Grace Notes

self-inflicted wounds

2011-09-09T14:05:00.000-07:00

I saw a t-shirt today for a construction company that said, “If you’re not bleeding you’re not working.”

A lot of us are bleeding. We’re wounded by past experiences and hurts from others. Why would we want to add self-inflicted wounds to the injuries from which we need healing?

We assume that God wants us to be productive and that the only way to know how productive we are is for us to feel some pain. So if someone seems too relaxed (including ourselves) we wonder if they’re working hard enough. We look for evidence of commitment to God that includes an overloaded calendar and a vaguely harried manner. If I lash out at someone in anger, I feel justified when I think, “If s/he only knew how much pressure I’m under.”

And then I read Isaiah 30:15: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength”. The Martha in me protests, but God has a rebuttal, “but you would have none of it.” Yeah, he's talking to me.

Can God really get his work done while I am resting in him? Do I have time to respond to Jesus’ call, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28)? Someone once said to me that God has given me all the time I need to do what he is calling me to do. The problem is that I keep adding other stuff to my calendar. What I really need to do is stop and talk to God and discern what he really wants me to do.

This isn’t to say that there isn’t a cross for me to bear, that I am to share in the sufferings of Jesus. But there’s a difference between wounds that come from taking up the cross and self-inflicted wounds from carrying too heavy a calendar.

covenant v contract

2011-08-17T09:46:00.001-07:00

What’s the difference between a covenant and a contract? In Ruth 4 Boaz makes an agreement between himself and the first in line as kinsman-redeemer. You don’t have to know what a “kinsman-redeemer” is, just notice that Boaz calls the elders of the city together to act as witnesses and pass judgment over the agreement.

In the days before the printing press (or desktop publishing) agreements were made based on a person’s word, which really means it was based on his character (women weren’t usually allowed to make covenants). The witness to that person’s character were the elders of the town. They weren’t legal experts, they were people who knew that person’s life and how he conducted himself and what his reputation was.

These days, we make agreements called contracts and if you pay a lawyer enough s/he will find a way to get you out of the agreement. That’s because the agreement is only as good as its wording. The people who make sure the wording is secure are lawyers and the people who judge if the claims about the wording are valid are judges. The character of the people entering the agreement is mostly irrelevant, as is the character of the people who wrote up the agreement.

Throughout the Bible God’s intentions toward us are expressed in covenants: with Adam, with Abraham, with David, etc. God isn’t trying to wiggle out of his expressed agreements. Instead, he backs up his intentions toward us with his character. And he calls as witnesses the multitudes of people who have found him to be faithful.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. (Hebrews 12:1)

caring

2011-07-31T14:05:00.001-07:00

When did Jesus feed the 5000? According to Matthew 14, Jesus had just heard the news that John the Baptist had been killed. Matthew doesn’t mention Jesus’ emotions, but I’m sure he was grieving. Matthew does say that Jesus withdrew to be by himself for a while. But the crowds found out where he was and came to him. And Jesus was moved with another emotion, compassion. He saw people loved by God, whose dignity and joy was marred by disease and emotional pain. So Matthew tells us that Jesus healed their sick.

The beginning of Eugene Peterson’s memoir “The Pastor” is about the development of his “pastoral imagination.” What is he imagining? He is learning to see people as God sees them. He is learning to envision their future as God does. His job as a pastor, then, is to help them get in touch with God’s love for them and help them cooperate with God’s work in them.

Jesus had an active pastoral imagination. After all, his divine nature was the one who had helped to lovingly create each person and had a vision and purpose for each one. So even though his human nature was grieving, Jesus took time to heal and feed people.

It’s also true that Jesus didn’t ignore his need to grieve and to be alone. I suppose his time away from the crowds didn’t last as long as he had thought it might. But he took that time nonetheless, as he often did (Mark 1:35, Luke 4:42). He knew that time alone with his Father was necessary for the renewing of his soul and his body.

Matthew 14 is a lesson to me in taking care of others as well as taking care of myself. Lord, help me to see people as you do, as those you have lovingly created. Help me to have the grace to participate in your loving work in them. And help me to be in touch with how much you love me and with what you are doing in me. Amen.

making others miserable

2011-07-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

Why was Martha upset at Mary in Luke 10? Martha was bothered by Mary’s not helping with the chores, but was even more incensed that Mary wasn’t participating in Martha’s sense of frantic busy-ness. Martha wanted Mary to feel the same way she felt. Nothing is so infuriating to an anxious person as a calm person. Misery loves company and wants to drag everyone into the same mire of turmoil.

It’s true that empathy can be healing. But the empathetic person can’t become enmeshed in the same dire perspective as the person who is to be helped or there will be no help. Martha was feeling that everything depended on her. She probably felt that she was even earning some kind of brownie points with God because she was taking Jesus’ presence in her home seriously. On the other hand, Mary was enjoying Jesus’ presence, a presence which made even the everyday surroundings and activities delightful. So Jesus recognized Martha’s feelings and preoccupations, but encouraged her to let go and know that the best things in life, loving and being loved, are truly free… and freeing.

loving Jesus

2011-07-11T05:47:00.001-07:00

As we sang “My Jesus I love Thee” in worship yesterday, I was moved. We had commissioned the Chongsiriwatana family to serve God in Thailand. Fred had just challenged us to have a serious DTR with God. Obviously, loving Jesus meant sacrifice and service.

Later that afternoon my family was getting on my nerves and I was grumpily doing chores around the house. And then I thought again about what it means to love Jesus. Loving Jesus means serious self-examination, living out of conviction and serving him in faraway countries. But it also means quietly serving my family. It also means asking God for the grace to be kind and patient when I don’t feel like it.

And loving Jesus means loving his Church, loving my church, loving even the individuals in my church who irritate me and disagree with me. It means putting aside complaining. It means doing whatever he shows me to help build up these people and this community that he loves.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:19-21)

NHPB journal

2011-05-19T07:02:00.000-07:00

A week ago I was in Washington DC for the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast. Here are some thoughts that I jotted down as I reflected on the experience on the plane ride home.

May 10. On the shuttle from the airport to my hotel I chatted with a fellow passenger. She was the head of her realtor association in a Bay Area county. We were both in DC for conferences and visits with legislators, but she made the trek every year and this was my first time. We listened to news about the floods in Memphis and I remarked that I had been in Biloxi to help with rebuilding after the floods resulting from the hurricanes in 2005. She said that she had just been in Biloxi to encourage government to do more to help homeowners. That was when it hit me that I had an understanding of doing works of mercy, but influencing government officials to act justly was unfamiliar to me. But both are needed. My fundamentalist upbringing encouraged me to remain separate from the world. My Chinese heritage distrusted government and preferred to use the “back door” of relationships instead of the front door of official channels. But this conversation opened my eyes to see that swinging a hammer isn’t enough, that speaking up in the halls of power is also needed. I had made the trip partly because of the tourist appeal of seeing President Obama. God was starting to open my heart to the work that was needing to be done.

That afternoon I received instruction on how to speak to a legislator. I found that conferees would be divided into groups according to the states we lived in so that we could let the lawmakers know that we were their constituents. I received information about Esperanza’s stance on immigration reform and the state of education resources for Hispanics. I learned that Esperanza is anti-amnesty, and for strong borders, verifiable employment status and compassionate treatment of families while still being tough on enforcement of immigration status. This knowledge prepared us to visit the many freshman legislators who had been elected by socially and fiscally conservative voters.

That evening we learned about how many Hispanics were being adversely affected by the housing downturn, losing homes to foreclosure while being targeted by scam artists. We wanted to let legislators know that resources to help Hispanic homeowners keep their homes would pay dividends in the future because immigrants tend to be hardworking and diligent in pursuing the American dream.

May 11. We had to get up early to attend a breakfast briefing in one of the Senate office buildings and then be addressed by Newt Gingrich. His agenda was clear once he disclosed that he was going to officially announce his run for the Presidency that afternoon. In order to appeal to the over 200 mostly Hispanic voters, he began by addressing us in Spanish. Then he argued that he had a strategy for passing immigration reform legislation that was more likely to succeed than the President’s. It made me realize that being in DC was no mean feat. The people in these halls of power are bright and articulate and resolute. And they care about people. But being in DC can isolate a person from the very people that a lawmaker is there to help.

The most striking moment for me was the prayer that was said as we prepared to make our “Hill visits”. The meeting was closed with a prayer that we would be empowered as prophets of old. I realized that I was in DC to “speak truth to power.” I was there to remind the lawmakers of the challenges that their constituents were facing and to suggest ways they could help, primarily by developing and passing laws to fix an extremely broken immigration system while also giving our country secure borders.

I made three visits to the offices of members of the House. All were Republicans: a freshman, a multiple-termer, and the House majority whip. We spoke to staffers who would later be informing the members of their constituents’ perspective. It was a bit counter-intuitive, but the more powerful the member, the more open and reasonable their staffer. The freshman member’s staffer was firm that no immigration reform legislation would be passed by this Congress because jobs and budget were too important. We heard this line all three times, but the more seasoned staffers seemed to understand that it was important to hear us out, even if they disagreed with our agenda.

It was a little comical that in the most powerful member’s office our visiting team consisted of no Hispanics, an African American, an Anglo, and an Asian American. But our team worked well together and the assistant chief of staff, was amiable and open. He shared the misgivings of his party so that we could respond and encourage partnership from a standpoint of shared values, even if the strategy wasn’t yet agreed upon. It was in that meeting that I felt most comfortable, allowing my enjoyment of dialog to be a vehicle for the Spirit to give voice to a prophetic message that was needed in that place. And I felt the value and need for working for justice in the halls of power as well as doing acts of mercy among people who are hurting.

After the visits we attended a briefing by senior White House staff, informing us of what the Cabinet members were doing to help the Hispanic community in many areas, including housing, employment, food, and education resources. I realized how important it is to get the word out about the resources that the government is offering. Part of our church’s community involvement could surely include connecting people in need to resources that are already available. As a taxpayer, I don’t want the government spending an inordinate amount of money on advertising campaigns. On the other hand, I don’t want resources that could improve our neighborhoods going to waste. For example, instead of complaining about the high rate of foreclosures, I could help connect people with counseling to help them avoid foreclosure. That helps raise my property values, gets us out of the current credit crisis sooner, and increases overall wealth and economic health for the good of all. It seems like a no-brainer but I’d never thought of it before.

May 12. We had to arrive at 5:30 for a 7:00 breakfast because of the security surrounding an event involving the President. Along with checking everyone’s ID and having us go through a metal detector, we saw bomb-sniffing dogs investigate the platform. Most of us were kept at a distance by a scarlet rope, and we were aware of both highly visible armed guards and of the Secret Service, who were hardly inconspicuous in their dark suits and earpieces. It reminded me that the President is both a powerful and influential leader, and a fragile human being. The actual speech was a bit of a let-down, containing no strategic substance as to what sort of legislation he wanted to sign. He said that he couldn’t do immigration reform alone and needed our help to mobilize our congregations. But the message was a good reminder: none of us can do such important work alone. We are fallible human beings who can become blinded by the trappings of power or frustrated by the lack of a hearing for our good ideas. We need each other in order for all of us to do our jobs well.

a pastor's heart

2011-05-19T06:40:00.000-07:00

My bro-in-law Tony died suddenly on the Saturday before Easter. We were both interns under Dr. Murphy Lum 30 years ago. At Tony's memorial service in L.A. two nights ago, Pastor Lum ended with an invitation to accept Christ as savior. It was an old-fashioned altar call, albeit brief. It impressed me because it showed Dr. Lum’s heart. More than anything he wants to see people come to know Jesus. I may think his methods are old-fashioned but I can’t disagree with his heart. He is in alignment with Jesus and Paul. Jesus said that his message was to repent because the kingdom of heaven is near (Matt 4:17). Paul said that our message is to be reconciled to God (2 Cor 5:19-20). Entering the kingdom of heaven and being reconciled to God are the summum bonum of human experience, the highest good that we could experience. Wanting this for everyone that he can influence is what makes Murphy a successful pastor, regardless of attendance numbers or the size of the church building where he has an office.

learning to worship

2011-04-23T05:54:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday was Palm Sunday, which is also called Passion Sunday. I wanted to attend a performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. I wasn’t deeply familiar with the SMP (as it’s called) so I’ve been reading about it and listening to it during Lent, allowing Bach’s re-creating of the passion of our Lord to shape my own experience of this season. I had asked my kids if any of them wanted to attend the performance with me and it was my youngest who wanted to go. I warned him that sitting through 3+ hours of Baroque choral music (in German!) would be challenging, but he insisted that he wanted to go.

He made it through about 20 minutes and then started nodding off. I let him sleep for a bit and then he woke up refreshed and made it through the rest of Part 1 alert as I whispered to him a running commentary on the music. After the intermission we changed seats and sat in the back of the large church, closer to the cool air coming from the open doors, which became our emergency exit when he needed another intermission halfway through the much longer Part 2. We came back in to enjoy the final 40 minutes. At the end we actually started the applause, during which he then bolted for the door and skipped outside yelling, “I’m free!” We were the first ones out of the parking lot.

But I experienced the SMP more deeply because of Josh. I prepared for the concert more thoroughly because I wanted to explain the piece to him. In the car beforehand I explained to him that the singers would sing words directly from the Bible, along with contemplative responses to the story, and that the chorales represented the response of the Church to the story. I brought along the score with English translation so that we could read along and I could show him things like the 11 repetitions of “Lord, is it I?” as all the disciples except Judas are portrayed musically by Bach. We were both touched as the soloist playing the role of the Evangelist depicted Peter’s devastation at realizing that he had fulfilled Jesus’ prophesy of Peter’s betrayal.

During the intermission an older gentleman asked Josh if he was a singer, what instruments he played, etc. He complimented Josh on his attendance at this performance of a piece that the gentleman obviously treasured: he told us he’s attended performances of the SMP 10-15 times. And in some ways, I think Josh had a better experience of the SMP than some bored-looking adults sitting near us who looked envious when we made our emergency exit. He experienced it as I would expect most 8 year-olds would. But we experienced it together. And that older gentleman gave us his blessing.

And I think that’s a great picture of worshiping together as a church community: kids welcome to participate as they can, with adults giving guidance and blessing. In the process, everyone is enriched as God is glorified. Soli Deo Gloria.

worship together

2011-04-23T05:12:00.000-07:00

I couldn’t “enjoy” the Good Friday service last night because I was busy explaining things to my younger kids and making sure they weren’t too noisy. And I suppose my kids and the other kids in the service were a little distracting to the adults present who didn’t have kids.

But what’s the purpose of corporate worship, especially during Holy Week? Worship isn’t merely about me having a “worship experience”. It’s about all of us, as a church community, re-telling, re-living, and re-creating the gospel, the good news that is epitomized in the events of Holy Week as we remember Jesus’ teaching us to love each other, suffering and dying for the redemption of the world, and becoming the firstfruits of the resurrection.

I’m not saying that there isn’t a time for quiet reflection in worship and that kids should be allowed to run wild during worship services. But the worship life of the church community should not be exclusively “adults only”. As Jesus said to the disapproving Pharisees on the first Palm Sunday, if the kids aren’t allowed to make some noise then the very rocks will cry out. Corporate worship is the response of the church community to God’s work in our world and in us. And it shapes us as a community (including our children), as well as shaping me as an individual.

How do I measure a “successful” worship service? By how deeply I am moved? Or how engaged my kids are? If that’s the case, then I’m probably looking at each worship service as an event in itself and as a kind of baptized entertainment venue. I’m guilty of using the same standards to measure worship as I use to measure a movie. And I’m becoming a critic instead of a participant.

Worship throughout the Christian year sets the rhythms of our life together as a family and as a church community, and shapes our identity as the people of God. So I was glad to see so many of Grace’s families attending the Good Friday service together. As parents brought their children up to the communion stations, some parents were just accompanied by their younger children while others were explaining and then administering the communion to their older children. I’m sure the kids would rather be watching cartoons or playing video games. And the parents couldn’t have a time of deep individual reflection. But it was still a holy moment. Because if we as a church community aren’t becoming more deeply the people of God, then eventually all that will be left to praise God will be the stones.

born blind

2011-04-03T10:59:00.001-07:00

In John 9 Jesus is asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus steps out of the theological corner into which his disciples have painted themselves and tells them, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”

I’m a person who’s spiritually and emotionally blind. I’m wounded by the many blunders I’ve made: broken relationships, stupid choices, ill-conceived plans, all stemming from lack of foresight or from ignoring the data in front of me. My tendency is to either blame myself or (in the tradition of Freud) my parents. But Jesus offers me the hope that God is working through all of the mess of my life, and that he has a better design than I or my parents or anyone else around me could have imagined.

