The Lutheran Hour
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"Like Riding a Bike"
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Text: Luke 6: 20-49
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Years ago, a friend of ours was teaching our daughter how to ride a bike. The friend’s name is Bill. He’s more like an uncle to our children, not just a friend. So, Uncle Bill is teaching our daughter, Elise, how to ride a bike. Elise was maybe seven years old, fresh off of training wheels, and Uncle Bill tried something that I had never seen before. He did all the usual things that you do teaching someone how to ride a bike. He talked to her about how the bike goes where your eyes go, and how if you just keep pedaling, keep moving forward, you’ll keep your balance. And because as you know, riding a bike is one of those things that is impossible to understand apart from firsthand experience, after a little talking, Bill took Elise with her bike outside to practice. That’s when he did this thing that I had never seen before.
Bill said to me, “Michael, do you have a beach towel that I could borrow?” And I say, “A beach towel?” He says, “Well, any towel would work. It just needs to be big enough and one that you don’t mind if it gets dirty.” I say, “Okay.” He explains, “I’m going to use it with Elise when she’s on the bike rolled up and wrapped around her waist so I can catch her when she falls.” I took note that he didn’t say if, but when she falls. And she did, but every time Uncle Bill was there, running behind her, holding the two reins of that rolled up beach towel wrapped around her. And when she fell, he caught her.
This is a picture of how Jesus of Nazareth teaches His followers. Now, I am speaking to you from firsthand experience as a follower of Jesus, as one of His students. I’m a student of Jesus because I want to devote my life to learning from Him. Because even though He was crucified on a Roman cross 2,000 years ago, God physically raised Him from the dead, proving Jesus to be God’s only Son, the only Savior of the world, and a really good teacher. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I want to invite you to learn along with me, because just as the reins of Uncle Bill’s beach towel demonstrated both his care for our daughter and his conviction that she could do it—that she could ride a bike—so also Jesus’s teaching demonstrates both His care for you and His conviction that you can do it. With His help, you can become like Him.
But stay with me, and let me explain what I mean by that. When you read any of the four biographies of Jesus in the New Testament, you’ll notice that He does a lot of teaching, and His teaching includes what Christians in my faith tradition, in the Lutheran tradition, call Law and Gospel. Let’s talk about what we mean by those two words: Law and Gospel. The Gospel is the Good News of God’s promise that Jesus will always catch you when you fall. No matter how hard you fall, how far you fall, how often you fall, Jesus will catch you. He died for you. He lives for you. He sends His Spirit to uphold you because He cares for you.
It’s like how Uncle Bill cares for our daughter. Now, think about it. Why did Uncle Bill teach our daughter how to ride a bike? Was it because he was screening her to see if she might be worthy of his attention? Was it like an episode of The Apprentice with her competing against other people for a position under the pressure of knowing that if she messed up, he might say “You’re fired”? Was that why he was teaching her? No. Bill taught our daughter because by God’s grace she’s a member of our family, and by God’s grace, Bill cares for our family. The reins of that beach towel he held demonstrated his care.
So also, the message of the Gospel demonstrates God’s unchanging care for you, for me, for everyone. That’s the Gospel. Now what about the Law? The Law is also God’s Word, but it’s God’s Word given for a different purpose. Again, it’s like Uncle Bill’s beach towel, seen from a different perspective. See, there was another reason why Bill ran behind our daughter holding the reins of that towel. It was because of his conviction that she could be like him. She could become a person who can ride a bike. So also, once the Gospel makes us God’s children by faith in Jesus, Jesus continues to speak God’s Law because of His conviction that we will become like Him.
Jesus believes that He can make us into Spirit-filled people who love God and love others, even loving our enemies, like He loved us when we had made ourselves enemies of God. Jesus teaches His followers both Law and Gospel. They are the two reins of His teaching wrapped around us—His care for who we are now and His conviction about the people we will become. Now, Jesus’ teaching is another one of those things in life that you have to experience firsthand to understand.
