God's Will

Each Wednesday morning, Steve attends a -- um -- Is it a prayer group? Men's group? Study group? Maybe it defies categorization, but it is called Andrew's Brothers. Sometimes the group chooses to read a book together and discuss it in the meetings. This is great, because it adds wonderful sources to Steve's bookshelf that I then go pick up to read.

His group just finished a book by Leslie D. Weatherhead called The Will of God. From the first week they started reading it, it was on my list of books to read. I was anxiously awaiting its arrival on the bookshelf. It never made it; Steve just handed it to me when he was done with it -- fastrack. If I had known how quickly I would go through it, I would just have grabbed it from him the first week -- I read it in one day. Really good book -- go get it and read it.

The book is actually the publication of five of Weatherhead's sermons, delivered in London in 1944. You can imagine -- or maybe we can't imagine -- the congregation to which he delivered them. War weary and wondering how God fit into the devastation around them. He considered the subject of God's will to be "specially relevant to these days of loss and sorrow." I think it is just as relevant today.

It is written so well that I won't attempt to re-explain it here. Go read the book. To try to understand the will of God, Weatherhead divides the subject into three parts:

1. The intentional will of God -- What is God's intention? What is his original plan or hope? If sin and circumstances did not interfere, what would God will for us? This is God's ideal plan for us -- and we can rest assured that it is good.
2. The circumstantial will of God -- We live in a world, though, where circumstances and evil -- sin -- interfere with the original intention of God. God doesn't leave us alone in these circumstances. His will works in particular circumstances, as well.
3. The ultimate will of God -- "God's final realization of his purposes" -- God will not be defeated, and his ultimate will for us -- redemption and reunification with God -- will happen. No circumstance can defeat his ultimate will.

As I read this, I thought about our younger son, J. When J was born, he suffered an injury to his right shoulder -- a brachial plexus injury. There is a bundle of nerves in the shoulder which includes those nerves which feed into the arm. During a brachial plexus birth injury, those nerves are stretched. If you try to touch your left ear to your left shoulder, you can feel the stretching in your right shoulder. This is how it happens. Either the casing around the nerves or the nerves themselves are torn. In addition, in J's case, one of the heads of a section of bicep in his arm was torn loose from it attachment to the shoulder. Luckily, infants -- tiny little cell factories -- have the capacity to repair some of this damage, and much of the damage done by J's injury did heal. Some did not, and he is left with limited mobility above his head and outward from his right side.

Was this the will of God? I don't need Weatherhead's book to tell me that it was not.

What was God's intentional will for J? I believe that it was that he would be a healthy, happy child, loved by his family and friends. I believe that God's intentional will is that J will grow into his faith, into his future, knowing the love of God. I believe that God wants J to be whole, in body, mind and spirit.

What was God's circumstantial will for J? The injury happened. It wasn't God's will, but it did happen. How does God fit into that occurrence?

• It takes only 5 minutes for a baby's brain to go from healthy to permanently damaged during birth. Five minutes. J was on a countdown. This was not a child that cried at birth -- he wasn't breathing -- he was purple. His at birth APGAR score was 3 (out of 10). God put people in that room that were well trained and able to respond to this emergency, and J suffered no brain injury at all.
• After his birth, his arm didn't move for six weeks. Nothing. When he was seven weeks old, we celebrated that he could shrug his shoulder -- just a little. God sent us to an occupational therapist who fell in love with our child. She worked with him, helping him to heal. She was a blessing.

What is God's ultimate will for J? It is the same as his intentional will, and it is coming to pass. J is whole, in body, mind and spirit. His arm does have limited movement, but it in no way defines who he is. He is a healthy, happy child, who is loved by his family and friends. He is growing in his faith and into his future. Challenges have presented themselves because of the birth injury, but they have been met. If J wants to do something, even if it is a challenge, he finds a way to do it. I often have to stop myself from expressing doubt or from trying to help. He doesn't need my help -- he does it on his own. God has given him a deep well of stubbornness which is serving him well in his circumstances. At times, he may feel the limitation, but, ultimately, the limitation has not shaped him.

God is good. All the time.

Tennis: G/M 8 : Fatima 6 --> This match was a testament to G's determination. I am so proud of him for not giving up. G and M were behind throughout much of the match. At one point, he looked at me sitting in the bleachers, and mouthed, "We're going to win this match." They came from behind, only through determination, and won. Go, G and M!

Logos - Colossians 1:1-14

This post might be a little bit long, and it might seem as if it is actually two posts, combined, but I have a point, and all will be tied together at the end, I hope.

This is Logos, which means that I write about one of the lectionary readings -- each Monday in the summer. Today will be centered on Colossians 1:1-14. I'm taking it bit by bit, and there will be a unifying theme to my comments at the end, so just stick with me.

Verses 1 and 2: Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. --> I really like how Paul speaks so often of grace. Plus, do you see the greeting of peace? Remember the lectionary reading from yesterday? The sending of the 70? Jesus tells them to go into people's homes and show them peace. Tell them of the presence of God.

Verse 3 and 4: In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, --> Pray. Paul is praying for them, and he wants them to know it. It is a blessing to know that someone is lifting you to God in concern and prayer.

Verses 5 and 6a: because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you. --> Learn. Paul is praising them because they have been open to the word of God and have learned of him. It is a task we should never abandon. The more we know of God, in our hearts; the higher our hope will be. "The gospel that has come to you." Gospel = truth. When we learn of the truth, it will change us.

Verse 6b: Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. Seek --> Listen to that verse again, this time from The Message: From the very first day you heard and recognized the truth of what God is doing, you've been hungry for more. As we learn the truth -- as the gospel comes to us -- we become seekers. I love the phrase, "hungry for more."

Verses 7 and 8: This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit. Teach --> Paul is praising the one who brought the Colossians this message -- their teacher. Sometimes we think of teaching as standing in front of a class, teaching, in a formal sense of the word. We all teach, in so many different ways. By our acts, our presence, our love and sometimes even our words. We are all called to teach.

Verses 9 - 11: For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, Again, Pray --> It must be important for the Colossians to know of Paul's prayers because he's telling them about his prayers, once again. Twice in 9 verses. "We have not ceased praying for you..."

Verse 10: A repeat from above, it's the "so that" of Paul's prayer: so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. Act --> Paul is praying that they will be so filled with God, that they will act -- they will bear fruit for God in their good work. We've heard that faith without works is dead. It is a sign of death, if we are not fruitful. May we be so filled with God's grace and love that action is something that we cannot not do.

Verses 12-14: while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Act, again, except this time it is God's action. God's work in the Colossians and in us. And we should be thankful for it.

One of our associate pastors yesterday preached about the Commissioning of the 70. She told a story, at the end of her sermon, about a man who is retired. Once he retired, he took up woodworking, and he makes crosses out of scrap wood. He transforms scraps, which by definition have no real purpose, into crosses. I like that image. Don't we all feel like scraps sometimes? Useless for God? And yet he transforms us into Christians -- Children of God.

She gave each of us one of his crosses, pictured here. She told us to:
Go and do
Go and serve
Go and love.
Go back and take a look at the words I used when I was discussing the Colossians passage, but allow me to reorder them: Seek, Pray, Learn, Act, Teach. SPLAT. On Wednesday, three other youth leaders, and I, plus five youth will be traveling to Greensboro to attend the Methodist quadrennial youth event. This year the theme is SPLAT. As we Go, I'll carry this cross with me. I'll try to report back on the blog what God is teaching us, for I fully expect to find Him there.

