boundary lines in pleasant places

Psalm 16

For Sunday, November 15, 2009

Proper 28

"The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance" (Psalm 16:6).

Where are the boundary lines of your life falling today? I see in my own life how so much of this is framed by the state of my relationship with the Lord. When I truly seek him, prayerfully and faithfully, then despite the hardships that are present, I see God's redemptive hand powerfully at work.

I see this looking back five years when the mission team I was leading imploded without warning. The conflict was so deep that our own teammates asked us not to return to Siberia where we were serving. As I've shared with friends subsequently, I'd like to write a book about it entitled _Exiled From Siberia_. This remains the most painful experience I've ever gone through, more painful than my Dad's death 3 years ago, and even more painful even than presently watching my one and only younger brother waging a life and death struggle with cancer while simultaneously watching my Mom wrestle with a debilitating mental illness. By the end of this year it is likely that I'll be the only functioning member of my family of origin left standing.

Yet despite all of this I can say that the boundary lines for me are falling in pleasant places. Had we not been exiled from Siberia I would not have had four precious years with my Dad before his death. I would not have been there holding his hand and looking into his eyes as he passed, which was a direct answer to prayer. My three boys, the oldest of which is now 13, would not have really ever known their Grandpa.

My Father is using the pain of being exiled from Siberia, the pain of losing my Dad, and the present pain of walking with both my brother and Mom through profound illness, to shape my soul for his purpose. It is a purpose that includes being a resource to other missionaries who have or are going through team conflicts, something that is remarkably common on the field. It is a purpose that includes a continuing ministry to Russian-speaking people both locally an internationally. It is also a purpose that is now leading toward a ministry to urban churches and leaders right here in Milwaukee.

When we were preparing to go to Russia fellow Christians would ask us, "Why are you going all the way there? Aren't there enough problems here?" The Lord gave me a great answer: "Yes, there are profound problems here, and that's why you're here." Well, ... now I'm here, and in fact, some of the social dynamics we experienced in Russia, particularly in regards to both human servitude and fatherlessness, are clear and present dynamics which we can now help to address.

Our gracious Father intends for the boundary lines of each of our lives to fall in pleasant places. This doesn't mean that within those boundaries there won't be some deep chasms. Yet what the enemy intends for evil God will certainly transform into good. Christ's resurrection at Calvary is both the downpayment and security on this divine promise.

Will you today along with me entrust our Father with the boundary lines of our lives? When we truly yield ourselves to God's plan and purpose profound blessing is the inevitable result.

hope for distressed property

Anata (Anathoth), Hill Country, Judea.
Original steel engraving drawn by W. H. Bartlett,
engraved by E. Brandard. ca 1850. 19x13cm

Jeremiah 32:1-15
For Sun. Sept. 30, Year C, Proper 21

Things could not have looked worse. The Babylonians were at the city gates besieging Jerusalem, the single remaining bastion of God’s people in the world. Jeremiah had said the Babylonians would come, and that resistance was futile. The king at the time, Zedekiah, being a fan of the power of positive thinking, would have none of this, and threw Jeremiah in prison. But as the Babylonians pressed the attack, a flustered Zedekiah went back to Jeremiah, and with exasperation exclaimed, “Why do you prophesy as you do!”

Jeremiah responds with a story of how he came into possession of a little piece of real estate in Anathoth, just north of Jerusalem. The point of the was also an answer to Zedekiah’s exasperation:

For this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land. – Jeremiah 32:15

Do you happen to find yourself in bleak circumstances that leave you feeling exasperated? Maybe you are a President of a world superpower that has just learned of North Korean nuclear s material half-way around the world in Syria. Maybe you are a spouse who sees no hope for a difficult marriage. Maybe you are facing a terminal illness. Maybe you’ve completely lost your way vocationally. To you God says, “Houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”

So it came to pass for the Jews, who were allowed to return to their homeland a mere 50 years after the fall of Jerusalem when King Cyrus, the Persian who had conquered the Babylonians, declared their freedom to return in 536 B.C. So it will come to pass for us as we trust and obey our Heavenly Father.

So will it also come to pass for the world itself. Just as Jeremiah himself may have been the one to open the sealed title to the property he purchased fifty years earlier, so will Jesus open the sealed title to the whole world, which is the property he purchased on Calvary:

When I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?" . . . Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals. (Rev. 5:1-5)

reading Revelation

Cano, "Image of St. John", 1635

Year C - Second Sunday of Easter, April 15, 2007
Revelation 1:4-8

How did the author of Revelation, John, intend this book to be read? As Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart point out in their wonderful _How to Read the Bible Book by Book_, there are two key things to keep in mind.

First, take seriously John's own description of this book: "the words of this prophecy" (v. 3). What John means is that everything he is writing is to be viewed in terms of fulfillment of the Old Testament.

Second, appreciate the nature and purpose of apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic literature is primary fantasy: something like what can only be conveyed in a contemporary comic book. There are fantastic images, but the point of the images is not to be found so much in the little details, but rather in the whole picture as a composite. The composite is meant to say something about what is ultimately real, and what connects the present with the future.

As the _New Bible Commentary_ (IVP) points out, there have traditionally been four approachеs to interpreting this book:

• the Preterist approach: the book applies solely to the events of the author's own day
• the Futurist approach: the book applies only to the last generation of history
• the Historical approach: the book is meant to outline the ages between Christ's first coming and second coming
• the Symbolic approach: the book is meant only to paint general pictures without specific prophetic application to given points in time

Yet just as no one would read Old Testament prophecy by forcing it exclusively into one of these approaches, neither should one force the book of Revelation into such a straightjacket.
Keeping all of this in mind, what then might we take away from Rev. 1:4-8? Maybe that it is in Jesus that our Father has begun to put right all that is wrong with us and our world. This is some very good news. We are not chance products of random purposelessness, but a kingdom of priests living in service to the Alpha and Omega who was, and is, and is to come. Hallelujah!

Mary's extraordinary act

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, "Christ at Supper with Simon the Pharisee":
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=144492&handle=li

What would move Mary to take a large bottle of perfume worth what today would be at least $30,000, pour it out onto Jesus feet, and then wipe it with her hair? Judas's reaction only seems unreasonable to us because he is Judas: "Why wasn't this given to the poor?" Jesus responds by saying something curious: "It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial."

The context is important here. Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem, and probably knows that in so doing he is setting in motion his own crucifixion. Set in these terms, what is $30,000 in comparison to the value of the forgiveness of the sins of the whole world? Mary's gift was to appreciate who Jesus was and what he was about: forgiveness and redemption.

That our personal sins have been forgiven, and that our lives are in the process of being redeemed, is great cause for celebration today. Don't let the needs of the moment, even if they be the poor among us, obscure the centrality of living in and living out the forgiveness and redemption of Christ.