In fact, Jesus offers that hope as motivation to get out of my corner, stop licking my wounds, and move ahead with confidence that God is using me for the good of his Kingdom: “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” As long as Jesus is my light, he can shine through me to bring light into this world.

Marx or Jesus

2011-04-03T10:23:00.000-07:00

I had a social studies teacher in junior high who was a self-proclaimed card-carrying Communist. He was passionate about redistribution of wealth and redressing the wrongs that had been suffered by the common man. He was also white. I mention this because I’m guessing that he asked to be assigned to teach in my junior high, which was predominantly African-American (this was before busing) and next door to a high school that had been the scene of race riots in the years previous. I don’t remember specifically anything he taught us in the classroom, but I do remember that he took us on a field trip to the Fillmore district and then to see one of San Francisco’s housing projects (both were in African American neighborhoods) to impress on us both the beauty of African American arts and culture and to see the results of social injustice. Not exactly the planetarium or an introduction to the symphony.

Obviously my teacher was driven by a vision of the world and the sense that he could make a difference by molding young hearts and minds. His vision came from Karl Marx. He believed in the power of education and used his influence to affect classrooms full of junior highers, many of whom were living the injustices that he felt so strongly needed to be corrected.

And it makes me wonder: What gets me out of bed in the morning? How much am I trying to make a difference in this world? How much am I trying to influence others to make a difference? My vision of a better world doesn’t come from Marx, it comes from Jesus. Jesus was like my social studies teacher: driven by a vision, teaching that vision to others, convinced that his students would make a difference in the world. But instead of a vision drawn from economic theory, Jesus’ vision came from the heart of God. And so his methods came from God’s Word. And his means were and are people who are filled with the Holy Spirit.

It sounds a little weird to compare Jesus to my social studies teacher. But what I’m really doing is comparing myself to my social studies teacher. And I have to ask myself: based on the evidence of my life and of his, whose vision of the world is more compelling, that of Marx or Jesus?

going

2011-02-22T05:21:00.001-08:00

Context is everything. When Jesus’ first disciples heard him say, “Go into all the world” it had a very different effect on them then it has on me. My first response is to think, “When will it be convenient? Which airline do I take?” But when Jesus first uttered those words his hearers must have thought, “That’s impossible.” And that’s probably what motivated them to actually do it. My problem is that I take it for granted that it’s within my means and that it’s up to me to carry the good news. But how does it affect me if I assume that only God can do it and I am the one who’s along for the ride? I’m not saying that I’m to be passive. But am I presenting myself for God’s use in his plans (like the boy with five loaves and two fishes) or am I just including God in my plans when it’s convenient for me?

In Mark 3:20 Jesus’ notoriety reaches such a fever pitch that he and his disciples cannot go into a house and have a meal because they draw such a crowd. In our day that’s considered a sign of success. Imagine: without even sending out a tweet Jesus is able to draw a huge crowd just by his presence. Jesus has gone viral!

The result is that Jesus’ family thinks he’s crazy and the religious leaders think he is demon-possessed. Today Jesus would be considered a publicist’s dream come true. Who cares about the actual content of Jesus’ teaching? What’s important is that he is a celebrity. And that means a lot of money could be made if Jesus’ teaching (whatever it is) could be packaged and marketed properly.

So who has the better grasp on the importance of popularity?

for, with, or in

2011-01-22T06:18:00.000-08:00

I am not doing things for God. I am doing things with God. He works alongside me like a patient father showing me how things are done. But even more, I am doing things in God. He is actually doing the work and he values my cooperation.

longing

2011-01-22T06:16:00.000-08:00

Do I long for time with God? Mostly I do my devotions out of a sense of obligation. I know that I need to be connected to the source of my life, but I value that connection mostly for what it enables me to do, not for the connection itself. I haven’t gotten to the place that A B Simpson writes of, “Once the gift I wanted, now the Giver own.” Part of the reason that I spend time with God is so that I will better know him and his love for me. If I really knew, then I would long for time with him.

epiphanies, pt 2

2011-01-13T08:48:00.001-08:00

At the end of the account of the magi and Jesus in Matthew 2:1-12 we find that the magi were filled with joy at finding the Christ child. I suppose they were happy that they could quit searching for the newborn king who had been the object of their quest. It had been a tough journey. But why were they happy about finding a small child? Matthew doesn’t say that Jesus extended his scepter to the magi and granted three wishes or gave them high offices in his kingdom. In fact, the magi were the ones who responded by giving expensive gifts to the helpless and unaware child. And then they left and we don’t hear from them again. So what was that all about?

It was all about hope. It was about recognizing that the king had really been born. They would not see the fully realized kingdom with their own eyes, but they could rest knowing that God had really visited earth and would bring about his purposes. With Simeon, who saw Jesus being presented to God in the Temple, they could say, “Now dismiss your servant[s] in peace. For [our] eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations.” (Luke 2:30-31)

My worship is also based on hope. In fact, I have more evidence for that hope than the magi did. There are two millennia of testimonies to the life-transforming power of the Prince of Peace that give me confidence that he will truly establish his kingdom of shalom and that he is calling me to be a part of his kingdom purposes. What gifts am I bringing to him? What generosity is catalyzed in my heart as a result of this knowledge?

epiphanies

2011-01-12T10:14:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday (Jan 6) was the celebration of the Epiphany, the revelation of the Son of God to the magi (“wise men”, see Matthew 2:1-12). Some people (who like big words) use the term “epiphany” in the sense of sudden flash of insight. Regardless of our vocabulary, we all want insight, whether it’s about the solution to a pressing problem or about our purpose for living. Some epiphanies result in fortunes being made (Steve Jobs seems to have regular epiphanies about what consumers want from their tech gadgets). Other epiphanies have more personal applications. Either way, epiphanies are desirable.

I was reading Matthew 2:1-12 and was struck by the admonition of King Herod to the magi to “go and search diligently” for the child Christ. As if they needed any encouragement! They’d just come 900 miles on camels and then walked into the court of a ruthless tyrant. I think they were pretty serious about finding Jesus.

So the question is: Am I searching diligently? If I want more epiphanies in my life, I need to seek more diligently after Jesus.

fulfilling all righteousness

2011-01-11T13:33:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday many churches celebrated Jesus’ baptism (Matthew 3:13-17). Jesus told John that he should be baptized “to fulfill all righteousness”. As I read this passage, I wondered: didn’t Jesus need to die and rise again before everything would be fulfilled? How could a single act like his baptism fulfill ALL righteousness?

But Jesus was human and bound by time/space. He wasn’t saying that this single act was the sum total of all righteousness. He was just doing what he needed to do at the time. And that was enough.

I need to learn to live in the moment and do what God is asking me to do now without worrying about what God will want me to do later or trying to come up with a grand unified plan of everything that I or Grace Community needs to do. There are times when my brain becomes exhausted with trying to come up with a more comprehensive strategic plan. Sometimes I’m paralyzed simply by knowing that there is so much for me to do. I sit, dazed, and try to get my brain around the whole map. But there are times when simply taking the next step is “fulfilling all righteousness”.

soul massage

2010-12-21T05:13:00.001-08:00

What are you supposed to think about when you’re getting a massage? I like massages: I have plenty of aches, probably from internalizing too much stress. And at my age, someone said that if you don’t ache somewhere you’re probably dead. I like how a good massage therapist can tell if I’m tense, and then works on that part of the body, relaxing the muscles so that I’m able to use that part of my body the way it was supposed to be used. It may be a little painful at times (“deep tissue” massage is a euphemism for “painful”). And when s/he’s done the massage therapist always tells me to “drink lots of water” because of all the harmful stuff that’s been released from my body and is now floating around in my blood stream and needs to find a way out.

Not everyone likes massages. Some people are uncomfortable with the idea, even though it might be good for them to loosen up a little. Or they may not want someone else to know their body that well, where they’re tense or where they have a blemish that they themselves can hardly even see except with a tri-fold mirror in a dressing room.

I had a massage recently and here’s what I was thinking about: contemplative prayer is like a full body massage for your soul. It starts with my cooperation: I need to release myself to God’s loving hands. At first it may be merely relaxing. But then He finds the places where I’m tense and don’t want anyone to see and He works out the toxins. He tells me to drink of the living water so that the bad stuff gets purged from my soul. Often it’s painful, but I’m more able to live up to the potential that He’s built into me.

So when was the last time you had a full-soul massage?

compassion prayer

2010-12-21T05:01:00.000-08:00

Lord, may I never be seduced by sweet devotion while I have more than I need and others have less. (from Sacred Space for Advent 2010)

waiting

2010-12-01T19:14:00.000-08:00

A lot of us aren’t “into” observing Advent. If we're honest with ourselves, we don’t want the rhythm of our lives dictated by the Christian calendar. We’re so busy with our Christmas shopping and other activities that Advent as a Christian observance feels like an intrusion or, at best, a waste of time. We really don’t think that we can set aside some time each day for prayer and reflection, especially at this time of the year.

I recently read this Advent prayer: “Lord, help us to wait, with patience, with longing, for your coming – your coming into our poor lives. As once your people waited, and you came in our midst as a child, to be among us - so help us now to wait, and hope, and love what we wait for: your coming, and your peace.” The prayer seemed oddly anachronistic, out of place in contemporary American society. We are all about instant everything. We become agitated and even angry if a business makes us wait. And that carries over into our personal relationships. We can’t stand a person who makes us wait.

I think our impatience is one of the by-products of living in affluence. Do we really think that we need Jesus to come “into our poor lives”? What sort of poverty does it take to find the love, hope and peace that Jesus can bring? What kind of person is able to wait on God? Can this season help to make me that sort of person? What does God need to do in me to prepare me for his coming into my life and my world?

“Lord, help us to wait, with patience, with longing, for your coming – your coming into our poor lives. As once your people waited, and you came in our midst as a child, to be among us - so help us now to wait, and hope, and love what we wait for: your coming, and your peace.”

teaching songs

2010-11-23T05:55:00.000-08:00

Psalm 60 has an interesting inscription: “for teaching”. The Psalms have been called “Israel’s songbook”. What is the purpose of singing? As a worship designer and leader I tend to use music for dramatic effect, to get the worshipers excited or reflective, to lift their spirits or to open their hearts. I’m not saying that this is bad. Worship should involve our emotions. But how often do I think of music as a teaching tool, one that opens our minds to new truths?

And Psalm 60 is about hard, challenging times, times when God seems to have rejected us (verse 1): “You have shown your people desperate times.” (verse 3). When we sing about those kinds of times we are being taught something about ourselves and about God that we might not get out of a “happy” song. So I’m glad that songwriters are still writing those sorts of songs for worshiping God. And I’ll try to use them more as I design and lead worship.

for the King

2010-11-14T06:24:00.000-08:00

Being a pastor brings out the worst neuroses in me. I feel responsible for everyone, I assume a “caretaker” role, I’m everyone’s co-dependent. I want to make everyone feel good and feel good about me. The result is that all I hear is complaints, which is to be expected if I’m hyper-vigilant about making people happy. But what’s worse is that I’ll mostly hear complaints if I’m encouraging people to focus on their own desires rather than leading them to follow God. For example, imagine if I were the coach of a football team. If I’m constantly asking the players if they’re comfortable, then I’ll constantly hear about whatever makes them uncomfortable: the pads are too heavy, the sun is too hot, the Gatorade is the wrong flavor. And I’ll spend all my time trying to make adjustments. But if I’m emphasizing winning games, then I’ll make sure water’s available, but I’ll also remind the team “no pain, no gain”.

The famous “prayer of Jabez” is in 1 Chron 4:9-10. Jabez requested blessings and God granted his request. Some see this as a justification for “name it and claim it” theology. But a few verses later (I Chron 4:21-23) another clan within Judah is listed, the sons of Shelah. What are they noted for? “They were the potters who… worked for the king.” Could I be content to be the best potter I could be, knowing that my work was being used by the King? Or would I plead with God, “Enlarge my territory!”

What’s more important than personal accomplishments is the fact that I work for the King of kings. Instead of trying to please everyone, I need to please only one Person. And it doesn’t matter where God places me. If I’m a pastor or a janitor, my calling still comes from God and I have something to contribute to God’s mission in the world. And that should be good enough for me.

I read about the sons of Shelah in the devotional book “Streams in the Desert” (Nov 12) in a selection written by Frances Havergal. She’s the author of the lyrics to “Take my life and let it be” and “Like a river glorious”. It seems that she knew something about consecrating one’s work solely for God’s use and resting in the presence of God. I’m glad that she focused on the sons of Shelah rather than on Jabez. I don’t know why Jabez’ story is included in 1 Chronicles. But I’m glad that the sons of Shelah are there, too.

the God of Jacob

2010-09-26T06:55:00.001-07:00

Who is the God of Jacob?

In Psalm 146 the God of Jacob is the God “who upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.” Jacob was a fugitive because his brother was trying to kill him. His own uncle cheated him. And in a lot of ways Jacob deserved it. He had stolen his brother’s birthright and was a schemer by nature.

Yet God had mercy on Jacob. Not only did he survive his flight from his brother (at one time he had to sleep in the open with only a stone for a pillow), he eventually found shelter with his uncle and became wealthy. Jacob wrestled with God, and so God made him lame. But God also blessed Jacob, giving him the name Israel and telling him he had wrestled with God and won.

That is the sort of God that I have. He knows my weaknesses and sins and yet he is with me anyway through all the struggles, many of which are self-inflicted. I have no right to ask anything of him, yet he blesses me.

“Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob.” Psalm 146:5

what God values

2010-09-19T07:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was part of a memorial service for a baby that lived only 3 weeks. Last night I attended a dinner to hear from a Thai woman who was herself beaten by her father, left home and was taken in by an orphanage, and has now started a home for Thai children who are similarly victims of abuse.

In the memorial service there was a huge outpouring of love. Strong men wept openly and there was no shame in it. It was right to love and to grieve, to express how valuable this child was despite his short life. And it was a great contrast to what we heard about later that day about how the world has treated the children taken in at the home in Thailand.

It boggles my mind that people can mistreat children. It shows how damaged our world is, that people who are wounded can in turn wound other people, even children. The injustice and inhumanity of it makes me ashamed and angry and sick.

Jesus loves the little children. It grieves him to see them hurt and abused. He hurts with the premature baby struggling to live. He hurts with the child afraid of her or his own father or mother (who will later learn to distrust all adults and come to despise her/himself and then repeat the cycle unless someone intervenes).

Jesus knows the horrors of our human experience because he has lived them himself. No one would give up room in their house, so he had to be born among animals. He lived as a member of an oppressed minority in a world ruled by the brutality of the Roman legions. He died as a result of betrayal by one who had said he was his follower, and with the entire system of justice perverted and corrupted against him.

What does God value? He values every human life. He values each one so much that he himself entered our human existence and died a horrific and unjust death to take on himself the penalty for our unjust wounding of each other and our world. And then he rose again to demonstrate that he is the true Lord of this world and to offer us life with him. This is the wonderful message that we who are Christ’s followers are called to live and declare.

wealth

2010-09-19T06:40:00.001-07:00

The parable of the shrewd (and blatantly unethical) manager (Luke 16:1-9) has always made me uncomfortable. Is Jesus endorsing dishonesty? The story in itself is about a manager who has been hiding his own misuse of his master’s property, is exposed and about to be fired, and then protects himself by ingratiating himself to his master’s debtors by having them alter their accounts. And then the master praises the manager for being shrewd!

Something new struck me about this parable as I read it devotionally today. There is usually one explanation for a parable, a spiritual truth that Jesus illuminates by using a down-to-earth parallel. But in this case, Jesus follows up the story with not one, not even two, but three explanations. He starts by saying that worldly riches are to be used to gain friends. Then he compares worldly wealth to true riches. Finally he says that none of us can serve both God and Money. He hammers home his point by rebutting the Pharisees with a fourth explanation, that God detests what the Pharisees value so highly, i.e., worldly riches.

Jesus’ point is not a simple one. He is certainly not simply endorsing dishonesty (the Pharisees would have raked him over the coals for that). He is giving us a many-layered perspective of worldly wealth. His rebuttal to the Pharisees shows that many people who call themselves followers of God do not look at worldly wealth the way that God does. Jesus calls worldly wealth “very little” relative to true wealth (v. 10). He calls it “someone else’s property”, i.e., we do not truly own it (v. 12). He says that it has the ability to own us, to be our master (v. 13). And he calls it detestable to God even though some people value it highly (v. 15).

