Sharing something to drink is an invitation to intimacy…
Their request bobbed upon the surface. James and John, the sons of thunder, each wanted to sit on the right and left of Jesus when he was seated in his kingly position, but they didn't understand the full force of the conversation that they had started. Beneath the surface there was an invitation to experience the depths of God that would require faith, hope and love.
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Mark 10:35-40 (NIV) 35Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask." 36"What do you want me to do for you?" he asked. 37They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory." 38"You
don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I
drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?" 39"We
can," they answered. Jesus said to them, "You will drink the cup I
drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, 40but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared."
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I wonder, was Jesus holding a cup while this conversation was happening? As He swirled the contents of they cup, perhaps James and John thought, "sure, no problem, that's easy…in fact I'll have a sip right now!" But Jesus meant a different cup.
They also knew all about Jesus' baptism by John in the Jordan river, and they too had experienced John's ministry…however, Jesus was talking about a completely different cup, and a wholly different baptism.
The cup was a cup of sacrifice, agony and selflessness predicated by Divine love and compassion.This cup would cost everything. This cup was a humble cup that didn't focus on position, status or power, but on love. This cup was bitter to the tongue, but had a sweet after-taste.
The baptism wasn't about water, but about the abiding presence and indwelling of the Trinity by the power and agency of the Holy Spirit. The only way a person can drink a selfless sacrificial cup is through the abiding presence in our hearts of the One who drank it first, Jesus. The Holy Spirit multiplies the resurrected and ascended Christ into every heart who trusts and believes that Jesus is the Christ by faith…this is the baptism of the Holy Spirit into the life and family of God.
It was true, they would drink sacrificial cups, giving their lives in the mission of their Lord, and they would be filled and baptized into the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost…but who sits to the right and the left of Jesus, well, that belongs to the Father and the Spirit.
When we share a drink together, when we share a cup together, there is so much more going on than meets the eye. To drink together is to enter into each others story. It is intimate, relational and beautiful. In Henry Nouwen's book "Can You Drink This Cup" he states:
"In whatever country or culture we find ourselves, having a drink together is a sign of friendship, intimacy, and peace. Being thirsty is often not the main reason to drink. We drink to "break the ice," to enter into a conversation, to show good intention, to express friendship and goodwill, to set the stage for a romantic moment, to be open, vulnerable, accessible. It is no surprise that people who are angry at us, or who come to accuse or harass us, won't accept a drink from us. They would rather say: "I will come straight to the point of my being here." Refusing a drink is avoiding intimacy." p. 80
Can you drink the cup? This is a choice that has been extended to us by the hands of grace. Yes, we can drink the cup, the question is -will we drink the cup? Refusing the drink is to avoid intimacy, accepting the drink expands the God-conversation.
In another very powerful way Jesus drank the bitter cup, so that we could drink the sweet cup of life. This reminds me that when life is hard, when it seems that the cup is beyond bitter, even then, there is the potential for sweetness if we allow Jesus to enter in.
I see this in the story of the bitter water at Marah in Exodus 15. As the Children of Israel crossed the Red Sea and began their journey, the first drinking spot the came to had water that was bitter (Marah means bitter). As the complained about the bad drinking water, God had a remedy:
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Exodus 15:22-25
"22 Then Moses led Israel
from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days
they traveled in the desert without finding water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah. ) 24 So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What are we to drink?" 25
Then Moses cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a piece of
wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet."
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When the drink was bitter, God showed Moses that there was a piece of wood that when added to the bad water source transformed it into sweet, good drinking water.
This is a picture of Calvary, of the Cross of Christ. Are you experiencing a bad drink, a bitter cup? Then, apply the wood of Jesus sacrifice, by accepting His sacrifice for you, and then even the bitterest of drinks have hope and light and life! Nothing is beyond the redemption of Christ's love.
Nouwen also says:
"We have to drink our cup slowly, tasting every mouthful-all the way to the bottom. Living a complete life is drinking our cup until it is empty, trusting that God will fill it with everlasting life." p. 93
The cup is a celebration of what it means to be human…to be fully alive…may you drink to abundance this Easter.
Dei Gratia
Pastor Monty
I was at a conference recently that had a powerful missional heart-beat. As for me, I am incapable of separating and dividing the functions of faith into nice little boxes that we all pick and choose from depending on our preferences. Some like to live in the prayer box while others dwell only in the land of the Bible study box, while others are barricaded in the social action box.