To understand Him, you have to come to Him and listen to His words and put them into practice. So let’s start by coming together and listening, listening to His teaching recorded in the Gospel of Luke 6:20.
And Jesus lifting up His eyes upon His disciples began to say, “Blessed are you who are poor because yours is the rule and reign of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now because you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep because you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and exclude you, and despise you, and cast out your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because look—your reward in heaven is great. For their fathers did the same to the prophets. But woe to you who are rich because you’re already receiving your comfort. Woe to you who are satisfied now because you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now because you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for their fathers did the same to the false prophets.
“But to all of you, all of you who are listening, I say love your enemies. Keep on doing good for those who hate you. Keep on blessing those who curse you. Keep on praying for those who are insulting you. To the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other as well. And from the one who takes away your coat, do not hold back your shirt, either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes away your goods, do not demand them back. Whatever you wish that people would do for you, you do for them. And if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to get something back, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to get back the same amount.
“But you, you go on loving your enemies, doing good, and lending expecting nothing in return and your reward will be great. You will be sons of the Most High, because He is kind to the ungrateful. He is kind to the evil. Be merciful. Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and it will be forgiven you. Give, and it will be given you a good portion. Pressed down, shaken together, spilling over. It will be put into your lap because with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
And Jesus told them a parable. He said, “A person who is blind is not able to lead another who is blind, is he? Won’t they both fall into a pit? A student is not above his teacher, is ahead of his teacher. But every student, when fully trained, will be like his teacher. So why are you seeing the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but you do not notice the plank, the beam, that is in your eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother here, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself do not notice the beam that is in your eye? Hypocrite, take the beam out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly to take the speck from your brother’s eye because a good tree does not bear bad fruit, and a bad tree does not bear good fruit, but each tree is known by its own fruit.
“Figs are not picked from thorn bushes and grapes are not gathered from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good. And the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. Because out of the abundance, out of the overflowing of the heart, the mouth speaks. So why are you calling me “Lord, Lord,” and are not doing what I say? Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and does them, I will show you what He is like. He is like a man building a house who dug down deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood came, the river broke against it and it was not able to shake it because that house had been well built. But everyone who hears My words and does not do them, he is like a man who built his house on the ground without a foundation. And the river broke against it. And immediately it fell and great was the ruin of that house.”
This is the Word: the Law and the Gospel of the Lord.
Our daughter, Elise, she had some great falls learning how to ride a bike that afternoon. But those falls didn’t ruin her. Now, there was a moment. It looked really bad. The handlebar went sideways and the bike careened out of control into a heap, but Elise was safe. She was snatched up out of the ruin, held by the reins of Uncle Bill’s beach towel. He held the reins because our dear daughter did not yet know what she was doing. She was not yet the person that she would become, a person who can ride a bike.
Do you remember when you learned how to ride a bike? There was a moment, right? There was a moment when it was like a switch flipped on inside you like flipping on a light switch. And what was once impossible, complicated, and awkward became easy, natural, effortless. And when the switch is flipped, you never forget it. But until that moment came for our daughter, she needed someone to hold the reins. And in this mortal life, it’s the same for the followers of Jesus. I was talking with a friend the other day; he’s a follower of Jesus like me. And over the last few years, being part of Jesus community, the church, has been really hard on him. He’d been in a position of leadership in his church during a time of conflict. And people in his church weren’t just pointing out the spec in his eye; they were actively undermining him, sabotaging him, trying to ruin his ministry there. And even though he knows Jesus commands him to do good, even to those who would harm him—even though he knew that—he couldn’t make himself do it. The whole ordeal knocked him off balance. And ever since he’s been scared to get back on the bike. In our Lutheran-Christian tradition, we have a saying—the Law always accuses, always accuses for the duration of this mortal life. The Law of God is like a mirror. It exposes my blemishes. It shows you your sin. When you hear the teaching of Jesus, some days you can catch a glimpse of the vision. Some days can sense the energy in His conviction about the new community He is creating. You can see it. You can see the person that you are becoming within that community.
