that.

But being honest again, this group of people had resisted Jesus' best attempts at making this a teachable moment. These folks had committed themselves inflexibly to one view of Jesus. So again, he hides the truth in metaphor, but he doesn't tell the unteachable ones that he's hiding it from them.

And this is the point where that gets more than usually uncomfortable for me. I've been a rather un-gracious proponent of Biblical Literalism in various points in my history: Interpret it all literally unless it says not to. In fairness, I was reacting to a movement that had explained away all of the supernatural events in the Bible by calling them metaphors for spiritual reality. I didn't like that. (But over-reacting is seldom a successful response.)

And then I realized that Jesus is still in the business of hiding truth in plain sight. From time to time, he still hides the truth in metaphorical (or "apocalyptic" or even "prophetic") language. And he still doesn't tell us that he's doing that.

There are still believers for whom truth is hidden. There are some people who are so committed to their power, their position and their paycheck that despite their words, they don't really want the truth; it might threaten all that. And there are some believers who are so convinced that their view is the right view, so they shut down any truth that challenges that.

Some of these are Christian leaders, and I'm guessing that we could all point to some (but let's not, OK?). And scads of them write books and promote their views on social media, and I'm pretty sure we've all run into some of them.


But the bigger lesson is not for "them." It's for "me" and for "us." Not a one of us is immune from these truth-blinding errors. I guess we need to read the Bible for ourselves and let both Holy Spirit and our brothers & sisters help us see the truth that Jesus has hidden where we least expect it.

Missing the Point of Eternity

 Let's start with some backstory. A few years back, some friends of mine began teaching a new doctrine (well, new to me, anyway) that offended me, and not just a little bit.

Over-simplified, they began teaching that since we (already) have eternal life, therefore eternity is in play now, and therefore (and here's where I had trouble), we don't need to physically die. Eternal life can apply to our bodies, not just to our spirits.

These were people whom I know personally (some of them pretty wel), people I have learned to trust. I couldn't just blow it off as foolishness.

I was raised in a mainline denominational church. This would have been a scandal in that context, of course.  

Then I spent a bunch of years in fundamentalist evangelical congregations. They might have used the word "heresy."

But new revelation is kind of always scandalous to the previous generation, the previous move of God.

So I set out to prove that doctrine wrong. "Everybody knows you die, and then you go to Heaven!" That was my first problem. Things that begin with "Everybody knows" are pretty often messed up, and almost never as simple as they seem.

I put several months of study, interviews, prayer into trying to prove them wrong. I failed. I have been unable to prove that doctrine wrong.

I did not, however, prove them right. So I've left this is the "We'll see" category. But I didn't let it go. So every so often, I brought it out and discussed it with Father. There was a lot of re-hashing the same questions, the same objections. He mostly just smiled and nodded, but at least we enjoyed our time together. 

Then one day, I think it was the nine-hundred-and-eleventy-third time I brought it up, he spoke.

"You're missing the point here, Son." And suddently I realized that if my primary concern about Eternity is when it starts, or what the transition points are like, then I've put my attention on the wrong subjects.

We have (more to the point, I have) more important responsibilities than fussing about whether my body will grow old and die, or whether I'll pull an Enoch, or whether it'll be something else entirely. I am (we are) still charged with praying, both in word and deed, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven."

That's where my attention needs to be: the work of the Kingdom here and now. The Great Commission still stands, after all.

So will my body live forever? Honestly, I don't much care any more. My Dad & I have work to do here & now, and at some point (a point that he is responsible for, not me), our partnership will change perhaps both in object and location, but that's not at all my job now.

Somebody a whole lot smarter than me once said something about "So whether we live or we die, we are the Lord's." Maybe he was onto something.

Big Screen Day Priorities

I found myself thinking about the Judgment of our works that Revelation chapter 20 talks about. I refer to this as big-screen day. I don't know why, but I suspect it's going to be public. I imagine you might be there when it's my turn to have my life displayed on the big screen.

By the way, it seems pretty clear that what we repent of is forgotten. So it would not surprise me if the only things listed in the books are the things that never needed forgiving, never needed repenting. In other words, the books might just record the things we actually did right. Just a thought.

So I was imagining big-screen day. I was imagining it was my turn to be on the screen, and I was imagining lots of people watching the strange little details of my life.

Suddenly it occurred to me how silly that was. I actually found myself saying out loud, "Guys, if it's my big-screen day, that means father is right there. Why in Heaven's name are you watching me? Get your eyes on him! He's worth watching. I'm not!"

It seems logical to me that when it is your turn to have your life displayed on the big screen, that I will be distracted by the king who has his hands on the controls. Nothing personal, I promise you. But it really is all about him!

