Renewing Your Mind

Jesus Says "Follow Me." Are You Listening?

2012-01-25T11:51:00.001-06:00

WaldorfCollege Chapel: January 25, 2012

Jesus says“Follow Me”. Are you Listening?

Hymns

#793 “Be Thou My Vision”

#574 “Here I Am, Lord”

Scripture Readings:

Mark 1:16-20 ¹⁶ As Jesus passed along the Seaof Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea--for they were fishermen. ¹⁷And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish forpeople." ¹⁸ Andimmediately they left their nets and followed him. ¹⁹ As he went a little farther, hesaw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mendingthe nets. ²⁰ Immediately hecalled them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men,and followed him.

Mark 2:14 ¹⁴ As he was walking along, hesaw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him,"Follow me." And he got up and followed him.

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Vocation &the Unknown

The very first time Ispoke in chapel my topic was vocation and so I think that it is fitting that Iam going to speak about vocation this final time.

Vocation is somethingthat you hear a lot about at Waldorf, and it also is not necessarily an easything to figure out. Listening to a callfrom God is not always obvious and takes a great deal of trust in Him.

And in the last fewmonths, I have learned a lot about what it means to really trust God with mylife. I can’t say it has been easy,because it hasn’t been, but it has been very rewarding and as difficult as itcan be, I would hope that everyone would be able to experience that reliance onGod at some point in their lives.

Having had to totallytrust God in the last few months has not changed me in any obvious ways that Ican describe well, but I do sense that it has changed me in smaller ways. I feel more at peace with knowing that mylife is not under my control and my desires, and that is something new for me;I like control and I want to do what I want to do.

I have a book called The Coach’s Wife and in it, the authortalks about submission and says that when we coaches wives choose to let ourlives “be guided by his career and his plans” that we “will actually obtainmore of what [we] want and need” and that “the earlier [we] agree to submit,the sooner [we’ll] get more of what [we] need” (17). I don’t particularly like reading that,because when I do, the independent feminist part of me gets fairly worked up,offended, and irate.

However, as much as Ihate to admit it, this advice has proven true in my life. Having Greg follow his career has led me intoplaces I would not have chosen for myself and has opened upopportunities—callings—that I would never have anticipated. If you had told me six years ago that I wouldbe leading worship services and giving sermons I would not have really believedyou; after all, I was terrified ofpublic speaking. Yet, here I am, doingexactly that.

A couple of years ago Idecided to take Steve’s “Senior Religion” class for fun and one of the topicsthat we discussed at one point was the idea of multiple vocations. Thisidea that there isn’t necessarily one thing we are each meant to do in our livesreally resonated with me, because there isn’t one thing, one particular job that I have done or have had a goal ofdoing (I’m a terrible goal-maker anyway so that doesn’t help). I’ve had multiple callings in my life so farand am now waiting to find out what the next one is.

And, we see it with thedisciples that Jesus called too.

The fishermen were nolonger fishermen after Jesus called them. Levi the tax collector left his job. They now had something new to do. The vocation that they had always thought they’d be doing with theirlives was now over and they were starting a new and unknown journey.

The people that Jesusfirst called did not know what was ahead of them. They just followed him when he called them. It reminds me of God calling Abraham in Genesis12, when it says

“Now the LORD said toAbram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to theland that I will show you.’” (Genesis 12:1, NRSV)

and Abraham does it,without question. Now, there are alsoexamples of people not wanting to do what God says right away, and I probablyfall into that category more often than not, but right now I’m identifying withthe people who just go.

Abraham and Jesus’disciples were both setting out to do something unknown. We aren’t told how they felt about it, onlythat they did it. We see that Jesus tookordinary people, out of their ordinary lives, just like you and me, andtransformed them to do what he was calling them to do.

Jesus asks them to followhim, to fish for people, and to proclaim the message.

And in Mark 3:14 we aretold that they will be “sent out”, but, again, they don’t know where.

Not knowing what thefuture will bring and only relying on what is happening in the present is avery scary thing.

But if we call ourselvesdisciples of Jesus; if we claim to be his followers, then I think we have toactually do it. Even—or maybe especially—whenit makes us uncomfortable.

So. Here I go. I’m leaving the place that I have called home for the last 5 ½ years tofollow God’s calling on both Greg’s and my lives and yet I have no idea what is in store for me. Some days I am ok with that. Some days I wonder what the heck I am doing andI want to have a tantrum about it and say I’m not going to go; I feel safe andcontent here.

Something that you hearat Waldorf is that vocation is where your passion meets the world’s needs. The world may not be the entire earth; yourworld is the world in which you live each day—your dorm, your department oncampus, the town in which you currently live or where you spend your collegebreaks. Your Facebook and Twitterworld. Your Farmville world. Your world is both limited and unlimited, andthere are unlimited opportunities for you to discover what you are called to doin your world, whether it is a calling for a day or a calling for a year or acalling for a lifetime.

In my very first homily,I spoke about what I learned from a book by Os Guiness titled The Call (which Steve has finallypromised to read this summer to see if he wants to use it in Senior Religion) andthe main point that I took away from it was that our primary calling is that of being a disciple of Jesus. Thatis what is first and foremost in our lives. Everything else is secondary.

Guinness says that “Asense of calling should precede a choice of job and career, and the main way todiscover calling is along the line of what we are each created and gifted tobe. Instead of “You are what you do,”calling says “Do what you are.” (45)

In this book, Guinness endsevery chapter with “Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.” It is a beautiful repetition of words, quietlywhispering a reminder to us to be allthat God calls us to be.

When we “do what we are”,the world can open up for us in ways we may not have imagined—but God seesquite clearly.

Willing to Listen

A lot of times we expectthat God will speak in big, miraculous, audible ways. But so often, it is the opposite: He speaks to ordinary people in ordinarycircumstances. How many people heardJesus’ voice calling to them in the sermon on the mount or when they were in alarge crowd and were fed, or when they witnessed something that he did?

Jesus often says “letanyone with hears to hear listen” so let’s be open to listening. God can speak tous all he wants but if we are not willing to listen, what good will it do? Listening might require silence, as it didfor the prophet Elijah. It might meanhearing something and then asking questions, as we see with the disciplesasking questions about Jesus’ parables. It might mean pondering Jesus’ question “who do you say that I am?” andcoming to a realization of who he is. Butwe have to be willing to listen. IfJesus is calling us to something and we are standing there like a little childwith our hands over our ears and our eyes shut, then we are missing out on whathe has in store for us.

It’s important for us to learnto listen, because the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Comforter, the One thatJesus sent to guide us today, is like a breath—we can’t see it—yet we can knowit’s presence.

Take Home

For some people heretoday, it might be that it is the first time you have heard Jesus call to youto follow him. For others, it might bethat Jesus is calling you to follow him with a deeper commitment than you havebeen. Whatever the call, I urge you tostep out in faith and listen.

Know that He will prepareyou for the future. Let Him be yourvision.

Be open to where God iscalling you. Tell him “Here I am; I haveheard you”

Trust Him.

⁵ Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your owninsight. ⁶ In all your waysacknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.--Proverbs 3:5-6

Apathy or Hope? This week's Advent thoughts

2011-12-05T14:19:00.001-06:00

This week's thoughts are not my own, but is simply a short paragraph I read in a commentary that I thought was appropriate for Advent.

“It is a characteristic of the bestof us that we are in a hurry. To wait is even harder than to beadventurous. The hardest time of all is the time in between. At themoment of decision, there is the excitement and the thrill; at the moment ofachievement there is the glow and glory of satisfaction; but, in theintervening time, it is necessary to have the ability to wait and work andwatch when nothing seems to be happening. It is then that we are mostliable to give up our hopes and lower our ideals and sink into an apathy whosedreams are dead. Men and women of faith are people whose hope is flamingbrightly and whose effort is intensely strenuous even in the grey days whenthere is nothing to do but wait.” --William Barclay in The New DailyStudy Bible: The Letter to the Hebrews, page 172.

WAIT!

2011-11-28T09:28:00.001-06:00

I was reminded yesterday that it was the first Sunday inAdvent, which is the “Christian New Year”. Advent gets little attention;it’s sandwiched in there between Thanksgiving, Black Friday, andChristmas. During Advent, we wait to celebrate the birth of the Messiah,and we wait for his second coming.

Waiting is hard.

We text, we Facebook, we tweet, all instantly, and we rarelyhave to wait for anything. We live a fast-paced life and get annoyed whenwe have to wait for things: for exams to be done, for books at thelibrary we need but someone else has, for the end of the semester so we can gohome and visit family, or waiting to find out what will happen in our lives ifwe graduate at semester.

Waiting is hard, but it can be good for us. It canteach us patience and it can teach us to live each day as it comes. Itcan help us to grow in our relationship with God and become stronger in ourfaith.

I hope that in this Advent season, despite the crazinessthat life can bring, you can take some time to peacefully wait and see what Godhas in store for you.

¹⁴Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for theLORD! -- Psalm 27:14

¹¹ For the grace of Godhas appeared, bringing salvation to all, ¹² training us torenounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live livesthat are self-controlled, upright, and godly, ¹³ while we waitfor the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God andSavior, Jesus Christ. -- Titus 2:11-13

Putting Down Those Burdens

2011-11-02T13:37:00.001-05:00

Last week Steve talked about freedom, the freedom that Jesus offers. On the power point we had a picture of some chains. Many of us do not feel free—even if we know we should—and feel as if we have heavy burdens to carry. I know I do not always feel free and I know that I carry burdens around.

I am not up here telling you about this because I am an expert and have it all figured out. It’s pretty much the opposite. Often I have found that when I get ready to speak, I end up speaking about something that I need to learn.

And so I want to expand on what Steve talked about. And, I’ll even mention Martin Luther!
In On Christian Liberty Martin Luther wrote:

“I will therefore give myself as Christ to my neighbor, just as Christ offered himself to me; I will do nothing in this life except what I see is necessary, profitable, and salutary to my neighbor since through faith I have an abundance of all good things in Christ.”

But how can we offer ourselves to our neighbors when we feel burdened—or overburdened—already? I know that I get too focused on what’s going on in my life and it causes me to not pay attention to and be a loving neighbor to people around me.

There are many reasons why we carry around our burdens.

It could be pride and independence—we want to solve our problems by ourselves. Maybe we don’t think God really cares about them or that someone else has bigger and more important problems. Maybe we think that if we give our burdens to God that we are copping out and not taking responsibility for ourselves. Maybe we are perfectionists and don’t want people to think we screw up or that everything is not always great in our lives. Or we may have issues trusting people. How do we know for sure that what we tell someone in confidence is not going to make its way around campus through gossip?

There are so many burdens that people in this world are bearing, and many are bearing them alone. We might wonder how we bear each other’s burdens when we have our own to bear. And I don’t think that we are supposed to get rid of all of ours before helping someone else. I think maybe we are supposed to share them with each other, because they won’t be going away.

In the movie Bruce Almighty , Bruce, as God, gets millions of prayer emails and doesn’t want to bother with them, so he answers every prayer with a yes. This causes a multitude of problems, and after alienating himself from his girlfriend he comes to a point where he takes her pain and her prayers seriously. Let’s take a look at that.

[show clip]

Bruce saw her all of the pain that she was going through and learned that caring for people was important. That taking the time to hear their prayers and know their hearts and feel their burdens was important.

Psalm 68:19 tells us Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation

Who daily bears us up. Having burdens, and giving them up, is not a one-time event, but a daily event. In fact, my Orthodox Jewish friends pray this every morning as part of their daily morning prayers.

How can we daily interact with each other in such a way that we are bearing each other’s burdens? How can we daily be the body of Christ together, bearing each other’s burdens and the burdens of those with whom we come in contact?

And if you have a burden that is weighing on you today that you want to get rid of, right now, you have a piece of paper. Write it down. Someone will collect it from you during the last song (nobody in here will know what it is; it will stay private), and we’ll get rid of them, together, before we all leave.

After chapel is over this morning, if you want to stay and talk, or stay and pray, Greg, Sera, and I will be here to do that with you. Just find one of us.
Our closing song is called “Trading My Sorrows”. I hope that today, you can trade whatever sorrows or burdens that you are bearing for the joy of the Lord.

Thoughts on Gratitude

2011-10-23T13:16:00.000-05:00

Thoughts on gratitude that I gave at a campus-wide staff meeting last week.

Lately, the theme of gratitude has been coming up in my life. And, even though Thanksgiving is still more than a month away, I decided that gratitude would be my topic for this morning.

It’s easy to think of gratitude on Thanksgiving, but it seems that once that day has passed, it’s even easier to fall into not being thankful until the next Thanksgiving.

But then I thought of people like Nic Vuijic, an Australian man with no arms and no legs who travels the world giving inspirational talks. I watched a video of him on YouTube recently in which he talked about not giving up. He demonstrated how even though it should be impossible to get up to a standing position from his stomach, he could do it. He said that even if he failed 99 times, he’d still try. And through this video he talked about how every day that he lives life, he is happy. Happy.

And I thought, how many times do we repeat the same thing, thinking it is worthless? It could be a task we find meaningless or mundane or even just getting up every day, thinking we will be repeating many of the same tasks as the day before: get ready in the morning, go to work, go home, eat dinner, deal with children if we have them, clean the house…so many things that can make it seem as if each day is mundane.
But can’t we find meaning in the mundane?

A few weeks ago at the If Jesus Were a Sophomore book discussion, we talked about where we can find God in the most ordinary of circumstances. The author was surprised to find baseball being turned into God-activity and it altered his point of view. He saw that what this church had done—starting a baseball league for inner-city youth, was just as much—if not more—of a way to see God at work than attending a church service, because it was meeting a desperate need for these children that would hopefully help to keep them off the streets.

Another person in the book wanted desperately to find God in the doing of life –working with youth, driving them to choir practice in a van, at the Laundromat.

So when I think about how Nic Vuijic is happy every day that he lives, it inspires me to be thankful for everything that I have and to look for the positive things in the most mundane aspects of life and even in the bad things that happen.

One thing that I have been trying to remind myself lately is that each day is brand new. Each day we have is a new beginning, and each day we can look for things to be thankful for, no matter how small they are.
It could be things like being thankful for a working dishwasher, or thankful to have a conversation with a good friend, or thankful for dinner cooking at home in the crock pot. It doesn’t have to be some big, grandiose thing. The point is simply to be thankful.

And so here is a challenge for us all—what can we find, every day starting now, to be thankful for? Keep a journal, scribble it down on a piece of paper, post it on Facebook, but be intentional about it. Live a life of gratitude not just in November or on Thanksgiving Day, but every day.

Sometimes, I Think Church is Boring

2011-10-02T14:03:00.002-05:00

Waldorf College Chapel

September 28, 2011

You know, we often hear the phrase “God works in mysterious ways”, but sometimes, it actually is true! I’d been planning this message for about a week or so and even though I knew most of the content, I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to start it. It reminded me of when I’d write the ends of my college papers before the beginnings of them. But then when I went to Monday Night Worship this week, and listened to Kenny Olson speak, and some of the things that he said were just a great segue into what I wanted to speak about today.

One of the things that Kenny mentioned was about the temple curtain being torn in two. No longer was God’s presence, what was called the Shekinah, limited to being experienced by one person—the high priest—going to a specific place—the holy of holies—once a year. God’s presence had broken out of the box it had been put in and was available to everyone, everywhere. There was no need to come to the temple; the temple had come to the people.

But today, when we hear the words “worship” or “church”, what comes to mind? Usually, a place we go on Sundays. Something we go to once a week to encounter God, and then we leave, and often any message we’ve heard is forgotten.

Sometimes, what we DO can be boring and routine, no matter what kind of church service we go to.

Some people think organ music is dreary. Other people get tired of singing the same praise chorus over and over…and over and over again.

Part of the problem is that all too often, our reasons for coming to chapel or church or any worship service is to GET something. We expect to be given the music we want and a message to inspire us. Putting it in the language of “Christianese”, we expect to be “fed”. And the only time we really think about giving something is at offering time, and that is often done grudgingly.

But is that really what church should be about?

Think about what we call church on Sunday (or whenever, since here on campus we have a variety of opportunities): we say “worship” or “service”. But what are those about—worship is about doing something for God. Service is about serving—either God or others. But too often, we make our worship services about me, me, me. We don’t really think much about how we are connecting with others.

A couple of summers ago I went to a conference in the cities about simple or organic church, and in the sessions that I attended, the guy leading the sessions said that church is messy, but never boring. Well, that has not been my experience of church. Messy? How could church be messy when everything is always “just so”. There’s an order to worship, and things that are orderly are not messy.

Matthew 18:20 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."

Do we believe that? Do we really believe that Jesus is present right here, right now? And not only right here and right now, but any time that 2 or 3 of us are gathered together. Think about that for a minute. It could be here, it could be any time two people are sitting in a dorm room having a discussion about God or the Bible or getting to know each other better on a heart level. When people are rejoicing together or when people are weeping together.

Romans 12:15 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

Last week, Mary Mathiasen spoke about listening, not just with our ears, but with our eyes. I want to add to that and say that we shouldn’t just listen with our eyes, but with our hearts, and we need to listen to one another’s hearts and share those joys and troubles with each other.

Sometimes, it seems as if we still act as if we have to go to the temple to experience God’s presence. But Jesus changed all that. He told people that “something greater than the temple [was] here” (Mt 12: 6). And besides, what happened when he did show up to a scheduled worship experience?

In Matthew 12:9 he enters a synagogue, is asked about healing on the Sabbath, and when he actually does heal someone, “the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him” (Mt 12:14). Or when he teaches in his own hometown, nobody believes that he really knows what he is talking about (Mat 13:54-58). Or when he reads from the scroll of Isaiah and tells them that he is fulfilling that prophecy, he gets them in such a rage that “they got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.” (Luke 4:29).

Talk about church being messy but not boring. I think that was definitely the case when Jesus showed up.

Jesus’ real ministry happens more outside of the synagogues and the temple. It happens when he heals people, when he forgives people, when he lets them know that he cares about them and about their problems. And that was how Jesus made disciples.

At the end of Matthew, Jesus tells people “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20).

So let’s go DO that. Let’s not just go to a worship service—any worship service—and expect people to feed us what we want to hear. Let’s GO OUT and gather with 2 or 3 people at a time and know that the spirit of Jesus is with us. Let’s make disciples, not just believers. Let’s be the church in this world that we are meant to be. Let’s make sure that church is messy and never boring.

What Are You Afraid Of?

2011-10-02T13:59:00.003-05:00

Waldorf College Chapel

August 31, 2011

Scripture

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” --1 John 4:18

John 14:27 – Peace I give to you, My peace I leave you. I do not give to as you the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

What Are You Afraid Of?

Lately, I’ve had a couple of different conversations about fear and so I’ve done a lot of thinking about it. We all have fears, right? I think the number one fear that people have is public speaking, and quite frankly, I can attest to that fear. It can be scary getting up here and talking in front of people—and then when you add praying to it can be even worse! I also have a fear of pronouncing Mamisoa’s name incorrectly and so I always, always call her Sera even if I am thinking Mamisoa.

Many of you attending college for the first time may be experiencing fear and homesickness. You are entering a new world where you will be living with new people, experiencing new things, and that can be scary. You hope you will make good friends and be accepted and do well in class but college is a big difference from high school, and that fear of the unknown is always lurking.

Or maybe you are afraid because you aren’t sure what you are supposed to be doing with your life, or afraid of getting hurt when you play a sport, or afraid of forgetting your lines in a play.

Fear can grip us because we just don’t know what to expect. And if the outcome is not what we were hoping for, our fear can then give way to anger.

And when we are experiencing fear and anger and any bad stuff that is happening in our lives, it is SO hard to see how God can be at work. But sometimes, it is during those times when God is at work the most or when we realize we need God the most. These are the times when we can be vulnerable and open with each other.

And that’s really hard to do.

It’s so easy to pretend that everything is ok on the outside—think about how many times a day you see someone and they say “how are you?” and you answer “good” and the other person responds the same and you both go on your way. But is “good” the right answer? How many times do we respond that way when really, we are dying inside? We are afraid because a family member is dying or our parents are splitting up or we partied too hard on the weekend and don’t know what the consequences of that will be. Or we’re angry because someone we love lost a job or someone we love hurt us or the people in our lives just don’t seem to understand us.

We can’t let fear and anger take control of us.

When we do let them take control of us, it keeps us from really trusting God. And we have to trust him—in good times and in bad times—because unfortunately, we can only control so much of our lives, even though we want to control all of it.

