Sandalprints in the Snow

Open to the Public

2010-11-17T07:21:00.000-08:00

I was at the weekly meeting of pastors from around my community when this phrase came up and it generated a lot of thoughts, so I'm going to work through some of them here.

But first, the context was a discussion on the service which our local congregations could be to the public schools in the area with regard to counseling and encouraging staff and students through life's difficulties. Specifically, there has been a recent series of teen suicides in our county high schools and as a result, a loosely coordinated effort is underway to have school administrators and pastors meet together. In our own realms we obviously sense that there is a common goal of providing stability and hope for our young people, and in spite of concerns on both sides over church-state separation, there is a sense that churches can help in some way to assuage the mounting anxieties on the part of our public school constituency. Maybe even minister in a helpful and healing way to the real need underlying the very real dilemma.

As we shared around our pastoral circle about programs that were already in place among us to help support families, one pastor asked another about his services. "Are those open to the public?" He asked. "Well, all of our programs are open to the public," was the response.

I reflected on the ministries and programs at the church I serve. "Of course, all our programs are open to the public." Ours, too. But being 'open' to the public is kind of like a guy that tells his new church-going girlfriend that, 'sure, I'm open to religion.' It's a kind of way of saying, 'yes, no, maybe so.' That we're mutually existing in the same global background field of noise and that we each have a message, a mission, a meaning for our existence, but not necessarily any kind of mutual interest in each other's. I'm speaking of the public citizen toward the church as well as the church toward the citizen. Even one church to another.

Lest I be misunderstood as simply decrying the breakdown in trust that people have for the church in our society, let me focus more directly on the reverse of that challenge: namely, how public do our churches really want to be. I have heard arguments on both sides of the equation. That churches have to get 'out of the shaker' and 'into the world' in order to be salt and light to the lost, as well as the cautiously sanctimonious warning 'to maintain our distinctive nature because otherwise we can't be a help to anyone.'

It seems to me that it all boils down to influence. And here, like with gravity, we don't have a lot of options. The laws of influence are rather inflexible and we can either work within them to achieve our flights of fancy or ignore them and perform one epic face plant after another. And let me just say that I sense that my church and I are more accustomed to broken noses than breaking the sound barrier.

The first law of influence I see in operation is we're all influenced by others. As a Christian, I am no less affected by my environment, community and culture, than any one else. What makes me a Christian is that I actively choose to be influenced by Christ and His values, the community of saints, and the culture of heaven, even though I live in an earthly setting which emanates its own influences on all those fronts. But this is precisely what a teenager who is wanting to emulate a particular 'look' is doing. He or she is attentive to someone or some group of people who are modeling a particular way of relating to the world. Each young person is open in a particularly active way to these. In fact, as a young life that is trying to forge a personal way of being, teenagers are seeking influences that resonate with them. They are evaluating these influences based on their perceived merits, and they are aligning themselves with these influences by reflecting their values and styles in the way they think, act and communicate in their daily lives. Thus, a corollary to the first law is that, influence is a hot commodity, particularly during formative times of life. This need not be just the teen years. Educators look for 'teachable moments' during all times of life, which are points at which we feel our need for outside influence, either because one way of dealing with life has just failed us and/or because we sense in someone else a better way.

So while we may be 'open to the public,' the bigger question for a church is whether the public is 'open' to us. That is, on what basis do we think that we can have an influence in people's lives? Again, I sense that the challenges to a church influencing its immediate community are much higher and wider than we are ready to recognize. Thus 'our' efforts to influence 'them' are largely stumbled through with hopes much higher than we deserve to have, and these are sanctimoniously counted on to be amplified by our good intentions. More often than not it's like a toddler calling out across the grand canyon, hoping to hear an echo.

This brings into light another dimension of influence and a corresponding law, namely that influence must be earned and its cost is determined by how different we are. The parent wanting to be a real and significant source of influence in their children's lives must understand that 'because I said so,' buys only the cheapest and most basic level of influence. Churches wanting to overcome the abundant public stigmas against them will find the price of influence to be extremely high. Church leaders may bemoan this fact, may seek to lay the blame on the public for being set in their ways, but the ultimate question for the card-carrying members of any organization is, "What makes us think anyone will listen to us in the first place?" The answer is simply and painfully "nothing," unless the price of influence has first been paid. If we're trying to influence someone who already dresses like, talks like, thinks like and values things we do will be easier to influence because we've already made a down-payment on the price of influence by being more like them. This, however, can have a counterintuitively negative effect on influence. Because unless we are personally living the things which make us similar and are fully convinced that these values are truly compatible with the distinctive values we hope to inculcate, our 'sameness' will come across as fake and manipulative. Which is to state another law, that there are a number of short-cuts to achieving influence and that number is zero.

