Scripture Focus:

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp, and the melody of a lyre. You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing for joy because of what you have done. O Lord, what great works you do! And how deep are your thoughts. Only a simpleton would not know, and only a fool would not understand this: Though the wicked sprout like weeds and evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever. But you, O Lord, will be exalted forever.

Psalm 92:1-8 (NLT)

One of the easiest mistakes to make when talking about hope is to confuse it with optimism. Optimism isn’t a bad thing; however, it is dramatically different than hope.

Optimists understand the world in basically positive terms. They have confidence about the future and believe things will work out well. This positivity can be helpful on a variety of levels. And yet, at its core, optimism assumes that our best efforts will produce proportionately good results. Optimists place their faith in human progress to fix all that is broken. Unfortunately, history shows us the fallacy of that thinking. Certainly, much progress has been made in the 20^th and now the 21^st centuries. And more progress is sure to come. However, none of this progress has come without a price – a price that often involves new brokenness in new places.

Hope on the other hand, is altogether different. Hope recognizes that progress and goodness are not inevitable. Hope recognizes that the unredeemed nature of creation doesn’t fully correspond to God, rather, it’s a world subject to sin, suffering, and death. And yet, hope trusts the resurrection promise of a reality that WILL correspond to God.

Optimism isn’t essential to understanding the kingdom of God. But hope is, because hope recognizes that when God’s kingdom comes in its fullness, all of creation will be restored, not just humanity. Hope understands that while God’s kingdom has been inaugurated in Jesus, it hasn’t yet come in all its fullness. The world is not yet fully redeemed. And yet, hope rooted in the resurrection enables our understanding of future victory to transform our present reality, even if that transformation isn’t readily visible.

As Christians, we are agents of hope, not optimism. We live with the confidence that God is alive and sovereign. We trust that, in ways we may not understand, God is at work, and one day will establish God’s kingdom in all its fullness and all things will be made new. In the meantime, because of that hope, we join the psalmist in proclaiming God’s love in the morning and God’s faithfulness at night.

As you pray and fast, I will be praying that you will discover ways in which you might be an agent of hope, living and relating to others with assured confidence that God’s promise to make all things new is even now coming to fruition.

Scripture Focus:

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.

Hebrews 10:23-24 (NLT)

This month we will focus on the theological virtue of hope. Faith and hope are intimately linked in the Christian way. The anthropologist, Loren Eisley, has written some perceptive and challenging commentaries on life form his observation of nature. He provides a dramatic picture that points us toward Christian hope. One day he leaned against a stump at the edge of a small glade and fell asleep:

When I awoke, dimly aware of some commotion and outcry in the clearing, the light was slanting down through the pines in such a way the glade was lit like some vast cathedral. I could see the dust motes of wood pollen in the long shaft of light, and there on the extended branch sat an enormous raven with a red and squirming nestling in his beak. The sound that awoke me was the outraged cries of the nestling’s parents, who flew helplessly in circles about the clearing. The sleek black monster was indifferent to then. He gulped, whetted his beak on the dead branch a moment and sat still. Up to that point the little tragedy had followed the usual pattern. But suddenly, out of all that area of woodland, a soft sound of complaint began to rise. Into the glade fluttered small birds of half a dozen varieties drawn by the anguished outcries of the tiny parents.

No one dared to attack the raven. But they cried there in some instinctive common misery. The bereaved and the unbereaved. The glade filled with their soft rustling and their cries. They fluttered as though to point their wings at the murderer. There was a dim intangible ethic he had violated, that they knew. He was a bird of death. And he, the murderer, the black bird at the heart of life, sat on there glistening in the common light, formidable, unmoving, unperturbed, untouchable.

The sighing died. It was then I saw the judgment. It was the judgment of life against death. I will never see it again so forcefully presented. I will never hear it again in notes so tragically prolonged. For in the midst of protest, they forgot the violence. There, in that clearing, the crystal note of a song sparrow lifted hesitantly in the hush. And finally, after painful fluttering, another took the song, and then another, the song passing from one bird to another, doubtfully at first, as though some evil thing were being slowly forgotten. Till suddenly they took heart and sang from many throats joyously together as birds are known to sing. They sang because life is sweet and sunlight beautiful. They sang under the brooding shadow of the raven. In simple truth, they had forgotten the raven, for they were singers of life, and not of death.

Nature’s Witness to Christian Faith

This is nature’s witness to the truth of the Christian faith. Faith in Jesus Christ, his life, teaching, death, and resurrection, makes us “singers of life, not of death.” Remember, at the heart of faith is trust. We not only trust Christ, we trust God who gave the Son for our salvation, who raised him from the dead, and who has, even now, “raised us to newness of life.” The resurrection of Christ is the sign of hope that all God’s promises will be vindicated.

