Harbour Lights

Night Watch - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 12

2009-02-17T10:12:00.002-06:00

Night Watch -- Chapter 12
She is walking through the Lucas place and the ground is full of grasshoppers. She says, “Every step I took detonated the grass,” as she wades through the bursts and whirr of wings and clips of snapping hopper legs. She tells us about the transformation that is possible, from grasshoppers to a plague of locusts. “Swarms of locusts are ordinary grasshoppers gone berserk.”
What I wonder is, does this happen to all of us when we are restless, or when we are thrust together in close proximity, or when worked into a frenzied state? Do we transform from a state of harmlessness into a destructive plague? I even wonder about the biblical plagues of locusts (Joel 1:4). Could that really be about us?
Oh, the wonder of it all. That is the point. The world is wild and we with it. It is full of wonder if we will but pay attention. Wild life is all around and through and within. The fact of it says something.
Quotes:
A bobwhite who is still calling in summer is lorn; he has never found a mate. When I first read this piece of information, every bobwhite call I heard sounded tinged with desperation, suicidally miserable. But now I am somehow cheered on my way by that solitary signal. The bobwhite’s very helplessness, his obstinate Johnny-two-notedness, takes on an aura of dogged pluck. God knows what he is thinking in those pendant silences between calls. God knows what I am. But: bobwhite. Yes, it’s tough, it’s tough, that goes without saying. But isn’t waiting itself and longing a wonder, being played on by wind, sun, and shade? (220)
I didn’t know, I have never known, what spirit it is that descends into my lungs and flaps near my heart like an eagle rising. I named it full-of-wonder, highest good, voices. (224)

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - Chapter 11 - Stalking

2008-12-31T16:53:00.002-06:00

The point is that it (the world, love, fish, muskrats, or electrons) is all rather fleeting. What we can see or experience or ‘know’ must be stalked. We must go looking and learn to be still, or we will never see. We get, if we will set ourselves to the task, what Moses got, which was to witness the glory of God from the cleft in the rock, witnessing the fleeting ‘hind-parts’ of God (Ex 33:22-3). We may see the Promised Land from the top of Pisgah, and our longing for more, well, moments or glimpses are all you get.

I wonder if we could make room in our schedules to pay attention. Even if our attention was being paid to people, could we go listening? People are always revealing the story of their lives. Dillard talks about the spiritual quality of stalking fish. Have you ever tried to watch fish (not in an aquarium!)? Fish are pretty skittish in the wild. They would rather not be seen (stalked, captured, or eaten). They often do not look like the water-bottom. They are reflectors of light, fleeting flashes of glory. It is any wonder that Jesus calls fishermen?

Quotes:

I am prying into secrets again, and taking my chances. I might see anything happen; I might see nothing but light on water. I walk home exhilarated or becalmed, but always changed, alive. (186)

More men in all of time have died at fishing than at any other human activity except perhaps the making of war. ... You can lure them, net them, troll for them, club them, clutch them, chase them up the inlet, stun them with plant juice, catch them in a wooden wheel that runs all night – and you still might starve. They are there, they are certainly there, free, food, and wholly fleeting. You can see them if you want to; catch them if you can. (188)

If I freeze, locking my muscles, I will tire and break. Instead of going ridged, I go calm. I center down wherever I am; I find balance and repose. I retreat – not inside myself, but outside myself, so that I am a tissue of senses. Whatever I see is plenty, abundance. (203)

The Principle of Indeterminacy turned science inside out. Suddenly determinism goes, causality goes, and we are left with a universe composed of what Eddington calls “mind-stuff.” (206)

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - Fecundity (10)

2008-12-17T09:43:00.003-06:00

Chapter Ten: Fecundity

When it comes to reproduction, do we feel differently about plants and animals? I think we do. One could be a subject of polite discussion and the other is not. Why do you suppose that is?

There is tremendous growth pressure. It appears to be in the design of the Designer. Growth happens. Life is stubborn and insistent. Sycamore roots break sidewalks. Mushrooms can shatter a cement basement floor. And human beings will wreck themselves because of growth pressure. As we seek love and a companion and sex and children, it seems to be, in seasons, all consuming.

Consider life in the waters, in the ponds and lakes and oceans. Do you ever consider how much life and death and left-overs are teeming in the waters? We push these kinds of ideas away. It ruins swimming in the ocean. It makes us think, “That’s gross!” Of course I can hardly swim in a pond, or a lake, for the very same reasons. It is full of life! How does God consider the life of the barnacle? Are the individual barnacles important to God? What about the individual lives of whales? Or rats? Or cats? Or dolphins? Or horses? Or us? Does God care about the fish that we eat, or the cows?

Either Mother Nature is a monster, or human beings are a freak of nature, somehow different from the way of the cosmos. It could be that our emotions are a curse, that we should accommodate ourselves to the amoral natural reaction to life and death. This is also unacceptable to us. What does nature have to say to us about Creation and the Creator? I do not think we can close our eyes, or refuse to think about what we see. I suppose many do refuse to see and refuse to consider the implications of what they see. I cannot refuse either.

Quotes:

I don’t know what it is about fecundity that so appalls. I suppose it is the teeming evidence that birth and growth, which we value, are ubiquitous and blind, that life itself is so astonishingly cheap, that nature is as careless as it is bountiful, and that with extravagance goes a crushing waste that will one day include our own cheap lives. (162)

I never met a man who was shaken by a field of identical blades of grass. ... No, in the plant world, especially among the flowering plants, fecundity is not an assault on human values. Plants are not our competitors; they are our prey and our nesting materials. We are no more distressed at their proliferation than an owl is as a population explosion among field mice. (164)

Bamboo can grow three feet in twenty-four hours. (165)

“Acres and acres of rats” has a suitably chilling ring to it that is decidedly lacking if I say, instead, “acres and acres of tulips.” (167)

Rock barnacles: The barnacles encrusting a single half-mile of shore can leak into the water a million million larvae. ... My point about rock barnacles is those million million larvae in ‘milky clouds’ and those shed flecks of skin. Sea water seems suddenly to be but a broth of barnacle bits. Can I fancy that a million million human infants are more real? (168)

The pressure of growth among animals is a terrible kind of hunger. These billions must eat in order to fuel their surge to sexual maturity so that they may pump out more billions of eggs. (170)

Lacewings are those fragile green insects with large, rounded transparent wings. The larvae eat enormous numbers of aphids, the adults mate in a fluttering rush of instinct, lay eggs, and die by the millions in the first cold snap of fall. Sometimes when a female lays her fertile eggs on a green leaf atop a slender stalked thread, she is hungry. She pauses in her laying, turns around, and eats her eggs one by one, then lays more, and eats them, too. Anything can happen, and anything does; what’s it all about?

Valerie Eliot, T. S. Eliot’s widow, wrote in a letter to the London Times: My husband, T. S. Eliot, loved to recount how late one evening he stopped a taxi. As he got in the driver said, “You’re T. S. Eliot.” When asked how he knew, he replied, “Ah, I have an eye for a celebrity. Only the other evening I picked up Bertrand Russell, and I said to him, “Well, Lord Russell, what’s it all about?” and do you know, he couldn’t tell me.” Well, Lord God, asks the delicate, dying lacewing whose mandibles are wet with juice secreted by her own ovipositor, what’s it all about? (“And do you know...”) (170-1)

I have to look at the landscape of the blue-green world again. Just think: in all the clean beautiful reaches of the solar system, our planet alone is a blot; our planet alone has death. I have to acknowledge that the sea is a cup of death and the land is a stained altar stone. (177)

Are my values then so diametrically opposed to those that nature preserves? This is the key point. (178)

We value the individual supremely, and nature values him not a whit. (178)

Either this world, my mother is a monster, or I myself am a freak. We are moral creatures in an amoral world. (179)

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - Flood

2008-11-24T10:31:00.002-06:00

Chapter Nine: Flood

The book turns here. "Flood" is about a washing away. She writes a report about Hurricane Agnes in 1972.

My favorite line:

Tinker Creek is out of its four-foot banks, way out, and it’s still coming. The high creek doesn’t look like our creek. Our creek splashes transparently over a jumble of rocks; the high creek obliterates everything in flat opacity. It looks like somebody else’s creek that has usurped and eaten our creek and is roving frantically to escape, big and ugly, like a blacksnake caught in a kitchen drawer.

What an image? I would never have thought of a blacksnake caught in a kitchen drawer! Does that happen at your house? I am not opening your drawers if that is happening at your house!

We have seen some of these world changing weather events. Hurricane Andrew in South Florida in 1992, Katrina in 2005 and this year (2008), Ike. New Orleans will be changed by Katrina. Galveston has been changed by Ike. We will tell stories about our experiences in these storms. Something has been washed away. I wonder about floods of different types in our life. On one side of the flood our lives were a particular way, and then after the flood, life is different. It could be a death in your family. The flood could be a failed relationship, or the loss of a job, or a career. There is a line in the movie, Angels in the Outfield, where the children see the pitcher and excitedly say, “You used to be Mel Clark!” The pitcher gets it. He says to the kids, “Yeah, kid, I used to be.”

There is something on the other side of the flood. In our family, we have come to call it “new normal.” Old normal will not be returning. Our routines have changes. Our perspective is changed. Our bell has been rung, never to be un-rung. In our culture we use Latin phrases to speak of the era before, like ante-diluvium (before the flood) and antebellum (before the war). If find that interesting. We don’t talk about the present, or the future that way. We must, in some way, be like Lot’s wife (Gen 19:26) or a poor plowman (Luke 9:62), looking back over our shoulders, considering what we used to be.

Intricacy - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

2008-11-19T16:48:00.003-06:00

Chapter Eight: Intricacy

This is the culmination of the Via Positiva – Seeing God from what can be seen.
How hard would it be for you to make a tree? Would the task be easier if the tree did not have to actually work? It would not have to grow, or reproduce, or respirate. How hard would it be?

How hard would it be to make a kidney, with the intricacy of the nephron and a Henle’s Loop? Each nephron in your kidney about fifteen yards long. Each human kidney has about a million nephrons. We could not imagine a kidney, much less make one.

When we can see, when we can force ourselves to pay attention, there is an amazing complexity to the world around us, under our feet, over the next hill, and into the sky.

What do you think about evolution? I would say that evolution clearly happens. That in no way trumps the idea of a Creator. The more I can see, the more I believe in wonder, the more I am astonished at the extravagance of the Creator. The Creator creates! Look closely! There is a ‘wow’ in every molecule!

Quotes:

If you analyze a molecule of chlorophyll itself, what you get is one hundred thirty-six atoms of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen arranged in an exact and complex relationship around a central ring. At the ring’s center is a single atom of magnesium. Now: If you remove the atom of magnesium and in its exact place put an atom of iron, you get a molecule of hemoglobin. (127-8)

‘Nature,’ said Thoreau in his journal, ‘is mythical and mystical always, and spends her whole genius on the least work.’ The creator, I would add, churns out the intricate texture of least works that is the world with a spendthrift genius and an extravagance of care. This is the point. (128)

This is our life, these are our lighted seasons, and then we die. In the mean time, in between time, we can see. The scales are fallen from our eyes, the cataracts are cut away, and we can make sense of the color-patches we see in an effort to discover where we so incontrovertibly are. (129)

The average temperature of our planet is 57 degrees Fahrenheit. Of the 29% of all land that is above water, over a third is given to grazing. The average size of all living animals, including man, is almost that of a housefly. The earth is mostly granite, which in turn is mostly oxygen. The most numerous of animals big enough (for us) to see are the cope pods, the mites, and the springtails; of the plants, the algae, the sledge. (129)

Everything I have seen is wholly gratuitous. (130)

Utility to the creature is evolution’s only aesthetic consideration. Form follows function in the created world, so far as I know, and the creature that functions, however bizarre, survives to perpetuate its form. (136-7)

Of all known forms of life, only about 10 percent are still living today. (138)

Pliny, who knew the world was round, figured that when it was all surveyed the earth would be seen to resemble a pineapple, pricked with irregularities. (140)

Were the earth smooth, our brains would be smooth as well (no complex thinking required); we would wake, blink, walk tow steps to get the whole picture, and lapse into a dreamless sleep. (141)

‘Every religion that does not affirm that God is hidden,’ said Pascal flatly, ‘is not true.’ (146)

No claims of any and all revelations could be so far-fetched as a single giraffe. (146)

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - Spring

2008-10-29T15:24:00.004-05:00

Chapter Seven: Spring

This is the penultimate chapter of the first half of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. As Spring emerges, life makes itself visible again. The word that captured me on this reading was heaves. Life heaves from the ground, water lifts through the trees. I wonder if we could be still and diligent at the same time. Could we listen to bird-song with a sense of wonder? In the Fall in Houston we could see thousands of birds competing for a place on the wires and telephone poles. I would never stop to listen. I might watch and wonder from inside the car, but I have better sense than to stand under the swirl of thousands of birds!

As with other chapters, Dillard wants us to pay attention to the extravagant life that surrounds us. This Fall I read Justinian’s Flea by William Rosen. He is talking about bubonic plague. He reminds us that most of the biomass on earth is bacteria. We don’t look. And if we don’t look, then perhaps we do not have to consider or contemplate that life. How are we similar to rotifers, plankton and paramecia, or bacteria?

The more we see, the more we consider the wonder and the awe. There is life! When we are willing to see it, I think it shapes our meta-narratives, the stories that define our lives, our context, our reality. We live in a Design that grows and breathes. We live in a world where energy comes from the sun, and miracles, weird and wonderful, happen. Would we look Life in the eye?

Quotes:

There is a certain age at which a child looks at you in all earnestness and delivers a long, pleased speech in all the true inflections of spoken English, but with not one recognizable syllable. There is no way you can tell the child that if language had been a melody, he had mastered it and done well, but that since it was in fact a sense, he had botched it utterly.

It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. If the mockingbird were chirping to give us the long-sought formulae for a unified field theory, the point would be only slightly less irrelevant. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful? (107)

Water lifting up tree trunks can climb one hundred and fifty feet an hour; in full summer a tree can, and does heave a ton of water every day. A big elm in a single season might make as many as six million leaves, wholly intricate, without budging an inch; I couldn’t make one. (113)

I suspect that the real moral thinkers end up, wherever they may start, in botany. We know nothing for certain, but we seem to see that the world turns upon growing, grows toward growing, and growing green and clean. (114)

There is a muscular energy in sunlight corresponding to the spiritual energy of wind. On a sunny day, the sun’s energy on a square acre of land or pond can equal 4500 horsepower. These “horses” heave in every direction, like slaves building pyramids, and fashion, from the bottom up, a new and sturdy world.(119)

I don’t really look forward to these microscopic forays...I do it as a moral exercise; the microscope at my forehead is a kind of phylactery, a constant reminder of the facts of creation that I would just as soon forget. (122)

If I did not know about the rotifers and paramecia, and all the bloom of plankton clogging the dying pond, fine; but since I’ve seen it I must somehow deal with it, take it into account. (123)

Exodus as Intentional Family Curriculum

2008-10-29T08:51:00.007-05:00

These are notes from a Sunday Morning class I taught on October 26 at North Street.

I want us to spend some time in Exodus. This is the foundation for a series of lessons I plan to preach in March and April of next year. This is gleaned from a lecture by Walter Brueggemann.

Grandparents help grandchildren remember. Exodus is an antidote to amnesia. Exodus is about tracing out connections. Exodus is about tracing our moral codes, providing expectations for life, painting the picture of a river of belonging.

What if we read this as a key to the whole?

Exodus 10:1-2 (NRSV) ¹Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials, in order that I may show these signs of mine among them, ²and that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I have made fools of the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them—so that you may know that I am the Lord."

Exodus is intentional family curriculum. It depicts the competition between Pharaoh and Yahweh. Youth (perhaps in every age) have no feeling of debt to the past. All of our grandparent’s stuff becomes antique and obsolete.

Was it about amnesia? The empire has a vested interest in local amnesia. It makes for a group of people easy to control (or easier anyway). Look to the theme of Deuteronomy 8, Don’t forget.

This was always in play. The forces of forgetfulness would say, Join Alexander, Join Rome, forget particularity, jettison memory.

Exodus

1. Remember the midwives. They are named Shiphrah and Puah. Pharaoh is not named. The midwives are significant. They refused imperial fear and coercion. The future comes down to mothers. They have seething courage. They are the ones to hold up the pictures of the Disappeared (of Argentina). These are the mothers who take a casserole to the grieving. These are the mothers who made fools of the commandos of Pharaoh. They are HISTORY MAKERS.