So based on what I've discovered and am trying to share here, thus is the lay of the land: I must live a life consistent with what I truly value; and to precisely the extent that any of these values match those of other people, I will have a down-payment on the cost of gaining influence with them. For example, if I listen to country music, I will have a down-payment on influencing other country music lovers. If, however, I listen to classical music and merely tolerate country, I won't have the funds in my pocket to really make a down-payment when I begin communicating with a country music fan. Since music is such a universal language and because almost everyone possesses a personal set of likes and dislikes regarding it, our musical tastes will always be one of the currencies upon which influence is bartered.

But let us not think that mere musical tastes would establish the common ground needed to move someone toward a major groundshift of thinking by our influence. For instance, just because we both like classical music in general or even late Mozart symphonies in particular doesn't mean I could presume to influence you to believe in my God-centered worldview. Mozart would just be a down-payment. I still have a fortune to spend before I have afforded the influence needed for such a personal appeal.

Even though this may all be common sense and rather obvious to the reader, it helps me to talk about things this way because in our super-fragmented society, my hope of reaching the world for Christ still springs eternal. However, the reality that I must accept is that only the fraction of the world that I truly care about and invest in will want anything to do with my Christ.

The funny thing is

2010-11-06T18:13:00.001-07:00

that I feel tempted to stick up for myself and to cherish hurt feelings.

But it seems to me that there is no place for sticking up for ourselves in the Christian world. In fact, it completely misses the mark, or at the very least, the point.

Not all Christians see eye to eye. No two of God's children have exactly the same experience with Heavenly Father and His work of creation and re-creation in their lives. No two of us gaze day after day on the same mission field nor do we sense the same burdens to reach that field or to reach it in precisely the same way.

Frankly, I am happier to rejoice in these differences. Because it means it's more likely that the whole world can be reached by the broken masses of blood-bought people who dare to call themselves saints.

As I look around my community, the Spirit calls my attention to different people and I am filled with compassion for them the way others aren't. Others, in turn, see people I don't even notice and as a result experience their own burden to reach out and care for those.

My hope is that in our differences, we can still march arm in arm into the fields that are white for the harvest. It is my prayer that we remain unafraid and courageous in love to seek and save the lost.

Blessings, Imagined and Real

2010-07-11T04:40:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about the liability of my imagination this morning.

Sure it's a gift and a bountiful one at that. But it seems to me that it can also get in the way. Particularly in the area of God's blessings. Here's my train of thought: I can spend a lot of time imagining how I would like God to bless me. And for me, because my power of visualization is so overdeveloped, thinking about how I'd like my life rearranged can easily segue into long moments wasted daydreaming about how good things would be, if only.

I'm sure you're familiar with if only.

Not too long ago, the Hewlett Packard Corporation ran an advertising campaign under the rubric "What if?" The genius of this slogan is immense, because HP didn't have to actually claim as reality any of the things they were describing or depicting in their ads. And, in fact, most of the ideas remain very elusive in the computing world: seamless communication between different machines, unbridled power to express your creativity. I'm sure the same kinds of images are employed under their latest ads as well.

But "What if?" begged us to dream. To imagine what was possible if only we were to purchase one of these shiny new trinkets of technology.

I don't know about you, but as an over-spoiled American consumer, I don't need the slightest bit of encouragement to dream about the possibilities. Or, more to the point, as someone securely fitted with a fallen human nature, I don't need the help of any corporate marketing department in order to wile away a few hours thinking about how much better my life would be if only.

A few days ago at lunch time, my son was seated with his friends around our kitchen table eating mac and cheese. They were freshly invigorated from a morning of intense pretending, interspersed with PBS programming downstairs in our basement. So even as Caleb was partaking of the literal blessings of a genuine, kid-approved lunch, his mind was still reeling in the imagination space that I vividly remember being such an immense part of my own childhood. So I wasn't the least surprised to hear him announce shortly after they had said their prayer for the food, "Let's pray that Jesus will give us the power to jump into a book!"

You have to understand that he was referring to the mantra of a super-hero clad cartoon boy named "Super Why" who, on the public television show by the same title, solves his friend's problems by reading classic children's stories. Only in their world, when they want to get "into a book" they really do, by donning their superhero costumes and teleporting into the land of imagination.

What makes the overheard moment from Friday's lunch so memorable, though, was that moments after uttering this admonition, Caleb further suggested, "Let's pray to Jesus... And Santa Clause!"

Hmmm. Maybe my five year-old is onto something there. At least he must have sensed that Jesus wasn't going to answer a prayer for an imaginary blessing! For that, he needed to invoke an imaginary benefactor. I could wish that he realized the frivolity of praying for something he saw in a televised cartoon; but more likely he quickly surveyed the miracles he had read in the gospels, the stories he had heard in Sabbath school, plus the prayers his mother and I had modeled over the inaugural years of his life, and concluded that Jesus just wasn't into such things.

In any case, it got me to thinking about the blessings I'm hoping for. Real or imaginary? I ask myself.