Do you know why? There's a song on a CD that a friend gave my husband and me a couple of weeks ago. The song is Didn't it Rain by the Five Blind Boys of Alabama. It starts out with the spoken phrase, "I didn't come here looking for Jesus; I brought him along with me." God will be at SPLAT, because all of us are bringing him along with us.

It's gonna rain, rain, rain! SPLAT.

Images: No, the first one is not mine -- it's from the internet somewere, but now I've forgotten where. The second image is my cross from Suzanne.

Open My Eyes, part 5

The following post is the fifth in a series of posts based on a sermon I preached in October.

The definition of stewardship in echoed in verse 9 of what I read to you from Philippians, “Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.” Now, this is Paul talking, and he’s telling them to continue to live a life that exemplifies what he has taught them, but he has taught them about Jesus, so if you imagine that Jesus is saying it, it tells you what stewardship is.

We are disciples - that means we walk behind our teacher, Jesus, and we learn from Jesus who God is – we see God most clearly in Jesus – and we learn from Jesus how we should live our lives. We are disciples – or students – of a master.  Stewardship follows from that. Stewardship is the “keep on doing the things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.”  Stewardship is the doing – its living the life.  From Christ we learn what God is like, and from Christ we learn how to live into the image in which we were created.  It’s not enough to know who God is; we have to live the way God calls us to live. We have to be disciples to learn; and we have to be stewards to live the life.

So what is it that we learn from Jesus about God? What do we know about God?

You know the answer to that - it's so popular that it's on t-shirts and key chains. God so loved the world that he gave…..

God gives. God gives love, God gives presence, God gives gifts, grace, forgiveness. God gave us the world; God gave us life. God gave us God's son. God is generous.

And in Genesis, we learn that we were created in God's image. So not only do we learn what we should do from Jesus, but we also learn who we are from Jesus. We are beloved children created in the image of God. Amazing, isn't it? Created in the image of the one who created the universe. Who set the stars in motion and started our hearts beating. We are not only called to be like God; we are created to be like God. Extravagantly generous.

How do we become extravagantly generous? How do we live into that image of God? It’s starts with gratitude. It starts with seeing what we have been given. It starts with recognizing the abundance we have as children of God and as a church.

Once we see it – once we recognize it – THEN nothing will stop us from stewardship – living the generous life God has called us to live, living a life that is being transformed into God’s image.  But we have to see the abundance of what we have been given. Instead of living a life blinded by fear so that all we see and live is scarcity.

Beloved, once we see all in our lives that is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent and worthy of praise – once we recognize the abundance of gifts we have been given by God, then we will see the presence of God in our lives – we will see the abundance of God’s presence around us – we will see that our cup overflows.

Nothing will stop of us from responding to God’s gifts with our own generosity. Nothing will stop us from being generous with our time, our gifts, our prayers, our service and our witness. We will not be afraid; we will be generous; we will be joyous. We will have moved steps closer - though God's sanctifying grace - of living into the image in which we were created. And when we do that – and when we, the church, do that – God will transform the world through us.

I Have Heard You Calling in the Night, Part 4

Heard You Calling, continued...

We don’t want to read the next part of the scripture. In this passage, Herod orders the death of the children in Bethlehem, because he is afraid of losing power to a new king.  This is not out of character for Herod. William Barclay says, in his commentary, “Herod was a past master in the art of assassination. He had no sooner come to the throne that he began by annihilating the Sanhedrin, the supreme court of the Jews Later he slaughtered 300 court officers out of hand. Later still he murdered his wife Mariamne, and her mother Alexandra, his eldest son Antipater, and two other sons, Alexander and Aristobulus. And in the hour of his death he arranged for the slaughter of the notable men of Jerusalem. So ordering the death of 20 or 30 young boys – nothing new for Herod.  What does this horrible act say to us?

Horrible things happen in this world.  Horrible, terrible things, that we cannot understand. We are not protected from them, and we will experience the pain of suffering and grief. We may not, thankfully, experience what the parents of these children did, but loss will come to us.

In 1944, Methodist minister, Rev. Leslie Weatherhead, delivered 5 sermons to his congregation in London. Their city was under constant siege – they were seeing death and destruction all around them – including of their church building, City Temple.  Weatherhead’s sermon series during this time was later published as a book called The Will of God. I highly recommend it.   In these sermons, he speaks about God’s will for his people, and how it is accomplished.

He suggestions God’s will can be seen in three parts:

1. God’s Intentional Will – These are the desires of God’s heart for us, His ideal plan, flowing out of His goodness.
2. God’s Permissive Will – This is what God will accept, given our choices, good or bad, in particular circumstances, so as to not limit the free will He has given us. 
3. God’s Ultimate Will – This is how God achieves His ends, given man’s choices, be they good or bad. He works all things together for the good of those He called, who love Him.

Too often, for me, I hear people say, when suffering happens, that it was God’s will.  I don’t believe that. I believe God’s will for us flows out of goodness. Was it God’s will that Herod murder these children? No. Emphatically, no. God has given us free will, and accepts our choices. And yet, there is, thankfully, God’s ultimate will – and God’s ultimate will for us is good, and it will be accomplished, in spite of what we do.

God sent Joseph and Mary to Egypt to protect Jesus. So that the world transforming Christ could live to accomplish God’s ultimate will.  In the meantime, God is present with us – in the good and in the bad. God stays with us, even through our suffering.  God was with the refugees – Joseph’s family, and God was with the parents in Bethlehem, and we can rest assured that God is with us, and remains with us.

Roman 12 Random Thoughts

Present yourself as a living sacrifice – remembering Dennis’ comments about a living sacrifice at the last team meeting. Brings to mind resurrection, complete commitment, surrender of self.

A sacrifice holy and acceptable to God – God must have done this; I am not on my own holy or acceptable to God.

A living sacrifice, made holy and acceptable to God – By God, the work of God. Thanks be to God.

Renewed and transformed minds – it follows, then, that this is also a work of God. 

A transformed mind -- A change in the way we think.  Through the work of God, we start to think with the mind of God.  The way we think and react, respond, is more in line with God's leading.

Present yourself – but also a work of my own, requiring my participation.

So that you may discern what is the will of God – Transformed by God, surrendered to God, I am able to be in relationship with God.

The will of God – good, and acceptable and perfect. Do I always think of it that way?

Not to think of yourselves more highly than you ought – Listen.

Each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned – even faith, a gift from God.

measure of faith- ??Not sure what this means.

We are members, one of another – interesting to me. Not just me, a member of the Body of Christ, linked to Christ, together with others, but me, a member of one another. More than a part of something larger, but a part of each other?