Remember the terrorist activity of Pharaoh (and Moses). Someone had to act. The action did not come by innocence. It was in Moses’ mis-adventure (murder of the Egyptian) that he challenged the status quo. The truth is that oppression, forced labor, and exploitation requires confrontation. How? We wrestle with that!
Remember the theophony. The bush burns. The Voice of Holiness calls. It is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We can expect an interruption from God. He answers the cry of his people. Exodus 3:10 (NRSV) ¹⁰So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."

Who? Me? Yahweh says, “I will go with you.”
What is your name? YHWH. Tell them.
I have no power! What if they will not listen? What is that in your hand? Put your hand in your cloak. It will be a contest of power against power. (I am thinking he will need that with Zipporah, too!)
And there will be a renovation of the economy. The Nile will turn to blood. The cattle and the land and the laws of inheritance will all be demolished.
I can’t speak well. I will speak through you.
Send someone else. No!

Remember the Bricks.

Produce bricks, and when it seems you have too much time, time for worship on your hands, then you could work harder. Meet the quota.
It is oppressive. It is coercive economic theory. That is true in academics, sports, sales, and church.
There is no oasis unless you depart!!
We have a tendency to absolutize the present power arrangements. If our grandparents knew that this was not always the way things were they could give us hope in the face of acquisitive power.

Remember the death of the Firstborn and the Passover.

The death of the first born raises a loud cry! Every arrogant power is humiliated. Pharaoh says, "Rise up, go away from my people, both you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord, as you said. ³²Take your flocks and your herds, as you said, and be gone. And bring a blessing on me too!" Exodus 12:31-32 (NRSV).
Truth and pain are brought against power by YHWH (not by rebellion, not by force of arms, but by ‘the death of a first born – Jesus).

When the people LEFT what they knew, they were afraid. I understand that. It is the place where you lose control. They grumbled. Moses told them, ‘You have only to be still.’

On the other side of the water we hear a moment of song.

In chapter 15 Miriam sings. The Lord will reign forever. There is a regime change. There is a new order.

There is no short cut for this story. You cannot begin to live this out where you wish. You have to live it out.

Michael Walzer, ( Exodus and Revolution, 149)

first, that wherever you live, it is probably Egypt;
second, that there is a better place, a world more attractive, a promised land;
and third, that “the way to the land is through the wilderness.” There is no other way to get from here to there except by joining together and marching.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - The Present

2008-10-01T10:44:00.003-05:00

We spend so much of our lives getting ready to live. Years ago I heard a mantra from Randy Harris that I think is terrific. It has four parts. I will be incompetent. That is not a goal, but a confession before the fact. The standards I am pursuing are idealistic and important. I will not abandon the ideal. I will be incompetent. I will be fully present. I will see Christ in the face of every person I encounter. I will be Christ in every situation I encounter.

When Annie Dillard speaks of The Present, she is living in the now. I wonder how long we can pay attention to one thing. How long does an experience last? I wonder if we could pay more attention. Consciousness is an interesting concept. When the lights flicker on behind the eyes, when the neural network opens for reactive input, do we have any control? Consciousness is vital, but self-consciousness is (or can be) a hindrance to being fully present.

Have you had those moments that you wish would at least pause? We want to soak in it, or soak it in. It is too much to think it could last forever, but it could slow, couldn’t it? I am sure that is why we love photographs, or paintings. We will even call it ‘a capture.’ But that is not really true. The ‘capture’ is in our memory, and the ‘capture’ is nothing more than an aide for remembering.

Dillard writes:

This is it, I think, this is it, right now, the present, this empty gas station, here, this western wind, this tang of coffee on the tongue, and I am patting the puppy, I am watching the mountain. And the second I verbalize this awareness in my brain, I cease to see the mountain or feel the puppy. (80)
Experiencing the present purely is being emptied and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall. (82)
There are a few live seasons. Let us live them as purely as we can, in the present. (83)
Michael Goldman wrote in a poem, ‘When the Muse comes She doesn’t tell you to write; / She says get up for a minute, I’ve something to show you, stand here.’ (85)
I want to come at the subject of the present by showing how consciousness dashes and ambles around the labyrinthine tracks of the mind, returning again and again, however briefly, to the senses. (88)
Dorothy Dunnett: There is no reply, in clear terrain, to an archer in cover. Invisibility is the all-time great cover; and the one infinite power deals so extravagantly and unfathomably in death ... makes that power an archer, there is no getting around it. (91)
The least brave act, chance taken and passage won, makes you feel loud as a child. (91)
Arthur Koestler wrote, “In his review of the literature on the psychological present, Woodrow found that its maximum span is estimated to lie between 2.3 and 12 seconds.” (93-4)
In the top inch of forest soil, biologists found ‘an average of 1,356 living creatures present in each square foot, including 865 mites, 265 spring tails, 22 millipedes, 19 adult beetles and various members of 12 other forms ... Had an estimate also been made of the microscopic population, it might have ranged up to two billion bacteria and many millions of fungi, protozoa and algae – in a mere teaspoon of soil.’ (95)
The world is a wild wrestle under the grass; earth shall be moved. (98)
Like water flow: Ease is the way of perfection, letting fall. (102)
You don’t run down the present, pursue it with baited hooks and nets. You wait for it, empty-handed, and you are filled. You’ll have fish left over. (104)

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - Untying the Knot

2008-09-24T09:19:00.003-05:00

Via Positiva

Chapter Five: Untying the Knot

“I wonder how long it would take you to notice the recurrence of the seasons if you were the first man on earth. What would it be like to live in open-ended time broken only by days and night? ... How long would you have to live on earth before you could feel with any assurance that any one particular period of cold would, in fact, end?” (75)

This idea sends me off thinking in several directions.

The first is that we are so fond of ‘trending.’ Can you imagine living in the first warming trend? You are coming out of winter, the temperature is rising. Where will it peak (like the price of gasoline, or the stock-market, or your weight!)? If the temperature continues to rise at this rate, say 5 degrees a day, we will burn up by next month!!
The second is our cultural fascination with seasons. People are trekking to the Northeast to see the season turn! Last year I was in Gettysburg in November and it was stunning! We celebrate the changes. We look forward to the first freeze. We marvel at the first snow! On Christmas Eve, was it 2004, we were having our Christmas Eve service in Houston and it was snowing! It was beautiful, wonderful, stunning. And in the spring, when the trees bud, when the grass greens, we are comforted. We were made for rhythm.
The third is our need to reassure one another. This will not last forever. It was the summer of 1980. How many days was it that it was over a 100 degrees in Texas? Wichita Falls recorded a high of 117! And I wonder if that is the way of life. The Great Depression was not permanent. I have been reading about the Bubonic Plague in the last days of the Roman Empire (during the reign of Justinian). Would it ever end? In the midst, you think it will never end. However, so far, those who have lived though the cycles will tell you, this too shall pass.
Then, someday, the knot will untie. That is the witness of Scripture anyway. Someday the cycle will cease. Can we even imagine?

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - The Fixed

2008-09-18T14:57:00.005-05:00

Via Positiva

Chapter Four: The Fixed

Life and the world, the universe (whatever that is) is a curious combination of the fluid (changing and dynamic) and the fixed. I wonder if we are not in the image of God to the degree that we can occasionally interrupt the fixed. We are not really talented at it. Our interruptions are often clumsy and yield unintended consequences.

When your eyes are open to this world, what do you see? It seems to me that it is not always neat and clean according to my sensibilities. I would say it is rough and rowdy, profligate (extravagant) and deadly. Biochemistry is making things happen in amazing and weird ways!

Praying Mantis: “If the eggs survive ants, woodpeckers, and mice – and most – then you get the fun of seeing the new mantises hatch, and the smug feeling of knowing, all summer long, that they’re out there in your garden devouring gruesome numbers of fellow insects all nice and organically. When a mantis has crunched up the last shed of its victim, it cleans its smooth green face like a cat.” (56)
Adult mantises eat more or less everything that breathes and is small enough to capture. (56)
The mating rites of mantises are well known: a chemical produced in the head of the male insect says, in effect, “No, don’t go near her, you fool, she’ll eat you alive” At the same time a chemical in his abdomen says, “Yes, by all means, now and forever, yes.” While the male is making up what passes for his mind, the female tips the balance in her favor by eating his head. (59) (She has her reproductive way with headless him. Then she eats him!)
Polyphemus moth: The whole cocoon twisted and slapped around in the bottom of the jar. The teacher fades, the classmates fade, I fade: I don’t remember anything but that things struggle to be a moth or die trying. (62)
He couldn’t spread his wings. There was no room. The chemical that coated his wings like varnish, stiffening them permanently, dried and hardened his wings as they were. He was a monster in a Mason jar. (62)
Fish gotta swim and bird gotta fly; insects, it seems, gotta do one horrible thing after another. (64)

When we see nature acting in this way – wasps squeezing the honey out of a honeybee, licking the honey from the bee’s tongue while a mantis comes and clutches the wasp and begins to saw and gnaw while the wasp continues to feast in the throws of death – what is communicated about the Intelligent Designer? That God experiments? That there is no end to creativity? That there is a world that we often refuse to see because these are not thoughts we wish to think? Insects make up a considerable about of the world’s biomass. Maybe we should be looking at bacteria, the life form that takes up the greatest percentage of the world’s biomass. It all challenges one’s view of the cosmos.

Winter - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

2008-09-17T09:18:00.001-05:00

Via Positiva

Chapter Three: Winter

This chapter is a bit of a travel log. She speaks of Starlings and spiders and coots and the weather. Everywhere she is respecting both life and death. She is in awe of the work that life does. Have you ever hesitated to disturb a spider web, knowing that the spider has worked so diligently? Have you ever looked at your old insect collection and thought that maybe is was a cruel exercise in presumed sovereignty?

Desiderata:

Starlings: “According to Edwin Way Teale, ‘Their coming was the result of one man’s fancy. That man was Eugene Shieffelin, a wealthy New York drug manufacturer. His curious hobby was the introduction to America of all the birds mentioned in William Shakespeare.’” (37) (He released 100 in Central Park in NYC. Now Starlings are ubiquitous and stubbornly entrenched.)
“Winter clear-cuts and reseeds the easy way. Everywhere paths unclog.” (40)
“All that summer conceals, winter reveals” (40) (In winter, when the leaves are dropped, there is something different to see.)
“I’m getting used to this planet and to this curious human culture which is cheerfully enthusiastic as it is cheerfully cruel.” (43)
“When his father was young, he used to walk out on Great South Bay, which has frozen over, and frozen the gulls to it. Some of the gulls were already dead. He would take a hunk of driftwood and brain the living gulls; then with a steel knife he hacked them free below the body and rammed them into a burlap sack. The family ate herring gull all winter, close around a lighted table in a steamy room. And out on the Bay, the ice was studded with paired, red stumps” (43) (Something in this made me laugh, is that the cheerfully cruel in me?)
“Things out of place are ill.” (53) (She says this when she has a cocoon of spiders in her pocket! Out of place and ill.)

Seeing - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

2008-09-11T06:50:00.003-05:00

Via Positiva

Chapter Two

Seeing

· “I have been thinking about seeing. There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises.” (17)

· “What you see is what you get.” (17)

Her point is that it may seem mundane, the things you can see. It is like finding pennies. Are you delighted to find a penny, or is that beneath you? So much of our world passes us by without our thinking that it is remarkable. It is like reading Scripture. We think we know, so we are kept from hearing. How often to you gaze at the stars and think about what you see? How often do you look at an ant bed and think about what you see?

When it comes to nature, the sights are fleeting. Nature is pervasive, but it also is fleeting. Life is on the move. One has to pay attention in order to take it in. If you will take it in, there is wonder.

· “If I can’t see the minutia, I still try to keep my eyes open.” (19)

· “After thousands of years we’re still strangers to darkness, fearful aliens in an enemy camp with our arms crossed over our chests. … An uneasy pink here, an unfathomable blue there, gave great suggestion to lurking beings. Things were going on.” (22)

· “At this latitude I’m spinning 836 miles an hour round the earth’s axis; I often fancy I feel my sweeping fall as a breakneck arc like the dive of dolphins, and the hollow rushing of wind raises hair on my neck and the side of my face. I orbit around the sun I’m moving 64,800 miles an hour.” (23)

· “If we are blinded by darkness, we are also blinded by light.” (24) One example is a meteor shower in the middle of the day.

· “We have really only that one light, one source for all power, and yet we must turn away from it by universal decree. Nobody here on the planet seems aware of this strange, powerful, taboo, that we all walk about carefully averting our faces, this way and that, lest our eyes be blasted forever.” (25)

· “This looking business is risky.” (25)

When your eyes are open, you can look millions of light years into space. When your eyes are open you can see the abundance of life in a glass or bowl of pond water. It is extravagant!

Dillard tells of people who are newly sighted. They have been blind from birth. They have learned to navigate the world in a particular way. When they receive sight, they may refuse to use it. It is disorienting. It is overwhelming. One girl, aged 21, would close her eyes whenever she went out of the house.

“She is never happier than when, by closing her eyelids, she relapses into her former state of total blindness.” (30)
“Some delight in their sight and give themselves over to the visual world.” (31)
“Seeing is of course very much a matter of verbalization. Unless I call attention to what passes before my eyes, I simply won’t see it.” (33)
“When I see this way I analyze and pry, I hurl over logs and roll away stones; I study the bank a square foot at a time, probing and tilting my head.” (33)
“But there is another kind of seeing that involves a letting go. When I see this way I sway transfixed and emptied. The difference between the two ways of seeing is the difference between walking with and without a camera. When I walk with a camera, I walk from shot to shot, reading the light on a calibrated meter. When I walk without a camera, my own shutter opens, and the moment’s light prints on my own silver gut.” (33)

How can you do it? How can you see? She says that the challenge of her life is to quiet the interior conversation in her head. The secret, she says, is the pearl of great price. It can be found, but probably not by pursuit. The discipline is to practice openness, to be ready to see. I think this is true all over God’s world. I need to practice being non-self-absorbed. Then I can see in the dark and in the light. I can see, so to say, with a camera, or even in the ecstasy of being the camera, taking it all in with wonder and awe.

“I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until that moment I was lifted and struck.”

I cannot tell you how that resonates with me. Oh, for the openness to position ourselves to see, to perceive, to be in the place where the moment of realization of who you are and where you are is understood.

Heaven and Earth In Jest

2008-09-09T20:06:00.002-05:00

Via Positiva

It is the known, or perhaps that is an overstatement. There are some things that we can see. We try to make sense of what we see. Annie Dillard has written a book about seeing. She is walking near Tinker Creek, Virginia and she sees some things in nature. Nature has a voice. It is difficult to see clearly. It is also presumptuous to say that we understand what we see. However, we ought to look and we ought to think. What kind of world is this?

As I read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, I am another step removed from seeing. I am listening as Annie Dillard sees. She thinks and I think along with her. Then I begin to pay attention to the world, to see for myself, and to live in wonder at the sight, the sound, the voice.

Chapter One

Heaven and Earth In Jest

“I wake expectant, hoping to see a new thing.” (4)

“And just as I looked at him (a frog), he slowly crumpled and began to sag. The spirit vanished from his eyes as if snuffed. ... An oval shadow hung in the water behind the drained frog; then the shadow glided away. ... ‘Giant water bug’ is really the name of the creature, which is an enormous, heavy-bodied brown bug. Through the puncture shoot the poisons that dissolve the victim’s muscles and bones and organs – all but the skin – and through it the giant water bug sucks out the victim’s body, reduced to a juice.” (8)

“That it’s rough out there and chancy is no surprise.” (9)

“What do we think of the created universe, spanning an unthinkable void with an unthinkable profusion of forms? ... If the giant water bug was not made in jest, was it then be made in earnest?” (9)

Einstein: ‘God is subtle, but not malicious.” (9)

Her question is: What does nature say? Is it violent and cruel? Yes. Is it powerful and beautiful and somehow awe inspiring to us? Undoubtedly.

“We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what is going on here.” (11)

Dangerous and Exciting Preaching?