Scripture and Hope in Times of Suffering

Our Scripture passage for today points to that hope. This has special meaning in relation to our sorrow, disappointment, pain, and suffering. In the resurrected Christ, we know that the power of the “old age” is doomed and “new creation” is already appearing. As Christians, we’re called to make all our life, and especially our suffering, an act of self-giving love. That’s what it means to take up our cross and follow Jesus. The cross, defined Jesus’ life and, therefore, it defines ours. And yet, the cross always carries with it the promise of resurrection.

As Christians, we are in Christ, and we share in Christ’s risen life. The divine energy which first took Jesus out of the grave is available to us – not only to raise us from death at our journey’s end, but to empower us to grow up into “the full stature of Christ” now.

It’s a matter of faith, and faith is a matter of trust, and trust gives us hope. We are singers of life.

A Call to Reflection and Renewal

As you pray and fast, reflect on a time when hope was your sustaining source. I pray that your reflection would be a cause of renewal for you, providing you with deeper trust and greater hope.

Scripture Focus:

A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. A tree is identified by its fruit. Figs are never gathered from thornbushes, and grapes are not picked from bramble bushes. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.

Luke 6:43-45 (NLT)

When Paul talks about our faith in Jesus Christ, he argues forcefully that not only are we forgiven, we’re also transformed. The past is forgiven, and we’re no longer in bondage to guilt and shame. We’re no longer victims to the ongoing power of sin. The witness of Scripture is sin as a conquered foe. Sin may remain in our lives, but it does not reign.

Keeping this in the back of our minds, we need to consider two, limited and misleading, extreme understandings. One extreme ignores the salvation message of justification by grace through faith. We overlook the fact that we are helpless sinners in desperate need of grace. We refuse to acknowledge that we have no power to save ourselves. We deny the fact that when left to our own devices, we continue to repeat the cycle of estrangement from God leading to works of injustice, unrighteousness, and all sorts of evil. The call is to be good and do good – “to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” We would like to do just that. We want to respond, and we try to respond, but we find ourselves unable to walk in the light very long. Then, when we fall back into our ways of selfishness, prejudice, lust, unbridled anger, self-protection, pride, gluttony – wanting more and more and needing more and more to be satisfied – we become discouraged and guilt-stricken. “Woe is me … who can live this life of following Jesus?”

The other limited and misleading extreme is an emphasis on the way of salvation that says, “Now that you’ve been saved, you are in.” You don’t really need to worry about anything else.

Both of these understandings are wrong. We’re unable to save ourselves, but the life of faith doesn’t stop with the acceptance of salvation in Jesus Christ – it begins there. As we follow Jesus, we’re to develop a lifestyle so dynamic and different that others take notice and say, “That’s the kind of life I want to live – how can I get it?” As we discussed at the beginning of this month, there is a vital connection between the tree and its fruit – faith and works. Jesus spoke clearly about it in our passage for this week. A tree is identified by its fruit.

The prophet Isaiah painted a challenging picture in Isaiah 5:1-10. He tells of a vineyard which produced bad fruit. The owner spared no effort to make it produce the very best grapes. He removed the stones from the soil, turned the soil with a hoe, planted the best vines available, even built a tower to protect the vineyard from thieves. He was so hopeful that he hewed a trough out of the rocky soil for the juice to flow through. And he waited!

He was horrified. No full ripe grapes came from the well-cultivated vines … only wild grapes, perhaps small, sour, spoiled – utterly unacceptable to the owner. What had happened? The owner moans and disclaims responsibility – “What more was I to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?” (Isaiah 5:4) The fault had to be in the vines.

Isaiah applies the parable to Israel, identifying the vines as the twelve tribes. From these vines God had expected justice and righteousness. But what was produced, especially in Judah, was oppression and bloodshed, cries for help from those who were oppressed (vs 7).

The lesson for us is clear. Good fruit grows out of faith and faithfulness. Our good works, the expression of righteousness and justice through us, is the result of God’s activity in us. “Bad fruit” is the result of our rejection of God, our arrogant understanding that we can make it on our own.

Keep the connection clear. We are saved for good works, though not by good works. As we respond to God’s grace in faith, we are transformed by God’s patient love to become more and more like Jesus, to understand more and more how God wants us to live, and to be more and more able to live in that way. As we live more and more the way in which God desires us to live, good works flow through us, our lives begin bearing fruit and people begin to notice that there really is something different about us.

As you pray and fast, reflect on the truth that we are saved for good works, not by good works. What kind of fruit is your faith bearing?

Scripture Focus:

I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. All of them ate the same spiritual food, and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ.

1 Corinthians 10:1-4

I grew up in the 1960’s. These were tumultuous years, and yet musicians rose to great heights of insight. In their protest songs, they spoke the prophetic word. In many of their ballads, they diagnosed the human predicament, and sometimes offered a way of healing and reconciliation. In some haunting lines, Paul Simon did a masterful piece of diagnosis – a diagnosis that is still on target.