Even though the book of Job in the Old Testament is a long book that can actually be kind of boring and very difficult to follow, Job makes a great point to his wife. When bad stuff happens to him, she tells him to curse God and die and he responds with “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?" (Job 2:10). It’s really easy for us to say “Praise the Lord” when wonderful things happen to us but infinitely harder to do it when we are faced with the bad things in life, because that is when we ask “Why, God?” We don’t ask “why, God?” when the blessings come our way. Maybe that’s something we need to reverse at times—ask why God when the good things happen and praise him when the bad things happen.

Let’s go back to those verses that we heard earlier, particularly just one little phrase from the verse from 1 John. “perfect love casts out fear”.

What I love about this small phrase is that it tells me that God’s perfect love is bigger than anything I am experiencing (even though I don’t do a good job of remembering it). Also, the word “perfect” in our culture gives a connotation that goes along with perfectionism and we really need to make sure we don’t attribute that understanding here. In the Greek language that this was written in, the word there can also be translated as “complete” or “mature”. So the perfection that we haven’t reached isn’t about how good we are at love but our maturity in love. When we fear we are not loving as we should (and, love in this instance is agape love—the self-giving kind). So basically, we could potentially read the whole verse like this (I am nowhere near an expert in languages and translation; I can’t even read it well but I have tools to let me find out what the words are):

…mature, self-giving love throws away the fear…whoever fears has not reached mature, self-giving love…

And really…will any of us ever reach it? I think the only person who has accomplished that is Jesus. And so we can only rely on his love and strength to get through it. Which, if we back up a few verses, we see this:

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. --1 John 4:12

So it is God’s self-giving love that is made mature or complete in us…not our own.

We do not have to give in to our fear. This God that we believe in; this God that we believe is revealed in Jesus; this God that is present with us in the Holy Spirit, is the God that makes all things new, who can take that fear and turn it around into trust that we can have for Him…so that we do not have to be afraid, so that our fears can be cast out, thrown away, by His perfect love.

A Mother's Faith

2010-05-31T23:03:00.002-05:00

I had never attended a baby shower with a speaker until last month, at mine, and I thought it was a fantastic idea.

I also never thought I’d be raising two kids in [location edited]. And I certainly never thought I’d have two BOYS. I thought, that, like [name edited], I would most certainly have girls.

And so when I thought of what I wanted to say today, I realized that so much of what I experience is boy-oriented. I have so little to say about girls. And so I thought that even though we’re parenting children of different sexes, there’s still a lot of commonality in just being a mother.

After my son was born in March—and I mean almost right after—I had a vague memory of a Bible verse about childbirth. It took me about two months, but I finally looked it up. It’s John 16:21 and it says:

John 16:21 21 When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.

And as much pain as I had with an unexpectedly non-working completely epidural, I really don’t think the short timeframe of it compares with months of bed rest that [name edited] faced during her pregnancy. But our outcomes were the same—babies that we love and want to do our best to raise. And while we have that joy that the verse speaks of, with it comes a lot of other emotions surrounding the raising of children: uncertainty, questions, and fear, to name a few.
But one thing that I have learned about[name edited] since I met her is that she has a very strong, deep faith, and I think that it is that faith that is going to be the most important part of her as a mother.

I’ve heard it said that when we have children, our hearts walk around outside of our bodies. We love them more than we ever thought it was possible, and we can’t always be with them, especially as they grow older. We can’t foresee the life choices that they will make and we cannot make their choices for them—no matter how much we may want to!—and we cannot live their lives for them.

But we can train them, teach them, encourage them, love them, in the right way, and that will guide them throughout their lives. (Proverbs 22:6 Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray).

I recently discussed chapter 11 of Hebrews in a Bible Study—that’s the “faith” chapter, where the author guides us through many Biblical people who had faith in God and His promises despite not receiving those promises.

That faith, the way it is described, as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (11:1), is something we can use to help us parent our children.

I recently read an article in which it said that even if mothers don’t have time to sit down and read the Bible or pray each day, they spend most of the day in faith anyway.
We have faith, that, at the end of the day, our children will have been provided what they need, are safe, are happy, and are loved. Even when they are out of our sight and our protection, we have that faith.

I’m just glad that I don’t have to be like Sarah, who may have thought she was seeing her son Isaac for the last time when Abraham led him away on a “trip” when God told him to sacrifice Isaac.

I’m glad that I don’t have to be like Mary, watching her son die a criminal’s death.
But in those instances, those women had faith that everything would somehow turn out for the best. They were not in control of their children or those situations, but had to hope that yes, God was somehow working behind the scenes and was involved in their lives even if they didn’t understand what was happening.

And so that’s what I’d like to leave us with today. We can mother our children to the best of our abilities—and probably at times we don’t even make it to even that high of a standard—but at the end of the day, we have to trust that whatever happens to our children, good and bad, that God will be there helping us and guiding us as mothers.

I Thought He Was My Friend

2010-02-08T19:05:00.001-06:00

Waldorf College Chapel 2/8/10

Text:

Luke 22:47-48 ⁴⁷ While he was still speaking, suddenly a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him; ⁴⁸ but Jesus said to him, "Judas, is it with a kiss that you are betraying the Son of Man?"

Luke 23:33-34
³³ When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. ³⁴ Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots to divide his clothing.

Hymns:

#323 "God Loved the World" and #802 "Let Us Ever Walk with Jesus".

I've never put a ton of thought into Judas' betrayal of Jesus until recently when it came to my mind. For me, it's just always been one of those Bible stories that I've always known: Judas betrayed Jesus, and then that led to his crucifixion. There isn't much more to it than that…or is there?

As I was thinking about it recently, I realized that this betrayal could only have happened because Judas was close to Jesus. He wasn't simply some random person who had been in one of the many cities and towns in which Jesus had preached, but he was someone in Jesus' inner circle. He was one of Jesus close friends. He spent time with him, learning from him, getting to know him.

Can you imagine the hurt that Jesus must have felt, knowing one of his closest friends had turned on him? What kinds of thoughts must have gone through his head? Did he think "How could he do this to me? He was my friend. I trusted him."

Judas may have thought he was doing the right thing; he may have thought that by selling Jesus out he would force Jesus' hand to step up and be the Messiah that everyone was expected.

But that's not what happened. Judas' plan went wrong; it sent Jesus to the cross instead of to the throne of Israel. And then, when Jesus was dying, he asks God to forgive the people who are doing this to him.

I don't know about you, but when someone hurts me, deliberately or not, my first thought isn't usually forgiveness. Sometimes, it has taken me many years to forgive people.

I also want to think about it from Judas' point of view. He probably didn't think of what he was doing as betrayal. To his way of thinking, it was something that he needed to do for a specific reason. Wanting the Messiah to overthrow Rome was a long-held Jewish desire and belief, and in Judas' mind, he was helping it along; he was looking for a positive outcome. He probably didn't expect Jesus to actually be crucified and die.

I know a lot of people simply have the idea of Judas as betrayer and that's it. But I actually feel a little differently. I feel sorry for him. As I said, he may have had intentions other than that of maliciously betraying Jesus for money, and I think we see that when we see what happened next to him. In Matthew's relating of the story, we see the following:

Matthew 27:3-5
³ When Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. ⁴ He said, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." But they said, "What is that to us? See to it yourself." ⁵ Throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged himself.

We see that Judas repented; he tried to make things right again by bringing back the money, he admitted that he was wrong. But the chief priests and elders didn't care; they had what they wanted. And Judas was so despondent about what he'd done that he committed suicide. Now, I don't know a lot about suicide, but I can only imagine the deep, deep despair that he must have felt in order to take his own life.

One commentary that I read put it this way:

"It is much more likely that Judas kissed Jesus as a disciple kissed a master and meant it; and that then he stood back with expectant pride waiting on Jesus at last to act. The curious thing is that from the moment of the kiss Judas vanishes from the scene in the garden, not to reappear until he is intent on suicide. He does not even appear as a witness at the trial of Jesus. It is far more likely that in one stunning, blinding, staggering, searing moment Judas saw how he had miscalculated and staggered away into the night, a forever broken and forever haunted man. If this is true, at that moment Judas entered the hell which he had created for himself; for the worst kind of hell is the full realization of the terrible consequences of sin." (Barclay, William. The Gospel of Matthew. Volume Two. P. 392).

If one of the reasons Jesus died was for the forgiveness of sins, then doesn't it stand to reason that Judas is included in that? Would Jesus have forgiven everyone but Judas? I don't think so. I think that the level of forgiveness we see in that is the same level of forgiveness that we are supposed to strive for to forgive the people that hurt and betray us.

When we are hurt or betrayed by someone, it is only someone who has somehow become close to us. We don't think of a stranger on the street as someone who could possibly betray us, so sometimes there's a disconnect when we read about betrayal and forgiveness and when we actually experience it. It's pretty easy to sit in a Bible Study talking about forgiveness or even to be up hear speaking about forgiving people who have hurt us, but exponentially harder to actually do it.

In the second reading this morning we saw that Jesus forgave the people who were crucifying him even though they didn't ask for it. He just did it.

Forgiveness may look or feel differently to each of us. We won't all react to hurt or betrayal the same way, and likewise, forgiving others may not look or feel the same either. The big question that people often ask when faced with this dilemma is how much contact to have with the person who has betrayed them. And I don't know the answer to that, because we have all been hurt by different people in different ways, and there is no one answer that is a fit for us all. For some, it may mean verbally saying "I forgive you" to the person and finding a way to reconcile. For others, it may be writing a letter that expresses forgiveness but is never mailed and never having contact with that person again.

Because we all react differently, even if the same person hurts multiple people, it makes the topic of forgiveness a tricky subject.

But the important thing is that forgiveness takes place. We can't control what other people do to us. We can only control our reactions and responses to what they do to us. This doesn't mean we let people continue to hurt us; but sometimes, that unforgiveness that sticks with us is going to make that hurt stick around a lot longer than it needs to.

We also have to remember that God loves the person who hurt us, whether we like it or not, and we must still try to find a way to love that person as well. It may be that the best way to love that person is to pray for him or her. Nothing we can do is comparable to the changes that God can make in a person, and so our first course of action should be to consult God in the matter. It can help us in our healing and it can help the person who hurt us. We may never know what goes on inside that person as a result of prayer, but it is something we should probably turn to when we don't know what else to do.

So You Know What the Gospel Is, Do You?

2010-01-11T11:12:00.001-06:00

Romans 1:7-16
⁷ To all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ⁸ First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the world. ⁹ For God, whom I serve with my spirit by announcing the gospel of his Son, is my witness that without ceasing I remember you always in my prayers, ¹⁰ asking that by God's will I may somehow at last succeed in coming to you. ¹¹ For I am longing to see you so that I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you-- ¹² or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. ¹³ I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as I have among the rest of the Gentiles. ¹⁴ I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish ¹⁵ -- hence my eagerness to proclaim the gospel to you also who are in Rome. ¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

I've gotten a lot of emails about inspirational stories and prayers and various Christian topics. Sometimes I've gotten the exact same one from different people on the very same day. And, often, there's a warning that comes along with them: that only a very small percentage of people will forward them on to others and those that do forward them are not ashamed of their faith in Jesus. Really? That means that everyone who doesn't forward them on is ashamed? Did anyone who wrote that—and believes it—ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, some people don't forward them because it's just annoying to do so and that they aren't ashamed of their faith in Jesus, but in passing along emails with silly superstitious messages attached to them?

When we hear the word "gospel", what do we think it means? Do we even give it any thought at all, or is it just a churchy keyword? For many people today, even if they know it literally means "good news", to them, "gospel" might mean the promise of going to Heaven after we die, because Jesus died for our sins. But is that what Paul meant by the word gospel? When he says that he is not ashamed of the gospel, does he mean he is not ashamed that he'll get to go to heaven someday? Why would that be something to be ashamed about? Many cultures and people have had ideas about what an afterlife consisted of, so it doesn't seem like even if that is what Paul meant, it would be out of the ordinary.

N.T. Wright, a prominent theologian and bishop in the Church of England, tells us in his book What Saint Paul Really Said that most people think of the word gospel as an order of salvation; that it is "a description of how people get saved" or how "Christ takes our sin and we his righteousness" or Jesus becoming a personal savior (p 41). He goes on to say that if many people heard "a sermon in which the claims of Jesus Christ are related to the political or ecological questions of the day, some people will say that…the subject was interesting, but the gospel wasn't preached." (41).

Another author I love, Brian McLaren, writes in his book A New Kind of Christian, which is written as a fictional story, during a conversation between two characters that though many people equate "the gospel" with accepting Jesus as one's personal savior, it isn't how Jesus meant it either.

I'm not sure how we've come so far from Jesus and Paul, and even if I was, it would probably take a lot longer to explain than the time we have today, but what we can ask ourselves now is what is it about this gospel that Paul has to clarify that he is not ashamed of it?

The term gospel, or in Greek, euangelion, isn't something that was made up out of thin air. Paul didn't say, "hey, I think I'll coin a brand new term when I write to people about Jesus." He used an idea that was already well-known in both Jewish and Greek cultures. A form of this word is found in Isaiah 40:9 and Isaiah 52:7. They read:

Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings; lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, 'Here is your God!'

And

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns.' (42).

That is the Jewish background.

The Greek background has to do with euangelion being a term that referred to an announcement of a victory or a birth or accession of an emperor (43).

To look at these two ideas together, that God has arrived and reigns and that God is victorious is, perhaps, the very gospel that Paul says he is not ashamed of. And it makes a little more sense that he could be ashamed to be announcing this. Can you imagine? People thinking Paul's out of his mind, telling him "umm…Paul…you know that guy Jesus died, right? He can't be the Messiah, much less be God reigning and victorious."

Let's take a look at that verse again:

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

So if we look at the gospel as the announcement of God's arrival in Jesus, we see that God's arrival brings God's power, and it's not limited to the Jewish nation who was waiting for their Messiah, but is for the salvation of everyone. God's not leaving anyone out.

I don't know about you, but to me, the announcement of the arrival of God in our world, interacting with us, working through us, and with us, and identifying with us is a lot more exciting, sounds like a lot better news than an announcement of "oh, by the way, now you can for sure go to Heaven when you die." Honestly, if our life here is only so we can somehow figure out how to make the right choice for a future afterlife, then doesn't it kind of feel as if something's missing? But if our life here is the start of something, if our life here and now is under God's reign, if in Jesus God is among us, then how can our lives be different? How can we understand that to not only know what difference it makes to us, but to how we can also share the good news of God's arrival to make a difference in other people's lives?

The new year is a time of making resolutions, and maybe a good one to make this year is to try to really understand what it means to live a life in light of the gospel that Paul has proclaimed to us.

The Waiting Room

2009-12-04T13:49:00.001-06:00

Psalm 25:1-10
<Of David.> To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. ² O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me. ³ Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. ⁴ Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. ⁵ Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long. ⁶ Be mindful of your mercy, O LORD, and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. ⁷ Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness' sake, O LORD! ⁸ Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. ⁹ He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. ¹⁰ All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.

We've all been in a waiting room somewhere, wondering how much longer it would be, wondering when it would be our turn. Wondering how an appointment that was scheduled for a certain time doesn't actually happen until half an hour later.

We've just started the Christian season of Advent, a time marked by waiting and anticipation.

Before Jesus came, Jews waited for their Messiah to come. Today, we Christians wait for the day when Jesus will return.

And you know what? No matter what we actually say about waiting on God or trusting Him, I think that deep down, a lot of us don't really like it. We ask God what to major in so we can have a clearer direction in college. We ask God what we are supposed to do with our lives and want an answer so we can send out resumes. We want to plan everything out and make our goal lists and checkmark them when they are completed. But you know what? God doesn't always work the way that we want Him to. Surprising, isn't it?

We don't like to wait. When's the last time anyone sat down and wrote an actual letter on paper with a pen, mailed it, and then waited for a written response? Anyone? We rely on email, on text messaging, on Facebook. And don't get me wrong, I love these methods of communication. But with the immediacy of them, we get more and more used to things happening instantly. We start to get conditioned to having them happen when we want. Anyone get annoyed when an email doesn't go through right away for some reason? Or when Facebook is acting up and you can't post a comment or an update when you want? In a class, we may have to wait what we think is an inordinate amount of time for a paper to be returned, and we think it's so unfair because we had a deadline of when it had to be in, so why can't the professor return it to us promptly? We don't wait too much anymore, and when we do wait, especially during this "Christmas Season", it's in lines at the store or waiting for gifts ordered online to arrive.

I'm sure that the last thing David had in mind when he wrote this psalm was a group of people in Northern Iowa in 2009 who were one day waiting for the Messiah to come back. For David, the Messiah hadn't even come yet for the first time. This psalm is known as a lament and in it, David is asking for protection from his enemies, so that they would not be the victors.

But even though it wasn't written specifically for us, we can still learn from it. What are some of the things David does in his time of waiting?

He wants to know God's ways (v 4)

He wants to be taught by God (v 5)

He repents and wants forgiveness of his sins (v 7)

He wants sinners to be instructed (v 8)

He wants the humble to be led in what is right (v 9)

He wants an opportunity to keep God's covenant and decrees (v 10)

And in the verses we didn't read today, there is even more:

More repentance (v 11)

Friendship with God (v 14)

God's grace (v 16)

Relief from his heart's troubles (v 17)

To be brought out of his distress (v 17)

Forgiveness from sins (v 18)

To be guarded from his violent enemies (v 19-20)

For his whole nation to be redeemed from its troubles (v 22)

How many of us here have had instant understanding of something that is being taught to us? Who among us immediately recognizes when we have sinned and immediately repents? Who thinks that learning from God and obeying God is an instantaneous thing? How many of us develop deep, meaningful friendships in a short amount of time?

I don't think any of these things happen quickly, do you?

And maybe that's the point. Maybe that's why we have to wait.

In this psalm, what does David say about waiting? He asks that those who wait for God not be put to shame (v 3), he says that he waits all day long for God (v 5), and that as he waits, he wants integrity and uprightness to preserve him (v 21).

Waiting, then, is for our benefit. When we wait, we have many opportunities to grow in relationship to God and to each other.

When Jesus was here, many of his followers, Paul included, thought his return would be imminent. And, a couple of thousand years later, we're still waiting.

Even though we characterize Advent as a time of waiting, what if we looked at it slightly differently? What if we looked at it as an opportunity for growth and learning rather than just time in a waiting room? Instead of passively waiting and hoping for a future event, how can we make the most of the present time?

The answers to those questions are not going to be the same for each of us. But maybe, as we continue through Advent and look forward to Christmas, we can take a little time each day to think about how we can use this time of waiting to grow. If you aren't sure where to start, start with this Psalm. Each day, take one verse of the psalm to meditate on. One of the days you'll have to do two verses as there are 22 of them and only 21 days left until Christmas. But as you read it each day, ask yourself what you can learn from it about God, about yourself, and how it can help you grow. For example, verse one says "To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul". Think about it for a minute. What does it mean to lift up our souls to God? How can we lift up our souls to God today, right now? There. You've got the first day done. That wasn't too hard, was it?

After we leave here today I hope we can each find a way of waiting that isn't frustrating or annoying, but is beneficial to our growth and will bring us even closer to who God wants us to be.

But I Learned it in Sunday School! (Part II)

2009-10-23T12:51:00.001-05:00

How does learning ideas that are new to us shape our faith? How does doubt help us grow stronger?

Songs:

Open My Eyes That I May See

Seek Ye First

Romans 12:2
² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect.

John 5:39-40
³⁹ "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. ⁴⁰ Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

I had a pastor in Indiana who used to talk about how kids always know the right answer in Sunday School. It's either "God", "Jesus", or "The Bible". And you know what? Sometimes we adults don't get past that either. And what I may say today may make you feel uncomfortable. I hope it doesn't, but I understand that it might. But what I hope more than anything, is that your understanding of the Bible is enhanced and that your faith is strengthened.

In the first part of "But I Learned it in Sunday School", I spoke about how when I was in college and taking classes about the Bible, I was learning a lot of new things. Some of what I mentioned was that I was hearing for the first time that there were multiple stories about creation, not just one, or that the first five books were written by four different authors and weaved together by an editor. Or that when New Testament authors quoted Hebrew Scripture, they were using it in a new and different way. I also mentioned that before this, I hadn't ever really thought of the Bible as literature, but more as a manual for life. My experience in reading the Bible was still pretty new, and so far I really only knew about application, because that's what we concentrated on in the small group that I was in. It really puzzled me and I at first had a difficult time understanding how I could read it without thinking that everything was supposed to apply to me.

"But…but…the Bible is God's word!", you might be thinking. "It says so itself in 2 Timothy 3:16!" But does it really? That scripture is used a lot as proof, so let's read it: "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (^NRS2 Timothy 3:16).