Marks of a True Christian:

• Genuine love
• Abhorrence for evil
• Maintain what is good – hold fast to it
• Love one another with mutual affection – outstretched arms
• Outdo one another in showing honor – honor each other, not in return, but in response to God
• Zealous
• Ardent in spirit – on fire with the spirit – reminds me of Pentecost
• Serve the Lord – perhaps this is not a characteristic all its own, but is a motivation for the rest. When you do this, you are serving the Lord
• Rejoice in hope – so often we rejoice in cynicism
• Patient in suffering – rejoicing in hope would enable patience in suffering, I would think.
• Persevere in prayer – without ceasing. Keep talking to God
• Contribute to the needs of the saints – love
• Extend hospitality to strangers – love all
• Bless those who persecute you – reminds me of praying for my enemies – asking God to keep their best interests at heart.
• Rejoice with those who rejoice – No room for envy there
• Weep with those who weep – clear vision to the needs of others, to the hurts and grief of others
• Live in harmony with one another – singing different notes that make music, avoiding discordant notes
• Do not be haughty – How often do I need to hear these words?
• Do not claim to be wiser than you – And these?
• Take thought for what is noble in the sight of all – If there is anything good, think on these things....
• Vengeance is mine, I will repay – Trust God in this.
• In doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads – a jarring and different ending to the chapter than I would have expected.

Punishment as Reconciliation?

I ran across a blog post by Kim Fabricius on the blog Faith and Theology. The post is called Ten propositions on penal substitution, and I thought she raised some interesting points. First, a couple of definitions:

penal substitution -- (Just remember, I have no idea what I'm talking about) -- If substitution means "taking the place of" and penal conveys the idea of retributive justice, then penal substitution would imply that God accepts us because our punishment for our sins was diverted onto Christ -- Christ's crucifixion was our punishment, and that is how we are justified in front of God.

raised some interesting points -- defined as points with which Kim (me) agrees

I like the author of the post's idea that we make a mistake if we assume that the cross was divine punishment (emphasis mine). To quote her post, we need to eliminate the idea that "Jesus died to placate or appease God, or to secure a change in God’s attitude, or to settle a score or balance the books – and, indeed, the notion that the cross is itself a divine punishment. Rather than drive such a wedge a between God and Jesus, the cross expresses their unity and mutual love."

She then goes on to say that it wasn't God's desire for His son to be crucified -- in other words, He didn't arrange it; we did. It was his desire for His son to become human, thus placing Jesus in the situation where he was vulnerable to the effects of our sin.

Kim Fabricius then goes on to explain the word sacrifice a little. Think of sacrifice in the Old Testament -- it was never a punishment for the animal being sacrificed. It was was gift used to bring the children of God closer to God. I like her word for it -- restorative. She says it is essential to see it as a means to a "transformation of a relationship." And then this quote, "Substitution is grace” (Gunton). And grace, not sin, runs the show." I love that -- "And grace, not sin, runs the show!"

Steve is reading a book called The Will of God by Leslie D. Weatherhead for his Wednesday morning men's group. As he was reading Tuesday night, he said, "Listen to this -- you'll love this." He read me a story from the book about a man's child dying from cholera, and how the man believed it to be the will of God. The last line of the story stuck with me. "Surely we cannot identify as the will of God something for which a man would be locked up in jail, or put in a criminal lunatic asylum." I've never thought of it that way, but I find it to be very "interesting" -- remember "interesting" means that it is a point with which I find myself to be in agreement.

If we believe in the trinity, and if we believe that Jesus is our best example of what God is like, then we have to ask ourselves if the image of God as a God who would insist on His son's violent and horrible death as a punishment matches what we know about Jesus. If Jesus is the mirror of God -- our best mirror to understand God -- then if we see Jesus as loving, non-violent, and merciful, then we have to think that God has the same qualities. To quote Kim's post once again, "Spin it as retributive justice all you like, I am with James Alison: “Nothing that is dependent on vengeance can be called reconciliation.”

What do I know? I know "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16). While I do enjoy thinking about questions such as this, and I think we are called to use our brains to explore those things that we do not understand, I know that I will never really understand it all. Neither will anybody else, and when any of are convinced that they know all the answers, we can rest assured that they do not. And I am comforted by the idea that I don't need to.

God's got this one covered.

The Beatitudes -- A Summary

Each Tuesday (except for one) since September 5, I've taken one of the Beatitudes and used it as the theme of a post. I've been thinking for the past week that I needed a final post -- kind of a summary of what I've discovered. On Monday evening, I printed all nine posts out, and read through them as a whole, trying to find a unifying theme for this last post. No such luck. I'm not entirely convinced that I did a very good job with them at all.

Ironically, tomorrow the chapter that is to be discussed in the class that JtM and I are teaching is one concerning the Beatitudes. While I was contemplating my posts, I was also rereading the chapter in The Jesus I Never Knew. Yancey thinks that there are three facets of meaning to the beatitudes. The first time I read the chapter, a few weeks ago, I finished it with a feeling of confusion. As I read it today, knowing that we were teaching it tomorrow, I outlined his thoughts and tried to mesh them with mine. This will have to serve as my summary for this series:

1. Dangling promises -- Jesus knows what is to come -- what the kingdom of heaven will be like in its fullness. We live in the kingdom now -- we are striving to make it come into being here, but Jesus has seen the goal -- the end product. He is telling us, especially those of us who are suffering, that there are better times ahead. We live in Saturday, but Sunday's coming! I like CS Lewis' quote, "if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak." Perhaps in Jesus' eyes, we are all the unfortunate -- all the suffering, and he is telling us that we should turn our eyes to the future, when the suffering will end. If we knew that, if we believed that, then perhaps we would devote ourselves more completely to making the kingdom come now, here, where we are -- especially those of us who have the means. Another good quote, "To believe in future rewards is to believe that the long arm of the Lord bends toward justice, to believe that one day the proud will be overthrown and the humble raised up and the hungry filled with good things." To go back to Weatherhead's description of the ultimate will of God, then perhaps Jesus is describing God's ultimate will -- what will come, even though his intentional will is not a reality.
2. The Great Reversal -- Does God have a preferential love for the poor? That statement goes against the idea that we are all children of God -- loved and cherished by him. Perhaps the best way to see it is that those who are poor -- whether in material possessions, family, spirit, or in any other way -- are in a position that makes it easier to reach for and to accept God's grace. "Poor people find themselves in a posture that befits the grace of God. In their (in our, when we are poor, in any way) state of neediness, dependence and dissatisfaction with life, they may welcome God's free gift of love." He gooes on to say, "Human beings do not readily admit desperation. When they do, the kingdom of heaven draws near."
3. Psychological Reality -- "The Beatitudes reveal that what succeeds in the kingdom of heaven also benefits us most in this life here and now." If the beatitudes are "dangling promises" of what life will be like the kingdom of heaven, then they are also a description of the results of losing one's life -- and gaining it back -- here and now. If "dangling promises" are a description of the result of God's ultimate will, then the beatitudes are also a description of how God will work through us, if we allow him, to bring about his will. In the here and now, living a life of purity and mercy, hungering for righteousness, taking a stand for justice, and by focusing on God instead of ourselves, can bring a life of grace -- blessings -- joy. It is a reversal of what society tell us, but Jesus is trying to tell us that in this way lies God. He isn't waiting for us only at the end of the road, but he is also standing at the beginning of the path, hoping to walk with us along the way.

I walk away from this with no real confidence that I've come to understand what the Beatitudes mean, but perhaps with a little bit more understanding of what they don't mean, and an inkling, I hope, of their depth of meaning.