Simon spoke as a representative of all humankind in a song entitled “I am a Rock.” In the verses of the song he talks about being behind a wall in a fortress “deep and mighty” that no one could penetrate; about having no need of friendship because friendship causes pain; about not wanting to awaken the love sleeping in his memory because if he had never loved he would have never cried; about the slumber of feelings that have died and he doesn’t want to bring them to life; about being shielded in his armor, touching no one and no one touching him. In the song’s chorus Simon named himself as a rock that felt no pain and an island that never cried.

Though an apt diagnosis, Paul Simon offered no prescription. But the Apostle Paul does. Either you will be a rock, or Jesus Christ will be your Rock.

In our Scripture passage for today, Paul calls the Corinthian Christians attention to Moses and the people of Israel coming out of captivity. He says they all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual water. “They drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that Rock was Christ.”

What an image! And the Rock was Christ.

This is the message of the New Testament. It’s the heart of the Christian faith. God’s grace for our salivation and our “walk in newness of life” is given in and through his Son, Jesus – his life, teachings, death, and resurrection. Paul’s depiction of this grace builds to a climax in Romans 5: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly … God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6, 8)

We are made right with God by grace. This grace is operative in our lives through faith. Through faith, we receive God’s gracious offer and accept Christ and his death for the forgiveness of our sin. Through faith, we’re pardoned and brought back into right relationship with God.

Go back to our image of the rock.

If you’re a rock, you won’t hurt, you won’t cry, you won’t feel pain because you won’t love. You won’t laugh either; you won’t know joy and you won’t live very much. But if Jesus is your rock, you’ll stand on it; and others will join you. Sometimes you’ll laugh, sometimes you’ll cry, sometimes you’ll rejoice, sometimes you’ll be really sad – but always you’ll work to live in the grace and love of God.

The Rock, Christ Jesus, will become the keystone for everything God wants to create in you and through you. And in some final time, we will rejoice in the love of the One who gave us life, the One who loved us so much that he hung on a cross for us.

The essence of faith is trust. The Christian faith is more than believing. It’s believing enough to trust. To have faith in Christ is to be willing to trust our lives to him. As you pray and fast, my prayer for you is that you will not only believe, but trust that Christ loved you so much that he gave himself up for you. And trusting Christ in that way will empower you to make him your Rock.

Scripture Focus:

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified! The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so much for nothing? – if it really was for nothing. Well then, does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law or by your believing what you heard?

Galatians 3:1-5 (NRSV)

During the first part of the year, we’ve looked at the cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. The word cardinal comes from the Latin cardinalis, meaning hinge. Early philosophers contended that all other virtues hinge on these four. For the Christian, there is another perspective. To these four were added the theological virtues: faith, hope, and love. These have been seen as the classic virtues and the seven tools of the moral life. This month we’ll take a general look at faith with the conviction that faith is the tap root of any tree that is going to produce fruit of the Spirit.

Paying attention to virtues, seeking to discipline ourselves in a good life, may appear to be an effort at salvation by works, which is foreign to Protestant Christianity. Paul addressed the issue in our passage for today. “You foolish Galatians!”

Why was Paul so upset with the Galatians? Fire was in his pen as he begins this third chapter of his letter to them. He had preached the gospel to them … the gospel he had experienced with saving power on the Damascus Road, and that had been clarified and refined in those years he spent in the desert as he sought to discern the fullness of what Christ had done for him and what he was being called to preach.

It had become clear, and now he was a slave to it: Jesus Christ, crucified for our sins, offering us forgiveness and salvation by the sheer gift of grace, God’s gift. “Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.” (Romans 3:23-25) The Galatians had received that message, had experienced the joyous freedom that comes through the love and forgiveness which Christ had offered so extravagantly on the cross. But something had happened. After Paul left Galatia to continue his mission of sharing the good news to the world, Judaizers came in to sow seeds of confusion. Judaizers were early Christians who demanded that non-Jewish believers adopt Jewish customs as a criterion for salvation.

The Judaizers contended that pleasing God was a matter of doing what God said, and that meant primarily keeping the law and observing the rituals. If we do that, we will be holy and God will bless us, they said. This was the issue Paul was concerned with thr0ughout his ministry. He deals with it in almost all of his letters – the connection between faith and works.

If you don’t read Paul’s letters as a whole, you may find yourself asking, “Why did Paul preach so much against works? Didn’t he want people to do good and be good?” Of course he did! But for Paul, you can’t begin with works. That’s like putting the cart before the horse – it’s not the right order. The limitation of the law is that no one can ever fully keep it, so keeping the law and doing good works can never save us. That is why we begin with faith – faith in God who is righteous and whose righteousness is given to us through faith. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

People who are content to offer God their own good works, works which flow out of their own will and power, will never be able to fully please God. God is holy. Do we think we, in our own power can meet the standards of God’s holiness? God is pure love. Do we think that our attitudes and actions can measure up to that standard of unfettered love? Paul insists that we can never be good enough, ever holy enough, never loving enough to deserve God’s grace. But the good news is we don’t have to! God’s grace isn’t earned or deserved; it is given. We receive it by faith.

