Preparations for the Last Supper. But first, the palm procession.
Jesus tosses tables in the temple once he gets into Jerusalem. Why? Loan sharks, dove merchants(they sold sacrifices for the poorer folks--likely way overcharging, like inner city convenience stores and other 'hood merchants today). Children got it, others, not so much. Left town for the night, disgusted.
No fruit on the fig tree. Won't we be known by the fruit produced in our lives? He curses the tree and says no fruit ever again. Notice that this isn't an indictment on whether or not the disciples' lives produce fruit, but whether or not they, through prayer, are able to do what Jesus does--and more. That's a power we ought not disabuse--to deny someone the ability to ever produce fruit, would be an abuse of that power, I would think. "If you embrace the kingdom life and don't doubt God, you'll not only do minor feats like this, but more--huge obstacles!
Credentials. Who authorized you to teach here? Who authorized John's baptism? Answering question with question; not providing easy, soundbite answers. Think about it! And be careful not to self-incriminate!
Which son did what the father asked? "Even when you saw their changed lives, you didn't care enough to change and believe him."
"God's kingdom will be taken back from you and handed over to a people who live out the kingdom life. Whoever stumbles on this Stone gets shattered; whoever the Stone falls on gets smashed."...Many people held Jesus to be a prophet of God.
Are we rebellious tenants--stewards trying to be owners? Even if we are, God hasn't left us alone, despite our sin. God is still here in love and forgiveness, exercising his gracious rule over our lives. EP: "Warning: If you refuse to acknowledge the ownership of God and your position as a steward of life, there will be no meaning or beauty or fullness in anything you do. Even the marvelous wonders of material things-material created by God-won't give you happiness. You'll descend into a downward spiral of neurotic anxiety and unhappy pleasure seeking, as constant denial of God's central place won't get rid of God. The point of the stewardship story is this: God wants us to enjoy all that he has given us. But we can't do it unless we enjoy God at the center. Every joy radiates from that central joy, just as the rays of life-giving light radiate from the sun."
Wedding banquet. Zan Holmes story-everyone come! Extreme banquet, but folks are too busy, think they got a better offer. Invite anyone you find to the banquet-everyone they laid eyes on: good and bad, regardless. Yet one is kicked out for improper dress. Is that where we've gotten the church dress code?
Ep: "God has invited us to come to him and has prepared a feast for us to share. And we take it lightly. We make excuses. Or we're so far out of touch with reality that we actually scoff at or even destroy the messengers who deliver the invitation. God is the reality with whom we have to deal. Life is the banquet God's prepared."
"Man was not prepared for the banquet as he was dressed inappropriately. Probably not literal dress, but spiritual dress--are we internally transformed for God's banquet? "We're in the very presence of God, sharing the very acts and words of God, and yet we treat them just like any other words and acts. They're just another part of the routine of the day, neither less nor more important. We read the bible with the same detached boredom with which we skin the newspaper. We sometimes come to church with the same combination of duty and reluctance that gets us to a PTA meeting. We pray with the same casual indifference that we use when talking to the checkout clerk in the supermarket--the bare, monosyllabic minimum that will get us our daily bread. This is both the irony and the tragedy of the parable. And its both the irond and tragedy of our own lives as well." EP
"Give Caesar what's his, and give God what is his." trick answer, too, as if everything is God's...and God takes care of all, won't God take care of Caesar, too? Never thought of it that way...chewing.
"The living God defines himself not as the God of the dead but of the living."
What's the most important command in God's law: "Love the Lord your God with all your passion, prayer and intelligence. Love others as well as you love yourself; These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the prophets hangs from them."
"Whose son is the Christ?"
Romans 1-3
A devoted slave of Jesus Christ on assignment...You are who you are through the gift and call of Jesus Christ! I thank God for every one of you. You have as much to give me as I do to you.
This extraordinary message of God's powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with the Jews and then right on to everyone else.
"People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat God like God, refusing to worship God, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand." "If that's what you want, that's what you get." Do you worship the God who made you, or the god you made?
What do you think of God withholding blessing, presence, conversation, and letting us run loose, spitting in God's face?
EP: Sin isn't a skeleton in the closet that we surround with restrictions to keep it in place. It's a defective relationship with God. If we aren't convinced of the nature of that defect in our lives, it's unlikely we'll accept the remedy for the defect. The failure to treat God as God, to honor him and thank him, Paul calls Sin, with a capital S, from which all lowercase sins ultimately proceed. If we, having read Paul's gospel, were to still think that sin is sensuality or vice or crudeness or any of the bad things we do, we would have missed the point completely. Paul wants us to understand that those things are derivative. Sin, he asserts, is that original rebellion against God, that basic act of leaving God, that foundational failure to treat God as the Almighty. This disaffection from God, called Sin, is humanity's despair. But when Paul writes of it, it's anything but despair, for by tracing our sins to their source, he prepares for the solution. That solution has nothing to do with self-help and everything to do with a Savior."
God is kind but not soft. Great section headline. "Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself." God holds us to what we've done--can't distract God by pointing at others. "In kindness, God takes us by the hand and leads us into a radical life-cahnge."
"If you sin without knowing what you're doing, God takes that into account. But if you sin knowing full well what you're doing, that's a different story entirely. Merely hearing God's law is a waste of time if you don't do what God commands. Doing, not hearing, is what makes the difference with God."
Confirm truth by obedience, as God's law is woven into the very fabric of our lives (I thought that was cotton). There is something deep within that echoes God's yes and no, right and wrong.
Religion can't save you. Can I get an "Amen"? "It's because of you Jews (religious people) that outsiders are down on God." And we think this is a 21st century thing?! Better to keep God's law uncircumcised than to break it circumcised. You become a Jew by who you are. It's the mark of God on your heart, not a knife on your skin, that makes a Jew. Recognition comes from God.
"God keeps God's word even when the whole world is lying through its teeth." There may be hope for us yet!
"All of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical condition, as sinners." We're all in the same boat. "Our involvement with God's revelation doesn't put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else's sin."
Out of sheer generosity God put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift.
Justification: God putting us in right standing with himself. Jesus comes into the courtroom and the court and word are transformed. The court room switches from a site for cross examination to a place of creation--of becoming new creations in Christ. Sin and righteousness are bridged by God's justification. Begins with justice and ends by making us just. Justice is served. We're free.
Insider claims are canceled, too. God doesn't respond to what we do; we respond to what God does. Our lives get in step with God. God is the God of outsider non-Jews as well as insider Jews. How could it be otherwise since there is only one God? God sets right all who welcome his action and enter into it, both those who follow our religious system and those who have never heard of our religion. What God does. We put the entire way of life into practice and confirm what God does.
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