O is not for Obama

But he will feature prominently.

This week was monumental for our neighbors down south as the celebrated the inauguration of President Obama in his second term as president. Interesting fact: this was the fourth time that Obama was sworn in. Second term, fourth oath.

It’s weird to me that you could take an oath over.

I understand the repeated oath this time, as it was making public what had happened in private earlier, but in the first go round it was to fix an error in the first oath.

An oath is pretty serious business. A promise made in the sight of God. A promise which, according to James 5:12, can lead to some pretty grave consequences if broken.

Now as a Christian I look at condemnation pretty seriously.

Some people don’t.

Some people are accused of not taking the threat of condemnation seriously and some people don’t necessarily understand or care about the severity that is involved with an oath.

We see Jesus himself warning against the taking of oaths due to the danger that is involved for us. We are dumb, folks. We say things in the heat of the moment that we don’t really mean. We declare truth where it is not found. We can harm ourselves enough without bringing down the judgment fires.

An oath is a big deal because we have now moved beyond our own reason and understanding and have brought in that of one much greater and wiser than we could ever even imagine. This is no longer between us and our neighbor but instead between us and God.

As humans we want to be in control. We want to be the final authority and have something that supports our opinion. What really makes us seem powerful is when we can have the authority of God behind us. But sometimes we put it there when we are wrong to do so. We can make a promise that invokes God but doesn’t leave him as the authority; an oath where we are using God to strengthen our argument rather than allowing God to use us to strengthen his argument. We want to fit God into our plans and refuse to really look at what we’re doing. We’re breaking all kinds of commandments; putting ourselves before God, turning ourselves into gods and using his name in vain to support what we want so badly to believe.

Our need for oaths comes from our need to assure everyone that we’re telling the truth. Our own actions really don’t reflect the reality that we want to convey. Our solution? Bring in the one being who can always be believed. Not to look within ourselves for what we can change, what we can do to make ourselves trustworthy, but rather to deflect to the one who can always be trusted.

And were we to try I’m not sure that we could change ourselves enough, I know we couldn’t change or convince those around us to change. As with all things we are dependent on God’s perfection to make us complete. I don’t think we can cut out the concept of oaths from our lives. We need God’s accountability, we need his strength. What we also need is the understanding of how serious this contract is and to enter into the contract with that knowledge.

Sound tough?

Not-so Nifty for Nineveh in Nahum

So I’m pretty excited to once again be able to make this a double letter post. 2 N’s, no waiting.

Now, when you think Nineveh, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that your first thought is about Nineveh as we see it in the book of Jonah. Nineveh fares pretty well in this account. They forgot God in the beginning, but with Jonah’s reluctant help they turn from their wicked ways and repent of their evil ways. God forgave the Ninevites and life went on.

But what about the rest of the story?

What happened 100 years after this miraculous occurrence with Jonah and the massive repentance and sack cloth? Did the Ninevites become master evangelists? Was this major city turned into a religious hub? Did the Ninevites continue to recount the near miss they had when the Lord nearly destroyed the entire city?

None of that happened! In  a relatively minor amount of time the Ninevites forgot the warning from God and returned to their former lifestyle. They did not continue in the repentant lifestyle but instead turned once again to murder, looting and warfare. Nineveh was just as bad, if not worse, than what we saw in the beginning of Jonah.

This is where Nahum begins.

Nahum begins by reminding us that God is faithful to his people, those who believe in Him, and against all others he is to be feared. He doesn't conveniently forget his promises, nor does he forget the ways that those who oppose him have sinned in their transgressions.

Nineveh has done so much to deserve God’s wrath. Sneak forward a bit to Nahum 3:1-7. What a description! It disturbs me as much as it intrigues me!

When I read through I like to read really quickly over these descriptions because it’s terrifying to think of someplace that would cause so much damage. It’s the same way as I read Jesus’ being beaten. It’s a very short passage, and in my mind it gets translated to something quite brief as well. I would very much like to downplay the hurt he suffered and the grief he was caused because I know the reason behind it.

With the crucifixion, with the people of Nineveh I would like to turn my eyes from the pain being inflicted.

In my life, I would like to turn my eyes from the pain being inflicted.

We can very easily look at Nineveh as an evil place. We can look at them as murderers and terrible people but we quickly dismiss is as it is so different from the life we’re living now. We aren't that bad.

They did the same thing.

