Bryan Richardson

Turn

Re:Verse passage – Luke 13:1-9 (day three)

“Let it alone, sir, for this year too.”

As “the end is near” stories go, this one stands out for its reassurance of God’s compassion. Clearly, Jesus aims to do more than just issue a sword-of-Damocles warning to those who tell themselves that God’s going to have mercy on them because they’re not as bad as some people. The story takes a turn with the introduction of the vineyard-keeper, who seeks a delay in the tree’s destruction. Both you and the worst person you know have remained alive because of the mercy of God. You’ve received no more of that graciousness than anyone else. In the meantime, when will you let others in on the truth of why they’re still around – that Christ loves them too much to leave them without an opportunity to turn to him?

Burn

Re:Verse passage – Luke 12:13-21 (day three)

“Man, who appointed me a judge or arbitrator over you?”

Question: How do you navigate an inheritance dispute with a family member?

Response: What’s at stake in an inheritance dispute?

Let every reader note that Jesus does not engage in conflict shaming here. He certainly knew firsthand about family conflict; his public actions and life’s work placed him at odds with his own family. Indeed, Jesus’s response to the man in the crowd communicated the importance of doing the hard work required by conflict, engaging family members instead of looking for someone to take that hard work off one’s hands. That hard work, Jesus says, always involves the inner inventory of the heart: What am I willing to burn to gain wealth? Such fires have a way of becoming uncontrollable, endangering even your own ability to seek the Lord.

Shock

Re:Verse passage – Luke 10:25-37 (day three)

“Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do the same.’”

If Jesus points to the socially unacceptable person as exemplary, then the world really has turned upside down. Jesus even concludes the parable by enjoining his questioner to aspire to the character of the reprehensible individual. Two millennia of cultural distance have diluted and dulled the immediacy of the truly ridiculous nature of Jesus’s story structure. To learn from someone you do not like is hard. But to be urged to learn from someone who is spiritually, morally, or theologically offensive to you is a bridge too far. Does God really view the world in such a radically different perspective? Can you actually be that wide of the mark? Perhaps it’s fair to say that if Jesus isn’t shocking you, you aren’t listening.

Fields

Re:Verse passage – Luke 8:1-15 (day three)

“Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God.”

What happens when heaven and earth meet? Well, the Bible’s whole content is the exact answer to that question. Journey and suffering and joy and sorrow and redemption and damnation and pain and blood and rescue and loss and wonder. In the course of the Bible’s narrative, priceless treasure is cast aside while empty promises enthrall hearts and minds. The parable of the sower and the seed captures that whole story in a few lines. Don’t be surprised, the Bible instructs us, when people reject God. The witness of scripture is clear: weeds grow; darkness misunderstands; people hide. Seeds fall on stony ground. It happens, and it will happen. But some seeds will germinate. Be ready to respond. Lift up your eyes to the fields ready for harvest.

Question

Re:Verse passage – Luke 6:46-49 (day three)

“The torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.”

How does one become a good person? That question has a long pedigree. The Greeks, who knew nothing of Moses, asked it before Christ walked the earth. The addressing of that question, as those same Greeks knew and Jesus repeatedly asserted, requires nothing less than a devotion to the re-ordering of one’s whole life. But that is hard (see Jesus’s words on the narrow way), and the temptation is strong to condense that transformative quest into a multiple-choice exam to which one must give the right answer in order to obtain eternal life. A right answer is what the Pharisees sought, and still their house fell. Right living, on the other hand, is possible only by apprenticing oneself to the Lord Jesus, the sure foundation.

Fitting

Re:Verse passage – Luke 5:33-39 (day three)

“No one puts new wine into old wineskins.”

Much has (rightly) been made of this parable – or more correctly, collection of parables. Is the gospel “new wine?” Is Jesus’s way of practicing faith a “new wineskin?” Is the old wineskin the establishment Pharisees? Maybe. Varying interpretations abound. So what’s one more? Here it is: What if Jesus is simply saying that life with him is a life of learning to pay attention to what fits the moment you’ve been given? Jesus says in essence, “Just as everybody has learned that new wine requires new wineskins, so my disciples are learning what is required by the circumstances in which they find themselves.” Feeling overwhelmed by the moment is a point of great pain for you. Jesus can teach you to understand what is most needed in that moment. What a joy.

Potential

Re:Verse passage – James 5:19-20 (day three)

“He who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”

Policing or shepherding – this is the choice facing all disciples of Jesus Christ regarding life together. Does Christ mean for the church to consist of good citizens, or people of promise? If it is the former, then we have no choice but to police one another in attitude, in behavior, and finally, in thought. If it is the latter, then we must submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, because the brother or sister in whose presence we stand will one day reign in glory. Jesus looked at Simon and saw the end from the beginning: You are Peter, a rock. Every interaction with him from that point took its cue from what Simon could become.

Fellowship

Re:Verse passage – James 5:12-18 (day three)

“Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises.”

Where in James’s vision of humanity could one find people in all their many circumstances welcoming not just everybody, but every part of everybody – their brokenheartedness, their joys, their pain, their hope, their despair, their griefs, their glories, their sicknesses, their strengths, their weaknesses? That would be the church, James says. When one lives with others in the fellowship of Christ, there’s room for those who feel bad and for those who have just discovered good, for those who need someone to weep with them and those who need someone to laugh with them. James knew the church’s word to the world is not to be “We’ll be nicer to you than the world is,” but rather “We’ll never forsake you because Jesus didn’t forsake us.”

Wait

Re:Verse passage – James 5:7-11 (day three)

“You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.”

Few attributes seem as devoid of life as the characteristic of patience. Perhaps thinking of past attempts at patience brings to mind memories of stifled emotion, forced calm, mind-numbing hours, anger-inducing delays, or the like. It seems exhausting, oppressive, infuriating, useless, wasteful of everybody’s time. Shall we just smash all the clocks and burn all the calendars? Such so-called patience is actually impatience. True patience, on the other hand, will only become possible as one contemplates reality instead of pretense. When you fancy that a new job will make possible all your treasured ambitions, that’s mostly fantasy. When you become increasingly familiar with the qualities of the kingdom of God, you will treasure patience as that space that will allow you to grow into the joy of it.

Ask

Re:Verse passage – James 4:1-12 (day three)

“You do not have because you do not ask.”

The Lord told Moses to speak to the rock, not strike it. That is, Moses was to request, not coerce, and water would flow. Jesus said to knock – not force your way in – and the door would be opened. The way of the Lord in heaven and earth is the ask. To ask is to humble yourself before the one to whom you are making a request – or in Moses’s case, even before the thing to which you are making a request. James points out that the kind of exchange that often passes for “asking” is actually a type of manipulative sleight of hand which seeks only to benefit your own desires without thought for the welfare of another. When you ask, you make possible a fellowship of joy born of giving and receiving.