As I look at Jesus, he managed to integrate into his life and ministry all of the faith expressions that most churches separate into distinct expressions, and then try to make Jesus the poster boyt for whatever expression they happen to have, or think is the only right one.
The church, however, is most reflective of Jesus when we integrate all the various passions, instincts and expressions of our faith under a healthy missionality that comes from Jesus Himself. For Jesus His worship and actions all flowed from His purpose, so while He operated in many expressions, His missionality, or His purpose was the thread integrating them all into one. Jesus was not a poster boy for a social Gospel, a Charismatic gospel, An Evangelical Gospel, or a Contemplative Gospel. He was the beloved of His Father, and that is where the compassion that fueled His every action had its origin.
While it seems to me that God has established our prime directive, the reality that we need to have a "missionally-focused" conference tells me that we have missed it somewhere. Perhaps even worse, there are those who don't even see the necessity of the Body of Christ operating from an -others-centeredness. Instead, they see the church primarily as an entity to meet their own person needs and desires.
Which floods my brain with the thought:
We have a dead orthopraxy when the missio dei is subordinated to the missio moi'!
When the Mission of God is subordinated to the Mission of Me, we end up with a religiosity that is self absorbed, unattractive, and completely other than God's plan.
But in church after church I see the missio dei subordinated to the missio moi! In otherwords, it is commonplace to see communities of faith so self-foucused that it has become a rarity for them to follow God's Spirit on a journey that puts their energy, time, and finances into something that doesn't directly benefit them. Then, viola!' we need to have seminars to remind us of the Prime Directive of missionality!
When we become better at justifying why we don't do something missional than we are at saying yes to Divne opportunities of "others-ness" our orthopraxy is dead, our love is selfish, and we have forgotten the Prime Directive Jesus gave us. Over and over again, Jesus directs us to a path of love towards all people.
As we love others because of Christ's love for us, and then allow that to be the motivation behind our actions and involvements with people, we have stepped into the realm of misisonality…we have made movement toward fulfilling our prime directive and consequently we balance all the other faith expressions that the Holy Spirit has given to the Church.
The ancient goal of spiritual formation was the elimination of the "I", or a self-centered spirituality. Instead, words like service, surrender, supplication, and sacrifice were the language and actions of a life formed by the heart of God. The ancients knew that the self-life stood in the way of the Divine-life. An emphasis on taking what God has done internally was automatically connected to extending that awareness outwardly to others.
The practice of humility, simplicity, prayer, meditation, even fasting were not to be an end in-and-of themselves, but rather portals to receiving grace and then the empowerment of the Spirit is within us to extend that grace. Today, we have become masters at taking a practice and creating a denomination.
Maybe a better way to look at it is by comparing our lives to either a bowl or a hose. For many people, their spiritual life is like a bowl. They paint the outside of their bowl so that it is attractive. They take it to places where their bowl can get filled up with all the things that make them happy thinking that "When I fill my bowl with happiness I will have arrived."
Many even fill it with good things like church, family, PTSA, scouts, and prayer. Then add a job, career, cultural toys, stuff & things, you name it, everything goes into the bowl of us. Then when we say to God, "Okay, I'm ready for you to fill my life, lead me, direct me and…guess what? There is no room left in the bowl for God to even wriggle in.
The empowered spiritual life is not about filling our bowl with spiritual stuff, it is about turning our bowl into a hose that becomes a rushing conduit of Christ.
You see a hose works both ways. It can pour out, but it can also pour in. Spiritual disciplines exist not as a bowl filler, but as a way to empty the bowl and then transform it into a holy hose that gushes with the grace of God and waters everyone it comes into contact with.
A hose simply becomes a channel or a conduit for what ever is being poured out through it. A hose really doesn't care about how it looks. only that it is able to maintain the dynamic force that is flowing through it. Similarly, our lives transform from a bowl of religiosity to a channel of grace when we begin to view our beliefs through a missional lense.
When we become that spiritual channel/hose, we are filled with grace, life, goodness, beauty, provision, promise, and everything that is encompassed in Christ. All of those things are given to us as we become willing to allow God to move through us. We create a blockage when we are self-focused, and the result is a waterlogged believer. We have been designed not to merely receive, but also to freely give.
Let's keep the Missio Dei in the pole position to our cultures infatuation with the Missio Moi' and I believe we will see God move in surprising ways!
Dei Gratia,
Monty