List of Links:
Beatitudes
Blessed are the Poor in Spirit
Blessed are those Who Mourn
Blessed are the Meek
Hungering for Righteousness
Blessed are those Who Care
Blessed are the Pure in Heart
Blessed are the Peacemakers
Blessed are the Persecuted

Rule of Life

I'm getting close to finishing John Ortbert's book The Life You've Always Wanted. I haven't had much time to read lately, but perhaps today I'’ll get to the end (one more chapter).

The second to last chapter is called Life with a Well-ordered Heart: Developing Your Own Rule of Life. Ortberg defines a "well-ordered heart" through Augustine's words: To have a well-ordered heart is to love the right thing, to the right degree, in the right way with the right kind of love. It is to be transformed -- it is not that we "are not only increasingly free from sin, but also increasingly free from the desire to sin." He then goes on to say that we need a plan to reach a well-ordered heart. He calls this a "rule of life." This is not a set of laws, but is instead a set of something which is done regularly. A plan.

Ortberg gives a strategy for transformation which involves asking ourselves a set of questions for the develoment of a "rhythm of living" that will draw us closer to God. I liked the questions, but as I was reading them, I thought that, in addition to being questions that we should ask ourselves in our development of a rule of life, that they are questions that we as a church should be asking of the Body of Christ of which we are a member:

I've paraphrased the questions so that they will be applicable to church life, but I hope I've left Ortberg's intention intact.

How and when will we pray as a church? Do we pray as a body of Christ? I don't specifically mean the morning prayer in the Sunday worship service. I think we need to examine the prayer life of our churches. Do we lift up the idea of prayer as important? As a church, do we pray about what we need to do, how we need to do it? Do we ask God, as a church, to be involved and present in his house? One church I visited has a prayer table in the sanctuary. As the acolyte came in to light the altar candles, he stopped at this table, and lit the candle that was placed there as well. It brought light to their prayer effort; it brought their prayer effort to light. Do we pray for the programs in our church? Do we prayer for our members? Do we pray for our pastors? Do we pray for our children? Are we communicating with God at all as a Body of Christ?

How will the church handle money in a way that draws us closer to God? One way to determine the priorities of a church is to look at its budget. If we are serious about what we are doing as a Body of Christ, then the way we plan to spend God's money should reflect our perceptions of how God wants us to be at work in the world. Our spending plan for God's offerings and gifts should be guided by His vision for His church. The church's budget should be a tool of ministry -- one which enables the Body of Christ to be doing God's work in the world. Whose priorities are reflected in the church's budget?

How can we approach work in a way that will help Christ be formed in the members of the church? If our mission is to go forth and make disciples of Jesus, then how is it that what we DO as a church makes that happen? The Director of Leadership Formation and Spiritual Support of our Annual Conference, JF Lacaria, wrote a column for the November issue of the WVUM newspaper in which he explains that the phrase "so that..." will make fruitful change in the ministry of God's church. What we do as a church -- our work, our actions -- should be done with an eye to the "so that...." For example, our church has a Thursday evening service with a meal so that the homeless and marginalized in our neighborhood will be fed, both body and spirit. What we DO should be in accordance with the vision God has for His church -- so that Christ will be formed in our members.

How are we involved in Christian Community (such as corporate worship, fellowship and confession)? I see many ways in which we could examine this question as a church, but the one which first comes to mind is whether we are CONNECTED as a Body of Christ. Does our worship create a relationship with God for our members? Are our members connected to each other through fellowship? Do we hold the Body of Christ accountable to God? Does the church act in such as way that it is evident that we love God and that we love each other? Do we communicate with each other? Do we strive to forgive each other, enable each other, support each other. Are we a Body of Christ at all?

How can the church fill its daily tasks with a sense of the presence of God? If we are a Body of Christ, then how is it that our daily life as a church reflects Christ to other people? I think this particular question calls us to examine the details of our life as a church -- the "small stuff" (which so often is the building blocks of the "big stuff"). How can people tell, just by watching us, that God is with us -- that we even care what He has to say or that we are willing at all to humble ourselves as a church to his will? Are we welcoming, even in small ways, even to those who are different than ourselves? Do our steps through life as a church -- one by one -- carry us to the destination that God intends? Is our church life filled with words of gratitude or are we colder than that? Do we see our daily tasks through the eye of scarcity or the eye of abundance?

What is our church's rule of life? If we summarize these questions, then to approach a closer relationship with God, we need plan to pray, incorporate God's priorities into our budget so that we plan to spend His money the way he intends, order our activities so that each thing we do will be an instrument of God for our transformation as a church, strive to be connected as a Body of Christ, to God and to each other, and incorporate God into each detail of our church life.

Why would we do this?

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:17)

Note: Think about G today -- it's the school band concert tonight, and he's playing his first solo.

Luke 1:10-20 - Pattern

I taught a Sunday school lesson during the first week of Advent that I based on the first chapter of the book, "Light of the World: the Meaning of Memory" by Amy-Jill Levine.  I'm going to use parts of that lesson for my next three blog posts.  This is based on Luke 1:10-20.  I'll post the passage here (but not on the next few posts:

Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside.  Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense.  When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him.  But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.  You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth,  for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit.  He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.  With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”  Zechariah said to the angel, “How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.”  The angel replied, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.”

There are many times in the Bible when we see pattern.  The fact that the author is  writing the story to a particular pattern communicates something to us. For example, when a  woman is at a well in the Bible, a pattern starts.    Do you see a familiar pattern in this announcement and what has led up to it?   It is a pattern of a barren woman, childless, promised children to come.  Where else do you see it in the Bible?  You may recognize it from the Abraham and Sarah story, the Rebekah and Isaac story, the story of Samson’s parents, and the story Samuel’s mother Hannah.

What are the components of the announcement pattern?

• Barren couple without hope for children
• There is an announcement of a coming child – promise of God
• What about the child who is born?  Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Samson, Samuel – all part of  God’s story and work to come.

So, Luke is saying, “here we go again – another great one is about to be born.  See it? You  recognize it.

Compare this to the Annunciation – the announcement to Mary of the birth of Jesus.  How is it  different?  Mary is not barren; she is unmarried.  What does it say about the child to come that “the Holy Spirit  will come upon you, and he power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the  child to be born will be hold; he will be called Son of God.”

Luke is telling us using the same pattern that a great one is to be born, but this one (because of the different  we see in the pattern, we can recognize it) – this one will be even greater.

3. Doubt.  Zechariah expressed doubt when Gabriel finished his announcement.  “How will I know  that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.”  The angel replied “I am  Gabriel.  I stand in the presence of God, and I have bene sent to speak to you and to bring you  this good news. But now, because you did not believe my word, which will be fulfilled in their  time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.”

Question:  what do you think about this passage?

Is Zechariah being punished for doubt? Is doubt a sin?  Note that Mary asked almost the same  question.

Levine writes, “I imagine that at this point, words failed Zechariah.  He was terrified and  traumatized.  Everything for which he had prayed will come to pass, but he is stuck between  belief and doubt.  What at this point can he say?

Question:  What is the role of silence in our relationship with God?

Question:  Are there times when you allow for silence intentionally?

The tale of two trees

I was teaching class on Wednesday, and we were discussing the idea that one of the important steps in recognizing that God is close is believing that he is – opening our minds to the possibility that he is walking with us. We will not recognize him if we do not have faith that he will be there.

