Mark This

As Then . . . So Again

2012-01-27T08:39:00.001-05:00

“The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion . . . will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine” (1 Samuel 17:37).

We imagine David as vulnerable and poorly armed for battle. We are wrong.

He had been offered the King’s armor. He had even tried to wear the “helmet of bronze and the coat of mail.” He had strapped on the King’s sword – and the weight of all that strength was paralyzing to David. He could barely move. He laid all of that aside and took up the weapon he knew best – a sling.

This is God’s way. What looks to us like pathetic weakness is actually power in God’s hand.

But David stepped into the valley that day armed with something that no one there could see, certainly not Goliath and not even Saul. It was not weapon that could be held in the hand or placed on the head or draped over the body.

Perhaps David’s most formidable weapons that day were stories and memories: stories and memories of God’s help, God’s deliverance, God’s presence in trouble, God’s power in the face of threat. David had lived this. David had seen this. And it made him confident. These stories had made a giant killer of a shepherd boy.

This is no mere belief in God. When it’s time to face a giant it simply will not do to say “I believe in God.” Killing giants requires more than the kind of agreeable mental assent we often label as ‘belief.’ Those who kill giants have stories to tell. They have seen God at work. They know what Go can do. They are utterly convinced that God is able. And for this reason they are dangerous.

David had field experience . . . literally. In the remote regions where shepherds dwell David had faced enemies. When beasts came to prey on the flock under his care, David had gone at them aggressively. And time and time again God had delivered. Every such story was a weapon in David’s soul.

As then . . . so again. What God did once God will do now. David knew this. Do you?

Throughout the Bible this is God’s way with us. When Joshua was called upon to take the place of Moses God encouraged him with this promise: “As I was with Moses so I will be with you” (Joshua 1:5). As then . . . so again.

When the disciples were in a boat with Jesus and worried about the fact that they had forgotten to bring bread, Jesus reminded them of how he had fed thousands with meager provisions and how they had gathered days worth of leftovers (Mark 8:14-21). Why worry about bread? As then . . . so again.

So what stories do you tell? When and how have you seen God unmistakably at work in your life? When have you known his presence as close to you as your own breath? When have you sensed his peace taking up residence deep in your chest? Be specific – and remember. Tell yourself and others this story. Rehearse it. It will make you dangerous today against whatever you face.

Psalm 143 is a Psalm “of David.” In it the Psalmist cries out to God about threats coming from an enemy – an enemy who “has crushed my life to the ground.” The Psalmist responds to this threat with memory: “I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done” (Psalm 143:3-5).

As then . . . so again. What work of God will you remember today?

Prayer:
“I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the works of your hands . . . my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. For your name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life . . . destroy all the adversaries of my soul, for I am your servant.” Amen. (from Psalm 143)

Thursday Book Club: A Praying Life

2012-01-23T19:27:00.002-05:00

I want to let you know about something that’s starting this week. I know . . . short notice.

Anyway, I’m trying to gather any and all interested persons in a five week book club to read through and discuss Paul Miller’s book A Praying Life: Connecting With God in a Distracting World. The format is very simple: you read the book week by week and we gather and talk about what we’re learning. You are welcomed to bring a lunch with you . . . or not. This will be a very relaxed kind of thing, not a “class.” We’ll open each week with “what did you read that you liked or learned from, etc” and then we’ll see where things go.

The Book: A Praying Life by Paul Miller (in the Peachtree Bookstore now)

The Day: Thursdays beginning January 26 – ending Feb. 23 (a good read just as Lent begins)

The Time: 12:05 – 12:55 pm

The Place: The Lodge @ Peachtree Presbyterian Church (one of the classrooms upstairs)

Call 404-842-3172 for more information

The Circle Maker: Praying "For" and "Through"

2012-01-20T22:17:00.005-05:00

Seems to me that Mark Batterson may be the E. M. Bounds of our age. Bounds wrote almost 100 years before Batterson, but the voices are similar. Both of these men talk about prayer like it really does something. Both urge the kind of praying that expects something - a confident coming before the throne of grace, a persistent knocking like a widow demanding justice.

When was the last time you found yourself flat on your face before the Almighty? When was the last time you cut off your circulation kneeling before the Lord? when was the last time you pulled and all-nighter in prayer?

There are higher heights and deeper depths in prayer, and God wants to take you there . . . But if you want God to do something new, you can't do the same old thing. It will involve more sacrifice, but if you are willing to go there you'll realize that you didn't sacrifice anything at all. It will involve more risk, but if you are willing to go there you'll realize that you didn't risk anything at all.

Make the sacrifice . Take the risk. Draw the circle. (Circle Maker, 34)

Batterson calls this "praying through." Praying through is different than "praying for." It is marked by a particular intensity and consistency.

So what are you praying "for?" What are you praying "through?"

Vague Prayers: Reflections on Mark Batterson's "The Circle Maker"

2012-01-18T21:40:00.005-05:00

Over the past several weeks I’ve been making my way through Mark Batterson’s latest book, The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears.

The way Batterson approaches prayer reminds me of a statement I heard from the late Elizabeth Achtemeier. Achtemeier taught Bible at Union Seminary in Richmond, Va. for many years. In this particular sermon she was talking about the prophets and how they viewed and spoke about God. Without recalling the exact context, I remember her observation that “many people in our churches believe in God . . . they just don’t think he does anything.”

The Circle Maker has challenged me because it raises my suspicions that my own prayer life proves Professor Achtemeier’s point.

In my own defense, I do believe there is a variety of streams or schools of prayer. Richard Foster’s Prayer covers them quite well.

Most of my reading has dealt with a more contemplative approach to prayer - and that has naturally shaped the way I pray. Contemplative prayer seems to be a way of giving attention to God in the midst of what is actually there – the circumstances that exist now, the people I encounter. The act of paying attention is at the heart of this kind of praying.

But Batterson’s book is about a way of praying that visualizes what isn’t actually there – at least not yet. It goes beyond paying attention to visioning a desired reality. This is how Batterson prayed as he went to plant a church in Washington, D.C. His book is full of examples and stories of how he has seen God work through prayer.

My discomfort comes from the sense that I’ve never really prayed this way. But I want to. At least I think I do.

To be specific, I want to pray circles around my ministry and my family.

From time to time I’ll post a quote from the book. I might offer some commentary along with it. Batterson is an engaging writer – pithy in the style of Rick Warren. I’ll begin today with this statement about vague prayers.

A few years ago I read one sentence that changed the way I pray. The author, pastor of one of the largest churches in Seoul, Korea, wrote, “God does not answer vague prayers.” (p. 25)

If our prayers aren’t specific . . . God gets robbed of the glory that He deserves because we second-guess whether or not he actually answered them. We never know if the answers were the result of specific prayer or general coincidences that would have happened anyway. (p. 26)

Questions: Does God answer vague prayers? How do you know? And what specific prayers are you bringing before God these days?

Winter - Spring 2012 Bible Studies Begin this Week

2012-01-09T08:08:00.002-05:00

"MIDWEEK" starts this Wednesday, January 11 @ 6:00 p.m.

Wisdom . . . what exactly is it, and how do we get it? We learn early on that we will be rewarded for being smart (good grades). And ewe eventaully learnd that we will be admired for our wealth (status). But wisdom is rarely applauded. We recognize it, but how do we pursue it? This semestrer in "Midweek" we'll be looking at the books of Proverbs and James and thinking about what it means to live with wisdom. Not a bad pursuit for a New Year.

"SOLA SCRIPTURA" starts on Sunday, January 15 @ 9:00 a.m.

Making use of Eugene Peterson's book Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life at its Best, we'll spend some time with the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah had a prophetic ministry that lasted about 50 years . . . a half century of being ignored. How did he stay at it? And how do we walk faithfully with our God when it seems to be doing little "good?"

Wrestling and Christmas

2011-12-20T10:05:00.001-05:00

But as he considered these things . . . an angel appeared to him in a dream (Matt. 1:20)

In our house last week the focus was getting through exams. In fact, the focus was not merely on getting through, but doing well. That’s why I didn’t give much thought to the email that came from my son’s wrestling coach: the email that explained the practice schedule over the Christmas break.

I shared the content of the email with my son on Sunday night. He was not enthusiastic.

School’s out and Christmas is coming. That combination makes for one of the best times of the year. Wrestling practice doesn’t fit in to that very well. Enough wrestling. It’s Christmas. It’s time for a break.

He’ll end up going to the practices, but I understand how he feels. Sooner or later we all feel like we’re tired of wrestling, tired of grappling with the lives we live in order to get things pinned down and figured out: schedules, payments, deadlines, needs to be met and appointments to be kept. A relentless wrangling of moving parts. Who doesn’t get tired of that?

And then there’s the life of faith. We had thought that following Jesus might make things better, more manageable, less exhausting. Thus our surprise when we discover that following Jesus also involves some struggle. Once again, we’re wrestling. We’re like Jacob. Jacob wrestled with God and lived – but he walked for the rest of his life with a limp (Genesis 32:22-28). Maybe you’re limping too. Christmas is a tough time for wrestling. But we are hardly the first to know this.

The story of Joseph’s discovery of Mary’s pregnancy is a wrestling story. Matthew gives it to us in spare language. Mary is pledged to Joseph, the marital commitment in place without the full benefits and living arrangements of the marital relationship. This is when Joseph discovers that Mary is pregnant. And this is when the wrestling begins, unseen and yet strenuous. Joseph grappling with God, grappling with his own heart and mind.

Again, Matthew shows us none of this except to say that Joseph “considered” how he could divorce Mary quietly and thus protect her from public disgrace. But can such “considering” be anything less than anguish and pain? How long did he “consider?” How many sleepless nights, how many bitter questions hurled at heaven? How many tense conversations with his beloved? How many fake smiles at neighbors as if all was well?

And even once the Angel has appeared and Joseph has taken Mary as is wife, the difficulties are hardly over. Craig Keener notes that Joseph’s decision to go ahead with his marriage was a decision to sacrifice his own reputation. The wrestling surely didn’t stop. Wrestling mingled with waiting until the birth in the Bethlehem stable.

Many of us come to Advent wrestling and waiting; life has us in a head-lock and we’re trying desperately to find the right move that will loosen its grip. With the Psalmist we ask “How long must I wrestle with my thoughts?” (Ps. 13:2). Christmas doesn’t change the fact that we’re wrestling with decisions that need to be made, decisions we wish could make over again, afflicted bodies, conflicted relationships and competing expectations. We wrestle through one challenge only to face another.

But in the midst of the wrestling, Joseph’s and ours, there is this assurance: the Holy Spirit is at work. To see it may require waiting, long waiting and still more wrestling. But God is active in your wrestling story, even – perhaps especially – at Christmas.

What opponent will you wrestle today?

Prayer:
Grant to us, O God, the patience to trust you in all things and the strength to wrestle long until we see your hand at work: show your hand in the difficult situations, the perplexing questions, the stubborn circumstances that refuse to budge. Be present with us in the struggles of this day, making us confident as we wrestle and wait in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Mt. Ararat

2011-05-20T05:45:00.002-05:00

At the end of 150 days the water had abated . . . the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat (Genesis 8:3-4 ESV).

A few years ago I had the privilege of doing some teaching with a small community of Christians in Armenia. Armenia is a tiny sliver of a country that borders Turkey, and the relationship between those two nations is very tense. One might be right in saying that Armenia and Turkey really don’t relate to each other at all.

My time there included a free day in which we saw the sights around the capital city of Yerevan. The one sight that has stayed with me was a view of Mt. Ararat. On a rocky ledge a kind of open-air shrine had been constructed that faced the distant mountain. On one of the walls was inscribed a poem that spoke of Ararat as being in captivity. These days Ararat is within the borders of Turkey. Armenians maintain that the mountain is theirs.

What struck me at the time was the massive presence of Ararat. We were looking at it from far off, gazing across the border of another country, but even miles away the mountain stood as an imposing feature of the landscape. I found myself wondering what it would be like to approach and ascend Ararat. And I found myself thinking about Noah and the ark. What kind of flood could have possibly submerged something as enormous as Mt. Ararat? And where on that sprawling mountain did the ark finally come to rest?

Last year a group of Chinese and Turkish explorers claimed they had found the ark, or remains of it. The veracity of that claim has been challenged, but I’m not as interested in the boat as I am in the mountain.

What the story tells us is important to keep in mind when storms rage. Eventually the rains will stop. It may take a long while, but once the downpour lets up the waters that engulfed you will begin to recede. And one day dry land will appear again and you’ll discover that you’ve found a solid place to stand. There’s a massive mountain under your feet, holding you up. It was there all the time.

Do we know where the ark came to rest? Not exactly.

Have we found the remains of Noah’s ark? Scholars are debating the matter as they are prone to do.

But this much is certain: Mt. Ararat is real and it is formidable. And when the storms end and the floods evaporate there is a place to find rest. Solid ground.

Even if you’ve never seen Mt. Ararat you can still get a vision for it. Allow your imagination to enter into Noah’s story. God’s purposes for you will not allow you to drift or be endlessly blown about. Maybe the rains are falling hard today. They will cease. Maybe, like Noah, you’ve sent out a dove of some kind – some effort to see if there’s a future for you, a place to stand, a place to start over.

It is there. The waters will one day recede and make their complete exit, leaving you in the hands of a merciful and powerful God. Mt. Ararat is beneath your feet even if you can’t see it now.

Once you find that place, build an altar. Worship God.

Prayer:
“His oath, his covenant, his blood, support me in the whelming flood; When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand; all other ground is sinking sand.” (My Hope is Built on Nothing Less, Edward Mote, c. 1834).

Cross Prayers

2011-04-22T07:25:00.000-05:00

Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed (Luke 23:32).

When read together, the gospels render seven utterances of Jesus from the cross. These “seven last words” have been the focus of much study and reflection. They have been expounded from pulpits and lecterns; sung from choir lofts and concert halls. Much of what Jesus speaks from the cross is prayer. He asks God to forgive his executioners. He also cries out in his dark moments of God-forsakenness. Merciful prayers, anguished prayers, and some in between.

But Jesus isn’t the only one praying. Jesus was crucified with two criminals. They too speak from the cross, and if we listen to their words we hear prayer laced throughout. Both criminals address Jesus directly; both make requests of him. But these two convicts pray very different prayers.

One of those prayers is demanding and angry. Spoken from the place of threat and trouble, this prayer seeks escape and little more. The one praying is not interested in God. This prayer is about getting results, getting rescued, getting out, getting away. The caustic words of the petition reflect the words of the surrounding crowd and the prevailing culture. Let Jesus prove himself. The essence of the prayer is simple: “Get me out of this mess.”

The other prayer comes from a different place, from a different man. This prayer comes from a man who recognizes the truth about himself. What’s more, he recognizes the truth about Jesus. Jesus’ innocence exposes the criminal’s guilt. This prayer isn’t seeking to escape. Rather, it seeks to enter into the reality over which Jesus is King. The essence of this prayer is also simple: “Remember me.”

On any given day we pray from one side of the cross or the other.

There are days – usually hard days - when we want to say that if God were truly good and truly powerful, then our circumstances would change. Things would be different. God could fix the problem and bring order to the mess of our lives if only he would. We sometimes pray through clenched teeth. Do something God! Make it right!

And sometimes we pray from a far more humble place. We gather the courage to face what is rather than insisting on what we want. We know the truth about our lives and we own what’s worthy as well as what is shameful. And we ask for grace because we know that in the end only grace can save us.

