Lenten Devotion – Day 22

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Today’ Scripture: Matthew 18:1-5

"’Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’” (Matt. 18:1-3)

Unless you become like a child, Jesus said, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven, and maybe part of what that means is that in the long run what is good about religion is playing the way a child plays at being grown up until he finds that being grown up is just another way of playing and thereby starts to grow up himself. Maybe what is good about religion is playing that the kingdom will come, until - in the joy of your playing, the hope and rhythm and comradeship and poignancy and mystery of it - you start to see that the playing is itself the first-fruits of the kingdom's coming and of God's presence within us and among us. — Frederick Buechner, Now and Then (HarperCollins, 2010), 73.

  The 2015 Templeton Prize was awarded this past week. The most prestigious award in the world of religion and spirituality, it is valued at about $1.7 million and honors those who have made “exceptional contributions” to affirming the spiritual dimension of life. The prize this year went to Jean Vanier, an advocate for people with developmental disabilities and the founder of L’Arche, (French for the Ark) a global network of communities where those with and without disabilities live side by side as equals. The following quote from Jean Vanier relates well to our scripture today:

  “They are essentially people of the heart. When they meet others they do not have a hidden agenda for power or for success. Their cry, their fundamental cry, is for a relationship, a meeting heart to heart. It is this meeting that awakens them, opens them up to life, and calls them forth to love in great simplicity, freedom and openness.

  When those ingrained in a culture of winning and of individual success really meet them, and enter into friendship with them, something amazing and wonderful happens. They too are opened up to love and even to God. They are changed at a very deep level. They are transformed and become more fundamentally human.”

  The disciples once again in our scripture today are showing their over eagerness to shine as Jesus’ best ever disciple, so they want to know, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom.” They want to make sure they are doing the right things to measure up, be the best, and become an overachieving disciple. We all want to do our best and shine at whatever we do, but accomplishments, awards, recognition don’t always get us to the desired destination. They may not allow us to enter the kingdom.

  As adults we have a tendency to over think things, we want to be the best of the best, and tend to complicate the simple. In Alcoholics Anonymous they have a saying, “this is a simple program for complicated people.” Jesus by using a child as an example is trying to get the disciples to understand the simplicity of entering the kingdom.

Introduction to 2015 Lenten Devotionals

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

“If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to be born both within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don’t know its name or realize that it’s what we’re starving to death for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it.” ― Frederick Buechner

  The theme I selected for this year’s Lenten devotionals is taken from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:33. In chapter six, Jesus is speaking about worry and he comes to his conclusion about worry by stating, we are to “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” (v. 33) I became interested in exploring what Jesus said about the Kingdom of God or Heaven a couple of years ago and started to read, study, and collect information and notes about the kingdom.

  I work persistently for months to get these devotions done before the beginning of Lent. Each day I worked diligently and my work would keep getting bogged down. As my work progressed, I would find new avenues and ideas to explore, more scripture to read and study, and more references to study to understand particular ideas which would develop in my mind. Eventually, it came to me that God was trying to tell me something important. God seemed to say, “Lee, slow down don’t be too quick to get these devotionals done. Take the time to speak with me in prayer about the kingdom. I have many things to teach you along the way about the kingdom.” God was telling me they would get done in time, but at God’s choosing not mine.

  Lent for me over the years has become a special time for spiritual reflection and growth. For several years, I have written daily Lenten devotions, which I initially did only for my own personal Lenten journey. Then, around 1999, I started to share my devotions in a printed Lenten Prayer and Devotional Booklet, which I generally shared with whatever congregation I was serving at the time, if finances were available. The cost of printing a Lenten booklet eventually got too expense and I started sharing them on my blog, by e-mail and Facebook. So, please feel free to share these devotions with family, friends and neighbors.

  Lent is chiefly about growing in our love for God and our neighbor. Jesus teaches that these are the greatest of the commandments. To love is worth more than all of the offerings, sacrifices, and penitential practices that we could do for the next thousand years. But Jesus is not speaking of a cheap love. It is a love that we receive and give with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. Love is the main focus for our lives lived in the kingdom of God. This is truly Lent.