03/06/2017 DAB Transcript

Numbers 6:1-7:89 ~ Mark 12:38-13:13 ~ Psalm 49:1-20 ~ Proverbs 10:27-28

Today is March 6th.  Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.  I’m Brian. It is great to be here with you, I guess as we get the work week going.  It’s going to be a great day because we’ve given this week to God.  We’re going to walk with the Lord today in all of our thoughts, words and deeds and it’s going to be amazing.  So one of the rhythms of our lives is the rhythm of the scripture in our lives.  I’m excited that we can have this time around the global campfire and just move into a place of serenity and hear God speak to us from his word.  We’re doing that by reading from the Good News Translation this week, Numbers chapter 6, verse 1 through 7 verse 89 today.  

Commentary

In the gospel of Mark today, Jesus is in the temple complex in Jerusalem, sitting near where the treasury is, and he is observing people giving of their treasure, their money to God, and his observation is fascinating because God isn’t interested so much in how many zeroes there are.  Jesus is observing many people giving many things, but he observes this one poor, and she was very poor, widow who gives basically a penny.  So here in the United States, that is the lowest denomination in our currency.  I know it is called different things in all of the many countries that are around the world and that we’re all together here, but we each have our own lowest denomination of currency.  This is what this woman has and she has two of them and she gives them to God.  Jesus says she gave more than anyone else even though it was the smallest amount that could be given.  It was more than anyone else because it was all she had.  And not just all she had like for the day.  It was all she had to live on.  Jesus said everyone else gave out of their surplus.  She gave all she had.  

This is obviously important because it is in the scriptures and Jesus paid attention to it.  It is just echoes of subthemes of things that Jesus teaches all the time.  Because in all of Jesus’ teachings, we find that the kingdom is here.  It is available.  It is now. The authority of the kingdom and our father God is available now and it is epic.  Go back and just read the exodus that we just went through and all that happened to Pharaoh and the Egyptians.  God’s power is beyond anything that we can do.  But there is a narrow path and that narrow path that leads to life requires us to loosen the tight grip on the life that we are trying to arrange for and understand that to be in God’s kingdom is an all or nothing proposition.  

So this widow, Jesus pays attention to this.  It catches his eye as he watches because he knows what is really going on here.  This woman isn’t jumping up and down in the line going, “Ohhhh, I don’t know how I’m going to eat because I’m about to give everything I have to God.”  She’s not drawing any attention to herself.  She is just quietly trusting wholly and completely in God.  If she ends up with nothing else and she goes hungry, she knows that she gave the best of what she had.  In fact, she gave all that she had to God.  

The thing that we cannot seem to get ourselves to flip the switch on is that this is the safest, most stable way we can possibly live.  When we know that our next breath is not something that we deserve or that is just going to happen, it’s a gift, a gift from God, that we understand that every breath is a gift from God and everything is a gift from God and every person is a gift from God, everything around us is a miracle in motion and we are a part of it, well then we realize I have to depend on God no matter what. And all of these things that I’m trying to arrange for and all the security that I’m trying to have, that’s fine, but it all is from God and belongs to God and he has more than plenty for his children. Then we are invited into a place of margin.  Then we are invited into a place of order and peace.  We are invited into shalom, the way things are supposed to be.  And it is here and it is available.  We just have all of this messaging of our culture that is designed to make us feel like there is always lack so we will then go buy the thing that will fill the lack.  There is only one thing that can fill the lack and that is the spirit of God within.  So may we come to understand what the poor widow in Jesus’ story already knew.  

And then if we go backwards and go back into the book of Numbers, God is talking about Nazarite vows.  All of the little nuances and all of the things that are being built into this new culture are there and they are in great detail, but for us to get the foundational understanding of what is going on here will help us as we move into some very dramatic territory out in front of us as we get to know the children of Israel. We’ve known about them before they ever existed.  We’ve known about them since there was simply a promise to a man named Abraham.  But now we’re in the thick of it with them.  They are being reformed into a chosen and holy, set apart people and this is what it all looks like.  So as we get to know them well, we’ll understand much of their story going forward.  

God gave the words for the priestly benediction today.  As a minister, I’ve spoken those words hundreds of times, but they caught me today.  I felt like we should end up here today.  So I am going to pronounce this blessing over you, not because I’m some high and lofty priest, but because I am a servant of the Most High God, just like you.  So I’m going to pronounce it over you and I pray that you will turn pronounce it over those that you love today.  

May the Lord bless you and keep you.  May he make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.  May he lift his countenance upon you and give you peace.  

Prayer

Father, we receive that all over this world.  We receive that and after receiving that, we give it away like the widow in Jesus’ story today.  May your blessing pour out over this earth today inside this community and may it spread to hundreds of thousands, even millions of people today all over this earth.  And may those words become true in our lives. We ask in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Song played at the end of today’s podcast:

May the Lord Bless and Keep You

Goodnight, my dear, go to sleep;
til you’re floating like a ship across the sea;
go to sleep.

May the Lord bless and keep you;

the Lord shine his face upon you, child, and give you grace.
May the Lord turn His face toward you, love, and give you peace.

Goodnight my dear, be at ease;

till you’re floating like the sunlight through the trees;
be at ease.

May the Lord bless and keep you;

the Lord shine his face upon you, child, and give you grace.
May the Lord turn His face toward you, love, and give you peace.

So lay down, breathe deep.

May the Lord bless and keep you;
the Lord shine his face upon you, child, and give you grace
May He turn His face toward you, my little boy, and give you peace.

 -Andrew Peterson