I borrowed a story from JtM as an illustration. JtM was leaving the house one day. He backed out of the garage, shut the garage door and had to wait while something mechanical happened with the door. This unwanted delay lasted just a minute or two, and then he was on his way. On the main road, as he was driving, a tree branch fell and crashed into the road, just in front of his car. If he had not been delayed, his car would have been struck by the branch.

God involved? My point in telling the story was that we can believe that God was involved. We can make that choice.

At the end of this story, an older gentleman in class said, “But what about the opposite of that?" He told us about a young woman in Florida who had been walking down the street on a clear, bright day. A tree fell over, and crushed her to death. They didn’t even know she was missing until they were cleaning up the tree and found her. Why didn’t God stop that from happening? Did he make it happen for some reason of his own?

I have no good answer. I stumbled through the discussion in class, and I’m still thinking about it.

Is God involved in life? Does life just happen, and he lets it?

My husband drove home from training yesterday. I prayed for his safe travel. I have friends flying home from a conference today (JtM and MT), and I pray for their safe flight. My mom is having surgery on Tuesday and is suffering from high blood pressure. I pray for her healing. I pray that my son will be safe traveling to his band competitian today, and I prayed that I would make it home from work and that my aunt who has lung disease will live a long and happy life.

Does God answer those kinds of prayers? Only sometimes? Never? Is it all just chance?

It’s a question as old as Job, and I don’t pretend in any way, shape or form to have the answer. There are, however, a few things that I know.

• God loves me (and you, too). He cannot NOT love. It is his nature. It is his driving force. He doesn’t just love his creation – humanity. He loves ME with an unending, unimaginable love. And you.
• He is trustworthy. I will not believe that he is guilty of doing something which I would call horrible sin in someone else. I do not believe – will not believe – that he would drop a tree on a young woman and kill her. It would be contrary to his nature.
• He has given us freedom of choice. I was listening to a sermon by Louie Giglio, in which he said, “God gives us freedom of choice, but he is always in control.” Think of the cross. Men chose to kill the son of God. Horrible. And yet God brought the most amazing and wonderful act of love into the world through this horrible choice that men made.
• God understands what suffering is like. He watched his son die on a cross, and he didn’t stop it. He knows.
• We are made in the image of God. When a mother loses her child and feels the horrible pain of it, God understands. He not only understands, but he is feeling the same pain. She is not alone in her pain; God grieves with her. Remember, he loves us with unimaginable love, and he grieves when bad things happen to us.

I still don’t have an answer, but this is what I believe – this is what I think. What I wanted to say in class, but didn’t, is that sh*t happens. Bad things do happen in the world. I think we make a mistake when we believe that God engineers evil. I think that we try to “sugarcoat” bad things by telling people that the horrible event which just occurred in their lives is the will of God, as if that makes it less horrible. I think we make a mistake when we don’t trust the love that God has for us enough to know that he would not do that which we would condemn someone else for doing. (That’s Weatherhead, The Will of God, and everyone should read that book.)
He loves us, and he grieves when we hurt, he aches with our pain and he is doing everything that can be done to rescue us from sin. He has not abandoned us in this world; his grip is unbreakable. He understands it when we are angry, when we hurt, when we doubt, when we cry and suffer, because he made us in his own image, and he has felt all of those reactions. It’s even OK if that anger is directed at him. He “gets” it.

I continue to pray for safe travels, for healing, for help because God has told me to do that. Is it good and right for me to believe that the JtM’s garage door was delayed so that he wouldn’t be hit by a branch? Yes. What about the woman in Florida, killed by a tree? Bad things happen. Do I have the answer to that contradiction? No. I leave it to God. He is God, and I am not. I will trust him enough to live with the unanswerable questions.

When you come to the end of Job, that was Job’s answer from God.

Images: Sky at VA on Friday morning

If You Love Me, Part III

Continued from yesterday

God has acted and provided for us an advocate, a comforter, a helper – he has placed himself beside us during time or trouble or need.  The Bible is full of images that echo this action of love.  Think back to the time when God bans Adam and Eve from the Garden.  Before they leave, he makes them clothes.  When Jacob has left home and is headed to Haran, he dreams about a ladder reaching toward heaven.  Angels were moving up and down the ladder, but God was standing beside Jacob, on the ground.  When Moses tries to argue his way out of going back to Egypt, God is right there with him, countering each argument, but never giving up on him.  I hope you have experienced that kind of presence of God.  I hope you have felt God standing with you in time of trouble or need.

Knowing the impossibility of the task, and out of his great love for us, God has acted, and calls the Holy Spirit to be with us – grace to equip us for the task.
Jesus goes on to say, “In a little while the world will no longer see me but you will see me, because I live, you also will live.  On that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me, and I in you.” 

God, through the Holy Spirit, will abide in us and we will abide in him.  Abide is one of those words that sound like we ought to understand it, but sometimes leaves us a little confused.  What does it mean to abide?  What does it mean that the spirit abides in us and we in him?

A pastor explained this to me once using a bowl of water and a sponge.  The sponge (representing us) before it enters the water, is hard and dry.  Place it in the bowl of water, and it absorbs the water (representing the spirit).  The water fills it.  The water is in the sponge.  The water abides in it.  In addition, the sponge is in the water.  The sponge abides in the water. 

The point is that the nature of this active love between us and God is that we are in relationship with the creator of the universe.  We can see God and know God.  We can hear the leading of God and act upon it, because God is with us, in the most connected sense.  Perhaps the impossible task of obedience is made more possible through God’s grace in sending us his spirit because we are now connected to him.

Because of that relationship, we know that God is trustworthy.  We know that we are not alone, and we know where God is leading us.  We may not always know our destination, but we know that God knows where he is leading us.  We love him enough to understand the nature of love.  We trust him enough to be obedient.

I was privileged to hear a young man speak about what he hoped would be his future relationship to God.  He compared it to the story of the Walk to Emmaus.  Jesus is walking the road with two believers who have witnessed his death and yet do not yet know of his resurrection.  They know him but they do not recognize him.  The young man said that he hoped that in the future, he would act in such a way that those who knew him would not recognize him, but would only see Jesus in his actions.

Is your love of God evident in your obedience to him?  Is your love of God an active love that spills over into love of your neighbor?  Can others see the nature of love and the nature of God through you?

Are you so obedient to God that you would jump into the deep hole with your friend, and do you trust God enough to know that he jumps in with you? 

Failure of Imagination

I shared the following devotional at our Foundation Academy of Faith and Generosity.

On January 27, 1967, three astronauts, whose names were Gus Grishom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, were in the cabin of Apollo 1, conducting a launch rehearsal test for the flight.  The spacecraft was pressurized with 100% oxygen as the crew went through a full simulation of countdown and launch. The test ran for 5 ½ hours, and the entire contents of the craft were saturated with oxygen.  Just after 6:31 that evening, electricity arced in some wiring below their feet, and a fire started.  Within 10 seconds, the spacecraft was filled with fire.  All three astronauts died.

Frank Borman, who was a veteran of the Gemini program, testified to the congressional committee investigating the accident.  He said, “We did not think, and this is a failing on my part, and on everyone associated with us; we did not recognize the fact that we had three essentials, an ignition source, extensive fuel, and of course, we knew we had oxygen.” No one had considered the possibility of fire on the ground – only in space.  No one considered the preflight rehearsal to be a hazardous test.  Borman said it was a “failure of imagination.”

