Day 165: Serving Seems Countercultural

Mark 10:32-52; 2 Samuel 24; Hosea 4:1-10

If you want to be first, if you want to great, you must serve. So much of what Jesus teaches is contradictory to our culture, especially American culture. Our American culture says work hard to beat out everyone else. Jesus says serve them, be their slave. The gospel is all about putting God and others first, not putting ourselves first. And I think that is something that a lot of people miss.

Then you have the blind man who is stifled by the crowd. He called out to Jesus, he needed and wanted him. But the churchy people were too caught up in their own affairs to serve and help this man come to Jesus. Rather than being a servant to all, they were concerned about staying up with Jesus. That's a good thing to do too, but there were times when Jesus wanted to rest and be alone, but instead he taught and served the crowds that he felt compassion for. And this blind man gets lost in the church crowd instead of them leading them to Jesus.

Why does David get in trouble for counting his people? I think it has to do with knowing your kingdom's power, when God wanted David to rely on the Almighty's power. But even in his justice, we see God's compassion. He felt sad for all the killing and wanted to stop it. God is both a God of justice and of love. I think sometimes we forget that he is both. We've all heard the questions like "how could a loving God let ___ happen?" Well, the answer to that is probably either, he is just or he gives us freedom. In this story of David, we see that as a result of David's wrong choice, there was a lot of suffering. God gave justice and then he gave love.

These verses in Hosea sound awfully familiar. I always thought that in this century, it is the worst it has ever been. Nope. Israel, God's chosen people(!) were just as unfaithful and sexualized and disobedient as we are today. And part of the problem that God points out is that it is because of the priests. The spiritual leaders were not doing their job to speak truth and instead were encouraging sin. It is so important that we learn scripture ourselves and not put so much pressure on our spiritual leaders. They need support, but we need to take responsibility for the right and wrong in our lives. That way, even if everyone else is doing it wrong, we can do it right.