The switch is there, is ready to be flipped because God’s Spirit lives in us. We can be a people who reflect the compassion of our generous Father in heaven. We can be people who love not by being passive, not by ignoring evil or excusing foolishness. We can be people who love by looking evil square in the face, naming it as evil, and choosing to do good instead. We can be like Jesus, generous and compassionate and loving no matter what the cost. We can be and we will be one day. When Jesus returns and restores all things. On that Day, on that glorious Day, what once looked like a shaky seven-year-old, fresh off of training wheels, for us loving like Jesus will become second nature. But that day is still to come. And until it does Jesus teaching will expose how far you and I fall short of it. And that we still need Jesus to take the reins.
A few years ago my church was working with some teenage children. They were refugees. Before moving to the United States many of them grew up in refugee camps, which meant among other things, some had never learned how to ride a bike. During one of those events with our church, I offered to teach one of the youth, a young lady named Esther, how to ride a bike. She’d never done it before. She was scared. So we tried Uncle Bill’s beach towel method, and I will never forget that moment: running behind Esther, holding the reins with care and conviction, telling her “You can do it, Esther, you can do it! Just keep your eyes straight, keep pedaling. You can do it!” And she did it. She glided through that human passageway her cheering friends had made for her. She rode a bike for the first time, and we all caught a glimpse of what Jesus’ community can be.
Now, there is a place where the wheels start to fall off of this bike-riding metaphor. It’s because riding a bike is non-essential to being a member of our family. You can take it or leave it. And if our daughter would’ve said, “No, I don’t want to learn how to ride a bike” that would’ve been just fine. But in Jesus’ family, this activity that we’re talking about, this activity of loving people, loving even our enemies, it isn’t take it or leave it. Because if you leave it, if you’re satisfied with the status quo, you’ll be building without a foundation, storing up evil treasure. You’ll be riding blind and headed for disaster. So, Jesus keeps us pedaling. He fixes our eyes on Him because loving people, even the ones who reject Him, loving is at the heart of His character. Signed by His self-giving death on the cross and sealed by His resurrection from the dead, Jesus keeps teaching. And one day Jesus will say of His church, something like what Uncle Bill said of our daughter. She was eager and ready and excited. She didn’t know what she was doing, but she kept going and it took all of my strength to prevent her from pounding her head into the pavement. She didn’t have any sense of balance, but she trusted that I was going to hold onto her and then I let go of the reins, and she just sailed. But it took a while. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
Reflections for February 20, 2022
Title: Like Riding a Bike
Mark Eischer: You’re listening to The Lutheran Hour. For FREE online resources, archived audio, our mobile app, and more, go to lutheranhour.org. Once again, here’s our Speaker, Dr. Michael Zeigler.
Mike Zeigler: Thank you, Mark. Today I’m visiting with Dr. Vo. She is a writer with Lutheran Hour Ministries. Thanks for joining us, Kari.
Kari Vo: Thank you for having me.
Mike Zeigler: We’re going to talk about the Lenten devotions that we have coming up. So today, we have about a week and a half before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, and that’s when the first devotion is going to be released, correct?
Kari Vo: Right.
Mike Zeigler: All right. And this year’s Lenten devotions are focused on the Gospel according to Luke, correct?
Kari Vo: Yes, they are.
Mike Zeigler: For you, going through the Gospel of Luke, what is something distinctive that you’ve seen in the way he shares the Good News and just to give you an example of what I mean, we went through Mark last year. Mark has all his “immediatelys.” Something like 42 times or 45 times, he says, “immediately. And Luke doesn’t do that. But what he does do is he has this phrase that’s captured in the King James Version, but sometimes isn’t translated in other English translations, “And it came to pass” and “it happened.” And Luke says this again and again and again. So, that’s something that I noticed that’s distinctive that these are events that have been accomplished among us, and Luke is emphasizing that as he says it in the first chapter. But for you, what was something that you noticed?
Kari Vo: Well, I just love the cast of characters. He’s got old people, young people, women, men, children. He’s got foreigners. He’s got evil kings. He’s got confused governors. He’s got everything.
