2536AFC090525 – Who’s on first? ← PODCAST LINK 😀
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Luke 14:33 – 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.
Philemon 17 – 17 So [therefore] if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.
Psalm 90:12 –
12 So [therefore] teach us to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.
Wisdom 9:15 – (GNT) [1] 15 [therefore] because our mortal bodies weigh our souls down. The body is a temporary structure made of earth, a burden to the active mind.
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! May Peace always be with you and may God bless you, Belovéd! I feel badly about not delivering on my proposal to include biblical names in these posts, so – as we did last week – we will start with a look at a pair of sisters mentioned in the New Testament in Acts 24:24-27, 25:1-27.
The sisters’ names are Bernice and Drusilla. Here’s the back-story from Acts 24:1-23: The Apostle Paul is in prison in Caesarea having been accused as “a pestilent fellow, an agitator among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.” See verse 5, where a lawyer named Tertullus, cites the accusations against him. The Apostle Paul waited patiently, perhaps smiling at the oily tone of the lawyer, and then told the presider, the Governor Felix, “This fellow has nothing on me.”. His wife was also present. Her name was Drusilla. She and her sister, Bernice, were the great granddaughters of Herod the Great – the same Herod who ordered every male child under the age of two to be slaughtered in the hope that he would thereby eliminate the child Jesus. Herod was the kind of guy that always had to be Number 1 for everyone – and if he wasn’t your #1, he’d kill you.
The father of Bernice and Drusilla was Herod Agrippa I – the Herodian ruler that murdered the Apostle James and imprisoned The Apostle Peter. We are told that he declined to honor God and an Angel of the Lord struck him down so that he died from being “eaten by worms for five days.” So, now, Bernice was married to Felix who kept interviewing The Apostle Paul in the hope that he would be offered a bribe to let The Apostle Paul off. This went on for two years, and then Felix was replaced by a guy named Porcius Festus. Felix kept The Apostle Paul in prison hoping to please the Jews who kept accusing him of being and enemy of theirs because of his teachings about The Way. Festus tried to adjudicate the case but neither side convinced him, and he had decided to send The Apostle Paul to Rome (we recall he is still a Roman citizen).
About that time, King Agrippa II and his sister, Bernice – Drusilla’s older sister who was the wife of Felix, arrived for a visit and took an interest in the proceedings. None of these people could find any reason for The Apostle Paul to be in chains much less any crime worth a death sentence. The sisters were as immoral as their ancestors and relatives. Each married or acted as a lover to more than one man, always seeking greater power, always wanting to be what we today would call “The First Lady of Jerusalem.” None of them was ever satisfied with their position in life. None of them lived a life that demonstrated any reverence for God. They apparently never even considered giving God Preeminence in all things.
Returning now to our Key Verses, we can start with the Gospel selection. We can imagine that when Jesus’ Disciples heard that sentence, they were shocked and dismayed. “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” Having a wealth of possessions was a sign of God’s favor in Jesus’ time. People who were poor or diseased were considered as punished by God for their sins or even the sins of their ancestors. To voluntarily give up one’s possessions and take up that stigma of low-class citizens was radically different from everything they had been taught. We can understand this better by looking at the original Greek to see what’s going on. The word used to express “give up” is apotassó (ah-po-TAS-so). This verb has a literal or denotative meaning of “to bid farewell (either when departing or sending away). It also has connotative meanings “to renounce, to set aside, to say goodbye.” Jesus is telling his Disciples that they must count the cost of discipleship; nothing else – no something, no person, no place, no idea, or ideal can be more important than being a Disciple. Giving less than all our best will get us the opportunity to hear from Jesus, “Depart from me you evildoers! I do not know you!”
We might try to understand it like this: our lives are like a tower of shelves. The upper shelves are where we keep our greatest treasures. Who among us always has God – our El Shaddai-Olam, THE Eternal Triune God – on the First Shelf? In our individualist society, we’re taught to “look out for number one.” That’s really GREAT advice – if we know who Number One is. Last week I gave examples of several things we can do that disclose our real priorities, and usually those priorities are self-centered – they feature us on the First Shelf. “Who’s on first?” ME! Me, myself, and I. That’s why I picked that Key Verse from Philemon.
Instead of The Apostle Paul saying that to Philemon, what if that were Jesus speaking to us about the Holy Spirit or God the Father? “So [therefore] if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.” Incidentally, I added the word [therefore] because usually in the New Testament that is a connotative meaning for “so.” Do we consider Jesus to be our Partner? Do we welcome the Holy Spirit or Our Father in Heaven into our lives as easily as we accept Jesus? Is the entire Holy Trinity on First? If not, then we really don’t know God, do we? Right now, I’m probably thinking what y’all are thinking: “This is a difficult question because it does not have an easy answer!” Nonetheless, we all aspire to “get it right.” There just isn’t any room for a wrong answer. Forget about how many Angels can dance on the end of a pin and ask, “How long can I stay on-point for God?” How many days do we have to try to keep God on First?
For some of us, not as many as we think. For others of us, more than we’d care to know. It seems we’re never really satisfied with how much Life we have – or don’t have. We’re always wondering if that or that or us or them or he or she or whatever will finally satisfy us. We just want that taste of The Good Life. “Taste and See” (↔ Music Link) the Goodness of the Lord.” We know that’s The Good Life! Fickle little creatures of habit we are to decide we must choose something that is “other-than.” That hymn is based on Verse 8 of Psalms 34. Whenever we are having a difficult time choosing The Good Life, or whenever we realize we have failed to choose it, this Psalm 34 is like a balm for our wounded soul –
4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me,
and delivered me from all my fears.
AND
7 The angel of the Lord encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.
AND
11 Come, O children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
12 Which of you desires life,
and covets many days to enjoy good?
13 Keep your tongue from evil,
and your lips from speaking deceit.
14 Depart from evil, and do good;
seek peace, and pursue it.
Once we learn how sweet The Good Life is, we return to the Lord and our Key Verse from the Psalms reminds us, 12 So [therefore] teach us to count our days [aright]
that we may gain a wise heart.
and, Belovéd, here is Wisdom : Every Day with Jesus is Sweeter Than The Day before. (↔ Music Link)
It turns out that most of the time we make the same mistake: we try to glom onto something/someone that will add goodness to our lives when what we really need to do is let go of all the useless, heavy, stumble-bumming possessions that weigh us down. We forget (again!) that Jesus is a Wonderful Savior (↔ Music Link) I heard this recently: “If ya can’t take it There, do ya really need to take it here?” Now, try to think of the One Thing we can take with us There. I vote for “The Joy of our Salvation,” and that is ours because He lives (↔ Music Link) So let me ask, “Do we think of Jesus as someone in the Bible as history, or like that song up there, is he alive in our hearts If we have that, we have all that we need, and really, would we ever want anything less? BUT, as always (here it comes again!) – WE FORGET! And, whenever we forget, our Almighty Triune God, El Shaddai-Olam is no longer on First and [therefore]because our mortal bodies weigh our souls down. The body is a temporary structure made of earth, a burden to the active mind. As we’ve said a couple of times recently, we’re always tied to the mud, both coming and going, and as long as we’re trying to take care of our #1 mud, we’re gonna stay stuck. It seems there is only one way to avoid that: Give Primacy and Preeminence to God in all things at all times in all ways and all places so that God is all in all. Now, that’s something to sing about so I have a song (↔ Music Link) that Jesus gave me!
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.
Who’s on first skit. ← Worth a few laughs. This is the original Abbot and Costello Skit “Who’s on First.”
Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
[1] Passages marked (GNT): Good News Translation (GNT) are from the Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition)© 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.
