Much Obliged, Really.

Much Obliged, Sir.

My obligations bring me, what exactly?

Paul rapturously proclaims what God does for us. God places us beyond condemnation.  He lavishes on us His Spirit, the part of God empowering Jesus and raising Him from the dead.  In the Spirit, God frees us free from wrath, sin and death.  He condemns sin in us, to help us overcome it.  God enters us to dwell in us.  WOW.

Now Paul turns to our response. 

So what is our response?  Paul: Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation.[1]  We stare at the Builder generation to ask, “What is this obligation business?  It’s not our style.  We love Christ’s love and free stuff!  Thanks so much!  See ya!” 

The Builders knew obligations.  The world called on them to lift us from a depression, fight World War II and Communism.  The builders responded when the world called.  They left their footprints on the moon. 

Who now takes their places?  Men and women were obliged to mortgage homes to start an economy.  They were obliged to teach scriptures, love friends, paint, change light bulbs, and sacrifice driving new cars to give to the Lord.  Who now takes their places?  People were obliged to sense God’s call on them and serve ‘round the world.  Who now takes their places?

Paul says you will take their places, if you love Jesus.

We live with obligations.  Do you know the seven dwarves’ song in the original Snow White?  “Hi-ho, Hi-ho, it’s off to work I go!”  I laughed to see a bumper sticker on the back of a Benz in Miami.  “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go!”

Jill’s sister trained employees for Amex.  She said new, young ones are a bit scary.  They know what they want.  They clearly see what Amex can do for them, but have no sense of what they owe the company in return.  She found some are hard to train.

This study is about doing God’s work — building His Kingdom as we owe Him so much. 

Paul recites God’s amazing works in Christ.  We obligingly respond asking God to do great things in us: amazing things through us.  Look at vows: If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.[2]  The word, issar, is a bond, a binding obligation.

Mr. Marshall’s knees were scarred.  He promised God that if he returned from World War II he would go to church … on his knees.  He did: two miles.  His knee pads helped for 500 yards.  He painfully kept his vow.  Is your vow your bond?  Can God bank on your word?  How strong are your obligations?

The sense of obligation springs from early ideas of revenge and law.  In a personal offence a transgressor became a debtor to the injured party (I hurt you. I owe you).  Only an injured party can liquidate revenge on a debt owed to him.  That moved from personal revenge to national law, and the guilty party became a debtor to the law.  (Dump oil in an Alaskan harbor, and you owe America.  See you in court.)  In Israel it also meant a guilty party owed a penance to God.  So, if I hurt you, I may owe you, the law (nation), and God all three!

A sense of owing a debt to a virtue derives in Greek thought.  I’m obliged to fairness and honesty. Again, Greeks spoke of inner obligations.  The Jews owed debits to the Law and God.  The Greeks aspired.  Jews guilted! “He died. What’s it cost?  Two bulls and a ram?)  Philo merged both streams so we are obliged to Someone higher.  Out of Divine Law, we cherish a sense of the sacred … to be good or courageous.

The Jews got stuck thinking our relation to God is a legal relationship. Indebtedness marks our relation to God.  Jesus bridged the gap, even before the cross where He leveled the playing field.  Jesus told a story.  Do you know it?

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began settling them, workers brought him one who owed ten thousand talents. (Think trillions.)  [This slave] had no means to repay. The king commanded him to be sold, with his wife, children and all he had, to make the payment.  The slave prostrated himself before the king, saying, “Have patience with me, and I’ll repay everything!” (In a thousand lifetimes if you never eat or sleep!)  And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. But the slave went out, found a fellow slave who owed him [a hundred bucks].  He seized him and began choking him, saying, “Pay back what you owe me!”  The king calls the forgiven servant to ask, “Should you not also have mercy on a fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’  And his lord, in anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. ‘So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.’[3]

Jesus says we’re obligated.  Our first obligation forgives others as we have been!

Paul lived out a deep obligation to Christ’s amazing grace.  Reread this letter’s opening: I am obliged both to Greeks and to barbarians both to the wise and to the foolish. [4]  Paul begins with his obligation to us because of Christ.  Now he includes us so brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.  [5]

The verse sounds so odd!  It’s a rhetorical tool, a meiosis, where less is said than intended.  This meiosis is more than what is not said, in it the direction of the thought changes. 

Let’s say I tell you how excited I am for my wedding anniversary: how Jill puts up with me, blesses and loves me.  How she makes each day possible.  As I build to a climax to say, “Thanks for the years, Jill,” I say, “I owe so much of our years, not to Elon Musk!” 

The weirdness hits you.  Elon and I are not an item… never married.  I owe him nothing.

This meiosis is even stronger.  Let’s say I tell you how thrilled I am to leave a hospital after ten surgeries … on being hit by a drunk driver.  I thank doctors, nurses, therapists and chaplains.  I build to a climax: “And I owe so much, not to the drunk who hit me.”  I stop.  What you want to fill in screams at you in its absence.  Do you fill in where Paul stops?  