All of this begs the question: what is true wealth, that which is highly valued by God? And the problem with answering this question is that it may cause me to hoard something else in the mistaken belief that I am now hoarding something that is truly valuable. It is the hoarding that is in itself the problem. The deeper question is this: Is my value system the same as God’s? That is a question that can’t be answered like a math problem or a question in a catechism. It is a question that is meant to be “lived in”, a question that we will spend our lives answering. And that attitude of seeking to know what God values is what God values.

wisdom

2010-08-10T07:43:00.000-07:00

We all want to be wise. We want the ability to make right choices. My kids attended a Vacation Bible School last week that had James 1:5 as its theme: “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God…” There’s a connection between wisdom and our relationship with God.

So what keeps us from being wise? The same thing that keeps us from God: lack of humility, i.e., pride. Pride isn’t thinking that I know it all or that I know more than God. It’s merely thinking that I know more than someone else.

I’ve spent my life trying to know more than other people. It’s one of the reasons I try to read so widely. Knowledge in itself isn’t a bad thing. In Proverbs 8:12 wisdom speaks and declares that “I possess knowledge.” The problem is not in the knowledge itself, it’s when I use the knowledge as a shield or a weapon. It can become a shield, keeping me from getting to know someone else because I’m trying to prove that I know more than her/him. Or it can be a weapon that allows me to emerge victorious from an argument, but impoverished because I have lost the opportunity to listen and to learn from someone with a different perspective.

Pride severs relationships. It’s the cause of disunity. It quenches the work that the Spirit of Christ is seeking to do in and through his church. Pride doesn’t have to be all-encompassing to be destructive, it just needs to get between me and one other person.

“All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’" 1 Peter 5:5

persecution

2010-08-09T16:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Dale preached on how the early church fled persecution in Jerusalem and as a result the gospel was carried to Samaria and even into Ethiopia. The day before, 10 members from a Christian aid organization were murdered in Afghanistan.

As I listened to the news reports today, I was outraged. I heard how members of this organization had left their own countries to serve the medical needs of a country in need. Some had raised their families there. But then I asked myself, what motivated them to serve and to give up dreams of comfort and prosperity in such a risky environment?

Even though the early Christians seemed to leave Jerusalem in the interests of self-preservation, they continued to take great risks for the sake of the good news. Samaria was a hostile place for Jews, yet the early Christians (all Jews at the time) went there, Philip preached, and as a result a whole town turned to Christ.

Where would I be willing to go to declare the good news? To my neighbor’s house? To the cubicle next to mine? To a family gathering with my anti-Christian relatives? Do I really believe that I have good news?

worshiping together

2010-08-09T16:24:00.000-07:00

On Aug 1 we worshiped together with Foothill Covenant Church and Alum Rock Covenant Church. What happened?

We had a great time in worship. There’s something invigorating about worshiping with twice as many people as you have on a typical Sunday. And Foothill’s sanctuary is beautiful, a wonderful setting for re-telling, re-living, and re-creating God’s gracious work in and through us.

The kids made a bunch of money for LemonAid, raising money to bring fresh water to needy villages in Africa. And it was a beautiful day for lemonade and conversation on Foothill’s spacious front patio.

But the most important thing that happened was somewhat intangible. It was the bringing together of people with a shared mission, the mission of God in Silicon Valley. We tend to think of ourselves as islands of God’s light in a sea of secular darkness. It was good to realize that although our common mission takes on different expressions in our various church communities, we still have a common experience of God’s grace in Christ. Our light shines brighter when it shines together.

anti-

2010-08-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a judge ruled the California ban against same-sex marriages was unconstitutional. This made headlines on a lot of the major media outlets. I’m not going to add my opinion to the many already out there. But yesterday I learned that Anne Rice has said she has left the Church (but she hasn't left Christ). Why? She wants to distance herself from a group that is anti-feminist, anti-gay, anti-science, and anti-Democrat.

OK, I’m a little behind on my news, since Anne Rice made her announcement on her blog back in July. But I couldn’t help putting the two news items together. It’s disturbing to me, too, to have to be associated with a group that is defined more by what they’re against than what they’re for. Admittedly, the definition may be coming more from people with a bias against Christians than from people who know Christ. I hope this is a reminder to all Christians to define ourselves as Christ said we should be defined: “If you love one another, everyone will know you are my disciples.” (John 13:35 NIRV)

thoughts on friendship 3

2010-05-15T14:39:00.000-07:00

Imagine being friends with the President of the United States. Now imagine that he’s given you something important to do, something that he doesn’t want done by paid state functionaries, but by a trusted friend. How would you respond?

Jesus said that he calls us “no longer servants, but friends.” And he’s the King of the universe. Now he has some very important things for us to get done. Not that he’s abandoned us: “I am with you even until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) Being present is a mark of a good friend.

thoughts on friendship 2

2010-05-15T14:37:00.000-07:00

I was on a jury last week and after we finished deliberating on the case we were actually a little sad that we wouldn’t be spending more time together. We’d only known each other for a week, but we’d learned a lot about each other (listening to each other questioned in the jury selection process). Still, it had to do with more than knowing about each other. Somehow the mix of people was right: some were quiet, some were outgoing, some knew how to crack a joke at the right moment, some kept us resolutely on track. We respected each person’s contribution and worked together (through several disagreements) to achieve our common goal.

Sometimes we gain friends through circumstances, rather than our own intentions. This isn’t to say that such people aren’t friends. But something good can be gained. In a sense, that’s what the body of Christ is like. We don’t choose who is in the body of Christ, just as we don’t choose our parents or siblings. God places the members in the body as he chooses. But by being together over time, we can learn about each other and then learn to respect and even enjoy each other. And we can get some very good things done.

thoughts on friendship 1

2010-05-15T14:35:00.000-07:00

This past week President Obama announced his selection of a nominee for the Supreme Court. In the fourth sentence of the AP news report I read, it said that Pres. Obama referred to Solicitor General Kagan as “my friend.”

Did Pres. Obama need to nominate a “friend”? What sort of friends are they? Did he friend her on Facebook? OK, that sounds pretty ridiculous, but on the other hand have they had deep heart-to-heart talks so that they have a connection of like-mindedness, support and loyalty?

I don’t know how he was using the term in this case, but I’m guessing that even the President of the United States needs friends in the same way that I need friends. Case in point: he has guys that he plays basketball with. And that’s comforting to me. I need to have people that I trust and with whom I’ve shared some of my life to give me truthful critique and caring support, or the weight of my responsibilities as a husband, a father, and a church leader will literally depress me. I doubt if Pres. Obama can share state secrets with his basketball buddies, but I’m sure they help keep him balanced. In fact he may have shared a different kind of “state secret” with them.

What are my “state secrets”, i.e., the secrets about the state of my soul? With whom do I share my state secrets? If I’m to stay internally balanced I need friends who know my state secrets. Those aren’t the sorts of things I’m going to share on Facebook. Those are the things that I’ll share with someone I’ve known for a while, with whom I’ve cultivated a friendship over time so that when the occasion comes s/he can be there for me. S/he will give me insight into the state of my soul, and pray for me and support me as the Holy Spirit does his transforming work (which is often painful).

I’m not great at developing and maintaining friendships. I guess I have a kind of ADHD about relationships. Somehow I let work and other things distract me. But I’m learning that if I don’t entrust my state secrets to friends, the state of my soul is in jeopardy.

waiting

2010-04-26T12:03:00.000-07:00

I’ve been listening to a well-known worship song that says strength comes from waiting on the Lord. What does it mean to wait on God?

This particular song has a pretty catchy hook that’s driving and upbeat. It implies that waiting on God is an exciting experience and even a bit cool. Drums and electric guitars can do that to words: they’ll make anything seem hip. But waiting on God isn’t always something that you do while tapping your toes or beating out a catchy rhythm with your fingers. Sometimes it’s dreadfully boring and seems to stretch on forever. Sometimes it’s painful to the point of agony and you just want the waiting to end. All the time you wonder where God is. Instead of tapping your toes you want to scream at God for not showing up, but you can’t because he’s not there.

Over a third of the Psalms are prayers of lament or anger (67 of the 150, according to one list I’ve seen). But it’s pretty unusual for us to acknowledge in our worship that we are sad or angry. What sort of music would you use for an angry psalm, a prayer that expresses the deepest heartache of someone who feels that God has forsaken her/him?

I don’t have a good answer for this, other than to say that we need songs of sorrow and anger as well as songs of praise and joy. And praise and anger aren’t necessarily mutually opposed. Sometimes we’re angriest at the ones we love the most, because they’ve made us wait when we didn’t want to. But they often have their reasons, and our anger becomes a phase, a season that helps us get to know ourselves and our loved one better.

conversing with God

2010-04-15T16:19:00.000-07:00

What is prayer? The simplest answer is “talking with God.” But what sort of conversations do I have with God?

I have a tendency to think about my conversations with God as if they were business meetings. Business meetings need to have an agenda and some sort of productive result. But is God a high-powered businessman with a very full schedule and very little time for small talk? Is prayer like a board meeting with Donald Trump? And if I’m not effective enough will he say, “You’re fired”?

When I’m hanging out with friends, on the other hand, there’s no pressure to have a resulting action item. I’ve never had a friendly chat end with, “So what’s our takeaway from this time together?” The conversation meanders and is about anything that we find pleasing to both of us. Or the topic may be something that’s important to one of us, and as a result it’s important to the other person, too.

I often begin my prayer times by repeating to myself the phrase “your quieting love”, taken from Zephaniah 3:17: “he will quiet you with his love.” God loves to have me spend time with him, not because he has an agenda for me to accomplish, but because he loves me. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t think that I need to change or that there aren't things he wants me to do. But what can be more life-changing or empowering than spending time with God and baring my soul to the transforming power of his Spirit? Prayer can be a conversation between friends that encourages, heals, and challenges. The shorter the business meeting, the better. But “pray continually.” (I Thessalonians 5:17)

about Pharisees

2010-04-14T06:42:00.000-07:00

Jesus tells a story about a tax collector and a Pharisee who go to the Temple to pray. In Jesus’ day, all of his hearers wanted to be accepted and honored like the Pharisee. Tax collectors were thought to have turned their backs on any effort toward religious respectability. So Jesus’ hearers were stunned when Jesus said that God was more interested in what the tax collector had to say than in the Pharisee's prayer.

But now we hear this story very differently. Preachers hold up the Pharisees as the enemies of Jesus and examples of how baldly legalistic the religious establishment of Jesus’ day had become, making the Pharisees fair game for youth pastors everywhere. We think that we can now see through the Pharisees’ religious game-playing and power-grabbing. No self-respecting American evangelical would aspire to be like a Pharisee.

So maybe we need to re-cast this story. Instead of the Pharisee and the tax collector, we could call the story “the good Christian and the Pharisee”. And we’ll all be surprised that God is more interested in listening to a Pharisee who has a change of heart than in a good Christian who is locked in her/his ways.

Easter faith

2010-04-04T06:05:00.000-07:00

It’s early on Easter morning and still dark outside. Appropriately, I’ve just read the words from John’s Gospel: “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb…” (John 20:1) Why did Mary get up so early? She didn’t have a clock radio waking her up, she couldn’t flick a switch to turn on the lights and get out of bed, there were no streetlights to guide her way, and the tomb wasn’t a tourist attraction yet with signs pointing to the site. She went because it was a matter of life and death: someone she loved dearly had died and she couldn’t sleep.

I haven’t been to a sunrise service in years. Whatever motivated Mary isn’t motivating me. And it doesn’t motivate most people who celebrate Easter. Some kids get up early because they’re excited that the Easter Bunny has left them a basket. Some women are motivated by the opportunity to dress up and show off new clothes. Some people go to church because they feel guilty if they don’t go: they hear their mother’s voice in their heads. For others there’s a desire in their hearts to be involved in a tradition and a culture that’s bigger than themselves.

The last two are both a part of the reason I go to Easter worship (and because it’s my job!). But which is better: to be compelled because it’s a matter of life and death or to go because it’s part of the faith tradition to which I belong? I already know that Jesus is alive, so I can’t really be compelled by the first reason. Or can I? I can go to worship on Easter because I love Jesus and also because it’s an expression of my trust in him as the source of my life. His resurrection is the sign that God’s salvation has arrived. My trust in him is how that salvation is realized in me. And as I renew my trust through Easter worship, I become a messenger of that salvation for this world, heralding the future day when “the kingdom of this world” will become “the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.” (Rev. 11:15)

Hallelujah! He is risen, he is risen indeed!

good news

2010-03-18T23:22:00.000-07:00

Why is that most people think highly of Jesus but not so much about people who say they are followers of Jesus? If you want a cinematic treatment of this question, I recommend the movie, “Lord save us from your followers” (lordsaveusthemovie.com). But a better approach would be to ask someone what s/he thinks. Yesterday I went to a meeting of pastors from all around the Bay Area. We broke up into groups of 3 so that we could say the things to each other that we know we’re thinking but can’t tell the people in our churches. It’s very cathartic. But I still got a bit of a surprise.

One of the guys in my group said that he wasn’t working in a church at the moment, but was working in a grocery store. He even admitted that he was considered the wine expert by the rest of the staff. As we talked I found out that he was doing this by choice because he’d been a pastor in 2 different churches and had “burned out” both times. In fact, he isn’t attending any church currently, although he’s still a professor of religion (professor as in teacher, not someone who is professing).

I won’t go into the details (although they’re pretty entertaining) because I don’t want to give away his identity (and because I don’t want people from Grace Community getting any ideas), but the gist is that he is still following Jesus but isn’t very happy with Christians.

So I asked him: how do you explain the gospel to your co-workers? To be honest, having to go to church and act like a good person doesn’t sound like good news to me, anyway. But I’m not going to answer the question here. I’d rather leave the question open: how would you explain the gospel to your co-workers?

slow fast

2010-03-09T21:18:00.001-08:00

What’s the benefit of fasting? The temptation is to fast from food (there are other kinds of fasts, but that’s the traditional one) for purely physical reasons: to lose a little weight or to purge the body. I’m fasting for 24 hours one day a week for Lent, and it’s nice to have those physical benefits, but what I really want is a way to remind myself of what Jesus went through for the sake of his mission. He took on the limitations and irritations of a physical body, giving up the privileges and glories of his pre-incarnate experience. Giving up food for a little while is a small way of identifying with him.

But I’ve found that fasting does something else: it slows me down. Maybe it’s the lack of caloric intake that gives me a little less energy (probably not, though: I have plenty of reserve energy jiggling on me in embarrassing places). But my mind has one less thing to occupy it. I don’t have to worry about preparing food or getting to a lunch date. I’m surprised how many times during the day I find myself thinking about food (maybe more so when my stomach is grumbling about the lack of attention). It’s become a prompt to stop and remember that I’m fasting and why. As a result, I have a little more space in my day, time for pondering or praying or just slowing down. I take in a deep breath, not in preparation to gobble down a bite of food, but so I can slowly exhale. I’m actually more in tune with my physical world by not eating, at least once in a while.

So if you're having trouble slowing down to pray, try fasting.

why pray?

2010-03-06T06:30:00.000-08:00

Why pray? In Philip Yancey’s book on prayer he tells how he has spoken to Christian leaders in Burma and China who have been imprisoned and treated in unbelievably inhumane ways. Yet these are people of spiritual power. Some have led hundreds to follow Jesus in spite of the risk of imprisonment and torture. When he asked them how Christians in other parts of the world could help, they have answered the same way without exception: pray for us. Why didn’t they say something about appealing to the UN or getting their story to Amnesty International or organizing a human rights watch? Because sometimes it takes being without access to earthly power to make us realize that we have access to a greater power through prayer.

Who are the meek? The usage of the term in Jesus’ day referred to the poor and those without social status or access to earthly power. And yet Jesus said that the meek would inherit the earth. The conventional wisdom is that the earth belongs to those who are strong enough to take it by force. Yancey’s account underscores the point that Jesus is making. Prayer is how we get to know our Father, the one to whom this world really belongs. And prayer is how we ask our Father for things. Lord, teach us to pray.

pairs

2010-02-24T14:28:00.001-08:00

I was watching the pairs figure skating (it was a lazy Sunday afternoon and I had no control over the remote, OK?) and I saw one of the skaters fall. My first thought was, “What is his partner thinking?” When you fall by yourself, you have a choice. You can pick yourself up and, for personal pride, continue to skate even though you know you’re out of medal contention. Or you can just pack it in and you don’t affect anyone but yourself (and a few million of your countrymen, but they’re not on the ice with you). But if you have a partner you have to think about how your reaction affects your partner. It’s not just about you anymore. It’s not just personal pride at stake, but the morale of your partner and your future as a competing team.

