The Razor Thin Line Between Grace and Truth

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://www.myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]


Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

John 8:10-11

You can picture the scene, right? It’s the Sabbath, and it’s also the day after one of the major Jewish festivals, so Jerusalem is packed and Jesus is teaching in the temple to a massive crowd. Suddenly, the Pharisees and the religious leaders break through the crowd right in the middle of Jesus’ teaching and they toss a woman before Jesus, a woman who has just been caught in adultery. The Pharisees want to know: Jesus, under Moses’ Law the woman ought to be stoned to death. What do you say?

Jesus surveyed the crowd for a minute, and then he bent down to write with his finger in the sand. On the Sabbath it was forbidden to write with a tool in a way that would permanently alter the writing surface, but it was permissible to write in the sand with a finger; Jesus is always so clever. What does he write?

Does he write the law from the book of Deuteronomy?

Does he ask where the man is who ought to suffer the same fate?

Does he write, “stone her” or “save her” or some other command for the crowd to follow?

What he says to the crowd is this: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And then he returns to his writing in the sand.

One by one the crowd dissipates, until only Jesus and the woman are left. And then Jesus utters those famous words that walk the line between grace and truth perfectly: “Then neither do I condemn you. Go not and leave your life of sin.”

This is a word that we today are desperate to hear. This morning I attended a Christian Educator’s Convention where Rev. Mary Hulst, chaplain of Calvin College, was the keynote speaker and a sectional speaker. At her sectional she spoke about the three lives that people often live—the public life, the private life, and then the secret life. We like to think that Jesus can see the public and the private lives, but we hope that he can’t actually see the secret life. This is where people do the things that the really believe might be beyond redemption in Christ: the pornography, the affair, the second affair, the embezzlement, that one time that you did that thing you desperately wish you could take back. But Jesus does see it all, and he speaks his perfect grace and truth into out lives. He sees our sins, does not condemn us, and instructs us to go and sin no more.

It’s interesting to note that John does not finish the story. There’s no “10 years later” interview with the woman, nor is there any follow up with the religious leaders who accused the woman or anyone else from the crowd.  This is intentional. John leaves space for us to become the woman in the story. We spend so much of our lives worrying about the sins and public shaming of others. Forget about the woman or the religious leaders or anyone else. We’re always trying to change someone else. It’s time for us to change our own lives first.



[Kristin vanEyk lives in Kentwood, MI where she attends Encounter Church with her husband Dirk, and two kids, Lily and Colin. Kristin teaches high school English and otherwise passes the time reading, writing, running, and enjoying all that Michigan's West Coast has to offer.]

God's Way vs. Our Way

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://www.myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media] 

If I’m being honest, I don’t really like the story of the Canaanite woman found in Matthew 15.

The first time the woman speaks to Jesus, telling him of her daughter who suffers from demon possession, Jesus doesn’t even answer her. In fact, his disciples come to him and ask him to get rid of her. Instead of rebuking them for their failure to see this woman as a beloved child of God, Jesus replies—but not kindly. He tells her he “was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

Still, she persists, asking again for Jesus to help.

At this point, I almost wish Jesus would have just kept ignoring her, because his reply is downright offensive. “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

Ouch.

Now this woman has been outright ignored by Jesus and treated like a nuisance by the disciples, now Jesus calls her a dog.

Which is exactly why I don’t really like this story. This is not the way I expect Jesus to act. It seems to go against his overall message of love, grace, and mercy, as he blatantly ignores this woman’s humble plea for him to have mercy on her. The whole thing seems unJesuslike, and I don’t like it.

Except, as we go on, we find that Jesus does indeed answer the woman—he tells her she has great faith and then heals her daughter.

And this is where I struggle. Most of the story seems unJesuslike, and then, all of a sudden, the guy I thought I knew shows up at the end.

I wonder if my problem with the story is that I think Jesus needs to act the way I want him to.

If I were writing the way Jesus should behave in this story, he would stop and listen to the woman right away. If the disciples tried to ask him to get rid of her, Jesus would tell them to shape up and to recognize this woman’s infinite worth in the eyes of her Father. Then, he would say to the woman, “Sure, absolutely,” and heal her daughter. The end.

Instead, he makes her ask several times, effectively testing her faith and perseverance.

I want Jesus to do things the simple way, when he does things the Jesus way.

I wonder if this is why it’s so difficult to be a Christian sometimes. We want things to go our way, the easy, painless way, and God makes us ask, wait, and persevere while he does things his way.