Let's think about when Paul wrote this. He is writing this letter to an individual, Timothy. From what we know of Timothy, he was born to a Jewish mother and a Greek father. They raised him in that faith, and then he also adopted their faith in Jesus as his own. In addition to that, at the time this was written, we didn't even have the New Testament yet; the only thing that Paul could have been referring to is what we call the Old Testament; the Hebrew Scriptures of his people.

Let's also look at what Paul says just prior to this verse. In 2 Timothy 3:14-15 he says
to Timothy "¹⁴ But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, ¹⁵ and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." He basically tells him to remember what he's learned and who he's learned it from, and what the learning and the scriptures he's always known have been for, which we are told in verse 17: "so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work."

When we put it all together it says: ¹⁴ But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, ¹⁵ and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

We see that Paul encourages Timothy to see the Hebrew Scriptures as instruction that is useful for certain things. That word translated as useful is
ophelimos (wvfe,limoj) which can mean useful, valuable, beneficial, or profitable. It doesn't say it is the final word. Paul wouldn't have thought it was anyway; with his background as a Pharisee, he would have been well-versed in the oral torah, the traditions handed down over many generations that explained things about those scriptures. He knew that there were interpretations and different understandings of what was contained in scripture.

As I read this one day, I noticed a note in my Bible about the inspiration in verse 16 which said to compare it to Genesis 2:7 where God breathes life into the first human being, and that got me to wondering. Is Paul reminding Timothy of humankind being God-breathed? That even though God gives life, humans still have the ability to mess up? That despite that, they still have a purpose in life? Could Paul have been saying that even if those Hebrew Scriptures are God-breathed, there's still room for human error?

Another thing we should take into account is that typically, when we see something called "The Word of God", it rarely refers to something written. We see that the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision (Gen 15:1) or that it was something God had said and that the Egyptians feared (Exodus 9) or that in the time of Samuel, it was a rare occurrence (1 Samuel 3:1). We see it a lot in 1 Kings where it is always spoken. We're probably most familiar with the phrase when we see it regarding the prophets…the word of the Lord came to the prophet Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or Hosea, or Joel or Amos or Jonah… and in these instances, it is connected with hearing. With listening. And then when we get to our New Testament, the author of the gospel of John takes a different spin on it. He says that the word of God—logos (lo,goj)in Greek—which draws on the idea of Hebrew wisdom and the Greek idea of reason is something that always existed and then became flesh in Jesus. In addition to that, the most frequent use of the term in the New Testament is in the book of Acts where it also is something that is referred to as Jesus (Acts 11:16) or something people heard (Acts 13:44) and as a message that was spread (Acts 13:49).

And yes, of course, sometimes what was heard was written down. But does that mean that God speaks once; it's written down, and that's it? Or does God give different messages at different times to different people with different needs?

In the Bible itself, there were many people who heard from God to do things contrary to what was expected or thought or understood at the time. Moses, a man with a speech problem was supposed to speak on God's behalf to Pharaoh (Exodus 4:10). David, only a boy (1 Samuel 17:33, 42) fought the giant Goliath with only a stone (1 Samuel 17:49). The prophet Amos was a simple shepherd (Amos 1:1). A great evangelist who told many people about Jesus was a nameless, sinning, Samaritan woman (John 4). The first people to spread the good news of Jesus' resurrection were women (Luke 24:10). And Jesus himself was from Nazareth, and we all know that nothing good can come from there, right? (John 1:45-46).

If we only take the words of the Bible as we read them in our translations without question or discussion, we run into problems. We run into ideas that promote slavery. We run into ideas that God and science are at odds with each other. We run into ideas that I should not be up here speaking to you.

If the Bible is the final authority on all things, why would we have the Holy Spirit? If the Bible is the final authority on all things, why doesn't it address every single issue that ever comes up in life? The thing is, the Bible isn't only a manual or rulebook. Even the rabbis knew that; that is why they had to interpret it and discuss it and figure out what it meant for them. For example, take the commandment to "⁸ Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work. ¹⁰ But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work" (Exodus 20:8-10). It's not clear to us readers what it meant to not do work on the Sabbath (which, by the way, is Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, not Sunday). So the rabbis had to discern what people could and could not do on this day.

I love reading and studying the Bible. I enjoy knowing that the people in the Bible had struggles and doubts and questions too. It makes them easier to relate to. To know that they didn't have all the answers and had to learn and grow in their relationships with God makes me realize that it's not a book that we just follow without question and that's it. But to know that we can learn from the successes, failures, hopes, joys, tears, and pain of the people in the Bible is a way that we can connect with them though they are long gone.

But even though I love the Bible, I do have to work sometimes to make sure I use it as a tool, and that it helps me to look to God, to look to the God revealed in Jesus, to look to the God present with us in the Holy Spirit for my primary guidance. I don't want to be like the Pharisees that Jesus speaks to in the scripture we heard earlier. And I do want to continue to use my mind and renew it.

Even as I prepared this, there was a balance to be found. I searched the scriptures, yes, but I also prayed that God would guide my words as I wrote them. And I was reminded of how the words that people in Christian and Jewish history have chosen as scripture are alive and meaningful. How they can help point us to God, how they can help us to seek Him, how they can point us in the right direction, how they can help us to understand Him better.

Would you please stand and sing "Seek Ye First", seeking God's kingdom with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

But I Learned it in Sunday School! (Part I)

2009-10-14T12:52:00.001-05:00

Songs

Be Thou My Vision

On Eagles Wings

But I Learned it in Sunday School! (Part I)

How does learning ideas that are new to us shape our faith? How does doubt help us grow stronger?

Luke 2:52 ⁵² And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.

I’m not usually a fan of taking only one verse to talk about so let me give you the background of this verse. It comes at the end of story where Jesus and his parents had been in Jerusalem for the Passover festival. When it came time to leave, family members all thought he was with someone else. It was only after they’d been gone for an entire day that they realized he was not with them, and returned to Jerusalem. They found him learning with the rabbis, amazing people with his knowledge and understanding. I wanted us to focus on this verse though, because it contains some information that we tend to pass over without much thought. It says “Jesus increased in wisdom.” So we see that Jesus had to learn. Jesus had to grow.

I grew up in church, sometimes attending twice in the same weekend, as my parents attended different churches. I knew the Bible stories well but when it came to more depth, I had a lot to learn. The first time I attended a Bible study, when I was 19, it was on the gospel of John and I was confused right off the bat—until someone explained the John who wrote it was not the John that we were reading about in the first couple of chapters. And then when I decided to minor in Biblical Studies in college, I found myself confused a lot. It seemed that what I was learning in class was different from what I had been taught at church. And I was also concerned because I’d heard from someone that most religion professors were atheists anyway and didn’t believe anything in the Bible they were teaching about

Some of the new things that I was learning were that well, maybe Moses didn’t write the first five books of the Bible…maybe they were written by four different authors and then weaved together by an editor. And that there were two stories of creation in the first two chapters of Genesis. And when I read Hosea 11:1 in context for the first time I thought to myself, wait a minute. This verse is about the nation of Israel. I always thought it was supposed to be about Jesus (Matthew 2:15). And are you telling me that we don’t know if the authors of the gospels are actually named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and that they weren’t reporters writing down every event with precise detail? And that Matthew and Luke have different accounts of Jesus’ ancestry and birth, And I always thought there were three wise men, but nowhere are we actually told that, we’re really just told that they brought three gifts. Or what about where Jesus says one thing and Paul says another?

The thing is, before this, I’d only understood that the Bible was a “manual for life” or a “love letter written to us from God” and that we could find answers to all of life’s questions there. Nobody had ever mentioned to me that it was an incredible work of literature as well. Or that before I understood what it meant to me, I should probably investigate what it meant originally—not only in Christian history, but Jewish history as well.

So these new things I was learning threw me for a loop. There were many times I felt confused and didn’t know what I was supposed to believe anymore. I spent countless hours sitting outside by the “Duck Pond” on my college campus, writing in my journal and praying about the conflict I was feeling and experiencing.

Somehow, I got through it. But I didn’t get through it unchanged. I ended up with a stronger faith than I began with. It may have taken a different course, but ultimately, I felt more confident in my Christian faith, even if it looked differently.

I love the Bible, I love studying it and reading commentaries and learning more about what it contains. But I do have to be really careful that I don’t make the Bible my god. Jesus was pretty clear with the Pharisees that searching scripture wasn’t the way to find him or know him (John 5:39). He also had the Father send the Holy Spirit so that we would have God’s presence among us after Jesus physically left this earth (John 14:16, 26).

Some of you may be taking a Bible class for the first time and really wondering about what you are learning. You might be wondering “what is he teaching us?!” or “I can’t believe he doesn’t believe the Bible is true!” Sometimes, the way we perceive something can hinder us. We hear that the first creation story in Genesis is Hebrew poetry and not a literal account, and we confuse the word literal with the word true. We think that things must be factual or historically accurate to be true.

Yet nowhere in the Bible are we told that’s what we must believe. In fact, while the Bible contains truth, the Bible itself tells us what truth is. It is not a written record. It is a person, Jesus (John 14:6).

And the Bible contains many different kinds of writings, written by many different people, over the course of many, many years. It tells the faith journeys of many different people, of their struggles and triumphs, their hopes and their fears, their continually evolving relationship with God. And that is one of the things that makes it so beautiful.

One problem, when we read the Bible, is that if we are only focused on application, we may find that while some verses may bring comfort and peace and understanding to us, there are others that don’t speak to us at all. While one person may really relate to a particular verse or story, another person may have no connection to it.

Another problem is that hearing something different or expressing a different understanding is sometimes seen as a threat to faith and that having doubts is sometimes seen as not having faith. I don’t know why that is. Our faith can actually end up being stronger—and more personal—if we go through this. Here are some words of Jesus that I’d like to share:

¹"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. ² He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. (John 15:1-2)

Pruning is painful. But what happens when a plant is pruned? I’m no gardener, trust me, but I do know that pruning a plant actually makes it grow better, stronger, and healthier.

I think this is one of those verses that we can usually talk about intellectually, but don’t really think about how we may be pruned. Too often, we have the idea that the Christian life frees us from pain or that anything bad that happens to us is Satan’s fault. I suggest to you that the struggles that we face, even struggles and doubts about faith itself, are times of pruning. It hurts. But when that time of pruning is over, we can be stronger and healthier Christians.

I’ve also discovered that people close to Jesus had their doubts too.

John the Baptist wondered if Jesus really was the one he was supposed to be announcing as Messiah. (Matthew 11:2-3).

Later, Jesus has a conversation with his disciples about who people think that he is. People are speculating different things (Matthew 16:14). He wants to know who his disciples believe him to be. Peter says to him: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16). And while Jesus calls him blessed for knowing that, he doesn’t berate anyone else for not knowing it or for being confused about it.

And all Jews in general had to learn something new. They had to wrestle with the fact that Jesus was not acting like the Messiah that they had expected, the Messiah that they honestly and truly believed that scripture pointed to.

I eventually realized that what I was now learning maybe wasn’t so different from what I’d learned in Sunday School as a child. I was just getting more depth and understanding, moving from milk to solid food (1 Corinthians 3:2). The lessons I’d had as a child, while they formed a good base, were meant for a child. I was now an adult and had to put childish ways behind me (1 Cor 13: 11). And the professors? Some were strong Christians. Some were not. But not once did I ever have anyone try to convince me to believe otherwise, make fun of my faith, or say anything detrimental about it.

So don’t be afraid of your struggles, your questions, your doubts. But don’t go through do it alone. Throughout it all, talk to God. Ask Him for guidance, for discernment, for protection, for clarity, for understanding, for encouragement, for comfort from His Holy Spirit.

I’ll be honest with you. To question and doubt without God’s involvement could likely lead to a loss of faith. But with His involvement, you will never be alone. It may take time, and in our culture of instant-everything, that is difficult to understand and accept. It can be scary. Some answers may come to you much further down the road in your journey than you want. But that is a beautiful part of faith. It is not an object to be carried around in your pocket, taken out only when you think you need it. It is a lifelong journey, carried in your heart, in your mind, in your soul, always a part of you, always guiding you, always available and waiting whether you think you need it or not.

Earlier, we sang a song asking God to be our vision and our wisdom. Now, we’ll sing about how God is our refuge, our rock, the one that we trust, the one that will protect us and hold us in His hand.

Welcome Home

2009-10-02T13:34:00.001-05:00

No matter where we are, there is always a place to come home to.

Ezra 1:1-7 1In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the LORD stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia so that he sent a herald throughout all his kingdom, and also in a written edict declared: 2 "Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah. 3 Any of those among you who are of his people-- may their God be with them!-- are now permitted to go up to Jerusalem in Judah, and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel-- he is the God who is in Jerusalem; 4 and let all survivors, in whatever place they reside, be assisted by the people of their place with silver and gold, with goods and with animals, besides freewill offerings for the house of God in Jerusalem." 5 The heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites-- everyone whose spirit God had stirred-- got ready to go up and rebuild the house of the LORD in Jerusalem. 6 All their neighbors aided them with silver vessels, with gold, with goods, with animals, and with valuable gifts, besides all that was freely offered. 7 King Cyrus himself brought out the vessels of the house of the LORD that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods.

Ezra 2:64-68 64 The whole assembly together was forty-two thousand three hundred sixty, 65 besides their male and female servants, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred thirty-seven; and they had two hundred male and female singers. 66 They had seven hundred thirty-six horses, two hundred forty-five mules, 67 four hundred thirty-five camels, and six thousand seven hundred twenty donkeys. 68 As soon as they came to the house of the LORD in Jerusalem, some of the heads of families made freewill offerings for the house of God, to erect it on its site.

This summer, I was away from home for just over three weeks. Three weeks of sleeping in a bed that wasn’t mine, in a house that wasn’t mine, in a city that is no longer mine. As good a time as I had, it was still good to return home.

I’m sure we all know how good it feels to come home after a trip, whether it is a long or short trip, no matter how much we enjoyed ourselves while we were gone. When we come home, we are in a familiar place again, we can sleep in our own bed again, and get back into our daily routine.

Just over three years ago I’d never even heard of Waldorf College or Forest City and now, here I am, a member of the Waldorf Family, and it is Homecoming, a time when people come home, when they feel as if they are seeing long-lost family and friends. This is a place that means something to them; it’s where they learned, lived, and served for two to four years of their lives. For so many alumni here at Waldorf, Homecoming is very much like coming home after a trip. Waldorf has been a home for so many people over the years. One of the number one things that people love about Waldorf is how close of a community it is. Not all schools are like that. I graduated from a large university and while I loved my time there, it wasn’t a home in this same sense. And at Waldorf, there are even multiple generations of family members that attend. Parents encourage their children to attend the same college that they did because they want to share that same experience.

In our scripture reading today, we see more than 40,000 people returning to the land from which they or their ancestors had been exiled about 70 years before. Many of them may never have known the land that were now returning to. But they’d been told about it. Throughout the years of exile, the people who had known their land kept the dream of returning home alive, telling stories about the land in which they’d lived, giving hope to future generations that one day, they would return.

And return they did. God uses a pagan king, King Cyrus, to do His will and let His people return to the land He’d given to them. The temple that had been destroyed in the expulsion (2 Chronicles 36: 19) would be rebuilt. It was a promise of hope to the people—that their God would once again dwell among them. This was so important to them that once they arrived, they freely offered what they could in order that the Temple would be rebuilt, and, eventually, it was.

But it wasn’t exactly the same as the old temple. We see in Ezra 3:10-13 that 10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments were stationed to praise the LORD with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, according to the directions of King David of Israel; 11 and they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD, "For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel." And all the people responded with a great shout when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. 12 But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy, 13 so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping, for the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far away.

So we see that some people were happy about the new Temple, and some people were sad. Because they had been away, things had changed, things were now different, and they would never be the same as they remembered. But despite that, many people were still so joyous that they had returned and that the Temple had been rebuilt, even if it was different, that the sound of their joy was “heard far away”.

The Waldorf of today has been through many changes and will continue to go through changes. For many alumni returning this weekend, Waldorf was a junior college. Those alumni have returned to a Waldorf that is a four-year institution. For many alumni that did not know Waldorf as a two-year institution, it has always been a four-year institution in their eyes, and as they continue to return home, they will see changes too. But one thing remains: this place is Waldorf, whether it is Waldorf Junior College, Waldorf College, or, at some point in the future, maybe Waldorf University. The people who come here, to learn or to teach, will all be connected; they will all be part of the Waldorf family.

Just like Israel had to adjust to changes when they came home, so do we all. We can join with those who lament the changes, or we can join with those who shout with joy to be home, no matter what the change. Because at its heart, for Israel, being home meant being God’s people in God’s land with God dwelling among them. What the temple looked like was external, cosmetic. So what does it mean to you to be home at Waldorf, with Waldorf people? Think of the connections you have made or are making during your time here as a student or employee or new connections that are made when returning to Homecoming.

I want to read another Homecoming story that I think goes along with this theme. It’s from the 15th chapter of the gospel of Luke. I’m sure you’ll recognize it.

11 Then Jesus said, "There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."' 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' 22 But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe-- the best one-- and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.

This weekend, Waldorf welcomes its alumni home. There are special events, and people are made to feel welcome. If an educational institution can do this for its alumni, how much moreso can God do this with His children? And, not only does He welcome anyone home, but He meets them on their way home. And not only does he meet them on their way home, but he runs towards them with open arms. That is what we see in the story of the prodigal son.

Homecoming is fun, yes, with a parade and special events and a football game, but beneath those external events, there is a deep connection between this institution and its students and alumni. For some, Waldorf is the place where they first met God, or where they grew much stronger in their faith, and so the connection to this place is even deeper. Homecoming is a reminder of that time, a reminder of the knowledge of God running out to meet them when they were ready for it.

Everyone who returns here has different memories, different experiences, and different expectations. But the common tie that binds all together is the sense of Waldorf being a home. And so, students, alumni, staff, faculty, administration can all join together, shouting with joy, together celebrating that bond.

Pre-emptive Love

2009-09-11T16:17:00.002-05:00

The following is the homily I gave in chapel today:

Scripture References:

Psalm 51:10-13
¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. ¹¹ Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. ¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. ¹³ Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

Ezekiel 36:26
²⁶ A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Matthew 5:43-48
⁴³ "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' ⁴⁴ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

It's been 8 years since September 11, 2001, a day that most of us will never forget. For this generation, there will always be "what I was doing when we were attacked" stories, much like the generation of the 60s has "what I was doing when President Kennedy was shot" stories. Some people in this room were only 10 or 11 years old when those planes were flown into the twin towers and the pentagon. I remember hearing that in the days and weeks following the attacks, people attended church in record numbers, more Bibles were bought more than at any other time, and pastors everywhere scrambled to rearrange already-planned sermons to deal with what had happened. Philosophical questions and discussions about how to deal with evil were now a reality.

Something I wonder about, when it comes to people who attack without being provoked, who have so little regard for human life that they have no problem taking it away, is what has happened to them to harden their hearts so much?

I believe in God's love. I believe that Jesus can change people's hearts. But how are they to know without being told? And it isn't that all it takes is some sales pitch of the Gospel. It's not telling someone "Jesus loves you; now say this special little prayer". It is so much more than that. It is our responsibility as Christians to continually show that love to people—anyone and everyone. I remember hearing in a sermon once that "sometimes, people can only know Jesus Christ through you". We are not to just tell people about Jesus; as the Body of Christ, we are to be Jesus to people. It is especially important to know that it takes time to break down barriers and develop relationships. A person's heart did not become stone overnight, and in the same way, it will not return to flesh overnight.

I want to read you a story from Resident Aliens, by Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon, two United Methodist Church pastors, about a time when the U.S. bombed Libya. I'll be honest with you—as I read this story myself, I had no idea what the event was all about; it's something that happened when I was a child and I am sure I had no idea it was even happening. But the event itself is not the most important part of the story; the important part is the authors' comment towards the end. They write:

The overriding political task of the church is to be the community of the cross.

Sometime ago, when the United States bombed military and civilian targets in Libya, a debate raged concerning the morality of that act. One of us witnessed an informal gathering of students who argued the morality of the bombing of Libya. Some thought it was immoral, others thought it was moral. At one point in the argument, one of the students turned and said, "Well, preacher, what do you think?"

I said that, as a Christian, I could never support bombing, particularly bombing of civilians, as an ethical act.

"That's just what we expected you to say," said another. That's typical of you Christians. Always on the high moral ground, aren't you? You get so upset when a terrorist guns down a little girl in an airport, but when President Reagan tries to set things right, you get indignant when a few Libyans get hurt."

