Grundy's Blog

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. (Matt. 5:6) I have been working my way through the Beatitudes of late. In this fourth Beatitude Jesus draws us into the major theme of what it means to be human. In his treatise of the Beatitude, Darrell Johnson makes sure that we are hearing Jesus clearly. "Jesus is not saying , Blessed are those who feel righteous. Jesus is not here saying, Blessed are those who are on their way to being righteous. Jesus is not saying Blessed are those who are declared righteous. Jesus is here saying, Blessed are those who, although knowingly unrighteous, are hungry and thirsty for righteousness. They and they alone, shall be filled." My propensity is just the opposite—I desire those things that temporarily satisfy my thirst and hunger, and for the most part, they are the materialistic commodities of this world. So what does righteousness mean? Old Testament scholar Gerhard von Rad helps us to un

Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. What is the kingdom of God? And where do I find it?  According to Dallas Willard, the kingdom of God is God in action and we find the kingdom of God everywhere . But in order to find the kingdom of God, we must first  seek it.  Interestingly, Jesus doesn't say "Go find the kingdom of God." When I lose my keys, the first thing I do is to seek where I might have misplaced them. I seek to find my keys everywhere . Similarly, we are told by Jesus to seek God in action—the kingdom of God— everywhere .  When I examine my daily life, I see that for much of the day, I seek other things. I seek comfort, I seek harmony, I seek friendship, I seek wisdom, I seek stimulation. These are not "bad" things in themselves, but when they take precedence over seeking the kingdom of God, they elude me. Why is this? Why am I unable to find peace? Why am I unab

Suffering Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you  As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;  That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend  Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.  I, like an usurp'd town to another due,  Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;  Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,  But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.  Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,  But am betroth'd unto your enemy;  Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,  Take me to you, imprison me, for I,  Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,  Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. —John Donne In “Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God,” John Donne begs God to capture his heart and save him from a relationship with Satan. According the poet, the primary means by which this happens is to employ God to violently “batter, [his] heart; to break, blow, and burn“ to make [him] new, to free

“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.” Joel 2:25 Very few films stay with me, but the 1975 film, Day of the Locusts , is one that I have never forgotten. The film is about three wannabes and desperadoes who are sucked into the Hollywood system of sycophants, diggers, and parasites. They listen and fall victim to Hollywood’s sirens: glamor, money, fame, sex, and adoration. I want to say that I have never succumbed to such voices, that I never “crossed to death's other Kingdom,” (T.S. Eliot) but truth be told, I have wasted many of my sixty-six years. Those years nearly cost me my children and my wife, who will tell you that I not only changed spiritually but physically—my eyes were vacuous gray, my skin jaundiced-like.   Satan had his way with me. Locusts ravaged my life and the lives of my family.   How does one get to a place where nothing matters but the satiation of selfish appetites? It begins with seemingly inconsequential sins. In Bruce L. Bake

“Rend your hearts, not your garments.”—Joel 2:13 An “army” of locusts has come into Judah, devastating the land.   The reason for such devastation is the sin of indifference, of being “neither cold or hot.”    John Piper writes: “ The ultimate aim of God in sending the locust horde against his people is to secure their undivided allegiance: ‘You shall know that I, Yahweh, am your God, and there is no one else.’ Evidently, the cause of the locust plague had been the people's half-hearted allegiance . Some of their affections had gone after things other than God. He was not their all-consuming love. So he fought against his own people. For few things are more dishonoring to God and dangerous for us than love to God which is only half-hearted.” Half-heartedness is a subtle sin that unlike overt sins —murder, adultery, gluttony, gossiping—it quietly creeps into our lives, appearing like a “false friend.” The sin of indifference veils spiritual emptiness.   We go to church, at

"But if not, be it know to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up." (Daniel 3:16-18) Most Sunday-schoolers know the story. Shadrach, Meschach, and Abnego are commanded by King Nebuchadnezzar to fall down and worship the golden image, and if they choose not fall down and worship, they will be cast into a burning furnace. The three men presumably had led normal lives, loyal to their livelihood. But now they are faced with a test of loyalty. "On one side of the equation was position family, wealth, security, life itself; and on the other side there was God."  This was the hardest test of loyalty to God that they had ever faced. The men must have gone through mental gymnastics in deciding which to choose. Do I choose to obey Yahweh, or do I choose security and family? What will it matter if I choose to bow to the golden image? Is loyalty to God more important than my own life? In John Lennox's commentary on

"Be still, and know I am God." —Psalm 46:10 We live anxiety-ridden lives. I look at the world and wonder,  how can I live a life of peace in a world permeated with fear, hate, arrogance, divisiveness, greed, racism, famine, and licentiousness? How can I be someone who exudes God's peace? How can I "calm and quiet my soul?" (Psalm 131). The answer begins with humility, "...the acceptance of our limited lives,. When we move low, back toward the soil from which we from which we can learn the lessons of our true humility, [then] we are able to enter a kind of peace." (Sutterfield, Wendell Berry and the Given Life ). There is as St. Augustine writes in The City of God , "the peace of all things is the tranquility of order" (Book XIX, Ch. 13). We are at peace when the "creature lives as a creature, the human as a human, God as God, and all are in proper relationship with one another" (Sutterfield 20-21).  In other words, peace is the r

"What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" —Micah 6:8 The plastic tree is stored, the plastic candles are shelved, the entangled Christmas lights are crammed into illegal paper bags.  The Christmas season is sadly over, but as much as I enjoy December's bacchanalian  festivities, there is a part of me that finds the traditional final day of the Christmas season—New Year's Day—nearly as exciting. Closure brings forth newness : new friendships, new joy, new goals, new surprises, new growth, new liturgies.   Some of my friends contend that my personality reminds them of Alan Milne's old, depressed, grey donkey Eeyore (would you be happy if your tail was detachable and had a pink bow wrapped around it?)  But on New Year's Day, I feel more like the beloved, bouncing Tigger. New Years is throwing away that old stretched-out, tattered, fuzzy sweater and putting on a new, no fuzz, day-after sale