In the Christian life we never fall alone. The other day I stumbled on an old song that I used to cover in a band 25 years ago (yikes, I’m ancient!). Twila Paris’ “The warrior is a child” describes the weaknesses that a soldier of the faith feels inside in spite of the bravado displayed on the outside. The song implies that the only one who really understands the inner life of the soldier is our Commander, but that can’t (or shouldn’t) be completely true. We have others around us, fighting the same battles, who would support us if we would get over our rugged individualism and open up to them.

God places the members in the body “as he wills” (1 Corinthians 12:18 KJV). Just as parts of the body need each other and can’t function by themselves, so God’s designed His Church to be interdependent. You and I can’t drop out without it affecting a lot of other people.

I suppose I could have had similar thoughts watching the interview with the losing coach of the Super Bowl, but I was too busy eating.

hosanna?

2010-02-24T14:18:00.000-08:00

A couple Fridays ago, as part of a board meeting for The Mosaic Center (click on the link on the right to find out more about TMC), I slept overnight at the Fred Jordan Mission in Los Angeles’ “skid row” (if you want a cushy board member gig, don’t join a board that’s concerned with social justice). I was awakened by a recording of the worship song “Hosanna” being played outside on the street. I looked outside and saw a line of people a block long waiting in the rain for breakfast.

Listening to “Hosanna” in a comfortable sanctuary as it’s played by a high-tech worship band is worlds away from hearing it in a line of homeless people waiting for food in the rain. The word “Hosanna” means “save us”. It was the people’s cry of reliance on their king. Over the millenia it's come to be associated mostly with hymns being sung by people in suits and dresses or anthems sung by choirs in beautiful cathedrals. But it takes on a whole different meaning when you’ve been run over by the world system instead of enjoying the benefits of being one of the world’s privileged.

Our God has chosen to identify with the poor rather than the privileged. What did Jesus experience when he was on earth? He was part of an oppressed minority and spent his ministry years as a homeless person. But in the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed (and of which his followers are ambassadors) there is no favoritism. No one will be excluded, marginalized, ignored, or taken advantage of. Hosanna.

Happy Ash Wednesday!

2010-02-17T14:20:00.000-08:00

That phrase sounds a little weird. Ash Wednesday is the start of Lent, which is supposed to be marked by an attitude of sadness as we remember the human experience of our Lord Jesus, brought to a tormented climax by his death on the cross.

In “Letters from the Land of Cancer” Walter Wangerin shares intimate moments from letters to friends as he nears the end of his life. In 2006-7 his cancer slowed, which gave him time to reflect on life and to write. He shares that in such times we have two choices: “Wail, plead, beg, make deals with friends and with the Infinite. Sink into despair… Or else, prepare.”

Lent is a season of preparation. We are saying good-bye to the old life, to old expectations and old values and old ways of doing things. As much as we may be fond of our old life, it is not God’s way, not the life that God has for us. Or we may be glad to be rid of the old life, but we still mourn it because it is familiar. And change always involves some pain. So we mourn the passing of the old life.
For those who don’t understand the meaning of the Resurrection, who feel oppressed by the religious establishment, there’s no such thing as a good Lent or a Happy Ash Wednesday. Might as well party like there’s no tomorrow on Fat Tuesday because you have to put a lid on it when Lent starts and no one wants you to be happy.

But for followers of Jesus, we claim Lent as a time of preparation, knowing that leaving behind the old life lets us welcome the Kingdom of Heaven in which the good and loving King of kings and Lord of lords reigns first in us and ultimately in our world. He has broken into our world in the Incarnation, proclaimed the Kingdom in his life and teachings, bought our redemption through his death on the cross, and become the first of a new humanity in his resurrection. Those who mourn will be comforted. We know our mourning will turn to dancing. In fact, NT Wright says that we should mark the week starting with Easter with champagne breakfast every day! Pull out all the stops! Lent should be preparing us for a time of celebration that obliterates any sense of sadness or mourning and makes all the Christmas festivities pale in comparison.

So “Happy Ash Wednesday”!

happy new year

2010-02-16T09:12:00.000-08:00

On Sunday we celebrated the lunar New Year with my wife’s family. It’s an annual event: hanging around with extended family, nourishing our tree of relationships through conversations and a days’ end feast. I talked for a while with my wife’s brother-in-law about how he’s helped to start the first school-based healthcare clinic with dental services in northern California (http://www.news10.net/news/story.aspx?storyid=71604). Why did he do it? Because God gave him a second chance at life.

A year and a half ago he fell off a ladder in his garage and his wife found him unconscious in a pool of blood. To look at him today you’d never know that he went through several hours of surgery and has enough titanium in his skull to build a small mountain bike. He’s retired from his dental practice but puts in two mornings a week at the school clinic so that under-served kids from economically disadvantaged homes can focus on their studies without also contending with dental pain. (He’s still trying to recruit enough dentists to help so that each dentist only needs to put in 1 morning a month.)

As the great theologian James Cameron says in the movie “Avatar”, everyone is meant to be born twice. God wants to give all of us a second chance at life (see John 3:1-5). For those of us who have been born again, what are we doing to be a source of life to others? Whether you celebrated the New Year on Jan. 1 or Feb. 14 (or both), that’s a New Year’s resolution worth working on.

grace

2009-12-16T15:19:00.000-08:00

I didn’t realize it, but today was the grand re-opening of a newly remodeled supermarket near my home. So when I stopped in to pick up some things the place was more full than I’ve ever seen it and all the checkers were newly-hired. The floor plan was as new to them as it was to me, plus they were obviously learning all the codes for the grocery items. In other words, lines were long and moved sloooowly.

There was a mom and her two kids in front of me. The checker was having to look up a lot of the codes for stuff that doesn’t grow with bar codes on them, like bananas. She knew she was taking a long time and apologized to me when she finally started ringing up my items. She’d done several items when the mom apologized to the checker because her 3 year old hadn’t yet caught on to the notion of paying for stuff in a store and had helped himself to a box of candy and eaten half of it, unbeknownst to her. Now she needed to pay for it.

The checker told her to wait until after she’d finished ringing up my items. I put myself in that young mom’s place: waiting around for the checker to finish while trying to keep 2 kids from being run over by grocery carts AND dealing with the embarrassment of everyone knowing her 3 year old was becoming a kleptomaniac. So I told the checker, “Just ring up the candy with my groceries.”

It felt good to see the look of relief of on the mom’s face. I told her, “Merry Christmas” and off they went. It felt even better to hear the woman in line after me remark to someone next to her, “That just made my day.”

As I took my groceries to my car, I thought about God’s grace. Isaiah tells us, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray… and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6) Jesus came from the Father expressly to take on himself the payment for our sin. That was the message that the early Church received with gratitude.

The church is here to continue Jesus’ work of offering grace to the world. The early church knew that, too, and it’s one of the reasons the church grew from an obscure Jewish sect of with 3,120 members after Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 to taking over the Roman Empire under Constantinople less than 300 years later (Rodney Stark estimates that in order to be a majority in the early 4th century there must have been at least 6 million Christians in the empire). When plagues threatened whole cities, early Christians cared for the sick while people of means fled to their country villas. Early Christians cared about the poor and those without status(like slaves and women). Outsiders looked on with admiration and appreciation. Some even decided to follow Christ, as did many of those that received God’s care through the Church.

So God used an everyday situation to remind me of why and how I’m to be a part of God’s purposes in the world. It was certainly worth the 89 cents the lesson cost me. I didn’t look to see whether the mom let the 3 year old finish the candy.

exhaling

2009-12-15T22:27:00.000-08:00

I met today with my prayer partner. I meet with him once a week. What do I get out of it? A weekly opportunity to pause and take stock, to confess and bare my soul, letting someone else know what’s troubling me. Why is all this important? A lot of us seem to get along just fine without doing any of these things. But I find that having this weekly rhythm is like breathing. In a sense it’s an opportunity to exhale, to let go of things that have been accumulating in my spirit. The word for spirit in Hebrew is “ruach” which is the same as the word for “breath”. So taking a pause for reflection and confession really is exhaling.

If I don’t take the time to exhale, stuff builds up inside. We exhale to get rid of carbon dioxide and other things our bodies don't need. If we don’t exhale, we’ll lose consciousness (try it some time). I suppose if I didn’t have a time for regular spiritual exhaling, I’d be physically OK. But spiritually, I’d be unconscious, unaware of the movement of God’s Spirit around me because I’d be stifling the flow of God’s Spirit within me.

quality time

2009-12-15T22:26:00.000-08:00

I heard a writer for a soap opera recently comment that he would get letters from viewers addressed to specific soap opera characters. The viewers would express some pretty deeply-felt emotion about the character, and they would do it by writing to the characters as if they were real people. The writer said something to the effect, “And why not? These viewers probably spend more quality time on a daily basis with the soap opera characters than with their own families.”

It made me wonder: what’s quality time? Maybe what the writer said is true. When we watch TV we pay attention carefully to everything that’s going on. We don’t want to miss any details or we might lose track of the story line. But when I’m interacting with my own family members I tend to be more concerned about what I need to tell them then in what they want to tell me. How often do I pay as much attention to what’s going on in their lives as I do to the details of what’s happening with a TV or movie character? Who’s really getting my quality time?

limits

2009-12-04T11:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had lunch with a group of pastors. All of us have been in the pastorate for at least 10 years, some (like me) for as many as 25. As I looked around the table, I remembered what we looked like 15, 20 years ago. One of the (younger) guys shared that he’d played football last weekend with some of the students at his church, guys 20 years younger. It was a bit of a reality check to realize that he was a lot sorer the next day than he thought he’d be.

As we get older, our limitations become more real. The big goals that we had when we were younger come into clearer focus and we realize that some of those goals are simply out of reach. Am I ok with accepting my limitations and changing my expectations?

My temptation is to think that I didn’t try hard enough, that I should set my sights higher and work harder, that I just didn’t have enough knowledge or skill or chutzpah. But that’s my ego talking, encouraged by the American ethos where “any little kid can grow up to be President” (and I’m still getting over the shock of being older than the current President).

God tells me that his purposes are accomplished “not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6). He adds, “Who despises the day of small things?” (Zech 4:10). Whether God wants me to preach to 5,000 or watch 5 kids in the nursery is up to him.

When one of our leadership team members termed out of the team (after 6 years of service), it left him wondering what to do next. He’d hit the pinnacle of leadership at Grace, supposedly. But now God’s given him a ministry teaching first and second graders in Sunday School. And guess what? He loves it! He’s where God wants him, teaching “small things”. And God says that’s nothing to sneeze at (even when they’re sneezing back).

faith-speak

2009-11-28T07:41:00.001-08:00

Believing isn’t fashionable. During the holiday season, belief is promoted as something that little kids do. Believing is OK for adults, in a Hallmark Special kind of way because it gives us warm fuzzies. But it’s not something to be taken seriously.

So why do we have “faith traditions” in which most of the world participates? The word “faith” itself assumes a reality larger than ourselves. Most of the world realizes that we are not the center of the universe and that we need to belong to a community of faith that helps us make sense of the small part of reality that we occupy, and that gives some reasonable context to that small part of reality.

All of us are on a faith journey. Not only do we occupy a small part of a larger reality, we are moving through that reality. And the metaphor of travel brings home the fact that our own path is a very small part of the much larger and richer landscape of the reality through which we travel. Will we move through that landscape by ourselves or in the company of friends and wiser people?

Lately I’ve been using the phrase “informed faith decision.” It sounds oxymoronic to put “informed” and “faith” in the same phrase, but that’s only if you deny that you are moving through a larger reality (if your own experience is the only reality then you can experience it however you want). If you are looking for a good group to travel with, then it makes sense to use some brain cells to make a wise decision about which sort of people you want to travel with and whether or not their understanding of the larger reality provides a sensible map.

loving God

2009-11-28T07:40:00.001-08:00

Sometimes it’s hard to figure out how to love God. I do things like read the Bible and pray and go to worship, but it doesn’t always seem real.

Loving God seems like a nebulous, vague thing. Is it a warm feeling inside or is it feeling guilty because God did so much for me? So then it occurs to me: what if I do something for someone? That’s concrete and it makes God happy. People know that we love God when we do things for each other and for people in our world. More importantly, it helps me know that I love God. Loving others is how I make real to myself that I love God.

I’m not good at those simple, loving things. A quick phone call or some other gesture of caring seems so insignificant compared to the grand stuff of “ministry”. I fall for the deceit of thinking that only the big things count. But the word translated “minister” in the Bible is really the word for servant or serving. When I serve someone, I am loving them and loving God.

back to basics

2009-11-05T17:23:00.000-08:00

Ah, the good old days. In October 1997 when we started the core group of what would become Grace Community, no one thought of money as a limitation. We had a generous denomination to help us get started and no one doubted that we would be financially self-sufficient within three years (the standard for proving that we were a viable church plant). After all, economic times were good and people were starting to make money just by having a good idea that happened to mention the phrase “world wide web”. And the term “sub-prime” did not evoke fear and anger.

So it’s been a bit of a shock to realize that Grace Community hasn’t been immune to the recession, that we’re having to dip into savings to make our rent, and that to balance the budget we’ve had to do things like cut staff expense reimbursements. (I’m not complaining about it, since as everyone reminds me, it’s what most businesses are having to do.)

The leadership team has been forced to consider moving in order to save money. As we’ve reflected on this new reality, it’s led to a change in perspective. When you have enough money, there’s an illusion of control. Every week in worship we say that we’re giving back to God a portion of what he’s given to us. But inside I’ve been thinking, “Aren’t you lucky, God, to have people like us to help you spend your money.”

But now the illusion of control is gone. If we got the money by our own efforts, then our efforts are obviously not good enough to pay the rent. We need some help. And it seems that our own efforts are falling short in a lot of other areas, too.

In the last leadership team meeting, as we looked at the (only) two options we seemed to have, one of us said, “I don’t know what to do. Let’s pray.” So we did. And after that, we came to the realization that we were being driven mostly by cost considerations and had forgotten our core values, especially the value of being inviting. We’re a friendly group, but people aren’t staying with us simply because we’re not really inviting them to. We’d rather go to lunch after worship with nice people that we already know.

So for the next year or so we’re going to work on being inviting. That, and acknowledging that everything we have really does come from God and that we will always fall short if we're not trusting in God.

my ambition

2009-10-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

I had a thought a while ago that I can remember wanting to write down, but I didn’t and now I can’t remember what triggered it. I just looked through my journal hoping for clues to remind me, but I can’t remember how long ago I had the thought. So here it is without any context.

I remember thinking that there is a lot of pain in the world. And I decided not to contribute to it. I remember searching in my mind for the right word, and thinking that what I wanted was to be a source of comfort and not a source of pain.

questions

2009-10-26T11:06:00.000-07:00

I led worship for Grace’s Sunday worship yesterday I began the worship with a responsive reading of Psalm 34:1-8 that I ended with a time of reflection on verse 8 (“Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him”): What are the things that are threatening me and how can I take refuge in God? Two of the songs I chose were “Blessed be your name” and “Father let me dedicate”. The songs are well-crafted and have deeply meaningful texts such as, “Blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering” and “Not from sorrow, pain or care/ freedom dare I claim/ and whate’er the future brings/ glorify thy name”.

I spent the afternoon at a residence for people who are HIV positive. A few of us from Grace Community go there once a month to prepare dinner for them (the house doesn’t provide dinner on Sundays). They’re in varying states of health. I bring my guitar and spend the afternoon singing for them, praying for anyone who asks, and leading a Bible discussion if anyone’s interested.

I was pulling out my guitar and had been warming up and playing/singing bits of worship songs to myself. One of the residents who was confined to a wheelchair about a year ago had been sitting next to me and seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. But When I stopped he told me that he liked my spirit as I sang. So I started to sing especially for him. I was trying to think of songs to sing and the songs from the morning’s worship came to mind, including “Blessed be your name” and “Father let me dedicate”.