We don’t know what the woman was thinking as she walked away, though sheer elation over Jesus healing her daughter was likely part of it. She may have wondered over the way Jesus had treated her at first, but ultimately came away marveling at how he saw her great faith and listened to her plea.  Maybe the encounter didn’t go exactly as she had envisioned, but she walked away seeing it was best.

Because the reality is, we don’t serve a God who does things because we want him to. He doesn’t promise to stick to only acting in ways we like. But we can know that he does have our ultimate good in mind through whatever he does, even when he writes the story differently than we would. 

[Brianna DeWitt is a believer in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She also blogs at http://awritespot.wordpress.com and tweets at @bwitt722.]

"You Call Me Out Upon the Waters / The Great Unknown"

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://www.myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]


Even the people who seem to have it all figured out struggle to figure it all out.

Did you catch that?

Even the people who seem to have it all figured out struggle to figure it all out.

Call it self-doubt; call it insecurity; call it aimlessness; call it restlessness; call it the dynamic property of calling.

I always thought that I was called to be a teacher. And for 9 years, I’ve enjoyed teaching high school English. Does that make teaching my calling? Not necessarily. Does that preclude a career change? Certainly not. Am I called to be a light in whichever circumstances I find myself? Absolutely.

On the outside, I think, I sort of look like I have my act together.  I’m married, my kids appear to be doing adequately (which is the most you can ask of parents of small children some days), I have a reasonably well-respected career, I own a home and take vacations and have friends. And every day I struggle to figure out what in the world I’m supposed to be doing.

When I was younger I had this idea that “calling” was a one-time deal. Static. I also thought that I would be called into one profession for the rest of my life and that would be it. All set. And I thought that calling was largely vocational—that one is either called into a career or to stay home with children and then it’s a done deal.

That view of calling is painfully simplistic, horribly selfish, and possibly even dangerous. Rarely are we called to live in a vacuum, where our influence is limited only to ourselves.

Calling seemed so “high stakes” when I was younger, like I had to somehow magically discern the will of God in my life and then get a college degree to do that thing. Oh, and then land an actual job in that field as well. What happened if I didn’t go to college? Didn’t earn that major? Didn’t get the job? Did I misinterpret the “still, small voice” of God? Would I need to start all over? A limited understanding of calling is burdensome. It breeds fear, anxiety, and self-doubt.  

Now I better understand calling as a mandate to have some effect on the world—to influence the world for the kingdom of God. Even people who don’t have the faintest idea of what they should “do” with their lives have influence, and that’s one of the reasons we have hope. Even in our floundering and aimlessness we still affect change all around us: with our friends, our families, in our dorms or with our housemates, with our teammates and classmates, with our colleagues and in every other facet of our lives. We have the opportunity and the obligation to be gracious and kind and to bring peace and restoration along with the truth of Jesus everywhere we go.

[Kristin vanEyk lives in Kentwood, MI where she attends Encounter Church with her husband Dirk, and two kids, Lily and Colin. Kristin teaches high school English and otherwise passes the time reading, writing, running, and enjoying all that Michigan's West Coast has to offer.]

(Not) Beyond Hope

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://www.myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]


Maybe it’s the coworker who always shows up for work late, leaves early, and seems to leave half their work unfinished. Maybe it’s the fellow student who brags about partying every weekend and cheating on their exams. Or maybe it’s the people we hear about on the news, those who steal and kill and destroy. And maybe we see glimpses of it in ourselves, in the wrongs we commit but have never told anyone about.

Most of us can think of the person, or the types of people, we think will never change. If we’re honest, we may wonder if they can change, or if maybe there are some people who are too far gone and are only capable of spiraling deeper into darkness.

In John 4, we find the story of the Samaritan woman. She came to the well at noon, perhaps because she was unwelcome with the other women or because she wanted to be alone. Or, as Pastor Dirk suggested on Sunday, perhaps she had a hidden motive of going to the well by herself of thinking she may happen upon a lone man. This woman had had 5 husbands, and the man she was living with at the time was not even one of her husbands. In that time, a life like this would have drawn more than its fair share of whispers, gossip, and speculation. Some of her neighbors may have written her off completely by this point, assuming she would never change and could never be better than her circumstances.

Jesus, however, did not see her that way.

