On Fasting and Fences

Mike Leake

white wooden fence near green grass fieldThe most heated arguments usually come from those with whom you are closest ideologically. This may come as a surprise but this is part of what was happening with Jesus and the Pharisees. Of all the religious groups in the world during the time of Jesus, he likely had the most in common with the Pharisees.

Pharisaism was mostly a lay movement. And according to the early Jewish-historian Josephus, they numbered about 6,000 people or 1% of the population. Though smaller in number they were according to Josephus, “extremely influential among the common people”. These guys were the authorized successors of the Torah and as Jesus said they were the ones who “sat in Moses’ seat”.

The Pharisees and John’s disciples were seen by the people as the ones most dedicated to their religion and to the Lord. In fact if you would have rewound history a little, Jesus might have fit in quite nicely with some of the Pharisees. But as any movement tends to do, by the time of Jesus, their original passion had grown stale and it became more about following rules and regulations than about issues of the heart.

The original intention of the Pharisees was to preserve the Torah—the Law—to honor God and to draw people back to holiness and following YHWH. And their theory was to erect fences around the original rules so that you didn’t even come close to breaking God’s commandments. Over years the fences became just as important as the Torah itself and so they erected fences around the fences…that process continued until the Law or at least the law that the scribes and Pharisees had written—the oral tradition—had become a huge burden to the people. We certainly see this on issues of the Sabbath but you can also see it in their observance of fasting.

How Fasting Was Sidetracked

In the Old Testament there are fasts prescribed for various things. Fasting—in case you did not know is depriving oneself of food (or possibly other things) for a spiritual purpose. There was one required fast that was called in the OT and this was on the Day of Atonement. The Mishnah (which is part of the Jewish oral tradition) prescribed three types of fast. One for national tragedies, another was in times of crises (war, famine, drought), and the third type were self-imposed fasts for any number of personal reasons. That is what is being described in Mark 2:18-20. The Pharisees fasted on Monday’s and Thursday’s every week.

Fasting moved from a place of longing for God into an outward display of dedication to God. It moved from pursuing God’s attention to seeking the approval and attention of the people. In Jesus’ time, if you want to be considered a serious religious leader then you and those that followed you would fast. It was a prerequisite to religious commitment.

So Why Do Jesus’ Disciples Not Fast?

That question that is asked in Mark 2:18 is essentially saying, “How can you call yourself a religious leader of any import if your disciples aren’t fasting? What kind of commitment are you calling people to if they aren’t even willing to fast?” 

Given the context, it is a valid question. The problem, though, is that Jesus isn’t just another religious leader. That is why he responds by giving them an analogy of a wedding feast. Those are a big deal and a time of celebration. It’s wrong to fast when you’re supposed to be celebrating.

Jesus is the bringer of good news. Why would we put on sackcloth and ashes in order to receive good news?

The Deeper Reason For Not Fasting When Jesus Is Present

In this analogy Jesus is saying something deeper than merely it being a time of celebration instead of mourning. In the OT there was no explicit reference to Messiah being bridegroom. But in Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea we see that God Himself is called Israel’s bridegroom. If Jesus gives himself this title He is making quite the claim. He is God in the flesh. And when that happens you don’t mourn…you celebrate.

Or think of it this way. What is the purpose of fasting? It is an outward expression of an inner hunger. It’s saying I want you more than food. I want you more than Mountain Dew. I want you more than television or video games. Whatever you are fasting from, it’s communicating outwardly what your heart is saying inwardly; namely, “I want God more than this thing”.

But when the Bridegroom is right in front of your face…when Jesus is right there, then fasting is silly. It’s legalism. It’s meaningless asceticism, hypocrisy, pride, whatever you want to call it but it isn’t true fasting. To fast with God incarnate in your midst is to say, “God this isn’t enough—I want more”.

He isn’t encouraging His disciples to fast because to do so would be to deny the incarnation. Fasting is a way of saying “Come, Lord”. If He is present, you don’t fast. There will be feasting and not fasting in heaven.

Why Do We Fast Now? 

If Jesus has already come and given to us the gift of the Holy Spirit, why are we fasting again? Jesus spoke to this as well in Mark 3. There will be a day when we are once again crying out, “Come, Lord”. That’s why Christians fast. Because even though we have the Spirit, we live in an age where we still ache for the fullness of Christ to come again. We long for His return. And so we fast, and say come Lord Jesus come.

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Photo source: here

The Invisible Enemy Killing Your Congregation

Mike Leake

man in black jacket sitting on chairPastor, what if I told you there was a mostly unseen enemy that is harming your flock and potentially hijacking your ministry to them?

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It the late 1800s it was a massive gamble to get surgery. Many would survive the initial procedure but would contract a deadly infection from the surgery that would lead to their demise. It was so bad that at one point they considered outlawing surgery altogether.