Let’s go back to where we started.  Think back to the rich young ruler who walked away from Jesus, grieving.  He was failing to imagine how anything could be more satisfying to him than his riches. He was failing to imagine how different – how abundant – his life could be if he let go of what he valued the most.  He failed to imagine God at work in his life. 

We are made in the image of God. Our God is the God who created the universe by speaking it into existence. We have that gift. A potter can look at a lump of clay and imagine the finished product. As parents, we look at our children and can imagine what they will be as adults (most days, anyway). A cook can look at flour, sugar and eggs and imagine what the cake will taste like. The gift of imagination is a wonderful tool that we too often fail to use.

Do we ever look at our churches and imagine what they could become if we allowed God to enter into the discussion? So many people want us to be the church that we were fifty years ago. Do we ever imagine that we can be more than "just" the church that we were? Do we ever imagine what wonderful plans God has in mind for us?

Do you ever look at yourself and feel too small for the task that God has set before you? Do you ever say to yourself that you are "just" a church member, "just" an unequipped lay member, “just” a new graduate from seminary, or “just” a pastor? Do you ever look at a problem and think that it is too big for someone who is "just" one person to solve? I know I do.

Like NASA, we might fail to recognize the building blocks we have – the ingenuity of the leaders God has provided – all of you, and your colleagues in ministry. We fail to remember that we are made in the image of God – imagined into being by God – gifted with creativity and spiritual gifts for the building of the Church.  We forget that the people in our church have been called to God’s service – and that they are trying to hear that call.  And we fail to imagine how great and powerful God is – and that God can do even the unimaginable.

And yet, God calls us beyond the "just" of who we think we are. God calls us to be who he imagines that we can become. God calls the church to be the church of God’s imagination. God calls us to believe that we are more than "just" who we think we are; God calls us to have the faith to believe that we are who God has created us to be.

Once we can do that, we will begin to see that this world is not what God plans for it to be. Once we can see with God's eyes, and believe in what God sees, then we will begin to understand that God is here, God is now, and all around us is the kingdom of God.

“…if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’”

Can you imagine it?

Drumbeat of Joy, Part 4

Completely the posts of the sermon from this week

Think of the world today.  We are divided in more ways than I think are imaginable.  We are divided by politics, by faith beliefs. There are those of us who have money and power, and there are those of us who have nothing.  There are those of us who have nothing to wear, no job, no hope. In West Virginia, 1 in 7 people struggle with hunger. 20% of West Virginia children are hungry.  Approximately 20% of adults in West Virginia cannot read above the fourth grade reading level. 

We are at the epicenter of the opioid crisis.  I spoke to one gentleman I know whose daughter is fighting against drug addiction.  Her struggle was so deep and so real to him that he said that drugs were the devil – evil surrounded her.  Knowing him, it was the last thing I expected to hear him say, but he was completely serious.

Setting that aside, you and I both know people who are struggling with illness, grief, despair.  We live in times that are dark for many.  Where is God in this?

In 1944, a Methodist minister in London, Rev. Leslie Weatherhead, was trying to help his people through a terrible time.  Think about what was happening there in 1944.  It was the last year of World War II.  The city was under constant siege – they were seeing death and destruction all around them.  Weatherhead preached about the will of God, and he told his people that what they were seeing was not God’s will.  He reassured them that the ultimate will of God will prevail – and it would not look like what they were seeing now.

It is not God’s will that we would live in a world of darkness.  The entire Bible is the story of God breaking into God’s creation to bring salvation to us – forgiveness, grace, and freedom from present circumstances.

We’ve talked today about the word of the prophet Isaiah, and the word of Mary in her Song.  During Advent, we intentionally slow down so as to remember that God has sent the Word – Jesus – into the world.  We are not alone. We live in a time where the space between us and God is always thin – a perpetual thin place.  God has cleared the Holy Way between us.  We are not in exile.  We are at home in God.  Advent is the time when we open our lives – again – to that reality, and know the joy of it.

But what is the witness to it? What difference does it make in the world?

Mary sang, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” 

How do we magnify the Word? How do we multiply that joy so that others besides ourselves know of it? How do we shine God’s light in the world so brightly that the darkness cannot overcome it, and the world is changed?

How do we do the work of Advent and prepare the way for the Lord?  Not just for ourselves – but for the people around us?

Speak the Word – tell of God’s presence in your life – and then do more.  Be the Word. Be the hands of and feet of Christ. Feed the hungry. Teach children to read. Love your neighbor.  Visit those who are sick.  Comfort those who are hurting. Give of your gifts, your time, your money; give your love to others.  God is close – not only to shine a light in your own life, but so that you will shine that light in the lives of others.

Beat the drum of joy. Change the world. Magnify the Lord.

Devotional - Covenant

On March 1, I started a journey with other lay people across the Annual Conference.  I'm leading a Conference Certified Lay Ministry Course.  It's a new thing - for me, for the students, and for the Conference.  I am spending  a whole lot of time planning, reading and coordinating.  I'm sure over the next few months  you'll see the course mentioned here, and you'll see posts about it (including book reviews - I already have three of those written).

We began our time together with a Zoom meeting.  I opened the meeting with the following devotional.

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

As I was thinking about the beginning of our journey together, and planning what the devotional would be, I was drawn to this particular lectionary reading from last week because of the word covenant in it.

 

We will talk about covenant in our time together.  We will talk about ministry covenants, but we will also – even if not directly – talk about God’s covenant with each of us.  So I thought literally beginning our journey with thoughts about covenant would be appropriate.

 

One of the things I hope you notice from this passage is that it is God who establishes the covenant.  This is not a contract where each side states what it will do for the other – God is declaring through this covenant that God will be “God to you and to your offspring after you.”  Abram and Sarai will be blessed to become the ancestors of the multitudes – of nations and kings.  This is all God’s action.  It has not been earned by Abram and Sarai – it is a covenant of Grace.

 

We should also notice that this covenant is based on relationship, God is not establishing a covenant with a people – God is establishing a covenant with Abram and Sarai.  The covenant extends to all who will follow – but it is established out of a relationship between God and these two particular people.  It’s amazing to think, isn’t it, that the creator of the universe knows these two people, promises steadfast loyalty to them, and that personal relationship will literally reconcile humanity.

 

Abram and Sarai receive new names in this passage – Abraham and Sarah.  What I did not know before I started planning this devotional is that God, too, is called by a new word.  This  passage is the first time in the Bible that the word El Shaddai is used to describe God.  We translate that as God Almighty, but it can also be translated as God of the Mountains. 

 

As we begin this journey together, I hope you will remember that while the covenant in Genesis 17 was with Abraham and Sarah, it was an everlasting covenant.  We to, the People of these Mountains are in relationship with God – we are recipients of God grace because of the restoration begun by God so many years ago.  We too have new names, beloved of God. 

 

Prayer:

El Shaddai, God Almighty, God the mountains, God of grace and love, walk among us tonight.  Gather with us in homes, at our desk, around our computers, and inhabit our work tonight and throughout this year.  Make your will known to each of us, and grant us the grace to move forward in your call.  I give you thanksgiving for each of those here tonight.  May we all live into the new names you have given to us.  In your son’s name we pray, Amen.