He didn’t have to go through Samaria to get to Galilee. He didn’t have to stay by the well while all his disciples went off. He didn’t have to situate himself by or even on the well. And, given the customs of that time, he certainly didn’t have to talk to this Samaritan, much less this Samaritan woman.

But he did. Despite all the reasons he didn’t have to, and despite knowing her story, Jesus spoke to her. He talked to her when maybe no one else would, and he told her who he was, and of the way to a better life--a life of following him. Ultimately, that conversation led to this woman and many other Samaritans believing in Christ.

Jesus knew that even a woman with a messy past was not beyond hope.

As followers of him, he calls us to believe that too. And not just to believe it, but to act on it. He calls us to show his love and tell his story to everyone, without letting our own judgments of who is or who is not capable of change through Jesus, getting in the way. Because of Jesus, no one is ever beyond hope. There is no darkness that he cannot reach into, where his light cannot touch. Jesus was willing to do what it took to reach out to the Samaritan woman.

What could our city, our state, the world look like if we all lived the same way? What if we really believed that no one is beyond hope?


[Brianna DeWitt is a believer in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She also blogs at http://awritespot.wordpress.com and tweets at @bwitt722.]

When Prayer Feels Pointless

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://www.myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]


As someone who grew up in Christianity-saturated community, I’ve been told all of the “correct” answers for when we feel like God isn’t listening to our prayers.

“His ways aren’t like ours.”

“He answers prayer, just not always in the timeline we’d like him to.”

“When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.” (Okay, that one might have come from The Sound of Music, but I’m sure someone has said it at some point too.)

At least for me, prayer is one of the most difficult parts of following Jesus. I'd be willing to guess that unanswered prayers have been a catalyst for more than a few people to walk away from faith entirely. For those of us who have ever prayed, even if only a handful of times, at some point we’ve probably all wondered what the point is. We’ve probably wondered if God is actually paying attention, or if our words just fall to the floor, empty and meaningless. Maybe we’ve prayed the same thing for weeks, months, or years, and though we’ve been told that God answers prayers, even if it’s sometimes with a “No,” it seems that he has completely overlooked ours.

As he has for each message in this series, on Sunday Pastor Dirk started by reminding us prayer is not supposed to be about bending God's will to ours, though that's how many of us approach it. Instead, prayer is supposed to conform our will to God's.

This is not something that comes easily to me.

Thomas à Kempis, who was a German priest and author, wrote:

"As thou wilt;

What thou wilt;

When thou wilt."

Which strikes me as perhaps the scariest kind of prayer we could pray. It doesn’t ask God for anything except for what he wants for us.

Because ultimately, prayer is not a way for us to get what we want from God, but a way God uses to form us, ever-shaping us to look more like him.

Which is likely not going to be a comfortable process. It might lead to a life that looks a whole lot different than the one we planned for ourselves, whether it's outward changes like a change of major, job, or location, or inward changes like a change of desire or focus. Those are the things God uses to form us into his likeness.

It doesn't mean he always ignores our prayers or that he doesn't want to hear them--nothing could be further from the truth, really. Prayer is about communication, about building a relationship with God that teaches us how to be more like him and to align our hearts with his.

It’s easy for me to sit here and type these words about how God uses prayer to form us to be more like him, but in the actuality of unanswered prayer, in the heartache and the sickness and the longing, it’s much harder to believe. While it sounds nice to say that we want God’s will to be our will, his will may be for us to simply trust him in the midst of our unanswered prayers--even when we cannot understand what he’s doing or even see it, and when he doesn’t seem to be opening a door or a window. If we allow them to, these places between the yes and the no or the maybe of our prayers can be the spaces God uses to make us look more like him.


[Brianna DeWitt lives, works, and writes in Grand Rapids, MI. Among her favorite things are good people, good books, and good desserts. You can see more of her musings on her personal blog at http://awritespot.wordpress.com and on Twitter at @bwitt722.]

Carrying a Bucket of Dry Ice?

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://www.myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

Midweek Encounter 9.17.14

On Sunday at Encounter Church the worship space was full of carbon dioxide (and this is no dig at the preaching)—but in an unusual state—carbon dioxide as a solid. You probably know it as “dry ice”.

Dry ice is really cool stuff. It sublimates as it warms, meaning that it goes directly from a solid to a gas while skipping the melty liquid state. Really cool. Surrounded by these vapors, Dirk encouraged us to think about what it would be like to carry the visible glory of God with us everywhere we go. The metaphor was simple enough—the gas as a visual and physical reminder of the glory of God—but as I thought more about it, it became increasingly complex.

