Lies, Lies,Dreams, Dreams

Lies, Lies,Dreams, Dreams

                                           El Lahun, Pyramid of Senusret II, Egypt

                                           Photographer: Einsamer Schütze

A pagan Pharoah, believed to be Senusret II, slept fitfully. A troubling dream woke him and caused him deep concern. Even in the morning it was still vivid, not like the other crazy dreams he had that always vanished with the morning light. This one was different and hauntingly different. Over breakfast he spoke to his staff about this and the possible meaning. Something he ate or an omen? 

Through a series of inquiries the royal assistants learned about Joseph’s ability to accurately interpret dreams and sent for him to appear before Pharoah. Where was Joseph summoned from? A place called rock bottom or the pits, a jail cell; unjustly incarcerated by a false accusation. 

A lie sold Joseph into slavery, another false witness led to his incarceration. 

                                           Egyptian Bronze Age Prisoners

God spoke to a king who revered Horus, Anubis and Ra through a dream interpreted by a Hebrew prisoner. God used a pagan king to elevate this prisoner from a Bronze Age jail. Two men met by Divine appointment. Two nations saved from famine, Joseph and family reconciled. (Genesis 41)

Jesus, late Iron age rabbi, was also lied about, mocked, crucified then sealed in a tomb.  It was hoped that with the closing of the stone seal on the grave opening that the mouth of the teacher would be silenced forever. God used a former prostitute to discover that the rabbi had risen from the dead. "Mary don't touch me," Jesus said when Mary Magdalene naturally reached out to him. " I have not yet returned to my Father," the Living Christ replied. She was charged to go and tell the Good News to the grieving disciples, Mary the woman who would have been stoned for adultery from whom demons were driven out became Mary, the first evangelist,  John 20:15-18.

Because of lies, deceit, mockery or abuse the potential given us by God may be bound in grave wrappings and sealed.  Hopes, dreams trampled on the ground by the very people who proclaim righteousness but pile on stones of judgement. Jesus proclaimed he came to set the captive free. A rocky tomb sealed with a boulder could not silence Christ. God has the final Word. Believe, Mary did.

Luke 4:14-20

4 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. 15 He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 