From which side of the cross are you praying today?

Prayer:
Once again we ask you, Lord Jesus, teach us to pray. Our prayers flip-flop, moving from one side of your cross to the other. We make demands; we humbly ask for mercy. Help us to pray from the foot of your cross, covered by your grace, placing our concerns and our lives into your hands. Amen.

"He Descended into Hell"

2011-04-21T11:13:00.003-05:00

He was . . . made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in bondage (1 Peter 3:19).

A couple of weeks ago my wife was searching the internet for videos that we could use in our worship service. We were coming up on the Sunday that would launch us back into the Apostles’ Creed series. Perhaps a good video might be effective in getting the content of the creed back in the minds of the congregation.

As she searched she came across a video montage of ordinary looking people saying the Apostles’ Creed. The camera shot switched from one person to the next as each spoke a different line of the creed - simple but on target, just what we needed. But there was one problem.

The focal phrase for the week was to be “He descended into hell.” The video montage skipped that line. They didn’t say it. One person said something about Jesus being crucified, dead and buried. The next person said “on the third day he arose from the dead.” No descent to hell.

We’re not going to skip it. However, the line is perplexing and it merits some explaining.

Without getting bogged down in history or the finer points of biblical exegesis, here are some things you might keep in mind. First of all, there’s a substantial representation of Christians who do not say “he descended into hell.” Part of the reason for that might be that only one version of the creed prior to AD 640 has this line. Many other early versions don’t have it, so some omit the line given the lack of textual support.

Nevertheless, for 1300 years much of the Christian church has said these words, so we need to wrestle with what they might mean. Three options have emerged: (1) some understand the descent to hell as a reference to the grave. It is another way of saying that Jesus truly died. (2) Others say it really does mean that Jesus went to the region of the condemned. They cite 1 Peter 3:19 for support of this position. (3) Others say that the descent to hell was the spiritual separation from God the Father that Jesus experienced in his death on the cross (See Kevin DeYoung, The Good News We Almost Forgot, 87-91).

A decent case can be made for each of these understandings of what it means to say “he descended into hell.” But there is another reason – not as scholarly – for saying these words when we say the creed. Maybe we say this because we know that descent in our own lives. We know what it is to endure some form of hell as we live with the brokenness of this world.

Sometimes that descent carries us to a deep darkness in our family life, in our physical bodies, or maybe in our emotions and thoughts. Sometimes the decent carries us into the poverty and wreckage of the inner cities or places where destruction is rampant like Japan or Haiti. There is no shortage of people who can testify that hell is real and you don’t have to go too far to find it.

So this is what we believe: Whatever your hell might be, Jesus already knows it. He has been there, done that. There is no hell you can live through that he hasn’t already been through. There is no descent deep enough to exceed is reach or his knowledge.

However you understand it, it’s worth saying with confidence. “He descended into hell.” The good news (and we’ll get to this later) is that he didn’t stay there – and he doesn’t intend for you to stay there either.

Prayer:
We give you thanks, Lord Jesus, for your descent to us in all of our brokenness. In mercy you embraced all that it means to live in this world. Thank you for being faithful to us in the deepest darkness. Teach us to trust you in those places, patiently waiting for the day when you will make all things new and whole. Amen.

We Need the Creed

2011-03-22T10:31:00.000-05:00

These things are written that you might believe (John 20:31).

Nine years is long enough. I should have it down by now.

I’ve been a Presbyterian long enough to have the Apostles’ Creed committed to memory. But whenever I’m in a worship service and the congregation is asked to “stand and say together what we believe,” I reach for the print version. I guess when it comes to the creed I still need a crutch.

The faith tradition grew up in did not say the Apostles’ Creed. In fact, the oft repeated boast in my tradition was that “The Bible is our Creed.” That’s all well and good, but it pretty much rules out any kind of congregational “recitation.” I was probably in seminary before I knew that there was an Apostles’ Creed. I’m sure I was 30 years old before I attended a church that used those words in worship.

But now I know what it is and what it says. And I like repeating those words even if I do self-consciously reach for the bulletin or the hymnal for some help. I like that we can actually say what we believe. And I like very much that when we say it we’re saying something that others before us have said for centuries. I am increasingly at home with the creed, with the rhythm of its language, the orderly movement from God the Father to Jesus the Son to the Holy Spirit and finally the church.

I have found my way to the creed rather late in life, but I’m learning to like it. More than that, I’m learning that I need it.

Ours is an age when everybody has an opinion and plenty of people are willing to tell you what they think. We also live in a time when emotions are highly regarded and all of us are regularly urged to explore and give expression to what we feel. But it’s a different matter to say what you believe.

I need the Apostles’ Creed. I need to stand with other believers and say together with them what we believe. I need it because sometimes, quite honestly, I need to be reminded. Maybe you do too.

Some months ago we began a series of reflections on the words of the Apostles’ Creed. In the weeks ahead we will pick up where we left off. We’ll take our beliefs bite-sized and linger with what they say and ponder what they mean – not as an exercise in theological posturing but as prayer.

My basic premise is that we need the Creed.

Some of us need it because we know what we believe but we take it for granted. We haven’t given serious thought to our beliefs in quite a while. They’ve collected dust or they’ve mildewed slightly in some dark corner of the mind. We know where they are; we just never pull them out and look at them very often.

Others of us need the creed because we’re not sure what we believe. We’re not sure if we believe. It’s time to get honest – not just with ourselves but with our tradition. We need to hear what it claims and then deal with what it claims of us.

Hopefully, in the weeks to come, you’ll realize that you also need the creed, even if you can’t say it from memory.

Prayer:
Grant us grace, O God, to believe with both humility and confidence. Make us bold in what we believe, not in order to win arguments but to bring others to you. Bless these weeks so that what believe may be clarified and strengthened by the power of your Spirit. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

For My Wife on Valentine's Day: "The Cookie Cake"

2011-02-14T13:17:00.002-05:00

Last night after the kids had gone to bed, I watched you press cookie dough into a heart shaped pan. You were planning to surprise them with a cookie cake for Valentine’s Day. As is typically the case, I was done for the day, ready to do nothing. You were just getting started.

That initial effort at a cookie cake didn’t work out too well. I don’t know what happened. I don’t think you know what happened. On the counter by the oven I saw a plate with a mound of gnarled and gooey not-quite-baked cookie on it. It didn’t matter. You cleaned the failed experiment from the heart-shaped pan and started over.

Success.

This morning our kids found what you had made for them while they slept. Perfectly formed, gently scooped out of the pan and placed on a red plate. After taking a picture of it, you let them eat some for breakfast and placed the rest of it in a zip-lock bag for after school. I warned them that it might not be there if I got to it first. But that won’t happen. They know that. I know it too.

The well-baked cookie that they had for breakfast speaks of your (our) love for them. It is theirs to enjoy.

But it’s the other cookie that I cherish. The one that didn’t come out right. The first try that taught you what needed to be done on the second try. The one that kept you up a little later than you might have wanted to be up.

I cherish the gnarled mound of cookie dough because you didn’t give up, you didn’t get frustrated, you didn’t complain or berate yourself or resent the task in any way. Yes, the cookie cake was a labor of love for our kids. But it speaks to me of why I love you.

You bring to me, Marnie, what I do not possess on my own. I love your conviction that something will work, especially when I can’t see how it will. I love your courage and your determination to figure it out and your confidence that you can. I need more of those things in my life. I’m so thankful for the way you bring those things to me, to our home and our children.

God loved the world so much that he gave his son. And in a particular act of grace, God loved me enough to give me you. My Valentine.

Know the Story

2010-12-26T15:54:00.002-05:00

. . . and they will call him Immanuel – which means, “God with us.” (Matt. 1:23).

Pat Conroy’s latest release, My Reading Life, is an engaging blend of biography and bibliography. In it Conroy narrates how books have shaped his life. Words had worked their way deep into his soul long before they started emerging again in his work as a writer.

One of the most poignantly amusing chapters is about his first days as a new student at Beaufort High School. He didn’t know anyone and not a single person bothered to say as much as “hello” on his first day there. He had no idea what to do with himself during the lunch period until he stumbled across the school library – totally empty at that time of day. The books were a refuge for him. He found a copy of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables and started reading.

The focal character of this chapter is the school librarian – Miss Hunter. She was mean, dour, inhospitable, and feared by both students and faculty at Beaufort High. When she discovered Conroy in the library during the lunch period she scolded him and accused him of looking for books that had “dirty parts.” When she saw that he was reading Les Miserables she spoke disparagingly of “French authors.” And then she suggested an alternative book by Hugo.

She said to Conroy, “Do you like football?”

“Yes ma’am,” he answered.

At this Miss Hunter went to a shelf and pulled down another volume. She handed Conroy Victor Hugo’s ‘football book’ – The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Here was a woman who worked in a library. She knew where to find the book. And yet she didn’t have a clue as to what the story was really about.

*********

During Advent and Christmas it is possible to sit in a sanctuary and hear a familiar story. We can show up at church and sing songs about that story and listen to sermons on the story. We may even pick up the book and read the story for ourselves.

We can do all of those things and yet miss the real meaning of the story, never clue-in as to what this story is really all about.

Christmas is not about our benevolent disposition to our fellow human beings, as important as that is. It is not about “the children,” as delightful as they may be. It is not about high ideals like peace and joy and giving, although they figure prominently in the drama.

Christmas is about God. This is God’s story. God is the author and God’s glory is the point of what is happening. Christmas is about God entering history – both then and now. At Christmas we affirm the truth of the name Immanuel. God is with us.

When we sing the familiar hymn that invites Christ to “be born in us today,” we’re not singing a mere metaphor. We are declaring what’s real. Jesus lives and is made manifest in this world through his people. God comes near by the power of the Spirit dwelling in us. This means God works through you. It also means that God comes to you.

This Christmas don’t miss the story. In the words “God with us” you find both your calling and your comfort. And the glory goes to God – just as the angels sang.

Prayer:
All glory to you, Almighty God. You are present with us to sustain and comfort; you are working through us to bring good news to all people. May your name be honored and held high today as we worship and gather and celebrate your presence among us – the gift of Immanuel, Jesus our Lord through whom we pray. Amen.

Who Needs a Savior?

2010-12-24T19:01:00.000-05:00

“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21).

The good news was that the Atlanta Police car made the left turn from Habersham onto Valley Rd. within minutes after my call.

The bad news was that the Atlanta Police car made the left turn from Habersham onto Valley Rd. within minutes after my call.

I would have preferred not to call at all. A fender-bender collision at Habersham and Valley made it necessary. As it turned out the damage was so slight that there was really nothing for the APD to do. Still, I’m thankful for the timely response. And I’m also aware that what comes to us as good news often points to something gone wrong.

A tumor is benign . . . but it still needs to come out. You are told you will not be laid off . . . but the company is in trouble and others still have to be let go. To us a savior is born . . . which means we need saving. We are not well. And what isn’t well is beyond our own capacity to make right.

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The angel’s message to Joseph was very clear about two things: where Mary’s baby had come from and what that baby was to be named. As to origin, the angel made it perfectly clear that “what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” And as to the child’s name, he was to be named Jesus “because he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:20-21).

Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua which means “the Lord saves.” At Christmas time we hear this as a “glad tiding.” The angel’s announcement is good news; it reason for great joy and thanksgiving and glory to God for his favor to us.

But these glad tidings carry with them a quiet implication – a verdict on the condition of the human race. The announcement of a savior being born is only good news to those who need saving.

If I’m sitting in my house watching TV and eating Oreos and an ambulance pulls into my driveway I will not be relieved. I might be confused or annoyed – but not relieved and thankful. But after too many years of watching TV and eating Oreos a day may come when I am not well. Something goes wrong. Maybe, by God’s grace, someone can call 911 and the ambulance will come. And when it does there will be relief and gratitude and hope placed in the paramedics.

At Christmas, spiritually speaking, there are plenty of us eating Oreos and watching TV, feeding on the goodies and taking in the sights of the season. Many have no idea that something is wrong. They might hear about the birth of a savior but it has nothing to do with them, or so they think.

Christmas is not truly good news unless we are convinced that there’s bad news. That message doesn’t get too much press in December. Too negative perhaps. But it’s definitely there, plain as day, in the words of the angel. Jesus came to save us from our sins. We couldn’t save ourselves, so God did it for us in sending his son.

So the real question is this: An ambulance has pulled up into your driveway in the form of God’s infant son. What is your response?

Prayer:
Before the season ends, O God, we would get honest and make our confession to you. This world is not well. We are not well. We need a savior. Thank you for sending your son. Thank you for loving the world so much that you sent Jesus to save us – to do what we could not do by our own efforts. May this Christmas bring us news that is truly good, because we have faced the truth about ourselves and turned to your grace through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Big Deal

2010-12-20T08:26:00.001-05:00

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” (Luke 1:46 ESV)

According to my children I tend to make a big deal over things that really aren’t a big deal.
I disagree.

What time they go to bed and how much sleep they get on a school night is a big deal. How much screen time they get – video games, G-chat, TV – that is a big deal. Whether or not they put off a homework assignment until the last minute is big deal. Words they use, clothes they wear, all of that is a big deal.

At the same time I know they are not entirely wrong. I’ve been guilty of making too much over small things. Usually this happens when something isn’t right with me: I’m tired or preoccupied. They may be laughing and raucous as kids sometimes are and I’ll put an end to it because it bothers me. They might drop something or spill something and I’ll launch into some parental lecture. Maybe they just need my attention and I take what should be theirs and give it to something else that seems more urgent, more pressing. I make a big deal of the wrong things.

Cars are fitted with side-view mirrors that make things look distant and smaller. God designed the human soul to do the exact opposite. The soul was made to resonate with things in such a way that those things are made to look large and significant. This resonance of the soul has a way of giving weight and honor to what we truly cherish.

The biblical word for this capacity of the soul is “glorify” or “magnify.” To borrow language from my kids, the inclinations and resonances of the soul are how we make a big deal over something. Whether we know it or not, and often we do not, our souls are continually magnifying something. The question is “what?”

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Sometime after the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was pregnant with the one who would “reign over the house of Jacob forever,” Mary gathered up all that she was thinking and feeling in a prayer. This prayer comes to us through Luke’s pen in the form of a poem or song known to us as “The Magnificat.”

The opening line of Mary’s song / prayer will occupy our attention for the remainder of the week. “And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord’.” (Luke 1:46).

What does this mean? More importantly, how do we do it? If our souls are designed in such a way to magnify something, what do we magnify or make a big deal over in the course of a typical week? And if we want to say with Mary that our souls magnify the Lord, what will that look like?

The question is worth pondering because in scripture glorifying or magnifying God is given to us as a command. Consider Psalm 34:3. “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.” Magnifying the Lord isn’t a feeling or a passive experience; glorify and magnify are verbs that we are commanded to do.

For today, begin with the big deal that dominates the landscape of your mind and heart right now. What occupies your thoughts? What stirs your excitement? What’s the big deal? Maybe as we magnify the Lord what seems so big won’t stay that way.

Prayer:
Grant us grace, O God, to magnify your name: to see you as great and mighty, and to see the rest our life in the light of your glory and strength. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Questions and Prayers

2010-12-15T20:52:00.001-05:00

And Mary said, “Behold I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

As Luke introduces us to Mary he tells us a story in which Mary has very little to say.