The assumption seems to be that there are only two political options: Either conservative support of the administration, or liberal condemnation of the administration followed by efforts to let the U.N. handle it.

"You know, you have a point," I said. "What would be a Christian response to this?" Then I answered, right off the top of my head, "A Christian response might be that tomorrow morning The United Methodist Church announces that it is sending a thousand missionaries to Libya. We have discovered that it is fertile field for the gospel. We know how to send missionaries. Here is at least a traditional Christian response."

"You can't do that," said my adversary.

"Why?" I asked. "You tell me why."

"Because it's illegal to travel in Libya. President Reagan will not give you a visa to go there."

"No! That's not right," I said. "I'll admit that we can't go to Libya, but not because of President Reagan. We can't go there because we no longer have a church that produces people who can do something this bold. But we once did."

The authors take the church—that is, all believers in Jesus—to task for not having the courage to really be the church, to spread God's love and transformation in the most difficult of places. I'll be honest; I don't think I have that kind of courage, but I do know that I greatly admire it, and I know that it shows that as Christians, we have alternate avenues open to us to respond to terror and tragedy in ways that governments cannot.

Now, I want to read you another, more current story, that is told in Neil Cole's book Organic Church (Pages 209-209). I believe that this story is a kind of example of the point that Hauerwas and Willimon were making in Resident Aliens. Neil says:

In the days that followed September 11, 2001, Awakening Chapel was wrestling with how to respond to the threat of Muslim extremism and cells of terrorists. We figured if there was any group equipped to understand their strategy, it was an organic church multiplying movement. We understood that the attack was a spiritual strike. The terrorists were uttering prayers to their god as they flew the jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We figured that this called for a spiritual response. So we went to our knees in prayer that God would bring the truth of Christ's salvation to the Muslims in our city.

A couple of women in our church wanted to do more. They went looking for a pocket of people where they could meet Muslims. They found an Arabic restaurant in Southern California where many men would hang out and talk about things. They started going there, but it was suspicious to have two single women showing up to talk to these people. So one of them got a job there as a waitress.

They met a man named Ahmed, who was a Palestinian Muslim. He was intrigued by the women's faith and the discussions they would have. One evening he decided to come to their church and see for himself what this Christianity was like. Growing up, he had been told that Christians don't take their faith seriously. They don't pray much, they don't practice their religion, and they do not take the prophet Jesus seriously. What he found was quite different from this description. These people prayed. They worshipped. They loved each other and held one another accountable to live the Christian life fully.

Within a few weeks, he accepted Christ as His Lord—out loud, in front of everyone at the church. His was a radical conversion. He began to devour large portions of the Bible. He was baptized and led his cousin to Christ.

His cousin Mark was baptized and is now in a Life Transformation Group with me. Mark tells us how he secretly sought God his whole life, and finally God found him. God will use us if we make ourselves available to Him.

Today Ahmed is in Kosovo reaching out to Muslims. The girl who brought him to Christ, Allison, has pursued her call to reach out to Muslims and has moved to Amman, Jordan; she is involved in a mission there.

Imagine what would happen if God's entire Kingdom had responded to the events of September 11 in the same way. I believe we can do much more to counter terrorism with the spiritual weapons that are not of this world than with the arsenal deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The response of these women was far-reaching and positive; it didn't matter if they agreed or disagreed with the actions taken by the government because they had their own way in which to respond that was different and that was life-changing.

You might think it's too big a challenge. Or that you can't go to another country. Or that reaching many people is overwhelming. But the good news is that we don't have to reach everyone at once. We can reach our neighbor, our roommate, a professor. Anyone we come into contact with may have some pain in his or her heart that needs to be healed in order that his or her heart not turn to stone. We can follow the guidance in all of the scripture passages that we read this morning. We can be instruments in helping sinners return to God, like the psalmist aspires to do. We can love the people that we think are unlovable.

But we must make sure that our hearts are in the right place too. The anger, bitterness, despair that we face also needs to be cleansed and healed. Our hearts are just as much in danger of becoming hard as anyone else's. When we act judgmental towards another, when we act without compassion, when we think of anyone else as less than ourselves we are in danger of hardening our hearts. But both our lessons from the Psalms and Ezekiel teach us that God can change our hearts. And it isn't some magical thing, though I do believe that people can have experiences that change them. But sometimes, we need to continually practice certain actions in order for it to work. The examples set forth by Jesus and Paul in our New Testament scriptures are some of those things that we can do. In the scripture from Matthew, we're given the instruction that we are to be perfect in our love, just as our heavenly father is perfect in His love. Being perfect might feel hard to live up to, but word used here, teleioi (te,leioi), also means complete or whole—or even mature. If we look at it that way, it's less of a measuring stick to gauge how good we are at love and more of a big picture example of what love looks and feels like, that love is all-encompassing and unlimited.

Would you now please stand and sing "Create in Me A Clean Heart", and not only sing the words, but allow God to do what we are asking Him to do in this song in order that we may be healed and that we may then help to bring healing to the hearts of others as well.

This little piggy...

2009-04-28T09:38:00.002-05:00

The Swine Flu epidemic is causing more problems than just medical ones. In Israel, there are some people who will be referring to it as Mexican Flu so as not to pronounce the word swine, as pork is forbidden for Jews to eat. "We will use the term Mexican flu in order not to have to pronounce the word swine," said Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman of the ultra-religious United Torah Judaism party.

While this is excessive, as the commandment is against eating pork (Leviticus 11:7), and I know of nothing that is forbidden to pronounce except the names foreign deities (Exodus 23:13; Joshua 23:7), as well as God’s four letter name not being pronounced so as not to take it in vain (Exodus 20:7), it made me think once again how little Christians typically know about any of these laws.

I made the comment to someone at church that I found it odd that Christians have pretty much adopted ham as the traditional Easter meal even though it is a food Jesus himself would never have eaten. She said she’d never thought of that. And isn’t that how it often is? We go to church, fill in the blanks in the sermon outline that tell us what to think and believe, and don’t really give much thought to any of it. We talk about having a “personal relationship with Jesus” yet do not put in any effort to finding out much about him or how he lived. I wonder what he thinks of that. Doesn’t it seem superficial? Can you imagine having a “personal relationship” with your spouse or parents or children yet knowing nothing about their likes or dislikes or thoughts or feelings?

Christians tend to think that because these laws are in the “Old” Testament, they are outdated or not in use or they simply don’t know much about them or think about them. While I do not think Christians are required to abide by them, it can be beneficial to us to learn about them so as to understand more about things Jesus said and did. When we read that he blessed bread, we can know what he actually said. When they “sang the hymn” at the Last Supper, we can know that it was Psalms 113-118. Knowing these things about Jesus is enriching, yet we’re often too busy to learn. Why does the historical Jesus matter, we ask, when all we really seem to care about is what he can do for us here and now. It matters a lot, and I would encourage more Christians to take the time to learn .

So we may laugh or roll our eyes at the excessive nature of changing the name of the flu from Swine to Mexican, but at the same time, we are excessive on the other end, in that we don’t think about things like this at all.

Silver Linings

2009-04-28T08:37:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, I was reminded through experience of the phrase "Every cloud has a silver lining"¹. I had to go to a grocery store in another town to buy some lamb, which is not available in my town. I got dressed to go, got my son ready, made sure I had snacks and a sippie cup, buckled him into his car seat, and got in the car. It wouldn't start. Very annoyed, I got out, unbuckled him, brought him back inside, took off our coats, and found other things to do. Later that afternoon when my husband came home for lunch I took his truck to go run my errand. As I switched from diaper bag to purse, I discovered something: my wallet had not been in my diaper bag like I'd thought it was. If I had been able to go to the store earlier as planned, I would have been there without any way to pay for my purchases!

Though I'd been very annoyed that my car wouldn't start, that misfortune saved me from even greater annoyance and misfortune. It made me wonder what things we face daily that annoy us that actually serve to keep us from experiencing something worse.

It is definitely in my nature to get annoyed first and not think what good could come from what I'm experiencing, but I'm starting to think I need to try to be more deliberate to try to look at this irritations from another viewpoint and train myself to recognize the good to come out of them.

¹I thought there was a verse somewhere in the Bible that this phrase evolved from, but I can't find it. If anyone knows, please let me know!

But I Want It NOW!

2009-04-03T11:35:00.000-05:00

Being a parent is teaching me more about God than I have ever learned. I think that it’s probably not something that can really be understood until it is experienced. I imagine the other parents out there are nodding their heads and smiling a knowing smile.

My son is 1 ½ and this morning he wanted to go out the door when Daddy left for work. I told him no, that he couldn’t go, that he and Mommy were going to go out later. Did he understand any of this? I doubt it. All he understood was that he couldn’t do what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it. He cried and wanted to be held for a couple of minutes and then he eventually got over it when I said we should look for his black car.

It made me think about when God tells us no. We say “why God why?” or “I wanted this so badly”. But if God is our parent, he knows better than us. We think that He seems distant when He doesn’t explain Himself, but really, would we even understand His explanation if He gave it? Just as I know what is going to happen later in the day with my son, so God knows with us. And just as I can explain to my son all I want, he still won’t understand me because he doesn’t have the understanding of language or time that I do. Perhaps it is that way with us and God. We don’t have His understanding of time, and likely don’t have His understanding of language, either.

When God tells us no, we sometimes cry and we turn to Him for comfort and understanding. And, eventually, we get over it and move on, distracted by something He tells us to look for instead.

Us Versus Them

2009-03-29T11:12:00.003-05:00

The following is a talk I gave recently to a Bible Study group. Discussion Questions are included.

With Easter approaching, I had recently been thinking about John 20:31, where the author writes that “these things are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” I had always known John’s gospel was different from the others, and I had always known that verse was there. But I never really put them together to see what exactly it is that John wrote that he felt would make his case. So I read it from start to finish to see what I’d find. As I read, and wrote, and re-wrote, and then re-wrote some more, there was one theme that stood out to me. I suppose it has been on my mind due to a book I’ve recently been reading that has bothered me, because it is a book that seems to take pleasure in drawing the line between Christians and non-Christians and seems to show a great deal of arrogance in being a Christian. That theme is taking an “us-versus-them” attitude and turning it around.

But first, I want you to imagine yourself living about 60 years after Jesus’ did. That’s about when John’s gospel was written. Many, if not most, of the people who witnessed anything are dead. The events happened before you were born. All you have to go on are stories that are passed down orally. You know there are people who believe Jesus is the Messiah. But is he? What does that even mean? If you are not Jewish, it’s not something that really means that much to you as the idea of a Messiah is a Jewish idea. If you are Jewish, it has specific meanings: freedom from Roman oppression and the righteous rewarded, the ability to live freely in your own land, the restoration of the kingly line of King David, the Temple and all of its activity restored to its former glory. You wouldn’t have been expecting a Messiah to die without accomplishing these things. You wouldn’t have expected so many non-Jewish people to be following the ways of a Jewish man. After all, most of the non-Jewish people had no interest in the God of Israel. There were a few, called God-fearers, that believed in Israel’s God and lived peaceably among the Jews, following the laws set out for them, but for the most part, they worshipped any of the myriad of pagan gods out there.

In the eyes of most Jews, Jesus didn’t do the things the Messiah was supposed to do. In fact, he was even killed. What good is a dead Messiah? But John wants to convince people that he was, in fact, the Messiah. What could John have seen in Jesus that made him believe this so much?

The Jews were in their own land but ruled over by the Romans. This was not the way things were supposed to be, they said. God was punishing them for their collective sin as a nation, but some day, God would vindicate them, would declare them righteous, and would then punish the enemies. It was an us-versus-them world. God is with US, Israel said. Not with THEM.

And it goes even further than that. The most law-abiding Jews looked down upon the “sinners” of the day. When Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well in chapter 4, his disciples are scandalized that he is talking to her. Any righteous Jewish man would not be alone in the company of a woman; it was indecent. And certainly not a Samaritan woman, who were the people who not only worshipped in the wrong place but actually claimed to be the true descendents of Abraham.

And they looked down at the place where Jesus was from. In chapter 7 verse 41 we see people disbelieving that the Messiah could come from Galilee. There’s no way a prophet could come from there, they say. But two of their prophets, Jonah and Hosea, were from Galilee. They’re looking down on the region without even really knowing who is from there, and without even giving Jesus a chance.

But we do see Jesus freeing people from oppression. Not the oppression of Rome, but the oppression of illness, like in chapter 4 when he heals the royal official’s son. Or in chapter 5 when he heals the crippled man or in chapter 9 when he heals the blind man. He frees them from the oppression of their sin and the stigma attached to it, like in chapter 4 when he teaches the woman at the well about the living water she can receive from him, or chapter 8 when he frees the woman from the penalty of adultery and then when he explains that when one commits a sin, one is a slave to that sin, and only by knowing the truth can they be set free.

The people who were thought of as sinners were seen as deficient in some way—they didn’t believe the right way (the Samaritan woman) or they didn’t follow God’s laws the right way (the man carrying his mat on the Sabbath after Jesus healed him, and Jesus himself telling the man to do so), or they weren’t from the right location (Jesus).

What they are essentially saying is “if you don’t believe or do things in the same way as I do, then you are in Big Trouble”.

To make it worse, John tells us the following in his gospel:

John 11:47-52 ⁴⁷ So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, "What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. ⁴⁸ If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation." ⁴⁹ But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all! ⁵⁰ You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed." ⁵¹ He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, ⁵² and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God.

Remember how earlier I said that the Jews were expecting the Messiah to be the one to redeem them and overthrow the oppressors? John’s gospel is telling them that the Messiah is not just for them, but rather is to be the one to gather everyone together, Jew and non-Jew alike, and that all are children of God.

You can imagine that this might be pretty upsetting. People who didn’t believe and act as they did were going to be included with them in one big group? Where’s the justice in that, they wondered.

Unfortunately, this us-versus-them mentality is still alive and well today. Look at the hundreds of Christian denominations that we have. If we think of ways that we feel our own beliefs have been threatened, we probably can understand Jesus’ opponents a little better. That’s not easy to do, though, is it? To say we understand a little bit what the Pharisees or Sadducees might have been going through? After all, we most often look at them as the “bad guys”—there’s an “us-versus-them” mentality right there!

And we often take that mentality with us wherever we go. I know there are people with whom I disagree theologically. There are probably things that everybody in this room doesn’t agree on. But we can’t let that take over who we are as disciples of Jesus. We’re told that God loves the whole world, right? And then, in John 13:35 Jesus tells us that “everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” He didn’t say that his disciples would be known by their specific beliefs or actions, but by their love.

I think the reason for this is that beliefs take time. Our beliefs are refined as we learn and grow. We are faced with questions and challenges throughout our lives. Sometimes, we are the “us” and sometimes, we are the “them”.

We see in the book of Acts that many non-Jewish people came to believe in Jesus and it is non-Jews today that make up the majority of Christians. But it seems that in some ways we have taken the position of the Pharisees—we have become the “us” and non-Christians have become the “them”. This may not be deliberate and many people may be unaware of it. But as we heard earlier, Jesus is supposed to bring us all together. The Pharisees couldn’t do it. They couldn’t accept that the sinners were just as worthy of God’s love as they were.

This isn’t to say that we accept whatever people do as ok—we do see Jesus telling people to not sin anymore and healing them from things that marked them as “sinners”—illnesses were often thought of as a result of sin. But how can we improve our own attitudes towards the people we deem as less, either consciously or subconsciously?

It’s not easy. But nobody ever said being a disciple of Jesus was supposed to be easy.

I don’t know if I’ve completely figured out yet what exactly it is that John wants people to see in his gospel in order to convince them that Jesus is the Messiah. But I am pretty sure that this message of breaking down the barriers between us-and-them is a big part of it.

Questions for Discussion

What are some ways we see the “us-and-them” mentality today?

Who do we look down upon based on knowing where they are from or what nationality they are, without getting a chance to really know them?

Have you ever felt angry when someone had a very different point of view about the Christian faith?

What causes us to feel angry or threatened? Why do we feel that way?

When we feel angry or threatened what should we do?

How should we view the person who is different from us?

Do you ever find yourself putting people in the “them” category?

Have you ever felt like “them”? What was it like?

How can Jesus help you in your relationships with “them”?

Faith & Fashion: But Nobody Cares What I'm Wearing

2009-03-27T09:10:00.005-05:00

That's often the reason we use for not dressing nicely, for always throwing on sweats and sneakers. We think that if people are going to judge us based on our clothes, then they are not going to be good friends anyway. To some extent, that is true. We don't want to be friends with people who do not see past the surface.

Dressing nicely has become increasingly important to me. As a stay-at-home mom, it's easy to fall into the jeans and sneakers rut. Luckily, I circumvent that by wearing nicer dark-wash jeans and non-athletic sneakers so that it looks better.

When a person wears a well-put-together outfit and looks nice, she looks more professional and more confident in herself. That look can help us feel that way too. And it can open up doors that we wouldn't have otherwise thought were there. The other night I dressed up to go to a MOPS meeting and the next day in an e-mail exchange on another topic with another mom I met there, she complimented me on the outfit I'd been wearing. This opened up a new direction of conversation and I sense a good friendship starting to be formed.

1 Corinthians 10:31 tells us "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God." Whatever you do. Couldn't dressing fall into that category?

Fireproof

2009-03-12T15:20:00.002-05:00

I recently watched the movie Fireproof. I didn’t see it when it first came out for a couple of different reasons. One is that the previous movie by these same people was boringly predictable with bad acting. I had no desire to see another movie by them. The second is that it was so hyped by so many people and churches who had not even seen it yet! But I finally gave in and rented it the other night. It was somewhat of a step up from the other movie. Although this one too was predictable, the acting was somewhat better. It did have scenes that made little sense other than they were trying to fill up some time and add a little lightheartedness to the serious parts.

My biggest concern with this movie is that many Christians who watch it and recommend it will think that the methods used in the movie will save any marriage. I think the methods are good and will work. But I don’t think they will work for everyone. I think they will work for two groups of people: those who have good marriages and want to make them better, and those who have minor problems. The methods will not work for those with major problems, including abusive marriages.

Another concern was that the male protagonist obviously had a problem with rage, yet it was never addressed. Early on in the movie, when he was yelling at his wife and was up in her face, I thought for sure he was about to hit her. Of course, being a Christian movie, he didn’t. At other times, he took out his rage on the trash can, either by kicking it or hitting it with a baseball bat, or on his computer when he threw it away, also by hitting it with a baseball bat. Throwing away and destroying his computer was his way of combating his problem with Internet pornography. A bit extreme, but apparently it solved his problem just like that. These rage issues were never addressed. After the man becomes a Christian, the only issue dealt with is the pornography and him really wanting to woo his wife, instead of just wooing her because his dad recommended it.

It concerns me that churches are promoting this movie as a way of helping people fix their marriages and expressing the idea that they are fixable, because some, especially any that contain domestic violence, are not always fixable. Can you imagine being the person in a violent “Christian” marriage, knowing there is no hope left, but having your church put forth the impression that it is saveable, if you just follow these steps for 40 days?

Although the movie is supposed to be inspirational and helpful, I think it can do harm to people in those types of marriages. People who might not be believed when they say they are in a violent relationship, because their spouse is the “perfect Christian”.

I’d like to see a Christian movie that deals better with reality and doesn’t think that the solution to everything is someone “accepting Jesus as his/her Savior”.

Faith & Fashion: Shoes

2009-02-19T10:52:00.002-06:00

As my friend Serena says, shoes “can make or break an outfit… give it life or give it death.” Like the right jewelry, they are an integral part of an outfit; they add that extra something that finishes it off much like the maraschino cherry finishes off an ice cream sundae. Whether you like cherries or not, the sundae just looks incomplete without it. And so it is with shoes. A pretty spring dress doesn’t look right with crocs (well, those shouldn’t be worn with anything, but I digress…) and strappy gold sandals shouldn’t be worn with corduroy pants and a cashmere sweater.

Admittedly, the world of shoes is still very new to me. Though I’ve always had an aversion to wearing sneakers unless it was for playing sports, I didn’t have much of a shoe wardrobe. I stuck to the basic blacks and browns that would go with the most amount of outfits. In the last couple of years, I’ve added some blue shoes and some white shoes and some beaded gold shoes, but haven’t branched out very far.

Then, about a year or so ago, I was on a quest to find a red shoe. Well, not just one, but a pair, of course. And then I found them at Kohl’s. They were a dark red with a cute buckle on the toe. They had a heel. They were exactly what I wanted. And they had them in my size. Score! And then I tried them on. The left one fit fine. The right one, however, kept slipping off my heel when I took even just one or two steps. Sadly, I put them back in the box on the shelf. I came back to Kohl’s and tried them on two more times, hoping that somehow, my foot or the shoe would have changed and they would now fit. They didn’t.