What was happening?

While not nearly as efficient as our laser procedures in the 21st century, 19th century surgery was not as archaic as you might imagine. They knew how to effectively do surgery. Their equipment wasn’t the problem either…well, not entirely. The tools themselves were fine but the problem is that an unseen enemy was attaching itself to those tools as well as the very hands of the doctor administering “care”.

One prevailing theory was that the culprit was the air in the operating rooms. So after an operation they’d open the windows and have the “bad air” leave and hope that “good air” came through the windows. But in reality what was happening was that germs were contaminating the entire operation.

Lindsey Fitzharris, author of The Butchering Art, explains the condition of hospitals:

The surgeons wore these aprons that were encrusted with blood. They never changed them. They didn’t wash their hands. They didn’t wash their instruments. And these operating theaters were filled to the rafters with hundreds of spectators, some of them just curious bypassers who came in with tickets to see the life-and-death struggle play out on the stage. So there was no sense of hygiene. This certainly wasn’t a sterile place.

It wasn’t the environment. It wasn’t the tools. It wasn’t even the surgeon. None of these were the direct reason why these patients were dying. It was that little invisible creatures were killing their patients.

Today’s Little Invisible Creature

It may not be entirely accurate to say that trauma is an invisible creature. In one sense we see trauma all around us. But in another sense it impacts things in which we aren’t readily aware. A husband and wife arguing about an insignificant placement of a remote control is possibly tainted by trauma.

In his book The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel Van Der Kolk, argues persuasively that trauma reshapes the brain and the body. It impacts things like pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. It attaches itself to everything.

Let me illustrate by using a day to day example.

A man grew up in a home with quite a bit of yelling and angry arguments. He wasn’t certain what one day to the next would bring. Would it be a happy evening or one filled with things which made him fearful? Without it even knowing he was learning this, there would be certain sounds which would serve as a warning to stay in his room.

Now fast forward this story to the first few years of marriage and his wife is doing the dishes. She’s a gentle woman who would never throw a plate across the room. But she also does the dishes with vigor. Plates are rustling around in the sink, pots and pans banging against one another.

What happens to this newlywed? He is immediately afraid. He doesn’t even know why, but figures that his wife must be upset about something. Those are sounds of anger to him. And so he is put on edge and either works up the courage to ask his wife why she is angry, snaps at her in self-defense, or withdraws completely. All the while she was just moving a skillet from the top to the bottom to load the dishwasher.

Trauma attaches to everything and it is often unseen.

Enter Joseph Lister

There had been theories about germs around for years. In the 1540s it was thought that unseen germs could be causing widespread disease. But that theory had never been associated with wounds and surgery until Joseph Lister. Lister took the work of Louis Pasteur and developed a procedure of sterilization which would kill the germs on surgical instruments, doctors hands, and the entire room.

But his recommendations were not widely received. For one, he was a young doctor trying to teach several seasoned surgeons that what they were doing might be harming their patients. That’s a tough sell. To admit that something as simple as washing their hands could have saved lives was apparently too damaging to their pride.

In fact many of these doctors took it as a great measure of pride to be able to wear surgical gowns covered in blood (and unbeknownst to them) many germs. They felt as if their whole industry was being questioned. Are their tools not sufficient? Is this young man trying to say that the problem is with us instead of the environment? No way!

Thankfully, Lister’s recommendations slowly won acclaim. But will we begin to take trauma serious in the church.

Trauma in the Church

Let’s only take the trauma of something like molestation. Statistics tell us that 1 in 5 people have been molested. That means that for every 5 people you interact with in church on a Sunday morning 1 of them will have this particular trauma in their background.

Now add other traumas. Add things like living with an extremely depressive parent. Add physical abuse. Add emotional abuse. Add alcoholism or drug use. Add a suicide in the family. Add the death of a parent or caregiver. Add having to move every year or two. Add to the equation being bullied. On and on we could go…

Do you really think that people in your church have not had experiences of trauma? Do you honestly think that you are immune from trauma? No. We have all been impacted in some way. Perhaps we have not had significant trauma. But there are many within your congregation who have. And it is going to impact them.

Isn’t the Bible Sufficient?

I’ve spoken in the past about how this precious doctrine has morphed into something different than it was originally. And I’ve specifically shown how this relates to biblical counseling. I believe this is also going to impact how we handle trauma in our churches.

The Bible is sufficient to tell us how to please God. A person who has been traumatized (even traumatized by someone using the Bible in their abuse) has everything they need in the Scripture to connect them to Jesus—the ultimate healer. And there is everything in Scripture they need to know in order to please God as they walk through help and healing.

