These pieces were written a number of years ago. I’m leaving them in the present tense, as trying to make them sound current is silly and dishonest. So, here they are, as they were.
A couple of weeks ago the Gospel from the lectionary in Luke 14 started off with Jesus saying to His followers, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”
After praying over that passage for a week, I preached a sermon on “Receiving Your Inheritance.” What I came to realize was that anyone who really loves Jesus, who really places his or her trust in Him will sooner or later be accused of hating father or mother, spouse, children, etc.
And I also realized that the only people to whom this turn of events is tolerable, the only ones to whom this accusation is not devastating fall into two groups. The first is those who have nothing left to lose. Accusations like that don’t mean much to those who are already shunned by most of their neighbors. We see a lot of people like that following Jesus. Indeed, the Gospel’s always been easier to swallow for “the least of these,” as Nietsche knew when he called Christianity a “slave’s religion.”
Surely there must be another group who can follow, though. It just can’t be that external circumstances must strip us of everything before we can risk following the Lord!
I believe that there is a second group, those who are so rich in Him that they can risk some condemnation by their peers. These are they who, over time, willingly lay down the things that the world has ripped away from the less fortunate. They lay these things down because they know themselves to be possessors of a world that isn’t subject to rust or decay. These are those who have “received His riches.”
Realizing this, I decided that I wanted to write about what it might mean to step into our identities as heirs of Christ, and to inherit the Kingdom. I’ve been to the place where you feel so utterly powerless that laying down the respect of others, being called a “hater” (to misuse a current term) just doesn’t seem like such a big step. I’ve acted out of trust because there was nothing left to trust in, and I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to go that route if it can be avoided. So I want to begin to try to hold out to you all some of the riches that I hope will make you feel wealthy enough, rich enough in Him to know the joy of following Him.
Now, here’s the catch. Those who aren’t desperate are usually feeling fairly comfortable because they’ve learned the world’s means for satisfying their aches and hungers. This may be the enemy’s most subtle weapon, our satisfaction. As long as our hands and arms are sufficiently full of the world’s satisfactions, there just isn’t a finger left to accept our inheritance. In order for us to begin to know the wealth that is ours in the Savior, we must first resist the urge to soothe our hunger with the old things. Desires and dissatisfactions will inevitably spring up. It’s just the way that humans are.
I’m still learning to recognize these moments as opportunities to draw closer to the Father, to turn to Him for the comfort that the enemy fears. They’re too numerous in my life, the little hungers and fears, to deal with them all at once, so I pick one type, one small thing at a time and begin to fast from the old ways of soothing my emptiness. In doing this, I find that I’ve left room for the Father to bestow upon me something of His Grace. And that’s enough, for today.
So.
For the next few weeks or months, until I’m moved to write differently, I’ll be focusing on how I’ve learned to be an heir, and how perhaps we can learn to be so rich in Him that we can risk following in the radical way that Jesus describes.
In Him,
Jeff
