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Bible Readings for Thursday February 24th, 2011 – The 8th Week of Epiphany *Click on each bible passage to expand the text. Psalm 131 1. [A Song of Ascents. Of David.] O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.

2. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

3. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time on and forevermore. Proverbs 12:22-28 22. Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, but those who act faithfully are his delight.

23. One who is clever conceals knowledge, but the mind of a fool broadcasts folly.

24. The hand of the diligent will rule, while the lazy will be put to forced labor.

25. Anxiety weighs down the human heart, but a good word cheers it up.

26. The righteous gives good advice to friends, but the way of the wicked leads astray.

27. The lazy do not roast their game, but the diligent obtain precious wealth.

28. In the path of righteousness there is life, in walking its path there is no death. Philippians 2:19-24 19. I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be cheered by news of you.

20. I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.

21. All of them are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

22. But Timothy’s worth you know, how like a son with a father he has served with me in the work of the gospel.

23. I hope therefore to send him as soon as I see how things go with me;

24. and I trust in the Lord that I will also come soon.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me. – Psalm 131:2

Anxiety weighs down the human heart, but a good word cheers it up. – Proverbs 12:25

All of them are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. – Philippians 2:21

Proverbs 12 27. The lazy do not roast their game, but the diligent obtain precious wealth.

Why don’t the lazy roast their game? Because they have none to roast; they were too lazy to get it. Instead they are happy to glean and mooch off of those who strive and work for their game.

You see, today I am realizing we are all like the lazy hunters featured in our verse from Proverbs 12 above.

We are not interested in actually working for the Kingdom, sacrificing for the body of Christ, working for the sake of the other. We have nothing at stake in our life in the church, and therefore we have no “game to roast”! Most of us are solely dependent on the striving of our pastors, priests or lay-leaders and we partake from their bounty of the kingdom. But in this scenario, the bounty quickly becomes meager rations and the life of the church dries up and starves; its vitality robbed by the disinterested lazy.

If you even attend, why do you go to church? This may be an even more damning answer than we suppose:

Is it for your own personal gain, for your own salvation? Or do you go for the interests of God?

God’s interests are for the orphan and the widow, equity for the least among the great. God’s interests are for compassion and justice. Not for you. Never for only you.

Let’s ask this again: do you attend church for your own personal gain?

You bet your ass we do. I do, at least, and I’m embarrassed to realize it now.

Our apathy to service, our distaste for commitment, it carries such cost. All across this nation, long-established churches are shuttering up after decades of vital service to the community, and new church-plants cannot even root into the soil becuase of indifference to the Kingdom. Why?

We are becoming a nation of self-absorbed zombies. Habitually willing to spend $20 a week on over-priced coffee, yet we drop only a buck or two into the offering plate on Sundays. We watch almost 4 hours of television a night, and yet we cannot find time to attend one community event, bible study, or game night. We stuff our fat faces with food we don’t need while soup-kitchens struggle to put out a meal.

And people lament our nation’s demise, all the while blind to its cause. We don’t deserve freedom and prosperity. We are squandering it. We are an embarrassment of riches. Even now in the midst of The Great Recession, we still have more than everyone else in the world, and yet inequity and apathy is the worst here in the land of plenty. Our apathy is best summed up in a quote from Tony Campolo, followed by Jesus’ summation of this very apathy 2000 years ago:

I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night. ~Tony Campolo

Matthew 23 23. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness… 24. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

Pathetic.

And what of this “precious wealth of the diligent” in the second half of our Proverb verse? I know what you’re thinking: “How can you rail against our undeserved prosperity when it says the diligent get the wealth? That’s us! The diligent.”

Really? You think this is referring to money and “stuff”? The operative word here is “precious”:

–adjective Highly esteemed for some spiritual, nonmaterial, or moral quality.

To the diligent comes a wealth of spiritual, non-material and moral wealth. Those diligent in what? In living in Christ, walking in grace and compassion, and working every day for the Kingdom. Not for themselves, but for The Other.

We must recommit ourselves to the Kingdom. We must be willing to live a foolish life so that we may become wise in ways of the Lord. We must learn to live for someone other than ourselves.

Proverbs 12 28. In the path of righteousness there is life, in walking its path there is no death.

Now that I’ve gotten all of this off my chest, I must go back to the work of “calming and quieting my soul”. I know I am a blow-hard hypocrite, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying. I love you too much.