 

In the Footsteps of Bezalel, Part 2

This and yesterday's post are from a sermon I preached last Sunday.

Stephanie invited me to come and share thoughts with you today about your theme for the next few weeks: Cultivating a generous heart and lifestyle.  Specifically, my part of the series is “the gifts of knowledge and skill.” 

We talk a lot in the church about spiritual gifts – Spiritual gifts are given by God to the church to be used in service.  Examples include faith, mercy, prophecy, discernment, and teaching – that’s just a small sample.  But spiritual gifts are little bit different than knowledge and skills.  Bezalel’s skills include metal work and design.  His knew how to build – what tools to use, and what would work and wouldn’t work.  I don’t want to get too hung up on the differences, except to say that we can work to increase our knowledge, and we can enhance our skills through practice. Spiritual gifts are a little bit different – they are a gift – not earned, not inherited, not gained through study, not passed down from our grandparents.  But I hope we can all agree that we are called not only to use our spiritual gifts, but also our knowledge and skills, in the work of God’s kingdom, and when we can, we are expected to build and enhance that knowledge and skills so that we can share them generously with each other.

So, what happens when we do?

Hear these words from Romans 12:1-8:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the encourager, in encouragement; the giver, in sincerity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

The book of Romans was most likely written by Paul in Corinth in 57 CE, as he prepared to return to Jerusalem.  I think the history of what was happening in Rome and the Christian church there is interesting.  The Christian Church in Rome was probably started by Jewish converts from Pentecost.  They weren’t a passive group, and in eventually, Claudius (the roman emperor) expelled the Jews from Rome.  When Claudius died, the edict the expelled the Jews died with him, the Jews returned.  They found the Christian church the had left in Rome was now very gentile in nature.  You can imagine the conflicts in this divided church.  Paul wrote the book of Romans to this church in the height of the tension.  He wrote to declare the reconciling nature of the gospel and of the power of salvation for both the Jews and the Gentiles.  

A church in conflict.  Hmmm.  Maybe we can find some parallels.

Paul calls on the members of the Roman church to offer themselves as living sacrifices.  Back when Bezalel was building the tabernacle, God was commanding his people to offer sacrifices – burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, offerings made with animals – the list is long.  But now, as Paul is writing, atonement has already been made by Jesus.  Paul is calling Christians to offer themselves as living sacrifices. Rochelle Stackhouse, in a commentary I read, said a living sacrifice means that we’re not just offering our emotional or intellectual assent to God – we’re offering everything – “This may mean we need actually to do things that will put us outside the norms of behavior for our society” she wrote.  

I think we hear the definition of living sacrifice most clearly in the Jewish Shema as told by Jesus in Mark: ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”  In other words – you are to give all that you are – including your mind - to God and to each other.

And here is the kicker – in the Romans passage, we learn that it requires the whole church.  Paul says, “For as in one body we have many members and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.”

What else? 

In verse 3, Paul cautions the Roman Christians (and us also, I think), not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think.  He is leading us to humility.  

I remember speaking with a pastor once.  He had a small church in a small community; he was loved by his church and he loved them.  All of that was obvious.  That said, pastors are required to do continuing education, and he would not.  He couldn’t see the need for it.  He knew all he needed to know; classes wouldn’t help him.  I don’t mean to judge him, but in this one area, a very humble man thought too highly of himself.

Think of the ways we describe God – omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.  All powerful, all knowing, and everywhere.  I think when we think we know everything – when we close our minds to being taught – we step a little bit into the role of God.  We are not omni-anything.  Not thinking too highly of ourselves will open us up to not only learn more and practice more, but also to be open to what others can offer us when we share our skills.  When we, in humility, generously offer to the church what we know and what we can do, we open ourselves up to not only do God’s work in the world, but to find God in the world.

Next, verse 2 says, “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

I think this means that we have to approach learning, sharing what we know and what we can do with an open mind.  We can’t always assume that we know best – that we are right.  Even the concept of learning and teaching assumes that we do not know everything – especially, most certainly – we do not know everything about God.  It is beyond us – and it is another reason for humility.  

I think a closed mind cannot be renewed.  A closed mind cannot be transformed.  Do we love being right so much that we would lose the chance to discern the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect?

Years ago, when I was in high school, my youth group traveled to Texas to teach a vacation Bible school in El Paso to the children of immigrant workers.  Of course, adults came with us.  Each pair of youth was matched with an adult from our church.  Chris, my partner, and I, were paired with Coe Marsh.  I thought she was very old – she probably wasn’t, but it felt that way to a 17 year old.  She was definitely a grandmother at the time.  I look back now, and I am so in awe of her.  She and her husband left their homes for 2 weeks to travel with us and to be a part of what we were doing.  She offered what she had with grace and humility.  I watched her, from memory, restate the 23rd Psalm in words a young child could understand so that we could teach it.  She was a living sacrifice.

How can you follow in the footsteps of Bezalel and Coe Marsh?

• If you know how to use a hammer, find a Habitat for Humanity project or a neighbor who needs a ramp built.
• If you know how to teach, find some students.
• If you can bake bread, do it, and feed the hungry.
• If you can pray, start lifting your neighbors up to God.
• If you can create a spreadsheet, there’s a finance committee that needs you.
• If you can encourage, start spreading the good news that everyone is loved by God.
• If you can see the gifts and skills in another person, invite them into ministry.

We are the church, and God is calling all of us – each and every one of us – with open, transformed minds, to share what we have – to build the tabernacle with a generous, humble heart so that the thin places abound – and God is known to all of us.

Seasons of Love, 4

Seasons of Love, sermon, continued...

Do the work of an evangelist, keep the message alive, do a thorough job as God’s servant.  How do we do that?  Where do we start?  What do we do?  Many questions.  Today, I want to focus on three of them.
…..
First, who is called?  The list of people who have influenced my faith journey was chosen strategically.  If you’ll notice, it included people who were retired, and people who were working.  It included older people and youth, people who were just starting life, and people who were nearing the end of life.  We are the laity.  We are the people of God, and this is our calling.  This is our job.  Whoever we are – it is the work of all of us.   There is no “get out of ministry free” card.  Who is called?  You.  Me.

Next, how do we know what to do?

Mary / Marv read a passage from Luke this morning.  Jesus is telling a parable of an unjust judge and a persistent woman.  Picture it for a moment – this is how I see it.  The judge is in his home, probably hiding from everyone, but especially from this woman, who keeps bothering him.  She comes to his door.  And knocks.  And knocks.  And knocks.  “Grant me justice.”  He finally gives her what she wants so that she’ll leave him alone.  I’m sure none of us have ever had THAT kind of experience.  Right.  Any of us who have children have had just that kind of experience.  Does that mean God is like an unjust judge?  No.  We are like the unjust judge, and we listen to our children.  How much more will God listen to God’s children?  So, pray.  Talk to God about what God is leading you to do.  Do it persistently.

Margit Ernst-Habib wrote that God is so persistently in love with us…”we can be sure that God hears our prayers, our crying day and night, even though we may not see any results yet.  God has not forgotten us; God will not delay long in helping.”  I think the Holy Spirit in us may be in some ways like that widow, urging us to pray, pushing us to connect with God, unmercifully moving us to persistent prayer.  God is listening.  We should pray, remembering that part of prayer is listening for God.  Do we believe that?  Then we should pray as if we do.  I believe that through our prayers we will learn where God wants us to go, what God wants us to do, who God wants us to reach.