    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

I want to fly with Superman

My new neighbors have small children and two large great dane dogs. When they moved in they put a big wooden fence around the back of their property to contain their kids and critters, keep them from straying. Whenever I go out in my yard, I can see their great big dogs peering at me over the top of the fence yearning for their freedom. This fence is up safety. There are other kinds of fences, not so benign. Fences we erect in our minds when we add more rules to God’s commandments. This is called legalism and instead of building up the walls of the church, helping the lively stones become fit together, it tears the stones off the wall and throws them down.
Paul's wrote to the Galatians to reason against those who taught that Christians must keep all the Old Testament Jewish laws in order to be accepted by God. Paul made it clear that all believers Jew and Gentile alike, enjoy complete salvation in Christ . Paul showed how the gospel of grace leads to true freedom and godly living. The central message of Galatians is that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ" .
Legallism takes the mystery out of our faith and turns it into religion. It makes it neat, organized, repetitive, habitual, and predictable. It will kill grace. It can manifest itself at times in these ways as : expectations, traditionalism, manipulation, demands, negativism, control, comparison, perfectionism, competition, critcism, pettiness, shame, guilt, and many more. God starts seeming like a clock going tick tock tick tock, very predictable, ordered and controlled. God in a box all neat and packaged, no mystery, no wonder, no awe, just a legal document. Legallism wants to define us limit our possibility just like the poor eagle who thought he was a prairie chicken. Have you heard this boy scout story? There once was an indian brave that was walking down the trail when he discovered an eagles egg had fallen out of it's nest. He looked up and saw that the nest was too high for him to return the egg. So he placed the egg in a nearby prairie chicken nest.
When the egg hatched, the little eagle thought he was a prairie chicken. Prairie chickens stay on the ground and eat only worms and grubs. So, as the eagle grew, he ate nothing but worms and grubs and walked around with the other prairie chickens.
One day, he looked up in the sky and saw some eagles soaring high above. He asked one of the prairie chickens, 'How can they fly up there while we are down here eating worms and grubs?'
The prairie chicken answered, 'They are the eagles, they can do that but we must stay down here. We are prairie chickens and that is what we do.'So, the eagle spent the rest of his life flying very little and eating worms and grubs just because he was told that was all he could do.
We are far more important to Jesus than what we doand we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us! What we are inside our heart is what is most important to our Father God. That is how He sees us. His people. His sheep. We don’t have to do anything to please anybody else except Him. We can’t do any thing to win His favor, we can’t do enough good things to merit it: can’t pray harder, tithe more, attend more meetings, read more books, keep a cleaner house, do better at work, do more deeds of any kind to win God’s favor. We have God’s favor just because we are His children and He is our Abba Father. We have His unmerited Grace, amazing grace, because He first loved us.
When I was a kid I had a collection of Superman comic books I used to swap with Billy Elliot down the street. I used to wish I had Superman’s super powers. Superman could fly! I used to think of God like Superman. When I got older, I enjoyed the Superman movies with Chris Reeves playing Superman, flying Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen around Metropolis in his arms. If Superman had let go, they would have dropped like rocks to their death. Discipleship, becoming more like Jesus is not about teaching people how to fly or learning how to fly yourself. It’s about how to stay connected to Jesus, the only Superman who ever lived. Only the God man Jesus can fly, people can’t, we can’t pull off the divine goodness. We could climb the tallest building and jump off a ledge and have the illusion of flight for a few moments until the gravity of the situation asserted itself. That’s why they call it “the fall”. Taking matters into our own hands, into the wisdom of our own hearts and understand always leads to “the fall”. But we can fly with faith in our Lord. Grace wants faith to fly.
Grace also wants faith to be on the solid rock of Jesus Christ. We are not to add or subtract to what Jesus said and to err on the side of Love and mercy if we are to err at all. “On Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand”. Christ is the Rock stricken that the Spirit of life may flow from Him to all who would drink it. He is the foundation the cornerstone and He tells us in 1 Peter, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
In his book The Grace Awakening, Chuck Swindoll writes: “ In vain I have searched the Bible looking for examples of Christians whose lives were marked by rigidity, predicatbility, inhibition, dullness and caution. Fortunately grim, frowning, joyless saints in Scripture are conspicous by their absence. Instead the examples I find are adventurous, risktaking, enthusiastic, and authentic believers whose joy was contagious even in times of painful trial. Their vision was broad even when death drew near. Rules were few and changes were welcome. The contrast between then and now is staggering. The differnce, I am convinced is grace. Grace invites us to chart new courses and explore everexpanding regions, all the while delighting in the unexpected. While others care more about maintaining he fence and fearing those who guard it. Grace is constantly looking for ways to freedom. Grace wants us to say “Praise God” at the end of the day not “praise my ability to get it right”.
Reading the blogs of some other pastors across our conference I came across this comment: “The church, I’m afraid, really likes people to visit who are like them….perfect. I say that tongue in cheek, but the church as a whole wants people in the pews who have worked out their salvation and are in the process of becoming perfected. But what if the church encountered a whole lot of people who were just trying to figure out if there is even a God let alone what it means to be in a relationship with Jesus. Are we willing to put up with messy people who aren’t Christians, believers, followers.... do we want them in our churches?” Baby believers, like infants are messy and need lots of attention and care. And then there is the whole question of permissiveness. How or when do we discuss with them (the messy people because we all know that the people in the pews have everything all right) the consequences of sin and the God’s answer of the cross?” I think the answer to that question is grace. We need to let people know that we too are works in progress, that we also are on a journey of faith and don’t have all the answers save one, Jesus Christ crucified, died, rose again and sending the Holy Spirit to empower those who believe. Our hope is built on nothing less.
The word of God says that “ If the Son shall set you free then you shall be free indeed.” This week let us share the freedom and joy we have with someone who is not so fortunate, fly with Jesus and show them how much easier it is to soar with the Savior. For those on shaky ground show them how to drink in the Spirit of life. Let us step forward into God’s reign on earth as it is in heaven knowing it is not by our might or by our power but by God’s Holy Spirit.