Ben Sternke

Field notes on life and mission with God in post-Christendom

Thoughts

Storing Up Treasure in the Poor

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“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Several years ago my mother began a practice of always giving money to the homeless and poor people she encounters on the street. She told me she used to worry that they might use it to buy drugs or alcohol, and that she would feel responsible for their bad choices. But at some point she felt convicted that she didn’t need to track how they were spending the money she gave. Her giving money to the poor was a simple act of mercy, and it reflected God’s heart. So she carries cash around now and gives it to the poor and homeless whenever she happens to meet them.

According to Jesus, giving to the poor is storing up treasure in heaven, no matter what they do with what you give. In God’s economy, a gift to the poor is a beautiful, secure investment, not for yourself individually, but for all God’s people collectively and eschatologically.

Kingdom goods are are held communally because all of us trust the King to distribute justly and abundantly. We have no need of private ownership and control of our resources, since we have relinquished control to the King who does what is right.

This is why wealth is so dangerous to faith. Possessing great wealth, stored away in barns bank accounts, inexorably draws your heart toward it. And being drawn toward protecting and growing your privately-owned wealth is always being drawn away from the poor, and away from God.

This is freedom, then. Freedom to give everything away, if need be, since we are so confident in God’s care and provision for us. Free to provide abundantly for our brothers and sisters, for the poor, since we all share in God’s abundance together. If you need something, and I possess it, to hold it back from you for any reason would frankly be unthinkable, since we are organically connected as one Body.

Late capitalism would try and convince us that we are individuals who only interact with other individuals when we choose to do so. But Jesus reminds us that we are all more connected than we realize, on every level. So giving to the poor is storing up treasure in heaven, for all of us. Standing in solidarity with the poor, treating them as our own body, is to be with Jesus. I want more of that in my life and in my church.

Being Jesus’ Brother

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“My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.”

This is Jesus’ response to those who tell him his family is outside wanting to have a chat with him. Normally I think of this little vignette in terms of Jesus’ redefinition of family, and the challenge it represents to our culture, which has romanticized the family, etc.

But today when I read it, I was struck instead by the fact that I’m part of this family that Jesus is creating. Jesus calls me his brother, his kin, because I’m trying to hear God’s word and put it into practice.

Jesus looks at me and sees the family resemblance. He recognizes his Father’s presence and work in my life. He joyfully embraces me as his brother.

Don’t Worship in Their Way

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“You must not worship the Lord your God in their way.”

This little phrase is a warning from God to his people repeated several times in Deuteronomy 12 as they are about to take possession of the promised land.

I was struck that the warning isn’t about the object of worship but the way of worship. It’s important to worship Yahweh, but if you attempt to worship Yahweh in their way, you’ll end up resisting and rebelling against Yahweh (all while imagining you’re worshiping Yahweh!).

I wonder if this is basically where we’ve arrived in the North American church (in general). We’re trying to worship the Lord our God in the way of the world. We are trying to slap a Jesus sticker on “all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates.”

Like what? Well,

  • The way of the world is to worship celebrities. We’ve tried to leverage celebrity on behalf of God.
  • The way of the world is to fear and exclude and dehumanize those who are different. We’ve rallied our congregations around the fear of the other.
  • The way of the world is to seek domination over others. We’ve tried to curry favor with those in political power, hoping to leverage that power on behalf of securing our privilege.

In doing so, we’ve abandoned true worship of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and instead have begun to worship idols painted to look like Jesus.

We call ourselves Christians but fear and hate immigrants and refugees who come to us in need. We fawn over the rich and beautiful and seek their favor. We scheme for control and domination. We crucify Christ all over again.

“You must not worship the Lord your God in their way.”

So what is God’s way? Jesus Christ. We worship God by following Jesus and learning from him as his disciples. By allowing our praise to extend not just to our lips but into our lives. By allowing the Spirit to shape us into a people that are recognizably the Body of Christ. By learning to receive and embody the very life of God in all its fullness.

Then we will be those worshipers whom the Father seeks: those who worship in spirit and truth. Those who worship the Lord our God in the Lord our God’s way.

Why does God want fruit?