But the Bible does not claim for itself sufficiency or supremacy in all things. The Bible does not claim to be the best resource for learning to hit a fastball. It is not supreme in that regard and does not claim to be. Now, God Himself is supreme. Christ is supreme. And I suppose, we could say that He is the greatest teacher of how to hit a fastball—if that was what he was concerned with. But learning to hit a fastball is not why God gave us the Bible.

Likewise, Jesus Christ is the ultimate healer of trauma. Some day all trauma will be healed as Jesus wipes away every tear from our eyes. There will be no more trauma responses in the New Jerusalem. And the Bible is sufficient to lead us to Christ and this healing.

Do You Need to Be Trauma-Informed?

In my more thoughtful moments, I’m pretty hesitant to use a word like need. Can Christ provide significant healing through somebody who has never once been trauma-informed? Absolutely. Likewise, people did survive surgery in the 1800s. In that sense they didn’t need sterilization.

But is that really the right question?

What if being trauma-informed is like the sterilization practices of Lister? People have trauma. Just as there were germs. And being trauma-informed helps us to recognize those things, it helps us listen effectively, it helps us know how best to apply the truths of Scripture, and even how to speak in a way to be heard. And, dare I say it, there are insights in something like The Body Keeps Score that may help provide substantial healing for trauma.

I liken this to being a missionary in a foreign-land. How silly would we be to think that “speaking Bible” means you have to say those words in English and cite chapter and verse before you’re being faithful. You learn their language, you speak their language. That is what it means to be trauma-informed. It’s learning a language so that you can effectively speak the healing words of Christ.

Refusing to be trauma-informed is about as ignorant and harmful as the doctors who refused to wash their hands before surgery. I’m glad Lister won out in the realm of medicine. I hope something similar happens in the church.

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Photo source: here

Why Does Jesus Mention Divorce in Luke 16:18?

Mike Leake

“One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong…”

That’s a little ditty from Sesame Street. But it was running through my head as I was studying for Luke 16:14-31 this past Sunday. The whole chapter has money and resources as a theme. But then in verse 18 we read this:

Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.

What does divorce have to do with anything preceding or following? Why did Jesus all of a sudden start talking about divorce in the context of money? Was it that divorce was expensive? Was it because their greed was causing the religious leaders to overlook the Law on divorce? Or was this simply source material that Luke was using and in his source material there was a statement about divorce so he included it? These were some of the options I was faced with as I wrestled with this text. I came up with something different and I will propose it to you.

What if Jesus isn’t giving an instruction about divorce here as much as he is using it as an illustration? What if this verse isn’t so much about divorce in the way we typically think of it, but rather it’s all about divorce in another way?

The Context

There are two themes that emerge in both 14-17 and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in 19-31. There is an obvious discussion of wealth. The rich man can pretty clearly be seen a portrayal of the Pharisees who were “lovers of money”. And there is an obvious connection between verse 16’s “Law and the Prophets” and the rich man’s brothers not listening to “Moses and the Prophets” in verse 31. In both instances (the rich man in the parable and the Pharisees) there is a casting aside of the law.

This entire section, I believe, is meant to drive us to verse 31. If you aren’t responding to what you have right now, if you cannot see Messiah right in front of your face, then you aren’t going to respond with even further revelation. They are so blinded by money and the present kingdom that they are ridiculing the One who is proclaiming, as well as bringing, the Kingdom of God.

So what does divorce have to do with any of this?

Why Mention Divorce?

I believe Jesus mentions divorce because this is precisely what they are doing with God’s Law. They are casting it to the curb and shacking up with power, prestige, and possessions. If they were really listening to God’s Law—in a covenant relationship—then you wouldn’t have someone like Lazarus uncared for. If they were really treasuring their relationship with God’s Law then you would see them rejecting Jesus or the kingdom in which Jesus was proclaiming.

Consider verse 16 and 17. Verse 16b is a little confusing as to its meaning. Does it mean that people are pressing into the kingdom? Does it mean that the kingdom is being passionately proclaimed? I’m not certain, but it doesn’t really impact our meaning in this discussion. Only note that Jesus moves from the Law to the gospel. And verse 17 is his way of showing that in His Kingdom the Law isn’t tossed aside to the curb it is actually fulfilled. They are making the law void and thus committing adultery with possessions and such. But the gospel is fulfilling the Law.

Warrant in Paul

I believe we may have some warrant for this way of thinking in Romans 7. Remember that Paul and Luke were friends. So it wouldn’t be surprising to find some similarities. In Romans 7 Paul argues this:

Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

It’s not exactly the same as here, but I believe this gives us warrant to say that divorce/remarriage can be used as an illustration of the Law/Gospel relationship. And I believe that is precisely what Luke is doing with Jesus’ words here in Luke 16.

The Pharisees, because they are rejecting Jesus and the new life in him, are still married to the Law. They have not died and been given new life. Instead they’ve divorced themselves from the Law. They’ve kicked it to the curb. And there is now a great chasm between them and righteousness.

