No Good Deed Goes Unpunished?

 

Because we live in a “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” kind of world, we are shocked and offended when, instead of a “scratch back,” we get slapped. Or ignored. Our innate sense of fairness is trampled underfoot. Listen, we did X, Y, or Z for them, so they *must* return the favor.

We are prone to think like this regarding God: “If I do the will of the Lord, if I stick to the straight and narrow, then he is obligated to reward me for my fidelity.” And by “reward me,” we mean do good, nice, pleasant, or profitable things for us. It’s only fair, right?

The narrative of Joseph and lustful Mrs. Potiphar is a painful but needed reminder that sometimes doing the right thing will put you in the wrong place—or what feels like the “wrong place” to you. In the story from Genesis 39, Joseph repeatedly rebuffs the sexual advances of his master’s wife, sticks to his chastity, and even gives a good confession before this temptress. And his reward? Falsely accused of sexual attack. Slandered and maligned. Imprisoned.

Yes, indeed, there are times when the outcome of our doing God’s will is that agreeable things happen to us. That’s great! And there are times when the outcome of doing what’s right is getting fired from our job, abandoned by our peers, laughed at by our family and friends, or even jailed.

For Jesus, it was crucifixion.

As disciples of Jesus, doing our Father’s will is our goal because it is our Father’s will. Not because we get something out of it but simply because it is best because it is of God. And what is of God is always the best.

And, as we see from the rest of Joseph’s story, oftentimes the “wrong place” we wind up for doing something right, is all part of God’s good, gracious, unfolding plan in our lives.

Our Foibles and Flaws in God's Grand Plan of Salvation.

 

When you consider the life of Isaac, you can't help but laugh, well you just have to, since his name in Hebrew, means “Laughter.” Although an important player in God’s plan of salvation he seems, in a divinely humorous sort of way, to have little clue what’s going on half the time.

In Genesis 22, he has no idea that the sacrifice his father was going to offer up is himself. In Genesis 26, he got caught publicly “caressing” (in flagrante delicto?) his supposed “sister” and so was found to be a liar. And in Genesis 27, he was bamboozled by his sneaky wife and heel of a son.

Poor Mr. Laughter. It’s not that Isaac’s a fool. He’s not unintelligent. Rather, he is simply an ordinary specimen of humanity, caught up in a story much bigger than himself, a story that he is incapable of fully understanding. He embodies our common foibles and flaws, the very imperfections through which God is busily and faithfully at work to bring about his will for all of us.

Isaac was unable to see what was really going on. In that way, Isaac is our “patron saint.” His life also is a beautiful reminder that the Lord’s will for us—and our place in his grand plan of salvation—is unhampered by our weakness, confusion, and long list of stupid decisions. We are experts at getting things wrong and misaligning priorities.

But to be a disciple of Jesus is not to have everything figured out, but often to feel like old, blind Isaac, doing what we can to pass on a blessings to others, blissfully unaware that the Lord is using us in ways we don’t even realize to continue writing the story of his kingdom’s spread in this world.

God, I Thank You that I Am Not Like Other Men!

 

When we read the Bible today, we think of the Pharisees as the “bad guys.” Full of themselves. Impressed with their own righteousness. Hypocrites.

Nobody wants to be a Pharisee.

If we were Jews living in the 1st century, however, we would not think that way. The Pharisees were the good guys, the religious cream of the crop. They went above and beyond the Law.

Many Jewish mommas probably wanted their babies to grow up and be Pharisees.

Once we get this understanding of the Pharisees fixed in our minds, parables such as the one that Jesus told in Luke 18 take on a whole new light—and reveal just how controversial Jesus was.

In this story, two men went up to the temple to pray: one a highly respected man (the Pharisee) and one a highly hated man (the tax collector). The first was looked up to, the second looked down on. When the Pharisee thanked God that he was not like other men, such as extortioners or adulterers, or even like that tax collector, no doubt many people would have said a hearty Amen. They would have agreed that if anyone was in good with God, it was this man, this Pharisee, who crossed his righteous T’s and dotted his holy I’s.

So, when Jesus commended the tax collector, who beat his breast and would not even lift up his eyes, but prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” then his hearers would have been aghast: “What? That scoundrel? That good-for-nothing traitor to our nation?”

Yes, that man who humbled himself and prayed that God would forgive him, he went down to his house justified, not the Pharisee.

The Pharisee and the tax collector, although different outwardly, were the same men before God: both sinners in need of atonement. One believed this, one did not.

Let us, my fellow sinners, give heed and pray, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” And our Father will, for the sake of Christ, who came as our atonement.

GOD'S PREPARATION FOR OUR SALVATION.

Genesis 1 is Part of God’s Preparation for Our Salvation 

When God planted the trees in Eden, he was making sure there would be wood for both a manger and a cross.

When God poured out oceans and rivers, he was preparing for our baptism into Christ in the waters of the Jordan.

When he sowed the fields with wheat, he was readying the world for bread that would clothe Christ’s body in the meal of meals.

When he made the heavenly lights, he ensured there’d be a star to guide wise men from the East, and a sun to be darken when sinners affixed his Son to a tree.

And when the Lord made Adam and Eve in his own image, he was prophetically winking at his Incarnation, when he would make our nature his own everlastingly.

From the beginning of the world, God so loved the world that he prepared it for the day when he would remake it—remake us!—in his Son.

Hallelujah!