Isn’t it funny how we want to make something that isn’t right for us fit? We focus on what we want and keep going back to it. It could be a job that we think we are supposed to do because we’re good at it, or having the “right” major in college, or dating the wrong type of guy. We blunder on in our own stubbornness to get to what we have decided is right for us, whether it is a safe, predictable, comfortable path, or something flat-out completely wrong for us. In this, we forget that we should consult with God.

He is our creator. He knows our innermost selves, our gifts, our talents, our abilities, our passions. Who better, then, to consult with when we need to decide what path to take? With His help, we’ll find the right way. We’ll find the shoes that fit.

Just Another Ordinary Day

2008-12-14T14:03:00.004-06:00

Matthew 1:18-25
¹⁸ Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. ²⁰ But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." ²² All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ²³ "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." ²⁴ When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, ²⁵ but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

Many of us have heard the Christmas story multiple times. We hear it again and again, and may even tune out when listening to it because we figure we know all about it. But maybe, just maybe, there are things in this story that we have overlooked because of our familiarity with it.

We see that Joseph and Mary were not married, but that she was pregnant. It has long been held by the majority of Christianity that this was a miraculous event by God. Yet, what about conception isn't miraculous? That a human being starts out microscopically small and grows and develops inside its mother is pretty miraculous, in my thinking. From before the mother even knows its presence to feeling the first movement to birth, is all a miracle. And getting pregnant is not always easy—anyone who has suffered infertility knows that. So having the right conditions present and the particular DNA used to create a unique human being is, in my mind, nothing short of a miracle from God.

People in Jesus' time and before believed God was involved in conception too. Look at what Eve says when she gives birth for the first time—"I have produced a man with the help of the Lord" (Genesis 4:1). When Sarah is told that she is going to have a son, she laughs, because she knows how old she and Abraham both are. God's response is to say "Why did Sarah laugh, and say, 'Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?' Is anything too wonderful for the Lord." And Hannah, who was barren for many years, poured out her soul to God, vowing to dedicate her son to Him if He should so bless her with one (1 Samuel 1:11-15). And Mary's own cousin, Elizabeth, also getting old, conceived a child and believed that it is "what the Lord has done for [her]" (Luke 1:25).

So it really is not a big surprise that the child inside of Mary is from God, is it?

But, you might say, that's too ordinary. It takes away the specialness of it. But does it really? By understanding that God is involved in the "ordinary" things of life, it opens us up to His presence and His love. If we can learn to see God's hand in the ordinary things, it is difficult to ignore His presence, guidance, direction, love. It helps us to focus on Him with more frequency. To thank Him when the rain helps crops grow, to talk to Him when we're feeling a little sad, or a little lonely, or to ask for His protection each time we drive in our cars.

Another ordinary part of this passage is Jesus' name.

Nope; you're wrong on that one, you might say. Jesus is most definitely not an ordinary name. I have never heard of anyone other than Jesus named Jesus. But that is us hearing his name in English, as translated from it written as the Greek Iesus, as translated from his actual Hebrew name, Yehoshua, which, if we translated directly from Hebrew to English would be Joshua. As the angel tells Joseph, the baby will be named this because he will save his people from their sins. And that's what the name in Hebrew means—God is salvation.

Now, names can be very important. How many books are there out there of baby names, and how many parents have a difficult time picking out just the right name for their child? The meaning of names is a theme we see in different parts of the Bible, too. In 1 Samuel 25:25, we see Abigail, who would later become David's wife, tell David not to take Nabal seriously "for as his name is, so is he." Nabal means fool, and Nabal acted foolish. And in the book of Ruth, we have two men die whose names mean "sickness" and "vanishing" and a woman whose name means "sweetness" changes her name to mean "bitter" when she feels that God has dealt bitterly with her.

When we understand that Jesus means Joshua, it draws our attention to another Joshua. We meet this other Joshua in the book of Exodus, where he defeats Amalek in battle. Later, in the book of Numbers, he is one of the two spies sent to scout out the land the Israelites are coming into, and finally, after Moses' death, he is the one to lead the people into the promised land after they have been saved from slavery in Egypt.

This Joshua leads people from slavery, from wandering in the desert and being uncertain of the future, into their own land. As his name suggests, God saves them from that way of life and gives them a new way of life.

And the angel tells Joseph that this baby will also be named God is salvation, because he will save his people from their sins. Too often, we think this means that Jesus will save us from going to hell. But look carefully at the text. It says he will save people from their sins. It doesn't say he will provide an easy out for people; it doesn't say that he will magically make everything all right. Joseph may not have really understood what the angel meant either.

The writer of the gospel says that this "took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 'Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,' which means, 'God is with us.'" (Matthew 1:22-23).

The prophet to which the author is referring is the prophet Isaiah, and you can find what the author of Matthew's gospel is quoting in chapter 7. In this section, Isaiah is talking to King Ahaz. Ahaz is a king in a long, long line of kings. Most of these kings were evil and did what they wanted and not what God wanted, and Ahaz was no exception. We are told that "He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his ancestor David had done, but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel" (2 Kings 16:2-3). In this section of Isaiah, God is telling Ahaz to ask him for a sign, and Ahaz declines. He claims he doesn't want to test God, but what it looks like is that he just doesn't want to hear what God has to say to him. So God tells him that "the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:9). To Ahaz, this was a sign that was going to be fairly imminent, and especially within his lifetime. After all, how could it be a sign to him if he wouldn't see it?

It is thought that this sign that Ahaz received was the birth of his son, Hezekiah. Hezekiah was not like his father or the other kings. We are told that He did what was right in the sight of the LORD just as his ancestor David had done. ⁴ He removed the high places, broke down the pillars, and cut down the sacred pole. He broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it; it was called Nehushtan. ⁵ He trusted in the LORD the God of Israel; so that there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah after him, or among those who were before him. ⁶ For he held fast to the LORD; he did not depart from following him but kept the commandments that the LORD commanded Moses (2 Kings 18:3-6). Though Hezekiah was not named Immanuel, He certainly brought God back to the people, so that God could be with them.

And Jesus was not named Emmanuel either. But what we have here in these verses is the author of this gospel showing us that God will be present with us in Jesus. The baby named after the leader Joshua is also likened to the king who brought God back to the people. You could say that Hezekiah also saved people from their sins. He put a stop to idol worship and brought back following the commandments of the Lord.

It is these things that we are to think of when we read this Christmas passage. Sure, we can use a big theological word like incarnation, but unless we really explore the passage itself, that word gives little meaning to our understanding of what is happening here.

So again, what do we have here? We have an ordinary-named baby born in an ordinary way, to ordinary people. And yet, God's presence abounds. In Jesus, he will show people a new way of living, a way of living that gets rid of sin, a way of living that brings God into all aspects of our lives. We have a man who will give up everything to bring God to the world. A man like Hezekiah who will not walk in the ways of anyone but God. A man like Joshua who will lead people into the promised land of God's way of life. A man who can save people from living a selfish and sinful life and help them turn to living a new way; God's way.

So what do we do with this knowledge? Do we continue living like the kings of Israel, disregarding God? Do we continue wandering in our own deserts of uncertainty? Or do we put all of that behind us, and walk in the way Jesus shows us, the way that he has given us in order to save us from our sins? I think we know the answer to those questions. And as Christmas approaches, let us continually be aware of God's presence and saving power in all aspects of our ordinary lives, every ordinary day.

But that's not the way I do it!

2008-11-22T15:58:00.002-06:00

Mark 9:38-40 38 John said to him, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us." 39 But Jesus said, "Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40 Whoever is not against us is for us.

We take sides a lot. We’re on the side of a certain team. A particular political party. The guilt or innocence of someone we see in the news. And we even do it in our churches. What kind of music we have. Whether or not we have responsive readings. What method of baptism and what age to baptize. What actually happens at communion and who can take it. What it means to be a Christian. Sometimes when we come across someone doing something differently than we’ve always done it we get uncomfortable and perhaps even angry, and think that the other person—or church—must be wrong.

In this section of scripture, Jesus’ disciple John felt much the same way. He explains to Jesus that they’d seen someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Now, at this time, it was thought that demons caused many kinds of illnesses, both physical and mental. What we understand today as epilepsy, for example, was then thought to be caused by demons.
John’s problem was not that he didn’t want the people healed of their demons. His problem was that those casting out the demons were doing it in Jesus’ name, but were not following Jesus in the same way as John.

Let’s think about that again. They weren’t following Jesus in the same way that John was. Does that sound familiar at all today? We have churches who think the other is not following Jesus correctly if they do baptisms differently, or speak too much about being “born again” or don’t speak enough about it. We think a congregation that uses drums and guitars in their music only wants to be entertained or a congregation that will only sing hymns is out of touch. “It’s not worship,” both sides lament.

I once attended a church that sometimes took communion by passing the plates in the pews, and sometimes by walking forward. I had a friend who would leave church prior to communion if it was the walk-forward way, because, she said, “that’s not the right way to do it.”
I also attended a church for a time where my two baptisms as an infant wouldn’t count, so I’d have to be rebaptized in their church. Both of my baptisms were done in Jesus’ name, but didn’t count because I hadn’t chosen them.

Some churches are maligned because of what they believe about communion. What does it mean that the bread and wine are Jesus’ body and blood? Should wine or grape juice be used?
All of these churches believe in Jesus. All of these churches do things in his name. They just do them differently. John was pretty upset about people not doing things the way he thought they should be done, and we feel that way today. But what does Jesus tell him? That whoever isn’t against them is for them. Jesus doesn’t get too upset about it. I can just picture him shrugging his shoulders, saying to John, “so what? What is it to you if they are doing good things in my name? Why would that possibly be a problem?” Maybe he wants John to concentrate more on what John is doing in Jesus’ name.

And so shouldn’t we do the same? If the people we disagree with are not against Jesus, then they are for him; he says so himself. Sometimes, when someone does something different or believes something different, it can feel threatening to us. It can give us doubts or make us feel that maybe we are wrong, and it’s easier to condemn the other person than it is to face our insecurities. Maybe that’s something John felt too. William Barclay, a noted theologian, tells us that “It is necessary to remember that truth is always bigger than any man's grasp of it [and that] Intolerance is a sign both of arrogance and ignorance, for it is a sign that a man believes that there is no truth beyond the truth he sees.” (p.226).

So what are we to do when we notice other Christians acting differently from us? Maybe, instead of crying out that they aren’t “real” Christians, we sit down with them and ask them why they do something. And then we can also share our understanding. That way, we can have dialogue and understanding, if not agreement, and continue to both do acts in Jesus name, working together for him and not against him.

You Want Me To Love Who?

2008-09-10T11:13:00.003-05:00

Matthew 5:43-48 ⁴³ "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' ⁴⁴ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Last week, Pastor [Name] introduced the theme for the year: Think Globally; Live Locally and spoke about God's love not just for people as individuals, but for the world as a whole. This past Monday, she then spoke about the call to be a neighbor—to be actively engaged in deeds of mercy, and deeds of love, and said we are to help set people free, as Moses did when God called him to return to Egypt to set the Israelites free.

It was difficult for Moses. He didn't want to do it. And yet, these were his own people. He had difficulty saving the people that he loved.

Fast forward in time. In the gospel of Matthew, we have Jesus ascending a mountain, reminding people of when Moses ascended Mt. Sinai to receive God's teachings for His people. We have Jesus telling them “you have heard that it was said...”, reminding them of the teachings that had been instilled in them for many years.

Maybe, as the crowd listened to Jesus and heard him say “You shall love your neighbor”, they thought “yeah, yeah, we've heard that before” (It's in Leviticus 19, in case you were wondering). But then he says “But I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. What? Maybe a murmur was heard through the crowd, people saying “did he just say what I think he said?” or “I must have heard that wrong; I've probably been sitting in the sun too long.”

They didn't hear him wrong. He was telling them to love their enemies. He's not talking about the kind of love that we can't help feeling, like when we fall in love with someone or the love we have for a child. Jesus is talking about agape love. This kind of love is deliberate. It's the kind of love that we must be determined to show to people—to people who maybe we don't like. And to people who maybe don't like us.

Who might these people be? When Jesus was talking on that mountain, the “enemies” that first came to mind were probably the Romans. The people who controlled them. The people who they didn't mix with. The people they couldn't wait to have God come and vindicate them from.

But Jesus says that they are to love these people.

Who are your enemies? Who are the people who have hurt you? Is it the guy who broke up with you for someone else? Is it the professor that you feel is out to get you? Is it the student who you just know wants to cause trouble for the sake of causing trouble? Is it the coworker or boss you dread seeing every day? Or the football coach who is always yelling at you? Maybe it's the politicians with whom we disagree. There are many people out there who have hurt us or who anger us, but our call as Christians is not to get revenge on them. It is not to make them hurt the way they have hurt us. It is not to belittle them in any way. Our call as Christians is to love them. And not only are we called to deliberately love them, we are called to go even further. We are called to pray for them. Ok, you might say. I can maybe say that I can love that person, or at least try to love that person. But now I have to pray for him or her too? You bet.

A funny thing happens when we pray for people. We start to care more about them. Prayer can have the effect of actually helping us learn to love our enemies. It helps us move from the idea of loving them to the practice of loving them.

Why would Jesus give this command to love our enemies? He tells us, in verse 48, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Plucked out of context, this verse might make us think that we have to do everything in our lives perfectly. But reading it in the context of this section, we can see that it is about how God loves perfectly; he makes the sun rise on the evil and the good, and the rain fall on the righteous and on the unrighteous. He shows no partiality. It is this kind of love that we humans are to practice in order to live up to the manner in which we were created—in God's image.

But what can we do to love people? How do we go about practicing this difficult kind of love? One of the most popular chapters in the Bible tells us how. Because it is mostly heard at weddings, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 usually makes us think of the romantic kind of love, but these verses also describe the agape love that Jesus talks about. Here, Paul tells us that:

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends.

These are all things that we do, not things that we feel. We may not feel patient, but we can practice patience. We may feel like being rude or resentful, but we have to practice the opposite. And, Paul tells us, love never ends. Never. This is the kind of agape love that Jesus is talking about when he tells us to love our enemies. This is the kind of love that God practices, and the kind of love that we must practice. Is it hard? Without a doubt. It takes deliberate thinking about how to put it into practice, and who we need to love in this way. And as we do this, our thoughts will move away from being centered on ourselves and our lives to focusing more on the people around us and their lives.

Maybe one day we learn that the person we deemed as our enemy has something difficult going on in his or her life, and suddenly, the praying we've done starts to make some more sense. Maybe, our prayers have helped to set our enemy free from the Egypt in which he or she is living.

So who are your enemies? Who do you need to start praying for? Pick someone. Now, take 30 seconds—right now—and pray for that person. Maybe 30 seconds is all it takes each day to start practicing this deliberate kind of love.

Earlier, we sang “They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love”. Let's now sing that same song again, only now really thinking about agape love and how we can really put the words of this song into practice, loving both our neighbors and our enemies, and helping everyone achieve freedom from Egypt.

What is the most exciting thing about Easter?

2008-03-26T16:07:00.003-05:00

That's the question that was asked during the children's sermon on Sunday. Predictably, the answer was "the Easter bunny". I wasn't too surprised. After all, many people who show up to church on Easter only show up one other time in the year too--Christmas. Their children probably have very little perspective on Jesus and his resurrection. But it wouldn't surprise me if the regular church-going children said the same thing. The Easter bunny and all that candy is what they see on tv and in stores and what they talk about with their friends. Some people asked if the Easter bunny came to our house and I said no (my son is only 7 1/2 months old). But what I really wanted to say was "what does the Easter bunny have to do with Jesus?" Maybe next year I'll have the nerve to respond that way. I don't want him to not know what the holiday is really about, and so maybe the Easter bunny won't ever visit us.

I'm sure I'll be looked at as mean or weird or stifling my child's imagination.

But aren't we as Christians called to be different from the surrounding culture? How can we be a light if we aren't shining any more brightly than everyone else? How do we show that the resurrection matters if we make mention of it at church for an hour but spend much more time getting kids excited to see what the Easter bunny will bring and bringing them to egg hunts and talking a lot more about that than about Jesus?

Should we really be so concerned about our kids not having fun at Easter because the Easter bunny didn't come or should we be concerned about our children being members of the Kingdom of God?

Christians are wrong about Heaven? You bet.

2008-02-08T12:53:00.000-06:00

Excellent interview with N.T. Wright by Time magazine.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1710844,00.html

An excerpt:

It therefore comes as a something of a shock that Wright doesn't believe in heaven — at least, not in the way that millions of Christians understand the term. In his new book, Surprised by Hope (HarperOne), Wright quotes a children's book by California first lady Maria Shriver called What's Heaven, which describes it as "a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk... If you're good throughout your life, then you get to go [there]... When your life is finished here on earth, God sends angels down to take you heaven to be with him." That, says Wright is a good example of "what not to say." The Biblical truth, he continues, "is very, very different."

Where is the Christ in Christmas? That's what I would like to know.

2007-12-12T15:12:00.000-06:00

The following was submitted to my local newspaper in response to two other articles/letters that had been printed. It was not printed, so I am publishing it here.

Two letters in the December 5, 2007 edition of the [name of local paper] bemoaned the removal of nativity scenes from public property. The authors both believed that Christ is being taken out of Christmas, and wonder, “where is the Christ in Christmas?”

I too wonder that. Where is the Christ in our home decorations of candy canes, lights, trees, Santa, reindeer, and snow globes? Where is the Christ in our frenzied shopping to buy more things that we do not need, to fulfill wish lists of children and adults who will forget what they received within months, if not weeks or even days? Where is the Christ in our overindulgence of Christmas cookies? Is he there? Or has he been pushed aside, albeit unknowingly, to make room for all the “fun” Christmas activities? When we display a nativity scene in our homes as just one of the many themes of Christmas, making it equal to the other seasonal decorations, we are pushing the Christ aside. Why should we expect the government to make him a focus if we cannot do it ourselves? Sure, we may go to church on Christmas Eve for an hour and sing our Christmas carols, but what happens the next morning? The Christ is gone, and Santa has come.

The author of one of the letters likened the display being taken away to the Grinch who stole Christmas. The Grinch, however, stole only those outward signs of Christmas: the presents and the decorations. The message in the story is that Christmas still came without those things. Would it happen that way for us? Without our public decorations, would we still have Christmas? We should still have it. It doesn't matter if government displays or doesn't display a nativity scene. It doesn't matter if we choose not to compete with our neighbors with putting up lights. What matters is that we ask ourselves if we are truly celebrating Christmas. Are we celebrating what we think it is, a season of love, family, and compassion, as one author pointed out, or are we celebrating what it truly is, a unique time in history when the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob made himself known in a unique way, when instead of His presence dwelling in the tabernacle in the wilderness or in the temple in Jerusalem, His presence dwelt in the person of Jesus?

If we take the time to ponder the mystery of the Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth, coming to us in such a way, everything else we deem important, such as whether or not we can have nativity displays on public property, or whether or not we have bought just the right presents, pales in comparison. Instead of feeling offended that there is not a nativity display, what if we took that energy and spent time contemplating, praying, asking God what he would have us do instead of asking the government to do it for us? How would we then be able to have our lives transformed and help in transforming the lives of others, just as our world began to be transformed when the Christ was born? Perhaps, then, we would be a living, breathing embodiment of the Christ, perhaps we would indeed be the body of Christ as we should be, and manufactured displays would no longer have to do it for us.

The Ten...No, Four...No, Nineteen Commandments?

2007-11-18T14:40:00.000-06:00

I actually wrote this last spring but apparently never posted it here...

Sometimes, I think I might be a heretic—or at least that others would think so if they knew some of the thoughts I have. But at other times I wonder what I worry about, because I know that I am thinking deeply about what I read and study, wondering what it means, wondering if we've missed some things, wondering if there is more to learn than what I've always heard, wondering if I have a right to question traditional teachings.

One of the teachings most people would never question is that of the Ten Commandments. Ask any Christian if they ought to be followed, and the answer will most likely be yes. But ask any Christian if any other Old Testament commandments should be followed and they will likely say no, or they will be puzzled and ask what other commandments there are. If they are told that there are other commandments like holding festivals three times a year (Exodus 23:14) or not boiling a kid in its mother's milk (Exodus 23:19), the response would probably be that those are not moral laws or that they were for a different time. Yet these same laws fall in a long list that comes right after the version of the 10 Commandments that we find in Exodus 20.