And as I sang, the songs started to take on a whole new level of meaning for me. Could I sing “Blessed be your name on the road marked with suffering” if I were in a wheelchair with no hope of walking again? Do I really believe that, just like my friend with HIV, I have no right to freedom from sorrow, pain or care, and could I say that I would glorify God’s name no matter the future brings? Is that what it means to take refuge in him?

Can a child presume to choose
where or how to live?
Can a Father's love refuse
All the best to give?

bomb shelter

2009-10-21T23:05:00.001-07:00

On Monday another high school student committed suicide on the train tracks in Palo Alto. This is the fourth suicide in 6 months. One of my friends is on a county commission that reviews all of the deaths of people under the age of 18. He told a group of us (mostly pastors) at a meeting today that the usual explanation of academic pressure isn’t the primary culprit in these suicides.

Another in the group who is a psychotherapist described the mental calculus of someone who’s suicidal. The situation the person is experiencing becomes so painful, death becomes a logical way out. Another contributing factor is isolation: there’s no one to provide a reality check. And it’s scary how inept our contemporary society is at providing us with skills for nurturing relationships. We teach people how to make a living, but not how to make a life.

This was highlighted by one of our group who is an Armenian pastor from Lebanon. He was surprised at how isolated we are in America. He told us that during the nearly 20 years of civil war in Lebanon bombings were a regular occurrence. People would immediately seek shelter in whatever basement was available. As a pastor, he would often invite people to kneel together, hold hands and pray. The group would contain people who were Muslim and Christian and non-religious, but in that basement it didn’t matter who you said you were on the outside. No one refused to kneel or hold hands, no one took sides, everyone was concerned about the same thing: survival.

For someone in isolation, inner turmoil can become an overwhelming source of pain. But when that pain is experienced together, when you’re able to hold hands with someone, when you’re able to voice aloud your concerns in prayer, there is healing and hope. It doesn’t make the danger of the situation go away, but it gives you the empowering to you need to face the terror.

It occurred to me that that’s what it means to be in a growth group. All of us are under attack from the daily pressures of life and forces beyond our control. There is a war raging that is threatening my very soul. Where do i go for safety? Where do i go to drop my facade, where i can simply hold hands and pray and make it through to another day? Where is my bomb shelter?

Let us not give up meeting together… but let us encourage one another. Hebrews 10:25

loving more

2009-10-12T09:31:00.001-07:00

I went to a wedding on Saturday and the couple made a promise in their vows to “love you more each day.” It occurred to me that that’s a dangerous promise, especially if you don’t know what you’re promising. What does it mean to love someone? How do you increase that love every day? Maybe I was in a curmudgeonly mood, but the phrase struck me as an insincere or at least an empty promise, a bit too “happily ever after.”

Most of us equate “love” in marriage (or at weddings) with a feeling of warmness and desire toward someone. But we also assume that our feelings are a response to our environment. We don’t have much control over our environment (like when our spouse leaves their clothes on the floor or the cap off the toothpaste again), so even if we’re really good at controlling our response to our environment (which is something I know I struggle with) the environment is still a variable that will probably keep us from finding our fairy tale ending.

But don’t think that I’m completely unromantic. I think that it’s possible to love someone more each day, just not merely in the sense of an increasing feeling of romantic attraction. Here’s what I mean. Service is love in action. And the more I focus on serving others, the more affection I’ll feel for them. It happens on sports teams and in wartime (see “Band of Brothers”). And it can happen in a marriage, where it’ll be expressed as being more and more “in love”. Remember that the next time you see an elderly married couple holding hands and making eyes at each other. (See, I do have some romance left in me.)

The bottom line is that instead of focusing on my feelings toward someone, I need to focus on my attitude and actions toward them. And that will indirectly affect my feelings, too. Jesus spent his life focused on others, starting with his Father and then expressing that in love toward the world. At the end of his life he even washed his disciples’ feet, an act of servanthood that shocked the disciples, and then told them to love each other as he had loved them (John 13). Jesus has shown me how to love others more each day. May he grant me the grace to follow his example.

shine

2009-10-07T22:37:00.001-07:00

I blew my cover yesterday. I was talking to my 7 year old’s soccer coach. He’s a great coach and all the parents want him coaching their kid. He’s fun, even-tempered, a good athlete who knows the game and passes on that love of the game through his love of the kids. He asked me what church I went to and then started sharing about his own church experiences. They happened to be in churches that I knew and when he started talking about pastors I had to let him know that I was a pastor and I knew some of the people he was talking about. I didn’t want him to say something he might regret later because he didn’t know that I knew the pastors he was talking about.

But in a way it was really the coach who blew his cover. I didn’t know that he was a Christian until he asked me about church and found out I was a Christian and then started talking about Christian stuff with me. He doesn’t usually preach through his words. He just loves on the kids and everyone loves him as a coach and so if he says something about God it’s easy to hear. You know it’s real. And he lives it in other ways, too, like he and his wife adopting several kids, some of whom are of a different race.

Last Sunday the Raiders lost badly (yes, I’m still a Raiders fan: I actually wore my Raiders polo shirt today). They seem to be getting worse with each game (it’s going to be a long season). One of their players made the news because he was penalized for dropping to his knees and raising his hands to heaven after making an interception (it’s illegal to drop to both knees: excessive celebration). He’s a Christian and said he was thanking God (although one blogger wrote that he seemed to be calling more attention to himself than to God) and complained that he was being penalized for doing something Christian.

I don’t know anything about the football player’s faith. He may be a very sincere Christian who just didn’t realize that his gesture of prayer was against the rules. But I wish that he had just paid the fine and not said anything about the league being anti-Christian. Instead of being tagged as a complainer, I’d rather be like the soccer coach who is quietly living out his faith by having a positive impact on kids and their families. “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

God's presence

2009-10-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

As part of my devotional life I spend a few minutes in centering prayer and then in a time of examen, assessing the last 24 hours and asking where God has most been present or absent.

I meet for prayer with a couple of pastor friends and I mentioned that my time of examen was getting stale, that it didn’t seem like I was getting any better at sensing God’s presence. Together we figured out why: I was focused too much on my feelings rather than on God’s activity. I thought that if I felt good then God must be present (“in Your presence is fullness of joy” – Psalm 16:11) and if I didn’t feel good then God must be absent. But for a guy who’s in denial of his feelings most of the time (especially when I’m under stress) that’s not a good gauge.

So I’ve started to look for signs of God’s activity. And an interesting thing has happened. I’m starting to see that when I’m in a stressful situation I have a great opportunity to act in the power of God’s Spirit. I may not feel “joyful” about it, but through my resolve and boldness to follow God, He is invited into the situation and can act. Situations that I used to count as times of God’s absence are becoming opportunities for God to be powerfully present.

I’m not saying that “God helps those who help themselves”. That phrase isn’t from the Bible: it’s quoted in Poor Richard’s Almanac, edited by Benjamin Franklin. But I am saying that I’m learning that “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). Finding rest in Jesus (“Come to me… and I will give you rest” Matthew 11:28) doesn’t mean being passive. It means aligning myself with his purposes so that I find myself swimming easily in the current of his will.

mary and martha

2009-10-05T09:23:00.000-07:00

I think both Martha and Mary had it wrong (see Luke 10). Mary was too inward, Martha was too busy. Mary had no reason for being in the world, she might as well have left for all the good she was doing. Martha’s efficiency was admirable, but she’d forgotten why she was doing what she’s doing. So why does Martha get Jesus’ gentle reprimand? I think it’s because God knows most of us are like Martha, not Mary. So he had Luke record Jesus' interaction with Martha.

worship hooky

2009-09-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

Our family was heading to 701 E. Meadow yesterday morning. There was a JAM training session and then we were going to participate in the Stop Child Trafficking Now Walk. One of the kids asked, “Are we going to worship?” So I thought about it and replied that there are things that God cares about besides worship.

In Isaiah 1 God tells his people, “…your special days for fasting—they are all sinful and false. I want no more of your pious meetings.” (verse 13 NLT). That sounds pretty harsh, but here’s what God’s looking for: “Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.”

So what’s more important to God, our Sunday morning worship or doing something to look after the fatherless and women who are being treated as mere commodities at the cost of their humanity? We can’t say that we truly worship a God of mercy and justice if we aren’t doing something to make mercy and justice a reality in our world.

Too often our worship services are about our looking good to God (and each other). The more we re-tell who God is, the more it should impact us. The more we proclaim God’s greatness and goodness, the more the Holy Spirit should be able to transform us into reflections of that greatness and goodness in this world.

I don’t recommend skipping worship every Sunday. Regularly re-telling, re-living and re-creating the gospel is an important formative event in our life together. But sometimes I need a reminder of why God doesn’t just whisk me away to heaven. If Jesus thought that journeying through our world as a human was important, than it should be important to me, too. And Jesus said his mission was “to preach good news to the poor …to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19) What's mine?

giving and giving away

2009-09-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday our membership passed our budget for fiscal year 2010 (which starts in October 2009 for reasons an accountant will have to explain). After presenting an initial budget for consideration back in August, the leadership team became uncomfortable with how low a percentage we were giving to outreach (community and global mission partnerships as well as outreach efforts made directly by our church community). We had cut everything we could in operations and personnel and had come up with a balanced budget. But after developing a balanced budget in August, we decided to present a deficit budget in order to increase our giving to outreach. We were glad that the membership agreed and passed the deficit budget. But I want to take a moment to explain something that didn’t come out in the discussion on Sunday.

Some of what we give goes to partnerships (people and organizations) with which we have a strong relationship or to efforts with which we are directly involved. That money is given with a sense of confidence that it will be used well. But there is also money that goes out without an explicit understanding of how it will be used. For example, we know that money given to the Covenant will be used partly for supporting missionaries and revitalizing churches, and that money given to the Pacific Southwest Conference of the Covenant will go to church planting and mercy and justice efforts. But we don’t have direct control of that money.

By increasing our giving to the Covenant and to our conference we are essentially letting go of that money. It’s no longer under our control. The point isn’t so much to give money away as to give up money’s hold on us. I recently heard a discussion on the radio about poverty as a spiritual discipline. A Jain theologian (this was a BBC program including Jews and Muslims, not a Christian radio program) commented that “those with the most possessions are the most possessed” by materialism. If we want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, we need to empty ourselves of other things, including money, that would otherwise come to have a hold on us.

I'm proud to be a part of a leadership team that recognizes both the need to be responsible stewards of the finances God’s given us and the need to set an example of working to break money’s hold on us. That’s a tension that we all live with, especially in our affluent society. But we have God’s promise: “Seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33.

imdepressed.com?

2009-09-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

My prayer partner made a wry observation this morning: no one tells about their hurts and disappointments and sadness on social networking sites. The online community is unbearably and artificially “happy”. My prayer partner even wondered if the number of online “friends” one has was inversely proportional to the number of true personal friends one has (but he acknowledged that was the cynic in him talking).

In a way, this is a reflection of our society: it’s not OK to be too public with your weaknesses and imperfections. And it’s also a comment on the nature of online “community”: it’s a place for putting your best foot forward (unless you’re unfortunate enough to be a celebrity who’s videotaped puking on his bathroom floor), at least as much as you can control.

So where can we go for the support to get us through those times that we all face on a regular basis, times when we’re feeling sad, ashamed, weak, remorseful, or hurt? Nothing can take the place of a face-to-face confession or a good cry or a hand on the shoulder. After Job had hit bottom, losing fortune and family and health, his friends came to him and just sat and said nothing for a week. They understood that physical presence is sometimes the best thing you can offer a hurting friend and it’s not something you can offer online.

light

2009-09-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

At our last monthly visit to a residence for people who are HIV positive we did the usual: cooked dinner for them, hung out in the common area, and then ate with them. Interestingly, I met several people I hadn’t met before (we’ve been going there monthly for almost 4 years). One person stood out to me: a woman who was joyfully overseeing a fast-moving game of cards and seemed to have something playful to say to all the players. Everyone was “honey” or “sweetie” to her. And she was obviously loved by everyone there. I talked to her briefly after the game and she showed me the same warmth that she had for everyone.

Later I asked about her and found out that she was a new resident. Then I asked about the others around the table. I was surprised to find that some of them had been at the residence for several years but had never bothered to or wanted to come out to eat with us (I don’t think our cooking is that bad). But because of this new resident they were willing to come out of their rooms and be social. They knew that she’d put a bit of sunshine in their day and it was worth it.

Am I like that new resident? Are people drawn to me because they know I’ll bring some sunshine into their lives? And if they are, I hope that brightness is a reflection of God’s light in me. People may be hostile to organized religion or to dogma or to theology, but when God’s love is shining through me, it will be an attraction whether or not they know the source. “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16.

good news?

2009-09-09T21:26:00.001-07:00

It’s conventional wisdom that when it comes to trials, God only gives us as much as we can handle. If that’s the case, I’m a spiritual pygmy. Today at a meeting of Asian American pastors, I prayed with 2 other pastors. One has had to leave the pastorate to tend to his wife’s physical needs. She has a heart condition that caused a massive heart attack a few years ago resulting in some brain damage. She’s lost some memory and is greatly weakened. The other’s wife was diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago, and then more recently was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Both of these friends are experiencing a level of suffering that I can hardly imagine.

In his second letter to Timothy, Paul invites Timothy to “join with me in suffering for the gospel” (1:8). It’s a very odd phrase to repeat in the ears of a contemporary American Christian. Is the gospel worth suffering for? That’s not the way we market the gospel these days. If the gospel is “good news”, why would we suffer for it? Unless Paul’s (and God’s) notion of good news is different from ours.

I haven’t suffered much. I get prayer letters from a friend who works in a country that severely limits religious freedom. He regularly writes of Christian leaders in his city who have been imprisoned and beaten. Is the gospel worth it?

When I visited Thailand a few years ago, we were taken to a Buddhist temple that sat on many acres of land. Included was a compound of residences for people with HIV. The Buddhist monks didn’t know what to do for them, so they let Christians come and help. By serving their physical needs, the Christians had converted pretty much every resident in the compound. I’ll never forget one woman who was there as a result of her husband’s sexual promiscuity. She told us that she was glad that she had contracted HIV because now she knew Jesus. Is this the same Jesus that I know? Is this the good news that I preach?

I don’t have an easy answers for these questions. Like I said, I feel like a spiritual pygmy when it comes to suffering. Anything that I say seems too trite or cliché, mostly because it is. I’m not asking for suffering. But it makes me wonder about all my prayers that are specifically requests to avoid suffering. Am I missing out on something?

fill my heart

2009-09-01T13:39:00.000-07:00

My 11-year old sometimes talks so quickly I can’t make out what she’s saying. And I don’t think it’s just my ears getting old. I think it’s a symptom of living in a world where everyone’s multi-tasking and the number one prayer seems to be “help me with my time management.” We are a rushed and hurried society and she’s probably afraid she won’t be able to get a word in edge-wise unless she talks quickly enough.

In our staff devotions this morning I was struck by the phrase “fill my heart with gratitude”. Filling takes time. Most of the time we try to get by with a perfunctory “thanks” (which is an abbreviation in itself). But if we are to be filled with gratitude we have to take time to ponder all the ways that God has been good to us and has brought that goodness into our lives through others around us.

Imagine what it would be like to live in a world of thank-filled people. What would happen to anger? To greed? To conflict? Maybe that’s why Paul says we are to be “always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:20). In fact, being thankful is part of God's cure for worry: “Don’t be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:6).

Taking time to consider God’s goodness and give thanks sounds like a good thing to do but let’s face it: it’s pretty low on our list of priorities. We have so many things to do, and most of them are good things that we know God wants us to get done. But maybe he wants them done by thankful people.

rejoicing

2009-08-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

In Francis Chan’s recent book, “Crazy love: overwhelmed by a relentless God” he mentions that “rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4) is a command from God. Thus, if we aren’t joyful we are saying that we know better than God, that we have a special dispensation to worry or be bitter because we know our circumstances better than God does.

Being a bit of a curmudgeon, I started to think of commands that might contradict this idea of being joyful all the time. When can we not be joyful? “Mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15) came to mind… and that was it. The only time when we are allowed not to rejoice (that I can think of) is when someone else we know is in pain. And our own pain and stress do not excuse us from considering our own place in the higher purposes of God or from submitting ourselves to his sovereignty. We are not allowed the comfort of feeling sorry for ourselves.

Christian humility is not wallowing in depression and self-pity but accepting that God is truly working out his good for us in spite of the externals of our situation: “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28).

