"Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand." -- Matthew 12:25

A message from Jesus to not just the politicians of our day, but to citizens as well.  The verse warrants little commentary.

Peace.

Readings: Genesis 37:1-38:30; Matthew 12:22-45; Psalm 16:1-11; Proverbs 3:27-32

"He said to them, 'If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." -- Matthew 12:11-12

Was Jesus a sinner?  Christians say, "no, of course not."  But here in these verses we see the unveiling of what is ultimately going to get Jesus killed.  What is it "to sin"?  In Jesus' time it was to break religious law.  In the next paragraph, Jesus blatantly breaks the law by healing a man on the Sabbath and the Pharisees go out and start plotting how it is they're going to kill this sinner for it.  Further, not only is Jesus breaking the law, he is actually rewriting it.  The powers that be don't like this one bit.  To understand the New Testament, it's vital to recognize the role and place of the law in that culture and the way Jesus goes about turning it on its ear.  Without that perspective, there's no way to get at what Jesus, Paul, and other writers of the NT are trying to say.

Readings:  Genesis 35:1-36:43; Matthew 12:1-21; Psalm 15:1-5; Proverbs 3:21-26

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." -- Matthew 11:28-30

This is one of my favorites in all of Scripture.  I used to understand it as advice to walk with Jesus when life gets hard.  That is, as Carole King wrote, "when you're down and troubled, and you need a helping hand, and nothing oh nothing is going right... " it could be Jesus speaking in the lyrics.  And while that's theologically fitting and works for me at a personal level, it's really not what this verse is about.  The weariness Jesus is referring to is that from carrying the burden of trying to live according to Jewish law.  Given that there are 613 laws in the Old Testament, that was a lot of rules to hear, know, live by, and share.  Jesus gives us one law in two parts:  Love-- Love God, Love Each Other.  He tells us that all the law and the prophets are contained therein.  To fully understand this text, you have to know what his "yoke" is.  Jesus is speaking as a rabbi to a Jewish population.  The "yoke" of the rabbi was the set of his interpretations of the law.  Jesus' yoke was easy and his burden was light because you didn't have to have legal mastery of the 613 religious laws that seemed so difficult to live by... you just had to know the one law in its two parts.  So love God, and love each other, and enjoy his rest.

Readings:  Genesis 32:13-34:31; Matthew 11:7-30; Psalm 14:1-7; Proverbs 3:19-20

"...and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." -- Matthew 10:39

When I was young and first heard this text, I couldn't understand why I needed to find a cross to be like Jesus... I didn't see anyone else carrying crosses, except maybe as jewelry.  And what did it mean to lose your life to find it?  Did that mean to die?  As a child,  I couldn't get my head around it.  As an adult, I've come to see the metaphor.  It comes down to what we live for... if we live for only ourselves, we lose the opportunity to know life in its fullest.  When we live for something greater than ourselves-- when we live for God and give ourselves away, we experience life itself in the way its meant to be.  Taking a breath happens in two parts:  the inhale and the exhale.  Living for ourself is the inhale, giving ourselves away is the exhale-- a complete breath.  A complete life.

Readings:  Genesis 31:17-32:12; Matthew 10:26-11:6; Psalm 13:1-6; Proverbs 3:16-18

"Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her." -- Proverbs 3:13-15

Today, a great social concern many are wrestling with is a widening chasm between the wealthy and the poor.  It used to feel like there was a more level playing field and everyone had an opportunity to move up the material ladder of success.  Today, however, mom and pop shops can't compete with the corporate big box shops, so opportunity to compete in the marketplace is mitigated.  I hear many people talking about it.  What I don't hear people speaking of is the growing chasm between the educated and non-educated.  As fast as we're advancing technologically, for most of us, our part in its evolution is as consumers.  Similarly, there seems to be a growing gap in religious culture.  There we find intelligence, rationalization, and skepticism becoming a bit suspect and at times even discouraged.  Let's not let our part in the faith experience be limited to that as mere consumers.  We must continue not just to seek awareness of the content of our faith and its scriptures, but an understanding of it as well.  Knowing doesn't lead to wisdom, but understanding does.  Let's not seek God with just our whole heart, but with our whole mind as well.  Think about it...

Readings: Genesis 30:1-31:16; Matthew 10:1-25; Psalm 12:1-8; Proverbs 3:13-15

"Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." -- Matthew 9:37-38

After 2000+ years of the lessons of Jesus and stories of God, you'd think we'd have this faith thing down by now.  And yet, there's still hate and destruction, and masses of wandering lonely people in this world.  While it's common to think that stories of the ages should be known by all, and that each generation should be a bit wiser than the one before-- it's not really working out that way.  Humans, it seems, like to learn things the hard way.  For whatever reason, we cannot listen to our forefathers and learn from their mistakes.  So each generation that is born needs to be taught and needs to learn what it means to be a child of God and a follower of Christ.  The story is brand new again.  Couple that with the explosive population growth in the world today, and we have more people to reach now than in all of the history of creation.  The work begins with sharing a bit of Good News-- and one incredible story. Learn the Story. Know the Story. Live the Story. Tell the Story.  In that order.

Readings:  Genesis 28:1-29:35; Matthew 9:18-38; Psalm 11:1-7; Proverbs 3:11-12

"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved." -- Matthew 9:16-17

The world is changing fast.  Babies born today may very well live to see a world we would hardly recognize.  Because of the changes in technology (especially in the areas of genetics, nanotechnology, and  robotics), the way we experience everyday life is about to shift parabolically.  As I write this, computing is undergoing a "shrinking" evolution.  We are moving from our experience of carrying computing devices to having computer chips embedded in our bodies.  Once computers reach the size of human cells, we will come to a point where we will have to ask the question, "what is human?"  The human has been relatively the same for thousands and thousands of years, but is about to take a dramatic turn.  With industrialization in the early 20th century came a new way of experiencing life.  Computers and biotechnology are taking us to yet another way of experiencing life.  Certainly new wineskins are being produced.  In some ways, we are participants in the production of these new skins.  Now, maybe more than ever, we must be vigilant in transmitting not just the information of our faith to the next generations, but perhaps more importantly, the values of it... not to fit the new into the old, but to work to make sure that the dna of the old is embedded in the fabric of the new.  Buckle up, because we're in for quite a ride!

Readings:  Genesis 26:17-27:46; Matthew 9:1-17; Psalm 10:16-18; Proverbs 3:9-10