Most of the talking is done by Gabriel. Gabriel has figured prominently in Luke’s gospel, having already appeared to Elizabeth in much the same way as he appears to Mary. Mary only speaks twice. She asks a question (“How can this be?”) and she speaks a prayer (“Let it be to me according to your word”).

Our questions and prayers belong together. Somehow we forget this. We assume that people who have questions about God’s will and God’s ways don’t pray, or that those who pray don’t have questions about God’s will and God’s ways. We are wrong to think this way. Good questions make the stuff of good honest prayers.

“How can it be” and “let it be done” make good neighbors.

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Roughly thirty-three years after her son was born Mary attended a wedding at Cana of Galilee. Jesus was there too. An awkward social circumstance arose with regard to party provisions. The host (for reasons we do not know) had run out of wine.

Mary took the matter to her son. “They have no wine,” she said. Jesus’ answer sounds curt, especially since he is addressing his mother. “Woman, why do you involve me?”

Scholars work hard to explain Jesus’ words to Mary. What we do well to notice is that Mary doesn’t answer her son directly. No rebuke to his remark, no justification of her request. Having shared the problem with her son, she turns to the servants with a brief word of instruction. “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:1-11)

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Mary is for us a model of prayerfulness. In Nazareth, told of the birth of her son, she prayed a prayer of trust. In Cana with her grown son, she takes a problem to him and leaves it for him to do as he will.

In both instances we see the essence of prayer. We bring our lives before God and know that he will act. God will do his will. His purposes will be accomplished. Mary did not fully understand all that Gabriel told her. She had no promises from her grown son as to what would be done about the lack of wine. But what joins these two stories is the letting go, letting go of the need for explanations and answers. Questions and prayers make good neighbors.

And so Mary teaches us to pray. She teaches us what Jesus would later teach his disciples. When we pray we are to say “Thy will be done.” Not “Thy will be known” or “Thy will be explained.”

We may not know exactly what God’s will is. We do not always receive assurances as to what will happen and explanations as to how. We lay the matter before Jesus and we leave it there, knowing that he will do what is good, even if we don’t understand it.

Now it’s your turn. What matter do you bring before Jesus today? What will you leave with him trusting that whatever he does will be good? What are you facing that eludes figuring out, refusing a clear answer or resolution. Listen carefully to Mary and borrow her prayer, confident that God will do what is good.

Prayer:
Do what you will to do, Lord God. In the midst of what we cannot understand or figure out, teach us to trust you, knowing that “You are good and what you do is good” (Psalm 119:68). Amen.

Spirit, Power, Life

2010-12-10T17:02:00.002-05:00

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you .” (Luke 1:35).

By the time you read this your day will likely be well under way. If you’re like me you woke up this morning knowing what that would look like. I’m looking at a morning office appointment, a lunch appointment, an afternoon office appointment, and family plans for the evening. In between those things I’ve got some tasks to complete and some writing to do, along with some teaching material to prepare for Sunday morning. Not a bad day.

Occasionally surprises crop up here and there, but for now this day is looking fairly “typical.” I’ve done these things before. Some of them, in fact all of them, are things I do regularly. Pastoral visits, writing, studying – this is standard fare in my line of work. I can do these things without trying too hard.

And that’s the problem.

Far too often and far too easily we develop the skills we need to get through the day or the week. But getting through the day is not the same thing as living the day. An inner crisis often develops when we realize that somewhere along the way getting through became our objective. Without realizing it we stopped living.

Of course, getting through the day is not an unworthy goal. There are seasons and circumstances in which getting through a day is all we hope for. Maybe today you’re facing something so daunting that just getting through it would be a blessing. God hears and answers prayers for getting through.

But Jesus told us that he wanted us to have life – and in abundance (John 10:10). The question is where does life come from and what does it mean for us to live our days and not merely get through them?

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The story of Mary is the story of a literal conception. Cells divided. An embryo took shape in her womb and a heart began to beat. Fingers and toes, chin and nose, the body of a boy. This was Jesus. This was the body of the one whose mouth would speak God’s thoughts and whose touch would heal. This was the body that would one day be crucified.

We ask Mary’s question: “How can this be?” The answer we receive in scripture ignores cellular biology. This happens by the Spirit and Power of God. It’s sad that this event has morphed into a topic of theological debate and speculation. For what’s worth, I assume the truth of the virgin birth. I affirm the reality of the incarnation – God “in-fleshed” among us.

But the gift of life by the power of the Spirit isn’t something for us to merely think about. It is something we can experience. God still comes to us by the Spirit and infuses our days with power. Jesus promised that God would give the Spirit when we ask (Luke 11:13). Jesus told us that we could live our days with power (Luke 24:49).

God still does this. He has from the beginning. At the creation of the world, the Spirit hovered over chaos and brought forth life. In Mary’s womb the Spirit came with power and created life. After the resurrection the Spirit came on a small group of Jesus’ followers and the church was born. This is God’s way: the Spirit gives life.

The Spirit and Power are yours today. This will not necessarily change what you’ve got on your calendar: Same appointments, same job, same chores and errands – but truly lived and not simply accomplished or endured. There is more for you today than getting through.

We listen to the word, we trust God’s promises, we ask for the Spirit, and by God’s grace we truly live what we are doing. It’s not too late today to start.

Prayer:
Come Holy Spirit and grant life to us as we go through this day. Save us from empty motions and habitual patterns. Work within us to bring forth life that we might do ordinary and familiar things as people called, blessed, and sent into this world in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Favored One

2010-12-09T20:16:00.003-05:00

The angel went to her and said “Greetings, you who are highly favored! . . . Mary was troubled at his words (Luke 1:28-29).

Before Gabriel spoke Mary’s name he called her “favored.” Her name is spoken later as the angel tries to reassure Mary and give some definition to the word “favored.” What’s notable is that Mary’s proper name is only spoken once. The designation “favored” is spoken twice.

It’s true of all of us: grace defines life far more than a name or title.

Mary is favored by God. That sounds good doesn’t it? What could be better than being told – by an angel no less – that you are favored by God, that God is inclined toward you, takes notice of you and directs his blessing toward you? God’s favor sounds like a very good thing indeed.

I’d be perfectly willing to be numbered among the favored ones because in my mind God’s favor would look like this: First of all, the people that matter most to me would matter greatly to God. My children would be healthy and regularly make honor roll. God’s favor means charting a consistently upward course professionally; it means a marriage that grows deeper over time; it means approaching fifty in better shape that I was at thirty. God’s favor means a good life as I’ve defined it.

To be perfectly honest, I have received much favor from the Lord in my family and work. I am blessed. I know it’s true.

But what strikes me about Mary’s story is her response to God’s favor. Mary the favored one is troubled at Gabriel’s greeting. After Gabriel’s first attempt at an explanation, Mary still has questions. God’s favor comes to Mary as something disturbing, perplexing, confusing.

God’s favor doesn’t mean getting the life we want. God’s favor means being summoned to a life we never imagined. God’s favor and our ease have very little to do with each other; they are not the same thing.

I take encouragement from Mary’s response to God’s favor: troubled, perplexed. And I wonder if maybe we can work in the other direction. Is it possible that today you can begin with what troubles you and somehow find grace in it? Is it possible that you can look deeply into that thing that has you stumped and perplexed, afraid and anxious, and find the favor of God? God’s favor may rest on you right now but you don’t know it. If we define God’s “favor” strictly on our terms it’s probably easy to miss.

Take heart all you who are troubled. There’s favor to be found in what you can’t seem to sort through or figure out. Like Mary, the skills we need are in listening and trusting. Take time to practice those today.

Prayer:
God, we thank you for your grace and favor. We give you thanks for the many different ways your favor comes to us. Teach us to look for your favor in what troubles us and not simply in what we believe would make for our own happiness. We would be a listening and trusting people today, in reliance upon your Spirit. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Binding

2010-10-18T08:47:00.001-05:00

He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood (Genesis 22:9).

Late last spring we purchased a bike rack for the car. A Yakima – very boheme, the kind of bike rack that requires a trailer hitch bracket under your car. You can ride around Atlanta with this bike rack on your car, sans bike, just to look cool. Other drivers will see you and your Yakima and think that you’re athletic and outdoorsy.

Little do they know that our Yakima is for the kids’ bikes. We tend to mount it on the back of the car when we make our annual beach trip.

Each year we go through a ritual of packing and loading the car for the beach. The liturgy usually calls for miscellaneous beach stuff to go in first, then the luggage followed by bags of groceries and a large cooler. Once the back of the car is loaded, barely leaving oxygen for us to breathe on the trip, I close the back hatch and attach the cool bike rack.

As sturdy as our bike rack is, I don’t quite trust it when it comes to long trips on the highways. So once I’ve actually maneuvered the bikes into place and secured them with the rubber straps that came with the rack, I pull out my bungee cords and go through a final ritual of binding. I weave the stretchy cords through the bike frames, binding bike to bike. I do it again and search for clever ways to bind bikes to rack.

At some level, this binding is born of fear. I’m doing all I can to keep what I’ve got. I don’t want anything to get away or slip off. The binding is an act of securing what’s mine, holding it tight.

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The Hebrew word for binding is Akedah. It’s the word that rabbis use to designate the story of Abraham’s binding his son Isaac to the altar, obediently preparing to give the promised child back to God.

We don’t like this story. At the very least, it baffles us. As people who love God, the story sometimes embarrasses us, raising more questions about God than it answers. At worst, the story simply offends us. Why would God ask this? What’s God doing? What’s going on?

I’m not even going to attempt answer to those questions. I’m limited by space and by a very finite mind. I will, however, lift up a single verse from the Genesis 22 story that gives some insight into what is happening with Abraham while shedding some light on our own tendency to make and cherish idols in our heart. The key to the story seems to be at verse 12.

“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” [God] said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

The word that catches my attention is “withheld.” The habit of holding something back, tucking it aside, putting it away for private use or enjoyment. I’m given to withholding Oreos, guarding some of them from my voracious son.

Abraham’s disturbing story on Mount Moriah has much to tell us about our idols – but one simple lesson is this: Idolatry is not about what we believe in our heads. It’s about what we hold in our hands. Strangely, plenty of idolaters in the Bible believe in God. Israel is exhibit ‘A’ for the sin of idolatry, and they never rejected their belief in God. They simply refused to trust the God they claimed to believe in, refused to live according to his word and carry out his will.

Abraham on Moriah is our model of radical trust, binding Isaac, nothing held back. He had spent years learning such “habits of relinquishment.”

There is a kind of “binding” that tries very hard to keep something in place – like bikes on the back of the car. But there is a different kind of binding, like the Akedah on Mount Moriah, where we give something up, let it go. Idols are discovered in those recesses of heart and mind where we say silently to God, “You cannot have this.” Often, we may not even be aware that we’re saying such a thing. But we are holding back, and the holding back is grounded in fear.

The question today: What are you withholding? What would it look like to bind it to an altar and offer it to God?

Prayer:
Show me, O God, what I’m withholding – keeping from you, fearfully binding it so I won’t lose it. Give me the grace I need to bind it to an altar where all I am and I have is yours. I ask this in the name of Jesus, your only son, freely given for the world. Amen.

Beyond Naming

2010-10-13T07:48:00.002-05:00

“Bring out your son. He must die because he has broken down Baal’s altar . . .” (Judges 6:30).

Religiously minded people are good at naming idols.

Sometimes their idol-naming skills are the fruit of an authentic encounter with the true and living God. At some point, in some way, they encountered the Holy and found themselves undone. Like Isaiah in the temple, they got a taste of the real thing and knew in that moment who they were before God. Having encountered God, they can spot a fake.

Sometimes idol naming is picked up second-hand. Hang around a church long enough and you’ll catch the verbiage that comes so easily to practiced Christians. It’s not too hard to become adept at “church,” the programs and vocabulary. Some people are good at naming idols because they know what they’re supposed to say: “money, houses, diplomas, compliments.” It’s not a hard list to master, and you can add items freely to impress others with your piety.

But either way – whether by genuine encounter with God or second-hand mimicry of the same – naming idols isn’t enough. Our idols must be dismantled and dethroned. Not simply recognized, but removed. And this is hard, no matter how you learned to name your idols.

Those who know the true God find they still nurse a secret affection for the lesser god. We saw that yesterday in Gideon’s idolatrous relapse. Those who act like they know God find the acting works pretty well. They coddle their idols and no one at church suspects a thing.

There’s has to be something beyond naming, something bold and almost violent. The idol must be brought down.

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Back to Gideon. The heart of Gideon’s story is a great battle in which God used a mere 300 men to route the Midianites. Gideon commanded the special ops forces through whom God displayed his power and glory. Gideon: Called, chosen, used by God for a great purpose.

But before any of that could happen Gideon had to deal with some idols in the land and in his own family. Not just some anonymous inanimate thing. These idols belonged to his Father, a priest of the Midianite god Baal. Gideon was told to “tear down your Father’s altar” (Judges 6:25).

Gideon obeyed. He tore the thing down, dismantling the altar and cutting down the Asherah pole. But because he was afraid of his family he did it at night. He took down the idol, but under the cover of darkness. It didn’t matter. When everyone awoke they saw the rubble of their altar and the charred wood of the Asherah pole. “Who did this?” they asked. When they learned it was Gideon, they wanted to kill him.

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In the weeks ahead you will be asked to do something more than name your idols. You will be asked – challenged, pushed even – to bring them down. That will call for more than a few private moments in front of your computer with these words. What is being asked of you is more akin to violence, an act of spiritual vandalism aimed at the false gods in your life.

If you’ll do this you’ll discover what Gideon came to know: You cannot deconstruct your idol and keep your life intact. Get serious about bringing down an idol, and something will change. For Gideon, it meant alienating his family, taking a stand against his Father. The price tag will vary for each life, each situation. But there is a price.

Let’s not be content to simply name our idols, sitting comfortably with a daily “devotional,” scanning a few lines before hitting ‘delete.’ Let’s not skulk around these matters under cover darkness, like the timid Gideon. Step into broad daylight and bring down whatever seeks a place in your life that belongs only to God.

What kind of price-tag will idol smashing carry in your life?

Prayer:
Make me bold, Lord God, to do more than name the idols that occupy my heart. Help me to uproot them, tearing up and bringing down that which has taken your place in my life. Come to those once occupied places and establish your rule in me by your Spirit. Amen.

The Snare

2010-10-11T16:54:00.001-05:00

And it became a snare to Gideon and his family (Judges 8:27).

I have long loved the story of Gideon. Maybe because I see elements of the story that mean there just might be hope for me. God uses Gideon in a powerful way – but as for Gideon himself, he’s a stew of reluctance and doubt simmering over flames of caution and fear.

You can almost see Gideon looking around for someone else when God’s angel appears and says “The Lord is with you mighty warrior.” He doesn’t recognize himself in that greeting. Mighty warrior? Even we as readers are amused at this. Gideon is found by the angel threshing grain in the confines of a winepress. He’s cowering, guarding what he has from Israel’s enemy, the Midianites. Bent over in the winepress, Gideon hardly seems mighty, more wimp than warrior.

And once Gideon realizes that there’s no one else around to take up the mighty warrior mantle, he doesn’t fall to the ground in awe-struck humility. No, he’s got some questions. Times have been hard for the Israelites, and as far as Gideon is concerned God’s got some explaining to do. He gets right to the point with the angel. “If Gods is with us, why have all these things happened to us?”