At the same time we are to see others’ pain through God’s eyes, to feel their suffering with his heart. And that should move us to pray, “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Being a Christian is not easy. It means I can’t be self-centered, which is my default mode. It means that God still has a lot of work to do in me, work that he can’t do unless I continually submit myself to him and get out of my default mode on a regular basis. But I like the promised result: “The fruit of the Spirit is… joy.”

inauthentic worship?

2009-08-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

There was a recent article on “authentic worship” in a Christian magazine I subscribe to. It struck me that even the term “authentic worship” turns the emphasis of worship back onto the self rather than on God. Contemporary Christians seem more concerned with expressing our true selves to God in our worship experience rather than with expressing truths about God in the ways that we worship.

The point of worshiping God is to express outwardly and as God’s people that He is the Lord of all, that He is our King, that we are grateful for His amazing grace toward us in Christ, and that He alone is worthy of being worshiped. Whether I do it “authentically” or not doesn’t change who God is. So it seems to me that Christians should be more interested in articles on Who God is, and what makes Him worthy of our worship. And we should be more concerned with finding ways to use our limited resources to declare what an infinitely glorious and gracious God we worship.

In other words, maybe we should read more theology and build more cathedrals? What a concept.

prayer

2009-07-29T07:17:00.001-07:00

I was playing basketball in the driveway with my 7 year old yesterday. He surprised me by praying before he shot. I have no idea where he picked this up. He doesn’t watch professional sports on TV (he much prefers cartoons) so he hasn’t seen players praying before a game or bowing their heads after scoring a touchdown. But he seems to have caught the notion that God is all-powerful and therefore can help him make a shot if he asks in the proper way.

My first instinct was to point out the logical conflict: what if the person you’re playing against is praying that you won’t make the shot? So does God really care if you make a shot? In the grander scheme of things, how much does it matter that a basketball goes through a hoop or not?

But now I’m thinking that maybe it’s wrong for me to assign my own values to my 7 year old’s world. For him, it does matter if the basketball goes through the hoop. And because it matters to him, it matters to God. Jesus told us that even the sparrows matter to God, and so he takes care of them (Matthew 6:25). Jesus went on to tell us not to worry because we matter so much more to God than the sparrows.

How God juggles all of this is an inscrutable mystery. Somehow he is able to pay attention to the concerns of sparrows, 7 year olds, and the universe all at the same time. And so it makes sense for Peter to tell us to “cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Or for Paul to write, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6).

By the way, I lost the basketball game. Of course, I let my son win. Or maybe it was answered prayer.

expectations

2009-06-05T10:27:00.000-07:00

I’ve lived my life with high expectations of myself. I’ve sought to be a responsible person. I suppose what I’ve done is to accept the goals that society has of those who would seek the good of others (i.e., people like pastors). I’ve sought to not disappoint. And I’ve assumed that these same expectations are the ones that God has of me.

But where does that get me? If I think I’ve attained the goals then there’s nothing else to live for (and I’m probably in prideful denial anyway). Or if I disappoint, who will forgive me and give me a new start? Even if God forgives me, does that mean he sets the bar lower so that I can reach it next time? And so I’m still some kind of disappointment to him?

What would it be like to live life with a sense of expectancy instead of expectations? To have hope instead of a sense of responsibility? To replace obligation with joy? I just finished reading “The Shack”. (Don’t worry: if you haven’t read it and intend to, there’s no spoiler here.) As I finished the book tears came to my eyes. I had gotten a glimpse of the joy of living a life filled with God’s sense of expectancy and eternal hope, even for me. (Sorry if that didn't make sense: you may need to read the book yourself.) My past couple sessions of spiritual direction have been about letting go of my expectations of myself, expectations that I thought God had of me, and accepting who God made me to be with a sense of expectancy and joy in what is going to happen next as I partner with what the Holy Spirit is doing and transforming in me.

What’s the difference between vision and expectations? Vision isn’t fantasy, but is grounded in the reality of what God is doing. It sees the beauty that is unfolding under the supervision of God’s Spirit. Expectations are stifling and demanding. Meeting expectations results in pride. Vision realized brings joy. I pray that my influence on Grace Community will be through vision and not expectations.

breakfast in bed

2009-04-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

Serving someone breakfast in bed is intended to make her or him feel special, to show that they’re honored and have a special place in your life.

I was talking to the 4th-6th graders last Sunday about our corporate worship. I asked them if we should call our worshiping together on Sundays a worship “service” or worship “celebration”. I’ve heard it argued that we should get rid of the terminology of “service” because it denotes obligation and drudgery. But as I was discussing this with our 4th-6th graders I realized that it’s like serving God breakfast in bed. It can be fun to do, and it can be done with all the trappings of celebration, but the focus isn’t on how we feel but on the fact that God is worthy of being honored and has a special place in our lives.

Sometimes we burn the toast or overcook the eggs. But God’s love and grace are so amazing that as long as we are intending to honor God, as long as we are truly offering ourselves to him, even if we sing a wrong note or lose our place in the sermon or even fall asleep during the service, he takes what we offer and transforms it (Romans 12:1-2).

washing the car

2009-04-21T15:45:00.001-07:00

It was a hot day yesterday, so our two youngest kids (ages 6 and 8) decided to help me by washing the minivan. I’d had a vague notion yesterday afternoon that they were happily engaged, but I didn’t know what they were doing. This morning as I was backing out of the driveway to take them to school I looked into the rearview mirror and wondered why the window was so cloudy. Then I realized that all the windows except the windshield (which they couldn’t reach) had a film of dishwashing liquid over them. I explained to them that they should get adult supervision next time.

Kids love to do “adult” work: washing, cooking, cleaning. Their minds engage, enjoy and explore things that adults would call mundane chores. But who has the better perspective? Our adult labels suck what Kathleen Norris calls “the quotidian mysteries” out of the work that God has given us to do (if you say “quotidian” instead of “everyday” you’ll be sure to impress or at least confuse your friends).

Adam and Eve were given work to do in the Garden of Eden before they sinned. Work is a gift from God. Everyday work never ends, reflecting, in a weird way, the eternal nature of God. Household activities such as cleaning and cooking are ways of sustaining the life that is also a gift from God. They can be ways to love God and each other. Ephesians 6:6 tells us that our work should be offered “heartily” to God. (KJV) And who can reject a well-cooked meal offered in love? Many of our parents don’t know any other way to say “I love you” than to over-feed us and clean up after us when we come over for dinner.

It’s true that adults need to teach kids how to do properly various everyday life-sustaining activities such as cooking and cleaning. I try to show my kids how to do things efficiently and effectively. But in the process of teaching I need to be careful that my attitude toward the work doesn’t demean the work itself or the people who have come to be characterized by that work (housecleaners, car wash attendants, cooks, etc.).

So I’m thankful that my kids still enjoy some kinds of everyday work, even when it gives me more work to do. I cleaned off the minivan windows when I got back home as a way of loving my kids and thanking God for his quotidian blessings. And I made a mental note to show them how to properly wash a car.

getting it

2009-04-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

Last night at the Maundy Thursday service we had 6 adults and 7 kids. We had a great time re-living the events for which Maundy Thursday is named: washing feet and taking the Bread and the Cup together. But I was hoping for at least twice that number.

Why do I want more of Grace Community to participate in something like a Maundy Thursday service? It’s inconvenient if you don’t get Good Friday off and can just hang out. And if you’re a parent with kids who don’t get Good Friday off then it interferes with your regular school schedule. Then there’s the weirdness of explaining to friends what a Maundy Thursday service is.

I didn’t grow up observing Maundy Thursday. But I’ve grown to appreciate how having events to observe as part of the Christian calendar shapes me, just as observing the calendar of the society we live in (work, school, holidays) has given me memories and practices make me feel and act a particular way: I’m supposed to get up to go to work, Fridays are supposed to kick off the weekend, I’m supposed to do something special for my loved ones on Valentine’s Day, etc. The problem is that the Christian calendar and the world’s calendar can conflict. And then what will I choose? My choices are important: they shape my identity. But it takes a lot to get me out of my default mode.

Jesus knew this, so he shocked the disciples by washing their feet. The NIV translation of John 13:1 says, “He showed them the full extent of his love.” The disciples would be in too much shock in a few hours to figure out the deep significance of the Cross. They needed something more immediate and tangible, something that they could participate in directly. So Jesus takes advantage of the lack of a foot washing servant to do something completely counter-cultural but also very understandable in their cultural context. It was a teachable moment.

The disciples didn’t get it at first. Peter even refused to let Jesus wash his feet. It must have been at least a little frustrating for Jesus to see that his disciples, those to whom he was entrusting the future of his mission to save the world, still didn’t get it after 3 years. But then again, Jesus wasn’t passing on a management method. He was interested in changed lives. Changing lives and developing new identities takes time. May I be so patient.

Tuesday

2009-04-08T09:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Tuesday of Holy Week. In Mark 14:1-11 it says that the woman (probably Mary, as in Mary and Martha) anointed Jesus two days before they celebrated Passover. So if Maundy Thursday is the day Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples at the Last Supper, then Tuesday is the day Mary anointed Jesus.

How did Mary feel as she did this? Jesus seems to imply that she did it knowing that he was going to die, as opposed to the Twelve who seemed to be clueless. So she must have been sad and distressed. Yet she had the wherewithal to create this act of worship that was so powerful we still speak of it today.

As I’m creating sermons and worship designs there’s a side of me that wants it to flow easily out of a sense of joyfulness. When my mood is elevated, things seem to be easier. But there are times when I just want to curl up and forget the world outside. A time of pain seems to be an odd time to create an act of worship.

But God takes whatever I have to give him and makes it worthy of being offered to him. I can’t do that myself. Nothing I can create can come close. “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6)

So there is joyful worship that’s like God hanging my kindergarten painting on his refrigerator like a proud parent. And there’s worship that is ragged and tattered and soiled, but it’s all I have at the time, and God is the one who takes my living sacrifice and makes something out of it that is acceptable to him (Romans 12:1).

skating

2009-04-08T09:12:00.000-07:00

Monday night Winnie asked me what the marks were under my eyes. I looked in the mirror and realized that I hadn’t accidentally jabbed myself with a Sharpie, I had dark circles under my eyes. I’m prone to such circles anyway, but it was a sign that I’ve been pretty stressed lately.

The stress of being a lead pastor is something that most people are vaguely aware of. But there are a few things that give this time a definite shape. First, there’s the recession. Second, there is the transition that we’re going through as a result of our new vision. Third, there’s the re-shaping of the worship ministries that are now my responsibility.

When I was leading the Bible study at Leland House last Sunday, one of the residents remarked, “You must pray all the time.” I thought about it and then shared that the hardest time for me to pray is when I’m busy doing stuff related to being a pastor. That surprised the group, but it’s a truism that I know most of my fellow pastors appreciate.

I’ve been trying to learn how to rest in my Father’s love. I think it was St. John of the Cross who called prayer the loving gaze. Zephaniah 3:17 (“you will rest in his love”) has been my centering prayer verse because it reminds me that God’s love is a place for me to rest. But there’s another kind of love that is a love of action. In 2 Timothy 1:7 Paul links love to power and discipline. I was talking to my spiritual director about this and the image of an ice skater came to mind. Moving forward is a matter of shifting between resting love and active love. I can’t stay forever in one or I’ll quit moving forward spiritually.

Nor am I to work like crazy for a season and then, exhausted, go to God for resting love. I still have to examine how I do my work. Is it in the Spirit that God has given me, a Spirit of “love and power and discipline”? Or is it all done in dependence on myself, a spirit of fear that I’m not good enough, that I won’t get enough done unless I drive myself?

Someone told me once that God has given me enough hours in a day to do what he wants me to do. The problem is that I keep adding more stuff, stuff I think I need to do (notice the emphasis on the word "I"). May I have the grace to quit praying to manipulate God into helping me do what I think needs to be done and instead abandon myself to the things he is calling me to do, the things that flow out of and affirm the fact that I am beloved by him and given me a unique place in his purposes for the world.

core

2009-04-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

I was talking to someone recently who told me about a friend whose dad had been stricken with Alzheimer’s. The dad had been a man of action, but as his abilities faded he found himself bewildered because there was nothing for him to do. Who was he? What was left inside? He had never paid attention to his inner life, so he was losing his sense of himself. And he was becoming a very difficult person to be around.

A couple of weeks ago when Natasha Richardson died very unexpectedly, I saw a replay of a 1998 interview in which she said she thought of herself as an “overweight unattractive teenager.” The world was mourning the loss of a beautiful actress, but they couldn’t see beyond the outer self.

Who am I inside? The great men and women of Christian spirituality urge us to cultivate our inner life. The foundation of Christian spirituality is listening prayer. And at the heart of listening prayer is hearing God say he loves us. I need to hear the Father’s voice, telling me I am his beloved. My inner self is not what I do or have accomplished. At my very core I must know that I am God’s and that he loves me.

Cultivating is a farming metaphor. It takes time and energy to break up the ground, to remove the weeds, to make it hospitable to life. And then it takes time for the plants to grow and to bear fruit. But if I don’t want to end up lacking an inner life, if I want to be characterized by love, joy and peace (the fruit of the Spirit), then there’s no time like the present to start cultivating my inner life.

sermon titles

2009-03-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

I don’t put a lot of thought into my sermon titles. Some might accuse me of not putting enough effort into my sermon titles, but what’s the purpose of a sermon title anyway? Jesus didn’t name his sermons nor did Paul.

It seems that sermon titles are a kind of marketing. For churches that have marquees, it’s something to put out in front of the church to attract people to come in. Wherever it appears, it’s meant to entice people to listen. Of course, that’s based on the assumption that people need to be enticed, that we have to offer something in the sermon that the person reading the title will think, “I want/need to hear that.” So the title may be funny or though-provoking.

Marketing itself is based on individualism and consumerism. It’s easy to approach a sermon as if it’s something that I’m selling to people who already have pretty much what they need but if I can entice them they’ll grab one more thing to put into their shopping basket.

Sermons weren’t always seen that way. And marketing is a new phenomenon. Before the advent of modern marketing, one bought what one needed and that was pretty much dictated by what your community said you needed. And there was a time when people went to worship with others because they knew it was important for their spiritual nourishment and they listened to whatever the pastor preached without feeling like they could blow off the sermon if it didn’t appeal to them.

I’m not saying that we need to accept mindlessly what is handed to us by our community. But I’m sure that as individuals we can’t find within us all that we need to judge what is good, true and beautiful in this world. We were designed to live in community. Our knowledge of ourselves and of our world is meant to mediated by others. It’s a messy and time-consuming process, but the point is not merely to get the right answer but to live rightly.

My prayer is that people are listening and reflecting and discussing with me and with each other what’s said in my sermons, whether or not they like the title.

applause

2009-03-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I led the worship team and preached. It was a challenging day. All of the kids were with us in worship because it was a 5th Sunday. It was good to have the kids witness the commissioning of someone to go on a mission trip. But I felt the need to inject extra energy into the sermon to keep everyone’s attention. And the sermon went long because we had a skit and object lesson for the kids in the middle of it. On top of that, I felt that I was rushing and there were several things I had planned to say that I had to skip over. And the worship went 10 minutes over even though I had planned on leading only 4 songs, 3 with drums and bass and one solo (just guitar). I had experimented with the first two songs, trying to lead from the electric guitar, but the settings I had tried at home didn’t sound right in the sanctuary and I couldn’t get a sound I liked in the short warm-up rehearsal. I didn’t have much time to think about it after worship because I led an orientation meeting for the hosts and worship leaders for our neighborhood Good Friday services. And then my family went to lunch with some friends who were visiting the Bay Area from SoCal.

I didn’t get to catch my breath until the drive up to Leland House, the residence in San Francisco for people with HIV that we visit each month. I thought about what passage to cover for Bible study. The first Bible study I’d led 2 months ago had 4 participants from the house, the second had just one. I didn’t know what to expect. I got there and found several people sitting outside enjoying the beautiful day on the patio. I sat down, got into the conversation, and then asked if we could have the Bible study out on the patio. I tried to pass out Bibles but no one wanted to read, they just wanted to hear me read to them. I read the parable of the soils from Mark 4 and six of us plus a couple more visitors got into a spirited discussion that ranged from the passage at hand to the truth that is in all religions. (This was NOT an inductive Bible study.) I tried to slip in “nuggets” of evangelistic truth, but found that propositional truth seemed dry. People wanted to talk about what made them able to get up in the morning. They shared about the importance of having gratitude for each day and finding the good in people around them. They had no argument with the fact that God loved them and that sin had messed up the world. They could accept that Christ had said he was the way, but they found it unreasonable that Christians demanded that everyone live a particular way. Right and wrong were self-evident and there was no need to claim ethics as the province of just one religion.

