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Monday, August 10, 2020
“But Gideon told them, ‘I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.’” —Judges 8:23
Can you remember the first time you were put in charge of something? Maybe your parents gave you a chore to do every Tuesday afternoon when you got home from school. Maybe a teacher gave you a classroom job that would be yours for a whole week. Maybe you were an older sibling allowed to stay home alone as long as you promised to keep an eye on your little brother or sister.
There’s an episode of The Office in which Assistant to the Regional Manager Dwight Schrute is allowed to put together the holiday and weekend work calendar. As he proudly works on the schedule, suggesting that his nemesis Jim will need to work on the coming Saturday, Jim says, “This is the smallest amount of power I’ve ever seen go to someone’s head.”
For all of us, being put in charge of something creates the possibility that we’ll abuse that power in some way. Authority is a responsibility, and we need to be responsible with it.
In the centuries following their exodus from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites faced relentless pressures, both internal and external. Internally, they struggled to keep faith with the covenant God had made with them. They went through cycles of rebellion and repentance.
The Israelites also faced external pressure from hostile neighbors. In Judges 6, we read about the oppression carried out against the Israelites by the Midianites. When the Israelites cried out to God, he raised up for them a great military leader named Gideon, who led the people to victory against their oppressors. As so often happens, the great military leader of liberation was asked to rule over the people.
Gideon’s response, one of today’s Daily Texts, reveals that he had not lost sight of his role. He was not the ruler over Israel. God alone ruled Israel. Gideon served God in the unique role to which God had called him.
Leadership of any kind is stewardship of something entrusted to us. Humans (other than Jesus) never rule in an absolute sense. When we have authority, whether in a specific situation or in a particular group, we have that authority in order to serve God and to benefit the situation or group. Human leaders don’t rule. Human leaders serve.
In whatever areas you’re in charge today, may you lead well by serving well. And may you remember that the Lord—and only the Lord—rules over each of us.
Friday, August 7, 2020
The Lord will again comfort Zion — Zechariah 1:17
He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope. — 2 Corinthians 1:10
2020 has been a hard year defined by illness, loss, insecurity, violence, and injustice, in both ongoing and unforeseen ways. Whether you’re experiencing it personally or hearing it from someone else, there is a weariness and a fear that have infused our consciousness. Many of us are feeling discouraged and disappointed, disoriented and uncertain. Many wonder where God is in the midst of it. We wonder how to make sense of suffering that seems senseless.
Today’s passages, together, remind us of God’s character and action in the midst of human suffering. They show us that when people suffer, God does respond. In the Zechariah passage, we’re reminded of God’s comfort, of God’s nearness to us when we are in pain. We’re reminded that, like a loving parent, God hurts with us and holds us close. In the 2 Corinthians passage, we’re reminded of God’s deliverance, of God’s power to intervene and save us from suffering. We’re reminded of the ultimate and eternal rescue, from sin and death, on which we can rely. As we experience or witness suffering, sometimes we see deliverance and are released from suffering; at other times, suffering is endured, and God sits with his children, offering comfort and healing. God’s responses may feel mysterious, but we can be confident in the certainty of his active and attentive presence.
Both of today’s passages also remind us that God doesn’t comfort and rescue us just once or twice; the words “again” (from Zechariah) and “continue” (from 2 Corinthians) emphasize that these are God’s habitual responses. God is consistently, reliably present.
God’s active presence in our lives is transformative. Scott J. Haefmann writes this about Paul’s understanding of his own suffering: “suffering is a page in the textbook used in God’s school of faith. It is not suffering itself that teaches us faith, but God who uses it as a platform to display his resurrection power in our lives, either through deliverance from suffering or by comfort within it.”
Even as suffering will draw us to places of confusion and uncertainty, may we seek and see God’s comforting and freeing presence in it.
Wednesday, August 5, 2020
Today’s devotion was written by Aneel Trivedi.
“May the Lord, who is good, pardon everyone who sets their heart on seeking God.” 2 Chronicles 30.18-19
A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was. Luke 19.2-3
Today’s reader likely knows something about the tax collectors of Jesus’ time. Zacchaeus’s wealth was more stolen than earned and his role as the chief tax collector likely made him both very wealthy and very hated. He was both the beneficiary of a broken system and an outcast of the community from which he stole.
And so when the story of Zacchaeus eagerly climbing a tree in order to get a glimpse of Jesus is paired with the text from Chronicles, I am tempted to find some encouragement in the low bar of this type of “seeking God”. Because I too want to see who Jesus is as he passes by. I too might even climb a tree to see him, although I suspect my tree-climbing days are well behind me. I too have wealth and privilege as the beneficiary of broken systems. And so a pardon granted on this kind of low-cost seeking sounds pretty good.
But the gospel of Luke also reminds us that everyone who seeks will find (Luke 11:10) and Zacchaeus’ low-bar seeking was met by an encounter with Christ himself. Jesus entered his home and Zacchaeus was freed to not just stop stealing but freed also to make good on the ways his sin affected the community – he returned fourfold to anyone he had defrauded.
Zacchaeus’s move toward justice was not a requirement for his pardon, but his four-fold repayment to those he defrauded flowed directly from his encounter with Christ. Zacchaeus climbed the tree, but Christ found Zacchaeus. God’s gift changed Zacchaeus and called him into action.
Jesus meets us where we are and brings forgiveness and redemption – this is most certainly true. But an encounter with the risen Christ changes us, and through the encounter, God calls us into radical transformation.