Plenty of you woke up today asking the same question. You’d like to have faith and believe; you’ve tried to pray – but if God is really at work in this world why is the world such a mess? And if God cars the slightest bit about you and your life why have these things – whatever they might be – happened to you. I like that Gideon asked such a question, wanting to follow in obedience but needing assurances and then reassurances on top of that.

God bears patiently with Gideon. Giving signs: dry fleece and wet ground, wet ground and dry fleece. And then there’s the battle we’ve anticipated since the story started. God reduces Gideon’s force of 3000 to a mere 300. And then gives victory.

I love that. I need regular reminding that God works in just that way, stepping in with power when we’ve come to the end of our own strength and smarts and connections. This is how God gains glory – and glory is the one thing God refuses to share with other being.

Which brings us to the matter of idols and idolatry, our focus these days.

I had never seen until very recently that the story of Gideon begins and ends in idolatry. The discovery was a let-down for me, a tainting of Gideon’s otherwise ordinary image. But once again, this may be a part of Gideon’s story that tells us something that’s painfully true about all of us.

At the story’s beginning Israel’s neck is under the oppressive boot of Midian. Midian raids Israel at just the right time, waiting until harvest is ready then burning fields and storehouses. But all the while, ironically, Israel is worshipping Midian’s god Baal. And on top of that, Gideon’s father is the local Baal priest. The first thing Gideon has to do is destroy the altar his father has made to a foreign god. Destroy the altar, take the shards of ruined wood and stone and build another altar to Israel’s true God.

Having destroyed his Dad’s Ball altar, Gideon goes on to defeat the Midianites. All seems well. But at the end of the story, when Gideon is on top of his game and the people are ready to follow his leadership, he collects their jewelry and builds – of all things – another idol.

Gideon made the gold into an ephod . . . all Israel prostituted themselves by worshipping it there and it became a snare to Gideon and his family (Judges 8:27). As I said – that bothered me. Maybe it bothers you too. Why would he do that, especially after God had blessed him with a stunning military victory?

He did that for the same reason we do it. Our idols possess a powerful pull on our souls. As we start this journey together we ought to be honest enough to admit that this won’t be easy. Idolatry keeps dogging our heels. We don’t destroy our idols once and forget it. As with Gideon – they come back, even as we seek to live our faith. The idol becomes a snare, trapping us, tripping us.

What idol keeps rearing its head in your life? What has become a snare to you, refusing to leave you alone?

Prayer:
God, help me to do more than simply name my idols; give me the fortitude I need to dismantle them – over and over again. Keep me alert to the persistent lure of idolatry in all its forms. Guard me from that which could so easily become a snare in my life. I ask this in the name of your son Jesus. Amen.

Missing What Matters

2010-08-04T20:52:00.002-05:00

He makes me lies down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul (Psalm 23:2-3)

Ever had to make a U-turn?

It happens all the time. Maybe a median prevented you from turning left directly into the driveway or parking lot of your destination. Maybe you were looking for someplace you’d never been before and while you were focused on your directions you missed the street you needed. No big deal. A U-turn may be inconvenient, but it’s not uncommon - unless you’re at 34,000 feet.

In October of 2009 Northwest Airlines flight 188 was making a routine flight from San Diego to the Minneapolis/ St. Paul International Airport. Somehow the pilots of the aircraft missed the airport by about 150 miles. With the help of air traffic controllers NWA 188 executed a U-turn and made it back to Minneapolis, landing safely. But unlike the ordinary u-turns that you and I make all the time, this was a very big deal. The aircraft was greeted at the gate by the police and the FBI. Investigations were launched. Pilots were suspended. The question, of course, is “what happened?”

One theory – which as far as I know has yet to be confirmed – is that the pilots missed the airport because they had been napping during the flight. The pilots have denied this, claiming rather that they were involved in a “heated discussion” over certain airline policies. Again, I’m not sure what conclusions were reached in this matter, but this much is clear: experts were willing to connect pilot fatigue with missing the airport by 150 miles.

In our weariness we can miss important things. And sometimes what we miss cannot be reclaimed by a simple U-turn. A moment is lost, an opportunity missed. We missed it. And we missed it because we were tired.

In his book, The Rest of God, Mark Buchanan writes
One measure for whether or not you’re rested enough – besides falling asleep in board meetings – is to ask yourself this: How much do I care about the things I care about? When we lose concern for people . . . for friendship, for truth and beauty and goodness; when we cease to laugh when our children laugh (and instead yell at them to quiet down) or weep when our spouses weep (and instead wish they didn’t get so emotional); when we hear of trouble among our neighbors and our first thought is that we hope it isn’t going to involve us – when we stop caring about the things we care about - that’s a signal we’re too busy (The Rest of God, p. 48).

Psalm 23 tells us that a life lived under the shepherding care of God is a life lived at rest. God our shepherd makes us lie down in green pastures and leads us beside still waters. God restores our soul. Beautiful imagery – but what does rest look like? We’re probably not talking about laziness, stretching out on the sofa with a bag of Oreos (although there’s certainly a time for both stretching out and for Oreos). The rest to which God calls us, the rest which God offers us goes to the deep places of our life. The soul is restored.

As you read this, the day may still be young. How are you doing? Are you rested? It’s an important question because God never intended that we live our days worn out. Relentless weariness is costly. It can make pilots miss airports – and it makes us miss other things that matter.

Important things are happening all around you today: a comment from a co-worker that opens a window to their life, a question from your child, a sigh from your spouse in an unguarded moment. When we’re tired, we cannot engage these things. We miss what matters. But the good news is this: our shepherd God wills that we live at rest. God invites us to that kind of life and even makes it possible. This week we’ll spend some time finding the rest to which we’ve been called.

Prayer:
Too many times, O God, we have missed what matters in life. Weariness has bred inattention and inattention has meant neglect. We neglect the people close to us, and we neglect our life with you. The soul grows dull to the nudging of your Spirit. Grant us rest, that our souls might be restored and our hearts might be moved by the things which move your heart, we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

A Stark Satisfaction

2010-07-16T09:39:00.001-05:00

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want (Psalm 23:1).

To say or to pray the first line of Psalm 23 is fairly easy for those whose basic needs are met. While true poverty does exist in this country, “I shall not want” isn’t a stretch for most of us.

Our closets hold more clothes and shoes than we can wear; our kitchens are stocked with everything from prime rib to peanut butter; our homes are comfortable and some of us even manage to secure a second home for the weekends that’s every bit as comfortable as one we live during the week.

To be sure, we have our fantasies. Some call them dreams. I may enjoy thinking about a mountain house but I don’t “want” for one. You may see a car or a miter saw that you’d like to have, but you don’t feel deprivation in not having it. Here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we shall not want. When we turn the lights out at night we do so knowing that we have what we need.

So here’s the question that leaves me uneasy: what if all of that were gone? Not merely reduced or downsized. Gone. Would we still pray the 23rd Psalm? Could we take the words “I shall not want” to our lips and speak them from the heart. The question confronts me when I eavesdrop on the prayer of another obscure prophet by the name of Habakkuk.

Habakkuk – little known and not often read. The book in our Bibles that bears his name is made up of three chapters. You can read it easily in one sitting (go ahead and do it now and find out for yourself). His name is thought to mean something like “house plant.” Not too impressive – but what a powerful messenger of God this man was.

Again, some background and context.

Habakkuk spoke for God at a time that preceded the drama we read about yesterday. His words were spoken to the people of Judah before the Babylonians showed up and made a mess of the nation and the temple in Jerusalem.

What seems to have been difficult for this prophet and for the people to whom he spoke was the fact that he saw what was coming. God gave Habakkuk a preview of where history was headed. Habakkuk lived in a time when the people of God were totally disinterested in God and defiant of God’s laws – his way for life. Habakkuk complained to God and questioned how long this miserable state of affairs would last. God’s answer was not encouraging. Things would get much worse before they got better.

To the prophet’s astonishment God was actively raising up the Babylonians. The exile of 587 B.C. was not history gone awry. It was the redemptive and purposeful work of God. A bitter pill, but good medicine. Once God lets Habakkuk in on how the story will unfold, the prophet prays – and he ends his prayer with these amazing words:

Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vine,
Though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
Though there are no sheep in the pen, and no cattle in the stalls,
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my savior (Habakkuk 3:17-19)

Essentially Habakkuk is saying “I shall not want.” And his prayer is all the more noteworthy because he prays those words from stark barrenness. When a person who has things prays “I shall not want” the words sound nice. But when a person who is truly destitute prays “I shall not want” it is staggering. Is such a prayer really possible?

Such a prayer, as strange as it sounds, is possible for us. It is possible because it is grounded in God. The opening phrases of Psalm 23 are integrally connected. We shall not want because God is our shepherd. The not wanting is not the result of already having. Not wanting is the consequence of God’s shepherding love.

And an element of not wanting, of a satisfied and contented life, is joy. Like Habakkuk, we will be joyful in God – when the market is down, when unemployment figures rise, when bills begin to overwhelm, when no one seems to be able to stop the oil gushing from the floor of the gulf, even then.

We have a good shepherd. We shall not want. Thanks be to God.

Prayer:
This is the day that you have made, O Lord. We will rejoice and be glad in it. In all that it brings, in all that we experience, grant that we might be a joyful people. We would look to you as our joy and satisfaction – not the food in the kitchen or the clothes in the closet. With the prophet we pray the words "even though . . .” By your grace, we shall not want. Amen.

Satisfaction: Simple and Clear

2010-07-09T08:40:00.004-05:00

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want (Psalm 23:1).

There are days when I’ll write something only to read it the next morning when it comes back to my email box and say, “I wish I hadn’t written that.” That’s one of the occupational hazards of sending out daily meditations via email (or posting them on this blog). Luckily, there’s always a tomorrow that allows for clarifications, even retractions.

That’s what I’m doing today: clarifying. And the clarification has to do with this brief sentence from a previous post. “As for this day, don’t hesitate for one moment to pursue satisfaction.”

Now, I know what I meant by that statement. I stand by my original intent in writing the sentence. Satisfaction doesn’t mean a passive complacent way of doing life. It is good to be satisfied with God’s shepherding love, to say “I shall not want.” You get the idea.

My problem today is that I’ve revisited the opening chapter of the little book of Haggai. If you look for this book in your Bible you may need some help from the table of contents. The book is short, only two chapters. And it’s also fairly obscure. The prophet Haggai lacks the name recognition of some other Bible figures, say like Jonah or Paul.

Haggai’s voice has been a corrective to my own, and since his words were inspired in a way mine are not, he needs to be listened to carefully. What we hear from him is that the pursuit of satisfaction doesn’t yield satisfaction. Chasing contentment often stirs deeper discontentment.

Maybe a little background would be helpful at this point.

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The city of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. When the nation of Judah caved to Babylon two significant things were lost. First, the Davidic line of Kings came to an end. Second, the temple was destroyed.

The Babylonians carried many Jews into exile and this period of being a displaced people lasted for decades. Eventually the Persian Empire came along and defeated Babylon. King Cyrus of Persia had a different foreign policy with regard to the Jews. He allowed them to return home to Judah. He gave them permission to begin rebuilding what the Babylonians had ruined. That included the Temple.

Rebuilding was going to be hard work but the people took up the challenge with initial enthusiasm. But, as we might expect, over time they grew discouraged. Discouraged and distracted. Faced with the challenge of scratching out a living they stopped work on the temple. For about 17 years they didn’t lift a finger to rebuild God’s house. They took care of their own houses, but the temple was left to sit there is shambles. That’s when Haggai came along and basically got in their faces. Part of what he confronted them with was the frustration of their daily living. He told them:

You have planted much but have harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on clothes but are not warm. You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it. (Haggai 1:6)

The people were working themselves into the ground, trying to make a life in difficult times – and it was fruitless. They never had their fill. They never had enough. They were constantly wanting.

And the reason? Confused and disordered living. They had taken care of their own houses while God’s house remained a heap of rubble (1:3-4). Messed up priorities, no satisfaction.

While probably far better off than Haggai’s Jerusalem, our own economy has placed some heavy burdens on people. These are hard days, demanding more of us and seeming to reward us with less. Plenty of people understand this old prophet’s words. They plant much but harvest little. They’re never warm, never quite full, never satisfied. Their bank account has a leak somewhere.
The answer is not an intensified pursuit of satisfaction. The answer is to restore God to the center of life. Give attention to what matters most. Direct your energies to the spiritual core of your existence. That’s what the people of Judah had stopped doing. In the pressure of a weakened economy, we stop doing the same thing. And then we sense the nagging lack. We want.

We don’t find satisfaction by pursuing our own satisfaction. We find satisfaction by honoring God. It’s a matter of what we truly treasure and love. It’s simple. And now I hope it’s also clear.

Prayer:
Gracious God, we invite you back to the center of our lives today. As we go about the tasks of making a living and building a life, be at the center of all we do. And in all these things grant to us the contentment that comes with a life rightly ordered. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Just What We Need

2010-06-16T10:13:00.001-05:00

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want (Psalm 23:1).

In the Valley of Elah a forty day stalemate remained unbroken. On one hill the army of Israel had taken position and lined up for battle. On the opposite hill the army of the Philistines was in battle formation. Between them lay the valley floor, a wide empty space (1 Sam. 17:1-3).

It is often the distant threats that disturb us most. The threat that ambushes us and confronts us with imminent harm calls for immediate action. We must either fight or flee, but inaction is not an option. But the enemy we see from afar, the danger that awaits us, the confrontation that loiters in our future – that’s what keeps us up at night. Those wide open spaces are gaps to which our fears run. Such was the Valley of Elah for the army of Israel.

The fears of Israel were stoked morning and evening by the presence of a Philistine giant. Goliath came out every day and went through the same routine. With the rising sun, Goliath’s taunts filled the valley space. And as the sun sank low and threw shadows across the valley floor, he repeated his vulgar mocking of Israel and Israel’s God. “On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified” (1 Sam. 17:11).

One day Jesse sent David to the battle lines to deliver bread and cheese to his enlisted brothers. As he fulfilled the errand his father had assigned him, David heard Goliath’s taunts and the challenge he proposed: “Choose a man and have him come down to me.” To David’s amazement, no one moved. No one stepped up. The God of Israel was being mocked and the army of Israel dismissed, and nothing was being done about it. So David raised his hand before King Saul. “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him” (1 Sam. 17:32).

Saul objected. David persisted. David won. And in an effort to help David, Saul gave him his armor and sword and placed his helmet upon David’s head. It was a kind gesture, a nice thought, but totally useless as far as David was concerned. David could barely walk around under the weight of the armor. Thanks but no thanks. David returned the armor and the helmet and the sword. He took instead his shepherd’s staff and his slingshot. At a nearby stream he found five smooth stones. And then he made his way toward Goliath (1 Sam. 17:38-40).

David went to the fight knowing that he had just what he needed. He did not want. He did not anxiously try to stockpile another weapon or shield himself with someone else’s armor. David had exactly what he needed. He knew exactly who he was. And more importantly he knew who God was – and that was enough.

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The words “I shall not want” will not be spoken truthfully by the anxious and fearful. They are words of deep confidence and they reflect a profound courage. In our fears we are constantly wanting, never sure that we have what we need, never at peace with the sufficiency of grace.

“I shall not want” is first of all an expression of confidence in God. That was truly at the core of David’s life and it shaped his approach to the defining battle of his early career. David knew that God was able to deliver him. He had learned it in other smaller battles: battles with enemies that threatened his flock. David the shepherd had fought for his sheep. He knew that God would do the same for him and his people Israel.