Paul doesn’t discount the meaning or necessity of good works. The Ephesians passage I quoted above continues with Paul’s balancing word, “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” (Ephesians 2:10)

There is a vital connection between faith and works. Paul wants to make sure we don’t get the cart before the horse. We are saved by grace through faith, and we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works.”

As you pray and fast this month, reflect on our earlier discussions of wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. Have you sought to practice these virtues in an effort towards good works – to “keep the law?” I pray that as you reflect on the order of faith and good works, your understanding of salvation would be deepened through the recognition that God’s grace isn’t earned or deserved, it is a remarkable and tremendous gift.

Scripture Focus:

In the days when the judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the country of Moab, taking his wife and two sons with him. The man’s name was Elimelech, and his wife was Naomi. Their two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in the land of Judah. And when they reached Moab, they settled there. Then Elimelech died, and Naomi was left with her two sons. The two sons married Moabite women. One married a woman named Orpah, and the other a woman named Ruth. But about ten years later, both Mahlon and Kilion died. This left Naomi alone, without her two sons or her husband.

Then Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had blessed his people in Judah by giving them good crops again. So Naomi and her daughters-in-law got ready to leave Moab to return to her homeland. With her two daughters-in-law she set out from the place where she had been living, and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah. But on the way, Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back to your mothers’ homes. And may the Lord reward you for your kindness to your husbands and to me. May the Lord bless you with the security of another marriage.” Then she kissed them good-bye, and they all broke down and wept. “No,” they said. “We want to go with you to your people.” But Naomi replied, “Why should you go on with me? Can I still give birth to other sons who could grow up to be your husbands?”

And again they wept together, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye. But Ruth clung tightly to Naomi. “Look,” Naomi said to her, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. You should do the same.” But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more. So the two of them continued on their journey.

Ruth 1:1-11, 14-19 (NLT)

We’re concluding our focus on temperance by taking another look at the story of Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah. Remember where we left off last week – both Ruth and Orpah face a very difficult decision. As the three women stand on the road, tears abound and both Ruth and Orpah are deeply torn and heartbroken over the prospect of leaving Naomi. After much crying and sorrow, Orpah makes the very logical and rational choice to return to the safety of her family while Ruth chooses to follow Naomi to a foreign land.

Remember also how precarious it was for widows in Bible times – especially those who did not have family or who were in a foreign land. It was perfectly acceptable to turn your back on them completely.

So Ruth followed but Orpah did not. The contrast between these two choices reflect the tension that exists with many of the choices we face throughout our lives. As we mentioned last week, all of our choices are important, even the small ones, because they are intertwined with our faith. The nature of our faith will determine the decisions we make about our commitments, and the decisions we make about our commitments will determine the nature of our faith.

The problem is that many people want to paint our choices as being clearcut and having only one right answer. There will always be people out there who believe we all need to be Ruths and there will be others who believe we all need to be Orpahs. And this isn’t simply an issue for women. It’s true for all of us and in all areas of our life.

Two areas in particular exemplify the extreme way we’re forced to make our life choices – the areas of home and work. In these areas, many of our cultures have created two false and competing choices and have offered these up as our only one. Both of these are extremes. The first is if you want it, you have to sacrifice everything else to get it. This false choice has been offered to both men and women – especially in western cultures.

For men, it’s a dilemma they have always faced. Work has been and continues to be seen as the main and sometimes only source of meaning and identity for men. It’s the place where they’re supposed to find fulfillment and gratification. They’ve often found themselves burdened with the sole responsibility for protecting and providing for their families and being a “good man” is often judged on how well they perform in the arena of work. Other arenas of life, particularly home and family, have never been fully validated as appropriate places for men to turn for inner contentment and satisfaction. Thankfully, this is changing with younger generations, but the false choice still remains strong.

In the 1970’s this “all or nothing” emphasis became a rallying cry for many women as well. There was a push for women to catch up with men in the workplace. This push included the subtle message that the pursuit a career included denying the validity of a woman’s ties to home and family. Again, an extreme and false choice.

A second false choice was offered primarily to women in my generation who came of age in the 1980’s. It was a boomerang to the extreme of Superwoman. Women were told that they could be a supermom and a super career woman all at the same time. Rather than an “all or nothing” mentality, this was a “you can have it all” understanding.

The reality, however, is that both of these extremes are false choices. Our lives are not like that. It may be possible for both men and women to work without sacrificing everything or denying their ties to home; but it’s also true that we can’t do everything without making some sacrifices. There will also be times when our commitments clash. More importantly, the issue of balance can’t be neatly divided into the categories of work and home. We need balance across all areas of our lives.