In my Bible reading this morning, David pours out his petitions to God in Psalm 59. Once again, David is addressing the issue of his many mortal enemies. I thought for a moment that maybe he shouldn't be so worried about the threats around him, but then I read the italicized introduction printed above the opening verse: "To the Chief Musician. Set to 'Do Not Destroy.' A Michtam of David when Saul sent men, and they watched the house in order to kill him."

OK. So David really did have something to worry about. And I realize that much more is at stake than David merely thinking how much better things would be for him if God would "consume them in wrath" and "let them know that God rules in Jacob..." (verse 13) His very life and livelihood hang in the balance. And woven in and through these feelings is David's sanctified zeal for God's great name to be honored by the nations surrounding him and by his own nation.

While pondering David's dilemmas, I began to think about the situations I would change if I could press the right combination of keys on the vending machine of heaven. Wouldn't my life be so much better if only God would take care of a few things down here to my liking?

But then the Holy Spirit suggests this to my mind: that things can only get really better when we ask God to take care of things to His liking. Or, expressed in the genre of my musings this morning, maybe I ought to be praying more realistic prayers. Prayers I know Jesus would really love to hear, full of petitions I know He would love me to ask of Him. Maybe more prayers about what blessings God imagines for the real people He's watching over 24-7. (Food for dying orphans and shelter for homeless refugees?) In humility, I conclude that at the very least I need a massive change of heart in order to be praying more according to the mind of Christ than in the spirit of my overactive imagination.

Or, I guess I could always cc: Santa, just in case.

My God!

2010-07-08T08:15:00.000-07:00

Read Psalm 63 this morning and didn't make it past the first half of the first line before having a thought to share. Here's the text: "O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You;" (NKJV)

The point for consideration is this: what a privilege it is to be able to say, "O God" and what a different thing it is altogether to be able to say "You are my God!" In fact, four times in Psalms does David juxtapose these two, most notably in Psalm 43:4, "Then I will go to the altar of God, To God my exceeding joy; And on the harp I will praise You, O God, my God." All of these references are in the context of praise and most are in direct connection to the sanctuary, God's dwelling place and also the place where, on earth, these two expressions merge into one: "O God" and "My God." (The remaining two of the four are in Psalm 68:24 and 71:12.)

These two expressions feature the two most impressive dimensions of God's character. First, that He simply IS and as such is THE AUTHOR of all things. Genesis 1:1 makes no apologies for the existence of God, nor does it try to explain it or, more impossibly, Him. But His very nature throughout Genesis 1 is encapsulated in the divine name employed by Moses: "Elohim." This is a reflection of the omnipotent, the majestic, the completely other. It is God in the plural or rather the divine plural as He is everywhere all the time and is Himself three-in-one. It is the name employed by the Genesis chronicler when God declares, "Let us make man in Our image" and indeed He made us plural as well, "male and female He created them." (Genesis 1:27)

And so is hinted that even in the ultimately transcendent nature of God there is relationship. Such didn't arise merely when God had man to communicate with. God had already the perfect communion within Himself as Father, Son and Spirit. But once He does have His very nature reflected in one of His own creations, men and women, He is known by them as "Yaweh-Elohim," or "Lord God" as is employed from Genesis 2:4-25, the second telling of the creation account from the now unique perspective of life on earth.

It is this wonderful connection of transcendence and relationship that David celebrates when he pens, "Oh God, You are my God." But when one considers the corpus of the entire treasury of the Psalms, one senses that such is not taken for granted by the Psalmist. A third reference to this couplet occurs in Psalm 71:12 where David exclaims, "O God, do not be far from me; O my God, make haste to help me!" We want God near us, but the very God we need in such times is the All Powerful and Majestic, who can not only draw near, but truly help in every circumstance.

As Mr. Beaver admonishes Lucy in their approach to Aslan's throne, "Safe? Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king I tell you." So we also want both a safe and an un-safe God. One bigger than everything in the universe, yet One who is a friend and a helper to us: "Oh God, You are my God!"

Thanks to David Shore's blog entry, Your God is Too Safe, from whence I copied the C.S. Lewis quote.

Don't Wait for the Video

2009-09-04T05:58:00.001-07:00

You've probably experienced this. You read a book that you really enjoyed and then hear that Hollywood is releasing a movie based on the story. Sound familiar?

And while it may be a matter of personal choice whether to partake of the box office or home video, what certainly remains uncontestedly unacceptable is passing on reading the book because you're waiting for the video-- or at least admitting such.

I think the reason that most people agree that there is no comparing a book with its hollywood counterpart is that the latter will always remain an inferior expression of the former. For one thing, the story is most always simplified and usually altered to fit the visual, 90-minute format. Viewing a simplifyied, however visual, version of a great work of biography or fiction will never be an experience worth trading for the original. That's why the Academy Awards, and such, recognize the screen writer and script as a unique step in the creative process of making a movie. There is no award for "it was just like the book!" Theater remains its own creative medium regardless of whether readers will ever be comfortable with movie-goers comparing the screenplay with the novel.