Conclusion

None of this is to say that the Bible is silent on the issue of divorce. I believe Jesus is clearly and directly speaking on the issue. And I think Paul speaks to the issue as well. But here in Luke 16, I do not believe that is the main topic at hand. Rather it is divorcing ourselves from the Law—or to apply that a bit differently—we are divorcing ourselves from God’s claim upon our lives.

The Social Media Day of Holy Week

Mike Leake

thThe 2017 word of the year for the Macquarie Dictionary was….

Milkshake duck.

If you’re scratching your head, that’s okay. What is a milkshake duck? It’s a person who was wildly popular on social media but then later was revealed to be a type of villain. The phrase comes from an Australian cartoonist who fictionalized a “lovely duck that drinks milkshakes” but then gets canceled because we find out the duck is racist.

Milkshake duck is evidence that social media is a weird place. You can go from hero to villain in only a matter of moments. I’ve had my own experience with this a time or two. Social media is a wild place where someone could even post a Scripture passage and then get mauled. Questions are often insincere and meant as traps rather than for information.

Yet, social media can also be a place where good can be accomplished. It’s tough to navigate because on occasion we’ll get so accustomed to the negative flow that sincere questions are read with snark.

Tuesday of Holy Week is Jesus’ day on social media. He’s teaching in the temple but rather than authentic interaction he ends up getting a ton of silly questions that aren’t real questions—they are just meant to trap him.

They’ll Listen to Him…

When I preached on Mark 12:13-37 a few years ago I struggled with how to make contemporary application. But when I saw these words in Mark 12:6 I was gripped:

“They will respect my son”

It’s heart breaking. It’s words in the parable of the tenants of the father sending his son to the people. “If I send bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh maybe they’ll respect him and listen”. But they say, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.”

The religious leaders new exactly what this parable meant. They were rejecting God’s own Son. That’s why they wanted to see Jesus thrown in prison. They wanted him done with, because they understood he was talking about them. He’s the son that they aren’t listening to—they’d rather kill him than listen.

How do you get to that spot? Especially if you are a religious leader. You’ve given your whole life to studying God’s Word, to being pleasing to God and then you end up saying, “here’s the son—let’s kill him.” How does that happen?

They recognize the Son. They see that he comes from God but they don’t like him and so they want to have him done away with. What is happening is that their foolish hearts are being darkened. They actually think they can trap Jesus because they’ve convinced themselves that they are more “in the know” than the Son of God. Their quest isn’t about finding truth—it’s about escaping God’s ownership of them. It’s unbelieving doubt

Barnabas Piper says it well:

When unbelieving doubt poses a question, it is not interested in the answer for any reason other than to disprove it. Unbelieving doubt is on the attack. It is much more interested in the devastating effect of the question itself to erode the asker’s belief and hope in what is being questioned. The asker is not asking to learn; she is asking in order to devastate. She does not want to progress to an answer. She wants to show that there is no answer. Unbelieving doubt is not working toward anything but merely against belief.

And this is the kind of thing we see played out on social media, in the news, etc. on a daily basis. Truth doesn’t matter as much as “gotcha” questions.

Tuesday of Holy Week is consumed with unraveling all these “gotcha” questions. Jesus masterfully navigates the questions and pulls everyone back to the kingdom of God. This too is part of His mission of making all things new. On Monday he shows his intention to rescue the vulnerable. On Tuesday he fights for truth, wrestling it from the hands who would dice up truth and then spread it in halves for their own benefit.

The Good Question in the Midst of Noise

I think there is one more person that Mark wants us to notice in this narrative. In the midst of all these dumb “gotcha” questions is a scribe who actually asks the important question. “What is most important?”

There is something a little different about this scribe and Mark clues us into this by his use of the word “hearing”. It’s often used of one who is hearing with perception and not just hearing with the ear. There is sincerity with this scribe. He wants to know—what is the most significant—which commands supersede them all.

Jesus answers by combining Dt. 6:4-5 (the Shema) with Leviticus 19:18 and essentially says the Law comes down to loving God completely and loving others perfectly. His answer puts him in a unique camp because there is no evidence that before Jesus these two commandments were combined. Jesus, as usual, is in his own camp.

The scribe affirms what Jesus says and even adds a bit of his own flavor saying that Jesus is correct that love is more important than sacrifice and burnt offerings. Which is essentially saying that relationship matters more than the religious practices and rituals of his people. And Jesus tells this guy that he is not far from the kingdom. He’s not saved yet. He doesn’t fully understand that to love God means to embrace Jesus. But he is at least walking down the correct road.

Thankfully, Jesus is able to sift out the sincere questions from the trap questions. That is good news. And it’s good news that he welcomes these type of questions. Ask them.

Truth matters.

That is what Tuesday of Holy Week teaches us.