2008-08-24T08:06:00.002-05:00

Finally Comes the Poet: Daring Speech for Proclamation
Walter Brueggemann
1989, Augsburg Fortress, Minneapolis

Preaching as an act of interpretation is in our time demanding, daring, and dangerous. (ix)

The gospel is too readily heard and taken for granted, as though it contained no unsettling news and no unwelcome threat. (1)

Partly, the gospel is simply an old habit among us, neither valued nor questioned. (1)

When we embrace ideology uncritically, it is assumed that the Bible squares easily with capitalist ideology, or narcissistic psychology, or revolutionary politics, or conformist morality, or romantic liberalism. There is no danger, no energy, no possibility, no opening for newness! (2)

Poetic speech is the only proclamation worth doing in a situation of reductionism, the only proclamation, I submit, that is worthy of the name preaching. Such preaching is not moral instruction or problem solving or doctrinal clarification. It is not good advice, nor is it romantic caressing, nor is it a soothing god humor. It is, rather, the ready, steady, surprising proposal that the real world in which God invites us to live is not one made available by the rulers of this age.(3)

The poet/prophet is a voice that shatters settled reality and evokes new possibility in the listening assembly. (4)

....

I can testify that this approach can be hazardous. However, I think it makes the gathering of believers on a Sunday morning worth the trouble. We live in a culture that seeks mastery. If we could boil things down to the simplist form, then we can remember or own it. We can stop thinking about it, or being troubled by it. In church (or somehwere, in some relationship) we need not to reduce, but dig and think. We need to have hearts that are open to being stunned.

Attitude is a Choice

2008-06-18T08:38:00.002-05:00

I came across this quote this week.

Viktor Frankl– Man’s Search for Meaning

"We who live in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way."

Could we choose to be an encourager in desperate circumstances? Would we give away our last morsels of bread? And then, I think, would we only do that in the most heroic of circumstances? Or could we do that in a thousand small ways? Could we do it for people who could offer nothing in return?

I have been reading about Robert Moses (The Power Broker), who transformed the landscape of Long Island in the 1920's and '30's. He accomplished great things, but he walked on the powerless in order to accomplish his objectives. It has made me wonder about our dreams, our ambition. How does one get their hopes and dreams realized? I am sure that RM chose his attitude. I would characterize it as an arrogant attitude, especially in certain seasons of his life. Others might say he was singleminded, fearless, indomitable.

When you choose your attitude, and I suspect that we all do, what will it be?

The Lanyard

2008-05-07T16:10:00.002-05:00

The Lanyard by Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly-
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift-not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even．　

The Gaps

2008-03-27T11:43:00.003-05:00

Annie Dillard writes:

Ezekiel excoriates false prophets as those who have not ‘gone up into the gaps.’ The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit’s one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself for the first time like a once-blind man unbound. The gaps are the cliffs in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; they are the fissures between mountains and cells the wind lances through, the icy narrowing fiords splitting the cliffs of mystery. Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock – more than a maple – a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.

Can you see? There is a reason to believe in God. We have to break out of our grinding routines and look around, look up, look in the ground beneath our feet. There is life all around. We should dare to introduce ourselves to strangers.

Can you see? Stalk the gaps. It will take some effort. You will have to risk by thinking, seeing, feeling, learning. You will be submitting to change, because when you are paying attention there is no way to remain who you were. This is the currency of your life. You were meant to spend it!

Day 36 – Thirty Six Days

2008-03-22T10:45:00.003-05:00

Not much is said in the Bible about Saturday, the day after Jesus died. I am writing this on a Saturday, the day after ‘Good Friday,’ and the day before Easter. I am imagining what it must have been like. Last week a young man was killed in a wreck. He was twenty-nine. He was killed on a Wednesday and the funeral was not until this last Tuesday. Every day was hard. I wonder if that was the experience of the disciples. I wonder if they were shocked. Jesus, who had been their teacher, the leader of their lives for the last three years, was brutally executed. Were they ‘at loose ends’? Did they wonder what they should do with their lives now, in this new reality? Was it all over?

The gospel writers pick up the story on Sunday morning. It begins with Mary Magdalene. Jesus had had a profound impact on her life. She was determined to honor him in his death. She and another Mary had gone to the tomb. The stone had been rolled away. I am sure that it was for their benefit. I doubt if Jesus needed help getting out. Jesus revealed himself to Mary and sent her to tell the ‘brothers.’ They investigated, but were still in this post-death shock.

That evening, on the first day of the week, they were behind locked doors (John 20:19) and Jesus came and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” That is what they needed. And that is what we needed and need.

The message is, “This is not over. This death is not the last word. You are not at loose ends. Peace be with you. I have something for you to do. Don’t be selfish. Don’t quit. As the Father sent me, so I send you.”

When the waiting is over, this is the answer. You can go on. Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” He was saying, “God will be with you. You are not without power. You have the capacity to ‘so love the world.’ Peace is no fantasy.”

Day 34 - Thirty Six Days

2008-03-19T18:47:00.002-05:00

Matthew 27:45-46 (NRSV) From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 46 And about three o'clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

One of the greatest challenges that I face as a teacher is what people think they already know. Once we learn, it is hard to unlearn. That is especially true with the Bible and matters of faith. I wonder if there is something in us that thinks that knowing the right thing will get us to heaven. If we discover that we still need to learn something, we somehow we have a sense of ‘lostness.’

Consider this. Some people have been taught that God turned his back on his Son while on the cross. Does the passage above teach that Jesus was godforsaken? Was the sin that he bore more than God could bear to see?

I once thought that. However, what I now see is that Jesus is quoting from Psalm 22. He is giving the first line. Psalms 22:1 (NRSV) My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?

The truth is that God is not so far away from helping. God is near. God is paying close attention. God hears and knows. The psalm goes on to say, For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him (Psalms 22:24).

Just as God does not forsake Jesus in this critical moment, so also he does not turn away from you in yours. Whatever your predicament, God does not turn away. You may feel godforsaken, but it is not true.

Day 30 - Thirty Six Days

2008-03-14T14:06:00.002-05:00

Let me just say something about the sacrifice of Jesus. The beatings were not the sacrifice. The death was not the limit of the sacrifice. Crucifixion was common in the times of Jesus. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, were crucified. Jesus was not the first innocent person to die, either. The sacrifice began at his birth. He stopped being the eternal Word.

Philippians 2:7 (NRSV) ...but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form...

In the beginning was The Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.

He becomes a baby, and person, a nephesh chaya, a living being.
He suffered like you and me. You could not out suffer him.
He had been with God for an eternity in close fellowship. Closer than we can say. Then he was torn from the Father and he will never be able to return to that connection. It is a forever sacrifice. It is not a temporary suffering. It is not a three-day death. Jesus is changed. When he returns we will see him as he went (Acts 2:11).

Day 29 - Thirty Six Days

2008-03-12T11:07:00.002-05:00

Mark 8:34 (NRSV) He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

The cross is coming. If we want to be disciples, a cross is required. No one wants that.

The Roman orator Cicero said this about ‘the cross.’ “...the executioner, the veiling of the head and the very word ‘cross’ should be far removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but his thoughts, his eyes and his ears. For it is not only the actual occurrence of these things but the very mention of them, that is unworthy of a Roman citizen and a free man” (Rabirius Perd. 16).

My teachers, Fred Aquino and Jeff Childers, say, “Jesus proclaimed that the way to true health leads through suffering and that new life comes only to those ready to die each day. His unjust and inhumane death drove that message home, providing his disciples with a pattern to imitate.”

What we see in Jesus on the cross is God’s participation in our lives from the bottom up. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, even among the least of these.

Do you have a glimpse of that kind of love? Wouldn’t you love to have Someone who would come and be with you. Wouldn’t you love to have Someone who would not flee from your troubles, or your heartache, or your mess, from your truest self? This Someone comes to sit with you, to look you in the eyes, to appreciate you, to encourage you, to show you what love really means. This Someone comes to send you to do the same. That is what the cross means.

Day 28 - Thirty Six Days

2008-03-11T08:19:00.001-05:00

Matthew 26:26-28 (NRSV) While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

Jesus and his disciples were having an early Passover meal. The Passover was a celebration that came from the Exodus. I remember the scene from The Ten Commandments movie starring Charlton Heston. The last plague that was inflicted on Egypt, prying the Israelites out of slavery, was the death of the first born. In the movie the death angel was green smoke winding through the streets of Egyptian cities. One could escape that plague, that judgment, if one had marked their homes with the blood of a lamb.

The Passover was a meal made up of lamb and wine and traveling bread. In this scene, Jesus is the host, but he is also in a metaphorical way, the lamb. He is the bread, manna in the wilderness. He is the red wine, the blood of the lamb that would mark our households and our very lives. He is the lamb who died that we might live.
When we share this meal with Jesus we are reminded (and we are proclaiming our intention) that it is God who sustains us, who passes over us in judgment, who forgives.

Day 27 - Thirty Six Days

2008-03-10T17:59:00.003-05:00

Matthew 21:2-3 (NRSV) saying to them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, 'The Lord needs them.' And he will send them immediately."

This is an interesting story. Jesus tells some of his disciples to ‘borrow’ a burro. He has need of it. He is going to make a declaration of who he is. To come riding into Jerusalem on a donkey was a sign of the coming of a new age. The prophet Zechariah had said, “See your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey” (9:9).
However, I don’t think I want the job of going into the village and untying someone’s donkey. I can just imagine the owner (especially in Texas) being a little irritated by the rustling of his burro. Jesus says, “Just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ Couldn’t he send me with money?

Following Jesus is not always a comfortable thing. Faith is required. He sends. We go. We trust that there will be people who will give a donkey, when that is required. I think we find ourselves on both sides of this episode. Sometimes he sends us to do difficult things. Sometimes we surrender a donkey.

Not my will, Lord, but yours, be done.

Day 26 - Thirty Six Days

2008-03-09T08:09:00.001-05:00

Acts 6:15 (NRSV) And all who sat in the council looked intently at him, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

This was Stephen. He had been called to service in the early church and found himself under attack. People did not like that he was confronting and challenging their religious customs. The crowd was about to kill him. They would succeed, but not until he had his say.

What I see in this scene is a non-anxious presence. Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit. Have you had that experience? It is what is supposed to happen to us in worship.

Ephesians 5:18-19 (NRSV) Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts.

I think it should happen in church. I think it can happen in all sorts of places. There are times when we sing together that we turn our faces to God and he moves us deeply. Tears wash our face and our heart. We are encouraged. We are reminded that we are not alone. Our burdens are lifted. We love and are loved.

When we have those experiences our anxiety is cured. Whatever we face is faceable. When you know this peace, you become a gift to those around you. You are the one who can see. You are the one who can think clearly. You are the one who is ready to speak just the right word. Like Stephen, you become an instrument in the hands of God. Do you know that experience? I hope you do!

Day 23 - Thirty Six Days

2008-03-05T08:04:00.002-06:00

John 3:22 (NRSV) After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he spent some time there with them and baptized.

“He spent some time there with them and baptized.”

Jesus was spending time with his disciples. I suppose that is not remarkable. What is interesting to me is our interest in being disciples of Jesus and the question of time spent.

Annie Dillard wrote a book called The Writing Life. She was meeting with a group of people who said that they wanted advice on how to become writers. She was hard on them. She recommended that they take a axe to their lives. She said nothing changes until you totally reframe your priorities. You are not a writer because you are busy with other things. Your schedule is full. You have chosen to be a parent. You have chosen to be whatever your profession is. Your mind is full. Your life is full. Take an axe and start brutally cutting those things away and then maybe, maybe (if God has called you to be) you will be a writer.

At lot of people want to go to heaven because hell just seems to be such a bad future. What is the least I can do to prevent that? That is not what we are doing, however. That is not the Christian enterprise. The Christian enterprise is to follow Jesus, to do the things that Jesus did.

John 20:21 (NRSV) Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."

They went to the countryside and “he spent some time there with them and baptized.” Would you be willing to spend time with Jesus? Are you interested in that? Would you be baptized (immersed) into that? How would you, will you, can you, spend time with Jesus?

Day 21 - Thirty Six Days

2008-03-03T16:03:00.002-06:00

Acts 2:23 (NRSV) ...this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law.

This last Christmas season (2007) I had an idea. It came from a news program about soldiers returning from the war in Iraq. It was clear that the spouses and children of enlisted soldiers were bearing a huge burden. Part of the burden was the ever-present anxiety that their loved one would not come home. Part of the burden is the financial reality of the families of enlisted personnel. I wanted Southeast to do something, some small thing, that would help them.

We announced on a Sunday morning that we were going to collect gift cards, or money to buy gift cards, that would be sent to homes of deployed enlisted soldiers. We were not really sure how we were going to get that done, but we started collecting money. Our people were generous. These Christians are sensitive to the sacrifices that these soldiers’ families are making.

I went to the local bank and purchased 300 gift cards worth $100 each. We found a way to get these into the hands of a support group for soldiers at Fort Bliss near El Paso, TX. Howard Bryan found a contact for us. The folks in that office told us that they had soldiers returning from the war and had been working to help them but that their resources were running low. They had been praying for God to help them when our package arrived. They wept as they opened the bundle of Visa gift cards. God had been answering their prayer a month before it was spoken. Our intention to bless, to manifest the presence of God, hit its target.

You see, God knows what you need even before you ask. Peter was preaching at Pentecost. He was saying that a gift had been given. The One and Only Son was given. It was not an accident. It was not a coincidence. It was not plan ‘B.’ God knew that you had a need. God so loved you, that he gave.

Day 20 - Thirty Six Days

2008-03-02T07:44:00.003-06:00

Matthew 16:23 (NRSV) But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

I have the honor to share sacred space with a lot of people. Weddings and funerals are times of vulnerability and important conversation. A couple of years ago I was thinking with a young woman about her marriage that she thought was coming to an end. She was asking me for an opinion. What would be the right course of action. I told her, “I think I know what Jesus would do in this situation, but it is a lot to ask.” Jesus would choose to forgive. Jesus would take the wounds, would sorrow over the choices that had been made and then give himself in love.

Jesus seems always to be doing the perfect thing. We follow him, trusting. At times is seems a little ridiculous.

Matthew 9:24-25 (NRSV) ... he said, "Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up.

The crowd knew a dead little girl when they saw one. They were sure. From a worldly perspective, they were right. They just did not know the resources Jesus had at his disposal. We who follow him wonder. Are those resources still available?

This is what I believe. God is for you. Does it mean we can forgive as Jesus forgave? Maybe. Does it mean we can love as Jesus loved? I think so. Would people think we were crazy for doing it? I think so. However, I think we will feel His Spirit moving in us and through us and for us as we dare to try.

From Southeast to Cite Soliel

2008-02-29T08:16:00.003-06:00

Southeast Church of Christ in suburban Houston has a new mission engine! We were introduced to the ministry of HFHC in May of 2007. Jayson Henry and Scott Allen traveled with Rick Fyffe to work on some promotional materials for the ministry. Jayson and Scott came back to Southeast as if they had been to Bible Camp. They were covered with the Spirit of God, taken captive by the work that Debbie Vanderbeek and Rick Fyffe were doing. In July, Lanny Partain, one of our elders traveled with me to participate in the summer conference for the teens who are in HFHC schools. Our experiences in Haiti, the strong leadership of Debbie, the influence of Jean Teyrard Elmera, the passion of Sandy Besso, Julie Georges, and Phil Smith convinced me that this ministry fit the heart of Southeast. We needed to partner with HFHC.

At Southeast we are on a journey of re-hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. We hear him say, “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel.” In Jesus, God is breaking in to set the world right. Those who will believe this good news are not only being personally changed, but they are also being called to participate in the mission of God. Christians are those who are interested in being sent into the world to set the world right. We are those who care for ‘the least of these’ because God cares. Southeast has been on God’s anvil for a while, being shaped by this missional perspective.

In November, Rick came to Southeast to speak about Hope For Haiti’s Children on a Sunday morning. We do not share our Sunday morning with just anyone! We do not have dry missionary reports on a Sunday morning in a thriving suburban church. Rick came with some packets, thinking that our people would be ready to support as many as twenty children. We had already agreed to send $1,000 each month for the support of the school in Cite Soleil. When Rick spoke, our people were ready to hear. They were also ready, and that is an understatement, to partner with HFHC to change the world. Over one hundred people have asked to sponsor a child from Cite Soliel. That has brought our annual commitment to HFHC to $50,000. Our intention is to send our people to Cite Soliel to meet their sponsored children, to see the church/school, and to know that in this one place they are partnering with God to set the world right. The kingdom of God is breaking in at Cite Soliel and at Southeast. It is beautiful!

Day 17 - Thirty Six Days

2008-02-28T06:47:00.001-06:00

I am in my second attempt to read Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. It is about seeing. As I read, she is teaching me and God is changing me. Here is a sample:

Thomas Merton wrote, “There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quiet rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.

That is important. We have not been called to live small. God has made us for adventure. We were called, are right now called, to the dangerous life. And there is this promise that God will be with us through it all.