So why do we ignore most of the other laws we see, but follow the 10 Commandments? People might say, “well, they are in the Bible”. That's really the extent of understanding we often have of them. We may even try to be able to remember them all, but sometimes that is just like trying to name the seven dwarfs—we're apt to always forget at least one.

What do the 10 Commandments mean to us and should Christians even follow them? What were the circumstances surrounding their inception? The background to their coming into use is that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. We are told that they groan under the heavy tyranny that they faced from Pharaoh. God hears their groaning (Exodus 2:4) and calls Moses to be the one to take charge of the monumental task of leading them out of Egypt.

We're told that when they come out of slavery, they will worship God on the very mountain that He spoke to Moses on when He called to Moses out of the burning bush (Exodus 3:12). During the plagues on Egypt, we see the demand repeated that the people are to be let go in order to worship God (Exodus 8:1; 9:1). After the plagues, when Pharaoh finally lets them go and they have crossed the Red Sea into freedom, the first order of business is singing and dancing in praise of God. After this, times do get tough. The water is bitter and there isn't enough to eat. It takes months to get to the place where they are supposed to worship God, but eventually, they get there. God tells them that if they obey his voice and keep his covenant, they will be his treasured possession (Exodus 19:5). They agree. God says that he will come to them in a dense cloud and the people will hear what He has to say. In order to prepare for this meeting with God, they will be consecrated. They will wash their clothes and will only get just close enough to the mountain until the trumpet blows, and then they will be able to go up. When everything is all set, on the morning of the third day, there is thunder, lightning, and a thick cloud. The trumpet blast is “so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled” (Exodus 19:16). Moses and Aaron are then permitted to ascend the mountain, but the others must keep their distance. And then, we are told, “God spoke all these words” (Exodus 20:1). What are these words that God spoke?

The words that God spoke begin with Him identifying Himself with “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). It's probably slightly comforting to know that yes, all the stuff happening now is consistent because it's the same God. It's not one of Egypt's pantheon of gods, but the one who is identified with their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He then lists these rules for them to follow:

You shall have no other gods before me
You shall not make for yourself an idol
You shall not bow down to them
or worship them
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God
Remember the sabbath day
and keep it holy
Honor your father and your mother
You shall not murder
You shall not commit adultery
You shall not steal
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
You shall not covet your neighbor's house, wife, slave, ox, donkey, or anything else

Wait...there are more than ten there. And if one were to look at the very first one according to Jewish sources, one would discover that in Judaism, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” as the beginning “command”. What's going on? What we have here, are actually a number of commandments, that are contained in “all these words” (Exodus 20:1) that God spoke. The Bible does not tell us how they should be enumerated, and that is why when we seem them listed, we will see differing versions between Jews, Catholics, and Protestants¹

After the people witnessed these surrounding events, they became scared and decided that Moses should be the only one to get close enough to listen to the rest of what God had to say. God then gives Moses all kinds of ordinances—or commandments—that the people are to follow. In the twelfth century, the great Jewish scholar Rambam² went through the Torah and codified a list of 613 different commandments that were contained there. These laws were not new; they had been followed for many years. They were just now listed in one location rather than having to search through the Torah.

But for many years, that is what people had to do, and the amount of laws were not unfamiliar to them. These laws are what taught them how to live their lives as God's people. But today, many of the laws get a bad rap. There are many Christians who believe Jesus did away with the laws and so we do not have to follow them. Is this really the case? They are partially right. He did not do away with them, as we shall soon see, but we also do not necessarily have to follow them.

In what has become well-known as the “Sermon on the Mount”, Jesus says

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:17-19).

It is clear that Jesus says the laws are to be followed. But by whom? Jesus is primarily speaking to a Jewish audience. Later, we see that he commands his disciples to “Go nowhere among the Gentiles³, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:5-6) and then in Matthew 15:24 says that he “was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. Though in this scene he shows compassion on this woman and heals her daughter and there are other instances of his interactions with Gentiles, his primary audience was his own people, the very same people whose ancestors were given those commandments so many years before.

What then, is a Gentile to do? This is a question that arose in the Book of Acts. The events of this book begin after Jesus' resurrection. More and more Jewish people are becoming believers in Jesus based on the testimony of others and on their own new experiences. And then Peter, the disciple who first recognized Jesus as the Messiah, has another new experience. He is praying at noon and has a vision of various unclean animals and hears God telling him to kill and eat. While I have a hunter friend who likes to joke that this is definite Biblical evidence for God's approval of hunting, Peter understands the vision differently. He is told to go to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile. Peter tells him that it had been “unlawful for Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown [him] that [he] should not call anyone profane or unclean” (Acts 10:28)⁴ For Peter, this vision does not seem to be as much about food as it is about with whom it is ok to associate. His world has suddenly expanded. No longer is this new religious movement only about his people, but it's about everyone, and he tells people that he now understands that “God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35). And then, to the astonishment of the Jewish believers with Peter, the Gentiles are given the same gift of speaking in other languages that they had recently received.

It's not an easy transition for other people, though, because Peter is criticized by his fellow Jews for eating with Gentiles. He explains to them all that had happened and after he was done they “praised God, saying, 'Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life'” (Acts 11:18). The family tree has expanded in an odd way that was very unexpected. What are they supposed to do now? According to some of the Jewish believers, the new Gentile believers must now be circumcised. Circumcision was the mark of being a Jew, of being a part of the covenant that God made with Abraham.⁵ These Jewish believers felt that the Gentile believers must now “convert” and basically become Jewish, following all Jewish laws. There is a meeting in Jerusalem to discuss the issue, and it is decided that the Gentiles will not have to take on all of the laws that the Jews follow. The laws that the Gentiles must follow are to “abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood” (Acts 15:19). There are only four laws here. Four.

Most Christians today are not Jewish. The argument about whether or not Gentiles should become Jewish is one that we would never have today and one that many Christians would likely be surprised to discover is in the Bible.

The question over what to do and how to do it continued to be asked and pondered, and in the late first century, a document was compiled that we know as the Didache, or teaching. This document was a compilation of what Christians ought to do in certain situations. Among others, there are instructions for baptism, fasting, prayer, Christian visitors, and remembering the commandments.

In the section on remembering the commandments, Christians are told the following:

You shall not murder
You shall not commit adultery
You shall not corrupt a young person
You shall not commit fornication
You shall not steal
You shall not use magic
You shall not kill a child by abortion nor slay it when born
You shall not covet y our neighbor's possessions
You shall not commit perjury, nor bear false witness
You shall not speak evil
You shall not bear malice
You shall not be double-minded or double-tongued
Your speech shall not be false or empty, but concerned with action
You shall not be one who covets or extorts, hypocritical, malicious, or proud
You shall not plan evil against your neighbor
Do not hate anyone
Rebuke some
Prayer for others
Love still others more than your own soul

So here we have even more commandments than we originally thought there were. Some are very similar to the Ten Commandments with which we are familiar, and only one of them seems to match up to the laws we discover in Acts (the law about fornication). And, these commandments only come in one section of the Didache. There are many more contained within the other chapters as well. We see that the early church was concerned about what living a Christian life meant. They obviously did not subscribe to the idea that people could individually decide for themselves what was acceptable and moral behavior and thought that people needed to know what behavior they should follow. The Bible as we know it had not been compiled yet and while manuscripts existed, it is difficult to say who had access to which manuscripts.

What can we learn from all these different ideas about what commands to follow? We can see that the simple ideas we have today such as “obey the Ten Commandments” were not always so simple, and that there was a time when people struggled and deeply thought about what the right thing to do was. Is this something that we should give up on thinking and discussing today? I don't believe so. If we are able to continue to ask questions about why we do what we do or believe what we believe, we have opportunities to grow in our faith in ways we may never have imagined. Does it mean we just throw out what is in the Bible? No. It is important, however, that we try to understand that there is a cultural and historical and religious context to what is there that is quite different from the context of our lives today. Despite the differences, we can gain a deep appreciation for the struggles that our Christian ancestors faced, because the question of how to apply the Bible and God's laws to our lives is one that we face every day.

1Although Protestantism began with Martin Luther, he continued to use the Catholic version of the commandments

2An acronym for Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, also known as Maimonides.

3A Gentile is a non-Jewish person

4Though the idea of not associating with Gentiles is not found in scripture, it could come from the extra biblical literature called Jubilees.

5See Genesis 17

No picking and choosing, huh?

2007-11-18T13:15:00.001-06:00

A popular refrain that is heard throughout Christianity is that we cannot pick and choose what we want from the Bible or that the ten commandments are not multiple choice. And, usually each fall during stewardship month we hear about how we are supposed to give, and that the Bible commands us to give 10%. Now, I don't have a problem with giving. I just have a problem with the "theology" behind it.

We hear that the 10% comes from the word tithe in the Bible. The first place we see it is in the book of Numbers:

Numbers 18:21-26 21 To the Levites I have given every tithe in Israel for a possession in return for the service that they perform, the service in the tent of meeting. 22 From now on the Israelites shall no longer approach the tent of meeting, or else they will incur guilt and die. 23 But the Levites shall perform the service of the tent of meeting, and they shall bear responsibility for their own offenses; it shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations. But among the Israelites they shall have no allotment, 24 because I have given to the Levites as their portion the tithe of the Israelites, which they set apart as an offering to the LORD. Therefore I have said of them that they shall have no allotment among the Israelites. 25 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 26 You shall speak to the Levites, saying: When you receive from the Israelites the tithe that I have given you from them for your portion, you shall set apart an offering from it to the LORD, a tithe of the tithe.

In this section, we see that the tithe is very specific--it is given to the Levitical priests in order that they perform their duties in the temple. Because they have these specific duties, they will not receive an allotment like the rest of the nation. And it is then a tithe of the tithe that is given to God.

In Deuteronomy 14, we see that the tithe is agricultural:

22 Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field.

23 In the presence of the LORD your God, in the place that he will choose as a dwelling for his name, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, as well as the firstlings of your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always.

28 Every third year you shall bring out the full tithe of your produce for that year, and store it within your towns;

It has a specific use; it is eaten at the temple.

Today, we hear that giving 10% is about giving our money, and our time, and our talents (the 3Ts: tithe, time, talents). I don't disagree that we should give these things. But if we are going to use these verses in the Tanach (Hebrew Bible; Old Testament) to make our case, why do we ignore so many other things there?

Why do we not observe so many food laws? We see in Leviticus 11 that God commands His people to not eat pig (Leviticus 11:7 The pig, for even though it has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. ), yet pork is one of the most highly eaten meats today, and ham has become a traditional Easter dish.

Some may say that those laws are not moral laws and therefore they do not have to be followed today. But how is the example of the tithe a moral law? Moral laws are more along the lines of having to do with not murdering or not stealing or other laws such as those.

Perhaps the biggest issue is that we simply do not study our Bibles and try to understand the context in which the text was formed. We just look for ways to apply it to ourselves, and therefore, we pick and choose what we deem applicable. If we are going to do that, we at least should be honest about it and be upfront that we don't abide by everything in there.

The Piano

2007-07-21T10:57:00.000-05:00

The black upright piano was a feature in my childhood home for as long as I could remember. It stood against the wall and had a bench seat that opened to store music. It's ivory keys had become somewhat yellowed with age, but each time the cover was lifted from them, there was a sense of something special beneath.

I remember banging on the keys as a child, trying unsuccessfully to create the music that I knew could come from the instrument. And then, when I was 10, I began piano lessons. I was excited to learn—finally I would be able to make beautiful sounds. My ambition to play did not last long, however, due to boredom with practicing for half an hour every day (no matter how well I could play the song or no matter how frustrated I got when I just wasn't getting it), combined with jealousy over my younger sister's ability to pick out tunes by ear when I could not do that and I could not understand the notes for the left hand very well. This led me to quit my lessons after only two years.

But as I look back on the piano, I have new thoughts about it, thoughts unrelated to music or lessons. The piano had belonged to my grandmother, and possibly, her mother, but, as we will see, the details are unclear. What got me started thinking about the piano and my grandmother is a candle I have that's scent is called “Grandma's Kitchen”. It is a mixture of Cinnamon Bun, Sugar Cookie, and Carrot Cake. The candle's name and scent is meant to evoke happy memories of baking with Grandma in the kitchen. What then, is a person to do when Grandma wasn't a baker? My grandmother was not a baker. Not only do we have a photos of a lopsided cake that she made, we've also all heard the story about her leaving a spoon in another cake she made.

Despite the fact that my grandma wasn't a baker, there are other things that bring to mind memories of her. Fudge stripe cookies. Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee Beefaroni. A card game called “Strawberry Shortcake Turnover” that I more aptly renamed “Strawberry Shortcake Turnover Beat Grandma”. I remember playing with my older cousin and then sitting down to the lunch of Beefaroni that she gave to us. I remember eating Fudge Stripe cookies and peering at Grandma through the hole in the center. I remember the black Hancock chair she'd received as a retirement gift. I remember her black hair and that she wore glasses.

And I remember lying on a towel by the woodstove in order to dry off after coming in from playing in the snow when the visiting nurse was there to care for her. Grandma had breast cancer. She died the day after I turned six years old.

There are other things I know about her that I do not have memories of. I know she smoked, but I am not sure I remember her smoking. And I know that she played the piano, and at church, the organ. Perhaps there is a vague, foggy memory of being in church and knowing she was in the balcony playing, but I am not certain of it.

These are six years of memories that I have, and they are few. It gives me only pieces of who she was and I realize I did not really know her. I have mementos of her: a bracelet with her initials on it, her engagement ring, a china plate. And today, if I eat Fudge Stripe Cookies or Beefaroni, I think of her.

I recently learned that she was raised by her father and grandmother because her mother left when my grandma was only about eight years old. My great-grandmother apparently had a dream of becoming a professional pianist and left the small town in northwestern Connecticut in order to follow that dream.

I wonder how Grandma felt about her mother leaving. What kind of fear, hurt, and anger did she have? When other parents would not let their children play with her because her parents were divorced, did she cry? Did she have a favorite stuffed animal to hug? Did her father and grandmother dry her tears?

Why did she choose to play the piano? What did she feel towards the instrument that helped to lure her mother from her life? Did it ever make her angry? Or was the piano her connection to her mother, as much as the jewelry and china plate are mine to her? When she sat at the bench and raised the cover to reveal the ivory keys, did she remember happier times when she would listen to her mother practicing?

I didn't inherit Grandma's inability to bake. I didn't inherit her musical talent. The piano itself is long gone. The first time I visited her grave in years was only a few months ago. I don't even think about her that often. But when I do, whether it is through stores at a family gathering, looking at old photographs, or simply because she comes to mind, I am thankful for those six years I did know her. Was she thankful for the eight years she had her mother?

Years later, in moving it out to the garage, the piano would topple on the uneven pavement and be destroyed. The piano was only an object, much like jewelry and china plates. Those objects will not last forever; they will be lost or broken, given away or sold. What is important is the memories that they evoke. Those memories can never be given away, sold, or broken, but can be the connecting piece between the past and the future.

Here comes...Grace Claus?

2006-11-18T11:33:00.000-06:00

It's a Christmas song we all know well: "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". Santa is a fun event for children, right? And that's why we think nothing of mixing the message of Santa Claus with the message of Jesus' birth, right? I mean, they are both about gifts, aren't they?

Let's take a look at the lyrics to this song:

You'd better watch out!
You'd better not cry!
You'd better not pout!
I'm telling you why,
Santa Claus is comin' to town.
He's making a list
and checking it twice.
He's going to find out who's naughty and nice.
Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town.

Refrain

He sees when you are sleeping.
He knows when you're awake.
He knows if you've been bad or good.
So be good for goodness sake!

It actually sounds like someone to be afraid of--he's always watching me? I have to be good all the time because he knows if I am not? What if I make a mistake?

Again, we Christians participate in Santa Claus just as much as anybody. But is it really something that coincides with our Biblical beliefs? Receiving presents from Santa is dependent on whether we are good or bad--dependent on what we do. Yet we are taught that our God is a God of love and grace who gives to us simply because He loves us and not because we have earned what we receive.

Isn't it a mixed message we're sending? How can both messages fit together on the same day? Does anyone else find it as confusing as I do? I have to be good to receive presents from Santa and there isn't a grace clause (ha! no pun intended, but it gives me a good title for this posting!) when it comes to him, is there? It's either presents or coal; that's it.

Yet when it comes to God, He is all about grace. His love and gifts are never dependent on what we do. They are only dependent on His love for us.

So who would you rather visit you this Christmas? Santa Claus? Or Grace Claus?

What would Jesus want for Christmas?

2006-11-18T10:50:00.000-06:00

Ah, the Christmas season. The decorations go up, the presents get wrapped, people are in a mad frenzy to get everything done. We eat too much, stay up late, hope for snow. The house smells of cinnamon and pumpkin pie and the stores start early with Christmas carols and one can't help whistling or humming or singing along. Such a happy, joyful season, isn't it?

But amid those hoped-for happy feelings there lies the stress of shopping and wish lists and trying to please everyone. We agonize over what presents to buy each person and most often, instead of putting much thought into them, we simply ask them what they want and we buy it. There is little surprise, and, often the gifts are forgotten within weeks, if not days. Do you remember what you bought or were given three years ago? I didn't think so.

So why do we give these gifts that do not last? Well, because it's Jesus' birthday! We give gifts because the wise men gave him gifts! Right? That's what I've always heard, anyway. But something doesn't sit right with me about this explanation. Let's take a look at the Bible.

In the four gospels, Jesus' birth is mentioned in only two of them: Matthew and Luke. Of those two, it is only Matthew that mentions the wise men. Matthew 2:1-12 reads as follows:

1In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." 3 When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 6 'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'" 7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." 9 When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

One of the first things we notice is that nobody knows where exactly Jesus is, only that the messiah was supposed to be born in Bethlehem. The wise men are told to "search diligently" for the child. Secondly, we later see in verse 16 that Herod has all children aged two and under killed. From this we can see that the wise men probably did not arrive on the day of Jesus' birth (which probably wasn't anywhere near December 25th anyway, but that's a different story).

When the wise men enter the house (not a stable, mind you; that is in Luke's gospel) they do give gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh (Matthew 2:11). We also have no idea how many wise men there are--only that they give three gifts.

So, from this text on Jesus' birth, we see that Jesus was given three gifts, all unasked for. But what do we do on Christmas? We make out wish lists. We buy people all kinds of gifts, more and more and more, not just three. All "in honor of Jesus' birthday". But is it really? How does it honor Jesus? If we give gifts because the wise men did, then wouldn't it make more sense to maybe give gifts to the same person they gave them to? What would Jesus want for Christmas? Something tells me he doesn't have an amazon.com wish list like I do. What did he ask for from people? I can't really find anything.

What did he give to people? He gave gifts of healing, of comfort, of hope. But he didn't limit it to one day of the year; it was year-round work for him.

So I ask you: why do we spend so much time, energy, and money on giving presents on one day of the year when the basis for it is so slim? We Christians are just as guilty of buying into the materialistic mentality of the "Christmas season" as anyone, even though we like to satisfy ourselves by saying that it is about Jesus. Is that what Jesus would want for Christmas?

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch...

2006-11-12T20:13:00.000-06:00

Tonight as I flipped through the television channels, I happened to catch the original cartoon of How The Grinch Stole Christmas. It was cute and funny, just as I'd remembered, and the message was still the same--that Christmas would still come without any presents. And then we learn how the Grinch's heart grew three sizes that day (it was two sizes too small to begin with) and he returns the presents he'd stolen and even carves the roast beast.

It made me wonder what a Christmas without presents would be like. Would we still think of it as Christmas? Would our hearts shrink to the size of the Grinch's, or would we allow them to also grow three sizes? Christmas is SO commercial--lists of wants and decorations going up as early as September...it makes me cranky each year.

But what if we had a Christmas where we did something odd like read and discussed the Biblical Christmas story, where we didn't worry about getting someone the perfect present that would be forgotten about in two weeks, or really pondered the meaning of what it means to have Jesus come into our lives unexpectedly? What would that kind of Christmas be like? And so that is the challenge this year--how can we focus more on the true meaning and less on the meanings we have come to attribute to it?

Perhaps we should become Grinches ourselves and take away the trees and decorations and presents and see what happens. Would Christmas still come?

True Vocation

2006-09-25T15:55:00.000-05:00

The following is the text of the homily I gave at chapel this morning. It was my first one.

We tend to think of vocation as the job we want or the career we have. We often, upon meeting people for the first time, ask "what do you do?". Our identity may may be so entwined in what we do for a living that if we suddenly were not able to perform our job, we would feel lost, uncertain of who we are. And there are others of us who may have no idea what we want to do with our lives in this respect. People often change jobs four or five times during their lives. I myself have had numerous jobs–a waitress, a legal assistant, and a church secretary, among others.

