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Monday, August 17, 2020
Today’s devotion is written by Aneel Trivedi.
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Acts 2:46-47
I always held up the new converts to the Jesus tradition in Acts 2 following Pentecost as the ideal version of a Christian community. The newly baptized sold all their possessions shared everything they had, physically gathered together every day in a place of worship, and spent time breaking bread with one another in their homes. This sounds appealing at any time, but as we just moved past five months of existing primarily as a socially distanced Redeemer community, I can’t deny how much I wish to emulate the Acts 2 church. In fact, it feels like that’s what we’re supposed to do as a church. It feels like the pandemic is preventing us from existing as the church was intended.
But today I have been thinking about the way each of those new converts in the Acts 2 church was coming from something else, from something different. We don’t know exactly what their lives looked like before, but we know they were radically changed after their encounter with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. They became a new community after an encounter with Christ in Baptism, in the spoken Word, and in communion—and maybe that’s what the ideal version of a Christian community actually looks like. The community is marked not by how and where it gathers or by its similarity to the first community, but by its regular encounters with God and a willingness to be changed.
There must have been some yearning for the old ways among the converts, and even some grief and sorrow for the communities left behind. There was even personal sacrifice—how many of us would joyfully sell all our possessions? And so perhaps God’s presence alone was the driving force behind the community’s glad and sincere hearts rather than the details of how they gathered.
I know that God will show up and make Godself present wherever and however we gather. And if I can imagine the church as a body willing to be radically changed by God’s presence, perhaps I can both mourn what’s lost and live with a glad and sincere heart in the new community God is building. Perhaps the ideal community isn’t about the way we gather but the way we allow ourselves to be changed by God’s presence among us.
Friday, August 14, 2020
Today’s devotion is written by Aneel Trivedi.
So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” John 6:67-69
When God doesn’t behave the way I expect, I often get frustrated. My current understanding of who God is and how God works in the world is obviously correct, right?
One of my absolute favorite twitter accounts is named @MLBJesus—they are a delight to follow on social media. @MLBJesus is (obviously) a parody Major League Baseball account, and they tweet from the perspective of Jesus as a baseball fan, more specifically a fan of my hometown San Francisco Giants. They celebrate the Giants’ wins and make excuses for their losses with a snarky, funny, implied divine order. @MLBJesus takes credit for big home runs, strikeouts, and Dodgers World Series collapses. By following @MLBJesus, I can take pleasure in believing that God loves exactly what I love and even pulls the strings of the universe in a way that makes sense to me and the National League standings.
Now, I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but I think the crowds that followed Jesus across the sea to Capernaum in John 6 leading up to today’s text were looking for their version of @MLBJesus instead of the verified God incarnate. Jesus had just miraculously fed 5,000 hungry people who were now, quite reasonably eager for more bread. Jesus met a real, urgent, physical need, and the crowds tried to make him king – the kind of king they wanted. The kind of king that matched their existing understanding, needs, and expectations.
But Jesus was a different type of king offering a different kind of bread—the bread of life from heaven, his own very body, God incarnate. Jesus offered something better than the food the crowds sought: food for the spirit that sustains a new life, a different way of living. And since Jesus spoke of the bread of life instead of the bread the crowds expected, wanted, and understood—they turned back and stopped following Jesus.
So then, in today’s text, Jesus asked the 12 disciples, “Do you also wish to go away?” Jesus knew that even his closest followers would struggle to accept a revelation of God’s identity that didn’t match their preconceived notions of God. It is a human tendency; we all do it. And so following Jesus means that our expectations, perspectives, and worldviews will necessarily be challenged.
God doesn’t just parrot back what we want to hear, like a parody twitter account that loves what we love and hates what we hate. The new life promised by God in Jesus won’t look exactly like what we expect, and we will naturally struggle with those revelations. But following Jesus means trusting him even when our firmly held perspective or understanding of who God is gets challenged.
Wednesday, August 12
If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. – John 14:14
It would be easy to read today’s verse and think that all we need to do to get what we want is to end our prayer with the phrase, “in Jesus’ name.”
It would be easy to think this because Jesus is the son of God. His name is powerful. It’s the name of the one who we believe conquered sin and death. It’s the name of the one who can bring, and has brought, healing and wholeness to people all over the world.
While the name of Jesus is powerful, calling on Jesus name isn’t like rubbing a magic lamp or tossing a coin in a wishing well. If it were, we know we would have far more of our prayers answered in the way we wish they would be answered.
This verse is located in chapter 14 of the Gospel of John. In this section of John, Jesus is telling his disciples, and us today, that they will go on to do greater things than even he has done. To understand what Jesus means we need to remember what Jesus came to do.
Jesus came with the message that the Kingdom of God was at hand. This meant that God’s desire for creation to be set right was within reach. Time and time again, we see that Jesus’ primary message for his followers was to lead with love as they sought to follow God.
When Jesus tells us that whatever we ask for in his name will be given, he is saying that whatever we ask for that falls in line with his message, and God’s desire for the world to operate with God’s kingdom ethic, will be done.
So then, our call today…tomorrow…and every remaining tomorrow we have, is to align our desires with God’s desires for us and the world. When we do that, all that we ask for will be given to us.