The fact that life is filled with conflicting commitments points to the necessity of temperance. If we are to apply the virtue of temperance to our life, we must grasp the concept of “good enough.” “Good enough” is an idea that desperately needs to be rediscovered. We’re encouraged by society and even by Scripture to pursue excellence. Paul tells the Philippians, “if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Phil. 4:8). There is nothing wrong with striving to be the best you can be. I believe excellence is a noble aspiration; but I also know that it can be damaging as well. Many families have suffered at the hands of a workaholic striving to be the best employee there is. So there is a place for the notion of “good enough.”

When I first started seminary, I felt extremely stressed. I couldn’t seem to find the right rhythm. Used to excellent grades and hard work, I naturally immediately reverted to my old study habits and expectations; but somehow it just didn’t work the way it had in college. What I failed to realize was that my life was different than when I was in college. I was married, had a baby, and my husband was gone most of the time because of the demands of his surgical residency. I quickly discovered I wasn’t going to be able to be at the top of my class and be able to give my son, Nathan, the attention he needed. At the same time, I also recognized I wasn’t going to be able to be the “ideal” mother I had envisioned myself to be and successfully complete my master’s degree. I had to find a balance. I had to find a way to be a good enough seminary student and a good enough mother. I had to accept that being good enough at both those things was okay. Ironically, what I discovered was when I recognized the value of being good enough, I found my rhythm, regained my balance, and began to excel both at home and at school.

Orpah knew about good enough. She made a decision, albeit a painful one, that was good enough for her. Each of us can claim that for ourselves as well. This isn’t just a “woman thing” either. All people need to claim “good enough.” Rather than being torn in a million different directions, we need to make decisions that help us become good enough mothers and good enough fathers, good enough children and good enough siblings, good enough employees and good enough volunteers, good enough friends and good enough citizens. When we find the balance of good enough, temperance reigns in our lives and we are free to excel.

As you pray and fast, I pray that you will discover the decisions and adjustments you may need to make in order to be “good enough” rather than succumbing to the pressure to be “super.” And that this discover will open you to newfound balance in which you are free to excel.

Scripture Focus:

In the days when the judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the country of Moab, taking his wife and two sons with him. The man’s name was Elimelech, and his wife was Naomi. Their two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in the land of Judah. And when they reached Moab, they settled there. Then Elimelech died, and Naomi was left with her two sons. The two sons married Moabite women. One married a woman named Orpah, and the other a woman named Ruth. But about ten years later, both Mahlon and Kilion died. This left Naomi alone, without her two sons or her husband.

Then Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had blessed his people in Judah by giving them good crops again. So Naomi and her daughters-in-law got ready to leave Moab to return to her homeland. With her two daughters-in-law she set out from the place where she had been living, and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah. But on the way, Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back to your mothers’ homes. And may the Lord reward you for your kindness to your husbands and to me. May the Lord bless you with the security of another marriage.” Then she kissed them good-bye, and they all broke down and wept. “No,” they said. “We want to go with you to your people.” But Naomi replied, “Why should you go on with me? Can I still give birth to other sons who could grow up to be your husbands?”

And again they wept together, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye. But Ruth clung tightly to Naomi. “Look,” Naomi said to her, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods. You should do the same.” But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more. So the two of them continued on their journey.

Ruth 1:1-11, 14-19 (NLT)

We’re continuing our focus on temperance by looking at the story of Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah. Make sure you read the entire story because there is much more to it than what we normally tend to focus on. There’s enough to unpack that I’m going to divide our discussion into two parts to finish out our month.

First of all, what an amazing story of courage and commitment! Ruth is understandably the hero of the story, and she is the one who gets most of our attention. She chose the dangerous prospect of leaving her homeland to follow Naomi. Because that choice, she goes on to become the great-grandmother of King David and one of only five women listed in the genealogy of Jesus. She definitely deserves our attention!

As heroic as Ruth is, however, we do ourselves a disservice if we fail to look at the other, often neglected character in this story – Orpah. When Naomi suggests that Ruth and Orpah return to their families, Orpah does just that. It’s a logical and rational choice. Widows in general were in a precarious position during Bible times. If they didn’t have family to care for them, they were often times left out in the cold; and to be a widow in a foreign land added that much more fear, danger, and despair. So Orpah’s decision seems dictated by common sense. The most logical and secure choice is for both Orpah and Ruth to return to the care of their families. But Scripture tells us that what ought to have been an easy choice wasn’t easy at all. Both women cried with sorrow and it takes Orpah a long, long time to decide.

In the end though, Ruth follows Naomi to Judah and Orpah returns home. We don’t know what happens to Orpah after that. We can probably safely assume that when she rejoined her family, she led a secure life.

Naturally, the church has presented Ruth as a model of strength and character, which is perfectly appropriate. And yet, I believe Orpah needs some renewed attention. I believe that as we seek to gain, or regain, as the case may be, the virtue of temperance, of balance in our lives, we need to look at both of these women.