I was an hour late because of my lunch, so the Bible study (that had taken about 15 minutes the previous month) took well over an hour and we didn’t even realize it was already 5:00 and time for dinner. And I hadn’t even touched my guitar, which I usually play for the residents each month. So I decided to play and sing during dinner. I started off tentatively. I hadn’t really thought about it, but the experience of things going badly that morning during the first couple of songs had unnerved me. It took me a few songs to warm up. I noticed one of the residents who had always been appreciative of my music eating by herself, so I started to sing especially for her. After the song was over, she clapped. After the next song one of the guys who’d been part of the Bible study clapped. After the next song he encouraged others to clap. It got to the point where after each song, people would applaud. As people were leaving dinner they said “thank you” to me. I found that I didn’t want to stop playing and singing. Even after everyone had left the dining area I hung around a few moments with not much to do but enjoy the echoes of their thanks.

Several of the songs I’d been singing were worship songs we hadn’t sung in Grace Community’s morning worship for years. But that didn’t matter to the residents. They didn’t know the songs, they just knew that I was sharing my gifts with them, so they were grateful. (We did close with a rousing rendition of “Jesus loves me” that we could all sing together.) It’s easy to become demanding of the best and latest in our worship. As an instrumentalist, I want to try new things and I can become hard on myself and worried about criticism when things don’t sound just right. Yesterday, it took people with HIV, people who knew that being able to get up in the morning is a joy in itself, to help me get back to the heart of worship. “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.” Psalm 100:4.

fasting

2009-03-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I was talking to my 10 year old about fasting during Lent. She’s given up using Yahoo email and I’ve given up listening to the stereo in the car. I asked her, “What do you think about instead of doing email?” I told her that a good thing to think about is how much Jesus gave up for us and how much we try to substitute other things for knowing Jesus. But it was hard for her to understand, although I have to give her credit for actually keeping her fast.

I’ve been suggesting fasts from activities as well as fasting from food as legitimate ways to fast during Lent. But I’m realizing that there’s something very human and essential about fasting from food that’s missing when I fast from an activity. Being hungry is a basic human experience, something built into us by God. And when I fast from food I’m participating in something that Christians have done since Jesus. (The Lenten fast is patterned after Jesus’ 40 day fast in the wilderness right after his baptism. And Jesus’ fast was based on a spiritual practice that had existed for centuries in Jewish spirituality.) Jesus fasted from food regularly as part of his prayer life and endorsed it for his followers (Mark 9:29).

So although fasting from an activity like watching a favorite TV show or from using your Blackberry an hour a day does help to remind us about how much other things are taking the place of God’s voice in our lives, I think I’ll get back to fasting from food.

what to say

2009-03-16T10:19:00.000-07:00

What is the essence of the Gospel? There aren’t too many of us who enjoy talking to other people about our faith. Part of the reason the topic doesn’t come up in conversation much is that we’re not sure what to say after the topic is brought up (by us or by others).

Part of the reason I was thinking about this is that the Nominating Committee is starting the process of finding candidates for the leadership team (elections are this May). I asked the current LT members to submit a brief description of the what it’s been like for them and what the challenges are for Grace Community over the next couple years. One member spoke of the challenge of getting back to a focus on personal evangelism, i.e., sharing the Gospel with people we know.

Jesus said that his message was that “the Kingdom of God is at hand.” That message is in our name, Grace Community. Anyone is invited into God’s Kingdom because of God’s grace. You don’t have to do anything except to trust in God’s invitation through Jesus.

What does the Kingdom of God look like? Jesus has shown us that through his life and teachings. His death takes the penalty for our sin so that we can enter the kingdom, and his resurrection proves that he can give us a Kingdom life, i.e., a life as God designed it (free from things that dehumananize us). And that's pretty much it.

Life as a church community can get kind of complicated. I’m constantly sorting through expectations and programs aimed at us and at me. But when it comes right down to it, the whole point of being a church community is proclaiming and living out “the Kingdom of God is at hand.”

carried

2009-03-16T10:18:00.000-07:00

My kids love to be carried. Piggy-back is a favorite, but there’s something comforting about being in your parent’s arms, too. The thing about piggy-back is that you can see where you’re going and if you don’t like it you can say something about it. So even though they’re being carried, my kids like to tell me where I’m supposed to go.

As I was driving to worship yesterday, the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd carrying a lamb came to mind (since we were using it as the image for our time of examen and confession). The difference between the lamb and my kids is that the lamb isn’t trying to tell the Good Shepherd where he’s supposed to go.

Jesus told Peter that part of following Jesus is going where you don’t necessarily want to go. Peter protested, but Jesus simply repeated, “Follow me.” (John 21:18-22)

The image of Jesus carrying the lamb was chosen for this week’s theme (the third Sunday of Lent) of facing the brokenness of our self-reliance. As a follower of Jesus, I find that I’m like my kids and Peter, always wanting to tell Jesus where he’s supposed to be taking me. The paradox is that in Mark 13:13 Jesus tells us that if we are to “stand until the end” we are to lean completely on him whose “words will not pass away” (Mark 13:31).

grace for myself

2009-03-09T22:20:00.001-07:00

I met with my spiritual director today. We talked about what motivates me, e.g., to do so much reading, or to be a better preacher, or to try to understand church finances. On the one hand there is an innate curiosity. On the other hand, there is a nagging voice in my head telling me that I don’t measure up and that if I can just be a little bit better maybe I’ll find approval. But that’s not my only problem.

Because I have these motivations, I’ve garnered a fairly wide scope of knowledge. And there’s the rub: it’s impossible to put everything into practice. I know a little about a lot of things, but that knowledge is shallow because it’s not the knowledge that comes with having lived it out. Yet I want to have that deeper knowledge and I want that to be the sort of knowledge that informs my influence on others, but that takes too much time (or so I tell myself). As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, a critique of my sermons is that they’re too heavy on book knowledge and not heavy enough on showing how The Book is to be lived out.

That’s a source of pain for me. I really want to change and to live out what I know about, but for whatever reasons, I just can’t quite get there. St. Paul expressed it well when he said, “O wretched man that I am!” (Romans 7:24 KJV). He said this because “I have the desire to do what is good but I cannot carry it out” (Romans 7:18 NIV).

A phrase that seems to sum it up for me is that “my reach exceeds my grasp” (“or what’s heaven for?” according to Browning). The pain of that distance between reach and grasp varies for different people. Some people resolve the pain by working on extending their grasp. Those are the practical types and their approach makes a lot of sense and avoids a lot of frustration. My problem is that I’m one of those who is always trying to extend my reach and then I’m increasingly frustrated by the growing distance between my reach and my grasp. I’m not a very practical person.

My spiritual director wasn’t much help: “That’s life” she said. Well, actually she said something more profound, like “that’s the human condition” and “we’ll never resolve these things in this life” and things like that. And actually she was a lot of help. She encouraged me to give myself grace, to rest in the fact that God loves me and has made me who I am and that there is something good that comes out of my pain of never being able to achieve the increasingly higher standards that I set for myself. But she never said to quit setting high standards.

“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:14 KJV

party time

2009-03-09T22:19:00.001-07:00

On Sunday we had the awards ceremony for the basketball league that 2 of my kids participated in. There were over 300 grade school-aged kids in the league, so there wasn’t a whole lot of “ceremony” about the awards: it was craziness and screaming and high energy for over 90 minutes. I had signed up to coach my 6-year old’s team, so I got to be part of the craziness. “Every kid’s a winner” in Upward Basketball, so I got to give ribbons and gifts to all my guys.

There were times during the season when I wondered why I’d signed up to coach. You can’t really teach 6 and 7-year olds how to run a pick-and-roll or run a 3-man weave (at least, not in one hour a week). But it was all worth it when 4 of my guys prayed to ask Jesus to be their Savior last night. The only thing louder than a bunch of 6- and 7-year olds screaming is the party in heaven when the angels rejoice over a 6- or 7-year old praying in earnest faith to become God’s child.

memories

2009-03-09T22:18:00.001-07:00

This past Friday the Executive Board of the Pacific Southwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church said good-bye to me and Valerie McCann-Woodson because we are “terming out”. Our chair, Will Davidson, asked the other board members to share their thoughts and reflections about our terms of service on the board. It was a wonderful time of hearing how others saw us and the impact we’d had on the conference and on the members of the board.

I got a chance to see myself as others saw me. People told me about things that I didn’t even know I’d done. They had memories of me that I wasn’t at all aware of. But because they told me, these things have now become a part of me, shaping who I am.

The church is a community of memory. As individuals we forget things. But as a community we can remember things for each other that we may have forgotten or didn’t even know, especially things like how much God loves us and the fact that he takes delight in each of us, his children (Zephaniah 3:17). This is something we often forget, or at least we live like we’ve forgotten it. But we can remember it for each other and help each other live in the joy of being God’s beloved.

books and music

2009-03-04T08:52:00.000-08:00

Something happened to me this past Sunday that has never happened before. On first Sundays the 2nd-6th grade kids stay with us for the entire worship service. Afterward one of the 5th graders came up to me to tell me that he thought my sermon was really good. And I wasn’t giving him the third degree to see if he was paying attention – he sought me out to tell me (I think I was putting away my guitar at the time).

The sermon was on things that give us a false sense of worth and about finding our true worth in our Father’s love. Recently one of our grad students used Grace Community as a subject for a project on surveys and measurements. In her sample she found that the sermons at Grace (of which the majority are preached by yours truly) had the greatest discrepancy between level of importance and level of satisfaction. In our leadership team we discussed this finding and the consensus was that I refer to other books too much and that people want to hear what the Bible says and how it applies in my life and theirs. So one of the things I’m giving up for Lent is references to books besides the Bible in my sermons. I’m sure that had something to do with why a 5th grader found my sermon meaningful and applicable. (As CS Lewis has said, if you can’t explain it to a 10 year old, you probably don’t understand it. Now what book did he say that in…?)

It’s easy for me to look for my sense of worth in my breadth of knowledge, to try to prove I'm smart or wise by citing a lot of books in my sermons. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying books, but when it takes the place of the Father’s love in my life it’s an idol. Lent is about entering the wilderness with Jesus (Lent is patterned after Jesus’ 40 day fast in Matthew 4, Mark 1 and Luke 4). It’s about getting to the core of who we are without the usual conveniences and comforts with which we tend to fill our lives. During Lent I’m fasting from listening to the stereo while I’m in the car (much to the chagrin of my kids). Sure, I’m missing the latest songs and the latest news, but does knowing those things make me worth more? Meanwhile, the awkwardness of having to be with myself in the car isn’t a bad thing. It’s a good exercise to see what tends to fill my mind while I’m driving and consider why those things are important to me. And I have a chance to listen to God and to do some intercession for others.

I probably won’t get rid of the stereo in my car after Lent (although there are times when I just have to turn it off because I want some solitude). But I’m finding that it’s a good discipline for me to replace book citations in my sermons with reflection on why that particular citation helps me to understand and apply God’s Word. Maybe I’ll start becoming understandable to 4th graders, too. Now how am I going to reach the 3rd graders…?

Ash Wednesday

2009-02-25T15:05:00.001-08:00

“Good sorrow makes good joy possible.” I came across this sentence in an essay about Ash Wednesday. I thought about it as I talked with my prayer partner this morning about our own observance of the season of Lent.

Our culture tells us that sorrow is bad, that the greatest good in life is to have fun. We’re trained to avoid feeling badly about anything except as a kind of entertainment: we’ll cry at a movie and then walk unfeelingly past a suffering homeless person.

But Lent invites us into sorrow and pain and suffering. The 40 days of Lent remind us of Jesus’ suffering in the wilderness before he started his public ministry. Jesus didn’t have to suffer. He willingly took on human form to experience the worst of our condition, be tortured and die, so that we might have eternal life. So it’s good to have a season to quit avoiding suffering, to consider what Jesus has done for us, to realize my brokenness and the brokenness of the world I live in. And then I can have “good joy”, joy that’s not the result of self-medicating my soul with entertainment but joy that knows the depths of God’s love for me and this world.

images

2009-02-22T06:38:00.000-08:00

This Sunday is a unique Sunday for Grace Community and a significant Sunday for one of our families: a baby is being dedicated AND her dad is being baptized! And we just had a baby dedication last Sunday and we’ll have another in less than a month.

I wear a robe to do baby dedications. Some might wonder why. I wasn’t raised in a “liturgical” church. In fact, I was raised in a very austere, conservative church: no images, no artwork in the sanctuary, no candles. Use of the word "ritual" was always negative. The focus was on Bible study and telling others the Gospel. So why the candles and robes today?

Part of the answer is found in a book I just finished reading, “Called out of darkness” by Anne Rice (yes, of “Interview with the vampire” fame). She recalls the images, sounds, textures and even smells of her Roman Catholic upbringing in New Orleans. Then she writes of her 38 years as an avowed atheist, out of which God called her back to himself. The power of that call was obviously due to the work of the Holy Spirit. But God used the rich physical presence of her early upbringing to continually remind her that he loved her and was calling her back to himself.

I think the richest part of my early church upbringing was the wonderful music. We didn’t have candles or robes or images, but we loved music, especially classical music. In that music I sensed the beauty, goodness and truth of God. I’m sad that we don’t use more of that sort of music in our worship today (but I’m not going to insist snobbishly that we use music in our worship that has become inaccessible to many people). But I think that in our visual culture we can offer images, including the image of the pastor in a robe and the people of the community laying on hands in blessing, to give our kids the sense that God is present in the life of our worshiping community.

pain

2009-02-13T16:53:00.001-08:00

Is it OK to be disappointed in my life? Is it OK to be disappointed with God? My spiritual director has been pointing out to me that there is a difference between resigning myself to “the way things are” and expressing my disappointment to God and making it a matter of prayer. In our last session she pointed out that this is the pattern of many of the Psalms. They start with expressions to God of deep “negative” emotions such as disappointment, anger, desperation. Then there is a rehearsal of God’s character. Only after this work is done can the psalmist then come to a place of expressing hope and trust and even joy and delight in God.

I’m a bit of a contradiction within myself. I’ve always tried to isolate myself from emotional pain by making myself an observer of my pain and then deciding whether or not to try to do something about it. If not, then I can conveniently encapsulate the pain and try not to feel it. If I do something about it, it’s almost as if I’m working on someone else’s life. Yet, part of me wants to fully experience life, to not be distant, but to be immersed in both the joy and the pain.

Jesus didn’t distance himself from pain. He wasn’t the emotionless, ethereal figure that is often portrayed. He cried over his friend Lazarus’ death, identifying with the pain of his friends, Mary and Martha. And then he did what he came to do: he raised Lazarus. Jesus agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane. Then he set himself to go about the work that the Father had for him, torturous death on the cross as the payment for my sin and yours.

There are a lot of things in life that are disappointments and sources of pain for me. Part of my journey is to learn to be like Jesus, experiencing the pain and also working through it so that it informs and motivates me in the work that God has given me, both on myself and in my world.

radical

2009-02-04T08:45:00.000-08:00

The word “radical” brings to mind edgy, extreme, in-your-face types that are loud and flashy. The appeal of a phrase like “radical faith” is in the images it brings to mind, images that fit easily into our media-soaked culture’s idea of celebrity.

In the recent issue of Christianity Today, Mike Barrett writes about finally meeting a true radical: a missionary who trains pastors to plant churches in Delhi, where it’s dangerous to be a Christian, let alone do church planting. Who would do such dangerous, radical work? A guy who doesn’t make much money, hasn’t written any books, and isn’t on TV. He wears normal clothes, has no body piercings and sports a Chicago businessman’s haircut. “I walked the streets of Chicago and Denver looking for someone with an in-your-face Jesus sign hanging on their back, a Snowboarders for Christ meeting, or a skate park evangelism team.“ But what Barrett found was that “God is not speaking more profoundly to the good-looking loud ones. He’s moving powerfully through the simple ones who only wish they had the time and money to be a Snowboarder for Christ.”

A true radical is someone who is so firmly planted in a belief system that s/he is able to withstand the currents of society and continue living counter to the culture. The word itself comes from the Latin word “radix” or “root”. A radical is someone who gets to the root of things. Jesus was a radical because he cut to the heart of the matter and showed us what abundant life could be and then offered it to us (John 10:10). And now he calls us to follow him.