Yet we each have a vocation that runs deeper than and supercedes all of that, and that is our vocation as Christians. It is this, the calling of Jesus, that is our primary vocation, and everything else comes second.

What is this calling? It is a call that echos to us from the very beginning. We all know the story well from our days in children's Sunday School: God created a beautiful perfect Garden of Eden, yet after Adam and Eve sinned, all humankind then lived in a less than perfect world where the inclination to sin often wins out over the inclination to do as God asks.

At first thought, it may seem that all is hopeless–what can be done to change the world? It's too big of a problem. Yet God had something in mind all along to rectify this situation, and it began with a single person.

In Genesis 12, we hear God call to Abram, saying to him: "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those that bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:1-4, NRSV).

In a world filled with idolatry, God chooses one man to follow Him, to start fresh and in which to begin something that will eventually bless the entire world. It's not a quick process. The many descendants promised to Abram take a very long time in coming. Abram even doubts it could happen: he believes he is too old (Genesis 17:17). But eventually he does have a son, Isaac, whose son Jacob becomes the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. They grow exceedingly numerous and maybe start to lose focus a bit. But later on, the prophet Isaiah reminds them of their vocation: they are God's servant whom God has given as "a light to the nations" (Isaiah 42:6). Their vocation, as individuals and collectively as a community, is to light the way to God, to show all people everywhere who the one true God is. They are to show people the life that He gives, the love that He has. Yet they fall short. Over and over again, we read how God's people turn their backs on Him and follow after other gods. They are not living out their calling. They are not being true to their vocation as a light to the rest of the world.

And so, after a time, someone comes to renew God's calling to be a light. Jesus says "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12). He decides that he will fulfill Israel's vocation. He is the one who is stepping up to lead people to knowing God. He is the one who is going to make an impact on the world and be the embodiment of what God told his ancestor Abram so many generations before. The vocation of bringing God to the world has come to the surface again.

And just as God told Abram that he would multiply him, Jesus also cannot do this alone. In the well-known Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his followers "You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:14-16).

Jesus calls his followers to be lights, just as he is a light. It may take different forms for different people, but is spread throughout all of our jobs and careers. A teacher, a nurse, a mechanic, a physicist, an artist, a custodian, a student...these are all secondary callings that can give a disciple of Jesus the opportunity to live out their primary vocation as a light to the rest of the world. We can even see Biblical examples of this. Paul, Priscilla, and Aquila were tentmakers by trade. Jesus himself most likely was a carpenter, trained by his carpenter father.

So the question we must ask ourselves is "am I letting my light shine?" We can do this in so many different ways. Was I short with someone or did I have patience with him? Did I decline to join in the gossip or did I speak freely? Did I eat lunch with the shy person sitting alone or did I join my big group of friends? Am I harboring anger towards a friend or am I trying to reconcile with him? Did I take the time to smile and say hi to the person in the hallway or did I hurry on my way? Am I loving to all people, including my enemies?

These are many small, yet not necessarily easy, ways in which we can let our light shine. But by doing so, we are fulfilling our vocation as Christians, our vocation to bring God's glory and light to the world. It is something we do not have to wait to do until we get an education or a promotion or a raise. It is something we can do right now. As Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:31, "whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God". If we recognize this as our vocation, we can help fulfill that promise given long ago to Abraham that the entire world will be blessed; we can join together as God's servant, bringing His light to the world. We do this both individually and collectively with other Christians. Our individual light will shine only a certain distance, but combined with many others, it can be as bright as the sun.

Faith in the midst of tragedy...

2006-06-05T08:09:00.000-05:00

This blog is an such an example of faith in a tragic and disturbing circumstance.

http://lauravanryn.blogspot.com/

P.S. I know I have not posted much lately; I have a couple of draft posts but I've been busy.

Why bother?: Introduction

2006-05-11T14:41:00.000-05:00

I read an article on Foxnews.com that a priest, Father Jonathan Morris, wrote regarding The DaVinci Code. The DaVinci code, is, of course, very controversial among Christians. Some people will preach against it, others will just ignore it, and others have either read it or will see the upcoming movie. What struck me in this article, though, was that Father Morris said:

"Dan Brown is capable of passing fiction for fact because Christians don’t know their faith — what and why they believe. That’s not Mr. Brown’s fault."

This is a statement with which I emphatically agree, yet with my yearning and passion for trying to understand why I believe what I do, I often feel that I am in the minority among Christians. It is probably fairly accurate to say that most Christians have no interest in learning the history or context of Biblical texts or the history of the development of Christianity.

One of my random quotes on the right side of this blog states that "Theology is seeking to understand with the intellect what the heart--a person's central core of character--already believes and to which it is committed". This is the first reason, I believe, why we ought to be more serious about studying different aspects about our Bible and our faith's history. If we only have a belief but do not know very much about that belief, how strong and deep can it truly be?
This post, therefore, is the introductory post to a series (I have no idea how long it will be) of posts in which I will explore different reasons for why this kind of study is important.

Knowing You

2006-05-08T09:43:00.000-05:00

There's a song called "Knowing You" that has the following lyrics:

Knowing you, Jesus, knowing you
There is no greater thing
You're my all, you're the best
You're my joy, my righteousness
And I love you Lord

Knowing Jesus is probably what most Christians would say that being a Christian is about--that we really have to know Jesus, not just know about him. I don't disagree with that. What makes me sad though, is that I don't know how many people who say these even do know much about Jesus. There are people who do not know Jesus was Jewish. There are people who do not know that the scriptures that we call the "Old Testament" are the scriptures that Jesus knew, but he knew them in Hebrew. We celebrate his birth and we celebrate his resurrection. But do we know anything about the holidays that he celebrated? when we read about the last supper, and we see that Jesus blessed the bread and the wine, how many people know the words he used to do that?

How can we really come to know Jesus if we do not know anything about him, if we do not study what he did, said, or taught? Doesn't it only give us a superficial knowledge of him if all we can say is that he lives in our hearts?

It takes work to get to know a person. It takes time. But isn't that more of a treasure to find? If we do not work at knowing a person, how deep is the relationship?

Heaven isn't too far away...

2006-05-07T13:41:00.000-05:00

Those words are from the chorus to a song called "Heaven" by the group Warrant. The next line says "...closer to it every day". It's such a different view of the idea of heaven than we typically tend to think, isn't it? We usually think of heaven as a place we go after we die, not a present reality. Sure, maybe there are glimpses of it at times, but overall, it does seem pretty far-off and evasive. But is the idea of a far-off place to go consistent with Jesus' message?

It intrigues me that the idea of heaven that most people generally have has to do with life after death, but when we look at Jesus' first words of his public ministry as recorded by the author of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near" (Matthew 4:17). Has come near. I wrote about this in a previous post so for this one I want to go in a different direction. Let's talk a little bit about this future place, and see just how far into the future it is.

We all probably tend to think, at some point or another, of sitting on fluffy white clouds playing harps. That's the image we've gotten over time, isn't it? It's also kind of boring, if you ask me. The idea probably comes from different images of worship in the Book of Revelation, but there is one image in particular that sticks with me. Let's take a look at it:

"After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, 'Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!'" (7:9-10)

The part of these verses that strikes me is that this multitude is infinite; nobody can count it, and that it is people from all nations, all cultures. They are all worshiping together; they are all acknowledging God together. I also noticed it says they cried out in a loud voice, not in loud voices. There is no division among them, only unity. It's a beautiful image, isn't it?

Yet we don't have this yet. We have divisions between religions and within religions. We have our own ideas of how and what church and worship should be. Have we made it all too complicated? What would it be like if people could come together and worship God together? What would it be like if, instead of going to your regular church, you visited with and worshiped with people of a different denomination and/or culture for a short time, to see what it was like?

Perhaps, if we focused more on uniting with people worldwide, and less on "our church", more people would be influenced to turn to and worship God, and as Jesus and Warrant say, heaven will come just a little bit closer.

Have I Got a Gift for You...

2006-05-06T07:57:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I took a spiritual gifts survery again (well, actually, I took two of them, but more about that in a minute). For those of you who don't know, spiritual gifts surveys are used for Christians to find out what their spiritual gifts are so they can know in what capacity they can best do the work of the church. Good idea, right?

I used to think so. I'm not so sure anymore. I decided that I would take two of these surveys: one from the church I currently attend, and another that I had from a church that I used to attend. I'm glad I did this, because it showed me that spiritual gift surveys are not the best way to find out where one belongs. I had different gifts show up on each survey, and one that was high on one survey was low on the other.

And if they are all written down on a list, at which point in the list does one draw the line to show which are a person's gifts and which are not? At 11? 8?

Although Paul does mention spiritual gifts on a couple of different occassions, I think that with these surveys, we really are putting too much emphasis on it. Without them, sure, there are people who are volunteering in a capacity that perhaps they should not be. But with them, people may never try different areas because they feel locked into what the survey told them of their spiritual gifts.

Do I think there are spiritual gifts? Sure. But I think that the surveys can make it too boxed in. Find out what you love to do and what you are good at, and go from there. Use your talents and abilities to bring glory to God, and to bring God to others. Whether or not it is something that shows up on a spiritual gift survery doesn't really matter. Isn't that what we should be doing with what God gave us anyway?

Statement of Faith

2006-05-04T08:19:00.000-05:00

I subscribe to an e-mail newsletter from Emergent Village . They are usually very thought provoking, and this last one was especially thought provoking to me, so I thought I'd share a bit with you.

The topic of the newsletter was that this Emergent movement does not have a statement of faith, and that rattles some of the critics. Everyone should have a creed, right?

According to the newsletter, the idea of having a statement of faith is uncessary. It states:

Why is such a move unnecessary? Jesus did not have a "statement of faith." He called others into faithful relation to God through life in the Spirit. As with the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, he was not concerned primarily with whether individuals gave cognitive assent to abstract propositions but with calling persons into trustworthy community through embodied and concrete acts of faithfulness. The writers of the New Testament were not obsessed with finding a final set of propositions the assent to which marks off true believers. Paul, Luke and John all talked much more about the mission to which we should commit ourselves than they did about the propositions to which we should assent.

I always find it refreshing when people compare what we do in Christianity today with what Jesus did, because often, they are quite different. Jesus told people to go out into the world and make disciples; we bring them into our mega churches. Jesus made a radical statement about selling all that one has; we have to have lots of stuff. So is it really that surprising that there's a difference when it comes to having a statement of faith? I'd imagine that Jesus' statement of faith would be something like "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength...[and]...love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:30, 31). Jesus didn't seem to be anywhere near as concerned with what people believed as he was with how they related to God and to each other.

Yet it seems that we are often so focused on making sure a person believes the "right" way, and there sometimes are a lot of apologetics to "prove" that a person's or organization's statement of faith is correct. I'm sure you may have seen them--long statements of "What We Believe" peppered with a handful of Bible verses after each statement. [Have you ever actually compared the verses to the statements to see if they match up? I have. Sometimes they are a big stretch and taken out of context].

The biggest problem that I see is that if one must subscribe to a statement of faith, then that person can feel very alone and left out if they disagree with any part of it. They may feel they have to keep quiet. They may feel that they are not a True Christian after all, or that people will think they are in Big Trouble with God.

It seems to me that we might have a lot more Christians if we were more encouraging in exploring and discussing different ideas rather than having them set in a creed.

Get your inflatable nativity set here!

2006-04-17T18:10:00.000-05:00

--The following was written in October 2005--

An inflatable nativity set--just what I need!
In today's mail was a catalogue that advertised on the front cover an inflatable, 9 foot, light up nativity scene. The slogan next to it? "Over 220 new items to inspire faith!"

Hmmmm. How, exactly, is this supposed to inspire my faith? Maybe, as I am blowing it up, I am supposed to thank God for the breath He gave me, for the air to breathe. Oh, wait, no, that can't be it--the nativity scene comes "with built-in electric air blower for quick and easy inflation." I'll have to think some more. In the meantime, I wonder what other items are in here that could inspire my faith.

As I peruse the catalogue, I come across some foam footballs with a reindeer on them that say "Jesus is deer to me". Deer to me? I thought he was the Lamb of God.

Oh, here's what everyone needs: a "worry stone" to carry in your pocket that says "God Rocks" on it. God rocks? I thought God was the rock. Maybe I'll have better luck on another page.

Colors of faith candy jewelry? Gingerbread church kit? "Smile! Jesus Loves You! Kick Balls" (hacky sacks)? I'm supposed to kick around something that tells me Jesus loves me? That seems a little odd.

So I guess there isn't anything inspiring about this cataloge. Oh wait, there is...I'm inspired to read where Jesus got angry at the moneychangers in the Temple for possibly taking advantage of people who needed to buy blemish-free animals for sacrifice. It's a story many Christians love, isn't it? Oh, those bad moneychangers--using God's house as a marketplace.

So tell me how this catalogue is any different.

Seek and you shall find?

2006-04-14T13:17:00.000-05:00

I'm currently re-reading The Callby Os Guinness. Since I decided that seminary was not going to work out at this point in time, I need to re-evaluate some things. But one thing that caught my attention is Guinness' discussion on seekers in Chaper 2. In Christianity the term commonly describes someone with no religious background who is attracted to "seeker services" where Christianity is made relevant through entertaining music and dramas and exciting preaching. Guinness writes that these people are described as "conversion prone". They are somewhat aimless when it comes to spiritual or religious direction. They are the ones who will go to that service and emotionally respond to the altar call.

Guinness has a different definition of a seeker. He believes that a true seeker is different from this, that they have purpose, energy, idealism. They have questions and want answers. He writes that "they have become seekers because something has spured their quest for meaning, and they have to find an answer. True seekers are looking for something" (10).

It is this kind of a seeker with which I identify. While I do not at all discount the "conversion prone" type of seeker, because I am sure that with their conversion new life is forthcoming, that kind of experience does not really resonate with me. I know that many people are happy to have a conversion experience and feel that they now know what life is all about. Their faith has come alive and that is a wonderful thing.

I, however, need more than that. Singing hymns or praise songs and listening to a sermon each week really does not do that much for me. I love to delve deep into the Bible and ask the questions that the majority of Christians would probably never think about. Things like why is there a specific way to wear clothing in Exodus 12:11? Or how did "choose life" in Deuteronomy 30, which originally meant to follow God's commands, get co-opted as the pro-life slogan? Or why do the synoptic gospels have different lists of the 12 disciples?

These are some of the things I wonder about, and many people would think I am probably too particular or nitpicky in wanting to know these details. But to me, pondering these things and getting into the details is like opening a gift or finding a hidden treasure. It forces me to think, to question, to doubt, to have faith. And in all of this, I grow. Sometimes it is a great struggle; sometimes nothing makes sense at all. But the less it makes sense, I think the more I have to depend on trusting God.

Sometimes my thoughts have to be radically revised. Sometimes I question some of the very tenets of Christianity and it's origins. But it is exciting too, because I learn more and more. And I think that the more I read the Bible and seek to understand it's history, it's context, it's culture, it's worldview, the more amazing I find what is contained within.

I'm also reading another book (yeah, I'm reading two--okay, three or four, actually--books at once. It's complicated.) called The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren, which was just released this month. At the end of Chapter 4, he writes the following:

"Is it possible that the message ofJesus was less like an advertising slogan--obvious and loud--and more like a poem whose meaning only comes subtly and quietly to those who read slowly, think long and deeply, and refuse to give up?" (34).

As I read that, I thought, "hey, that's me!" With the more and more questions that I have had as time has gone by, I think many people would have given up by now. But I continue my quest, my search, and I seek to find the different messages God has for me.

Where would Jesus go...

2006-04-09T13:44:00.000-05:00

...to church?

When I think about the myriad of denominations and houses of worship there are, I wonder if Jesus would feel at home in them. When we read the stories of Jesus' life, although we know he went to synagogue, it's not a main point. It's more of an aside. He spent time with people in their homes, on a hillside, in boats, etc. He went to where people were; he didn't bring them to where he was. It seems we maybe have it backwards today. We try to figure out ways to draw people in so we can convince them that they need Jesus. We want them to think church is not some weird place; that it is culturally relevant. So we have powerpoint presentations with the lyrics to songs, we build gymnasiums, we even have Starbucks and ATMs. We want everything to go perfectly, so that people will come back again and again.

Would Jesus feel comfortable there?

Did Jesus care about making people say "wow!"? On the contrary, he told people not to talk about the miracles he did. Did Jesus care about everything going perfectly? Probably not, since he had a group of more than 5000 and there was not enough food. That's not good planning, now, is it?

But these are the things we have to deal with and think about in Christianity today. And I wonder if maybe we're missing the point.

"Be a lion, not a mowess..."

2006-03-26T13:03:00.000-06:00

We all know the lion in The Wizard of Oz--the supposed king of the beasts lacked a little something to enable him to do well in his position--courage. It was the one thing that he desired from the wizard, and Dorothy and Company agreed to take him with them.

The idea of courage came to me recently as I read though the gospel of John, most specifically, in chapter 18. Let's back up a little bit though. Previously, in chapter 13, Jesus had identified Judas as the one who would betray him¹ and Judas left the meal. Throughout the next few chapters, the author of this gospel relates many of Jesus' sermons. We hear about the vine and branches, the persecution to come, glorification of God, and other ideas. After Jesus speaks of these things, he and the disciples leave and go to a garden across the Kidron valley, and that is where we see the first instance of courage. We are told that "Jesus often met there with his disciples" (verse 2). Often met there. It was a place he often went. Do you understand where I am going with this? Jesus, knowing that Judas was going to betray him, did not choose to hide out in an obscure location, but went to a place where Judas would know to find him!

The next thing Jesus does is that he comes forward and asks the soldiers and police who they are looking for. They tell him they are looking for Jesus of Nazareth and he says "I am he" (verse 6). The text then tells us that "they stepped back and fell to the ground" (verse 6). Can you just see the confusion on their faces? The person they have come to arrest is the one asking them who they want and admitting who he is? It's not exactly a scenario we'd see on the television show Cops, is it?

It's hard to imagine, isn't it? Knowing that he had caused enough of an uproar to be arrested and that it would lead to his death, he basically says "hey, here I am". I'm not sure I have that kind of courage in me. What must he have thought at that time? Did he wonder if it was all really worth it? Did he wonder if his disciples would ever really understand the things he had tried to teach him?

While I can't identify with the courage he had, I can identify with the possibility of these thoughts. How often do we wonder if we have had an impact on people when we hope we did? We may never know. If we are teachers, we wonder if our students understand what we teach, or if they just don't care.

And, in the face of those possible questions, he still had the courage to admit who he was, knowing his death would be imminent. How many of us possess this kind of courage? The strength that Jesus had to face this had to have come from somewhere, and that somewhere was from the Father. Jesus believed he was doing God's will; that he was being totally obedient to God. And that is what we also ought to strive for, and in doing so, can have the same kind of strength and courage.

¹ It appears from my reading of the text that only Simon Peter and the disciple Jesus loved were privy to hearing this conversation.

All dogs go to heaven...

2006-03-19T15:42:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I've never actually seen the movie All Dogs Go To Heaven, but I liked the title of it for this entry. According to the summary, a dog named Charlie is murdered and goes to Heaven "by default since all dogs go to heaven".

"Going to heaven" is a big preoccupation for many people. Yet, "in fact, there is almost nothing about 'going to heaven when you die' in the whole New Testament. Being 'citizens of heaven' (Philippians 3.20) doesn't mean you're supposed to end up there. Many of the Philippians were Roman citizens, but Rome didn't want them back when they retired. Their job was to bring Roman culture to Philippi."¹ What? But...but...isn't that what our entire faith is about? Making sure we believe the right thing so we can go to heaven when we die?

Is that all we're concerned about? Is the only important thing to get our butts into Heaven? (I picked up that phrase from Brian McLaren's book A New Kind of Christian). He wonders if God really wants a heaven full of people who only want to make sure they get there, rather than making sure they are good people. But, you may say, them's the rules...God said to believe in Jesus and that's it. That's the ticket in. All one's good works won't get a person to heaven.

I think, though, we're forgetting something. In the beginnng of the Gospel of Matthew, both John the Baptist and Jesus are telling people to repent because the kingdom of heaven has come near. Has come near. The kingdom of heaven. They aren't saying repent so you can some day go to heaven if you believe Jesus died for your sins and was resurrected. None of that had even happened yet and nobody was even thinking about it yet. Maybe Jesus wasn't even thinking about it yet.

So what is going on here?