Ruth followed, Orpah did not. There is obvious tension between those two choices just as there is with many of the choices we face throughout our lives. All of our choices are important, even the small ones, because they are intertwined with our faith. The nature of our faith will determine the decisions we make about our commitments, and the decisions we make about our commitments will determine the nature of our faith. But here is the rub. There will always be people out there who will hold up one of our choices as if it were the only one we should choose. This is true for both men and woman and in all the areas of our life.

As we confront the demands of life that pull us in varying directions, we need to remember that both Orpah and Ruth made courageous and good decisions. They did what was right for them; and each of us must do the same. If we must be “Orpahs” in the eyes of a group that thinks we need to be “Ruths,” then so be it. We can’t all be Ruths. And we can’t all be Orpahs. We will never be able to be all things to all people. We are always going to have to make choices about how we live our lives.

As you continue your prayer and fasting journey, spend some time thinking about Orpah. Have you ever stopped to consider her choice as a good one, worthy of affirmation? Where in your life have you experienced the clash of competing demands? I pray that as you reflect on the choices that may be before you, you would be emboldened to make the choice that is right for you, even if that makes you an Orpah in the eyes of all the Ruths, or a Ruth in the eyes of all the Orpahs.

Scripture Focus:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22-25 (NIV)

As we discovered when we explored the virtue of justice, the biblical notion of virtue draws upon and deepens the classical notion. The same holds true with temperance. Scripture raises the stakes of temperance, making it not only more demanding but more meaningful and rewarding as well. From the classical Greek perspective, temperance produces a well-ordered and well-proportioned soul. This is also true of the biblical perspective; however, from the biblical perspective there is a goal to that order. The goal is love. Our souls are not simply to be well-ordered; they are to be well-ordered toward love, the love of God and the love of our neighbor. The order we achieve through temperance isn’t for our own sake; although that’s certainly a benefit. The order that comes to our souls through temperance is for the sake of God and our neighbor.

In classical Greek thinking, the mind conquers all problems; thus, the root of evil is ignorance. Reason is what saves us; therefore, temperance is the rational ordering that comes through an exercise of the mind. On the surface, Christian temperance is quite similar; but it has a completely different foundation. The biblical notion of temperance asserts that it’s not ignorance but sin, that distortion or our heart, that’s the root of evil. Reason alone is unable to save us. Reason can fix ignorance, but it can’t fix sin. Only Christ can fix sin. Therefore, it’s not reason that produces temperance, but the Holy Spirit that indwells us when we come into relationship with Jesus Christ. Temperance, then, is the living of a Spirit-filled, Christ-centered life.

Creating the balance that is temperance has always been a challenge; yet these days the challenge seems greater than ever. We live in an age where there are so many things competing for our time, attention, and energy that we can often become numb from stimulation overload. It’s imperative that we find our center and order our lives around it.

As Christians, Christ is our center. He is the one to whom we look to provide the order for our souls. Taking on the yoke of Christ guards us against intemperance. When Christ is Lord of our lives, nothing else can be; when Christ is not Lord of our lives, anything and everything else will be. With Christ as our center we’re oriented toward wholeness, which prevents the whole form being ruled by a part, or from being fragmented by the excess of many things. With Christ as our center, the order that comes to our lives is oriented toward love. Stephen Shoemaker said it well:

You have been created in the image of Christ; He is your secret self, the truest truth about who you are. This real self gets overlaid by many layers of false selves; your true self stays a secret even from you. When you receive Christ and invite him to be Savior, Lord, and Friend, you get in touch with your true self. Because you know who you are, the compulsions of the false self fade away. When Christ is Lord, then all the good desires and appetites God has given us find their frightful place and stay as good as God made them. [1]

Placing Christ at the center of our lives allows the Holy Spirit’s power to move us toward temperance. It also makes us aware that temperance doesn’t stem from the law. Paul wrote to the Galatians, “If you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.” We cannot enforce temperance by strict rules and regulations. The law forces an ordering that is external rather than internal, and therefore is never successful for very long. The temperance that springs from a Spirit-filled, Christ-centered life is one of joyful obedience rather than grim obligation. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) Taking on the yoke of Christ, making him Lord of our life helps us to organize our life toward the love of God and neighbor. It isn’t a yoke of abstinence or a denial of life; it’s a yoke that reorders our life so we’re able to experience the deep happiness, the blessedness, we talked about earlier this year. With Christ as our center, we make decisions because of what is right for us, not by anyone else’s law or rule. In this way we’re able to live happily; freely, and responsibly. We’re able to live temperately, in joyful obedience, affirming the abundant life to which Christ has called us.

As you continue to pray and fast, reflect on what you might need to do to be more Christ-centered and Spirit-filled, and this will be my prayer for you: Gracious God, enable each of us to live by the Spirit. Help us, Lord, to keep in step with the Spirit. Amen.

