Emails to God

One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’” Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?”
Luke 18:1-8

Dear God, justice seems to be the key word in this book translation. So what does justice look like? And are there times when you need me to experience injustice for your purposes and/or my growth?

The obvious thing that comes to mind right now is what is happening in Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza. The injustice of all of that for countless people is overwhelming. Maybe I and others haven’t prayed for their justice enough. I don’t know. But that’s a hard one to I’m not saying you caused it. I know Satan’s plan is to divide us and he is perfecting that plan more and more. But it’s still hard to watch. I’d love to see you come and bring justice quickly.

Someone asked me yesterday what my core tenants of faith are. Before telling him what I think you’ve taught me about the soil in my heart, the fruits of the Spirit and Jesus’s two top commandments, I told him my favorite verse is Acts 20:24: “However I consider my life worth nothing to me…” If that is true then do I really need justice for myself?

Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, I confess there are times I just don’t know how to pray—especially for myself. But I offer my life to you. Break me, melt me, mold me, heal me. And please show me how to love you and love others as well as you need me to for my sake and for theirs.

I pray all of this in your, my Triune God,

Amen

Jesus told this story to his disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a manager handling his affairs. One day a report came that the manager was wasting his employer’s money. So the employer called him in and said, ‘What’s this I hear about you? Get your report in order, because you are going to be fired.’ “The manager thought to himself, ‘Now what? My boss has fired me. I don’t have the strength to dig ditches, and I’m too proud to beg. Ah, I know how to ensure that I’ll have plenty of friends who will give me a home when I am fired.’ “So he invited each person who owed money to his employer to come and discuss the situation. He asked the first one, ‘How much do you owe him?’ The man replied, ‘I owe him 800 gallons of olive oil.’ So the manager told him, ‘Take the bill and quickly change it to 400 gallons.’ “‘And how much do you owe my employer?’ he asked the next man. ‘I owe him 1,000 bushels of wheat,’ was the reply. ‘Here,’ the manager said, ‘take the bill and change it to 800 bushels.’ “The rich man had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd. And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light. Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home. “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own? “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.”
Luke 16:1-13

Dear God, I have never been able to get my head around this parable. I mean, you might as well be describing a scoundrel like Jacob and you would never bless…Hold it. Wait. I guess you would bless a scoundrel like Jacob.

I just looked at a biblical commentary for this passage to see what they said, and it didn’t necessarily work for me. It felt like they added some words to it that weren’t there.

I had another thought this morning as I pondered this scripture. I had lunch yesterday with a friend, and we talked about how our temptation when we read ancient texts like the Bible is to lay our 21st-century culture onto theirs. To read the stories through our own eyes instead of theirs. Maybe that’s what’s happening here too. Maybe I’m doing mental gymnastics to make this story align with my 21st-century viewpoint instead of sinking into the message Jesus says he is teaching in verses 8 and 9. The NLT translates verse 9 to say, “Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.”

I told another friend yesterday about Rotary International’s Four-Way Test. It is the idea that if run everything we do through a simple filter of honesty and good will then good things will follow–even if it costs me something personally. Here’s the Four-Way Test: Of all of the things we think, say, and do,

• Is it the Truth?
• Is it fair to all concerned?
• Will it build good will and better friendships?
• Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

Of course, this parable violates the “truth” part of this test, and it isn’t necessarily embracing fairness, and even the beneficial to all concerned is sketchy. But the shrewd manager certainly built good will and better friendships.

I don’t know, Father. This parable immediately follows the “Parable of the Lost Son.” But I can’t tell if Jesus is saying you are the rich man in this parable or not. If it’s your nature to reward this scoundrel. And maybe there’s a cultural layer I’m missing. Maybe there are unspoken nuances that someone in the audience would automatically know that I don’t. Either way, I think my role today is just to listen to the Holy Spirit as best as I can and then be responsive. To go when He says, “Go!” To wait when He says, “Wait!” So please give me ears to hear and eyes to see.

I pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

Amen

15 Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. ² This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!

³ So Jesus told them this story: ⁴ “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? ⁵ And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. ⁶ When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ ⁷ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

Parable of the Lost Coin

⁸ “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹ And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’ ¹⁰ In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.”

Parable of the Lost Son

¹¹ To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story: “A man had two sons. ¹² The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.

¹³ “A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. ¹⁴ About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. ¹⁵ He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. ¹⁶ The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.

