December Eighteenth......Luke Eighteen

In South Asia a lingering mentality persists that justice can not be carried out by another.  This leads, in some,  to a fatalistic view of letting go of everything, inertia.  Most people with this view do not burst into Frozen song.  The other school of thought directs a person to mete out justice with their own hand, vigilantes. 
The police and other public service and law enforcing offices are rife with injustice.  People are immune to fighting a system they help perpetuate.  Widows are very vulnerable with no man to help fight for justice for them.
This widow found justice through begging and begging.  Finally her voice was heard.  She nagged so hard she got her justice.

God is not like this judge.  In fact he loves us and watches over us.

Jesus is making a strong point here.  God is not this judge.  Are you crying out for something during this season?  Keep praying and remember that our God hears and He cares.  He does not tarry to answer unnecessarily.

On a side note......  I was fascinated by the Blind Beggar crying out  "Son of David."  We miss how wild he was to shout such a thing.  He was admitting to the Sovereignty of Jesus and  giving Him highest honor.  We miss the stigma of Jesus' birth to an unwed mother and the shame of not having a father's name.  We miss why the crowd hushed the beggar.  Not because he was shouting but because of what he was shouting.  Truth!  Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophecy and promise to David.  The beggar was shouting out Jesus' true lineage.  I do not think this story increases with depth with South Asian culture except that you know the shouting would be normal so it must have been what he shouted that made everyone try to quiet him.  A blind man saw Jesus for who He was and called it right. 

December Seventeenth........Luke Seventeen

All about thanksgiving, this chapter.  Firstly Jesus tells a story about a servant and the master.  We in the West have a very black and white take on service.   Slavery tinges the word servant and makes us almost itch uncomfortably when confronted with this word.  Not so in South Asian cultures.   Servants in South Asia are the norm.  I am not saying that slavery is acceptable, honorable or good.  Within the culture norm of servants a lot of evil sin happens but also a lot of good also occurs.  Servants are not slaves.  There are slaves, just like here in our Western culture, which both cultures hide.  But there, unlike here, is a ethos of servants and masters.  A rather foreign relationship to us in the West.

Girls have protection from early teen marriages.  Boys learn a trade while eating enough food to give them strength to learn and grow and excel.  If they were at home they would not eat enough.  Widows have food for their tables and honorable jobs.  People are clothed, fed and earn money.  This is a touchy subject because such evil also happens within this realm however it is a cultural institution within which godly people operate with goodness and honor.  We do not have that reality in America.  People do hire people to clean their homes but the relationship is completely about business.  The closest that this South Asian relationship and reality comes to in a Western reality is nannies.  We must see this picture through a different lens to get at the meat of what Jesus is saying to us.

This is not a story of an evil master.  Not a story of a dictator but rather a story about our hearts of ingratitude.  Our hearts that seem to expect and require recognition.  Instead of following the Master from one task to another with joy and delight how often do I beg for a break in between.  My ultimate rest is heaven.  As I head for the season may my soul not take a break from obedience but rather strive to move forward with thanksgiving for my eternal salvation in humble submission to my King.

December Sixteenth..........Luke 16

Hmmm.  Yesterday was Luke Fifteenth.  Rather a large typo. 

Well today is December Sixteenth and we focus our attention on Luke 16 a difficult chapter to wrap our minds around.  I am going to pull out one of the pictures Jesus uses to paint the plight of Lazarus the beggar.

"Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores."

The Family-ization of pets in the United States of America means that a main punch in this story, told by Jesus, loses its force.   Americans spend around 60 billion dollars on pets a year. 
60 billion dollars.
Dogs' often hold family status with rooms of their own and if not a room at least a bed.  I feel shocked by a recent Christmas advertisement where families write notes of thanks to their pets.  I wonder if anyone truly feels that the animals are able to read, or understand.

Dogs in South Asia are dirty.  They are mangy.  They run in packs.  Now sometimes those packs guard certain neighborhoods but they also spread disease.  In the book from which the movie Slumdog Millionaire was based a close friend of the main character dies from rabies spread by a dog.  This happens. 

Dogs are not household pets for the average South Asian and though they are gaining popularity amongst the growing rich they still are an animal and not considered part of the family.

This is not a picture of comfort for Lazarus.  Some sort of canine compassion ministry.  Jesus is speaking to a culture that did not esteem or include dogs into any part of their living.  This is not a positive picture.  I believe most of you know that but we do not understand the depth of despair that this statement evokes.  The squalor, dirt and desperation this short sentence portrays.   Until you have seen the creatures posing as dogs rummaging through garbage and half gnawed to pieces by parasites do you understand the grotesque picture Jesus is painting.  Truly hell on earth. 

Hell.  Lazarus perhaps even demented in his pain and need.  Outcast, dirty, despised.  And yet Lazarus is welcomed to Abraham's bosom.  This story read from a South Asian cultural understanding sees the dichotomy between these two characters with vivid clarity making the eternal ramifications ever so crystalline.

So how does this relate to Christmas?  May we be increasingly thankful for the gift of Eternal Life through Jesus our Lord.   May the God-Child in the Manger point us forward to that same King on the Cross and then Resurrected and may our hearts sing with the wealth of our glorious home where we will see Him face to face.

I interrupt Luke to say........

My husband went to the dentist today.....
He came home with a bill, the promise of more work to be done and more bills.  He also arrived with a complimentary electrical toothbrush.

May I say.....somethings are not all they promise. 

I currently have minty fresh mouth taste tinged with the salty, earthy taste of blood.  There is toothpaste sprinkled in three directions across two walls and a mirror in my bathroom.  Speckling not only my reflection but also myself, I, exhibiting great intelligence, examined the devise as it spun wildly.  Minty Madness.  Better to turn these things off before exploring.