[1] Shoemaker, p157

Scripture Focus:

For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with excellence, and excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:5-8 (NRSV)

This month we turn our attention to temperance. In our modern world, temperance is the virtue that seems to be the least popular and the most ridiculed. Many of us, however, don’t actually understand what is meant by the word temperance. In a nutshell, it simply means moderation. The ancient maxim was “nothing overmuch.” Rather than being viewed as the elimination of all our natural inclinations or “appetites,” temperance was seen as the proper ordering of what is good within our natures. The maxim, nothing overmuch, applied then to temperance itself. Thus, temperance excluded prideful abstinence as well as joyless asceticism, and strove for a healthy balance.

Over time, philosophers and theologians have come to view temperance as one of the most important virtues. The Greeks believed it was necessary to produce a well-ordered soul, a well-balanced self, and a well-proportioned life. Plato wrote that temperance was the rational ordering of the soul that kept it free. If the soul is to remain free and not in bondage to a particular impulse or appetite, temperance is crucial. Aristotle even went so far as to assert that temperance was the prerequisite for all the other virtues. For instance, temperance was required to produce courage, because courage is the balance between cowardice and rashness.

The opposite of temperance, of the balance we seek in our lives, is intemperance, or a lack of balance. The intemperate person is like a pot that is full of holes. It can never be satisfied because it can never be full. Intemperance occurs in two ways. The first is when part of the self rules the whole self. Examples of this would be alcoholism and other addictions. The addicted person is ruled by the part of the self that desires the source of the addiction. There is no ordering of that desire in relation to the other needs and desires of the self. The addicted desire is all-consuming. While addiction is a good example of this first type of intemperance, we should not make the mistake of thinking that intemperance occurs only in these extremes. Whether it be the drive to succeed in a career which puts us in conflict with our commitments at home, or the desire to be everything for our families which often places us at odds with our desire for personal fulfillment, anyone who has ever been torn by competing desires has experienced periods of intemperance.

And yet, intemperance isn’t merely the domination of the whole self by one part; it can also be a fragmentation of the self. When we don’t truly know ourselves, we can become pulled in too many different directions. Rather than one excess ruining the whole, it’s the excess of many things that pulls us apart. When our lives become filled with too many competing demands, we fall into the trap of intemperance. We’re unable to find balance because we’re unable to find our center and order our lives around it. Prioritizing becomes difficult and as a result we’re pulled apart.

As we seek to find balance in our lives, we must be careful to avoid confusing temperance with asceticism. Asceticism views the natural world as evil and thus demands abstinence. Temperance sees all creation as good, including our inner desires, but seeks to order those desires to that we remain free and productive.

The temperate person knows herself. She knows what is important and sets priorities and goals. The temperate person understands the idea of delayed gratification and is willing to make sacrifices for what he wants. Temperate people tend to make wise judgments about what to do and not do in order to achieve their goals. They’re willing to make choices and commitments as they seek to order their souls.

Temperance is the art of finding balance within yourself. It’s a blessing when achieved and a burden when it’s not. The balance of temperance will be different for each of us. For some, it may involve abstinence in a particular area, where for others it may involve a seeming indulgence. For us all, it involves prayer for discernment and hard work to balance and order our souls.

As you pray and fast this month, think about the two types of intemperance – when one part of the self rules the whole, and when the excess of many things pulls us a part. Reflect on how you might need to cultivate temperance (nothing overmuch) in relation one or both of these circumstances. As you reflect and ponder, I will be praying that you would be sensitive to your tendencies toward intemperance and be empowered to move closer to the balance that God desires for your life.

Scripture Focus:

We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.

I John 3:16-18 (NLV)

At its very core, righteousness has to do with love. Love expands our hearts. It deepens our compassion and heightens our sensitivities. Therefore, if we exercise the virtue of love, justice and righteousness will follow naturally in its wake. In strengthening our capacity to love, we strengthen and encourage righteousness within ourselves. Then, when we respond to God’s love for us with love for each other, justice takes care of itself. We all know this is easier said than done. If it were as simple as it sounds, my family never would have had to leave Mississippi. But we all know that’s not how it is. It’s definitely not like that outside of the church; and unfortunately, it’s not even like that inside the church. So where do we begin

We begin with ourselves. Social righteousness cannot be achieved without personal righteousness as its foundation. Yet personal righteousness does not mean private righteousness. The values we commit ourselves to in our personal lives must emanate outward from us to the world. Only then will our love be more than words and talk; it will be true love, which shows itself in action. When our love is made manifest in action, then the prophet Amos’ word will be true: Justice will “roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” (Amos 5:24).

The love that we speak of is more than ritualistic kindness. Amos was talking about an everflowing stream, not short spurts or trickles here and there. A bonus at Christmas is no substitute for a living wage. A homeless shelter is not a legitimate replacement for affordable housing. Short bursts of compassion in response to situational needs such as famine or disaster are not an adequate alternative to ongoing support and development.