So here's a spiritual thought, now that I've got you thinking. In the realm of revelation, things are actually reversed! The Bible proudly confesses that the 3-D visual version of the truth as seen in Jesus is SUPERIOR to the classic story of salvation woven through the many prophets and pages of the Old Testament. Can there be any doubt that Jesus (God in the flesh) is a better revelation of God than the mere words recorded in the Old Testament, (God in the text)? Addressing this point, John begins his first general epistle with these words:

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life--the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us--that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full." 1 John 1:1-4

In other words, no one is going to prefer mere verbal description of a good thing over the chance to "look upon" it, and the ability to say you've "handled" it with your own hands. This is one limitation of internet shopping. There are some things which you will never be comfortable buying unless you can see it in person, try it on or out for yourself, play with it. A store with a liberal return policy caters to this reality, and a website that heaps lots of conditions on returning a product will thereby exclude themselves from a whole sector of cautious shoppers.

John's words tell us that when Jesus appeared on the stage of human history, he gave humanity the chance to handle him with their own hands, to test him out and try him on for ourselves. And that we did! There are four gospels precisely because seeing was believing. And these gospels are filled with accounts of all types of people from all backgrounds coming to meet this Jesus for themselves.

Ironically, from our position in history, we must return to the role of reader to examine their first-hand accounts. Thankfully, the billions of people who DIDN'T have the opportunity to live during the 33 years Jesus walked the earth have a unique promise recorded early on in the Bible:

"No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." Jeremiah 31:34

This powerful passage tells us that God can be known first-hand and personally by everyone who seeks him, not just the population of earth 2000 years ago. This amazing truth correlates well with a few other verses that would be otherwise be meaningless without Jeremiah's promise:

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7

"Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!" Psalm 34:8

In fact, Jeremiah's prophecy itself records God's powerful promise on this matter:

"You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13

The concept that everyone can know God for himself is itself a critical part of what the Bible calls the "New Covenant." The surrounding passage of Jeremiah's quote makes this clear:

Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-- not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." Jeremiah 31:31-34

Some regard this as a FUTURE promise to be fulfilled only when Jesus would come in person hundreds of years after Jeremiah recorded it. These believers point to the moment Jesus raised the cup at the last supper with the words, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you." Luke 22:20

But if the New Covenant were only to be experienced by people when Jesus raised his cup, than the promise of knowing God for oneself would be restricted to the twelve apostles alone, one of whom was a false apostle. Indeed, the book of Acts reports the disciple's false sense of their importance in this regard. In Acts chapter one, Peter stands up and gives a speech about Judas' death as prophesied in the book of Psalms. He then claims that the number of twelve disciples must be kept: "Therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection." (Acts 1:21,22) Oddly enough, the man chosen, "Matthias," is never again mentioned in scripture, nor is the number of apostles ever mentioned again as significant. Indeed, what follows in Acts 2 is the falling of the Holy Spirit in fulfillment of Jesus' promise to be with his disciples "until the end of the age." (Matthew 28) Thus, the Power and Presence of the Spirit becomes the new standard for what enables someone to witness for Jesus. It is knowing him first-hand through the personal work of the Holy Spirit in each life that enables that person to be a disciple.

But this is nothing new. Peter's second general epistle tells us:

"And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." 2 Peter 1:19-21

In other words, the same Holy Spirit that speaks to us CONFIRMING what we read in Scripture to be true, guaranteeing its truth to each individual reader personally, is the same Holy Spirit that communicated the Scriptures to the prophets in the first place. Thus, despite what through other channels of communication would end up being second-hand information, we enjoy first-hand knowledge of Jesus Christ personally through his Word, the Bible, as confirmed by the Holy Spirit in our very hearts.

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I've never seen a TV news journalist stand in front of a remote camera and merely read what another journalist had written. Rather, news crews and reporters rush to the scene of an event in order to cover it first-hand. Even if the footage is merely the outside of a courthouse, good reporters get as close to the events as they themselves can before switching on the camera.

In fact, I'd venture to say that when it comes to getting reliable information, no sensible person is going to favor a second-hand source if they had the option of seeing something for themselves. Just as no cultured person would equate a hollywood blockbuster to the original epic novel it was based on, no journalist would be satisfied with, "I'll just wait to read what someone else says." And no news junkie would settle for "film at eleven" if they could be there to witness the action for themselves.

So when it comes to knowing Jesus, don't wait for the video. Read the book yourself and rest assured that because of the promised power of the Holy Spirit, what you receive as a result is your own FIRST HAND relationship with the Almighty God of the Universe.

As one of the GodSpeaks.com billboards once mused:

Have you read my #1 best seller? (There will be a test.)

-God

The Truth Hurts

2009-01-05T21:26:00.001-08:00

Why does "the truth hurt?"