Matthew 5:3-5 (NRSV) "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth."

The poor in spirit are not disincluded. God will be with them.
Those who are suffering, heartbroken, and whose life is unfair, God has not deserted them.
Those who are meek (not the diddling meek, not the itsy-bitsy, but those who are not arrogant, those who are like Jesus in his willingness to win with love and self-sacrifice) have God with them, and the whole world in theirs.

Don’t waste your days, your minutes, your gifts.
The will of the Creator is that you live!

Day 16 - Thirty Six Days

2008-02-27T09:05:00.003-06:00

Jeremiah 29:11 (NRSV) For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.

Jeremiah is not known as ‘the positive prophet.’ Most of the time he is called the ‘weeping prophet.’ He is doing what prophets always do. He is warning the people of God. He has told them that judgment is coming upon them. Their country is about to come to an end. The Temple will be destroyed. Their whole society will be left in ruins. The Babylonians are coming to carry away the people into captivity. It looks like the end. Where is God’s goodness? Where is God’s mercy? Where is grace?

I wonder if the same feelings came over the disciples when Jesus was crucified. I wonder if they thought, “This is not the way this story is supposed to unfold! This is the king (Messiah, Christ)! He is ushering in the new era! The glory of God is to be manifest in a new way. This kingdom is a never-ending kingdom” (Dan 2:44)!”

Jeremiah had a word. The word was not a prosperity promise in the modern sense. It was not that they would have a great career or perfect children or a clean bill of health. The word was, “Trust me.” In seventy years, your children and your grandchildren will return. This is not the end of the story.

And for the disciples of Jesus, a similar word could be heard. “This looks like the end, but it is not. This looks like a defeat, but it is an astounding victory. You have some ideas about a kingdom, but they are provincial, local, and limited. Trust me. You will become heralds of the grace and goodness of God throughout the world.”

Wait. Trust. Everything will come clear.
Not my limited will, but your inexhaustible will, Father, be done!

Day 15 - Thirty Six Days

2008-02-26T07:52:00.003-06:00

Craddock Story – Un-joining Church

Have you ever been present when anybody unjoined a church? I experienced that only once. It was in Oklahoma, and my wife and I belonged to a church, it was a rather large church there. One Sunday morning during the closing hymn, a hymn of dedication, consecration, a woman in her mid-thirties, we both knew her, went to the front. People stopped singing and were looking at each other. Why is she doing that? She is already a member. Maybe she is going to rededicate her life. Maybe she is going to become a minister. So we all hushed and waited.

She spoke quietly to the minister; we didn’t know what she was saying. At the conclusion of the hymn, he asked us all to sit down. We waited as she turned around to address us. What she said in essence was, ‘I owe it to you to let you know I am leaving the church. And since I made this public notice when I came, I wanted to make public notice when I leave. I don’t think it is right just to drift off into inactive membership. I am leaving the Christian circle. I have been disappointed. What I expected from the church and from the gospel and from the scriptures and from God, I have not received. I am leaving. For those of you who have expressed concern about my life’ – and hers was a troubled life – ‘for those among you who know it and expressed concern about it, I thank you. To that extent, I have some regret. Thank you.’

It was a strange morning. We didn’t know how to leave. We didn’t pay attention to the benediction. We bumped into the furniture and into each other leaving. And many of us spent Sunday afternoon thinking about what she did. It made us determine whether we would claim our own commitment in view of the fact that one of our group had decided to leave.

...

The NYT has a story today (2/26/08) about people changing their religious affiliations. It makes me wonder. What are churches 'selling'? I think I know. It is not always the Way of Jesus. It is not always the self-sacrificing love that God demonstrates. Sometimes that is not what people were really hoping for.

Day 14 - Thirty Six Days

2008-02-25T15:30:00.002-06:00

John 1:4-5 (NRSV) ...in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There is a lot in the Bible about seeing and blindness, about light and darkness. Jesus is speaking to people, but they are not always understanding. That was a part of his work. God had commissioned Isaiah to invite and warn the People of God and gave him this rather strange message...

Isaiah 6:9 (NRSV) And he said, "Go and say to this people: 'Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.'

God was bringing judgment. The people would be stubborn. They would choose to go their own way (that is what hell is). I wonder if we would listen. I wonder if we would have our eyes opened, even if we found it disillusioning.

Leo Tolstoy said, “I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”

Change is hard when we think we know, when we have been the teacher, when we have lived with particular assumptions. Rather than see, we will close our eyes.

Not my will, Father, but yours be done! (But if your will pleased me that would be really great!)

Day 13 - Thirty Six Days

2008-02-24T07:51:00.003-06:00

Psalms 32:5 (NRSV) Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

Michelle wandered down to my office with an interesting question. They were putting their son in a Christian school and the application was pretty detailed. One question had a about fifteen lines of blank space, indicating that they were prepared for a long answer. The question: When you stand before God in judgment, what will you say?

What will you say? I am sure that this was a tool for the school to determine whether or not you are a Christian. It occurred to me to answer with song lyrics. “I can only imagine what it will be like!” Or “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!”

And then I thought of a courtroom scene.
“How do you plead?”
“I plead guilty, with a stipulation.”
“State your stipulation.”
“God be merciful to me, a sinner (Luke 18:13). I plead Jesus!”

I sure would hope to avoid allocution. You know, where you have to give an account of the details! Kyrie Eleison! Lord, Have Mercy!

What will you say?

Day 12 - Thirty Six Days

2008-02-22T07:38:00.002-06:00

Romans 5:8 (NRSV) But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

We are seeing a theme in these Thirty Six Days. Of course it is the love of God for people.
I would bet that you have some people in your life that you find annoying. There may be people that you do not like. You may know some dangerous people. I hope you don’t have people in your life that hurt you on purpose. I would guess that you have been hurt. You probably have hurt some people, too. These are the situations where love is put to the test.

Those who are Christians are commanded to love just as God loves (Eph 5:1). We are to love our neighbors. We are to love one another. We are to love our enemies. Does that leave anyone out? Oh! And yourself! “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:39).

In the next sermon (Post Easter – 2008) series I want to explore the idea of the sacrifice of God. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten.” What did he give? How was it love? I suggest that the sacrifice that God made was eternal.

John 1:1 (NRSV) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:14 (NRSV) And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.

The Word had been with God from the beginning, whenever that was! The community of God, the Elohim, had always existed in close fellowship. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were intertwined from eternity. Was it like inseparable eternal triplets? The word I learned to describe this is perichoresis. The sacrifice of God began with the incarnation. There was no turning back from this point. The eternal proximity, the close fellowship, was broken...forever. The Word became Jesus. Jesus does not appear to ever return to be Word again. He is now seated at the right hand of the Father (Eph 1:20). When Jesus ascended angels told his disciples...
Acts 1:11 (NRSV) They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."

Is it strange to say that Jesus will be Jesus forever. The cross was a powerful example for us, but it is not the sum of the sacrificial love of God for us. The death of the innocent Jesus is a powerful moment, but thousands of people have been crucified. I also think innocent people have died unfairly. The sacrifice of God was not a three day stay in the realm of the dead (I think Lazarus had four!).
God loves you enough to make a forever sacrifice. That is big love.

Day 11 - Thirty Six Days

2008-02-21T20:49:00.006-06:00

This Wednesday evening I was teaching from the gospel of Luke. John the Baptist had begun his revolutionary ministry. He was baptizing people for the forgiveness of their sins. That drew a crowd. Could one get forgiveness of sins without the usual sacrifices? That must have been appealing! As the crowd came, John must have sensed a lack of sincerity. Listen.

Luke 3:7-8 - John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”

The fruit was not easy!

"The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same."
The tax collectors, those who were considered traitors to Israel, could they be baptized? Could they receive forgiveness? They were told, “Don’t collect any more than you are required to.”
The soldiers, those who fought and killed for a living, could they receive forgiveness in their baptism? Yes, if they would stop extorting money, making them fearful. If they would stop bearing false witness as a matter of intimidation, and be content with their wages, then yes indeed.

Is this difficult? You know what we ask, if someone is lacking a tunic? If they don’t have a coat or a shirt, we want to know why. Have they been irresponsible? Are they going to take advantage of us? And if I do this, I will be impoverished. Can I afford to be generous?

And for tax collectors to only collect what they are ‘required to’ collect would put them personally out of business. Could a soldier survive on the wages of the day? I think the answer is “unlikely.”

Here is the point. In the world that God has in mind, his people operate like Jesus does. He gives to everyone regardless of their gratitude or their relative responsibility. Jesus has been good to you and me. We have not earned that goodness. Sometimes we are grateful. Would we dare to imitate that?

God help us!

Day 10 - Thirty Six Days

2008-02-20T13:11:00.002-06:00

Hebrews 2:14-15 (NRSV) 14 Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This was the love of God for the world, for all of human life. This was the most astounding cultural move in history. God was changing his location. He was moving in with us. He was going to experience humanity in a remarkable way. God made himself vulnerable by coming as a baby born in the midst of a scandal. Here is this young woman who was not married who got pregnant with God’s baby. Is that hard to believe?

Jesus is born to poor parents. When they came to present Jesus in the Temple on the eighth day, they brought a pair of turtledoves or pigeons. It was the offering if one could not afford a sheep. I find that interesting. God came to draw close to us in our struggles. He did not come to show us ‘the easy life.’

He also followed through. Yes, he physically suffered. More than that, he knew what it was like to be separated from God, to be lonely, to be afraid that ‘things’ would not turn out alright. I think that it began at his birth, but the cross took that sacrifice to a pointed peak.

And the point of it all? He knows. God knows what your life is like. He knows about loneliness. He understands love and pride and grief and unfairness. He knows about darkness and beauty. He knows temptation. He knows about politics and religion. He knows about being a baby and about dying.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten. I don’t see this as a light-hearted present. This was a deep and profound gift. This was a heart-breaking gift. This was love for you and me. This was a love lesson. Do you love? This is what love really is. Could we learn it? I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!

Day 9 - Thirty Six Days

2008-02-19T08:24:00.002-06:00

Philippians 4:8 (NRSV) Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

What you think matters. We have some control over what we think. That is exactly why we would involve ourselves in a forty day discipline of reading Scripture together. We are thinking together!

The whole ‘gospeling’ enterprise is about mind renewal (See Rom 12:2), about thinking differently. We are thinking about the most important questions. What am I doing here? What is the purpose of my life? What is my destination? Are you asking those questions?

When our son was a toddler, we would ask him questions. As toddlers do, he was working on his sentence structures and word choices. Instead of saying, “I don’t know,” he would say, “I can’t know.” I would just smile at my little philosopher. Maybe we can’t know, exactly.

However, I think we can come to some decisions. We can make some choices about the purpose of our lives. We can think about those things that interest and motivate us. We can think about God. We can spend some serious time pursuing whatever is true, honorable, just and pure.

When we see it, we have an experience of reverence. It is beautiful, WONDER full, and worthy of praise. I hear Paul calling us to worship. He is calling us into the presence of that which is Holy. How can we keep from singing? These ‘things,’ the true, honorable, just, excellent things are around us every day. When we see them, and when we respond with praise, I think we are encouraged. God is with us. We are not alone. Life is good.

Be joyful! This is God’s love made visible. That is what I think!

Day 8 - Thirty Six Days

2008-02-18T08:27:00.002-06:00

Romans 4:5 (NRSV) 5 But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.

In the Church of Christ tradition, there has been this lingering belief that we are set right before God by certain things that we do. If you were to hear the words ‘plan of salvation’ often the speaker would mean a list of things that you do. You hear. You believe. You repent. You submit to baptism. It sounds like you are saving yourself.

When we say that salvation is by faith it generates quite a conversation. Some would point to 1 Peter 3:21 (NRSV) which says, “And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you--not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

I have a hard time thinking that baptism is much of a work. It is an easy work, if it is one. Some have turned it into the main issue and I think that is a mistake. When that happens, we end up with an empty ritual. Apart from faith, baptism has no power. The bottom line for salvation (wholeness, the peace of God, living in the world that God has in mind) is the work of Jesus.

Romans 3:21-22 (NRSV) 21 But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction.

I know that it is a bold thing to suggest that the translation is wrong, and I do not do that on my own biblical expertise. My teachers have suggested to me that in verse 22 the correct translation should be (an objective genitive), “the righteousness of God through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who believe.” A righteousness, a right standing before God, has been disclosed, that does not come from your good behavior, from your ability to do the right things all of the time. How could that be? Through the faithfulness of Jesus, through his work on the cross (there is a work for you!), for all who believe. That is the plan of salvation.

Whom do you trust? Do you trust in your own goodness? Do you trust in self-righteousness? For me, I don’t think I have enough of that. Lord, have mercy!

Not my will, Father, but yours be done!

Day 7 - Thirty Six Days

2008-02-16T18:40:00.006-06:00

Do you remember being chosen? That might be the greatest experience we ever know. I wonder if it happens to us nearly often enough. It happens when we are ‘making friends.’ We meet people and share a moment, a conversation, or an event. We may give some indications that we hope to meet again, talk again, or share a meal together. We then wait for a response. We are hoping to be chosen.

I met Stephen in graduate school. He was preaching for a church in Wichita Falls, TX and I was working with a small church in the Rio Grande Valley. We recognized in each other a kindred spirit. The class was an Old Testament course on the Pentateuch taught by Dr. David Wallace. Stephen was interested in reading my work. In graduate education, that is always a very friendly gesture! When a preaching position came available in Wichita Falls in the summer of ’96, Stephen encouraged me to apply. He said, “There is no one like me here. I need a theological friend!” I got the job (as I recall I was their unanimous ‘second’ choice for the job!) and Stephen and his family and me and my family began a new level of friendship. Stephen and I met every week for half a Schlotsky’s and some church talk.

He invited me into a small group. We read a book by Elisabeth O’Connor entitled Called to Commitment. That small group has been a circle of friends for a decade. We vacation together with the Wagners, the Heyens, the Burnams, and the Johnsons. Last November I traveled with Dr and Mrs Wagner to Gettysburg for a Lincoln Forum. We are curious together and I think that is wonderful.

What I feel from this group is adoption. We have been chosen to share their lives. We love them. They know us. We have become family. They love our children. We love their children. It all began in a moment, in a classroom, in a conversation.

This is an enactment of the drama of your relationship with God. You are wanted. God wants to read your work. God wonders if you will respond to an invitation to relationship. God has already decided that you are worth knowing. God has already decided that he loves your children, and wonders if you might love ‘his’ children. God would like to meet you at Schlotsky’s on Tuesday for lunch to share a sandwich and to talk about your work.

It is adoption that really interests ‘him.’ “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, - if in fact we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:15-17).

You have been chosen. You are wanted. And we turn around and are involved in that work, too. We are to be making friends, changing the world. That is important work.

Day 6 Thirty-Six Days

2008-02-15T10:08:00.003-06:00

Do you think people are basically good? I tend to think that way. Maybe we hope that people, including ourselves are basically good. Most of us think that kindness is a good thing. We know that sharing is right, even if we are sometimes fear of the high cost of sharing. I live in a city where there are several million cars on the commute every day. Somehow, most of us get home. We follow the rules. Of course, that could be mutual self-interest, but I still find it amazing cooperation and a faithful commitment to some form of social contract.

I think we, the people, are also deeply and fundamentally flawed. I am interested in the definition of goodness. What does it really mean to be good? Do you remember this comment from Jesus?

Mark 10:18 (NRSV) Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”

Our only chance of considering ourselves as good is when we are the standard of goodness. For people, when we are not fearful, when we compare ourselves to other people, might be good. It is like saying, “For a cannibal, he is a fine young cannibal.”

When we see ourselves in light of God’s expectations for us, we don’t measure up so well. Love your enemies? Turn the other cheek? Give to everyone who asks? Forgive seventy times seven times? Be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect (Matt 5:48). There is a high standard for you!

And here is an interesting Bible fact. There is one psalm that is a duplicate. Look at Psalm 14 and Psalm 53. Psalms is a collection of songs and here the collections overlapped. They could not decide which one to leave out, so they kept them both!

Psalms 14:2-3 (NRSV) 2 The LORD looks down from heaven on humankind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God. 3 They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one.
Psalms 53:2-3 (NRSV) 2 God looks down from heaven on humankind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God. 3 They have all fallen away, they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one.

I think we will need this prayer, every day. Not my will, Father, but yours be done. We can lean toward perfection. That is probably as ‘good’ as it gets.