When they were directly confronted with the fact that they were terrible people they came up with a solution; a bandaid solution that hid the wound, but didn’t heal the brokenness beneath. They repented, put on the sackcloth and asked God to forgive him, and He did.

Unfortunately this wasn’t something that they actually believed beyond the scope of this one time occurrence. As soon as they were forgiven, they went back to their evil ways and felt no remorse. The sins that they repented of were the same ones to which they returned.

This is the danger that we face too. The sins that we confess are the same ones that we are faced with continually. We want to ignore the ugly parts of our lives in the same way we ignore the ugly parts of the bible. We want to pretend it didn’t happen because it makes us feel bad.

It's the warning that we see in the book of Nahum. While we know that “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble” (Nahum 1:7a) and that He has made this promise for us, we do so knowing the inherent danger of being complacent in our salvation. When we try to edit out the sinful parts of our life and concentrate only on the good we've done we put ourselves in the same boat as the people of Nineveh.

It’s only when we’re honest with ourselves, when we continually acknowledge our sins both to God AND ourselves that we realize how badly we need forgiving. We’re going beyond just covering up our brokenness but we’re asking God to heal us from the inside out.

M&M: Not Just a delicious candy

I have a sister.

She is a younger sister.

Sometimes I consider her to be the laziest person in the world. Usually this comes about when I think she should be helping me.

I identify wholeheartedly with Martha.

Luke 10:38-42 is a hard passage to read for this very reason because I, like Martha, and I’m assuming like several others love lists. Whether they’re written or not I usually have about 10 lists on the go. The work list, the grocery list, the housework list, the friends list, the free time list, and honestly the list goes on! If someone or something throws this list out of whack I am so lost. I get unreasonably upset, or I try to ignore the disruption to my list and things end up in a mess.

This is how I picture Martha. I feel like she gets a bad rap sometimes as everyone says that you need to be a Mary, not a Martha but Martha isn’t all wrong. Let’s look closer. Martha enters our story as the hospitable friend. Out of the goodness of her heart she invites Jesus, and presumably all the disciples with him to her house. She cooks, cleans, offers them a place to clean up and she does it all by herself. In theory her sister Mary should have been helping her, but she was off hanging out with the guests and shirking her responsibilities as co-hostess. You’ve been in that situation. You’ve hosted the party, or helped someone with a task only to find that you’re the only person doing any work. It’s frustrating! But when she tried to go and get back-up she found herself being thrown under the bus. Hardly seems fair!

Being a Martha is being a doer. But being a doer often means forgetting to take care of oneself. Martha was so busy taking care of Jesus that she missed the opportunity that was right in front of her. She had the opportunity to be served by Jesus but she was so busy serving him that she didn’t even see it.

The funny thing about Martha is that she had an amazing faith.

John 11:25-27

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

Very similar to another person’s ground breaking (errr ground supporting?) proclamation, isn’t it?

In spite of the manner in which she is portrayed, her ultimate goal is not to follow the traditional ways beyond all else. In the passage above we see that she forgoes the only faith and culture that she has ever known and declare her belief in a prophet that the religious leaders all denied. Martha is a lot like all of us; she declares her faith but has trouble matching her actions.

The true story doesn’t revolve around the fact that Mary wanted to learn, nor the fact that Martha wanted to serve, but instead it encourages the understanding of the need for both elements.

If we were to all be Mary we would be a very well-learned bunch. We would take every opportunity to read the Word, to be attentive to Jesus’ teachings and to try and learn more each day; where would that lead us? We would know a lot but if we look to James, we know that faith without works is dead.

If we were all to be Martha we would be gracious(ish) servants. We would constantly be feeding the poor, donating all that we have and making sure that those around us were well taken care of; but at what cost? We would be tired and resentful. We would do what we did not because we wanted to, but because we felt that was what was expected of us.

Instead Jesus is pushing for a combination of the two women’s characteristics. First and foremost, we should be equipping ourselves. We need to be aware of Christ’s love, of what he has done for us. We should not be ignoring his teachings and going off, trying to serve everyone but ourselves. In the same breath, we need to realize that these teachings aren’t meant to dwell within us. We are called to be servants, to spread the love that we have received from Christ with all those around us.

We are not called to be Mary. Neither are we called to be Martha. We are called to constantly strive for a greater understanding of Christ and to respond to his great love by reaching out to everyone around us.