Actually, that phrase is shorthand for the truth it is elucidating, which stated fully is: "The truth hurts worst when it first hits you." Which is to say that there are a great deal of truths with which we live in complete, comfortable harmony, even though many of those truths hurt us when we first learned them.

Gravity is a painful truth to the newbie on a bicycle.

A hangover is a painful truth to the college freshman.

Hot peppers reveal their painful truth the first time you encounter one unexpectedly in a mouthful of authentic Thai food.

I am completely comfortable with these truths now, although they each were quite humbling when they were first delivered fresh and piping hot to my door in thirty minutes or less. And this raises an interesting distinction. The EXPERIENCE of these things-- falling off a bike, waking up after binge drinking, or eating spicy food--may remain painful whenever they occur, but the TRUTH ITSELF behind them isn't painful at all. I am perfectly reconciled to these truths, even if I'd rather now avoid their consequences.

So what is the common medicine that truth delivers each time it hurts?

It seems to me that truth hurts precisely because it brings us an unexpected gift: the reality that we have something more to learn that by nature can only be learned through pain.

This is not to say that all truths are delivered painfully. The bliss of a first kiss is an experience that is not painful at all and from which we learn how enjoyable kissing is (and to which we return again and again throughout life.)

But mere kissing is a circular truth. The only truth that a meaningless kiss delivers is that kissing is, by itself, enjoyable. But no kiss is a mere kiss, and thus no kiss can remain ultimately meaningless.

When you discover that you were kissed merely to make another suitor jealous is the moment that a painful truth hits you about human nature and, specifically, the nature of the relationship you actually had with that girl as contrasted with the one you thought you had. The kiss of a traitor--of Judas' lips upon Jesus--that is indeed a painful truth.

The realization that there is more to a relationship than kissing is a less painful truth, but painful in its own right.

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Here is the most painful thing a person can realize: I am not who I thought I was. And second only to that is: What other people think of me is not what I had been counting on them thinking.

And here is the painful lesson a pastor must learn over and over again: What I've been trying to say is not what people have necessarily been hearing.

The latter is painful news on its own, but it is actually good news in light of the first two truths mentioned just before.

That is, when we realize that what we have been trying to say is not necessarily what people have been hearing, we can be relieved, because we're not who we thought we were anyway, and our audience hasn't exactly been seeing us with the aid of our built-in, personally-preferential, rose-colored glasses.

Which is a long and convoluted way of saying, "It's awfully good to discover you're in the Grace Business, when you realize how much Grace you actually need."

Do you get my point? Or am I about to learn another painful lesson...

Every Transforming Ministry Needs an Incubator

2009-01-05T21:08:00.000-08:00

Incubators are for chicks, not chickens. And Jesus calls us to be children, not adults.

Somehow these twin insights seem particularly obvious to me at the moment. I have spent the last few hours taking a second look at an age-old situation: a congregation that is not going anywhere. This was not, of course, the age-old problem for the particular congregation I've been discussing with my father- and brother-in-law. THAT congregation was, like all congregations, a vibrant, growing one at one time. All congregations BEGIN at some point, and that point is usually rich with energy and ripe with growth. That is, all mature chickens start out as chicks. The difficulty with growing the kingdom of God (or at least OUR difficulty) is that most pastors are tending to chicken houses filled with mature chickens rather than establishing incubators filled with chicks.

Chickens in chicken houses seem like a good situation, because chickens lay eggs. And the kingdom of God needs mature Christians to disciple new ones.

The problem is that we have employed pastors in tending to chicken houses, where egg-laying is the responsibility (and sole ability) of chickens. As a result, there are a lot of still-born chicks (read that, eggs) which are seen as the goal by the egg-eating pastor (stay with me now) rather than seeing within the egg a future chicken and a suite of future chicken houses. Every congregation seems to reach the point of settling into an 'enough is enough' production capacity for eggs. And by NOT incubating them into new chickens and rehousing them in new chicken houses, we are essentially sitting down to a enjoy a perpetual egg dinner where the chickens supply US rather than US supplying THEM (with their own offspring and new houses to grow in).

If we ever want chickens--er, Christians-- to take over the world, we'd better stop eating eggs and start building incubators.

So now let me return to the impetus for the insight.

As I said at the outset, I have just spent a few hours talking about the challenges facing a non-numerically-growing congregation. In doing this, I had the LUXURY of having two mature fellow-Christians with similar experience and passion for change to banter with. As we talked together, iron sharpened iron (as Proverbs says) and our focus became sharper; our ideas clearer. To the point of actually generating excitement and new desire for change within the three of us. One of the three is the current pastor of the congregation under discussion. Could he have generated this energy alone? From his very words in our conversation, he was eager to see some of these new ideas plied toward his struggling congregation. That is, he'd love to have this kind of incubation happening on an ongoing basis to help his church recapture a vision for growth rather than mere survival. Ideally, his denomination's structure would provide this kind of thing, but realistically, leadership tends toward egg-eating rather than incubator-building, just like pastors do.