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I read Luke 13:1-9 this morning during prayer. “Repent or perish!” the headline in my Bible says. This is what the text says:

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

“‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

Luke 13:1-9 NIV

The problem with the fig tree in the parable wasn’t that it was in the wrong place, or didn’t provide shade, or wasn’t beautiful. The problem was that it wasn’t bearing fruit.

God is looking for fruit. Fruit is what carries the seeds, which carries the potential for the multiplication of the life of the fig tree.

So God is looking for his life to be multiplied through you. Not just that you prayed a prayer or belong to the right group, or had the right parents, or had a specific experience. It’s fruit that God wants. Why?

Well, God is doing something in the world, and calls us to participate. What he’s doing is sharing his life with the world, and as we say yes to this call, as we share in the very life of God, we naturally begin to bear fruit. The life we receive becomes the life that we multiply.

But if we cut ourselves off from life, from God, we begin to die, and of course then we don’t bear fruit. There’s just no middle ground here. There is no way to receive the life without also multiplying the life. In God’s economy, there is simply no way to be a consumer only and not also a giver. It just doesn’t work like that.

Barren
Fig
Tree

If you’re not bearing fruit, it means you’re not receiving life. There is something wrong, something that is blocking the flow of life into us. In essence, we’ve already begun to die, because what other source of life is there?

So then, in the parable, the judgment of the fig tree for not bearing fruit is that it will be cut down. It’s important to note that the cutting down of the fig tree is not some cruel punishment imposed by a harsh master for a bad fruit “performance.”

No, the cutting down of the fig tree is merely an outward manifestation of what is already inwardly true. The fig tree is already dead if it’s not bearing fruit. Cutting it down is just a revelation of the true state of the tree.

Jesus gives this parable as a warning to people who felt content in their fruitlessness because they hadn’t been cut down yet, as far as they could tell (vv. 1-5).

But if Jesus is giving a warning, that means there’s still hope! Bearing fruit isn’t a way of “getting busy for Jesus.” Bearing fruit is a natural result of receiving life from Jesus. How do you start to receive life from Jesus?

Just repent.

Repentance is not a big performance. It’s not even feeling really sorry for your sins or something. It’s simply a turning toward Jesus in trust, and then acting practically on that trust. It’s not difficult or complicated, it’s simply the willingness to trust what Jesus says about life, and putting that trust into practical action in your life.

The natural result is that his life will begin to flow into you, and his life cannot but grow into fruit:

“Who is my neighbor?” is a nonsensical question

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“And who is my neighbor?” the lawyer asks Jesus (Luke 10:29).

The lawyer had just given a “correct” answer to his own question about what one must do to inherit eternal life. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind… and love your neighbor as yourself.

Bingo! Jesus affirms this answer. “Do this and you will live.”

But… the lawyer has one more question. “And who is my neighbor?” The text says he said this because he wanted to “justify himself.”

In reply to his question, Jesus tells a story. The now-famous “Good Samaritan” parable. A man gets beaten to within an inch of his life. The priest and the Levite ignore him (ostensibly to maintain their piety, but that’s probably how they were “justifying themselves”). But a Samaritan comes along, and (gasp!) generously helps him.

“Good Samaritan,” by Olga Bakhtina (info)

Which one of these three was a neighbor to the man who needed help? The Samaritan. “Go and do likewise,” Jesus says.

In telling this parable, Jesus turns the lawyer’s question inside-out. The lawyer was attempting to limit the scope of who he would be required to love (and still inherit eternal life).

But that’s not how love works at all. The love that flows into you from God and saturates your whole being, and then flows back to God from your whole heart, soul, strength, and mind… this love is the same love that flows outward toward your fellow humans, and to all creation.

Love has no other source, and the love that comes from the God who is love is unlimited and undiscriminating. He gives sunshine and rain to both the righteous and the wicked. God’s love simply flows outward, so that anyone who is touched by God is touched by love.

So if that love is flowing into you and through you back to God and out toward others… “Who is my neighbor?” is a nonsensical question, because if you really are filled with the love of God, you’re the neighbor. The neighbor isn’t the potential object of your love. The neighbor is you, filled with God’s love and offering it to all, indiscriminately.

Those who really do love God with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind cannot help but become neighbors to all, loving everyone they meet as themselves, because this is how God’s love works.

“Who is my neighbor?” Well, maybe a Samaritan, because he has been transformed by God’s love. And if you really do want to inherit eternal life, you should imitate him.