Day 5 - Thirty-Six Days

2008-02-14T11:21:00.002-06:00

Day 5 – Thirty-Six Days

What happens that opens your eyes to God? Is it music? Is it beauty? I wonder if there is some sensibility that God has placed within us that gives us glimpses. There are very few non-religious societies. People want more. They hope that there is a Force that will work with them, cooperate with them, enable them to survive and thrive.

The Teacher says, Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 (NIV) 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

I believe that there is a force that is interested in you and me. There is such a thing as Inspiration (in the New Testament the word is theo-pneustos, God-breathed). There is such a thing as Providence. God provides. I believe that God places people in your path. I believe that God opens doors for you. As you pray, God is involved in your inclinations. The Holy Spirit leads you, when you will allow (Rom 8:14).

As I sit down to my computer to write, I almost always pray with King David. Psalms 51:11 (NIV) 11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. I am praying for inspiration, for the Spirit of God, the Breath of God to exist in my mind so that I might be a vehicle for His Will.

That Presence gives me confidence, even at times audacity. Do you have that experience?

Not my will, Father, but yours be done!

Day 4 – Thirty-Six Days

2008-02-13T07:56:00.002-06:00

Instant messaging can be a strange world. Most of the time I use it to dash a message between offices. It is more urgent than e-mail but less intrusive than a phone call. However, when I signed up for the service I made my profile public. Someone might need a minister/theologian! Hey! It could happen! Matter of fact it does happen, and that is where the ‘strange world’ comes in.

I have been talking to a guy. And then I must say, I don’t know who this person is. I don’t know that what he has told me is true. He wants to talk about some personal things and I try to help, but I am on guard. I wonder what the real agenda is. There have been two conversations (IM sessions), and I think I am done. I am encouraging him to ‘do no harm.’ Love seeks the true best interests of others.

I share this as a background for our conversations about grace.

Matthew 9:12-13 (NRSV) 12 But when he (Jesus) heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."

I think Jesus means that everyone is sick. No one is righteous through their own discipline.

Are we fundamentally self-interested? Maybe we do not even operate in our own best interests. We eat Twinkies and pizza. We use credit cards. We are so often reckless with relationships that are in our own best interests. We really struggle with the greatest commands. Love can be a real challenge for us.

God is the gracious physician. He loves and shows us, through Jesus how to act unselfishly. In our best moments, we are trying to follow that example. That is what makes us Christians.

Day 3 - Thirty-Six Days

2008-02-12T07:20:00.000-06:00

Day 3 – Thirty-Six Days

Isaiah 55:9 (NRSV) For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

It is one of those amazing things about us as human beings that we can acknowledge this idea. There have been times when we begin to deny that it is true. There have been times in our history when we thought that Science and Reason would triumph over the problems faced by humanity. We thought that we could think it through. We could eradicate disease. We could be happy. We could confront all of the potential threats to the family of man. We have been humbled, however. We have not been able to stop warfare. The twentieth century was terribly bloody. We have seen new plagues. We have not successfully created a world of harmony.

God says, “My ways are higher. My thoughts are higher.” The story that we believe and teach, the story of the Bible says that God created and creates. God is breathing life and love into human beings. God has breathed life and love into you. We may wonder from time to time what we are doing and where we are going. We are praying that there is a point to it all. When we see Jesus, when we choose to follow Jesus in the Way for the sake of the world, I think we get a glimpse of the point of it all, of the ‘high’ way and the high thoughts of God.

I read this sentence this morning, “Saying kind words that are truthful and sincere and putting those words into action is a sure way to experience joy.”

Not my will, Father, but yours be done!

Day 2 - Thirty-Six Days

2008-02-11T09:27:00.000-06:00

God says, "To whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?" (Isaiah 46:5). Human beings have always been trying to create a god that they could have some tangible contact with. The ancients would make gods out of gold and silver. These gods could not speak. They could not keep themselves from being knocked over. They did not have the power to move from place to place. I suppose you could hug god like that, but I am not sure it helped!

God, YHWH, speaks. This God knows the very real you. He knows our fears and weaknesses. He knows you! And loves you.

Isaiah reports that God says, "My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please" (46:10). It pleases him to love you. It pleases him to set the world right. It pleases him to use broken folk to accomplish his will on earth as it is in heaven. That means that you are involved in the most important work in the universe. You have a future!!

Day 1 - Thirty Six Days

2008-02-10T08:12:00.000-06:00

John 3:16 (NRSV) 16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

This is a Scripture that most people have heard. I don’t know if it still happens, but sports fans used to see someone at the game holding up signs reading “John 3:16.” John Mayer has a song called “Belief,” that asks “Is there anyone who ever remembers changing their mind from the paint on a sign? Is there anyone who really recalls ever breaking rank at all for something someone yelled real loud one time?”

Where could one hear this Word from John 3:16? Where could we consider that the world was loveable? I think we are conflicted about that. There is so much in the world that is violent and abusive. God loves the world. I just find that astonishing. God sends the most precious part of himself, a one and only, an un-replaceable Son, into the world. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, beginning as a baby, conceived by an unwed mother who gave birth in a barn. What an interesting way to show love. He became one of us, even one of the least of us.

Who is the world? I am the world. We are the world. God became vulnerable to us. The Almighty chooses to be vulnerable.

I wonder if we could follow that example? Could we lay aside our pride? Could we love in such a sacrificial way? I wonder if that is the only way we can change the world. It goes against our natural inclinations toward self-preservation. I wonder, if we would dare to try, if we would share the DNA of the Only Begotten? I think that is what it means to be children of God.

Ephesians 5:1 (NRSV) Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.

Peace!

Self-Image

2008-01-18T10:08:00.000-06:00

In our broken world, our self image is largely determined by what kind of messages we have received on any given day from our friends, from our co-workers or colleagues. Do they like me? Am I valuable? Am I loved?

When we read the parables of Jesus, I think we are hearing a message from God about us. I am a sheep the shepherd has sought. I am a reckless child who was welcomed home. I am a worker who has not worked all day, but I have still been paid a whole day’s wage. I have been welcomed and blessed by the Father. I am a beloved child of God, sought and wanted. Like the writer of the Gospel of John who sees himself as “the one Jesus loves,” could I see myself that way regardless of the other messages of the day? That changes my self-image!

Jesus changes things...real things. He invites me to live in a better world, and to help make the world better. God likes me. God thinks I am, valuable. God loves me anyway and always. Our Christianity cannot be merely theoretical. What Jesus does, his people do. That is the way.

Ten Commandments for Drivers

2007-06-21T16:37:00.000-05:00

The Roman Catholic Church has issued some road rules! I have thought that driving anywhere is an exercise in a covenant of mutal benefit. Somehow in Houston, and other large cities one can travel at high speeds and most days arrive home alive and undented! That is a miracle, don't you think?

I like these ten commandments for driving in traffic!

Drivers' "Ten Commandments"
I. You shall not kill.

II. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.

III. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.

IV. Be charitable and help your neighbour in need, especially victims of accidents.

V. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.

VI. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.

VII. Support the families of accident victims.

VIII. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.

IX. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.

X. Feel responsible towards others.

Grief - CS Lewis

2007-06-18T13:28:00.000-05:00

Friends,

Some in our extended family expereinced another rush of grief this last week. It is more than one family should endure. One son died in a plane crash. Another son died fighting a fire. Now, a third son has found life too difficult and the urge to exit trumped his obvious love for his family.

Then I got a brief e-mail from a friend who simple said that her son had died. Her grief reminded me of a litte book published in 1961 by CS Lewis. Here are some excerpts.

A Grief Observed: CS Lewis

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

At other times if feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting.

Yet I want others to be around me. I dread moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.

Then to paraphrase:

Sometimes there is a voice inside of me that says that all of this is really going to be okay. Love is not the whole of my life. I have resources. People get over these things. I will be okay. Then I am ashamed to listen to this voice. Once in a while, while I am thinking this way there is an onslaught of a ret-hot memory and all of this ‘common sense’ thinking vanishes, burned in the hot furnace of my loss.

“An odd by product of my loss is that I am aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet. At work, at the club, in the street, I see people as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they will ‘say something about it’ or not. I hate it if they do, and if they don’t. Some funk it all together. R. has been avoiding me for a week.”

Wondering if God was playing some cruel joke with cancers seemingly in remission, wondering if Jesus was lured into a trap at the cross, then remembering…But he (some cruel child) would never have thought of baits like love, or laughter, or daffodils, or a frosty sunset. He couldn’t make a joke, or a bow, or an apology, or a friend.

“Aren’t all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won’t accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it? (38)

Bridge players tell me that there must be money on the game, or else people won’t take it seriously. Apparently it’s like that. Your bid – for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity – will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high; until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences, but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing less will shake a man – or at least a man like me – out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover himself. (43)

“After that operation either the wounded stump heals or the man dies. If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he’ll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has ‘got over it.’ But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man.”

Wait Your Turn?

2006-09-08T09:35:00.000-05:00

Mark 7:24-37 (MSG) 24 From there Jesus set out for the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house there where he didn't think he would be found, but he couldn't escape notice. 25 He was barely inside when a woman who had a disturbed daughter heard where he was. She came and knelt at his feet, 26 begging for help. The woman was Greek, Syro-Phoenician by birth. She asked him to cure her daughter. 27 He said, "Stand in line and take your turn. The children get fed first. If there's any left over, the dogs get it." 28 She said, "Of course, Master. But don't dogs under the table get scraps dropped by the children?" 29 Jesus was impressed. "You're right! On your way! Your daughter is no longer disturbed. The demonic affliction is gone." 30 She went home and found her daughter relaxed on the bed, the torment gone for good. 31 Then he left the region of Tyre, went through Sidon back to Galilee Lake and over to the district of the Ten Towns. 32 Some people brought a man who could neither hear nor speak and asked Jesus to lay a healing hand on him. 33 He took the man off by himself, put his fingers in the man's ears and some spit on the man's tongue. 34 Then Jesus looked up in prayer, groaned mightily, and commanded, "Ephphatha!—Open up!" 35 And it happened. The man's hearing was clear and his speech plain—just like that. 36 Jesus urged them to keep it quiet, but they talked it up all the more, 37 beside themselves with excitement. "He's done it all and done it well. He gives hearing to the deaf, speech to the speechless."
Sometimes we get tired (Tyred?) Jesus had retreated. Is that okay? We would like to not be subject to fatigue, and when we are fatigued, I think the gospel suffers. The good news is the coming reign of the kingdom of God. The Way is asserted and demonstrated by those who are empowered by the Spirit of God. But there are days when the Southwest Airlines commercials are our real life…we want to get away.

Is Mark producing propaganda against the synagogue in Rome? That is possibly a way that this story could be used, but I doubt that the characterization of this narrative in those terms helps our people adopt the narrative of the story of God as their own. Why could this not be a report that Peter shared with John Mark, part and parcel to the question that the disciples ask (Who is this? 4:41). Who is this that upsets the status quo?

Here Jesus has sought a quiet moment for himself, and does not get it. Ever get snippy when you are really hungry, or when you are weary? Ever say something that could be perceived as unhelpful, or even ugly. Is it permissible for Jesus to have such a moment? Does the humanity of Jesus threaten our sensibilities? Jesus does not tell this outsider, this Greek woman, no. He uses a metaphor that I don’t like, where she is a dog. Can we hear it, even? I find the distance in time and language and the culturally specific communication difficult to nuance. As I have been living in the text of the Sermon on the Mount, I know the Way would be to give to everyone who asks. Is Jesus reminding himself of his priorities? God had made some promises to Abraham and the ‘people of God’ along the way. God’s promises needed to be kept. Through a certain people would come a blessing for all people. The ‘certain people’ project is not quite over. Blessing for all people is coming. He uses a metaphor for a household animal (some people love their pets quite a bit, too!). She chooses not to be offended. Her need outstrips her pride. I think that is an amazing and helpful realization. Perhaps Jesus, as the one who knows hearts, has set this up to make that point. (Who is this who knows the hearts of human beings?)

Jesus was impressed. That is not in the text, but it is reasonable inference. Her response was so genuine that her blessing came in a very dramatic and immediate way. Sometimes that happens.
Then Jesus travels to another region where outsiders live. Any surprise that these outsiders, too, will get a hint of blessing? Would you let Jesus put his fingers in your ears? Would you let him put some spit on your tongue? That is so strange. Who is this who can make such a process function? It is relational. It is personal. It is intimate. It is supernatural. Of course, it is the type of thing that was to accompany the new alternative world (eschatological world) promised in Third Isaiah 61:1-2. It was hard to keep quiet about that. Mark’s Roman audience might think, “Jesus did this for those who were not the old insiders? Could this story be for me? Who is this who opens my hears and loosens my tongue?”

How fascinating!

The Examen - A Prayer Pattern

2006-06-14T19:56:00.000-05:00

The Examen

Tonight we are going to pray. What does it mean to pray? Yes, it is a conversation with God. He invites it.

Philippians 4:6 (NRSV) 6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Sometimes our prayers are quick and as you go type conversations. When that is the regular form of prayer for us, we can begin to take God for granted. It is less of an encounter and more of a I will call you when I need to relationship.

Tonight I want to give you a pattern that might help you spend a little bit of relationship time with God. God has some ambitions for you, as I see the story of Scripture unfold.

He is seeking your peace.
He is seeking your transformation into the image of Jesus.
He is seeking you.
His power is for you. His love is for you. Your life is for Him.

So, let’s work through this pattern.

1. Recall that you are in the presence of God. God is not far off. He has drawn near in Jesus. He has sent his Holy Spirit to live in each of us. Close your eyes and think. Wherever you are; walking on the beach and the ocean ripples or roars. You are in the mountains, and the wind comes blowing through the valley. You are in the city and the traffic is crazy. Everywhere…., in a crowd or alone, you are God’s beloved and sought after child. As you quiet yourself, become aware that God is present within you, and in the creation that surrounds you, in your body, in these people around you. The Creator, the one who knits you together in your mother’s womb, is concerned for you. The Spirit of God, sent by Christ, right now reminds you that you are useful, able. You make the world complete. Your relationships are important. Your work is important. God is working through your love, through your relationships, through your participation, to bring creation to its fullness. Ask the Holy Spirit to let you look on all you see with love. 1 Corinthians 13:4-6 (NRSV) 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.
You Are In God’s Presence. (Song)

2. Spend a moment looking over your day with gratitude for this day’s gifts. Remember today with gratitude. Warm water in the shower. Clean clothes to wear. A job to go to. People to talk with. Recall the smell of your morning coffee, the taste of something good that you ate, the laugh of a child, the fragrance of a flower, the smile that broke upon your face when you saw something wonderful…the clouds…a friend, or a kind word spoken to you, a lesson that you learned. What did you give today? What have you received? Say to God, “Thank you!” Thank you for love. Thank you for challenges. Thank you for opportunities. Thank you for the tools (books, wrenches, transportation). What about the gifts that are more permanent? Talents. Abilities. Your family. All of those gifts were at work in this day. Thank God for the gift of the hope for a better day. Every day is another chance. Thank God for your sense of humor, if you have one! Thank you, God, for faith. Thank you for the gifts of thinking and feeling. Thank you for breath and vision…and flavor! Thank you, God, for friends. Thank you for the friends that are still coming into our lives! Thank you for boundaries. God the Father gives you these to draw you into the fullness of life. As you move through the details of your day, give thanks to God for His presence in the big and the small things.
God has been with you today. Praise Him! (Song)

3. Invite God to send His Holy Spirit to help you look at your actions and attitudes and motives with honesty and patience. Hebrews 4:12 (NRSV) 12 Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. The Spirit of God knows the truth about you. So we come in this moment with humility. Remember that God really does love you, knowing you. Let that love and that truth flow in you. Lord, I am sorry when my actions bring harm, or drive people away, or diminish them. Thank you for the actions that were good and right and helpful. Lord, forgive me when my attitudes are poor, when my faith is small, when I forget that you are able. Help me be joyful. Father, you know how often I am prone to selfish motives. Help me to act without taking care of my own needs all the time. Lord, I know that you are patient with me. Help me to be patient with others and with myself. You know me! You know the intentions of my heart. Have mercy. Help me.
Come, Holy Spirit.