The rolling waters of justice depend on our personal commitment to righteousness. We are to be the everflowing stream, through our living out of the Ten Commandments, through our commitment to treating others as we would want them to treat us, through our loving of neighbors as we love ourselves. When we become the everflowing stream, rather than trickling it fits and starts, the marks of God’s righteousness will be seen in our world: justice that is blind to color or gender; protection for the weak, fairness in the courts, the opportunity for honest work for all who are willing, greater care of the earth. It is the virtue of love that must be translated into action if righteousness, both personal and social, is to prevail. In a few months we’ll explore the virtue of love at greater depth; for now, however, I want to focus on three important marks of personal and social righteousness: truth-telling, forgiveness, and promise-keeping.

Truthfulness is a dying art. Recall the striking image of Isaiah from the beginning of this month: “Truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter” (Isaiah 59:14, NIV). A sociologist once estimated that the average American tells 200 lies a day. I hope that’s not true in every country! But the norms of politeness in many of our societies can encourage lying. I recall a time when I changed the way I cut my hair. I was nervous about how it looked but when people began telling me they liked it, I felt slightly more comfortable. Until the day my husband finally told me the truth – it was not a flattering style at all! Surprisingly, instead of being upset, I was grateful and immediately scheduled an appointment for another cut.

Truth-telling is essential for healthy relationships. Wedges are driven into relationships when people lie. This is true not only in our relationships with other individuals, but in our relationship with God, in the relationships between various groups, and in relationships between governments and nations. Righteousness is the power of God that makes relationships healthy. Truth-telling is the deliberate act of the will that enhances our personal righteousness and makes us partners with God in doing justice in our world.

A second aspect of personal righteousness is forgiveness. Forgiveness is crucial to God’s justice. Experiencing God’s forgiveness in our own lives is the first step in experiencing God’s justice. So too, if we are to be instruments of God’s justice in the world, forgiveness must be a crucial part. If we are unable to forgive, we will continue to fight. This is true in our personal lives as much as it is in the lives of competing groups and nations. Witness all the racially motivated and hate-instigated violence, as well as all the stockpiled weaponry lying in wait for destruction. We must decide to live by mercy or die. Forgiveness is the answer to the dilemma of war – war between nations, war between groups, war within families, war between persons.

Justice without mercy is too harsh; it is demanding and uncreative; it becomes life-denying rather than life-giving. Both justice and mercy are attributes of God. Therefore, justice without mercy is not God’s justice at all. There is a story from The Midrash that tells of the integration of these attributes.

Justice and mercy are also attributes of God. How does God exercise these divine attributes? The case is like that of a king who had some empty goblets. He said, “If I put hot water in them, they will burst. If I put cold water in, they will crack.” So the king mixed cold and hot water together and poured it in and the goblets were uninjured.

Even so, God said, “If I create the world with the attribute of mercy alone, sin will multiply; if I create it with the attribute of justice alone, how can it endure? So I will create it with both, and thus it will endure.”[1]

True righteousness is justice tempered by mercy.

Finally, promise-keeping, like truth-telling, is necessary for the health of all types of relationships. If we don’t hold ourselves accountable to the commitments we make to others, we have no reason to be surprised when others do not keep their commitments to us.

Isaiah points us in the right direction when he says, “This is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help.” (Isaiah 58:6-7, NLT)

If this is the task of justice, then we must stand as ones who are trustworthy to accomplish the task. If we don’t stand with integrity, so that all who know us know that we are promise-keepers, then how can the hungry trust we will feed them or the oppressed that we will remove their chains?

Personal righteousness is a supreme act of the will, empowered by God. It takes effort – effort to tell the truth, effort to forgive others, effort to keep promises. Yet, if we rise to the challenge, our personal righteousness can affect others and thus be transformed into social righteousness.

This process of translating personal righteousness into social righteousness is not an easy task. There are many pitfalls that can entrap us and misdirect us; two are worth noting. The first is the assertion that one particular group is the instrument of God’s righteousness. This is the scenario that is played out time and again on political stages around the world. While God has always worked and continues to work in our lives and history, it’s dangerous for a political party or any other group to claim that they are the instrument of God’s righteousness. The Bible refers to this as blasphemy. The second pitfall is closely tied to the first and involves the church. When the church identifies God’s will with the activity of a particular political party or group, they are in a spiritually dangerous situation because of the subtle sacrifice of religious freedom in favor of political religion. The Bible calls this idolatry.

Justice is a gift of God to us that evidences God’s power to make things right, to heal relationships between persons, within communities and nations, and the world. When we commit ourselves to personal righteousness and become the everflowing stream, God’s righteous power will become more evident and justice will indeed roll down like waters to refresh and renew our barren lives and land.

[1] William B. Silverman, Rabbinic Stories for Christian Ministers and Teachers (New York: Abingdon Press, 1958), p35.