In other words, every Christian is called to be a radical.

finding joy

2009-02-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

A friend gave me a book for Christmas called “There is a season.” It’s a contemplation on a serigraph that is itself a contemplation on the famous passage in Ecclesiastes ("to everything there is a season..."). I love this phrase from the introduction to the book: “Joy is the spirit of God in time.”

When I think about time it’s usually to make sure I’m using it as efficiently as possible. The result: I’m in one place but thinking about where I need to be next. Could it be that by trying to transcend time I’m actually missing out on the presence of God? God has entered our space/time in the Incarnation. When God shows up, there is not efficiency, but joy. “In Your presence there is fullness of joy.” (Psalm 16:11 NASB)

calling

2009-01-21T14:48:00.001-08:00

I’ve been wondering why President Obama seems different to me than the two presidents who’ve preceded him. I’m now realizing that it’s because of something that can be summed up in one word: calling. Unlike Presidents Bush and Clinton, President Obama seems to understand that his new job is not a means to power, but that it is a calling in itself, that there’s a task that must be done simply because it is a noble, if difficult, task. That sense of calling made his inaugural speech reference to George Washington compelling and not merely sentimental. Without it, The Onion is right in snidely remarking that America has now given it’s worst job to a black man (“a black man can’t catch a break” they wrote on 11/5/08). But with a sense of calling there is dignity and determination in tackling the most powerful office in the world.

Is my job a calling or a means to my own ends? I may not desire power, but I surely have a desire for happiness and comfort. It might be appalling to think that some pastors look at their job as simply a means to get a paycheck so that they and their families can live comfortably, but I’ve heard the accusation before (I’ve had an awkward moment when a leadership team member told me that his job was to keep me from becoming so powerful that I could influence my paycheck.) And that same accusation can be leveled at many of us who look at our jobs, whether as employees or as spouses or parents or whatever it is that gives us the tasks for the day, as something other than work that is given to us by God because it is worthwhile work to do.

So when in his inaugural speech Pres. Obama referred to his oath of office as a “sacred oath” I hope he meant it (history will tell). And I hope I will come to have a similar sense of calling that will give dignity and determination to the work that God has called me to do each day, whether it’s washing dishes or writing code or picking up the kids or participating in a meeting (OK, so I don’t write code: I do the other three). As the Book of Common Prayer teaches us to pray each day: “…and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of Your purposes.”

change

2009-01-20T21:42:00.000-08:00

My kids had the day off from school today, so I took the day off, too. That gave me the luxury of waking up and watching the pre-inaugural TV coverage starting at 6:30 am PST, and then watching the actual inauguration of Pres. Barack Obama with my family (except for my 6 year old who was downstairs watching cartoons: we'll kid him about that for the rest of his life, I'm sure).

I can't add anything to what's already been said about the gravity of this day for the history of this country. I hope that I was able to transmit to my kids something of how I feel about the historic significance of what we saw. Two nights ago I was chatting over dinner about the recent protests in Oakland over the shooting of an unarmed black man by a BART policeman. The contrast between the two televised events is striking. As Pres. Obama's election campaign reminded us, change is certainly needed.

best, better, good

2009-01-16T22:04:00.000-08:00

Anyone who’s been to a management/leadership seminar (and this includes pastoral leadership seminars) has heard this aphorism: “The good is the enemy of the best.” But is that how God wants us to live our lives, i.e., never content, always striving and pushing and driven? Do we know how to live in the goodness of each moment? Today (at a prayer retreat) a friend shared with me this counter-aphorism: “The better is the enemy of the good.”

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17

spiritual optometrics

2009-01-14T09:44:00.000-08:00

A lot of leadership gurus make a big deal about having a “vision statement”. As a lead pastor, I do recognize that it’s important to have a vision for our church community. That’s why the leadership team spent a lot of time in conversation with God, the people of Grace, and each other about our vision for the next 10 years. And God gave us Dave Evans and the Veritas workshop to help us see that we are “becoming like Jesus together.”

But there’s another definition of vision. In his book “Connecting” Larry Crabb says that we need to develop vision for each person that we connect with. We need to see each other with God’s eyes and sense the possibilities that God has created for each other so that we can help each other reach for those possibilities.

As a church leader I find myself working to keep these two kinds of vision in balance. If I’m too driven by the vision for the church, I’ll lose the compassionate touch that marked Jesus’ ministry. But if I’m too wrapped up in the concerns of individuals I can lose sight of where God is taking us as a community. The tension of leadership is balancing these two kinds of vision. Too much of one or the other makes you either too driven or direction-less.

This came home to me in my men’s group last night as we discussed the issue of human trafficking. The issue is so big, but the work of liberation and healing happens one person at a time. In the presentations at Grace on Sunday about mission work done in Thailand and China it was the stories of how the Gospel touched the lives of individuals that grabbed our hearts. Yet the fact that we had two people able to engage in such work was possible because someone had a vision that resulted in a mission organization.

I guess I need spiritual bifocals. I need God’s help to see both the big picture and the close-up needs of individuals. And I need the discernment to know which needs my immediate attention.

why I'm a lousy blogger

2009-01-08T15:28:00.000-08:00

OK, I admit that I don’t make very many entries in my blog. I know some people post blog entries, not just daily, but 2 or 3 times a day (and then there’s Twittering). I considered making a New Year’s resolution to make more blog entries. But I decided not to. First, I’m a husband and a dad with kids aged 6, 8 and 10. That takes up both time and energy (and I just turned 50, which, amazingly enough, means that I don’t have more energy than I did 10 years ago).

But more importantly, I can’t blog about everything. There are things that happen in our church community that might make for juicy gossip or blog fodder, but don’t belong on a public forum like a blog. These are events that are formative in people’s lives and the way they’re handled has a lot to do with how people will be formed. They’re still in process and deserve to have that process worked out without being submitted to public judgment outside our church family. Second, I’m uncomfortable writing about things that are still in process in my own life. I guess I still want the opportunity to work out my issues in the privacy of my church family, too.

Blogs are like photo albums (or Flickr streams). I don’t want to publish a photo of someone that will be embarrassing for them later. So I may post what I find to be an interesting “nature shot”, a rumination on the state of affairs in the world, but I hesitate to make the entries too personal (for me or others). And my comments about people are like studio photos: kind of staged and artificial, but definitely not embarrassing or too revealing.

So I’m not a blogger “paparrazzi”: I’m not after the sensational candid shot that will grab attention for a few minutes at someone’s expense (including mine). Nor am I writing a public diary. But, hey, it is what it is. Happy reading.

prayer cuisine

2008-12-18T08:56:00.000-08:00

Each morning when we wake up Winnie and I say a prayer together from the family devotions in the Book of Common Prayer. We’ve done this for over a year now so it’s well-memorized. Of course, there are the occasional brain glitches that result in stumbling over a word or phrase, but generally it pretty much trips off the tongue. It’s a good way to start off the day since it’s a better prayer than I could come up with at 6:30 in the morning, especially if I’ve had to comfort a crying kid at 2 am the night before. In fact, that particular prayer has been a source of comfort and strength for me at other times of the day, and it's rich enough to be an almost inexhaustible fountain for meditation.

Prayer can be as simple as “help!” or “thanks”. If I’m asked to pray aloud without prior preparation, I usually put together a combination of riffs based on prayers I’ve heard before. This isn’t to say that a prayer composed on the spot isn’t sincere. It’s just that composing a well thought-out, meaningful prayer isn’t easy.

So I’ve come to value prayers that have had a lot of thought put into them by people who are masters of Christian spirituality and of the English language. The question is, how do I pray them? In the world of prayer cuisine, “help!” is fast food and a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer is haute cuisine (and I suppose an extemporaneous prayer is leftovers). Unfortunately, it’s easy for me to gulp down a rote prayer as if it were fast food. But if I really want to get the most out of it, a previously written prayer is meant to be savored, chewed slowly so that my soul can access its full flavor and nourishment.

thoughts on faith

2008-12-17T20:45:00.000-08:00

Today I heard someone say, “The longer we have something, the less we think we need to trust God for it.” That goes for everything: money, intelligence, health, safety, whatever. With the economy going downhill fast and many losing jobs, homes, and savings, our trust in ourselves is being severely shaken. But maybe that’s a good thing: it’s time to start trusting God again.

This is the third week of Advent. Advent is about preparation, a time of increasing our awareness of how much we need God. This morning I read a prayer from an Advent prayer calendar: “Mary put all of her trust in God without having to know why. Help us Lord to trust even when we don’t have any idea of how things will work out.” Mary reminds me that I tend to put things in the wrong order: I think “I’ll wait to do more of what God says when I’m more settled” when the best time to “practice my faith” is exactly when things are unsettled. I'm supposed to be waiting for God, not waiting to get my life in order.

I had a great conversation with the leader of my men’s group last night about stretching my faith, about doing things that I may think I don’t have enough time or money or ability to do and then trusting that God will show up. Things like tithing (giving an actual tenth of my pre-tax income) or taking time out of my busy schedule to help out at a homeless shelter or going out on a limb and volunteering to teach Sunday School or lead a growth group. He challenged me to exercise more faith.

That last thought might surprise you: “A pastor needs to learn about exercising faith?” A couple weeks ago I had a conversation with the pastor of a new church plant about the difference between leading and controlling. Maybe the difference is faith: who do I think is in charge, me or God?

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6.

Grace __________

2008-10-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

The name of our church reveals something about us: we place a high value on community, on the “together” in “becoming like Jesus together.”

I was recently reminded of a phrase I’ve used a lot in the past but haven’t mentioned much in the near past: “It’s more important that we do things together than that we get things done.” It’s not that I don’t think results are important. It’s that I think that ends are not more important than means. As I’ve said more recently, “The journey is the destination.”

It’s easy to get impatient trying to get to the destination. And I hate it when other people point out my impatience! But that’s the point of traveling together. As it says in Proverbs, “iron sharpens iron.” Conflict is a part of being together. So learning to handle conflict well is important to any group that wants to be productive. In his book “Organizing Genius”, Warren Bennis gives many examples of teams of very disparate people that have given us world-changing products.

When are we in relationship? Mostly in growth groups and ministry teams. Being gathered for Sunday worship doesn’t really count because it’s too easy to breeze in and out and not really relate to anyone personally. On a Sunday morning more relating probably goes on in the parking lot than in the sanctuary.

So in our growth groups and ministry teams do we really believe that it’s more important that we do things together than that we get things done? How well do we celebrate or play together? How well do we listen to each other? How well do we support and encourage each other? Without these elements, group Bible study becomes dry, people start looking for reasons to skip meeting together, and ministry becomes merely a time-suck.

One of my jobs as a leader in the church is to help us travel well together. My prayer is not just that each of us will find our unique place in the church community and make a contribution to the whole that is far greater than the sum of the parts. I pray that we will connect with the life-giving joy of being with God and each other.

pain and words

2008-10-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

In my through-the-Bible-in-a-year reading plan I’ve just finished Jeremiah and have started Lamentations. Jeremiah has been called “the weeping prophet” and Lamentations is his lament over the fall of Jerusalem. In my NIV Study Bible it mentions how Lamentations is used in both Jewish and Christian worship. Of course, the NIV is used mostly by American evangelicals so the idea of using a 5-chapter book of poems of lament in worship is a pretty foreign notion, which is why the practice has to be explained.

Which is too bad. If anyone can identify with the pain of losing a homeland it should be many of the Asian ethnicities that are now resident in the US. Chinese Americans called themselves “sojourners”. Japanese Americans have lost their Japanese-ness in the eyes of Japanese nationals. These are examples of how the Asian American church should be able to identify with Jeremiah and find a sympathetic voice in Lamentations. But I can’t remember a single sermon I’ve ever heard on Lamentations 2:11: “…I am in torment within, my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed…”

I find that it’s hard to imagine reading Lamentations regularly and allowing the pain that’s expressed to become my pain. I’d rather follow the American evangelical tradition of skipping to the nice parts (like 3:22-24 “…great is your faithfulness…”). I don’t want to deal with pain. I'd rather ignore it. And the Jewish notion of the word as sacred in itself is very different from modern evangelicalism’s view that what we really want is the essential meaning. We don’t have the patience to listen to or read whole books of the Bible (albeit short ones) as part of our worship. We want the bullet-point version (even Cliff’s Notes are too long) that can be put up on a PowerPoint slide. Yet the words of the Word are meant to take our time, to occupy an important part of our lives. We need to learn to read the Bible for transformation, not just information. I remember praying with a Jewish friend who would say, “Help us to understand Your words” as we discussed the Bible together. It sounded odd to me because I’m so used to thinking of the Bible as “Your Word”. But now it makes sense to me: it’s the very words that are transforming when I give them time.

I’ve grown up in evangelicalism so I appreciate the honor that’s given to study and proclamation of the Word. But I also want to learn from other Word-centered traditions. I don’t want to become just a student of the Bible. Somehow I want to allow the Word to speak into my humanity and form me and to form us as a church community.

growth: systematic or organic?

2008-10-15T15:49:00.000-07:00

At a meeting of local Covenant pastors yesterday we talked a bit about some of the latest thinking in church leadership. One person mentioned that it’s important for us to set goals so that “we can know how to make people into what we want them to become” (or words to that effect).

I know that the intention wasn’t to conceive of the church community as a factory that mechanically produces mature Christians, but it’s easy to fall into that kind of thinking. If we just define the goal and then design the program we’ll be successful.

But it’s not true that growth is simply a matter of letting whatever happens happen. One pastor mentioned John 3:8, that the Spirit is like the wind that blows wherever it wants and we can’t control it. It’s true that those born of the Spirit may be propelled by forces that aren’t always visible, but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to judge their spiritual vitality.

Jesus gave us a better gauge (kinda makes sense to see what he thinks, eh?). He said that if we pay attention to the conditions for growth we will bear fruit, even up to a hundredfold. And he clearly outlined the conditions. Check out Dale’s sermon on Luke 5 to find out what the conditions are (September 7).

So how much is under our control? And how much is up to God? Someone has said, “Pray like everything depends on God, work like everything depends on you.” In other words, we don’t know. That’s a formula for trust and humility. It’s also a formula for frustration at times. But it’s also a formula for wonder and gratitude.

internet v. incarnation

2008-10-09T21:52:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege today of hearing Os Guinness speak, a prominent evangelical Christian social critic and author. During his talk (on how the Church can maintain integrity while engaging our modern society) he related how a young person had said to him, “Why didn’t God just wait for the internet?” The topic was how to best communicate the Gospel, the Good News that is at the core of the Christian message, that God offers a relationship to us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

This brought up an interesting comparison between the internet and the Incarnation. To modern thinking, the Incarnation was terribly inefficient. The internet is much better at spreading information. But the Incarnation was not just about information. That’s why God used a human being to communicate with us. God is interested in relationship not just information. So he became a human being. That action has said so much that the full meaning of it will take eternity to unpack. You can’t boil the Gospel down to a few bullet points.

temporarily abled

2008-10-02T11:34:00.001-07:00

“All of us are only temporarily abled.” Al Hsu, an editor for InverVarsity Press and author of “Suburban Christianity” made this statement in the latest issue of Christianity Today. He was reflecting on the experience of having a son with Down syndrome.

As my fiftieth birthday approaches the phrase “temporarily abled” really hit me. For most of my life I’ve been trying to become more abled. When I was in grade school I was a runt, smallest in my class, last one chosen for sports teams, getting by on my meager charm because of a lack of physical prowess. I barely survived my junior high years at one of the roughest schools in the City, next door to a high school that had been the scene of race riots only a couple years before. Ironically I finally started to get some height when my parents (at great sacrifice) put me into a private Christian school for high school (possibly for my own survival).

But now the temporal nature of my physical abilities is catching up to me (and a lot of my friends: you know who you are!). It gets harder and harder to maintain, let alone increase, my “abled-ness”. Not that I’m giving away my elliptical trainer! We shouldn’t disregard the physical abilities that God gives us. These are gifts, and gifts are meant to be enjoyed and used well in gratitude to the Giver. But they are temporary.

We all long for the day when “this mortal shall put on immortality” and there will be no more pain or tears or sucking wind in the middle of a fast-paced basketball game. But that’s a hope that’s not yet realized and will be realized only in God’s time. While we’re stuck with the bodies we have now, let’s allow them to be a reminder of what Joan Mahler of L’Arche USA told Al Hsu: “All of us are abled in some ways and disabled in others.” One way that the world will know the love of God is by how I treat the disabled around me while I remember that I am only temporarily abled.

On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. 1 Corinthians 12:22-23