4. Deeper in your day. With your eyes closed. Recall the events of your day; explore the context of your actions, even if you were at home with little to do. Search for the internal movements of your heart and your interaction with what was before you. What were you thinking about? Were you happy? Where you anxious? Who was you with? Were you helpful or discouraging? Did you listen? Whom did you ignore? What did you leave undone? Did you forgive anyone? Did you encourage? This is not a time to be hard on yourself, but to see the opportunities of the day. God was at work and you were His partner. And you could do more! Notice where you acted freely—picking a particular course of action from the possibilities you saw. See where you were swept along without freedom. See where the Spirit of Jesus entered your decisions and where you might have paused to receive His influence. 2 Corinthians 13:5 (NRSV) 5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?--unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test!
His influence comes through His people, the Body of Christ.
His influence comes through Scripture, the Word of God.
Now, as you pray, Christ’s spirit will help you know His presence and concern.
God, help us to see how we might act in concert with you. Help us to pay attention to those around us. Give us the will to speak, to encourage, and to bless. Guide me. Prompt me to speak and to act. Help me to be still enough to cooperate with you. Challenge me. Speak to me. Encourage me. Teach me your ways. Help me to love my neighbor. At work. In the mall. Next door.
God I am Yours. Here am I. Use me.

5. A heart-to-heart talk with Jesus. Do you talk to Jesus in your prayers? (See Stephen Acts 7:59.) Just a little talk. I don’t think that makes it right. But it sure helps. “Jesus you know my day. You know the good that I did today. You know the temptations that I have faced. You know the moments that I was not very much like you. Thank you for coming. You knew that I needed you. Thank you for compassion. Thank you for not giving up on me. Thank you for such amazing love. Maybe you need to express sorrow for sin, the obscuring darkness that surrounds us all, and especially ask forgiveness for the times you resisted God’s light today. “Yes, I am sorry for obscuring the light, Jesus. May your glory shine in me.” I know you’re your steadfast love is new every morning. It never comes to an end. Help me rest. And tomorrow, we will do more.

Our Father, who is in heaven. Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day, our daily bread.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

The View from Mt Nebo

2006-06-12T14:21:00.000-05:00

Moses, like most of the heroes of the Bible, was subject to substantial mistakes. The people he was leading into the wilderness had been complaining. They were afraid that God could not meet their needs, even though God had been with them all through the wilderness journey. At a place called Kadesh, there was a rock. Moses was supposed to speak to the rock and water would flow for the people. Instead, Moses took his staff and struck the rock (Num 20:8ff). He was irritated. He was reacting out of frustration. “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?”

It was this moment that kept Moses out of the Promised Land! He was to climb the mountain and God would show him the whole land. From the top of the mountain he could see from Dan to the Negev. He could see all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. He could see it, but he could not cross over into it.

What do you think of that? Does that seem fair to you? Kay Bessler Northcutt comments, “What if fairness is not the ultimate issue to be wrestled with on Nebo? What if the view from Mount Nebo is ultimately found in the quest for the unattainable? And what of the definition of a great life is one that consciously lives (and dies) with the attainable for which one has worked one’s entire life just beyond one’s grasp? Surely this is the good news of Mount Nebo.”

God is gracious. In every story, we see a lesson. Perhaps the lesson here is: One life-time is not enough. Moses had a long and eventful life. If we could do so much in cooperation with God, would that not be enough? Yes, we want to finish. However, I think there is a reason for life after life. Accomplishing what God has in mind with a life, or within a community, is more than one life can attain.

So what? As I look for a cure for dissatisfaction, I find this to be a peaceful truth. The goals remain and are fiercely sought. However, our dreams are not what really matter. We work hard, making ourselves available to the Divine Design. One day, on the other side of what we can see in our lives, or in our community, there will be more. The ‘more’ will be better than our ambitions, dreams, or imagination. Reinhold Niebuhr said, “Anything worth doing cannot be accomplished in one lifetime.”

Maybe we will have the gift of standing on Nebo, looking into the future, seeing the fruit of our labor with God. If we can catch a glimpse, that will be enough.

The Ethic of Jesus

2006-05-31T11:39:00.000-05:00

I am getting ready to teach a series from the Sermon on the Mount. The goal is to orient us to the amazing ethic of Jesus. Here are some things I am thinking about...

How do these words of Jesus strike you?
What do you find that is fresh?
Where do you want to pause and say, “I had not thought of that.”?
Where do you see the Good News?

Matthew 5:17-20 Jesus says that he did not come to abolish the law or the prophets. The narrative of the Old Testament has not been abolished. The standards of God have not been reduced by the appearance of Jesus. Matter of fact, in the Sermon on the Mount, the standard is strengthened. When we seek to justify ourselves we do our best to rationalize our behavior.

For example: how is your social or ecological sensitivity? (Darfur, Rwanda, Global Warming?) Remember: you are the light of the world and the salt of the earth.

20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

We spoke of Murder/Anger.
1. If you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment.
2. If you insult a brother or sister, you will be answerable to the Sanhedrin. The implication is that you will be subject to the dicipline of the leaders of the community.
3. If you call someone an empty headed fool, you will be subject to hell-fire.
4. What is Jesus doing?
5. Is there an ethical expectation?

We spoke briefly about Adultery/Lust.
1. If you look with lust, you have committed adultery.
2. We talked about the eye or hand causing you to sin.
3. What is Jesus doing here?
4. Is there an ethical expectation?

Marriage/Divorce Matthew 5:31-32 (NRSV) 31 "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' 32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Background: The certificate of divorce was an act of mercy on behalf of the woman. Before we plunge into this example, consider: Did followers still get angry at their brother or sister? Did followers still look with lust? The point is: in this context, we are not shifting to a situation of ‘non-dependence’ on the grace of God.
A couple of things I think:
1. The exception clause is not viable grounds for a self justifying ‘work-around.’
2. Unchastity (porneia) is a rather flexible word. It could be ‘close marriage,’ or incest, or prostitution. It is also used for general unfaithfulness to the covenant promises that the community made to God.
3. Anything odd here? Anything apparently harsh and unreasonable? Would that be consistent with the previous two episodes? How does his act of divorcing her make her guilty of adultery? And the rescue of a powerless woman makes the rescuer guilty of adultery, too. Interesting?
4. If those who look with lust are guilty of adultery, are they in a ‘better’ position than those who marry a divorced woman?
5. What is Jesus doing here?
6. Is there an ethical expectation?

Matthew 5:33-37 (NRSV) 33 "Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.' 34 But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let your word be 'Yes, Yes' or 'No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one.
What about swearing? How does that add strength to your promise?
What belongs to you? Why do people put a hand on the Bible to swear?
Do we follow through? Are we honorable to our commitments? Are we reliable? Do we weasel out of commitments based on technicalities?
Is there a social ethical implication?

Then there is this:
1. Do not resist an evildoer.
2. Turn the other cheek.
3. Give your coat to the one who sues for your shirt.
4. Go the second mile.
5. Give to everyone who begs, or seeks to borrow.
6. Love your enemies.
7. Pray for those who persecute you.
8. Be perfect as…

Who Can Partake?

2006-04-05T17:12:00.000-05:00

Who can partake of Communion? As with most questions like this, it seems to demand a community of discernment, a group who will live in response to Jesus and in response to the texts of Scripture. It is interesting that Luke-Acts is rather ambiguous in the language used for communion. Is breaking bread a sacred meal or a normal meal (Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7)? I suggest that the ambiguity is intentional, that the common meal was the place for Eucharist. Every one ate. The children ate. The strangers were welcomed to the table. It was in the spirit of Passover where it was an opportunity to illustrate the narrative of our lives. Every time the bread was broken and the wine shared, they would remember and relive the gift of their identity.
The Corinthian problem with communion is interesting. The reason they were failing was that they were still living according to the principalities and the powers, playing the domination game. The rich did not wait for the poor. In our community we still have a problem understanding this. We have turned the Eucharist into a private devotional time that happens to occur in the assembly. The people were taught somewhere that to 'discern the body' was to imagine the suffering of Jesus on the cross (1 Cor 11:29). It seems to me that Paul meant for us to look out for one another, to recognize that the alternative world proposed by a crucified Lord would mean that the old standards for separation were no longer in play. All should eat at the Lord's Table and receive His hospitality and ours. And as far as possible it should be a truly communal act.

God's Top Ten

2006-03-14T14:27:00.000-06:00

Thinking about the Ten!

Ex 20:1-17
God spoke to the people of Israel, giving them instruction for the fullness of life, which is the meaning of Torah. God establishes his authority in the description of their relationship. Who could bring a person out of slavery? And I wonder if there are very many who would say, “I have never been a slave!” I have been a slave, and I am not sure that I am completely free. I am a slave to the flesh, to my desire for comfort, success, and affection. It is not that these things are unimportant to our humanity. They are very important, and I believe God is eager to have us recognize that the Lord will address those needs. However, we often live in fear that God cannot deliver ‘the goods.’ That is what the Ten Commandments seem to be about. Whom do you trust?

We are to have no other gods. Nothing is to supersede the ‘I AM.’ My most common idol is me. It is not that I think I am transcendent. I am keenly aware of my weaknesses. The problem is that I want control. Greed is a common idol, both among the rich and the poor. Family is a common idol. We will put family before God. Matter of fact, we are tempted to have a lot of ‘other gods.’

We are to treat the name of God with respect. Why would we abuse someone whom we trust? If God would reveal God’s name (YHWH), that seems to me to be a relationship creator. Would you ask someone their name and then ‘make fun’ of the name, or use it as a magic charm, an incantation, or as a word for unwholesomeness? I doubt if you could keep that relationship whole and healthy if you were given to that.

What do think about the Sabbath? We are pretty busy people. We fill our schedules and have a hard time resting. We are fearful that we will ‘do without’ if we don’t seek every advantage. God stopped working for a day. If God can take a day, then I am supposing that we could trust the world to the Lord’s care for a day.

What do you suppose that ‘honor your father and mother’ command is about? Probably it means to ‘take care of your folks.’ It does not mean that you are under their authority for all of your life. It seems to me that it means that you are always responsible to God for their care. It could be one of those organizing commands, too. There is a season when you are under your parent’s authority. In the Old Testament incorrigible children were stoned to death at the city gate (Deut 21:18ff). It could be that God is reaffirming parents as the one’s who are to have a season of authority.

Life is not at your disposal. That is why God said, “Do not murder.” We are not in charge (sovereign over life and death). I read an article in the New York Times last week (March 2006) about the ethics of terminating a pregnancy when the child was going to have birth defects. It is interesting to me that we want medical knowledge to preserve our pregnancies and we consider that beneficial. However, if that medical knowledge preserves a difficult pregnancy that God seemed to be attempting to terminate, and we are unhappy with the result, we complain again. We really do not want God to be in control.

Why do you suppose we are supposed to refrain from adultery? Of course, you know that it is destructive to our relationships. It is destructive of marriage and threatens the well-being of our children. It threatens the social fabric of every community where the parties make a life. Why does this command make the top ten? I suppose because God knew that we would struggle in our relationships. Could we trust God to provide for us? It is not easy to trust.

Theft is a manifestation of the same fear. It threatens the very same things as adultery. I suppose adultery is theft. We take something that does not belong to us. We take because we are fearful. Could we learn to live with what we can earn? Could we learn to work hard and be satisfied with the results?

We are to tell the truth in court. I know that we have thought of this command as telling the truth in general, which is also important. However, I think this command is about making false accusations. Why would we be tempted to do this? Again, I think this is about the social fabric of our culture. If a person was to make an accusation against you, you would be harmed regardless of the truth. God is interested in us being careful with our relationships and with our communities.

We are not supposed to want what our neighbors possess. This seems to me to be a general principle that concludes this list. Trust God instead of wanting what does not belong to you.

Listen!

2006-02-22T18:23:00.000-06:00

Mark 9:2-8 (NRSV) 2 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5 Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." 6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!" 8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

It is interesting to me that Jesus takes these three characters with him to the mountain top. The language is emphatic, apart, by themselves. Jesus and this inner circle of imperfect men get a glimpse of glory. Was it a moment of authentication? Was Jesus giving these three the inside scoop to what was really going on? Was it a moment to say, “Even if the veil was lifted and you could see what was really going on, you would still say stupid things?”

How did they know it was Elijah and Moses? Did Jesus make the introductions? Were they wearing name tags? Of course, we move right past those odd things and into the apparent point. God was speaking, had been speaking. God spoke through Moses and through Elijah. Israel has the Law and the Prophets. Now, behold, he does a new thing and speaks through the beloved Son. The point was to listen to God.

If we could see beyond the veil, how would we respond? Would we be struck dumb, as Peter was? Would it be awe-full? Would we be deeply moved and encouraged to know that God was still speaking, still involved in the mess down here? I think Jesus picked three guys that would talk about it. They weren’t afraid of sounding stupid.

Breaking News

2006-02-22T08:34:00.000-06:00

2 Corinthians 4:3-6 (NRSV) 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. 6 For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

What is the gospel? I think we have a tendency to reduce it to something that we can capture in a sound bite. The gospel is ‘death, burial, and resurrection,’ we might say. I would ask, to what end? What makes that GOOD news? What makes it NEWS? Jesus came saying that he was the truth. He did not come saying that I have some propositions for you (not that he did not have propositions). He came claiming that he was truth, that he was offering himself as an example of what was truly human, as the love of God for the world, as an invitation to a benevolent relationship with the Creator. Clearly there was an inversion of the usual way of things in the ‘breaking news.’ We who claim to know something about this news proclaim ourselves as ‘your slaves for Jesus’ sake.’

Is that our way? Jesus’ way of sacrifice? Would we become a slave to those we meet, to those we know, to those who trouble us, for Christ’s sake? It is in those moments that the light shines out of darkness. And every time the light shines….it is breaking news all over again!

Psalm 41 - The Blessing

2006-02-15T10:19:00.000-06:00

Psalms 41:1-13 (NRSV) 1 Happy are those who consider the poor; the LORD delivers them in the day of trouble. 2 The LORD protects them and keeps them alive; they are called happy in the land. You do not give them up to the will of their enemies. 3 The LORD sustains them on their sickbed; in their illness you heal all their infirmities. 4 As for me, I said, "O LORD, be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against you." 5 My enemies wonder in malice when I will die, and my name perish. 6 And when they come to see me, they utter empty words, while their hearts gather mischief; when they go out, they tell it abroad. 7 All who hate me whisper together about me; they imagine the worst for me. 8 They think that a deadly thing has fastened on me, that I will not rise again from where I lie. 9 Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me. 10 But you, O LORD, be gracious to me, and raise me up, that I may repay them. 11 By this I know that you are pleased with me; because my enemy has not triumphed over me. 12 But you have upheld me because of my integrity, and set me in your presence forever. 13 Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.

I have been thinking about the whole idea of blessing. Happy (or blessed) are those who consider the poor. To be blessed is to manifest the presence of God. Those who pay attention to the poor are those who are living the blessed life, who are manifesting and cooperating in the work of Yahweh. Caring for the poor is not the job of some impersonal government. Caring for the poor is something that should interest those who consider themselves church people. And those who are cooperating with the interests of God are promised God’s attention.

It is interesting to me that the promise is not that you will not suffer or get sick. Jesus cares for the poor and he does not escape suffering or death. I wonder what it means to be healed. Healing and salvation seem to be seriously linked. Is it a cop-out to say that salvation is a matter of wholeness, of the ability to overcome brokenness? Salvation is a matter of re-integration, the sewing back together of that which has dis-integrated?

Some of us have a tendency to say that the sick are un-blessed. We might think, “Oh I escaped getting sick! What a blessing! God was looking out for me.” Those who do get sick…well they deserve what they get. They are reaping what they have sown, right?

Have you ever had the experience of being left by a friend who cannot bear your suffering? I have not felt that sting, but I believe that it happens. “A deadly thing has fastened on me.” A thing of Belial…a demonic thing, that is what the text says. Verse ten has an interesting little poetic twist. The Hebrew for “repay” has the same consonants as “bosom friend” in verse nine. It is also interesting that this prayer asks for permission to exercise vengeance. I think that is an honest response from a hurting heart. I suspect that God’s answer would be, “I think not. That is not your task.”

Why would God uphold this sufferer, if I were that sufferer? It would not be because of my integrity. I only have integrity if I have had some help (getting sewn back together). It is a mystery to me. God wants to bless, to set us in God’s Presence forever. That is the blessing, from ever-lasting to ever-lasting. Amen.

Isa 43 - A New Thing

2006-02-14T14:11:00.000-06:00

Isaiah 43:18-25 (NRSV) 18 Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. 19 I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. 20 The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, 21 the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise. 22 Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel! 23 You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings, or honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings, or wearied you with frankincense. 24 You have not bought me sweet cane with money, or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied me with your iniquities. 25 I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

What an interesting summary of the relationship between human beings, and especially those who choose to be church, and the God who formed them (us). There is a season to forget what has happened in the past, a season for the change in focus. For Israel, they were to forget the season of captivity, back when they were oppressed. How nice it would be to forget a relationship that was toxic, or a moment that we have been holding onto, those kinds of negative moments that we replay in our minds like videotape of a bad movie.

