Tag: Proud

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What hubris leader ignores warnings?

Reading Time: 4 minutes

So Jeremiah sent for Baruch son of Neriah, and as Jeremiah dictated all the prophecies that the Lord had given him, Baruch wrote them on a scroll. Then Jeremiah said to Baruch, “I am a prisoner here and unable to go to the Temple. So you go to the Temple on the next day of fasting, and read the messages from the Lord that I have had you write on this scroll. Read them so the people who are there from all over Judah will hear them. Perhaps even yet they will turn from their evil ways and ask the Lord’s forgiveness before it is too late. For the Lord has threatened them with his terrible anger.” Baruch did as Jeremiah told him and read these messages from the Lord to the people at the Temple. ‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭36‬:‭4‬-‭8‬ ‭NLT‬‬

What kind of leader, king, president or ruler ignores a clear warning from God? One that believes they are untouchable, too powerful to be affected by truth. Zedekiah was told exactly what was going to happen, what God was going to do. And yet, his kingly power had gone to his head, infecting him from common sense.

Gotquestions.org writes, “Zedekiah was the last king of Judah and was king when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by Babylon in 586 BC and the majority of the people were carried into exile. Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, meaning he would have only been about 10 when his father, Josiah, died and his brother Jehoahaz became king. Zedekiah ruled for 11 years but continued on all the evil of his brothers and nephew Jehoiachin. Zedekiah rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, and, as a result, Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem. Zedekiah was confident of Egypt’s help, which never materialized. In the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign, the city fell to Babylon.” As we can clearly see from Zed’s inflated ego, he thought he was savvy at playing political games, gambling with the lives of the people of Judah.

What is interesting is how Jeremiah’s prophetic word actually made it to the king. It seems like it was a very circuitous journey, gingerly making its way to Zedekiah, the king. Jeremiah’s scroll, given to Baruch to present at the temple did get the attention of the temple priests. Micaiah heard the messages from the Lord (36‬:‭11‬). Micaiah got the message to Elishama the secretary and other officials. When Micaiah told them about the messages Baruch was reading to the people, the officials sent Jehudi son of Nethaniah to ask Baruch to come and read the messages to them, too. So Baruch took the scroll and went to them. “Sit down and read the scroll to us,” the officials said, and Baruch did as they requested” (36‬:‭12‬-‭15‬).

Obviously, the officials serving king Zedekiah took it seriously. It was so serious, they investigated who the message actually came from, “When they heard all the messages, they looked at one another in alarm. “We must tell the king what we have heard,” they said to Baruch. “But first, tell us how you got these messages. Did they come directly from Jeremiah?” So Baruch explained, “Jeremiah dictated them, and I wrote them down in ink, word for word, on this scroll.” “You and Jeremiah should both hide,” the officials told Baruch. “Don’t tell anyone where you are!” Then the officials left the scroll for safekeeping in the room of Elishama the secretary and went to tell the king what had happened” (36‬:‭16‬-‭20‬). It was looking like Jeremiah’s message and the chance for mercy if the king listened to God ‭would resolve the whole situation.

But Zedekiah’s response was shockingly hubris! As the scroll makes its way to the king, Jeremiah records the environment and mood of Zedekiah. He was chill, comfortably sitting by the fire seemingly worry-free. “The king sent Jehudi to get the scroll. Jehudi brought it from Elishama’s room and read it to the king as all his officials stood by. It was late autumn, and the king was in a winterized part of the palace, sitting in front of a fire to keep warm. Each time Jehudi finished reading three or four columns, the king took a knife and cut off that section of the scroll. He then threw it into the fire, section by section, until the whole scroll was burned up. Neither the king nor his attendants showed any signs of fear or repentance at what they heard. Even when Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah begged the king not to burn the scroll, he wouldn’t listen” (36‬:‭21‬-‭25‬). Section by section he cut it up as it was read and threw it into the fire! Understandably, he then ordered the arrest of Baruch and Jeremiah, but the Lord had hidden them. Every word of Jeremiah’s words, promises from God came true. Israel and Judah were put into a 70 year timeout by God, captives in Babylon.

How did it end for the hubris king? During the siege, Zedekiah fled the city by night but was captured. Zedekiah’s sons were killed before him, and then Zedekiah was blinded and taken to Babylon in chains. Even still, in God’s mercy, Zedekiah died a peaceful death, as God promised in Babylon years later.