From this confidence in God flows our sense of satisfaction with this day. It is a satisfaction born of God’s abundance. Because God is sufficient, we know that we have what we need for whatever we face at any given time. Just as the stones and the sling were adequate for David, you too have what you need to walk boldly to the fight.

The kind of satisfaction that does not “want” shows itself in a deeply grounded and confident life. You can live that way today. Stop trying to walk around in borrowed armor, securing your own life with someone else’s plans for you. You have what you need by God’s grace, and God is sufficient for the day.

Prayer:
You, O Lord, are our shepherd, and we have just what we need. We give you thanks for your faithfulness and for your sufficiency in all things. Grant us grace to live confidently today, firmly grounded in your power to deliver us and sustain us in whatever this day may bring. W will be satisfied, knowing that you are able, knowing that you are good. Amen.

Satisfied, not Settling

2010-06-15T08:16:00.001-05:00

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want (Psalm 23:1).

A segment on Monday morning’s Today Show featured an interview with Robert Pattinson, one of the stars of the insanely popular Twilight movie series based on Stephanie Meyers’ equally popular novels. The interviewer asked Pattinson if he ever thought about settling down and getting married – a question that undoubtedly burdens the mind of the American public.

Pattinson’s response was interesting. He answered by saying that he hoped that getting married wouldn’t necessarily mean settling down. Fortunately, he was able to acknowledge that marriage and monogamy inevitably involve a kind of “settling” – but the general drift of his answer suggested that “settling down” was somehow negative, something to be avoided, a kind of lifelessness.

As one for whom “settling down” has been a great way to do life, I was initially bothered by his answer – but not surprised. It reflects a certain kind of mindset that equates settling down with settling, and it’s the settling that frightens those who are drawn to zeal and the pursuit of excellence.

We hear the same kind of thing in business, particularly with a phrase like “good to great.” Good is the enemy of great. Good lulls us to sleep, allows us to settle. Why be good when you can be great? Americans love this kind of relentless quest for the next level. We admire it because it is in fact admirable. No one consciously aspires to “settle.”

But when we try to describe a life that rests in the shepherding love of God, we end up fumbling around for a positive description of what that life looks like. When we say “I shall not want,” what does that mean? Words like “satisfied” or “contentment” don’t stir our ambitions.

Various bible translations and paraphrases have attempted to bring out the meaning of the phrase: Eugene Peterson’s The Message says “Yahweh, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing.” The Jerusalem Bible says “I lack nothing.” The Living Bible says “I have everything I need.”

Translations help with the meaning of the phrase – but the question remains: What does a satisfied life look like and why should we regard such a life as a good life, and even a great life? Can we be satisfied without settling?

For the rest of this week we’ll look at three Old Testament texts, one from the life of David and two from the prophets, to explore some answers to that question. What we’ll discover is that a life that sis satisfied with God’s shepherding love is (a) firmly grounded (b) rightly ordered and (c) relentlessly hopeful. Such a life can hardly be described as “settled for.”

As for this day, don’t hesitate for one moment to pursue satisfaction. You’re not settling. You won’t miss a thing. The Psalmist prayed “satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (Psalm 90:14). To be satisfied with God means to live with joy and gladness, not regret and sadness.

Maybe you’re reading this in the morning. Let Psalm 90:14 be your prayer today. Ask God to satisfy you with his love. Go into this day knowing that God’s unfailing love is sufficient for all you will face, for every demand that will claim your time and energy. Don’t move from your chair dreading what awaits you. Don’t lug around the baggage from yesterday. Be satisfied in this moment with God’s shepherding love – and enter the day gladly.

Satisfied isn’t settling.

Prayer:
Satisfy us in the morning, O God, with your unfailing love. Give us what we need right now to live every moment of his day with joy and gladness. We will not live in want, constantly looking over our shoulders for what we’ve missed. Grant the grace of contentment that shows itself in joy – just the way Jesus lived. We ask this in his name. Amen.

That Nagging Lack

2010-06-14T09:12:00.001-05:00

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” (Psalm 23:1).

At some point, as a young child, my mind messed up the syntax and meaning of the phrase that will hold our attention this week: “I shall not want.” Somehow I connected the idea of “not wanting” with the “the Lord” so that what the Psalm really said was “I shall not want the Lord to be my shepherd.” That didn’t make sense.

The main action word of the sentence, the act of wanting, seems to hang there at the end of the sentence with no point of reference. It is an aimless and vague wanting. Now, a good bit older, I think I get it. Not just the way the words work in the sentence and what the sentence means – but the way our wants can dictate so much about how we live. Wants have a way of hanging there aimlessly, vague in their direction and focus. We want but we don’t know what we want.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” And yet we do. We seem to want all the time, even when we don’t know what.

As we step deeper into Psalm 23 this week we will want to tread carefully. We’re walking the terrain of our desires and the ground is treacherous – not because our desires are bad, but because desire can be a very good thing, a positive motivator of our actions and decisions.

Some of our wants are born on the broad daylight of hope. Desire takes the form of a dream in the mind and soul.

This is the kind of wanting that moves a person to seek counseling because there’s a desire for wholeness and healing in some area of life. This kind of wanting empowers a person to change careers because they deeply desire to do something with their life that makes a difference in someone else’s life. This is the kind of wanting that makes young people decide to get married and gets a young father to work every morning because he’s determined to get to of debt.

Almost everything of worth that we pursue in this life is born of desire. The desire shapes a dream. We see ourselves and our world differently than it is right now and we want what we see. These desires answer God’s beckoning, an invitation to become who God created us to be. This is desire bent heaven-ward, and it is good.

But some of our wants are born in the darkness of fear. This wanting does not live within us as a dream. Rather, we carry it as a kind weight. It is a nagging sense of lack. This kind of want is the discomfort of an empty place and we are certain we can fill it ourselves. This is the “want” of Psalm 23. It is a craving that pulls us away from the shepherd in an attempt to secure our own well being.

I don’t need to rehearse the ways this wanting shows itself in our living. We’re all acquainted with it. Whether it’s the acquisition of things or money or the attainment of a new position in the company or a word of praise and affirmation for something you did. Psalm 23 is telling us that we need not live our days driven by that nagging lack. We don’t have to keep looking for the next thing that will fix us or make things right.

The Rolling Stones sang with an almost angry passion, “I can’t get no satisfaction.” Not a bad song, except for one thing. It’s not true. For those who have a shepherd in Jesus, there is satisfaction. Not a lazy and complacent kind of satisfaction, but a deep trust in the God who shepherds us.

So what do you want today? Think about it. What’s ahead of you, pulling you into the day? What’s behind you, pushing toward your life? Are your wants heaven-bent dreams, or is there a nagging lack – and can you tell the difference?

Prayer:
Plant within us, O God, desires that become dreams and move us toward your will for us. And in those places of fear, the nagging lack where we try to secure our own well being, teach us to trust you as our shepherd. Grant to us today the satisfaction of being loved by one who wills our good and is sufficient for all that we need. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Say So . . . With Assurance

2010-06-09T11:32:00.001-05:00

The Lord is my shepherd . . . (Psalm 23:1)

There are 150 poem-songs in the book of Psalms. The Hebrew title of the book is literally “Praises.” Somehow the Hebrew morphs to Latin and finally to the English “Psalms.”

That these songs are called “praises” is interesting since many of the Psalms hardly sound praise-like. The Psalmists argue with God, question God and sometimes come quite close to accusing God. But somehow even these anguished utterances are praise when the one who speaks is determined to move toward God in all things. God is praised in shouts of hallelujah as well as in cries of lament.

Of the 150 Psalms in the Bible, 73 of them are designated with a prescript that connects the Psalm with the life of David. The prescripts were added as the Psalms found their place in the worship of Israel. Liturgical notes are characteristic of the Psalms, indicative of the fact that we’re reading a hymn book.

The prescripts that connect 73 Psalms with David sometimes provide a very detailed context for the words of the Psalm: “Of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelech” (Ps. 34). At other times we get a very simple line: “A Psalm of David.” Such is the case with Psalm 23. The meaning of this isn’t entirely clear. It might mean a Psalm by David. It might mean the Psalm is about David or was composed for or to David.

Of the 73 Psalms connected with David we can most easily believe that the much loved 23rd Psalm came from David’s own hand. In the mid 1850s the London preacher Charles Spurgeon said that the opening line had a sense of melody in it because it came from David’s heart. “David spake of what he had verified all his life long.” Spurgeon was probably right – but one has to wonder exactly how David came to know this.

And more to the point, how do we come to know the same thing? How do we come to affirm with conviction that “The Lord is my shepherd?”

The most commonly proposed answer to that question is that David himself was a shepherd. He knew what it meant to tend a flock and lead them to water and guide them with rod and staff. No doubt, the days of tending flocks shaped David as both a leader and a poet. But perhaps there’s something more, something deeper that speaks to our own lives and allows us to say exactly what David said with the same deep assurance.

Many years after his days in the fields, not long after he had been anointed as Israel’s king by Samuel, David secured the throne and consolidated power over the unruly twelve tribes. Saul, his benefactor turned nemesis, was dead. David was settled in his palace and at peace from all his enemies. Savoring the sweetness of success and power, David planned to construct a dwelling place for the Ark of the Covenant. The prophet Nathan blessed the plan. “Do whatever seems right to you. The Lord is with you.”

But no sooner had the plan been announced than God spoke to the prophet and told him that David needed to scrub those plans. God wanted to make it clear that he had never needed or asked for a house. Rather than David undertaking to provide for God, God wanted David to understand that God was the one who provided for David. David’s entire life was a story of God’s provision, a story of sovereign grace. From days in the fields to the position of power in the palace – all of it was God’s doing (2 Samuel 7:1-12).

And thus we all know that “the Lord is my shepherd.” The life of each and every one of us has never been a story of our own accomplishment. We are not self-made. We take no credit for the successes and we do not shoulder the failures alone. God is actively guiding, providing, comforting in all of it. The Lord is indeed our shepherd.

After the prophet spoke this message to David, David prayed. “Who am I, O sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?” (2 Sam. 7:18). Good question. How far has God’s sovereign grace brought you? And do you truly know that the Lord is your shepherd?

Prayer:
Gracious God, we would say with confidence that you are our shepherd. We don’t want to simply repeat familiar words. Give us eyes to see your sovereign grace in our lives, your providential care that has guided our steps when we least sensed your presence. You have brought us this far, and we give you thanks in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Needed: A Shepherd

2010-06-08T12:11:00.001-05:00

The Lord is my shepherd . . . (Psalm 23:1).

First, I’m defensive and a little bit angry. Then I feel foolish, as if I should have seen what someone else has so deftly pointed out. And then finally I step back and take an honest look at my own opinion and make an effort to evaluate the contrasting opinion based on its merits.

That’s what I hope I’m doing now – honestly evaluating, thinking things through. Since reading a nationally known pastor’s outright dismissal of the “shepherd” as a model for what pastors do, I’ve had to negotiate the angry, foolish, thoughtful cycle of idea grief. I’m still not sure I’m where I need to be with the whole thing.

The words that troubled me are in print, so I’m able to review them and listen to them over and over again, trying to make sure I’m hearing what was really said. This highly regarded teacher is someone who I greatly respect. I listen to his podcast. So when he said in an interview that the word “shepherd” was irrelevant, he got my attention. Here’s the quote, admittedly removed from context:

“That word [shepherd] needs to go away. Jesus talked about shepherds because there was one over there in a pasture he could point to . . . I’ve never seen a flock. I’ve never spent five minutes with a shepherd. It was culturally relevant in the time of Jesus but it’s not culturally relevant anymore.” (Leadership Journal, May 28, 2007).

I get that. I claim little to no experience with shepherds or flocks of livestock of any kind. In my first church in Oklahoma I knew that several of my members owned cows, but I never actually had interaction with their cattle. On my recent trip to the Holy Land – an ideal place for getting first-hand knowledge of biblical images and metaphors – the shepherds I saw were off at a distance. I do have a good picture from one of my fellow pilgrims of a shepherd with whom we had some up-close contact, but the picture is all I have of that experience.

Shepherds are not easily found in metro-Atlanta. But while I acknowledge the truth of what this fellow-pastor says, I just can’t reach his conclusion.

For one thing, his position elevates personal experience to an unworthy height while it sells people short. Meaningful knowledge cannot be tethered to what I myself have seen and done. It is entirely possible affirm as “true” something that is alien to my own life experience. My own story can never be an adequate measure of what is worthy and helpful. And it is also possible that intelligent people are capable of comprehending the meaning of a metaphor that is foreign to their own time and culture.

Jesus didn’t use the word “shepherd” because there was one in a field that he could see and point to. Jesus used “shepherd” because he had read Isaiah and the Psalms. The concept came to him from Israel’s history, not a Judean hillside.

But beyond that there is this practical matter. If you jettison the biblical image of a “shepherd” what will you replace it with? Is there anything that we can see and identify that offers a suitable and adequate substitute the Biblical image? What speaks most powerfully to the deepest needs of our life?

The Lord is . . . my adviser? We need far more than advice. The Lord is . . . my boss? That hardly stirs our affections. The Lord is . . . my CEO? These days that stirs nothing but disdain and distrust. The Lord is my . . . coach? That might get at what we need. Personal coaching is big these days. The Lord is my . . . counselor? Maybe – but good counselors pay close attention to boundaries. The shepherd risks his life for the sheep. Counselor is close, but not quite there.

Maybe what we need is exactly what Psalm 23 says. We need a shepherd.

How do you see it? Why does it matter that Jesus is a “good shepherd?” Could he meet you in the details of your life as something else?

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you called yourself a good shepherd. While the image is strange to us, we know you in what you do with us – the way you guide us and seek us out when lost and lead us to what will sustain us and give us life. We will not fight over words. We only seek to follow you as you do your work among us by your Holy Spirit. Do that work today, we pray. Amen.

Learning to Mean What We Pray

2010-06-07T14:25:00.002-05:00

“The Lord is my shepherd . . .” (Psalm 23:1).

I had no idea what I was in for. I can’t recall now if I had purchased popcorn and a big Coke. If I had it seems to me I wasted my money. You can’t watch the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan and snack on popcorn. There’s just something wrong, almost irreverent about it.

Yesterday, June 6th, 2010, was the 66th anniversary of the allied forces invasion of the beaches of Normandy, known since that time as D-Day. I’ve never been to Normandy, but I’d like to go someday. For now, as lame as it sounds, my knowledge of D-Day has come entirely from books and documentaries. The most intense experience came from a movie. I sat in a cushioned chair and watched a recreation of the event on a screen.

Maybe that’s what D-Day made possible. A kid born in 1962 would sit a comfy dark theater in 1998 watching a movie about the hell some other kids walked into in 1944. And were it not for the bravery and the sacrifice and horror of what happened in 1944, the 1998 popcorn and movie experience might not have ever happened.

I only saw the movie once, and it’s been awhile. Snapshots of the gruesome opening scene have stayed with me: Crowded amphibious assault vessels approaching Omaha Beach, ocean spray raining down on solemn faces, the absence of frivolity, the presence of courage and fear. Just enough courage to do what the day demanded. Just enough fear to appreciate the gravity of what was being done.