What the mission field of the kingdom of God needs is an impetus to incubate. We need something from OUTSIDE to enter into the inert mix of going-nowhere chemicals to FUEL a new REACTION. Something that generates ENERGY. A catalyst to create incubators. It's what we need, but not something we naturally want. We naturally want more eggs to eat, not more eggs to incubate. Incubation requires that our energy go into the new thing, whereas we're used to the status quo of getting energy out of the new thing by eating the eggs. (As I write this, my four year-old son is wailing in the kitchen, "Mama! What can I eat?" He seems to be making my point rather demonstrably.)

And I realize that I need an incubator that will catalyze me, too. I need an impetus to incubator-creation, rather than an organization that will teach me how to prepare eggs for the table. I need this because I believe the organization I am called to lead must itself be an incubator for the kingdom to grow.

Parenting & Pastoring

2009-01-05T21:07:00.001-08:00

So that's it then. Pastoring is the tireless task of continually helping people adjust their perspectives to see what Jesus sees.

I had this flash of insight as I walked away from two giggling children--my four year-old son and his five year-old cousin. They weren't giggling when I encountered them five minutes earlier. Now they were happily writing letters and drawing shapes on my in-laws' (their proud grandparents') driveway. Moments earlier, my son, Caleb, had one of his new chalk pieces raised defiantly over his head, about to throw it down to shatter it on the driveway. No doubt things had started out more like I left them after my brief intervention. However, something had happened just before I arrived that had changed His relationship with the chalk, with his cousin, and with the driveway he had initially been at peace with.

After taking in the scene and asking a simple opening question, ("What happened?") I discovered that Caleb had dropped one of his new pieces of giant chalk (brand new, virgin chalk just received yesterday for Christmas) and it had broken in at least two pieces, disappointing him and dashing his joy at the same time. My knowledge about my son and how he often reacts to unexpected disappointments helped me realize that I had to act quickly to keep him from, in response, deliberately breaking the remaining pieces each, one by one. It seems that my son reacts to uncontrollable disappointment with controlled aggression. Since he wasn't able to control the accidental breaking of his chalk, he chose to feel empowered by deliberately breaking other pieces rather than face the sadness of the situation.

OK. Back story now complete, I can tell you that I yelled, "Stop!" which did keep him from immediately throwing the next piece of chalk down. Then, I ran to his side and embraced him. And his response to my compassion, was to break down crying and finally move through the pain he was feeling but trying to deny.

I know this may all sound like as much psychobabble, but I think I have the essence of the situation in the right light. However, it hardly matters what was actually going on with my son before I first yelled 'stop' and then ran to embrace him. This intervention would work with almost any painful predicament people find themselves in. It's just that, without Jesus in our hearts, we try to do all kinds of other things (gluing chalk together, inventing softer driveways, providing therapy groups for chalk artists) rather than providing what every heart needs. A command to rest, and then a loving environment to provide it.

It seems to me that this is exactly what the church should be. It was what Jesus was. According to Matthew's gospel, Jesus BEGAN by preaching "Repent!" That is, His first message was "Stop!" Then He quickly ran in with the hug, because, according to John's gospel, "He knew what was in man." Read that, He knew what we needed, and still does.

He knew we were feeling pain that couldn't be redecorated or remodeled satisfactorily to the point of reversing our pain. He knew that mere modification of our problems was just avoiding the important thing--that we were hurting. We were hurting ourselves and were poised to hurt others, all the while smarting from the evil we ourselves had experienced.

Look at the Garden of Eden as a petrie dish in which this first encounter with evil was tested. Enter sin FROM OUTSIDE. Deception fell the first tree, which then knocked over the second and we've been falling, dying, and rotting away ever since. Bud did Jesus enter in order to judge us? To condemn us? Not then and not now! He quickly discerns the situation, understands exactly what is going on (even though we are clueless and are focused more on blaming the source of the problem rather than dealing with the reality of its consequences) yells, 'stop!' and moves in with the hug.

I won't go into the theological unpacking of his response, which may on the surface seem less "hug-like" and more "punishment," but trust me for now, it's not. His response is nothing more than the announcement of His pre-determined, pre-planned response to our first ever disappointment and that was to spread his arms out on the cross and die in our place so that we wouldn't experience the consequences He knew we were heading into as a result of our choices. Jesus' entire earthly (and supporting heavenly ministry via the Holy Spirit) is encapsulated in the Genesis 3:15 promise he declares in the wake of the sin-war's first gunshots.

But back to the main point.

As I walked away from my son and his cousin, I was pleased for having changed their course of action. I was glad my son did not add insult to injury, destruction to accident, and that I could head off further pain. I also took some time to help him see how he could do some things with his now smaller chalk pieces that he couldn't do with them when they were new and whole. In the same way, Jesus has not yet reversed the curse of sin, but He has shown us how to act while earth remains in its dark valley.