We're not talking about simply saying "oh, I'm sorry I did such and such". It's so much more than that. Repentance is about not only being sorry, but turning one's life around in a way that one is going in a different direction. In this case, the direction one should go is toward God. He's not "out there somewhere", but is nearby. What they are saying is that we can turn our lives around to meet God right here, right now, and our lives can be surrendered to Him. He's the one in charge of our lives. He is our king. His kingdom can be present right now.

Maybe that is a letdown for some of you. Maybe you're just itching to escape this life so you can have a heavenly one later on. But is that what it's all about? If Jesus came so that we could have abundant life (John 10:10), wouldn't that mean that life could be abundant now as well as later? Earlier, I mentioned a quotation from N.T. Wright that said being a citizen of Rome that lived in Philip didn't mean Rome wanted them back, but that they were to bring Roman culture to Philipi. If that is the case, then doesn't it mean that as a citizen of Heaven, we are to bring God's culture to where we are, rather than waiting to go somewhere later on?

When we are so preoccupied about where we're going when we die, not only do we miss out on living an abundant life right now, but we then can become fixated on where other people are going when they die. And then it gets really sticky. You may say that a person won't go unless they "accept Jesus as their personal savior". So then what happens when a child dies unexpectedly? Or a mentally challenged adult who does not have the ability to understand? Or someone who may just be starting to get their life together and wonder about God but then has a heart attack? In these instances, we often may believe more in God's grace that He'll take care of these people. So why do we not extend that grace to other people just because they haven't "accepted Jesus"? What do we know of their stories? How do we know that they haven't been so hurt by a Christian that they want nothing to do with anything related to that person? Or maybe their questions have been brushed aside and they've been made to feel dumb for asking. When we pronounce our judgment on a person based on what we think they are saying, we are not seeing the whole picture. We are not seeing the confusion or pain a person may be feeling, and when we say they're going to hell, we're contributing to it.

And then we have the Christians who may believe the right thing, but you would never know it by their actions. They may know the extact date and time, right down to the second, of their conversion to Christianity. But how has it changed them?

The idea of "going to Heaven" is one that is much more complicated, I think, then we might led to believe. There are many questions, and, I suspect, many more opportunities for grace than we can imagine.

¹Wright, N.T. "Easter: Wright and Wrong" http://ship-of-fools.com/Features/frameit.htm?0403/wright_wrong.html

What interests us about Jesus?

2006-03-19T15:00:00.000-06:00

In The Spirit of Early Christian Thought, Robert Louis Wilken writes that "One of the persistent criticism of the Christology of the early church is that the church fathers, particularly those who were associated with Alexandria in Egypt, were interested in the fact of the Incarnation, not in the things that were done by the incarnate Son of God during his sojurn on earth" (page 117).

What Wilken is trying to say is that there is this criticism that these early church fathers were more interested in the Incarnation happening that they seem to forget about anything else Jesus did in his lifetime.

In some ways, I don't think much has changed. As Christians, our two biggest holidays are Christmas, celebrating Jesus' birth, and Easter, celebrating his resurrection. We don't have any holidays celebrating the rest of his life. It's almost like it is an afterthought at times. But it really should not be that way. If it was supposed to be that way, our New Testament would be an awful lot shorter than it is, wouldn't it?

I think that many Christians today are similar to the early church fathers (though I am sure many would recoil at that idea). It seems that we could re-write Wilken's statement to say that a criticism of Christians today is that they are more [interested in the factof going to Heaven after one dies and not in the things that were done by the incarnate Son of God during his sojurn on earth].

Yet while I believe that most Christians would agree that Jesus' life is important, I also find there to be a disconnect between what we would agree is important and what is stressed as important.

Sometimes it seems that Jesus' life is secondary to making sure that a person goes to heaven after death. But we are not God. We do not know exactly what is in store for anyone. We also then have the problem that there are Christians who will then be somewhat paranoid that a person did not really believe the exact right way, or say the exact right prayer, or, in other words, was not a "True Christian".

I find this all to be rather sad and disturbing, for a variety of reasons. By thinking this way, we put ourselves in God's place. Who are we to judge the faith of another person? We also give the impression that a person's life here on earth is fairly irrelevant in the big scheme of things. I know that a response to that is that eternity is a long time and so our life now is minor.

I don't mean to be too cynical, and most of the churches I have attended have not made it a point to offer "altar calls" at each service and actually have not spoken a lot about going to heaven. But I also know that the idea is out there and I think it deserves some attention, especially with Easter fast approaching.

So stay tuned...

Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD...

2006-03-17T13:32:00.000-06:00

I recently saw this phrase, a verse from Psalm 33, on a church bulletin cover in a catalogue. There was an array of patriotic themes, showing pictures of the statue of liberty or various buildings in Washington, D.C. I've also seen the statue of liberty shown with the words "proclaim liberty throughout the land" (that one is from Leviticus 25).

There is a big danger in tying together our faith and our country of citizenship. By doing so, not only does the line between them blur, but we also then can start to think that any Bible verses about God's nation or God's people is really about the country in which we live.

So by now, you might be starting to think "you are so unpatriotic!" or "but this is a Christian nation". Before you get too upset, hear me out.

While we may be a nation in which a majority of people identify themselves as Christians, that does not mean that we are a Christian nation. We do not have a state religion, and that is a very good thing. It means that we are all free to worship as we please. It means that identify as Christians we are not doing so because that is just what our country has picked as its religion, but because we believe it. It might also be beneficial to try to look at our country with an outsider's eyes. Does "Christian nation" match up with what this country stands for? If someone only today became aware of our country and heard that it was a Christian nation, what would they learn about what it means to be a Christian? Would they learn that a Christian is one who is told to sell all his possessions and follow Jesus?¹ Or would they learn a Christian is one who accumulates many possessions--car, house, computers, tvs...? Is this a nation whose God is the Lord? Or is this a nation whose God is consumerism?

The phrase "God bless America" is one that easily rolls off of the tongues of many. But what does it mean to be a nation that is blessed? Does it mean that we have everything we want and are powerful and that life is perfect? It does not. Remember Abraham? In Genesis 12, God told him to leave his country and family and go to wherever God would lead him. He told Abraham (still named Abram at the time) that He would bless him and make him a great nation "so that you will be a blessing" (Genesis 12:2). Being blessed by God was not something Abraham "earned" or "deserved", but rather, it was something that brought great responsibility with it. Abraham and his descendents were to be a blessing to "all the families of the earth" (Genesis 12:3).

So when we say we are a nation that is blessed by God, do we understand the ramifications of being blessed? Do we take that blessing and in turn, bless others? How?

So to get back to the problem with mixing patriotism and faith. When we mix the two together, what happens when there is a conflict between the two? Which one wins out? If patriotism demanded that one give up practicing what one believed, is that acceptable? Or if faith demanded that one give up believing in one's country, could that be done? If we had a state religion, then wouldn't what we practiced be dictated to by the laws that were made? How many Christians would like it if the state religion decreed that the sabbath² would no longer be observed on Sunday but rather they were going to switch it to Wednesday instead? I think this is one of the things that proponents of a "Christian nation" do not think about. I think that while they want Christianity to influence government decisions, they do not realize that it would have to work both ways and that government decisions would also influence Christianity.³

Often, we hear about laws that need to be instituted or we need to have Ten Commandments monuments or nativity scenes on display because "this is a Christian nation". But why do we? Why do we need to have secular agreement with how we already practice our faith? Shouldn't our faith be practiced no matter what decisions the government does or does not make? If we are not practicing our faith in our own homes and in our own lives, why should we demand that the entire nation submit to it?

¹ "'If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the por, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.' When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions."--Matthew 19:21-22

² Sabbath in this context refers to the Christian sabbath that takes place on Sunday. The Biblical Sabbath takes place from Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown.

³ Isn't this how we ended up calling Sunday the sabbath anyway? When Christianity became the official religion of Rome, didn't Constantine declare Sunday would be the sabbath?

Ok. So you're a believer. Now what?

2006-03-10T22:07:00.000-06:00

My sister Sarah informed me yesterday that I hadn't updated my blog in a few days [note to Sarah: see, I specifically wrote about you. Check.]. Although I'm sure she knew that I had definitely noticed that I hadn't posted anything, because, well, it is my blog, I don't think that was her point. I think what she actually meant was that she was disappointed that I hadn't posted anything in five days. I've had a couple of ideas for posts floating around in my head and I have one post that I've been working on but haven't finished yet, so there really is stuff going on in the background. But I didn't want to go too long without writing something, so here is today's entry.

Let's talk about being a believer. Many Christians often get concerned if their friends or family members are not believers. This causes great concern for them, especially when the topic of death comes up. However, using the term "believer" really falls in the Christianese language, and even moreso, I think, in the Evangelical¹ Christianese language. Other people will think, "Am I a believer? A believe in what, the trustworthyness of tabloids? Or that jellyfish really hurt when they sting?" There's often no context for the term. But for the gung-ho Evangelical, it typically comes down to one thing: does this person believe the right stuff about Jesus so he or she can go to heaven after death? This is an idea that many people find offensive--that there is only one right way to believe. "Offensive?" the evangelical might say. "Sure it's offensive. Jesus wasn't worried about offending people so neither am I". [Note to the evangelical saying this: Jesus wasn't worried about being offensive to the religious people. Think on that a little bit.]

So where was I? Oh, yes, being a believer. So we have people out there who are determined to make believers out of non-believers, and non-believers who are just as determined to not become as narrow-minded and judgemental as they see in the personalities of the believers. Lovely situation, is it not? Ghandi commented on this too. He said, or so I hear, that he liked Jesus, but didn't think much of Jesus' followers. Ouch.

So what are we to do? Here's an idea. Why don't we stop focusing so much on what a person believes about Jesus and more on how to become a disciple of Jesus? After all, Jesus did say "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19), which I think is actually much more difficult than simply being a believer. After all, I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't believe. But I know for sure that I was not always a disciple.

And that's where I see a disconnect come in. Sometimes it seems that there is so much focus on getting people to believe something so they can go to heaven someday that their life here on earth is virtually counted as meaningless. "But isn't that really what is important?", one might say. "After all, the length of this life is nothing compared to the length of eternity." And that's true. But I think our lives here do mean something, and I think that "eternal life" is not limited to some future, faraway place called Heaven. This idea came to me some time ago when I was reading a commentary on the Gospel of John [note to Sarah, who doesn't like "documented" writing--this won't take too long]. In it, the author writes that the Greek word for eternal, aionios, does not necessarily mean "for a long span of time", but rather, the kind of life that God would live (I have been looking and looking for a direct quotation, but I can't find it. I'll update this post if I ever do find it). So it's more than just something that we are supposed to look forward to some day down the road. It's a kind of fulfillment we can have now, here on earth, in this life. Isn't that something that will make more of a difference to a person? That life here can be so much better than one ever thought? If an afterlife is something that we can't really fathom, and also is something the Bible actually does not spend a lot of time discussing, why then, is it such a focus for us?

This isn't to say that belief is unimportant. But rather than being the finish line, I think it is just the beginning of the journey, and it is discipleship that will lead us on.

¹Please note that I think the word evangelical is difficult to define. If you're really interested in exploring the topic further, I refer you to an article called "Evangelical Theology Today" in Volume 51, 1994-1995, January issue, of Theology Today. For the purposes of this entry, I'm going to use one of the categories from the article, which quotes George Marsden saying an evangelical is one with "a zeal to proclaim the biblically revealed gospel of salvation from sin through the atoning work of Christ" (496). I think when most people hear the word "evangelical" it is associated with those Christians who are of a more vocal nature in their beliefs about Jesus and their beliefs about getting everyone saved.

The Bible--important because...?

2006-03-05T20:36:00.000-06:00

Ah, the Bible. I've heard it is the bestselling book of all time. It comes in many different translations or paraphrases. It comes in different sizes and colors. There are Bibles for men, Bibles for women, Bible for small-group study, Bibles for children, and even Bibles that look like magazines that are made especially for teenagers (one must make the Bible look cool to carry around, right?). There is even a Bible for text-messaging. We've heard of Bible-thumpers, Bible study groups, and Bible colleges. So what is it about this book that it is of importance to people around the world?

For some people, it's nothing more than a literature book. It has some stories that may or may not be true, some poetry, and way too many begats to count.

Is the Bible an easy read? No. There are many passages that are difficult because of language issues or translation issues or because the reader does not have the requisite background to understand the context of the passage. Picture this: "What? I need some pigeons? Aaron? Who is Aaron? That guy I knew from work? But his sons weren't priests; they weren't even Catholic. No, maybe I need grain. It says if this is prepared on a griddle...pancakes? Well, I am kind of hungry. Maybe I'll go to IHOP". And the person puts the Bible down, likely to not bother picking it up again because he or she did not understand the history, culture, and context of those verses in Leviticus (they are in chapters 1 and 2, in case you were wondering).

But for many people, the Bible is the the place to go for answers to life's questions, to read about how God has interacted with the world throughout time, and to learn how to apply its truths to one's life. This is something that takes time, and in our world of fast food, video on demand, and instant everything, time is something that many of us do not have because we are constantly on the go. Even those of us who profess its importance often do not open it up regularly. I know I have bouts of time where I do read and study it, and bouts of time where I can't remember the last time I read from it.

One of the amazing things about the Bible is that it can speak to us in different ways at different times in different stages of our lives. In an earlier post, I wrote of hearing Psalm 103 at the Ash Wednesday service I attended. Have I read this psalm before? Yes. I'd read through all of them sometime this past summer. Had I noticed anything about it then? Not that I can recall. But this time was different. This time, the psalm spoke to me where I needed to hear something. And that is something that is so powerful about the Bible that cannot really be explained without experiencing it.

So get into the Bible. Don't think that just because you've read the Gospel of Mark 37 times that you can't find anything new in it on the 38th read. You never know what you'll find that will encourage you, strengthen you, or even confuse you.

One final note. It's good to have a study group or partner to read and discuss your findings. Don't have time to go to a meeting? Study something with a friend online or by telephone. Take as long as you need; there's no reason to rush through it.

Topics, topics, and more topics

2006-03-03T14:32:00.000-06:00

While I have a list of topics started that I'd like to write about as the mood strikes me, if you have any suggestions about what you would like to read about, feel free to post them here!

Ash Wednesday--Part III

2006-03-01T21:12:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking all evening about the ashes on my forehead. Well, not all evening, because at times I have completely forgotten about them. But that forgetting is a way of thinking. After they were put on my forehead at church, I really didn't think too much of it until I was in the restroom after the service. I looked in the mirror and saw them--a dark, smudged cross, and I was reminded there was something different about today; there was something different about me celebrating this day. I left, and promptly forgot about them again. I arrived at Bible Study, and a friend said, "oh, you went to the service tonight". For a second I wondered how he knew that, and then I remembered--my ashes. It got me to thinking about marks or symbols of belonging. In her book Girl Meets God, Lauren Winner writes about the boldness of ashes, that they are "a bold proclamation of death and resurrection all at once", that this cross on our foreheads is not a "polite, small slice of silver dangling around [her] nceck but easily slipped behind [her] blouse. The ash cross is bold, and undeniable" (121).

When I first read those words, I thought, "yeah, so?" But I think I understand them now, even after only having worn the ashes for a few hours. It's a mark that is undeniable. It is there for all to see. It is there for the one wearing it to see. There are some people who probably think symbols or traditional things such as this are outdated and irrelevant to living a Christian life today. But are they? How many other days does a Christian look in the mirror and immediately remember that he or she is a Christian? Or is it something that is set aside, forgotten, like when I forgot my ashes were there?

It's easy to go through daily life forgetting about faith. It is easy to go through daily life without a distinction of who we are. But today is different. Today we are reminded of who we are when we are told there's dirt on our face, or people look at us in a funny way when we go to the store, or we simply look in the mirror.

I think it's the mirror that is the most important. In that mirror, we can remind ourselves who we are. We can be think about what this means to us, what our faith means to us. We can, at the very least, have some time of introspection that we may not set aside any other day of the year.

And so this season of prayer, this season of repentance, begins with a simple act of boldness, a simple, silent proclamation to all who see us. And in that simplicity we can find multitudes of meaning.

Ash Wednesday--Part II

2006-03-01T20:50:00.000-06:00

I can't remember the last time I went to an Ash Wednesday service. But I went tonight, and I have a dark cross smudged on my forehead to show for it. I also have more than that, but what is more is internal, with no outer expression to show. So instead what follows are my thoughts on some of the things I heard tonight.

It was a solemn occassion. The lights had been dimmed, and a candelabra with three candles was lit. Tiny glasses of grape juice were lined up on the altar rail; communion bread on small plates placed every so often.

The pastor spoke of forgiveness. He read Psalm 103, a psalm of praise, a psalm of God's blessing and love. A psalm of God's forgiveness. We had the cross placed on our foreheads, ate the bread, and drank the grape juice. We sang "Amazing Grace". We left, greeting each other with a traditional greeting, "Peace be with you...and also with you". It was a short service, no more than half an hour.

To me, the idea of forgiveness seemed to follow from a sermon from a couple of weeks ago. We were challenged to forgive those that had hurt us the most. People can hang on to this kind of pain for so very long, weeks...months...years...decades. Yet it does not bring healing. It stays under the surface and festers, and nobody but the person harboring the pain can know what it does. Sometimes, it isn't even another person that has caused the pain. It is oneself.

But what does Psalm 103 tell us? That God forgives all of our iniquity (verse 3), that He redeems our lives (verse 4), that he will not keep his anger forever (verse 9). And then, amazingly, it says:

He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us. (verses 10-12)

God can forgive us. His love is so strong, so powerful enough that He can forgive what we do. Yet we have such a problem offering that same love to others and to ourselves. Perhaps Lent is not something you have ever given much thought to, have never observed. But perhaps it is also a time to try something new. Spend this time reflecting on God's love. Think about the freedom to be felt when it is time to let go of the hurt you have endured. And let it go. Put down the heavy burden that is dragging you down, and soar.

Ash Wednesday

2006-03-01T14:00:00.000-06:00

Today is Ash Wednesday, the inaugural day for the Christian season of Lent. In many ways, Lent is not much of a thought for most people, and in many churches, its significance is not discussed too much. Some people may go to church and have ashes put on their foreheads, others will not give it a second thought.

Lent is supposed to be a time of repentance, prayer, and self-denial, and the ashes signify mortality and repentance.

I've never really felt a connection to this season. I have some memories of not being able to eat meat on Fridays when I was a kid, and I probably gave something up, but nothing really sticks out to me. In the last few years, I did give up a couple of things for Lent. One year, it was chocolate. Another year, it was Starbucks. It definitely was not easy, and I guess that is the point of Lent--to understand that the things we give up, no matter how difficult, is really nothing compared to Jesus giving up his life. But I have a difficult time connecting a minor sacrifice like giving up chocolate with that.

So perhaps this year I will try to focus on prayer. I often fluctuate between spending a decent amount of time in prayer and forgetting all about it. I did try it once--I thought I'd get up and pray for the first fifteen minutes each morning. Not being a morning person, this did not work out very well at all. I'll have to do something different this time, but the details may have to be worked out as I go. It sounds like a good idea though--there can't be anything wrong with prayer, and who wouldn't want to benefit from spending more time with God?

"Regard your servant's prayer and his plea, O LORD my God, heeding the cry and the prayer that your servant prays to you today"--1 Kings 8:28

So what kind of a Christian are you?

2006-02-28T13:46:00.000-06:00

I suppose you could call me ecumenical or interdenominational. I grew up going to two different churches--Catholic and Congregational. I remember when we would say the Nicene Creed I would leave out the "catholic" part when I was at the Catholic church because I couldn't in good conscience say there was only the catholic church. Of course, now that I know it doesn't mean Catholic, I have to laugh about it. But it does make me wonder how much we do or recite without really knowing why we do it or what it means.

I gave up on church for a while, and when I went back, I ended up at a Presbyterian (USA) church. I also have attended a Baptist church and I currently attend a United Methodist church. The seminary where I have been working on my M.Div is of the Wesleyan tradition. I've also been greatly influenced by what I've learned from my Jewish friends. So I'm fairly well-rounded, and I like looking at things from these different perspectives.

And so it begins...

2006-02-27T22:14:00.000-06:00

I've now joined the ranks of millions of other people who, for one reason or another, have created a blog. Some use them to write about current events such as politics, some write about conspiracy ideas, some use them to keep friends and family members updated on life events. Still others write very personal journal entries to anonymously share with the world. Whatever the reason, one's blog is one's own place to write about anything.

And so with my blog, I've scratched the itch to put my thoughts into (hopefully) coherent words. I invite you to join me on this journey of exploration of topics of faith and the Bible.