Read the verses again.  Paul never answers the second half!  Do you? 

Brothers and sisters, we have an obligation ¾ but not to the sinful nature, to live according to it???  For if we live according to the sinful nature, we die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the body’s misdeeds, you will live, because we who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s children!  For we did not receive a spirit making us slaves again to fear, but we received the Spirit of sonship. And by Him we cry, “Abba, Father.”  The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit (my most true self) that we’re God’s children.  Now if we’re children, then we’re heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order to also share in His glory. [6]

Sin in me, law, religion, anything less than Christ’s miracle in me, in my soul, is worthless.  Paul: I count all things as loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ![7]  If you lose nothing, give nothing, obligated nothing, you miss this truth. 

Jesus promises.  We leave behind our debts our obligations as we forgave others.  And forgive us our debts, (failed obligations), as we forgive our debtors, [8] Jesus’ word is the one Paul uses: opheiletes; a debtor, culprit, indebted, owed as failed obligations!

Jesus explained further: If you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father also forgives you.  But if you don’t forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

Jesus hates wrecked obligations.  Woe to you, blind guides! You say, “If I swear by the temple, it means nothing; but if I swear by the temple’s gold, I’m bound by my oath.” Blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?[9]  

Do you think we have a problem with obligations? We thank God for His gifts, yet spend 2% of our incomes on philanthropy.  How much are you obliged to God for His gift in Christ to you?  Skip smarmy sap.  Look at your scheduling app and check book.  Read the truth there. 

Do you think losing obligations affects us?  Bankruptcies fell to 683 thousand last year.

A lawyer friend recently remarked how many people are criminally irresponsible in finances if they have no picture of obligations.  Why is all this happening?

Alexander Pope described a man he despised.  Pope condemned the man saying he blamed everyone else for his shortcomings.  Worse, he made a timid foe and suspicious friend.  Even fools and flatterers dreaded him.  The worst, though, was that “He was so obliging, that he ne’er oblig’d (sic)” [1607].  People have ducked obligations for a long time.

Bankruptcy, divorce, cheating in marriages, workplace theft all show missed obligations. 

Is there a minimum amount of obligation…say for moms?  Governor Mike Huckabee and the courts agreed with Marie Riggs. She deserved to die. She was executed within two years of her crimes, at her request.  She asked for morphine and potassium chloride: she used them on her babies.  Marie told jurors: “I want to die. I want to be with my babies. I want the death penalty.”[10]

People need at least our minimum obligation in Christ.  In Jesus’ story of a failed minimum. a master vested a servant with a hefty amount, one talent.  As others doubled each trust, he buried his.  Felt bad doing nothing.  Fretted over his follow-up interview with the lord.  He wasn’t immoral.  He didn’t lose it.  He sat on it fearing his master.  Jesus says the servant of the failed minimum was banished to darkness: with weeping, gnashing of teeth and maybe Marie Riggs? 

See another thing.  Our highest obligation is a calling to stagger the imagination: those led by God’s Spirit are His daughters.  You did not receive a spirit making you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  By Him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit: we are God’s children.  Now if we’re children, then we’re heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings we may also share in His glory. [11]  What an obligation!

See then a wide range of obligation. In a bare minimum slaves and unhappy people work all the way up to the astounding reaches of being God’s sons and daughters, heirs worth their word!

Blessing:  When you find yourself out in life this week, and hear God’s greatest confidence in you, your deepest obligation, be thrilled, “I knew I could count on you, my child.”

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[1] Romans 8:12

[2] Numbers 30:2ff

[3] Matthew 18:23ff 

[4] Romans 1:14

[5] Romans 8:12

[6] Romans 8:12 ff

[7] Philippians 3:8

[8] Matthew 6:12 

[9] Matthew 23:16ff 

[10] (USA Today, May 3, 2000, page 4A).

[11] Romans 8:14 – 17

Special Consideration

I deserve special consideration.  At least, I think I do.

Honestly, it’s in my script.  I was born in America when only a fraction of my friends went to war.  A baby boomer; I attended school in a rich district, where being white got me benefits blacks schools did not get.  My church brought in Oxford scholars. I had an IQ to enjoy accelerated classes, was a doctor’s kid.  Nothing I earned.  All came unasked, undeserved.

I sensed I was called by God to serve Him, so I got to do that for years, with pay, and believed down deep, I got special considerations.  Get out of Jail Free cards.

The problem with special consideration, though, is that it has nothing to do with me.

Years ago, Jill and I boarded a Delta flight and were happily surprised to find the Captain was Darl Henderson.  We had been to his house often, eaten, and skied behind his boat while serving as a youth minister in Coral Gables.  I would never have known he flew C130s in Vietnam so close to the action that he got combat pay, if I had not wandered down a hallway to a bathroom (two were in use!) and seen photos on a wall.  He was quiet like that.

