A More Deadly Disease

I remembered this poem I wrote in my journal earlier this year and thought I'd post it. I wrote it in response the Jesus' words that are found in Matthew 9:13 in the Bible. I thought of it again today because I was meditating on an account of the same story in Mark 2:17.

A More Deadly Disease
Have you no time for me?
Not that I need you
I know all I need to do
to keep me safe from disease

Have you no time for me?
Not that I need you
But I'm offended by the time
You give the least of these

Have you no time for me?
Not that I need you
Still I wonder if a more
deadly disease has entered me

Would you like to be well?

I've been thinking about these words that Jesus once asked a man who could not walk (John 5:6). It seemed the man had become accustomed to believing he would never be able to get to the cure for his ailment. All he could offer Jesus was excuses.
Maybe I think of this phrase often when I encounter people who seem to want to remain in their victimization. They look at their circumstances and believe there is no hope for anything better. They live with certain edge that is sure everyone is out to get them. I understand the feeling. Honestly, I live like that sometimes also. Jesus' response is, "would you like to be well?"
The faith community my wife and I are hoping to see started has as one of it's core convictions "Reconciled people live bigger lives." As we work at redeveloping the vision, I want to make sure we hold onto that one. I believe it's something we need to endorse and seek to live out as best we can.
Reconciliation begins with ourselves. We need to come to a place of personal wholeness. If we always live in our insecurities, it's hard for us to ever come to a place where we can live in reconciliation with others. This doesn't mean we should not seek reconciliation with others until we're perfect. Still, when their is a bump in the road we should look at ourselves first before looking at others.

Another Gospel

6 I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who in his love and mercy called you to share the eternal life he gives through Christ. You are already following a different way 7 that pretends to be the Good News but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who twist and change the truth concerning Christ.

I was reading Galatians 1 earlier this week and I began wondering how much I have been engrained with another Gospel because of the culture I grew up in? Paul preached a Gospel of grace, mercy, and righteousness by faith. I was trained in a culture of "5 Easy Steps to a More Godly Marriage" or "3 Ways to Have a More Dynamic Prayer Life." There is something about the Gospel that defies our modernistic ideas of human perfectibility. It tells us we can not be perfect on our own. We needed Jesus to die a gruesome death to give us any hope of access to God the Father.

Expectations

At the meeting of our faith community (church) last Sunday night, we were discussing expectations. We've had some things happen that have fallen short of our expectations. In the USA church we tend to equated expectations, faith, and results. If we don't see the results we expected, we can get very discouraged. Sometimes we just need to be faithful to obeying God no matter what results we see.
I remember a conversation I had with a friend a few months ago. He was referring to Hebrews 11:33 - 40 from the Bible.

33 By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them. They shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the flames of fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword. Their weakness was turned to strength. They became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight. 35 Women received their loved ones back again from death. But others trusted God and were tortured, preferring to die rather than turn from God and be free. They placed their hope in the resurrection to a better life. 36 Some were mocked, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in dungeons. 37 Some died by stoning, and some were sawed in half; others were killed with the sword. Some went about in skins of sheep and goats, hungry and oppressed and mistreated. 38 They were too good for this world. They wandered over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground. 39 All of these people we have mentioned received God's approval because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. 40 For God had far better things in mind for us that would also benefit them, for they can't receive the prize at the end of the race until we finish the race.

He was focusing on the good results in the first half of the paragraph. I appreciate my friend's optimism in many ways. I tend to be an optimist myself. Still, we have to accept the reality that sometimes we will obey God in something and the results will not look that flattering.