And ironically, the way we are to act is the same way He acted and will continue to act. To stop people who are getting ready to add destruction to accident, misery to circumstance, insult to injury. And then to hug them so that they can get over the temporary experience of pain and learn the everlasting way of love.

Thus, as a pastor, I am charged with the continual redirecting and refocusing God's hugged people into hugging others, and teach his sin-arrested people into compassionately arresting others in their tracks so they can experience something else than the inevitable pain of another step in sin.

It's how Jesus sees things, I think. At least it's what I'm seeing now.

Luke 14:1-24 Ethics Redefined

2009-01-05T21:05:00.000-08:00

Having Jesus over for lunch can be hazardous to your perspective on life.

In this passage, Jesus is attending a Sabbath meal at the home of one of the "rulers of the Pharisees." Jesus no sooner sits down than he has three things to teach the Pharisees who invited him. The first comes without prompting. It is to clarify the purpose of the Sabbath. Now, correct me if I'm wrong; but I can't think of any situation where Jesus wasted a single breath giving credence to a single man-made tradition. In all four gospels, there is no evidence that Jesus came to bring reform to anything other than the very principles and statues that he commanded in the first place.

When Jesus says, "You have heard that...," he is doubtless opening a conversation that will lead to a new perspective on an old teaching. And although he doesn't use that phrase specifically in this passage, his method of teaching is precisely that. Implied in this first exchange is the introduction, 'You have heard that it is UNlawful to heal on the Sabbath.' It has been suggested by many that this is evidence of Jesus' redefinition of the Sabbath-- a premonition of its ultimate end at the cross. But this could hardly be the case if Jesus actually makes time on this particular occasion to change the Pharisaical perspective on one of his commandments.

A strong parallel to this first teaching is found over and over in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus broadens and expands the prevalent understanding on two other of the 10 commandments-- murder and adultery. In each of these cases, he brings up an old commandment in order to give it new life and bearing on the present context of his listeners.

Now, Jesus takes up the Sabbath commandment, the fourth of the Decalogue which prompts the question of WHY he would do such a thing if his purpose was to repeal that requirement altogether. However, instead of rebuking their petty insistence on Sabbath observance, he broadens the application of the Sabbath to the realm of DOING rather than exclusively NOT doing. Again, this is parallel with his Sermon on the Mount treatment of murder and adultery where the POSITIVE obligations of loving and respecting others in the heart are added to the prohibitions against killing and fornication.

And Jesus is not going to merely comment about eating or socializing on the Sabbath. He is going to directly defend his people's right to expect health and healing from their Sabbath experience. Perhaps this is in response to something one of these teachers said in synagogue that morning. Maybe in the morning service, there had been some ghastly human tradition put forth as a precept of the Almighty. And unknown to them, the Almighty had been sitting in the congregation listening.

Needless to say, the burden to LIFT burdens is on Jesus heart after spending a morning with these self-proclaimed proclaimers of his law. Imagine living a spiritual life, informed only by the teachings of those who routinely "bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers." (Matthew 23:4)

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The second teaching relates not to something the Pharisees are notorious for teaching--as in their Sabbath restrictions--but rather DOING. Go to any Pharisee function and you'll have to get there early to sit anywhere near the front. I'm sure they didn't have handicapped parking spaces in Jerusalem, but if they did, you can bet the "Reserved for Pharisee" space was closer! How human, the desire to be first. Yet, how contrary to Christ himself. I can only wonder where Jesus was sitting as he teaches this. Maybe they have asked him to sit at the head table and that is why Jesus' teaching comes with the caveat that it isn't inappropriate to sit in a good place, it's just wrong to choose that place for yourself. In any case, the Jesus I know would have felt more comfortable eating with the kitchen staff than with the rulers who invited him.

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The final teachable moment of the day comes in response to a comment made by a Pharisee at his table. And it's precisely why I made the observation I did at the first: Having Jesus over for lunch can be hazardous to your perspective on life.

I have to feel for this guy. He is no doubt uncomfortable with all the teaching Jesus is doing. After all, Jesus ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE TEACHING! THEY are the official teachers. As an informed Christian, I can attest to the fact that it is hard just LISTENING to someone else testify about Christ. So often we listen with little more than half of our brains, while the majority is processing what we're going to say next. Maybe I should have said, "Having a BLOG about Jesus may be hazardous to your perspective on life," because blogging is all about talking (or typing) what is in your head. And like all other human communication, it doesn't require much listening.

I'm guessing, though, that the man who made this comment was searching for what to say. He realizes that he is in dangerous waters. He was at the synagogue that morning and heard the teaching that Jesus is now responding to in his admonitions on healing and humility. At the very least, he is very familiar with the prevalent perspectives on these matters.

So he picks something safe. "Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!" I can imagine the dance his guts are doing as he lets this pithy truism loose on his audience of esteemed fellow-scholars.