I haven’t researched this and I can’t prove it, but I have to believe that on those boats there was someone, perhaps many, maybe hundreds, who knew and prayed the 23rd Psalm. As the fog parted to reveal a distant shore, as the beaches came closer, as doors dropped and bullets ripped the damp air, surely someone had repeated again and again, “The Lord is my shepherd.”

On June 6, 1944 the valley of the shadow of death took more substance than a mere shadow. Many of the men who walked into that valley didn’t walk out of it. And this begs the question: what does it mean to say “the Lord is my shepherd?” If even one person prayed those words and believed them only to die moments later on the beach, how are we to understand the shepherding presence of God in our lives? What does it look like? What does it mean for us to say “the Lord is my shepherd?” How do we say it and mean it?

In the weeks ahead we’ll be taking a leisurely look at the shepherding work of God by walking through each line of the 23rd Psalm. In his commentary on the Psalms, Old Testament scholar James L. Mays maintains that the entire 23rd Psalm is an exposition of the very first line – “the Lord is my shepherd.” Our reflections in the weeks ahead will seek to give shape and texture to how God shepherds your life.

Most of us who undertake to pray the words of the 23rd Psalm will never face anything like the horror of D-Day. Rather, we seek to affirm the shepherding presence of God in far more ordinary circumstances of life. We claim God as our shepherd as we make career decisions and navigate morning traffic. We claim God as our shepherd as we exercise parental wisdom and prepare a budget. We claim God as our shepherd when we plan vacations and then travel to enjoy what we’ve planned.

In every aspect of life, God is indeed a shepherd to us. The death on Normandy’s beaches did not negate the shepherding love of God for us. The loss of a job and the bad results of a biopsy do not render the shepherding presence of God null and void. The tensions in your marriage and the fluctuations of the market do not make the familiar words meaningless.

“The Lord is my shepherd.”

In the coming weeks we will seek to pray these words and learn what they mean. And along the way, by God’s grace, we may also learn to mean what we pray.

Prayer:
We give you thanks, O God, for your shepherding presence in our lives. Throughout this day meet us in ordinary events and routines and teach us what it means to live in the confidence of your shepherding love. We claim it boldly now in the name of Jesus, the good shepherd. Amen.

For Anna on Her 11th Birthday

2010-05-14T05:37:00.001-05:00

She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying (Luke 2:37).

I’m writing this on my daughter’s eleventh birthday. You’ll be reading a day or so after.

Technically, of course, her birthday is over. May 12th has come and gone. That’s the way I remember birthdays as a kid. You had a birth day. But now it seems that kids get something akin to a birth week – a string of celebrations and observances that span an indefinite period of days. So as you open this email the birthday “season” is in full swing.

I launched the season by taking Anna to breakfast before school. I won’t be at home to enjoy the birthday dinner that Marnie has planned, so I decided to treat my daughter to breakfast. That was a birthday first for us, but I liked it and I think she did as well. Maybe we’ve discovered a new tradition.

It’s probably time for a new tradition. I have one that my “little girl” has outgrown, although she still tolerates my foolishness, allowing me to repeat this birthday liturgy year after year. It started several years back when she truly was little and it goes like this. I’ll ask her how old she’s going to be. When she tells me I ponder it for a moment and act shocked. After a brief stunned silence I feign a distraught plea, begging her “No . . . No . . . don’t do it . . . please don’t do it.” The idea is that I don’t want her to get older.

And truth be told – part of me really doesn’t want her to get older. She used to laugh at this. Now she rolls her eyes or humors me with a polite chuckle.

********

In February Anna stopped breathing.

We knew something wasn’t right. We’d already had her in the emergency room earlier in the day. We’d had her looked at and we planned to doctor her through it. But the ongoing breathing complaints had us stumped. Once it was clear to us that she wasn’t going to sleep that night we all piled in the car and headed back to the hospital.

And then she stopped breathing. I didn’t see that coming. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t. We were in the car when it happened. Words fail me here. Some feelings and images come back with clarity: Driving fast and scared, struggling to get her limp body into the ER, seeing her on a ventilator, the cold room, her skin a mottled pink and pale.

And then a week later it was over. She was barely able to stand being held in the hospital that last day, waiting to be discharged. She was angry that we weren’t planning to let her go to church the very next day. Now it’s as if nothing ever happened.

But it did happen. And on her birthday my “Don’t do it” act is just that. A big act. I want her to do it. I want her to age and grow. I love seeing her get a year older, knowing that she’s on her way to becoming who God made her to be. I love the anticipation of watching her days unfold, year after year.

********

Our Anna was named for the prophetess Anna in Luke 2. Luke tells us very little about this Anna. She never shows up again in the pages of scripture. She makes a very brief appearance, playing a supporting role to the aged Simeon on the day that Mary and Joseph present the infant Jesus to the Lord at the temple, following the commands of the Torah.

On that day there were two people who recognized the Holy family: Simeon and Anna. Anna had been married for seven years but then lived as a widow until the age of eighty-four. Her life was spent worshiping and waiting for God’s saving work on behalf of his people. When Mary and Joseph arrived with their son Anna recognized the child, gave thanks and praise to God, and spoke to others about who this child was.

I pray that my Anna will enjoy a long marriage with children and grandchildren of her own. But above all of that, and of far greater significance, I pray that with every passing year she will grow to imitate the aged Anna of the temple. May every passing year find her learning to worship. May the years sharpen her capacity for seeing God’s work in the world. May her heart be filled with thanksgiving and her mouth be bold to speak of Jesus.

And with every passing year may she know the presence of God’s Spirit and the working of God’s power in her life. The kind of blessing that says, “You go right ahead and do it. For this you were made.” And may you know the same.

Prayer:
By the power of your Spirit, O God, may we live our days and every passing year telling your story, giving you praise, delighting in your saving works through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Tree and the Temple

2010-04-02T11:53:00.000-05:00

Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!” (Mark 11:21)

On Sunday he wept.

That seems like a strange response to celebration and acclamation. You won’t see that at a Macy’s parade, the person perched atop the float shedding tears. It’s out of place. Nevertheless, at some point on his journey toward Jerusalem, from his seat on the colt, Jesus wept over the city.

As Luke tells the story, Jesus wept because this city and its inhabitants did not know what would bring them peace. Not much has changed in Jerusalem. For that matter, there are plenty of people in Atlanta and Seattle and Des Moines who share the same ignorance. We want peace, but don’t know how to get it. Maybe we refuse what we know. Peace – the kind that “passes understanding” – is found in Jesus. As Jesus approached Jerusalem he knew that this truth was hidden from their eyes (Luke 19:41-42). They would not look to him for peace. In an effort to restore peace and keep the peace, they would kill him. So Jesus wept for Jerusalem.

But the weeping didn’t last long. On the day after that triumphal entry, according to Mark’s rendering of events, Jesus cursed.

Jesus and his disciples were on their way to the Temple when Jesus spotted a fig tree and went to see if had fruit, possibly hoping for a snack since he was hungry. There was no fruit to be found. It was a bit early in the season for figs and the tree had only leaves on its branches. This provoked the curse – not profanity or foul language, but a pronouncement of permanent barrenness. “May no one ever eat fruit from you again” (Mark 11:14).

Jesus then made his way from the tree to the temple. At the temple he again lets his indignation loose on the money changers and vendors who have distorted what temple worship was all about. He drove them out, turned their tables over, scattered their profits all over the temple floor.

Sunday’s weeping is replaced with Monday’s cursing, the tears prelude to a tirade.

********

I’ve never liked the fig story. While pastors are hesitant to admit this, I’ve never really understood it. The story doesn’t reflect well on our Lord. His “cursing” of tree that has no fruit sounds a bit like a tantrum. Jesus didn’t get his snack and he’s irritable. I don’t put up with this kind of thing from my own children and I sure don’t want to see it in Jesus.

But the tree makes a little more sense when placed in the context of the temple story. Both the tree and the temple are barren and that’s what Jesus sees. He isn’t being petty or throwing a fit in the temple, and he isn’t having a tantrum at the tree. The temple worship that had deteriorated into a commercial enterprise is barren, failing to bear the fruit of true worship. The tree that bears no fruit anticipates what Jesus will find at the temple. The tree is the temple and the temple is the tree.

But in the larger context of Holy Week Jesus’ weeping and cursing, the tears and the righteous indignation say something about how God sees us and the fruitless, barren places in our own lives. On one level, sin is our failure to be all that God made us to be. Sin renders our lives barren and fruitless, a shallow existence that goes through the motions of living but never truly lives.

Jesus sees this and weeps. Jesus sees this and goes to work cleaning house, restoring a heart that truly loves God and bears fruit in the world. What Jesus said to the tree was a word of judgment. What Jesus did in the temple was likewise an act of judgment. And what Jesus did on the cross was judgment as well – but not condemnation.

“This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit” (John 15:8). How is the fruitfulness of your life today? Are you going through motions or growing in grace?

Prayer:
Fill me with your Spirit today, O God, that my life might bear fruit in this world. Apart from your help I will not be the person you have made me to be. My own efforts at fruitfulness are bound to fail without your grace. Thank you for the cross and the judgment Jesus bore for my empty, barren ways. Bring me into resurrection life, I pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

A Broken and Beautiful Thing

2010-03-30T07:52:00.001-05:00

She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head (Mark 14:3).

By Tuesday Jesus needed a break. He found what he needed in the little village of Bethany.

A traditional chronology of the last week of Jesus’ life tells us that the days played out as follows: Sunday was the day Jesus entered Jerusalem, praises shouted, branches waved, cloaks spread out like a rug, expectations running high. That parade was soon forgotten. On Monday Jesus cleared the temple of money changers and animal vendors, quoting the prophet Jeremiah and chastising those who had turned God’s house of prayer into a den of robbers. Things were getting tense. By Tuesday Jesus needed a break from the noise and clamor of Jerusalem at Passover.

The respite Jesus needed was found at the home of a man known as Simon the Leper. We have no idea who this man was. His name never appears again in the pages of scripture. The simplest explanation was that Simon was a man who had suffered from leprosy until Jesus healed him. Now, well and whole and restored to his home in Bethany, he hosts a meal for Jesus.

While Jesus was reclining at the table “a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume” (14:3) Sound and scent were almost simultaneous, the shattered vessel releasing an aroma that quickly filled the room. And almost as quickly, the murmuring started.

The presenting issue was the waste of such a valuable and precious commodity. That’s what some of those present complained about. It isn’t clear if they were sharing the meal, involved in the intimacies of table fellowship with Jesus and others, or if they were religiously curious spectators. Gossip mongers making nice until they could find something to talk about.

The unspoken issue, the deeper issue, might have been the woman herself. A female had made her way to the place where Jesus reclined – highly unusual in that cultural setting. As Luke tells the story, the woman had a reputation that should have caused a truly righteous man to recoil. That Jesus didn’t flinch caused tongues to wag.

“Leave her alone,” Jesus said as they unleashed their harsh rebukes at her. “She has done a beautiful thing to me” (14:6). Beautiful indeed.

********

All of the beauty in this Holy Week drama is seen in broken things and broken people. The meal is hosted by a man who still lives with the moniker of his former life: Simon the Leper. While possibly used affectionately by neighbors who marveled at his healing, the nickname evoked his broken self. A man once diseased and feared and rejected now made well, hosting a meal for the one who touched his shredded flesh and made him whole again.

There is beauty in the broken jar, a delicate rounded vessel with a long neck, holding expensive perfume. Once a vessel like that was broken, everything in it would flow out, completely emptied, nothing held back. And that act of devotion came from a woman who very likely knew her own brokenness.

The people who missed entirely the beautiful that happened in that room in Bethany were the competent people, the smart people who knew the value of a dollar. They were superficially devout people who spoke loudly abut the poor but were strangers to mercy. They might not have been hostile to Jesus, but they didn’t quite get him. Those words about anointing and burial sailed right by them (14:8). They missed the beautiful thing.

Holy Week won’t mean much to those who avoid their own brokenness and despise it in others. That’s true for the simple reason that Holy Week is taking us to a very broken place – the place of crucifixion and death. Apart from that Resurrection is thin and Easter becomes little more than “cute.” Settle for cute Easter, and you’ve missed the truly beautiful thing.

But seeing the beauty means getting close to the broken things and broken ones: a leper, a questionable woman, a shattered jar – all broken. And then there’s Jesus taking the image to himself. “This is my body . . . broken.”

He has done a beautiful thing for us. Beautiful indeed.

Prayer:
We work hard, O God, at concealing the broken pieces of our lives. We mask them with our charisma and the trappings of a successful life. Teach us to see the beauty in those broken places of our own lives – and also in the brokenness of our neighbor. Save us from the kind of competence that distances us from you and the beautiful thing you want to do in us through Jesus our Lord. Amen. .

Expectations

2010-03-29T09:19:00.000-05:00

. . . the whole crowd of disciples began to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen (Luke 19:37).

Few places are harder to live than in the gap between what we expect and what we get, that barren stretch that separates what we think we deserve and what our lives have actually delivered to us. We can barely tolerate being there and we’ll do anything to find a way out.

Sometimes that means we adjust our expectations. The pain of disappointment is alleviated by lowering our sights. But with every downward adjustment hope is diminished, and eventually we find we’ve stopped dreaming altogether.

Another strategy moves in the opposite direction. Sometimes the tension between what we expect and what we get pushes us to do whatever we need to do to secure our own happiness. We lash out at whoever or whatever gets in the way of what should have been.

Of course, we often ricochet back and forth between both of those responses: resignation or anger, passive acceptance or violent force. What we find most difficult is what the Psalmist urged. “Wait on the Lord” (Psalm 27:14).

Holy Week is bracketed by shouting crowds. On the front end of Holy Week we remember the day Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem. Luke tells us that the crowd that welcomed him that day “praised God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen” (19:37). Their shouts were grounded in past events, but those past events had shaped their expectations of what would soon be.

The miracle-working Jesus was their King. The very manner of his approach to Jerusalem, mounted on a colt, spoke to his identity as the one of whom Zechariah had prophesied (Zech. 9:9). These shouts carried the weight of expectations shaped by the hope of what a warrior king would do.

By the time we get to the end of the week those expectations are thoroughly shattered. This celebrated King has failed to deliver and now the crowds are shouting something different. “Hosanna” has morphed to “Crucify.” Holy Week is the story of what it means to walk with Jesus in the midst of unmet expectations.

We find ourselves in good company. This kind of disappointment isn’t unique to the godless or the wicked. Even Jesus’ closest followers struggled during those final days of his life. And they failed. Some of them failed big: Judas’ disappointment with Jesus, and then with himself, was so deep that he took his own life. Peter caved to his fear and denied Jesus. Eventually, by Friday afternoon, all of the disciples have scattered.

And as for us – plenty of us live every day with unmet expectations. Some of them are minor: a driver in front of you failed to use his turn signal; you assumed your spouse had made the bank deposit when you wrote the check, or the kitchen completely messed up your order when you happened to be on a tight schedule.

Of course, some of our expectations go to the core of who we are. A single adult approaches another birthday marking yet another decade without the dreamed of mate and the dreamed of children. The long-awaited retirement brings a deadening boredom and feelings of uselessness. The new purchase becomes a draining burden rather than the status symbol it was supposed to be. The promotion proves to be a wrong fit for your best skills. In short, things are not working out like you had hoped they would.