Another Revival

I’m going to review some fairly controversial topics today. If you have trouble with God moving outside your comfort zone, you may not want to read this article. I’m serious: be careful! This may push your buttons.

We’re going to (well, I’m going to) talk about homosexual Christians, LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] Christians. And whatever other letters are used these days. We’re going to talk about what God is doing in this community.

This is a topic that’s going to trigger some folks. If you choose to comment, please comment on what I am actually saying, not (I repeat NOT) on what somebody else said at some other time and place. Our goal is to get OUT of the mess that religion has put us in and to see what God is doing.

The Bible is clear, Old Testament and New: the homosexual behavior going on in those cultures is sinful behavior. That's not what this is about. (Neither is this about the sinful behaviors of gossip or pride or gluttony or any of the other sins that are plaguing believers.)

This is about what God is doing.

One day, some years ago, I was with a small group, praying for some folks we knew that were stuck in homosexuality. It was one of those prayer sessions where you just know that God is hearing your prayers, even as he’s helping to shape them and encourage us in them. It was wonderful!

In the midst of that, I had a vision: I saw tens of thousands of people in the homosexual community were encountering Jesus. It was a huge movement, and God was in their midst. They were worshiping powerfully, and God was delighting in their praise. There were signs and wonders. Many were in tears, some because of His love, some because of their sin, but it wasn’t always the sin I was seeing that they were convicted of.

I began to praise God for that revival, for the many sons and daughters that were coming back to their Father, and as I did, the vision shifted and became even more real: suddenly I was in their midst as we were worshiping God. (Full disclosure: I am not gay.) 

And then I realized: these people weren’t – or most of them weren’t – leaving their culture. Nearly all of them stayed in the homosexual community. And a very large number of them didn’t appear to repent of their homosexual ways as they encountered God.

Father began to gently instruct me in the midst of this vision:

1) When he calls people to himself, he does not call them to leave their culture. American Church Culture is not his goal. Relationship with Jesus is the goal. Hmm. OK. That’s true enough. American Church Culture is not God’s goal.

2) When he finally got ahold of my own life (after a longer fight than it frankly should have been), I was not sin-free. There were several sins that he took decades to put his finger on. In fact, He continued, “There are some things I haven’t pointed out to you even yet.” (Um... Yikes.)

But it’s true. If he didn’t point out– and by pointing out, give me grace to deal with – some of my sins for decades, why should I expect him to be less patient with his other sons and daughters?

3) And son, he said so very gently: these are my children, not yours. I am their Father, you are not. I am capable of raising My own children without your getting in their way. It was not (quite) a rebuke, but he was clear: he was not soliciting my opinion of how he fathers his children.

Since that experience, I’ve received reports that this is actually beginning to happen, that substantial numbers of people inside the LGBT community are discovering the Lover of their Souls!

I have received several credible testimonies from different people in different streams that describe to me a revival that is currently going on among the homosexual population. (At their request, and for their safety, I will not be releasing their identities. Some people do not respond well when God moves outside their box.)

These testimonies are from mature prophets and apostles, from people I know and trust, from mature believers who have been among some of these gatherings of gay believers – we might call them either church meetings or conferences – where the worship is powerful, where the Holy Spirit is present, where signs and wonders are in abundance, where Jesus is lifted up high. They have recognized God’s favor on the gatherings, and experienced His delight in them. Usually, it confused them the first few times, too.

I have met believers who are homosexuals, everywhere from your basic, timid churchgoers to flaming transsexuals proclaiming the gospel to their community. Some are content with their homosexuality; some want out but don’t know how; some are proud of their status, though these appear to be the primary ones who’ve taken the brunt of the church’s accusations.

I’ve said all this to arrive at this conclusion: God is moving powerfully in ways that we never expected. 

Maybe I shouldn’t speak for you: God is moving powerfully in ways that I never expected. And I have the strongest sense: Hold on to your hats, because God has more than this that he’s going to do that is way the heck outside of our box.

So how shall we respond to homosexuals that call themselves Christians?

That’s simple: we love them. Just like we’re called to love self-righteous people who call themselves Christians. Just like we're called to love everybody. We’re called to love.

We surely have no right to challenge the faith of either the gay community or the self-righteous community, or the hypocritical churchgoing community (or any other community). Frankly, we nearly always lack the right to challenge either their behavior or their culture. But we have the right to love them. We have the responsibility to love them.

I propose this: Let’s love one another, as Jesus commanded us, shall we? And let's trust our good Father to raise His children well.

And maybe we celebrate when people come to Jesus. He does.