On the stone tablet of my heart

Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:13

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. Matthew 23:23

What does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul? Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. Deuteronomy 10:14-19 

He has told you, O man, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8

Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another. Zechariah 7:9

Learn to do good;

seek justice,

correct oppression;

bring justice to the fatherless,

plead the widow's cause. Isaiah 1:17

The Law and the Prophets have a vibrant thread woven throughout the centuries, tying together the voice, the circumstances, and the audience.  And even if I don’t understand all the cultural implications, the marching orders are clear, clear about the heart of God. God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God,

And really this is the ultimate What Would Jesus Do? rubber band bound around my forearm, because He was about His Father’s business.  

Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. You shall bind them as a sign on your forearm, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

The measure of every thought, of every movement, of every word of my mouth. Love and faithfulness.  Demonstrated as justice and mercy.  Oh the explications I have heard over the years, twisting justice and mercy to be distant parameters on a spectrum, measurable factors that define a particular system, painting a dark line between Them and Us.  God is Just towards Them, and Merciful to Us. Rather than being something that one brings to the Fatherless. Rather than being one breath of the God of gods: justice and mercy, faithfully executed in kindly love.  Calling all sinners to come home.

Jesus Christ, the manifestation, the fulfillment, the completion of the Law and the Prophets. With His arms lifted up.

And his finger was pointing straight at me

And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” Matthew 9:2

Weston’s thoughts today asked the question, What if? What if we lived in that sweet spot of expectation, living in hope, and really believing that anything is possible with God. Like, God, what if you just opened the door for Victor to fly back to the states to join his family? What if you just healed Victor's knee pain? What if Your Spirit just manifested himself in power in the church here? What if people would just be drawn to me because your presence is such a part of who I am?

Here, as Jesus returns to his hometown of Capernaum, some people brought him a paralytic, and it was their faith that led Him not only to heal their friend, but to forgive him of his sins. As far as I know, he wasn’t exactly kicking and screaming, but all that he did do was lie there.  It was their faith. 

So a while back, about six or seven years ago, I had a pain in the neck.  It was so severe I could barely even focus on my ever-bustling life.  I could think of nothing except this roiling gripping knife-stabbing pain.  I even went to a chiropractor.  For the first time in my life.  I am not wont to go to doctors; really I have to be dragged kicking and screaming, like Efrén and Julio have to pick me up off the floor and carry me out to the car not wanting to go.  And even though this nice man gave me little shocks and applied hot and applied cold and strung me out on his big machine, nothing happened.  LIke I said, I had a pain in the neck.  And I had totally run out of ideas and was despairing of life.  

Nicole had a friend who had just made a movie, The Finger of God.  He too was pretty much kicking and screaming rationally because some strange things were happening around him when people prayed: the sparkle dust, the jewels raining out of the sky, and all these people declaring that they had been healed.  And he kept pushing these crazy phenomena aside in his head until the craziest thing of all happened to his very boring, mundane, traditional aunt and uncle.  Their molars turned to gold.  Really and truly, and that shook him up. A lot.  So this guy took off a year of his life and filmed what God was doing all over the world, huge things with dozens, and hundreds and thousands of people. 

And we all watched this movie.  It was interesting when he was filming among the Gypsies or tribes of Africa, it all seemed great and wonderful, but when the tales came closer to home, the college campuses and suburbs of life in America, we all squirmed, because this was so far out of our day-to-day experience.  None of us were living in the What if.

And Ali and I were sitting on the couch as the movie rolled to a finish on the living room wall.  My life had slowed down to a fuzzy blank of pain in the neck, and I really couldn’t do much else but sit and fret. At the end, after we had watched Jesus reach out and touch protesting person after protesting person, one of those preacher men who I find very irritating came on.  He was one of those guys whose hair was all slicked down and his eyes bulged sort of and I began to squirm even more and look away, when suddenly he looked at the camera and basically said, “I am speaking to you.  God wants to heal you now. You, sitting there on your couch watching this movie.  God is speaking to you.” 

And that made me even more crabby and I was just about to roll my eyes, when this burning electrical heat shot up my back and swirled around my shoulder.  Just like in the movie. Really.  And the pain was gone.  Absolutely.  And it has never returned, not even after six or seven years. Ever.

So why don’t I live in this spot of Weston’s of What if, of continual expectation that God is active and powerful and at work among us?  Not just among homeless gypsies. Or African tribal people.  Here. At 220 South Country Club, just through the oleander bushes from Broadway Village.  

And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” Matthew 9:2

Go and sin no more.

Dear LORD, may it be so. And may my faith be so big and unfaltering that I too will carry my friends and family with me, into Your presence so that You can reach into our lives and touch us, and say, “Beloved, take heart.”

And the movie sequel, Father of Lights, is sitting on my dresser, just waiting.  

Save us, Lord; we are perishing

And the demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.” And he said to them,“Go.” Matthew 8:31

This is the “even the winds and the waves” section of the story of God Walking Among Us.  The leper, the heathen soldier, the didn’t-even-seem-to-ask-person-lying-in-bed, the shoving crowds, those of little faith, and yes, especially the demons turned to Jesus and He replied, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.”

And then there’s me.  