Moments, and words, define us. There was a book mentioned in the New York Times today (02 14 06) by Deborah Tannen. She is a linguist who studies the impact of conversation. The title of her book is _You’re Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation_. Tannen is seeing that we are powerfully impacted by the words that get spoken in relationships that matter to us. I wonder, if we could choose to forget the former things. Could we forget at least enough to be free, to look forward to a new thing that God might be doing in our lives? It must be possible. God claims to “make a way in the wilderness.” I like the metaphor of the wilderness for the journey of life…it is a challenge, a place where we cannot survive on our own. We need the community. We need Providence. However, we often live under the illusion that we are managing this life on our own.

“Yet you did not call on me.” We stop talking to God. We stop being sorry for trying to run the show, or for living unloving lives. We fret…a lot! What do we give God? What does God get out of this relationship with human beings? Not much, if the truth were told. I am mystified by God’s persistent attempts to remain in a relational with us (me). If I bring a sacrifice, it is really a disguise for a blessing for me! Could I give God the ‘fat portions”? I find that funny! God likes the fat portions? What I do give God is a burden. I give my sins. I weary God. Yet He remains the one who blots out my transgressions…for his own sake. Amazing.

What is God expecting from us (me)? Praise. He is expecting his church people to be priests for the world. We are to offer our sacrifices of praise to God for the sake of the world. We are to love the world that God loves, the whole world. The world is troubled. God loves the world. He sent His son. His Son sent those who would be disciples (the church). He did not call them to keep house, but to go love the world. God is about to do a new thing in the wilderness. He is doing it through the likes of us…for the sake of the world. Will we cooperate? Will we go along with the new thing, or are we stuck in the past? I wonder.

Simplicity

2006-01-05T18:42:00.000-06:00

Hans Hoffman, artist: The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.

Leonardo da Vinci: Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

John Cheney, poet: The happiest heart that ever beat / Was in some quiet breast / That found the common daylight sweet, / And left the rest to God.

Japanese proverb: A garden is perfect not when nothing more can be added, but when nothing more can be taken away.

E. F. Schumacher, economist: Any third-rate engineer or researcher can increase complexity; but it takes a certain flair of real insight to make things simple again.

Charles Mingus, musician: Making the simple complicated is commonplace, making the complicated simple -- that's creativity.

Doris Janxen Lonacre, author: The trouble with simple living is that, though it can be joyful, rich, and creative, it isn't simple.

Managing Stress

2005-12-02T07:48:00.000-06:00

How do you manage the pressure or stress in your life? We all have stress. Stress is like conflict. It is inevitable. Your ability to manage stress well will very likely mean the difference between success and failure, happiness and despondency, satisfaction and disappointment. Here are some management strategies that you might find helpful.

Be willing to fail. Even if you are driven not to fail, there is a benefit in being willing to risk. I really hate to fail. However, I understand that if there is no risk, there is no reward. Some people are crushed by their failures. The truth is that we will all fail. The measure of your character is how you respond to adversity, to failure.. God will forgive you, and so will others if you will face your failures with integrity and learn from your mistakes.

Keep it Simple. You have control over your stress levels. Most of our stress is self-imposed (self-inflicted) or at least self exacerbated. Living a simple life is a joy. No one requires us to live the life of the soaps. Keep your desires in check. Love your family and do your work. If you have ever been tangled up in sinful behavior, and I am thinking maybe you have, you know that the simple life is a lot less stressful!

Listen to the truth. Lean on your family and friends. There will be critics, always. Some will have bad motives, wanting to discourage or demote you. Most of the time, your critics are feeling a loss by what you say or do. If you can understand what might be at stake for them, you can listen with less anxiety. Others are people that want to promote, instead of demote. You need their truth telling! Find those people and lean on them. Speak frankly to them and let them speak frankly to you. There needs to be a place for unmasked honesty.

Historical Perspective. It is important to have a good sense of where you stand in the big picture. Sometimes I just have to look into the sky on a starry night. I am small. History is large. And God is above it all. In the larger scheme, my success or failure on a particular task will not change the course of everything. But in a few cases, the impact of what we do, does count. Don't forget that either. Your words and deeds matter.

Stay on task. Pressure is best dealt with head on. There are so many distractions and time consumers that come our way throughout the day. You can fill your whole day with those things. God gives us each day as a gift to use. When the day is over, we will never reclaim the time. Spend it as if it were precious currency. It is.

Pray and Sing. In the Bible, Peter writes, Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you (I Peter 5:7). You will have to reserve time for this. Take time to talk with God. Let him bear your burdens. Most of all, let him be your significance. That will take most of the pressure right off your shoulders. You are important because he made you that way. And sing. God said that in singing we would be filled with His Spirit (Ephesians 5:18-20). The whole cosmos should sing, and perhaps it does (Rev 5:13)!

Remember His Presence. Consider the ravens. Consider the lilies. Consider the angels. Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? (Hebrews 1:14).

Trudge. When the tediousness comes and the pressure mounts, put your head down and press on. If it is number crunching, cutting the grass, or dealing with unpleasant business or unpleasant people, apply yourself and have the discipline to do what is right. Finish the race. We always feel a sense of relief in the aftermath of responsibility fulfilled.

Take care of your body. Eat right. Get some exercise. Go to bed at a reasonable hour. Your body is a tool that God has given you. Take care of the tool, so that you can accomplish all that God has set before you to do.

Use and enjoy. Pressure is also the gift of God. Pressure is the urge to do, the need to do. It is not a flame to be extinguished, but a fire in the soul to blaze the trail of life. Don't wilt under the heat, but rather direct it with purpose!

Slow?

2005-12-01T14:30:00.000-06:00

Is God Slow?

How long do we wait? Oh, were we waiting? Have you ever had someone tell you that you were as slow as Christmas? If you were waiting for your annual pair of shoes that would come to you as a Christmas gift, Christmas could be slow in coming.
If we lived in a place where there was oppression, maybe we would cry out to God that he would bring his justice to bear. If we lived in a place where people could trap you with easy credit…or if we lived in a land that cultivated your dissatisfaction, that always encouraging you to want more, to need more. If you lived in a world where the pressure was mounting all the time, and you felt behind, less than, small…. Or if you found your self in a bind where you could just die. You might cry out for God to hurry. “Make things right, Lord!”
Why doesn’t God jump in to set things right in Rwanda, in Darfur where genocide is still going on? Why does God not keep children from suffering abuse from their parents hands? And why is living and dying so difficult? From managing finances, to families, to the daily grind…life is sweet…and difficult.We want justice in the world. I really think we do. But we are hesitant about justice for ourselves. That is what I think this text is about. Justice. When will we get it? What is God’s answer?Justice is coming. God will make things right. You might want to take the opportunity of the mean time to make every effort.He is patient with you. Our Lord’s patience means salvation.

2 Peter 3:8-15 (NIV) 8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. 11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. 14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 15 Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation.

Have you ever wondered why you were not instantly destroyed when you did what was wrong? People think that since God is slow, since no lightning strikes them dead, that God does not care.
What a terrible day it will be! It will be frightening to see the heavens disappear with a roar, the elements melt and the earth laid bare. It is like any of the great catastrophes. What matters to you in moments like that? When you have to pack the car to run from a hurricane. We thought about what was important. What if we were not coming back? It was interesting what some of you saw when you were on the road from Hurricane Rita. People were demonstrating their real character. Some were so helpful and gracious. Some were selfish, desperate, and thoughtless. Some tossed garbage as they went. Some cared for those in distress.

This passage of Scripture is telling us something. The most important things are not things. When all of this burns up, we will hardly notice. God is promising a new heaven and a new earth. God is promising a home for righteousness. The Home of Righteousness. Heaven.
Hebrews 12:22-23 (NRSV) 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,

You Have Come!
It is coming. What kind of people will you be?
Holy. Godly. Does that sound boring? It means loving, joyful, peaceful, patient and kind. It means living in imitation of the character of God. It means living for justice for those who are being treated unjustly. It is welcoming the stranger. It is generosity. It is caring. About people. About animals. About creation. And it is about patience.

A Prayer For George

2005-11-02T18:00:00.000-06:00

This is a prayer written by Will Willimon...

News of the death yesterday of Sgt. George Alexander, Jr., from woundsreceived in Iraq, has prompted me to prayer. Sgt. Alexander, 34, was agraduate of Chilton County High and an Alabama native. A Prayer for George Alexander, Jr. Lord Jesus, King of Kings, Savior of the World, Prince of Peace, hear thisprayer for George, son of Alabama, two thousandth American soldier to die inour war in Iraq. Receive him, we pray -- a lamb of Your flock, a sinner forwhom You have died, a cherished and beloved Child of God -- and one who isat peace at last, because he is with You. George had an Alabama boyhood, an Alabama youth, and Alabama dreams. I prayfor his mother, for his family and friends, his church, and all those forwhom his death means not only the ending of his dreams, but the beginning oftheir lifetime of grief and loss. Lord, help us to feel some measure oftheir pain. Save us from offering cheap consolation or patriotic platitudesin the face of their loss. Instill in our hard hearts a determination towork with You for a government in which we shall make peace as quickly andresourcefully as we make war, a country that loves Your righteousness andjustice more than our security and power. One and Only Way, Truth, and Life, give us the grace to live by Your Wordrather than by our weapons. Lord Jesus, You never lifted Your hand againstanyone, You refused to defend Yourself even when unjustly attacked, Youresisted violence with peace and nonviolence, and You never, ever told usthat war was the answer to anything. When will we move from worshipping Youto following You? Seeker and Lover of the Lost, forgive us of our sin of attempting to solvethe world¹s problems through violence and war, forgive us of our willingnessto once again allow old people like me to send young people like George tomake war on others and to suffer and die to preserve our privileges, forgiveus for loving our freedom more than Your peace, and for treating Your giftof life so casually. Give us, in our grief for our fallen daughters andsons, an equal amount of grief for the deaths of the twenty-five thousandIraqi sisters and brothers in Christ. Grant us a miracle: that George benot only the two thousandth young American to die in this war, but also thelast. Judge of us all, I confess that I have not prayed enough, have not embodiedYour truth enough, have not been critical enough of our political leaders,have acquiesced to the plans of the initiators and makers of war, ratherthan to join the ranks of Your blessed makers of peace. In Your name, andin heartfelt grief for the loss of George, and in bold confidence in Yourcoming Kingdom, I pray. Amen.

Good Religion

2005-10-19T15:45:00.000-05:00

Religion is a really good thing...maybe.

Have you heard people say that they were not religious, or that they were opposed to religion? Somehow they think that they can be Christian, or a follower of Jesus without being religious. Religion sounds stuffy, and less than authentic. What I think they mean is that bad religion is something to be avoided. Good religion however, is exactly the right thing.

What does it mean to be religious? The word is eusebeo. It means to worship or to show respect. The test of religion would be: Are we really paying attention? Is our focus upon the character and nature of God?

In our nation's archives there is an account of two ladies from Tennessee who came before President Abraham Lincoln at the conclusion of the Civil War. They were asking for the release of their confederate husbands held as prisoners of war at Johnson's Island.
Lincoln put them off until Friday, when they came again. Again the President put them off until Saturday. At each of the interviews one of the ladies stressed to Lincoln that her husband was a religious man. After the Saturday interview the President ordered the release of the prisoners. Then he turned to this lady and said, "You say your husband is a religious man. Tell him when you meet him, that I say I am not much of a judge of religion. In my opinion, however, the religion that sets men to rebel and fight against their government ... (so that they can) eat their bread on the sweat of other men's faces, is not the sort of religion upon which people can get to heaven!"

The way of the cross, it seems to me, is one that is subversive in a way that changes the status quo not through the power of this world, but rather loves so radically, so sacrificially that the world cannot help but be changed. What if Lincoln and his generals had also chosen to walk down south and stood to defend those enslaved without firing a shot? To give your life in such a way, now that is freedom! And that is good religion.

Hurricanes and Compassion

2005-09-06T17:36:00.000-05:00

Hurricanes and Compassion

People often want to know if human beings are basically good, or fundamentally evil. In the most challenging of circumstances, the real nature of people is exposed. Saturday evening and night I went to the George R Brown Convention Center to help. I tried to go to the Astrodome, but they had all of the volunteers they could use. I think that is a testimony to the goodness of people. I have heard some preachers debating the need for international aid, and I spoke up and said that it was a funny notion. It is not that we do not need the community of human kind to pitch in, it was just that in the heat of the moment, no one is saying, "Where are the French when you need them!"

I was a bit nervous as I went to work at the GRB. That lost feeling is troublesome. If anyone asked me a question, I would not know the answer. I did not know where to stand or what to do. I found myself in line to receive a family that was getting off a bus from Louisiana. There were eight people, four young boys. My job was to take them through the line to get shoes (if they needed them), two days worth of clothing, soap and towels and tooth brushes and the like. We spent about three hours together. One young boy who was about 8, named Kahlil warmed up to me right away. He became my leaders. Where he wanted to go, we went. His brother Raheem was a bit more reserved. The older boy Keiron, was confident and serious. The littlest boy just wanted things to be normal. Then one of them said, "Where are the French when you need them!" (Not really.)

They were from the west bank of the Mississippi. Water rose into the second level of their house. They heard gunfire outside their house. Then some military men came and told them to get out of their house. They crawled through a window into deep water. They did not tell me about snakes and gators. They did say that they reached some dry ground and a man who had ‘borrowed’ a car from a car lot picked them up and took them to the mall. The mall was horrid. They did find their way onto a bus and they arrived in Houston Saturday night, five and a half days after the storm. We settled them in to their air mattresses and had a prayer, and I went to the next task.

I wandered about the GRB looking for a way to make myself useful. I found my way into the volunteer line. I did not know that was the starting place! A lady asked for two people to come with her, so I went. I spent the next four hours working security, checking baggage for contraband. Anything that could not be brought on to an airplane or into a prison could not be brought into the GRB. It was hard to taker their cigarettes and lighters. I took one woman’s comb that had a sharp and pointed end, and she began to cry. I felt terrible. The last bus in that night was full of special needs children. We did not search their bags. I was thankful.

Then I went home to my air-conditioned home. Troubling.
Are people good? I think so. We are compassionate. Our hearts ache. I am thankful for that.

Family Laws

2005-08-26T07:52:00.000-05:00

Ten Laws of Family Life

Emotional Distance does not solve problems. Sometimes emotional distance actually transfers problems to other relationships. We change partners and keep the problems.
Loss and Replacement. When people suffer a loss there is often a rush to replace the loss. The immediate pain may be reduced, but the potential for change is low. There are lessons to be learned from the loss.
Chronic Conditions. If a perpetual problem exists, identify the person or persons who are reinforcing the dysfunction. The situation in the family will have to get worse before it gets better.
Pain and Responsibility. I have to be able to allow another member of the family to struggle, to hurt and suffer, especially if there are consequences that need to fall upon them. We must learn to sit still and wait. Within reason, natural or logical consequences must fall and we must learn from them.
The Paradox of Seriousness and the Playfulness of Paradox. Some situations are only made worse by standing around and saying, "Isn’t this awful?" Being too serious is as a bad as being too flippant. Over reaction and under reaction both have a price. Joyfully work the problems.
Secrets and Systems. Keeping a secret is like plaque in the arteries. Let there be none in your family. Get all of the information out on the table. Reality is our best friend. The unmentionable is unmanageable!
Sibling Position. Our position in our family of origin does in fact teach us certain roles to play. These roles are ones that we bring with us into our nuclear family as well as our congregational family.
Diagnosis can be addicting. We can spend so much time diagnosing other people that no change is ever effected. Labeling is easier than enacting a cure.
Symmetry. If one extreme polarity exists in a family, you will probably find a counter balance.
Families are durable and resilient. Survival is probable.

How might these make a difference in ministry? Churches are families.