Brandishing an electric toothbrush in the bathroom gives one a sense of ones own finiteness and the reality that your teeth are not forever.  I felt like every time I started to brush my teeth I was going to disconnect my brain from my skull.  It was like riding in an auto risk-shaw over a rocky dirt road while holding onto a hand whisk and biting down on a mint mouth guard.  It was an all around dental experience in the comfort of my own home.  This must be tried at home but may I gently suggest not in public. 

And as lovely as that 3D experience felt and as much as it made me laugh right out loud this was not my favorite gift of the day.  Nope peacock gloves came in the mail.  Peacock gloves with little hobo fingers and a pocket that folds over to make mittens when the cold proves too much.  Complete with a little button for darling appeal.  They are glorious.  It is lovely to be known and to be loved.  It makes me warm and fuzzy all over and I smile with my white rather traumatized teeth.

Luke Fifteenth.......December 15

I feel lost about this chapter.  Again as I crack open my Bible to sit to write I wonder in my soul, "Will any insight from South Asia make this text deeper?"  This chapter holds too many.

 I read and see in my mind, dowries and women newly married with their precious key to a metal wardrobe full of brand new things that are theirs, proof of their worth.  Or poorer women with a key to a tiny chest with precious items that they carry as proof of their wedding. 

That coin found by the woman wielding her lanp was not lost money but part of her dowry.  Instead of thinking a lost coin amongst ten, instead imagine that one of her diamonds fell out of her wedding ring.  Or better yet she lost her wedding ring.  Her coins were her dowry, her worth, her tangible pieces of a covenantal promise. 

We once were lost.  Separated, despondent and in captivity.  Then in dawning comprehensible Jesus came.  He was born human in humility under the authority of human rulers of unimaginable pride, greed, and evil.  He lived perfectly.   Died at the hands of the unjust bearing our punishment so that we could be called His children.  Sinners found.  Sinners repentant welcomed as sons.

We are redeemed.  Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.  In this season of celebrating births let us not forget to celebrate our own second births.  Our being born again!  Let this season be all about births as you share with neighbors, friends, and even families about how Jesus' birth brought the possibility of our being reborn.
 

December Fourteenth.........Luke Fourteen

Jesus' birthday approaches.  It comes quickly.   Do we find it ourselves excited because of presents, good food, decorations, and family?  Are we content to celebrate without Jesus at the center.  A sort of holiday that if all familiar holiday things were removed we would not be content.   If those things were missing we would be devastated but if Jesus was missing we would not notice. 

Is all we want for Christmas a white topping and certain family members close by the hearth?  Those are not bad things in themselves but at the depth of our beings do we fancy those things more important for Christmas than Christ?  This is the question I am asking myself today.

That is why I love Jesus' story about the wedding.  We miss the meaning of this story in our culture where seating is assigned carefully and no invited guest would dare to sit in the first row in the mother-in-law chair.  Can you imagine!  Some library friend, or co-worker just marches to the front and plops down right down in the front row. 

In South Asia there is no assigned seating and people move around in the room.  In fact you move up and in further to a room and are re-assigned seating constantly as guests come and go. 

Beautifully choreographed by a host of family members you move within the seating within different rooms.  As you move you get closer and closer in towards the bride or groom.  One waits and waits for the honor of sitting with either the bride or groom.  Then you eat and go.  What if there was no bride?  Or groom? 

Jesus in his story reminds the listeners about humility.  Who really is the most important at a wedding?  Yourself or the bride and groom?  Let us not be like those listening who thought they were the ones being celebrated. 

As Christmas approaches let us in humility ask Jesus how we can honor Him this holiday.  May we lay aside our ideas of personal desires and delight in making Jesus known by loving well those around us. 

As I've striven to weave a focus on Jesus in the season into my family culture I've felt a sense of satisfaction.  However it was a fleeting satisfaction.   At a Jesus Birthday Party this weekend asked whose birthday we were celebrating Zana waved all four limbs in the air excitedly shouting,  "My burfday, My burfday!  It is MINE!!" All dozen children looked at her surprised.  And then a few wondered if perhaps it was their birthday.  Nope!  It is Jesus'.

This season at the Core is about a Wedding to which we are invited.  May we humbly celebrate that we even have a seat at the Wedding Party of the Lamb because of Jesus.  If you feel yourself in the stresses or situations fraught with tripping points reverting towards selfishness ask Your King for help.

December Thirteenth......Luke 13

Syria in flames. Ebola creeping through countries with stealth.  Bombers lighting up in Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan the list goes on.  And on.  Our world of little peace seems far away while walking through perfumed, caroled halls of shoppers with ethereal white shrouding the world. 

However when we read the news we can have a very similar view to those listening to Jesus in Chapter 13.  A view that somehow those facing such devastating horrors must have done some greater sin.  How false and faulty this view.  We who should be damned stand free, redeemed and given the gift of life because of nothing in ourselves of greater merit. 

We don't talk about this niggling thought in the back of our minds.  This false theology that somehow we are superior but it sneaks out subtly in our response to their pain.  Or our lack of response.  When like the Pharisees we begin to believe that the horror a people are facing is what they deserve we fail to walk the way of the Narrow Door.  We point a mental finger at those Galileans and the eighteen crushed under the tower in Siloam and forget we deserve death.

As we gather, shop, bake, party, sing carols off key or on, family flock about, and care for our own little spheres may we cultivate in our souls...... repentance.  May we take time to listen to our Savior's voice and like little chickens flee to His arms for grace.   And if our salvation is found in Him alone may we revel in His One True Gift of Salvation.  The news is good, even for us, the bad!