Instinctively, even subconsciously, every Pharisee knows by now that Jesus is not going to leave even mankind's most cherished daffodils unpruned. But he wants to have something to show for himself, on behalf of his spiritual pedigree. So he lets this one fly. And I can almost hear the pious 'amens' grunted around the room as other like-minded experts are quick to affirm his lofty sentiment.

And little exegesis is required to discover the bottom line of Jesus lengthy response: "For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper."

It turns out that Jesus has been planning a Sabbath luncheon, too. In fact, it has been in the works for several thousand years. And here are the invitees. He's surrounded by them. But they're not at HIS party. They're content with their own. And that's the rub. We can do and do and do and do as Christians, but unless we simply come to what we can't provide ourselves, we're left holding the bag.

"You're all at YOUR party," Jesus is saying, "but NONE of you are at MINE." Wow. Not exactly tactful, to say the least. But can you see the tears in his eyes as he drops his conclusion on them. Can you hear the scream of unsettling silence that settles over the room. Luke records no denouement, but simply moves on to the next incredible revelation born on another occasion, at another time, in another place. And so, like the gospels themselves, Jesus' words are left ringing across time--across millennia. Left to fall on the ears of those who might yet hear: do good on my Sabbath, live humbly, and please, PLEASE, accept my invitation.

Luke 5:33-39 Of Wine and Wineskins

2009-01-05T21:03:00.000-08:00

I've heard sermons on this passage before. There is obviously a lot of room for interpretation here. Jesus is speaking quite figuratively as is evident in the context, because the train of thought flowing through his teaching at this moment as well as the situation he is in would otherwise not merit a discussion on wine-making. So what is Jesus getting at here?

I know the word 'paradigm' has been overused when it comes to the church-- pastors are asked what their paradigm for ministry is, church boards wrestle with paradigms while hammering out their vision and mission statements. But paradigm is the no doubt the thing that Jesus is up against here. The gospel of Luke-- and maybe all four gospels in general-- chronicle the Savior's battle to change the spiritual paradigm in the minds of everyone he meets.

Never does Jesus meet up with someone but he is immediately about the work of challenging their point of view. Even so, I do not perceive Jesus as being overly confrontational. He is amazingly gentle in his approach to changing minds. He is not a salesman, and even while he is continually casting a new vision for the Kingdom of God, he is not remotely close to a CEO or any contemporary leader I know. Yet, he is pushing the envelope all the time.

Consider the simple exchanges leading up to this scene. Luke 5 begins with the story of Jesus teaching from the bow of Peter's fishing boat. After he finishes his sermon, he challenges them to take up the same nets that have been frustrating them all night. After no fish for however many hours, their nets and boats are full to overflowing. It would be an understatement to say that this was NOT what these humble fishermen expected from a Rabbi--even one that was taking a particular interest in them.

Next, Jesus cleanses a leper. An untouchable touched by compassion rather than the fear and prejudice he was used to from others.

Then, Jesus forgives a man's sins. Blasphemy is the only word the religious leaders have for such an audacious claim.

And the last prelude to the Wine & Wineskin sermon is a feast with the local Union of Tax Collectors. An appalling display of broken boundaries and disregard of social order.

Now, having had every one of their spiritual sensibilities violated, their sense of social order upended, and now with their prejudices running at fever-level, they approach Jesus with the typically understated question about fasting. Just as an aside, we should note that people who are appalled at our behavior don't necessarily approach us with the obvious questions. If a religious person challenges your style of music, there's a good chance they're actually appalled at a lot more, and not necessarily with good reason.

Back to the wineskin discussion, it seems that given the whole feel and flow of this chapter and Jesus' ministry in general, that this very symbolic discussion is somehow a summary of Jesus' experience with mankind over the past several pericopes. After all, doesn't the limitation of old wineskins rather perfectly describe what's been going on in Luke's fifth chapter. It's the paradigm-bursting ferment of new ideas and revolutionary thinking that Jesus is dishing out. And none of it is particularly challenging intellectually. It just cuts across the gut instinct of his listeners. It rubs every prejudice the wrong way.

Now, I have met people who love the new. All the time, they are about the radically cutting-edge. Yet, I don't get this feel from Jesus here at all. Rather, he is uncovering an anciently old principle of unconditional love and letting it blaze a forest-fire of destruction across the verdent hills of pharisaic prejudice, which it turns out is alive and well in everyone's heart, not just the pedigreed preachers.

So, one final thought. Maybe the new wineskins are simply the young, or the spiritually young-at-heart. Since as we age we all naturally tend to settle into the rigormortus of our personal religious routine; and since it is the very nature of life to seek and finally arrive at and therby to treasure (and shelter) our long sought-after religious convictions, perhaps Jesus needs a new generation every... well... every generation, in order to rebirth the good news in a fresh way that challenges the status quo of the faithful; that knocks agressively on the doors of our hearts; that confronts the... yes... the paradigms of life.