That gap between what we expected and what we actually experience is the place where faith wanes. During this week – or for that matter during any week – when the tension between what you hoped for and what you’ve received feel unbearable, hear the invitation of Jesus. Stay with him. Listen to his words. Watch what he’s doing. Don’t get swept up the noisy demands and expectations of the culture. God is at work. Such hardly seems to be the case, and you may not see it now. But God is at work.

To all who feel the ache of something that hasn’t worked out according to plan, welcome to Jerusalem.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, keep us close to you in the final days of this Lenten journey. Our expectations so easily become demands. We stop praying and start giving direction. Keep us attentive to what you are doing, especially when life unfolds in ways we didn’t expect or ask for. Teach us trust, even in the shadow of the cross. Amen.

Finding Your Way Back

2010-03-08T21:57:00.001-05:00

The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came . . . and anoint Elisha. . . ” (1 Kings 19:15).

My daughter lost her jacket at church last Wednesday night. It just disappeared, grew legs and walked off. We searched for while, but it had been a long day, we were both tired and it was time to go home. Part of me wanted to be hard-nosed about it, dig in and let her know we weren’t going anywhere until she found that jacket. Another part of me – the part that won – just wanted to go home.

“Maybe it’ll turn up, Anna.” That’s what I said out loud to her. Inside my head I was thinking, “We’ll never see that jacket again.” I knew I’d be back the next day and I’d look again.

Thursday morning: A little more time, much less tired. I did what you always do when you’ve lost something. I tried to retrace her steps. Her first stop on Wednesday afternoon was Marnie’s office. That had been thoroughly searched and we knew it wasn’t there. The second stop was bell choir. We hadn’t thought of that on Wednesday night. The story has a simple but happy ending. I walked up the room where she has hand bells and there it was. It hadn’t been hard to find. It was simply a matter of going back to where she had been.

“Go back the way you came.” This was God’s word to Elijah. Sometimes God says the same thing to us.

********

Last week we spent several days with Elijah on Mount Horeb, the mountain Elijah had fled to in his fear and despair. A cave makes a great hiding place, but it makes a lousy home. The good news is that the story of Elijah does not end on Mount Horeb.

“Go back the way you came.”

There was still more for Elijah to do. God hadn’t finished with him, but God’s purposes for Elijah couldn’t be fulfilled in a cave. Elijah would have to crawl out of the hole he had found in which to stoke his anxieties and self-pity. He would have to retrace his steps and find his calling once again.

“Go back the way you came.”

That sounds simple but for many nothing could be harder. For one thing the steps that took you to where you are today might have been very painful. The cave of self-pity or self-doubt was never a place you thought you’d be, and you’re not entirely sure how you got there. Going back and revisiting those steps may be the last thing you want to do. You’d just as soon not walk through that desert again.

But as hard as it might be, the promise that gives strength for the journey is that you can find your way back. The cave is not the end of your story. You can find your way back to a place of usefulness and purpose. You can find your way back to a clear direction. You can find your way back to being someone who has something to offer that shapes another person’s life.

Elijah made his way back through to the place where he found Elisha, the one who would carry on what Elijah had started. That’s the story we’ll spend time with this week. But for today, what would it mean for you to “Go back the way you came?” What steps do you need to retrace and what might you find once you do that?

Prayer:
Gracious God, let every step we take today be taken with you. If there are steps that need to be retraced, make us bold to walk that way that we might once again discover who you’ve called us to be and what you’ve called us to do in this world. In all that we do, we pray that you would make our steps firm and keep faithful as we seek to walk as Jesus walked. We pray this n his name. Amen.

He Hid His Face

2010-03-05T20:54:00.001-05:00

And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it he pulled his cloak over his face . . . (1 Kings 19:13).

Time for a reality check. That voice that Elijah heard on Mount Horeb – we’ve got it all wrong.

Our Bible translations don’t help us much here. We are told that on Mount Horeb Elijah heard a “still small voice.” That’s the King James Version, the familiar and time tested phrase that captures the nature of the divine utterance. The “still” and the “small” is described in stark contrast to the bluster of wind and fire and earthquake, all of which were void of God’s voice and presence.

Other translations take the “still small voice” and make it a “gentle whisper” (NIV). One translation says that it was “the sound of sheer silence” (NRSV). The New English Bible says that Elijah heard a “low murmuring sound” while the Jerusalem Bible calls it “the sound of a gentle breeze.”

A still small voice. That sounds nice doesn’t it? Soothing. God’s voice caressing us, lulling us into a peaceful state of mind.

But whatever this voice was – breeze, whisper, sheer silence – it caused Elijah to hide his face. That’s not the behavior of one soothed and lulled. That’s the action of one awed, convicted, fearful.

I recall being outdoors on a work in site in the middle of an Oklahoma August. From time to time a gentle breeze would disturb the shade-less heat. Your response is to lift your face, to catch as much of it as you can for as long as it lasts. That’s not what Elijah did. He covered his face when God spoke. The voice may have indeed been a whispering voice, breeze-like in tone and volume, but it evoked something deep in Elijah. It made him hide his face.

Mark Buchanan rightly states that

There is a dreadfulness about God. This is seldom said. We often cherish a pious delusion about ourselves: that we truly desire God and that all that’s lacking to pursue deepest intimacy with Him is adequate skill, sufficient knowledge, proper motivation. But is this so? Down in our bones, mingled with our blood, silent and potent as instinct, is a dread of God. This is primal fear. The voice of God, the presence of God, holds not comfort but terror. (Your God is Too Safe, 22-23).

Long before whispering to Elijah, God held another mountain top conversation with Moses. When Moses came down from the mountain the Israelites kept their distance from him. They told him, “speak to us yourself and we will listen, but do not have God speak to us or we will die” (Exodus 20:18-19). The voice of God would be too much.

So back to the “still small voice.” Two things are required of us: Be careful and be courageous.

Be careful in your listening: This voice is not easily heard and it will not be found in the loud and obvious blustering of our culture or even of our churches. Loud and showy religion is one of Satan’s closest allies in keeping people deaf to God. Be careful in your listening.

And be courageous: When God speaks you may be undone. As the writer to the Hebrews reminds us, “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). The voice of God could change your life. It could change your plans. If you’re trying to hear God speak be sure you’re ready for what that might mean for your life. God’s words are never given to us as a mere lullaby.

What is truly amazing is the God wills to speak to us. The real question, as always, is whether we are willing to listen.

Prayer:
We will not take your voice lightly, O God. Help us to listen carefully, discerning your words and your will in the middle of our busy and noisy lives. And make us bold as we listen for what the Spirit says, ready to be changed and ready to respond in obedience. Amen.

Lightweight Deity

2010-03-04T09:07:00.000-05:00

Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done . . . Elijah was afraid and ran for his life (1 Kings 19:1-5).

We’re waiting on a growth spurt. Could be any time now. I’ve made use of biblical language in assuring my son that he’ll shoot up any day – “like a thief I the night . . . you do not know the day or the hour.” But it will come.

In the meantime we let him eat just about anything he wants. I’m not sure that’s such a great idea. It sure won’t hasten the “thief in the night” thing, but maybe it’ll get more meat on the bones. Imagine my surprise when my son announced that he needed to abstain from a meal before a wrestling meet. He explained that he was only a half-pound shy of having to move up to the next weight class and he didn’t want to do that.

Weight classes make sense in wrestling. They keep things fair and they keep things safe. That’s obvious I guess, but I’m new to the whole wrestling subculture. Whereas I’m typically encouraging him to bulk up, I wasn’t sure I wanted him in the next weight class. It means bigger opponents. In theory he’s bigger too – but it didn’t look that way to me.

Strength and size are important in wrestling. And they also matter in our walk with God.

********

On Mount Carmel it was clear that Elijah served a heavyweight God. The prophet had called for a contest between himself and the prophets of the fertility god Baal. Elijah had gone to the mat on this one, challenging the people. “How long will you waver between two opinions. If the Lord is God follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him” (1 Kings 18:21).

Short version of the story: Baal was pinned in seconds by Elijah’s God. Baal had nothing to offer in response to the loud and frantic prayers of his prophets, more than four hundred of them pleading hour after hour for a show of strength. Their prayers met with Elijah’s taunts and silent skies.

Then Elijah prayed. A short request, simple and clear in it purpose: send fire so that all may know that you, O Lord, are God (1 Kings 18:37-38). And fire fell from heaven.

The shocking thing about this story is its aftermath. Having defeated Baal’s prophets, Elijah is a wanted man, hunted by Queen Jezebel. In the face of her threats, God suddenly became small, a lightweight deity. The pagan Queen became large, a heavyweight ruler. Fear gripped Elijah’s heart and he ran for his life.

********

How is it that God so easily and often becomes small in our eyes?

Elijah’s name means “The Lord is God.” We say we believe it. But the slightest opposition from some pretender to power in our lives can send us into a tailspin of anxiety. Our God is suddenly shrunken and weak – and something else stands large and powerful in our minds and claims lordship over our hearts.

The person making hiring decisions becomes strong and powerful against our lightweight deity. The stock market and drama of Wall Street looms large as God pales in the background, swallowed up in the noise of trading. A supervisor becomes the heavyweight, far too much for our scrawny God. God gets small, even when we know better, even when we’ve lived through something where we’ve seen fire fall from heaven.

In 1961 J. B. Phillps wrote a book titled “Your God is too Small.” If such a thing could be written in 1961, how much more so in 2010? As this year begins, what weight class have you placed God in? And what would it take for God to once again become a heavyweight deity – Powerful, Sovereign, Creator God.

Prayer:
Forgive us for seeing you as small, O God, while other things stand large and formidable in our minds and in our hearts. We would recover our sense of your power today, living with the strength that comes from serving a great and mighty God who is at the same time faithful in caring for us. Grant us courage for all that we face and a vision of your presence with us. Amen.

For My Wife on Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T07:27:00.001-05:00

For the first time in a week I woke up this morning and heard you breathing next to me. There have been other weeks when I woke up to silence, finding emptiness beside me as you traveled, other mornings when I found your place strangely vacant when you didn’t sleep well and the sleeplessness pushed you to get up and get some work done.

But your absence from our home in these recent days has been like nothing we’ve ever lived through. Our house has been empty as you and I kept vigil by our daughter’s hospital bed. There were a few nights when our energies and attention ran in different directions – me here with John trying to create some sense of normalcy; you there with Anna in exile, removed from anything we know as normal and familiar.

In these days we have lived through a strange absence. Often standing in the same room, focused on the same little girl, wanting the same things and managing a common life while distant from what we know as our life together.

And now, as of last night, we are home: under the same roof, sharing the same meals, back in our beds. God’s grace to us has meant a return to home and health. It is not always that way for everyone. We know that now like we didn’t know it a week ago.

And there is something else I know now in a new way.

A marriage grows over time as two people give themselves to the same things. Love is not simply what people ‘have’ or ‘feel’ for each other. Love is something they share as they give themselves to a common life. Ruth’s words to Naomi capture it so well. “Your people will be my people and your God will be my God.” A shared people, a shared place, a shared faith – these are threads that over time become a cable that we often speak of as “commitment.”

Having been with you in that hospital room, having made the horrific journey there a week ago, having stood with you mute with fear outside the trauma room, having seen you weary by her bed and restless on the chair that could never truly become a bed, I know now that we are bound by a common love.

I love what you love Marnie. I love the same two children. I love the work of raising them, the joys and heartaches and annoyances. I love your people – both the family that made you who you are and the family of faith you serve. I love your vocation, the calling to shepherd the flock of God. Indeed we are bound by a common love: love directed at the same things and life built on the same foundation.

But today is Valentines Day and there is more to say. I do not simply love what you love. I love you. Unadorned. Nothing added. Just you.

Today is also Sunday –a day of worship. As you have done every moment of the past week, you will stay with our little girl as she recovers. I will make my way to place where we worship and serve together. Worship will be sweet today. I am a blessed man. I will give God thanks for his gifts, for the health of our daughter and the home we share; for the gifts of people who have loved us and the good work we have of loving them in return.

And with the gifts we share I will thank God for the gift that is mine alone: The gift of you, my wife, my love, my delight. My Valentine.

Broom Trees

2010-01-26T05:36:00.003-05:00

He came to a broom tree, sat down under it, and prayed that he might die (1 Kings 19:4).

I was trying to figure out what to do with my life and I needed some help. I attended church, but I really didn’t know my pastor. Right about that time Mercer University, where I was a student, had brought on a new Pastor to the University and he seemed to be a very thoughtful and trustworthy man. I made an appointment to talk with him.

Looking back, I don’t remember the details of my conversation with Dr. C. Welton Gaddy. What I remember now is the way he listened, his total lack of interest in trying to “recruit” me for the ministry, his comfort with my angst and his counsel that didn’t tell me what to do. And he was no-nonsense: He basically told me that if I thought being a pastor was some kind of ticket to a life of holy bliss I’d be sorely disappointed. Now, twenty-three years after my ordination, I get it.

Not long after that conversation I went to Texas for seminary. I’ve only encountered Dr. Gaddy one time since then, and very briefly at that. It was during my doctoral work that I came across a book he had written. That in itself wasn’t such a big deal. He had authored several books by that time. However the title of this one provoked my curiosity: A Soul Under Siege: Surviving Clergy Depression.

A quick glance at the back cover summarized the story. This man whose counsel I had sought and whom I admired for his wisdom and pastoral sensitivity had hit a wall in his personal and professional life. He had admitted himself to a psychiatric hospital to get help with his depression. The book is confessional and reflective, telling the story of a public persona that didn’t square with some deeper inner realities. After living that way for a long time Gaddy, like Elijah, found himself by a broom tree. That’s when the time in the hospital happened.

Thankfully, he was willing to talk about it. Far too many of us spend our energies avoiding the broom trees or pretending that we’ve never spent time in the shade of one. What we learn from Welton Gaddy, and from Elijah, is that broom trees are we find a peculiar kind of mercy.

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A death-threat from Queen Jezebel had sent Elijah running for his life. When he stopped running and dropped exhausted beneath the broom tree things weren’t going so well. He was a full day’s journey into the desert and he was alone, having left his servant back in Beersheba. Isolation and fatigue, mixed with fear is a lethal combination for any soul. Under the broom tree you begin to think you’d be better off dead. At least that’s what Elijah prayed for.

A broom tree is the place where myths are exposed. The idea that one experience of a spiritual high means immunity from future spiritual lows is exposed as a myth. And self-sufficiency is exposed as a myth. The broom tree is a place where we are brought to the end of ourselves. Then and only then do we discover the true meaning of grace. Elijah prays a desperate prayer under the broom tree – but God does not answer with rebuke or lecture. The prophet is simply told to get up and eat. This is followed by a long nap, and then another meal.

Broom trees appear in a variety of forms; we find them in different places. The period of unemployment, the month after the funeral when meals no longer arrive at your door, the first day after the divorce is finalized – broom trees all. Our inclination is to minimize our time there, rush off to the next mountain as quickly as we can mange. But God meets us under the broom trees in ways we don’t experience elsewhere. God sustains us there ands gives us what we need, getting us ready for the next leg of the journey. We sleep and eat, and eat and sleep again.

Do not resent the broom tree. Don’t look for detours around that place or try to cover the tracks that led you there. The broom tree is not a sign of your failure and weakness. It is a part of your formation as a person created and called by God.

Where have the broom trees been in your life?

Prayer:
We give you thanks, O God, for meeting us in places we’d rather not go. We thank you for the way you lead us to those barren places and then give us what we need in order to move on. Thank you for the simple gifts of grace that sustain us from day to day. Meet us in this day and keep us faithful in our journey with you, we pray. Amen.

