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).
Monday, March 16, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
grace for myself
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
books and music
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…?
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…?
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Ash Wednesday
“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.
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.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
images
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.
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.
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