Still Ministries

Humility and Grasping and Clinging
May 28-26

Luke 4:16-30
Jesus returns to Nazareth, where he had grown up. He goes into the temple and ends up being a reader of scripture. People are all happy with him, marveling, saying, “Wow, isn’t this Joseph and Mary’s son?”

Jesus proceeds to ruin it. He says something like, “You probably want to ask me to do in my hometown what I have done in other places.” And then he goes on to say that a prophet is never accepted in his home town. He refers to Elijah during the famine being sent to a widow elsewhere and to Elisha and how there were many lepers in Jerusalem but he didn’t heal any of them, just Nasman the Syrian. Then they got mad and were ready to throw him off a cliff.

On hearing this, all the people in the synagogue were enraged. They got up, drove Him out of the town, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw Him over the cliff. But Jesus passed through the crowd and went on His way.

I don’t know about you but I can blame myself for all that I don’t seem to make happen with some of the people closest to me. I certainly don’t experience loved ones wanting to throw me off a cliff but I do sometimes feel shut out of bringing God’s truth or goodness to the table. It’s all well and good that Debbie Collins (Laginskie) rose up out of the garbage pile she fell into. Wow, that Doug and Phyllis’ daughter, she really got cleaned up…that amazing. But if I try to go past that and start talking about opening up to Jesus in faith and see what he can do…well…that hasn’t always been so welcome.

Jesus…went on his way. And so must we.

Humility and Grasping and Clinging
May 26-26

Matthew 11:18-19
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’: the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.

First, I have to climb over the fact that people called God Himself a glutton and a drunkard for going into people’s homes and eating and drinking with them. Being a friend of tax collectors and sinners seems tamer. Just saying.

Jesus never defended himself. He didn’t say something like, “How can you call me a glutton and a drunkard? I am simply going and being with the people I have created. I am sharing a meal with them, listening to them, enjoying them.” That would be me. Then things would get worse. They would have a comeback and then I would try and make them understand another way…more words, more explanations.

You really can’t change people’s minds about you. If they have decided what they think you are or what they think you are doing, its usually been ruminating for quite awhile in their minds, hashed over in conversations with others who will readily agree and maybe even add to the story, creating such deep roots that the story has become one hundred percent true, hands down. I hate that and I am sure you do too. It is judgmental, opinionated, and even mean.

Jesus does not step into the trap; he stays outside of the places where there is no openness to see or understand – where there is no space for looking at your own side life and why you might be judging in the first place.

He says, “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” The Spirit of wisdom in our lives, the way we choose to live, the things we do and the motives by which we do them will prove goodness in the end. Of course, unlike Jesus, we will not be flawless but we can let the fight to prove our purity lay down and just carry on. Everything will be clear in the end.

I have sucked at this. But I think I am catching on a bit more.

Grasping and Clinging
Philippians 2:6
Though He was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to grasp.

This is the last week that I will write down my thoughts and desires towards humility. At the end of this week, I’ll be taking a break for the summer in order to compile the writings from a few years ago into a book: What are we Going to do about the Earrings. In the fall I will write again, and I will be asking God what might be helpful to share for our formation in Christ!

But grasping and clinging. Jesus didn’t do it. In all the ways people didn’t treat him as he deserved, as One equal with God as One of the Trinity, he did not try to grasp at it. He didn’t grasp for what was already his. I think about what his non-grasping looked like.

He didn’t defend himself or try to make people see the truth about himself. He was accused of so many things – being a devil, blasphemous, false motives for the good he did for people. He didn’t give in to what people thought he should do in order for them to believe in who he really was. He knew better. The scriptures say that “He trusted no man, for he knew what was in a man.” (Trusting here meaning entrusting himself into what men would say or how they would be loyal to him.) He was who he was without anyone telling him or agreeing with him. He didn’t alter who he was to win anyone’s approval and he didn’t seek to convince anyone of his motives or character…he knew who he was and he made sure he only answered to One…everyone else only got his love.

HUMILITY AND LEADERSHIP
Day Five

Come, I have something beautiful for you to wear
I feel fussed over, like a bride who is being dressed by her bridesmaids
It is soft white and it almost caresses my skin
I can hear the Holy Trinity talking as they clothe me
Delighting in the places it lay smooth against my body
And where it can be taken out or cinched in should the need arise

They stood back after they brought me to the mirror
I wished that I could join in their delight
But oh, I was so disappointed that there was no colour to the garment at all
They waited in silence for a bit and then came close and said,
“The garment of humility will take on the colours around it;
Like a gem held to the light, it will hold the colours of love.”

They comforted me that it would take awhile
To get used to this garment of humility
That often my eyes would still be arrested
By the bright and bold colours that allure the ego
But in time, I would see how those colours fade
While the garment of humility lasts forever

“Come and stand in the middle of us,” They said.
I slowly made my way into the centre
Enfolded in their shining love
Drenched in belonging and joy
Of wonder and purity and freedom
Every colour of the rainbow dancing upon the garment
Like a child, I hugged it to myself and knew…humility is full of the glory of God.