¹⁷ “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! ¹⁸ I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, ¹⁹ and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’

²⁰ “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. ²¹ His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’

²² “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. ²³ And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, ²⁴ for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.

²⁵ “Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, ²⁶ and he asked one of the servants what was going on. ²⁷ ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’

²⁸ “The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, ²⁹ but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. ³⁰ Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’

³¹ “His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. ³² We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”

Luke 15

Dear God, last night I prayed through these three parables thinking about them from the perspective of your pain and then subsequent joy when you find us. Now, I’m thinking about the other thread between the Lost Sheep parable and the Lost Son parable: there is not as much celebrating for the one who stays. Again, Jesus didn’t have to expressly make this point, but he did.

For the Lost Sheep parable, he says, “In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!” The NLT even has this end with an exclamation point, although I don’t know that punctuation like that is in the original text. Then, for the Parable of the Lost Son, [you] tell the son who stayed, “‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!”

Your love for us is truly amazing. Truly amazing. And the love you baked into our being made in your image for loving our children is amazing. But even animals have an amazing love for their children. Ostensibly, there is nothing different about my two children vs. all of the other people of the world except that they came from my wife and me. They are the two humans in the world who were born to us, and there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them. I can see where the same would be true if we adopted them, although I’ve never experienced that. But this parental instinct is deep. Yes, I failed to love them well several times. Yes, I made mistakes. But oh, how I love them.

Father, thank you. Thank you for not baking anything into me that you cannot relate to–except the sin nature. But thank you for even coming to earth through your Son and exposing yourself to temptation as well. Thank you for experiencing fear. Loss. Poverty. Homelessness. Love. Betrayal. Rejection. And I suppose I don’t want to leave these two parables without noting that it is possible for all of these stories that the sheep, coin, or son would never be found. That they would have successfully hidden from you and stayed away from you. For those I love, I pray that you would find them. That they would make themselves known to you.

I pray all of this through the mercy of Jesus,

Amen

15 Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. ² This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!

³ So Jesus told them this story: ⁴ “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? ⁵ And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. ⁶ When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ ⁷ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

Parable of the Lost Coin

⁸ “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹ And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’ ¹⁰ In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.”

Parable of the Lost Son

¹¹ To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story: “A man had two sons. ¹² The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.

¹³ “A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. ¹⁴ About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. ¹⁵ He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. ¹⁶ The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.

¹⁷ “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! ¹⁸ I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, ¹⁹ and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’

²⁰ “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. ²¹ His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’

²² “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. ²³ And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, ²⁴ for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.

²⁵ “Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, ²⁶ and he asked one of the servants what was going on. ²⁷ ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’

²⁸ “The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, ²⁹ but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. ³⁰ Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’

³¹ “His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. ³² We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”

Luke 15

Dear God, these three parables go together so I am going to take them together. I noticed something I’ve never notice before because I don’t think I’ve ever looked at these parables as being told at the same time and in the same context. What I noticed is that each one describes you as not only being delighted when you find us when we are lost, but you also celebrate it with others. Each of these parables includes inviting others to join in your celebration. The angels? I suppose. Whomever it is you celebrating with, this is not just a mild enjoyment you get from finding us again. It’s a celebration. What that tells me is that much celebration comes from a lot of pain and anguish.

How do you experience pain? What is that like for you? I’ll confess that I experienced that kind of pain even today. Something happened that brought some of my pain over relationships lost to the surface and I sat by myself and wept today. And I cannot imagine the joy I would feel if those relationships were even somewhat restored. So what about you. For that much celebration described by Jesus, how much more so are you experiencing the pain of the loss?

So that’s what makes you amazing. You make yourself vulnerable to pain when it comes to your relationships with us. We are so small and insignificant when compared with you, and yet you (as Jesus) describe yourself as being unbelievably happy when we return. You’re amazing!

Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, I might address another time the older brother in the last story, but right now I just want to sit with this idea of your pain and anguish over us as individuals. Oh, how I don’t want to cause you pain. Sure, if I stay with you then there isn’t a need for the big celebration. That’s okay. My love for you is such that I just want to be a source of joy for your Holy Spirit, for Jesus, and for the Father. It’s not about a party thrown over me, but about a lack of pain for you caused by me. Help me to live into that desire.

I offer you this prayer in the name of my Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

Amen