Yesterday afternoon, as I was driving Shaun/Jinching home from a moderately successful day at school, I considered my prayer list as of late.  And really, I was reflecting on the very check, check, check tone about it.  God has been faithfully moving beyond my paltry expectations.  Actually, it is more like the “¡Pum!  ¡Pum!  ¡Pum! ¡Corrían para arriba!  ¡Corrían para abajo! excitement from my Cat in the Hat skit for my Spanish classes.  He is on the move.  This is the good news all around me.

Ah, yes, and then there’s me.  

Who sometimes is guilty of that very lack of awareness which called down Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 

Repent.  Mr. Spurgeon vigorously delineates this call to “Repent and believe ye the gospel," even as Christ spake to the waves and said, "Be still," and they were still, and to the winds, "Be calm," and they were quiet, so when we speak to your proud heart it yields because of the grace that accompanies the word, and you repent and believe the gospel. This command, while it has an immediate power, has also a continual force. "Repent ye, and believe the gospel," is advice to the young beginner, and it is advice to the old grey-headed Christian, for this is our life all the way through—"Repent ye, and believe the gospel."

The good news.  May I believe and live in the truth and presence of the gospel today in joy and gratitude. Awareness. A continual force of repentance. Of turning and seeing life as it really is, beyond my harried shuffle.

And Jesus reached out and touched him

And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”  And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” Matthew 8:2-3

Kneeling is a physical acknowledgement of complete submission. As in “We will not bow down to your gods.” This leper had come to the very end of his resources, totally spent, poured out empty. 

And he knelt before Jesus and said, “Lord if you will.”

And Jesus responded, “I will.”

And I kneel down, all of me.  Body, soul and spirit.  Spent and empty.  

Come unto me, all you weary and you wired. 

All you burdened and you tired. 

And be.

Sweet off the vine

So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. Matthew 7:17-20

And what are these fruits?

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

Love.  This is the will of the Father. And everything else will be burned up. All of our systems and rules and religion will be like the chaff that is thrown in the unquenchable fire. Do not enter by the wide gilt gate with trumpet calls and flapping banners built by the efforts of men, ravenous wolves in sheep’s clothing. Rather turn and enter the narrow way, quiet and unassuming, for My burden is light.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand.  It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

All of our works, prophesying in His name, and casting out demons in His name, and doing many mighty works in His name, are of naught, without love.

You make known to me the path of life

So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12

At many levels our Sacred Scriptures are pretty hard to exactly understand. We have all sorts of barriers–cultural, translations across multiple ancient languages, convoluted grammar and missing punctuation, sinful wayward hearts–and a devil lurking, ever eager to toss flaming darts of discord and distraction. We start shouting and thumping text and take our eyes off of Him and His.

And that Law has lots of ugly bits that are very hard to mesh with our understanding of the Loving Father God who waits for the Prodigal with open arms and Who leaves the ninety and nine to search for the lost sheep because it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish with the Lawgiver who commands the people of Israel to take the women as plunder after killing all the men by sword.

And how do I answer this week’s question from Marco: So why should people believe those particularly horrible Laws as misinterpreted and the nicer ones as representing God’s message to His people?

Jesus.  The Catechism answer. When small children raise their hands and shout, “I know, I know.”

Jesus is God come to earth to proclaim and clarify God’s message to His people.  To clear away all the misunderstandings. He spoke it, He lived it, He gave ever-so-many-memorable examples and stories, and He affirmed what was clear to the rich young ruler who had spent a lifetime in study in order to be pitch-perfect: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus Who Did Not Come to Abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.  The Law describes our absolute smashed filthiness. Not a hope of doing it all on our own.  Or any of it, really.  Helpless.  Even those religious sorts who added heaps and heaps of directions that detailed the outward appearances, but could not touch the heart. Only One knows the heart of the Father.  Because they are One. And He gathered up all of that longest of scrolls scribbled with our failure and bore it on his slashed shoulders.  Forever and ever It is finished. 

This is the plumb line to which we line up our understanding.  And if it is crooked, we know who needs to readjust.

Sifting through empty pods

opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Matthew 7:7-8

Today, I am praying for those askers, for those knockers, and for those seekers.  Lifting them up to the LORD and asking How Long? And while they wait, Dear Father in Heaven Who Would Not Give His Child a Stone, please comfort their hearts and fill up their bellies.  Because our flesh is so very bound up in time, and I am one of these.  

And dear Poppa, for the others, those who are not asking, those who are not knocking, those who are not seeking, I lift them up to the LORD and ask How Long? Those of us careening through life, squandered our property in reckless living, I ask for mercy. And yes, so very often the most merciful gift is that of point of pain, the pause of feeding the pigs, longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.  

I will never forget little seventh-grade Ben Winslow’s joyful gallivanting when he wrapped his brain around the Lewis observation: God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Dear Father in Heaven Goes After the One That is Lost, I trust You to seek until You find, because it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. Because our flesh is so very bound up in time, and I am one of these. 

The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

The word translated as 'repentance' is the Greek word μετάνοια (metanoia), "after/behind one's mind,” which is a compound word of the preposition 'meta' (after, with), and the verb 'noeo' (to perceive, to think, the result of perceiving or observing). In this compound word the preposition combines the two meanings of time and change, which may be denoted by 'after' and 'different'; so that the whole compound means: to think differently after. Metanoia is therefore primarily an afterthought, different from the former thought; a change of mind accompanied by change of conduct, "change of mind and heart,” or, "change of consciousness.”

Dear LORD, Today may I ask, may I knock, may I seek. Your Spirit at work in me, lead me to repentance, Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my soul until Thee.