What would it be like to carry a bucket of dry ice around for a day? Think about the gas that would accumulate in your car during your morning commute. At some point, you might have to open your windows to let some of the gas escape. What does that mean for us metaphorically—having to open the windows because the glory of God is too powerful to be contained within the car? I happen to be a teacher, so I imagined what it would be like to bring my bucket of dry ice into my classroom. Students, of course, would all want to know why I was surrounded by fog. What would I say to them? And then I imagined myself picking up a few groceries on the way home, or taking my kids for a walk to the park, or going for a run after dinner—all while carrying a bucket of dry ice. At the very least I would get a few strange looks, but more realistically, strangers would ask me why I was carrying around a bucket of dry ice.

Without my bucket, nothing changes. I don’t remember to acknowledge the power and the presence of God more frequently; strangers don’t stop me to ask me about my faith; students are not wowed by the power of Christ within me; everything remains unchanged.

It’s probably unrealistic to carry this tangible reminder of God’s glory with us, but it’s easy to carry the metaphor into our lives. There are a number of references to the glory of the God appearing as a cloud in the Bible, and you can read about some of them here: http://biblehub.com/exodus/13-21.htm. God speaks to his people, leads them, and protects them, all in the form of a cloud. In John 17, where the passage from this past Sunday is found, the cloud of the Lord or the glory of God settles on his people to unify them—not to extinguish their differences, but to use those differences to bring an even more diverse population of unbelievers to Christ. God sends us with his power to reach new people, to live markedly different lives, to bring the cloud of his glory into our every day situations.

So, should we start a #dryicebucketchallenge? Sorry—I literally couldn’t resist.

[Kristin vanEyk lives in Kentwood, MI where she attends Encounter Church with her husband Dirk, and two kids, Lily and Colin. Kristin teaches high school English and otherwise passes the time reading, writing, running, and enjoying all that Michigan's West Coast has to offer.]

Perfect Phil and Terrible Tom

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://www.myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]


This past sunday, Pastor Dirk introduced a new message series called “Red Letter Prayers.” We started off by looking at the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (or Phil and Tom, as Pastor Dirk called them), as told in Luke 18:8-14.

Phil actually sounds like a pretty stand-up guy. He fasts and gives more money than he needs to, is probably loving and friendly to his family and friends, and seems like the type of guy who helps elderly people cross the street. Meanwhile, Tom sounds greedy, skeezy, rude, and like the type of person you probably wouldn’t want anyone you know to be hanging out with.

Except, when they start to pray, cracks appear in Phil’s seemingly-perfect facade. He stands off to himself, not to avoid distraction, but to subtly send the message that he is better than the rest. The words of his prayer emphasize his message, as he thanks God that he is not like the other people around him.

Meanwhile, Tom separates himself from the crowd, but for a very different reason--he doesn’t want to risk tainting the people around him, because he knows he’s done wrong. His prayer is more of a beg.

And so, at the end of his parable, Jesus says that Tom is the one who goes home justified.

Because Tom understood what Phil did not: no amount of money he gave away, times a year he fasted, or any other works could earn him forgiveness, grace, or answered prayer. Tom knew he had done wrong, and that he had no reason to assume that God would forgive him.

In our human mindset, we often view things in terms of “input/output.” We input money at the store; we walk out with purchases. We go to class and do our homework; we graduate and get a degree. The problem comes in when we try to use the same logic for our spiritual lives: We donate money and go to church; God answers our prayers.

Tom didn’t think this way, though. He knew he had done wrong, and that he had no reason to assume that God would forgive him. Because forgiveness is not something we earn by doing, but something God gives us freely. All of the gifts God chooses to bestow on us are exactly that--gifts. We cannot earn answers to pray through anything we do, no matter how committees we volunteer on, how much money we give away, or how many hours a week we spend reading our Bible. These are all good things to do as expressions of gratitude and ways to honor God, but it is not a system of input/output. Phil’s actions certainly weren’t bad, but he completely missed the point.

While prayer can be a difficult part of the Christian life, one thing we never have to worry about is trying to earn God’s attention through good works. Everything from God is an undeserved, beautiful, gracious gift.


[Brianna DeWitt lives, works, and writes in Grand Rapids, MI. Among her favorite things are good people, good books, and good desserts. You can see more of her musings on her personal blog at http://awritespot.wordpress.com and on Twitter at @bwitt722.]