Edwin Friedman - Generation to Generation

Evolution - Scientists and Creationists

2005-08-23T18:32:00.000-05:00

There is a debate going on stirred up by the intelligent design proponents. It seems to me that some of the scientists and the creationists are talking past one another. The intelligent design people are asking the scientists to be unscientific. They want to say, "When you get to a mystery, like the mystery of the similarity of genes found in humans, mammals, worms and bacteria, couldn’t you just say that ‘God did it!’?" A scientist is compelled to continue asking the questions without surrendering to the mystery. I appreciate that. I will draw my own conclusions somewhere a long the way, without demanding that someone quit asking the observable questions. We are thankful for Copernicus and Galileo, who did not stop seeking the truth about the world. When I see the similarities in genes and embryos, I will see economy of Design rather than common ancestry through natural selection. My feelings won’t be hurt when some scientist says, "That’s unscientific!" I am not a scientist. I am a theologian!

I am also comfortable with evolutionary theory, at least in a macro sense. Things change over time. That is evolution, right? I think we should not ignore good evidence. We should be observant. We should ask questions. We would do well not to limit ourselves to our own disciplines, too. Theologians should be reading chemistry and biology, as well as philosophy and the Bible. What I am interested in is the truth. I think we can handle the truth. Virtue, it seems to me, demands that we have our eyes and hearts and minds open. This is the world that God has made, and it pours forth speech (Ps 19:1-4). We should listen. Paul Woodruff says, "The writer who is serious about virtue can’t stay behind the boundaries of a single academic discipline; the subject brings together poetry and philosophy and the history of ideas and puts them all to work on a huge live-wire of a question -- how we should live our lives." If the scientists or the creationists forget the point of it all, we should not.

Of course, you know, I believe that God created the heavens and the earth, that he created a moral agent out of mud.

Dangerous Listening/Dangerous Speech

2005-08-17T16:12:00.000-05:00

Having God in your presence is such a dangerous thing. It is so difficult to follow our own desire when God is around. How difficult dating would have been if I had known that God was coming along! If we had an inkling of an idea that God was paying attention, I think we would either hide, or we would shoo him away.

As I read Scripture it seems to me that you really can do those things. We can run away. Did you ever play peek-a-boo with your children? Why was that fun? In their minds, if they could not see you, then you were not present. If we do not look at God, or consider that he could see and know what we are up to, then we are off the hook. We can ask God to leave, even.

Moses tells the story of the Ten Commandments. He said to the people, "You said, ‘The Lord our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a man can live even if God speaks with him. But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer. For what mortal man has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived? Go near and listen to all that the Lord our God says. Then tell us whatever the Lord our God tells you. We will listen and obey.’"

Moses, you go take the risks for us. We will listen to you. We say that we will obey, but really we will just evaluate what you have to say and... from a safe distance decide our course! What a deal! God says, "Okay Moses. Let’s follow their plan. Go, tell them to return to their tents."
And then, in the here and the now we wonder where God is. We marvel at the fact that we cannot hear God speak.

Annie Dillard says, "It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. The very holy mountains are keeping mum. We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it; we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree. Did the wind use to cry, and the hills shout forth praise? Now speech has perished from among the lifeless things of earth, and living things say very little to very few.

"The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega. It is God’s brooding over the face of the waters; it is the blended note of the ten thousand things, the whine of wings. You take a step in the right direction to pray to this silence, and even to address the prayer to ‘World.’ Distinctions blur. Quit your tents. Pray without ceasing."

Quit your tents! Come out! Look and listen. God speaks!

Moments of Blindness

2005-08-16T16:07:00.000-05:00

I have been working on a project for school. It is the last big thing of my formal education...well unless something else crops up that I would like to learn in a formal way. I spent a couple of months writing the prospectus. I knew that the next step was to submit it for critique. I also have great confidence in the people who will critique my work. However, when the criticism came, I had this sense of failure, of being overwhelmingly inadequate. One of my advisors wanted me to read some other material. I read it and understood about half of it. (J. L. Austin’s How to Do Things With Words and John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality) On Friday, I felt like surrender. I sent a note to my advisors and I got a response that was encouraging. Despair has its effect, and I think it has some value. The effect is humility.
Humility should not paralyze us. In fact, perhaps it should set us free. Today, I happened upon these words from Annie Dillard.
Speaking to someone who has had success in writing a book: "I have an urgent message for you. Everyone feels like a fraud …separate yourself from your work. A book you made isn’t you any more than a chair you made, or a soup. It’s just something you made once. If you ever want to make another one, it, too, will be just another hat in the ring, another widow’s mite, another broken offering which God has long understood is the best we human’s can do – we’re forgiven in advance."
We are forgiven in advance. That is the nugget of information that releases us to try. When despair comes, we have been blinded to the goodness that surrounds us. In those moments, when we think everything is bad, we are most blind. Every offering is broken. That should not prevent us from humbly making the offering.

Grief

2005-08-08T10:48:00.000-05:00

In February, Grady Burke was killed in the line of duty. He was a Houston firefighter. Frank Cordua is on trial for manslaughter because he was cooking drugs in an abandoned house. His drug cooking ignited the house and station 46 responded to the blaze. Captain Burke was on the hose leading the charge into the fire. The house collapsed on him. I have been called to testify at the trial this week. My job is to describe the impact of Grady’s death on his family. His wife Cindy is a courageous woman. She is a firefighter’s wife. Their three children are exceptional people. Hannah, Hailey and Hunter have suffered an irreplaceable loss, however. Their lives have been redefined by the death of their father.

I was listening to a song by Natalie Grant this morning that I thought was an appropriate prayerful response to their grief. The song is about the loss of a child. But the lyric is so well written for godly grief that it effectively speaks a word of suffering and comfort.

Two months is too little, they let him go, they had no sudden healing
To think that Providence would take a child from his mother while she prays is appalling.
Who told us we’d be rescued?
What is changed and why should we be saved from nightmares?
We’re asking why this happens to us who have died to live? It’s unfair!

This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life, and you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was when everything failed, we’d be held.

This hand is bitterness.
We want to taste it, let the hatred know our sorrow
The wise hand opens slowly to lilies of the valley and tomorrow.

If hope is born of suffering…
If this is only the beginning…
Can we not wait? For what? Our watching for our Savior?

What I appreciate about this is the honesty. This is not a message that says that if we were only faithful, we would not suffer. God does not deliver the blows on our hearts, either. We live in a fallen world where people are given the freedom to act. With that freedom comes also the responsibility for our choices. Who told us we’d be rescued? God does not spare us from living in this world of choice. The world is full of pain, and God loves the world.
Yes, the wise hand opens slowly to the lilies of the valley and tomorrow.

Out of the Boat

2005-08-04T11:11:00.000-05:00

The first lesson that I taught as the preacher for the Southeast church was about walking on water. I was encouraging our people to step out in faith as they were leaving what was comfortably known into an adventure with Jesus.

I still believe that the adventure ‘out there’ is worth the risk. God’s mission in the world, as I see it, is bringing order out of chaos. We are invited to participate in the mission of God in the world. Of course that means that we are going to have to GO out of our little circles of safety, out where the chaos is happening!

Then today I was reading one of my favorite preachers. He always makes me re-think. Re-thinking is a virtue, I think (is that as funny to you as it is to me?)
Here is what Fred Craddock says,

Only God can walk on the waves. That is what the Bible says. In Job, in Isaiah, in Habakkuk, in the Psalms, it is God who walks on the storm, God who makes a path in the sea. Why? To show a miracle? To say, “Hey, look, I’m walking on water.” No, don’t be shallow. In ancient times the sea was the place of evil. The evil monster was there; the Leviathan was there. The enemy of all that we know as good and right is there in the water. In the Bible, the water is the abode of all the forces that are against us. And God walks on the sea. In other words, there is no power, no storm, no wind, no force in the world that God cannot conquer, no evil over which God is not superior, nothing that can destroy your life because God loves and cares for you.

Jesus’ walking on the water is not to be understood as a miracle. Look at it, listen to it. Jesus comes in the storm on the sea and says, “Take heart, I am?” These words are translated, “It is I” or ’I am he?’ but what Jesus actually says is, “I am.” “I am”-- that’s the name for God. God has come to them in the storm in the person of Jesus, and what happens? They cannot believe it. At first they say, “It’s a ghost, it’s a ghost!” From a distance Jesus does indeed seem like a ghost. I know a lot of people who have never made friends with Jesus, and he is still out there as a ghost-like thing.

But Jesus gets closer, and Simon Peter says to him, “If you are . . . if you are, tell me to come to you on the water.” Do you recognize those words? Do you remember hearing those words before? When Jesus was tested in the wilderness, the devil said, “If you are the son of God…” The words of Simon Peter are the words of the tempter. I am putting you to the test, Jesus. If you are really the son of God…

It is no wonder that two chapters later Jesus says to Simon Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.” So the fact that Simon Peter could walk on the water is just not a little thing. I’ve heard all those piddling little sermons that say that Peter tried to walk on the water but he took his eyes off Jesus and so he began to sink. Do you understand what is really happening here? Simon Peter doesn’t believe. He wants to put Jesus to the test, and in the attempt to test Jesus, he ends up testing himself and sinking. You don’t test God. Jesus got in the boat and everything was all right. It was quiet, and the others fell down in the bottom of that little boat and worshiped Jesus. (Matt 14:22-33)

Boredom is the root of all evil

2005-08-02T07:59:00.000-05:00

We do so much better under pressure. We need the stimulation of direction. When we are bored we invent adventure. Fred Craddock says that watching the Indy 500 can lead one to being unchristian. The cars race round and round and round. They are going 230 MPH, round and round and round. They are going so fast it is hard to see the racing, the strategies, the art of the race. Instead you see the cars whizzz and whinnne past the grand stand. The monotony creeps in and you do not mean to be ugly…but you find yourself wishing that SOMETHING would happen! I think that is why Danica Patrick is such a hit among Indy fans. Yes, she’s cute. But cute does not get that much attention these days. She is tough and can race. She breaks up the boredom!
Of course, the issue is not Indy. Craddock is talking about church not racing. Have you been bored at church? I have been irritated and anxious at church. I am seldom bored. Of course, I am the preacher. When I think about the people who have gathered with a sense of expectation, it can be intimidating. I always have a message. If it is a Christian message, I can be assured that it is an important message. What is it that makes the people tune out, bob their heads as they fight off the sleepies? Some of them have been hearing the Bible for all of their lives. More information is boring! Some of them have not been listening for years! And sometimes, just maybe, I have ground it up into pabulum, too easy to swallow. What we need is a little bit of Bible scandal. What we need is a good 23 car pile-up. What we need is some eyes plucked out and hands cut off (Matthew 5:29-30)! That would wake everybody up, don’t you think! We need a few people dropping dead because their contribution was out of whack (Acts 5:5). What we need is not more information. We cannot allow reflection and discussion to become our central business. Craddock says “As long as life can be kept at a distance by stacking to ideas and concepts, a clever head can clear the way to operate a brothel and publish a new hymnbook at the same time.” (Overhearing the Gospel, p. 20)

Words Matter

2005-07-29T11:51:00.000-05:00

Words matter.
The old cliché was that words would never hurt. The truth is that words have such great power. When someone chooses you, and says to you, “I choose you,” your world is changed. When you stand before God and friends and say, “I do,” your world is changed. If you stand before the judge and say, “I don’t,” that, too, changes the world.

We learn the power of words early. We learn the power of “no.” I had to convince my children that “no” was a very good word, but not a word that could be effectively used with mom and dad. We taught them the power of their kind words, “Please,” being the most operative.

Words matter. They are full of our shared hopes and dreams.

Barbara Brown Taylor is one of America’s preeminent preachers. She says:

“You don’t need a grand pulpit; any old housetop will do. Even the sun room will do at the nursing home, where you stand by the piano surrounded by wheelchairs full of old people. Some of those old people are dozing, some whimpering, and less than half of them are aware you are there.
Say “Resurrection!” in their presence.
Say, “Life everlasting!” say, “Remember!”
Just let those words loose in the room; just utter them in the light, and trust them to do their work. Speak to a support group for people with AIDS. Worship with them, laying hands on their heads and praying for their healing.
Say, “Mercy!” to them.
Say, “Comfort!” Say, “Beloved children of God!”
Just let those words loose in the room; just utter them and trust in their power to make people whole.

“Here’s the plan: God showed Jesus how; Jesus shows us how; we show the whole people of God how; they show the world how.”

(“Words We Tremble to Say Aloud”)

Your words matter. Your words change the world…for someone.

Major in Majors

2005-07-28T15:30:00.000-05:00

This is the news from Houston today.

Yes, it is hot and humid in Houston, but I wonder if there is a lesson about majoring in minors. You are familiar with that term, right? It is something that is rather common in church, too. We spend huge amounts of energy on matters that are not central. We get upset and we upset others over issues that are on the margins.

Here is the story...
An undercover sting operation in Houston nabbed more than two dozen air conditioning repairman performing work without a license, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation said Thursday.
TDLR officials said the sting took place at a home in Houston between July 12 and 14.
The agency is expected to issue cease and desist orders to the unlicensed companies identified during the sting until they are in compliance with the law. Businesses that fail to obey the order could be subject to a $5,000 fine.
"We want every person in this state who is performing air conditioning or heating work without a license to worry every time they answer a call," TDLR's Executive Director William Kuntz said in a news release. "If they meet the requirements for a license, we want them licensed. If they don't meet the requirements, we want them out of business."
State law prohibits unlicensed businesses from offering to perform air conditioning work to actually performing it without a license.
Kuntz advises consumers check with the state's Web site to see if the repairman they are about to hire is properly licensed.
"The consequences of hiring an unlicensed, unqualified person can be disastrous. Your home can burn and your family may be harmed or killed. Even if you escape without injury, unlicensed contractors rarely have insurance. You will have no recourse if the unit fails to function properly - or function at all," Kuntz said.

At least is was not a police sting operation!
....

Let's stay on task. The task has everything to do with righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17).

Heritage

2005-07-27T10:49:00.000-05:00

Is heritage disposable?
When a young couple comes for premarital counseling (or even if they are not a young couple) I ask them to do a three generation family tree. I would like for them to see the significant relationships that have been a part of their heritage. We learn to be who we are in our families. This is the story of our lives. When you think about your grandparents and your parents, your aunts and uncles, what do you see? Some families are close-knit. They are dependent upon one another. Some families are far-flung. You may not even know the stories of our family. But that IS the story. Is your story full of fractured relationships? That does not mean divorce, necessarily. Sometimes the fractures are tolerated. We learn what we live. We live what we learn.
Heritage counts.
But it does not count for EVERYTHING!

This is the old hotel in my old home town of Dewey. I grew up going to the Dewey United Methodist Church. We were Democrats. Dad worked for a susidiary of Phillips Petroleum, and we had a photo studio across from this old hotel. Across the other street was the Tom Mix Museum. Tom Mix was the mayor of Dewey and a cowboy actor in the silent movie era. The Harbours came to NE Oklahoma before statehood to sell contraband to the Cherokees.

Our heritage counts, but we are not bound by it.

Spanglish

2005-07-26T08:27:00.000-05:00

Have you seen Spanglish – movie with Paz Vega, Adam Sandler and Tea Leone?

It is about rearing children, about love and neuroticism, and about the cultural divide. What I liked about it was that Adam Sandler’s character had the capacity for understanding the women in his life. That was amazing, and the women were amazed at him, and loved him for this ability. This is something of the idea that I think we are trying to communicate about God’s love.

If we could take a moment and move out of the significant bundle (or jumble) of pressures that we face on a constant basis, we might be able to see the reality of the life of the other person. If we could do that, we could make room for them in new ways. We could make allowances for their troubles. We might even have the energy to help bear their load.

God loves us, knowing us.
Remarkable.

A begining

2005-07-25T14:31:00.000-05:00

Hey friends,

How much can one person think about? From time to time some of you might be interested in knowing what kinds of subjects are running through my mind.

Some of that might even be useful from time to time.

Today for instance, I am thinking about how people relate to Christianity. The classical liberal approach to Christianity was to make the story of the Bible reasonable in our culture. People still hunger for that apparently. They want to know about the pay-off for being a Christian. They also what to know of Christianity makes sense. Many are suspicious that it does not.

From Hans Frei – a theologian from Yale:

“The Bible’s claim to truth is not only far more urgent than Homer’s, it is tyrannical – it excludes all other claims. The world of the Scripture stories is not satisfied with claiming to be a historically true reality-- it insists that it is the only real world, is destined for autocracy. All other scenes, issues, and ordinances have no right to appear independently of it, and it is promised that all of them, the history of all mankind, will be given their due place within its frame, will be subordinated to it. The Scripture stories do not, like Homer’s, court our favor, they do not flatter us, that they may please us and enchant us --they seek to subject us, and if we refuse to be subjected we are rebels.”

What do you think of that?