"What Must We Do?"

Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, the you might believe in him whom he has sent."

If you don't get who God sent, it was Jesus. Let's just make that clear right from the start. This passage from John 6:28-29 could be one of the most important things Jesus says in his recorded words. His response to the crowd separates him from all other religious ideas then and now.

Isn't this question they ask still pertinent to us today? Even as a follower of Jesus who sits under his authority and word, I ask this question: What must I do? A common prayer is asking God what we should do with our lives, where should we go, what we must accomplish. Our individualistic Western minds surely do not help, and spend a night on any college campus and students are seriously searching for what they should do and are never content with what they are doing.

But Christ doesn't answer the question the way maybe I would have. You see, we are to do something. We are to believe. Why? Because the work of God (the only work that really matters in the end) has been accomplished through Jesus Christ. He is the work of God, he has accomplished what had to be accomplished. He has conquered the darkness, and now, calling us to be lights to the world, we are to push that darkness back by calling on his name: Jesus Christ, the work of God.

Monday Mornings and John 1

It's the root of much evil. It is the sign of the beginning of long suffering. It IS long suffering. It is pain, anguish, and most often depression.

Monday, Monday.

Morning.

I went to bed last night a little disgruntled because I was up late reading Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, two prominent atheists. They are part of a group of people who are really passionate about what they do NOT believe in. I have to give them credit for being unique.

But that's another entry.

The point is, I was looking at another week, and while this one could prove to be one of the most exciting weeks in a while, tomorrow was Monday and that means another week of school, work, and the drill. You know it, I'm sure.

I finished my small escapade through the Psalms and Isaiah yesterday, so I was thinking about what I would read in my "Daily Bible Reading Time." (Frick, I really don't know what else to call it, so I'll use my grandfather's vocabulary). I went to bed last night and could not stop thinking about the gospel of John. No idea why.

So I read the first three chapters of John a couple times. Just soaking in those first 18 verses and the rest of the sections. The calling of the disciples, the wedding at Cana, prophesy of the temple, and our good buddy Nicodemus.

But in re-reading those first 18 verses I always remember that I am so small. In the beginning, there was the Word. But the Word didn't just sit in the heavens and help us out. He dwelt among us.

The Greek word for "dwelt" actually means to "pitch a tent." Jesus came to us.

Being a minister, I often think I need to get people off of their butts and toward God. But maybe that's not the best thing for me to do. Sure, I can yell at the flock all I want, and I can tell them choose Jesus, choose life, choose truth, but maybe the best thing to do is pray Isaiah's prayer in his 64th chapter for an unrepentant nation:

"O that you would rend the heaven's and come down!"

I should pray like that for our church, for our city, for our nation. I have to stop setting up strategy for how I can get myself to God and how I can get others to God, and start praying that God would come down and wash the city with the blood of the gospel. Because the way people meet God in Scripture is just by surrendering...that's worship.

Sometimes I get scared that the call of the American church is the same call of Isaiah found in chapter 6: that we're going to tell them the good news, but they won't listen or accept any of it, because more and more I'm resonating with Jesus' weeping over Jerusalem at the end of his life in Matthew 23.

"...how often I have longed to gather your children together...but you were not willing."

John 1 give me hope though. My job is not to bring people to God. That is the work of the Spirit. Our battle is not of flesh and blood, but one of spiritual things. He dwelt among us. He came and pitched his tent in flesh, because we could never go and pitch ours in spirit.

The story of the Bible and humanity that is seen over and over again can be stated like this: We sin, God seeks. God is on the move, I need to live like I know he is.

How to Destroy Possible Conversation

She has tried to start a conversation with everyone. I knew I was next.

Her first victim was the art student filming. I laughed inside as she tried to relate. She sold real estate. On her laptop are small inspirational sayings that I can't make out. They look like reminders for her to keep going, to wake up everyday. He was an artist. A similar field, if you can compare a car to a camel - both can get you by. She's fumbling in her tone, but begging for friendship. She has no ring and is alone. The artist is more interested in his laptop screen than her proposal for conversation.

She tries to talk to the guy with the Macbook Air adjacent to the artist. He's interested and they yuk it up about the housing market, but there's only so much to say.

"Interesting window of time," he concludes. And then silence.

It's over. I'm next. I'm trying to shove first century Greek grammar in my head and this woman's going to start talking to me. She has to be over 30 and I look twelve. Maybe she'll ask how Social Studies is going. If she does I have a great Andrew Jackson anecdote I can tell with some pizzaz.

"Are you a student?" she says finally.

Frick.

"Part-time..." I say with a trail.

"What do you do?"

This is my choice. I can shut her down with "Pastor" or intrigue her with "teacher."

"I'm a pastor."

"Oh, interesting." She looks back to her laptop.

"Yeah, it's quite the job..."

Quite the job? What the hell? What does that mean, Quite the job? If "pastor" didn't scare her off, the description that my occupation is "quite the job" is going to push her to dial Child Services. This is why I'm a fumbling evangelist and probably an idiot.

I was packing up and thought how stupid that was. I am always thinking about how I have to get somewhere (when I really don't) or how I really don't want to talk about it (which I do) and I leave with few comments. I do this instead of putting the good news first. It is good news too. It's wonderful news for this lonely, single real estate saleswomen. But I put my schedule before the news.

How is it, that in a city so large and so compact, we are still so lonely?

Next time I'm a teacher.