Mike Zeigler: Okay. So, you have meditated on 48 passages of Luke and spent some time thinking about these. Do you have one or two that have risen to the top as your favorites right now?
Kari Vo: Oh, wow. It’s just so hard to choose. But, for example, there is one where we are talking about—Jesus is talking to Jerusalem and He says, “How often I would’ve gathered your children together, as a hand gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing.” I talked to my husband about this because he has experience with raising chickens in Vietnam, or I should say his grandmother did. They had a hawk come one time and, of course, all the baby chicks went and ran under her wings. She spread her wings and she tried to look as large as she could and as threatening as she could. The birds didn’t care, the baby birds, they were under there. They had their head in her feathers right next to her skin. They were warm and safe and comfortable. That was not the look that the hawk had from up above. That was all threat.
I think that must be how it looks to the devil when we are all of us gathered to under Jesus’ wings, safe, calm, no problem. But to those who are going to be against us, “Oh, no, no, no, no.” Not something they want to attack.
Mike Zeigler: What a great image. That hen, as big as she can be and threatening the hawk. That’s really appropriate I found with how Luke portrays what Jesus has come to do. We have in the letter that John wrote that the Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil. And you see that all throughout the Gospel according to Luke, how there, Jesus is engaged in this battle with devil, with this threat to His people, and right to the very end, He says that, “Now is your hour and the hour of the power of darkness—but not for long.”
We were talking a little before about a theme and one of them—maybe that Jesus isn’t what people expected—would you say that could be a potential focus of these devotions?
Kari Vo: Oh yes. There’s people expecting one thing and getting a different thing from Him. There is one devotion that deals with the issue of the cornerstone. Jesus, of course, is the Cornerstone that God has built us upon as the church. But Jesus here is talking to His enemies, and he quotes this passage. “What then is this written? The stone that the builders rejected has become the Cornerstone.” And He’s talking about Himself because obviously they see nothing worthwhile in Him.
Mike Zeigler: So, Jesus isn’t what the people expected and He may not be what we expected. That could be a possible theme. But then when I pressed a little harder for a theme, you eventually just said, “Well, the theme’s just Jesus.” I know you said, that’s partially in jest. You know, it’s the Sunday school answer that the answer to every question is always Jesus. But that also strikes me as a really profound observation that Jesus is the only theme.
Kari Vo: The only good theme, really. Every year I come up with this: should there be a theme? And every year, I think if there was a theme, I would be limiting things. I would be taking the glory of God and funneling it down to a very tiny window, my personal window, on everything that the Gospels give us, that the Holy Spirit’s delivered to us. And I really don’t want to do that. I could be missing something. I would doubtless be missing something and I’d rather cast my net as wide as possible so that people can look through and as many directions as they like, and find things that will show them about Jesus.
Mike Zeigler: It is such a privilege to pour over the Scriptures. And I love how you said that—to cast your net as wide as possible and see what God might show us. So we invite you to do that as you listen to these devotions by Dr. Kari Vo. Cast your net wide. Put your nets down into the deep water and see what kind of catch Jesus might give you: a new insight about His love for you, His faithfulness, the meaning of what He’s done for you and for all. You can find these—where do we have them on the website, lhm.org?
Kari Vo: Yes, slash Lent.
Mike Zeigler: Okay.
Kari Vo: You can also get them as an email during Lent, if you like it that way. There is an app that you can have on your phone that will pop them up for you. You can download that at the same place, or you can go old style and have a printed version of it. There is a place where your church, for example, can download an already laid-out booklet, and all it has to do is be run off on the copier and stapled together.
Mike Zeigler: Thank you so much, Kari, for joining us and visiting with us about the Daily Devotions. If you want to find more about these, go to lhm.org. As Kari mentioned, there are many ways to receive these and be edified by them. Thanks for being here with us, Kari.
Kari Vo: Thank you.
Music Selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.
“My Soul, Now Praise Your Maker” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House)