We think, “if we were just clearly warned of what’s ahead, what are the results of our arrogance and sin – we would turn and repent.” Zed’s heart like many of our human hearts are far more complicated, far more stubborn, far more determined to have our own way even when we know it will end badly. James says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). It was true then and still true today!

Prayer

​Dad,
I don’t want myself or anyone I know to be a Zed! Wow. I know it’s in our human hearts to have the propensity to self serving and selfishness. But to be told, to be warned that judgement is coming AND miss the opportunity to repent – is just sad. Even with what little power I have, I want to maintain a soft, pliable heart before you. I am not perfect, but I certainly know how to repent and ask for forgiveness and mercy.

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Roommates

Reading Time: 2 minutes

“I, Wisdom, live together with good judgment. I know where to discover knowledge and discernment. All who fear the Lord will hate evil. Therefore, I hate pride and arrogance, corruption and perverse speech. Common sense and success belong to me. Insight and strength are mine.” ‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭8‬:‭12‬-‭14‬ ‭NLT‬‬

The New Living Translation says that wisdom and good judgment are roommates. In Hebrew, the wisdom writer actually list three roomies with wisdom: ormah: craftiness, daath: knowledge and mezimmah: discretion. The root word of daath is yada, or know. Who knew, when George’s new girlfriend Marcy, from the Seinfeld show, kept saying yada, yada, yada, she was speaking some Hebraic slang… “ya know, ya know, ya know.”

As the personified Jesus in the Old Testament, wisdom loves hanging out with three character traits of witty, smart and socially intelligent people. What a group of friends that makes, right? However, the writer also seem to make the point that, not only does that God hate evil, but there is a reason for doing so. Evil erodes good. Evil sucks the vibrant, authentic life out of the soul and leaves these hollowed out expressions behind. Shocker! Look at what’s left when evil has its way with us – pride, arrogance, corruption and perverse speech!

Wow. Pride is a false puffer, the rising of our fake self. Arrogance is our “self-made” projection, like we made it all on our own, everyone else is our pawn. And our perverse speech is a mastery of speaking in a way that “turns” or twists our words to hide the fact that we are a fraud. Whew. Evil guts us and leaves our soul with ugly, selfish qualities.

Turning from evil to wisdom means we choose to hangout with these amazing roommates listed in this Proverb. The Apostle Paul wrote, “bad company corrupts good morals.” 1 Cor. 15:33. Having wisdom as a friend means that one has access to her advice. Because Wisdom is really that good, her advice is sound, solid and successful! Wisdom owns these qualities and shares them freely to those who walk with her.

Prayer

Dad,
If we just learned from mistakes and missteps, things would be a whole lot easier to do right. We would benefit and so would everyone around us. The problem is I love doing things my own way and I come to think of myself as so independently smart. And, I also love taking shortcuts! What a mess I make of things. The ways of wisdom, which is the way of Jesus, not only requires humility but also submission. And it’s a slow process, nothing like my quick-fix shortcuts that fail every time. I want wisdom as a friend. I want to hangout with her friends, witty, smart and socially intelligent. I could use all the help I can get. Thank You!

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The whore and the holy

Reading Time: 5 minutes

​Oh boy! I just love these real life examples of Jesus’ interactions with both the highest and lowest people on the social ladder at that time. I have so many questions as I read this story.

“One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.” Luke‬ ‭7:36-38‬ ‭NLT‬‬

At first, there are no names mentioned, “one” of the Pharisees and a “certain” immoral woman from the city. Where exactly do Pharisee’s live? Since they are relatively separatists, my guess is that they lived uptown somewhere, away from the chaos of the town. And, I imagine that this Pharisee was surrounded by fellow religious leaders that made up his neighborhood. A place where privilege provided privacy. Where it was safe, egos were fed and status was earned by seemingly clean, holy living. There were no sinners there, only saints.

Where did the city-girl live? With her kind, her people. She lived and worked where the greatest concentration of traffic and opportunity would be. Where she could eek out a living, be herself, not be judged and have a certain kind of freedom of invisibility. Her neighborhood may have carried a label like Red-district, Bourbon Street or Crack Alley. Her neighborhood was where people go to purposely get lost, or lose themselves in addictions and pleasures. A place where people were quite comfortable making transactions for a moment of position, pleasure, or pain – searching, aching for peace and anything to escape their mundane lives. I doubt neither the religious leader nor the immoral woman spent much time in each other’s neighborhood.