How else do we learn where God is leading us?

If I had read the few verses in 2 Timothy that lead up to the passage from the 4th chapter, then you would have heard this (again from The Message):  “Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another – showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way.  Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.”  We don’t just study scripture to learn what it says.  God uses God’s word to shape us, to change us, to transform us.  A.J. Jacobs said, “It (the Bible) is so true that it will read you.”  From our study, we will be equipped and shaped to do the work of God, and to know what that work should be.

We pray, we study, and what else?  We show up.  I still remember Betsy Warren saying that in a sermon.  How do we function as the body of Christ?  We show up.  We go where God’s sends us.  Here, to worship, learn, and gain strength in fellowship.  Out from here, to be the church.  We show up.

How was it that Coe Marsh was able to have such a profound effect on my faith?  I imagine she prayed about what she was called to do.  I know she studied, because she demonstrated it when we asked her about the 23rd Psalm.  And she said yes, going where God was sending her – on a bus trip across the entire country with 30 or so youth, into a classroom with two very young, inexperienced teachers of the Bible to share her love of God, her love of children, and her love for us.

Transformation

I’ve been putting off writing this post – not because I didn’t want to, but because I wanted to get it right. It seems important in my thoughts lately. I’m still working through thoughts of grace as tickled in my brain by Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace.

Let’s start with a quote:

Nancy Mairs partakes of communion because she is “fainting from severe hypoglycemia of the soul.”
My grandmother wouldn’t participate in communion for years because she had hard feelings about someone, and wasn’t willing to let the feelings go. She felt that she had to be free of sins like this in order to take communion. That’s why I like the quote above. It seems so much more true to me – that communion is open to sinners – those suffering from “hypoglycemia of the soul” rather than those who have already been satisfied.

Another quote or two:

We cannot find him unless we know we need him – Thomas Merton
“…imperfection is the prerequisite for grace. Light only gets in through the cracks.” -- P Yancey“Guilt exposes a longing for grace.” P Yancey
When you think about it, this makes sense. We are not aware the gift of grace unless we become aware that we need it. Until we “long” for it, our longing built from an awareness of the need of it, we will not approach God to receive it.

Maybe I’m on the wrong track. You’ll see in this post that I have more questions than thoughts.

Then this one from Jeff the Methodist (who is quoting an email):

There is no union with God without transformation. Paradoxically, the person who has struggled with personal transformation and become psychologically stronger is the person who can be empty and receptive before God. This vulnerability is an act of strength, since we no longer need to hold tightly to a false self that protects us from our inner pain and fears. We are free at last.
I am reminded of something I once read that said that we often cannot receive a gift from God because our hands are too full. Do we put up a false front with God? When we aren’t honest with ourselves and aren’t honest with God, are we holding on so tightly to pride, a sense of self-righteousness, a sense of control, that our hands are too full to receive grace? Do fear and anger become so important that we won’t exchange them for grace?

Yancey also says that Alcoholics Anonymous runs of two principles: radical honesty and radical dependence. Is there a lesson to be learned from that?

What does it mean when one of the quotes above says that vulnerability is an act of strength? Does it mean that this transformation -- this letting go of what we hold on to instead of grace – is very difficult and requires strength? Or that the process of transformation produces a kind of strength. Or that in our vulnerability, the gift of grace gives us strength? See, questions.

And if we see the link between forgiveness and grace – God’s forgiveness being an act of grace, then could it be when we fail to be forgiving – when we hold on tightly to that which keeps us from God – when we are so convinced that we are able to stand before God on our own, that we aren’t even aware of our own need for grace, that we fail to receive it.

Could that somehow be linked to the line in the Lord’s Prayer – Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us? For as we fail to forgive, we hold on to that which is keeping us from God. We fail to reach for forgiveness ourselves, and thus our unforgiving nature prevents God from reaching us with forgiveness and grace. It isn’t so much that God will refuse us forgiveness when we aren’t forgiving, it’s that we won’t reach for forgiveness from God – grace from God, when our hands are so full of our own lack of forgiveness.

Then, this from Matthew 7:21-23:

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
Yancey (yes, again with Yancey – I have a whole shopping list of Yancey thoughts, remember?) says something here that I never thought of. One of our main tasks is to make ourselves known to God. A relationship with God must be based on full disclosure – the masks must come off. Compare that to verse 23: “I never knew you: depart from me, you evildoers.”

Still with me?

God has done many things to make himself known to us. We must also make ourselves known to God. It’s not a test of what we are doing – full disclosure is not a litmus test for salvation. I’m hearing in all these quotes and thoughts pulled together, that grace is a gift that we will only receive – only reach for – if we know we need it. If our hands are so full that we can’t receive the gift, then we must transform ourselves – letting go of that which we hold on to tightly – so that we can face God honestly – no masks.

Think of this – how intimate would a relationship be between a husband and wife if they didn’t really know each other? If the relationship were full of pretense? My husband knows me better than anyone else, and vice versa, I think. That is the basis of an intimate relationship.

So, transformation leads to freedom to know God, to be aware of a need for grace and to receive it. OK.

How do we do that?

“The power of grace is different: unworldly, transforming, supernatural.” P Yancey

Through grace?

I meant for that thought to be the last one in this post, for it is my main question – How do we do that? How do I do that? So I packed up my computer, turned off my lights, and left work. I got into the car, turned on the radio. This is what was playing:

But you see the real me
Hiding in my skin, broken from within
Unveil me completely
I'm loosening my grasp
There's no need to mask my frailty
Cause you see the real me
It’s the chorus from the song “The Real Me” by Natalie Grant.

Is it God's will?

We started looking at the Leslie Weatherhead book The Will of God. We discussed tonight the idea of how people use the phrase, "It's the will of God" to try to provide comfort to those who are hurting. For example, your child dies, and you are told, "It was the will of God."

Why do people say that? What do they think it will provide comfort? It's a serious question, and I think there might be several different answers.

• Maybe people who say that believe it. Maybe they have been raised to believe that every little thing which happens in this world is completely God's will. I've even heard or read of people who think that.
• Maybe they think it is comforting to believe that God is completely in control -- that nothing happens on this world that he doesn't permit or sanction.
• Maybe they think that having an explanation -- a reason -- for an horrible event makes it easier to bear.
• Is it possible that they don't even think at all? Steve said, at dinner tonight after class, that he thinks if someone who says that were challenged, that he/she wouldn't be able to defend the thought at all -- that it's just something that people say.
• Could it be that there are just times when we don't know what to say, so we say things that we don't mean?

I think that this platitude -- "It is God's will" -- if we believe it, does damage to our faith. It leads us to not trust God. If our understanding of God's will is affected by our image of him as a loving, caring God, then doesn't it make sense that our understanding of God's will can alter our perception of him as our God? If we believe that he will bring horrible things into our lives, then what does that do to our belief that he is loving? Doesn't it make it hard to ask God to give us strength to persevere through hardship if we believe that he brought the hardship into our lives in the first place?

Image: Budding tree in the park. Took a walk today at lunch. Not that much interesting to photograph, but I thought the blog was getting kind of bland looking.