Idolatry (Part 10)

9-12-10

● In our considerations last week, I suggested that, in our approach of the topic of wisdom, we have been attempting to discover how life really works. What is “real”? What is “reality”?

            From the perspective of the Proverbs, it was by wisdom (means) that God created the heavens and the earth. It means that wisdom is inter-woven all throughout creation.

● Proverbs 8 also portrayed wisdom as an “architect” who was alongside God in the creation project (“I was the architect at his side” v.30). That image advises us that wisdom is directed toward how things relate and how they function.

“And how happy I was with the world he created; how I rejoiced with the human family” (8:31).

            Wisdom delights in the relationship and functionality of all created things. Therefore, if you are going to experience life the way that it was meant to be lived, it becomes necessary to familiarize yourself with the design and then re-order your life to accommodate it. To ignore such “reality”, would then be “foolish”.

Repeatedly, wisdom literature offers us life as a “path” or a “way”.

Those paths are identified as either ‘straight’ or ‘crooked’ (perverse, used in Philippians, which means ‘to wander from the right path’).

● Jesus used wisdom language in Matthew 7 when he said,…

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (13-14).

● His listeners would have been familiar with towns like that. Some gates were broad enough for large crowds to go through all at once, but some seemed to narrow the pathway. Our choices matter. The way we take (path we choose) cannot be determined the populace… there’s too much at stake.

Jesus was also clear that although available to all, it would be embraced by relatively few. And, when we refuse the way, the possibilities for brokenness and disorder are limitless.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life…” John 14:6

            I’m not sure that any single statement that Jesus made is met with more controversy.

What becomes apparent is that Jesus is challenging our definition of life and the self-defeating means we often use to pursue it.

We must keep in mind that the statement was made in the context of the arrival of the Kingdom of God, which was, for them, the greatest reality.

It’s into this dilemma that Jesus comes announcing the arrival of the Kingdom.

            That the life that they have always longed for (and had been promised in their story) was now breaking in. That the one true God (reality) was acting decisively to deal with all that proved to be an obstacle to our discovery of life (with God and others).

            To deal with “evil”--- all that kept us from relating and functioning well.

When we imagine Jesus as the “way”, we are envisioning his capacity to lead us somewhere; to connect us to something.

            So, the way cannot be reduced to lines on a map or mere directions to follow. The Bible cannot be reduced to my “Chilton’s Manual for Life”. Its effect is in its capacity to introduce us to Jesus (God’s way of speaking, Hebrews 1:2)… our way (means) to God, and God’s way to us! The “way” is a person to follow.

“Where?” To…

“Father’s house”… a phrase used one other time by Jesus to refer to the Temple--- the place where heaven and earth intersected.

The imagery of Father’s house was of a new reality, a new world where Father was present and there would be ample room for anyone who desired to be a part. In fact, that had always been Father’s desire (not just to rescue a select group of people and preserve for them a tiny strip of land in the Middle East).

John 3:16 “…God so loved that whoever believed…”

            Matthew 28 “make disciples  of all nations…”

            2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance”.       

The early messengers of the gospel [apostles] were not just conveying facts, but interpreting events.

1 Corinthians 15:1-5 (read)

● The message was: … a call to repentance and faith. A challenge to give up your own agenda and trust God for life.

The second component was that Jesus had inaugurated a new age by announcing that the Kingdom was here and now every part of our working, eating, sleeping, recreating, walking around life must be ordered by this rule. The inauguration of the new age was not merely some intrusion into the secular world or a helpful aid for life, but involved a commitment of the entire person.

The third component was a baptism “into the name” of Christ (symbolized new identity and his ultimate claims on you) which was a baptism into his body, the church.

As we come to the Table, we gather not merely as observers or spectators, but we celebrate as participants in the story.

            We are a community which has been divinely gathered in order to witness to the reign of the Kingdom and call people, through our lives of loving-obedience, to repentance and faith.

“You declare the Lord’s death until he comes…” We live in this interim between the resurrection of Jesus and his final return; embodying his restorative love as a sampling or glimpse of his work until it is finalized in the new heavens and new earth.