Treasures

Anthony was a rich young man who fell in love with Jesus and threw aside his wealth for a life in the desert. He spent 20 years alone, learning to ignore attacks from evil while submitting to God.

Late in life, he was interviewed by Athanasius, who wrote an account of his life in the mid 300’s. Here’s a quote that intrigues me:

“…as we rise day by day we should think that we shall not abide till evening; and again, when about to lie down to sleep, we should think that we shall not rise up… But thus ordering our daily life, we shall neither fall into sin, nor have a lust for anything, nor cherish wrath against any, nor shall we heap up treasure upon earth.”

I don’t yearn for his lifestyle but I find his wisdom breathtaking. What do I cherish in my life? And am I devoting myself to that? We assume infinite tomorrows but am I devoting myself to that which is precious to me?

Some say that we do what we want to do. But I think we do what we think is important, whether we want to do it or not.

Do I know what I treasure? Am I living that way?

Dancing with the King

We danced last night. This is not unusual except we hadn’t before. We were at a wedding, the reception under the clear country stars and the music familiar. So we gave it a try, laughing at ourselves and remembering our last dance – in junior high school – and definitely not with each other.

After 17 years of marriage, there wasn’t a fear of stepping on each other’s toes. We’ve done that before. There was instead the freedom to remember the eighth grade embarrassments, the girlfriend he’d invited to the dance floor, the boys who hadn’t grown tall enough yet for me.

God created marriage before sin entered the world; it is not an idea flowing from the fall but flowing from the Creator. God’s original plan for union between a man and a woman involved two sinless people. Notice, however, that he did not nullify marriage once sin marred the Garden. Apparently it is possible to pursue a union involving two sinful people. (Whew)

Marriage is the supreme metaphor for the relationship between God and believer. In the Old Testament, idolatry was paralleled with adultery and, in the New Testament, believers are called the bride of Christ.

God makes covenants. He initiates them and he keeps them to a thousand generations. The covenant of marriage is a natural image of our relationship with God. The very idea of two becoming one is mysterious in reference to a man and woman, but even more mysterious when we think about joining our hearts to the Divine.

Marriage between a man and a woman is never perfect. There’s often stepping on toes. But it gives us a veiled image of the divine idea for union with God: one of love, covenant, provision, passion and uniting.

We are privileged to enjoy the metaphor of marriage – that dance with our spouse – and we plumb the image of dancing as bride of our Savior and our Lord. What a waltz!

I pledged myself to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine.

Ezek 16:8

Flames of passion

The woman was indignant. “I’d better be in heaven someday,” she said heatedly, “because I know my mother is!”

She could have been a third-generation Puritan. In the mid-1600’s, the Puritans had fled English with the hot flames of persecution on their tails. Rather than adapt their beliefs, they adopted a new homeland.

But that first generation of Puritans, passionate and committed, failed to pass on the fervor. The following generations drifted toward spiritual lethargy. Churches once filled with energetic followers of Jesus were now seeing empty pews. The youth were out late, pursuing lewd practices with no time for Sunday morning worship.

We obviously expect too much, responded the Puritan fathers. They wanted to increase church membership, which had been based on spiritual conversion, and so decided to make it easier. Thus developed the Half-Way Covenant, which allowed membership based on baptism. If and when conversion occurred, the member was then allowed full membership but in the meantime, they were half-way members.

These half-way members couldn’t vote but they could inflate the membership roll. The hope was that the younger generations would eventually make a conversion to Christianity. Without the expectation of conversion, the younger generation became more and more self-indulgence and immoral.

By reducing membership to baptism, Puritans communicated that faith wasn’t necessary. Membership was. The sluggish results of the Half-way Covenant made the Great Awakening of the early 1700’s an amazing work of God, injecting fervor and commitment into the cool listless spirituality of the times. When people found Jesus, they responded with enthusiasm and ardor.

Jesus started with a large group of disciples but followers kept peeling off as the cost of following became clearer. Jesus didn’t come up with a Half-way Covenant to keep them. He upped the ante: in comparison to your love for me, it’ll seem like you hate your family. (Luke 14:26)

To follow Jesus means to leave attachments, to cultivate zeal, to risk all. He expected obsession from his followers. The Puritans were hoping to boost church membership with the Half-way Covenant. Their focus should have been on the passion of the people, not the numbers on the pews.

Jesus never made it easy to follow him and neither should we.

And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Luke 14:27