What is Your Prime Directive?
Good Morning Friends,
While I was contemplating the topic of racial reconciliation and Jesus, I began to think back to the 1960’s and what was happening in the United States and in Vietnam and then to that T.V. program that would boldly go where no man had gone before. And what puzzles me this morning is the merits of the Star Trek oath of noninterference in the social development of undeveloped worlds. Maybe it was a political statement on the Vietnam War and the reality of unintended consequences or respect for the autonomy of others. Still to me now it seems that the ethics of obligations is a very tricky thing, for it is often through our inaction that we cause the most harm. Injunctions against playing God begs the question: if we don’t play God, who will? Maybe it is through our good intentions and resultant actions that we gradually become one with Christ. Maybe we need to get over our inferiority complex and our fear of making a bad situation worse. And if our actions do make things worse, then we have to refine our strategies and ourselves in hopes of eventually achieving success. Who we are is a bit of a problem really. Maybe that is why we all need to change. Maybe that is why the Captains of the Starship so often broke the rules. What is Your Prime Directive?
Scripture: For a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law; but when in their distress they turned to the Lord, the God of Israel, and sought him, he was found by them. In those times it was not safe for anyone to go or come, for great disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. They were broken in pieces, nation against nation and city against city, for God troubled them with every sort of distress.
2 Chronicles 15:3-6 (NRSV)
So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision” —a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands— remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.
Ephesians 2:11-22
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Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” —although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
John 4: 1-15 (NRSV)
Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Luke 10:25-37 (NRSV)
Message: People have always struggled with the face of diversity and power. Jesus spoke to the subject on numerous occasions most notably with the Samaritan woman at the well, but also with the rich young ruler. And John the Baptist spoke to the subject as well in his call for repentance. It is the issue of our time and if we are going to rally around to be one with Jesus on this we had better be willing to do more than to go to a seminar on the subject…we had better be willing to join with one voice in service. For friends, this is not for the faint of heart, it is for the anointed, so know full well that if it is God troubling us as in 2 Chronicles then we do not want to get between God and the distress that comes with the changes God has in mind. But if God does want us to act and I think God must, we had better figure out what God wants so we do not get in the way. Now I only have my perspective but from my vantage point, pathetic as it is, I figure that God wants us to realize that the issue of prejudice is not just an individual, family, church or societal issue but a Gospel issue as well. This is a charge for the church to act in unity beyond denominationalism but also without compromising the truth and principles of our faith. And that is difficult. What also is difficult is figuring out how we need to think when we all fight a background we cannot change and personalities that are ingrained. Friends, when some cultures and races have had to learn the dominate culture in their interactions and the dominate culture has not had to learn … it poses a challenge. I got a sense of it when I got lost in Tokyo, a place with building all numbered, but not sequentially. There are some things you learn by living into the situation. And though one can find help as I did, the situation needs more than dialogue on what frustrates us and offends us. For when it comes to the reality of the situation, we may very well not speak the same language. Hopefully today’s devotional and scripture gives us some insight into the relevance for us today with the emotion and heart of the battle between Jesus and the Pharisees…between God and those that would control Him 2000 years ago. You see even then the Pharisees were pitting Jesus against John in a battle of baptisms. Into this setting and situation Jesus took some pretty amazing action that opened the door for the Hebrew God to become our God. I would have loved to hear the discussion of the Pharisees on whether they should include the baptisms of the Samaritans in the count totals. Maybe they would count the Samaritans as half or two thirds. Jesus did not miss a thing. Jesus goes to a people that the Jewish religious leaders despised. They were called pretty discussing things, especially the women. They were outcasts. And to these people separated/ divided from “the church,” Jesus enters into a leisurely conversation that turns into an intimate personal relationship with a compassionate response… ultimately His death on the cross. Today’s scripture brings us into a conversation with Jesus where the words spoken bring dignity and gravity, where Jesus speaks a word that calls salvation and reconciliation into being. It demonstrates that God, not the church leaders are in charge. It is done at that place, that deep well in us all where God provides for our needs, seeing into our hearts, into the deep wounds that have divided and brings the refreshing realization that we have a need for each other. I have need of you. You have a need for me and we all have a deep need for Jesus as He calls us to go and love. Perhaps you have experienced Jesus standing at the door, dutifully pushing it open as He pulls you into the grace filled fellowship of the loved, as He explains that to become a neighbor you must offer an act of kindness in the tension of the struggle for justice…balance. Priest and prophet, comforter and troubler of our conscience, Jesus points the way, tips the scales. Jesus helps us to experience a need in ourselves that is only filled by becoming a neighbor to someone in need. The personal becomes the corporate… the community combines with our conscience. Here we enter a world where filling a need becomes an act of worship. A worship where the sermon given is written on the hearts of the people we meet. The prayer offered becomes a request that God will bring us someone to love so we too can become loved. Here the confession of our senses becomes an act of caring. Here we sing a hymn with an engine humming, accompanied by our heart pounding, our muscles tensing, our mind mending and passion panting as we engaged in the heavenly work of being reconciled to God.
Pray we have power under control in our lives but it does not kill us in the process. Pray we realize how gentle God has been with us and how many times He could have condemned us. Pray He gently leads us so we too can be gentle with others. Pray we too begin to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Pray that in this harsh and painful world that Jesus would make a difference in our lives as He brings our tempers and perspectives, and our temperaments and our personalities under His control. Pray that when we are confronted with trials and tests that we would have faith in God’s faithfulness in our lives. Pray we allow the Spirit to work within us. Pray we have faith when going through a painful experience. Pray we keep pressing on in the face of difficulties. Pray our love hangs on to faith born of the Spirit. Pray we gather to serve with God in a way that gives us a common voice.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 