Darl was kind.  We found our seats and buckled in.  As we ignored the safety talk, a stewardess asked Jill and me to move to First Class and take new seats — at the Captain’s request.

We ate with real silver ware, a meal we only dreamed about in “last” class, and were too excited to sleep in the huge chairs while Darl flew.  Special Consideration.

I think I deserve special consideration, irrespective of any fact that I ever deserved any of it that has come before.

Between our two boys, Jill miscarried in the same month that her horse died.  We were devastated.  We fell from special consideration, but no more than the one in five pregnancies that abort universally.  Even there, at a prayer service where Mildred told us she had born two children full term to lose both, Charles Burnside quietly gave us a check — covering all our out-of-pocket costs to the odd dollar amount we would be billed for!  How could he know?

At the core of my faith, I believe, I hope, that beyond a special consideration of salvation, God in Christ plans for me, that He builds on, extends that special consideration.  And He does; just like 50,000+ names on a black scar of granite in a hill on The Mall; just like the 168 who died in the Murrah Building blast; or teens murdered in classrooms in schools across the country or on our highways.

You see, we denigrate the term, squandering it on temporary dwellings: bodily and material.  We denigrate it as we fear it: God’s special consideration means Heaven, with Him.  I want that, but fear it might be today, so, like Freud said, I binge on trivia and seek winnings, upgrades, great prices on steals, and so on.

I fear the ultimate upgrade, the last special consideration.  Not Darl.  Somewhere flying over battles covered in the Evening News collecting bullet holes in the fuselage except around his seat, he quietly found true special consideration.  Like God in Christ, Special Consideration is meant to push us to be creative in making it happen for others.

 

 

To Mrs. Scott

Jill and I moved to Miami to be youth minister at University Baptist Church in Coral Gables.  The kittens learned to respect the iguanas in the trees.  The electric company came to cut back the ficus from the electric lines every nine months.  The services were translated into Spanish and Patois and our staff reflected that composition, and Mrs. Scott was one of my Sunday School teachers.

Her first name was Mrs.  for all of her students, and that went for me as well.  The dress and address were both regal. Formal but not stuffy or priggish or feigned. She had a ready smile and cool wit, and she and Mr. Scott were that evanescence we know as Jamaican. Coping with challenges in life was built-in, and even when the laugh lines around the eyes were getting a work out from a good life, she somehow conveyed that gravitas, which communicated she chose to laugh, chose to believe, even after having seen life.

Mrs. Scott’s children were reserved and brilliant.  Except for Jonathan who was one part ADHD before we knew the term, one part Robin Williams, two parts anywhere from the BeeGees to Hank Williams to Madonna, one part Billy Graham, and all of it kindled such that he appeared to have his hair on fire, even when calmly talking to you face-to-face.

Many, many a girl measured this Scott, and not a few took his measure with great hope, but there was a girl name of Kathleen, and if she chased him it was with a stunning shyness that entwined him and drew him to her.  Effortlessly.

When Jill and I left Coral Gables, I left the youth ministry in Jonathan’s and Wes’ hands, and expected the announcement of their marriage, and were devastated at the news of her MS.  Devastated alongside an entire church reeling with a second pastor’s wife with the dread prognosis.

Could Jonathan have had a larger music career if he had travelled more?  Undoubtedly. Could he have had a larger speaking career if he had spent more time on the road?  Assuredly.  But with the rock-solid resolution of the first Mrs. Scott, Jonathan stayed close to the second Mrs. Scott until last week.

She is Home, now.

Sigourney Weaver made a choice a few decades back.  She was looking at her mantle and wondered if she would want more Oscars on there or pictures of the grandkids.  She stayed home for the kids and grandkids.

Jonathan’s and Kathleen’s kids will be able to put the pictures of their parents together on their mantles and say the mystical, magical incantation with just that Jamaican lilt,  “And she loved him with her dying breath, and he no less.”

Hellos across the worlds

Hi, Melinda.

You fought MS longer, better, more courageously than any other soul I know.

Your kids continued to grow stronger, taller, truer.  They pursued differing paths than any of us would have guessed when you were first diagnosed.  The grand kids are all taller, stronger and a little above average.  Your genes and spirit make them vibrant.

Your home was safe sanctuary for us in Miami.  Dan could come and go, but the anchor was in place, was secure because you were there.

When Dan told us that after the diagnosis so, so long ago that the two of you just returned to the car and held each other and cried and cried — I  instantly had the image — of hundreds, no thousands standing around that car.  All of us weeping or wiping tears.  Some holding each other, but all of us thinking that this disease, this test, this curse had hit us all.  And we silently held up our question to God, “Why her?”

You have answered that question fully, now, I know.  That is ancient, one world back history now, I know.  But I wanted to say it to simply say, “Thank you.”

Melinda, you made mother, friend, sister, Mother Superior, and encourager look so easy, so graceful.

And you are making it look so graceful again, of course.