Ah, but Jesus felt at home in both neighborhoods. He probably hated the stench of one and grieved the sight of the other, but his love compelled him to look beyond the facades of stereotypes and labels to find his mark, his mission – the human heart.

The city-girl, out of some bold desperation could not wait for Jesus to come back through her part of town, that day she decided to make her move towards life itself. She must have heard, she must have seen the kinds of things this rabbi had done. She must have felt that she could risk everything to not just get out of the hood, but out of a lifestyle that was killing her – eating away and stealing every small morsel of moral fiber she had left. This desire drove her to go uptown, to walk the cold quiet streets of glaring eyes and the invisible cloud of judgment and shame to get to the rabbi-Jesus. And with her she clutched her most prized and protected possession. She brought with her escape plan, her nest egg, her only lifeline to a possible retirement from the hell-hole from which she was either born into or chose to make a living. Bringing her alabaster jar appears to be her statement saying, “I’m never going back.” Maybe she didn’t know what she would do with her expensive retirement plan when she, if she, actually met Jesus. Maybe she was planning to pay her way into his group. Maybe she was going to give it to Jesus thus paying for her sin and hopefully the transaction would free her from a life of pain or guilt. But when she arrived at Simon’s complex and saw Jesus reclining, relaxed, possibly smiling, literally being the LIFE of the party, something overwhelmed her.

She looked at Jesus dirty feet and knew what she had to do. She decided she would go all in and use her life savings to clean the master’s feet. She didn’t care who saw her. She didn’t care what anyone in the room thought. She served the rabbi with the only things she owned, her tears, her hair as a towel and her ointment as a way to seal and heal Jesus, now clean but rough feet. And Jesus let her do it! We forget, there was so much tension in that room. It must have vacated the air, time must have slowed to a crawl and everyone one else’s brain went into shock. I’m am positive that eyes were wide, dialated and mouths were gaping open. No one could move. No words could come out of their mouths because their vocal cords were also frozen.

But Simon’s and the others thoughts were written all over their faces. It was the only thought their tiny, tightly-wound, religious minds could think – IF JESUS KNEW… Bah ha ha. If Jesus knew? Are you kidding me. IF Jesus knew? EVERYONE knew who this woman was. Her clothing, her mannerisms, her gender – oh my goodness. If Jesus knew! That is hilarious. Then Jesus speaks. What is he going to say? Jesus had 100% attention in the room. EVERYONE was absolutely captivated by this dramatic, cliff-hanging curiosity of what would happen next. It wasn’t WWJD, what would Jesus do it was WWJS, what would Jesus say?

Jesus tells Simon he has something to say. Remember Luke tells us that Jesus answered Simon’s thoughts, but Simon did not know he’d been read like a cartoon strip! I always wondered, was this Jesus’ human, gifted ability to read the room or was this a supernatural move of the Holy Spirit giving Jesus the unspoken thoughts of humans? I like to think maybe it was both! Either way, it’s important to remember Jesus did not do anything that he didn’t fully expect his followers to do as well. We can’t keep using the, “yeah, but he’s God” excuse to dodge both the gift and the responsibility of all those who believe and follow Jesus.

Then Jesus tells a story that lowers Simon’s pride and elevates God’s grace. Who has greater love? The one with the greater debt! Powerful. Especially because Simon and all the other religious leaders in the room had a wrong perspective in their heads. They believed they had zero debt to God, they were perfect because they kept most of the law. I’m fact, they believed that God owed them! What about the woman? I love the fact that Jesus never winked at, minimized or excused the woman’s own sin. That would have been dishonest and insulting to her.

Jesus said, her sins “and they are many…” have been forgiven. Done. Complete. In the past. Why? Because she cried? Because she served? Because she spent her future to care for Jesus calloused feet? No, because in her act of service she gave Jesus everything! Her repentance was in her tears, her love was in her hair, now becoming a dirty towel, and her salve/lotion gift of generosity was proof of her changed heart. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

If anyone wants to see how God looks at our human sin coming to him in brokenness, this is the picture. If anyone wants to see what makes God sick to his stomach just look at the human pride assuming that God won’t come near to those who are broken. The paradox of Simon’s sin to look down on another compared to this woman’s salvation to look up to God in repentance is stunningly clear!

PRAYER:

Dad,

Oh let me never ever forget from where I have come and from who I have come from. Help me to never look down with judgment and arrogance on a life that is not only different than mine, but much more complicated than mine. Help me to be an broker of hope, generous in grace and approachable because of your joy and peace.