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.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
thoughts on friendship 2
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.
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
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.
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.
Monday, April 26, 2010
waiting
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.
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.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
conversing with God
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)
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)
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
about Pharisees
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.
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.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Easter faith
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!
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!
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