signs

What's the most spectacular sign of God's presence that you could imagine? How would raising the dead rate? If you saw a resurrection how would you react?

In Luke 7:11-17 Jesus raises a widow's son. He does it out of compassion, which is reassuring: Jesus knows our pain. But how does the crowd react? They get it. They realize that this isn't just a parlor trick. And it's not just a valuable service provided by your friendly neighborhood Messiah ("Please form a line here to experience your own miracle."). They glorified God and said, "A great messenger from God is here." They realized that the Kingdom of God really was breaking through.

Signs should point us to God. God may give us a sign in response to a need, but the need creates the opportunity and isn't an end in itself. When I see the freeway exit sign for my street I know I'm close to home and I'm happy but I don't tell everyone about the exit sign. I look forward to being home. Jesus' signs told people that the Kingdom was nearby (Matthew 4:17, Mark 1:15-16), but he didn't want people to focus on the signs. At times he told people not to tell others about the sign. He wanted people to get home to the Kingdom and not get distracted gazing at the sign.

babies

I got to visit baby Alex yesterday, born just last Thursday. As I held him and talked to the happy but tired parents, we wondered what he would become. Afterward I wondered what God wanted him to become. What is God's vision for him? What is God's vision for Alex' parents and for me and for all of us in Grace Community?

And that begs another question: Do I trust God's vision for me? I suppose that in the eternal scheme of things I'm just starting my journey (even though I feel a lot older than that). in that sense God may see me as still an infant because there is so much for me to learn. In another sense there is so much for me to experience in each day that I should marvel at how rich each day could be. What does God envision for me in just this day?

It makes so much much sense for me to entrust myself completely to my loving Father. Even if I don't think I can trust God with my life I could try trusting him with today. In the same way I can entrust my kids and those I love to God. And I can ask God for eyes to see them and myself as he does, with his vision for our futures, starting with this day.

reading

Some people no longer read. They only work. They think that reading is something that kids do for school, for a teacher. Work is something grown-ups do to be productive members of society.

But a wise teacher knows the true value of reading. S/he requires reading because it can help us grow, opening us to worlds beyond us, giving us new horizons. Reading can do these things if we are open to it... and sometimes even when we're not. Kids are generally pretty open because they have just begun to explore the world. Good teachers know this, so they make kids read.

When we stop reading we are at risk to stop growing. Work is good (work was given by God as a gift to Adam and Eve) but it is not the only good. Humans are meant to always be growing, exploring, finding delight in new things. Growth is an evidence of life. When we stop growing we are at the same level as machines. Machines can work and be productive but they are not human. And humans are not meant to be machines.

What do we read? Words. God reveals himself as the Word. Jesus is the Word and he clarifies this further by telling us he is the Way, the Truth, and Life. The Word directs us, informs us, and energizes us.

I once had a teacher who didn't like to read. She preferred to write. When we write we participate in the act of creation. It's a good thing and a kind of work. But reading is different. It recharges our minds and opens our hearts and creates in us the soil out of which something good can germinate and grow, sometimes without all that much effort on our part. Because the one who causes the growth is God.

"The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life." (John 6:63) We should all read more.

preaching

I recently heard an interview with the writer of a very popular advice column. She is so popular that a selection of her columns has recently been published as a book. What makes her so popular is a quality that one person calls "radical empathy." She mulls over a letter for weeks, seeks to know the question behind the question, and then responds from a place of heartfelt concern and love.

When I was in seminary I made the mistake of taking a particular course as a once-a-week evening class. Although I only had to undergo this ordeal only once a week, it meant that I had to listen to 3 continuous hours of dry academic rhetoric, rather take it in one hour doses. (Not all of my professors were so dry, just this one and maybe a couple of others.)

I bring up these two incidents because they made me think about the role of the sermon in the life of the church community. Is the sermon supposed to be a theological treatise that may or may not be relevant to everyday hurts and challenges or is it supposed to be a wealth of human empathy to which the Bible may or may not be relevant? Obviously these are two extremes. But I know of many people who are willing to live in one end of the spectrum or the other. As a preacher, I'm challenged by this almost every week. What sort of sermon should I deliver? What I preach will shape our church community. We need both radical empathy and sound theology. I pray that I can connect the two well.

Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

I miss your warm smile. I miss the way you enjoyed small things. You could spot a blessing that the rest of us missed because we were too jaded by big or expensive or new. I miss how you sometimes laughed so hard you could hardly talk to tell us what was so funny. You knew that the best things in life are free. So if something cost too much it became suspect. Cheap and simple equaled good.

I wish I had talked to you more about your memories. You were full of wisdom that came from walking closely with God for many years. It was a wisdom that was hard-won, born of both devotion and conflict. The Bible was always your compass. I wish I had asked more and listened more.

I am just starting to appreciate how deeply you loved God. Everything you did was infused with God and love for God. He was the air you breathed. And when you could barely breathe he inhaled you into himself. And now you are part of the air that I breathe.

Your loving son, Steve

Hear, my son, and accept my sayings
And the years of your life will be many.
I have directed you in the way of wisdom;
I have led you in upright paths.
Prov 4:10-11

art appreciation

We have framed prints in our house that we put up because we liked them and they were painted or photographed by geniuses: Monet, Ansel Adams, Miro. But they've become decoration. We walk by them every day, but the reasons that we put them up have been forgotten.

When someone close to you dies it's like a chance to stop and look at a masterpiece again and really appreciate it. I've known my Dad all my life. I'm familiar with so many of his idiosyncrasies. But I'm seeing him in a new way now and it's changing the way that I want to live my life.

I've always known that he was focused on loving Jesus and sharing the Gospel. But now I'm seeing how these two things gave purpose to his life and changed his approach to everything. I might be focused on enjoying a restaurant's food while he would be looking for a way to talk about Jesus with the wait staff. Now that I have this time to ponder his life, I see the many people that were brought into God's Kingdom through him and the satisfaction this gave him, and I'm beginning to see the overall design and appreciate the genius of his life.

work and reflect

My Dad died a week ago. A good friend asked me recently how I was experiencing God's presence in this. I replied by saying that I was balancing work to be done with time to reflect. The work makes me feel productive and keeps me from being too melancholy, but work can also keep me from engaging in and understanding the true significance of this event. So I'm taking a break from the work to write this reflection and explore more God's presence in the situation.

My Dad's heart can be summed up in two things: loving Jesus and loving to share the Gospel. More than ever I am learning to appreciate these two passions that were at the core of his being. I'm busy making arrangements for all kinds of things, but when I stop to think about why I'm doing these things, I realize that it has to all be related to loving Jesus and sharing the Gospel.

So I mourn, but not as someone without hope. I know that I'll see my Dad again and that one day we'll have new bodies and maybe enjoy playing tennis together again. But more importantly, we'll be in the direct presence of the One who loves us most, living in a world redeemed and transformed by the grace and power expressed in our Lord's life, death and resurrection.

And so I work, as someone who looks forward to participating in that redeemed and transformed world and as someone who is learning to love others into that world. I have a long way to go before I learn to love God and others as well as my Dad did while he was here. It's a good reason to keep working and reflecting.

(You can read about my Dad at forevermissed.com/gary-wong.)