Questions and Answers

2010-01-25T08:32:00.002-05:00

And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:9).

In his cave of despair, hiding and afraid and eaten up with doubts, Elijah was questioned by God. Not coddled. Not comforted. Questioned.

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

The question is ambiguous. The meaning of the question can be changed by playing with it, putting the emphasis on a different word with each asking.

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

“What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Was God’s questioning a rebuke: An implied accusation that the prophet had abandoned his calling and lost his nerve? Or was the question an invitation: A chance for Elijah to examine his faith and learn again the meaning of his own name – “The Lord is God.”

Maybe it was both. The truly interesting thing about this question is that God asks it twice. The first time it is asked, Elijah answers with lament and self-pity. God responds to that with the “still small voice” we spoke of yesterday.

And then God asked the question again. “What are you doing here, Elijah?” We might expect that by now Elijah has a different answer. He’s covered his face at the sound of God’s whisper. Now he’s seized with a Holy awe and ready to re-engage the godless Ahab and Jezebel. Now Elijah knows who he is and what he’s called by God to do.

Not so. Elijah gives the same pitiful answer. He’s still complaining, still feeling like God has dealt him a bad hand, still consumed with dark emotions.

And this time God simply says “Go back the way you came.” Get up. Get going. We’ve got work to do. God gives no explanations and offers no apologies or assurances to Elijah. God gives instruction and asks for obedience. So it is in the life of faith.

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I’m feeling somewhat defensive on God’s behalf today. The images of destruction and suffering coming from Haiti have set me back on my heels a bit. Things like that can do that to me. I wish they didn’t but they do.

I believe the meaning of Elijah’s name. I believe “The Lord is God.” God is ruling all things, changing seasons and counting the hairs of our heads and keeping track of the smallest sparrow that falls from the sky. He never slumbers nor sleeps. He never gets caught off-guard as if he didn’t see something coming, whether earthquakes or bank failures. Our God reigns – unhindered and absolutely sovereign in all things. I believe that.

But I wouldn’t mind some help in making sense of massive suffering. Like Elijah, I’d welcome a word of reassurance, a sentence of explanation, a promise of future good to which all things inevitably lead. Just a word will do, even if it’s whispered and seizes me with a holy terror. I’ll take it anyway. Maybe you would too.

We won’t get it. As best I can tell from Elijah’s experience on Mt. Horeb and from other stories - the suffering Job and the indignation of Jonah – God will not provide footnotes and explanations to his ways in this world. We might feel like we’ve got some questions for God. But it always God who questions us.

What are you doing here?

In the family you belong to, in the company you work for, in the city where you live, in the church you attend . . . what are you doing? The question may carry rebuke: there’s something you should be doing that you aren’t. The question may be invitation: have you discovered what God has for you?

But in the end, as with Elijah, it always calls us back to simple obedience. Get up. Go back. Get to work. As for Haiti, get on your knees and pray. Get out your checkbook and give. If you feel led, get on a plane and go. Leave the cave of despair, let go of the need for explanations, and obey in radical trust and faith.

What are you doing where you are right now and what will obedience look like in your life today?
Prayer:
Almighty God, you call us to lives of obedience and faith. Living this way is sometimes hard for us as questions get in the way – things we can’t understand, things that make faith difficult. Meet us as you met Elijah and call us from the cave of fear and doubt to bold acts of obedience. In places near and far away, “your kingdom come” we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Tested in Blessing

2010-01-19T08:32:00.002-05:00

For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry . . . (1 Kings 17:16)

Once his water supply was exhausted he knew he would have to go somewhere else. Elijah had hidden by the brook because that’s where God told him to go. It was not a place of his own choosing. Hiding by the brook was an act of obedience. And now the brook was dry.

Is this how God rewards obedience?

The providence of God is strange to us. We would like to think that obedience leads to reward. What we see in Elijah is that obedience simply prepares us for the next act of obedience. God used the dry brook to send the prophet to Zarephath in the pagan region of Sidon – again, not a popular destination for a Hebrew prophet.

Whereas Elijah had been fed by ravens by the Kerith Ravine, a widow would feed him in Zarephath. As promised, Elijah met a widow at the gates of the town. When he asked her for a piece of bread she made it clear to Elijah that she had enough for one meal, and that meal would be for her and her son. After that they would likely die soon. The prophet was on his own.

But God spoke through the prophet, inviting an act of trust on the part of this widow. She used her meager supply of flour and oil and fed Elijah first. Seeing a miracle sometimes means taking a risk. Having used what she had to feed Elijah this widow discovered a fresh supply of oil and flour every day.

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Some of the best known stories in the pages of the Bible are bread stories

As Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt and through the wilderness, God provided bread from heaven every morning. The people were to gather what they needed for that day. Trying to stockpile bread for tomorrow ended in rot and decay (Exodus 16:4).

Jesus replicated God’s gift of wilderness manna when he fed a multitude with a few loaves of bread and some fish. Gathered in a desolate place, thousands had more than they could eat (John 6:11-12). Later Jesus would say that he himself was the bread of life, the bread that comes from heaven and gives life to all people ( John 6:35).

And then there’s Elijah and the widow discovering the daily deposit of oil and flour.

The wilderness manna, the oil and flour, the multitudes fed with fishes and loaves: we naturally regard these things as gifts from God, great blessings that speak of God’s love and grace. But in Deuteronomy 8 we learn that often God uses blessings to test us.

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD (Deut. 8:2-3).

God does not test us solely in trouble an affliction. Testing does not come in the form of loss and grief, in illness and death, in physical pain and mental distress. Such things test us, to be sure – but just as often God tests us in blessing. The blessings and gifts reveal the posture of hearts as much as the suffering does.

When we wake up every morning and find fresh oil and flour, the test is this: will we love the oil and flour? Will we depend on bread? Or will we love the God who meet us daily with more grace and sustains us in wilderness places?

How have you been blessed today – and what does the blessing show you about the affections of your heart and the object of your hope?

Prayer:
“Break thou the bread of life, Dear Lord, to me; As thou didst break the loaves beside the sea; Beyond the sacred page I seek the Lord; My Spirit pants for thee, O Living Word” (Break Thou the Bread of Life, The Hymnbook, p. 219)

Forecasting

2010-01-09T11:39:00.000-05:00

After a while the brook dried up because there was no rain in the land (1 Kings 17:7).

I can’t wait for next week. I’m feeling more anticipation for January 13 or 14 than I did for December 25th. By the middle of next week our daytime highs will reach the 40s and overnight lows will only be in the 30s. At least that’s what my favorite meteorologist reported last night before I fell asleep.

People who live in the North, or who live down here and grew up in the North, think we’re a joke when it comes to winter weather. Sure, we tend to overreact at times. The slightest mention of winter precipitation sends us in a panic to Home Depot for a generator, followed by a stop at Kroger for bread and milk, lest our children perish. Go ahead all you transplanted Yankees. Laugh all you want.

But understand our context here in the Sunbelt. Winter means slipping on a windbreaker when you jog at 6:00 a.m. Once we live through a few spells of nighttime lows below 20 and a possible ice or snow event, we’ve paid our dues to old man winter. He’s like an annoying relative who makes an obligatory annual visit and then goes home, not a moment too soon.

So next week. Bring it on. I’m not asking for balmy. I just want bearable.

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Most of us can endure almost anything if we have a sense that eventually things will change. We can tolerate the intolerable for a while. We can put up with the unbearable if we see daylight at the end of the tunnel, something that assures us that the unpleasant present will inevitably give way to future blessing.

In matters far more serious than a wave of cold weather, we are willing to suffer and believe that God is at work in our affliction. What erodes faith isn’t the suffering, but the sense that the suffering won’t stop: The absence of a finish line, the lack of a horizon on which we see a shelter, a refuge, relief.

When Elijah told King Ahab that there would be “neither dew nor rain” the declaration was open-ended. No long range forecast was given to indicate how long the drought would last. The Elijah stories in 1 Kings 17 and 18 don’t give clear indications as to the length of the drought. The book of James in the New Testament says it lasted three and a half years (James 5:17). As best we can tell, not even Elijah knew when it would end. He just lived through it and in it until God gave rain.

One of the greatest challenges to a life of faith is living in the midst of a barren place and barren conditions without the slightest sense that things will ever change. Such conditions have a way of exposing us and the deepest affection of our hearts. They reveal the substance of our faith.

A life of faith doesn’t merely endure the present drought. Faith embraces it.

The tendency, shared by all of us, is to place our hope in a forecast. This has a subtle way of replacing our hope in God. We want to know when: when will I get better, when will the economy rebound, when will I find my soul-mate, when will the company recognize my talents and skills? A good forecast makes faith unnecessary.

But God doesn’t give us forecasts, at least not often and where it most matters. God invites a daily walk in the conditions we have right in front of us. That’s where God’s glory gets revealed. Fire falls from heaven; a small cloud promises a downpour (18:45). And a demonstration of God’s glory beats a forecast any day.

Prayer:
I will embrace the conditions of this day, O God, not as a test of endurance but as an invitation to faith. Give me eyes to see your glory and recognize your work – especially in the unlikely and unwanted details of this day. Amen.

Claiming Exemptions

2010-01-06T22:20:00.002-05:00

“As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word” (1 Kings 17:1 ESV).

Running from a fight had never been his style. Hiding was never his preferred strategy for dealing with trouble. Hesitation and reticence were alien to him. Once given a word to speak for God, Elijah itched to speak it like a thoroughbred being held back at the start-line of a race.

Thus his terse message to Ahab: “it will not rain until I say so.” The moment was confrontational. Elijah was going head to head with Israel’s faithless King and that King’s false god. Few Kings will tolerate that kind of thing; they will not lose face when treated with shameless disrespect.

So God told Elijah to hide in a ravine on the east side of the Jordan River. Elijah was to stay there, out of the way, removed from the action. He had said what needed to be said. God would take it from here until further notice. In the meantime, the prophet would survive by drinking water from the brook and being fed daily by ravens.

For a while the water in the Kerith ravine ran freely and wide. Elijah drank at will, quenching his thirst and washing down the food that came by ravens every morning and evening. But soon the flow of water narrowed. As God kept his word and confirmed Elijah’s message, the daily supply of water diminished to a trickle. One day, even that had stopped.

The brook dried up.

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Many of us live with an unspoken rule, a silent expectation. We quietly carry the conviction that being in the center of God’s will is a “safe” place to be.

We assume that if we will be obedient to what God commands and seek to live life in a way that pleases God, we will somehow dodge the varied troubles that are visited upon the disobedient and the self-indulgent.

We claim exemptions: We will seek to know God’s will and live in it, and the cancer will not find us or those we love. The accident will miss us. The lay-offs will not impact us. We may not be exactly where we want to be. Life won’t be picture perfect. But, like Elijah, we will be fed daily and drink freely from the brook.

Sometimes, however, the brook dries up. Even for bold prophets and ordinary faithful people, the stream narrows to a sliver and then stops altogether.

As we keep company with Elijah in the coming weeks we’ll see that the promise of God for a new year does not include exemptions. This doesn’t mean we should expect the illness or the lay-off or the accident. We can live the coming days knowing hat God wills our good.

The story of Elijah reminds us that God accomplishes that good in the midst of circumstances we would choose to avoid. God is purposefully at work by the diminishing brook. God uses deprivation in one place to move the prophet to a new place where grace is discovered anew. God still works that way.

As we seek to discover what it means to live well in this New Year Elijah will be our guide. We begin not by claiming exemptions but by recognizing our need for grace. Brooks and creeks diminish. God’s faithfulness doesn’t.

Prayer:
Too often, Lord God, our faith grows small as we see the brook running dry. We feel cheated or deceived. Teach us through the prophet Elijah to look to you rather than flowing streams, whether of water or money, good fortune or good health. In the coming days of this year accomplish your purposes for us, reminding us that you work for our good in all things. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Advent Reflections on the Magi: A Perfectly Good Waste of Time

2009-12-21T07:34:00.003-05:00

After Jesus was born . . . Magi from the east came to Jerusalem (Matt. 2:1).

On the way into work this morning I was honked at twice. The first time I deserved it. I’ll not go into details, but the honker was within their honking rights. The second time was unnecessary. I was a little slow moving at a green light. The person behind me quickly concluded that I needed some encouragement. That one bothered me.

In addition to being honked at twice I’m very much aware of the fact that I nearly honked at other less competent drivers at least twice on my commute this morning - maybe three times. Again, details aren’t important. I’m also aware that the persons at whom my honks would have been directed were doing what I apparently did to someone else. They were impeding my progress, slowing me down, getting in the way.

I was reminded this morning that we’re all in such a hurry. To be deterred in the least is a terrible injustice in Atlanta. We’ve got to keep moving. I saw it in others around me. And most importantly I saw it in myself.

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Yesterday a friend told me that she and her husband would be reading the scripture and lighting the advent candle in their church worship service this weekend. She shared this with obvious delight and just a touch of disbelief.

A few years ago she went to church here and there but her husband rarely went at all. About two years ago they tried a church that I had told her about not far from their home. Her husband started going with her. A few months ago he was baptized. And this Sunday they’ll play a role in leading worship.

“That’s called conversion,” I said when she told me what they were doing. She agreed with me that it didn’t happen quickly. What she and her husband will do this weekend was years in the making.

For all our hurrying, there are some things that simply will not be rushed. The journey to Jesus is one of those things.

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The story of the Magi is in many ways a mirror of what happens every Christmas. The details have changed. Gone are the camels that we assume bore the three kings and their gifts. We know what gold is, but frankincense and myrrh rarely show up under our trees or in our celebrations.

The piece of the story that gets played out over and over is that somewhere, somehow people are slowly making their way toward Jesus. Even in a place like Atlanta, this is a journey that can’t be rushed.

Some have been en route for years. Others take a first step by reluctantly showing up at church. Whatever the journey looks like, the Spirit of God is working. Powerful Herod could not derail the Magi. He couldn’t lay claim to their trip and use it for his own advancement. The long journey to Jesus would not be stopped or hindered or thwarted.

Maybe you know someone who is making their way toward Jesus this Christmas. Maybe that someone is you. Take your time. This is God’s work, and God works in ways that we may not understand. Ask your questions – just as the Magi did. But keep following the star that prompted you to begin moving in the first place.

This is sometimes a long slow journey. But what seems so slow to us is the Spirit’s way of leading to Jesus – and that’s a perfectly good waste of time.

Prayer:
Draw us to yourself this Christmas, O Christ. Keep us moving, even if slowly. Guard us from being impatient with you and your Spirit. Forgive our tendency to set your schedule and dictate plans. Cause us to become humble followers, we pray. Amen.

Advent Reflections on the Magi: It Takes a While to Get There

2009-12-19T09:25:00.002-05:00

Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:1-2).

Wise men came from the east.

That’s vague. The same could be said of three professors who show up at Peachtree church from UGA, making their way from Athens to Buckhead. What is east? Who are these visitors to Bethlehem and where have they come from?

Few scholars have examined those questions as thoroughly as Raymond Brown in his monumental work The Birth of the Messiah. Hint: Don’t take this one to the beach. Brown explores possible answers to these questions and the most reasonable arguments for each. A quick summary might be as follows: Matthew’s Greek word “magoi” can mean “magician” or “astrologer” Given the prominence of a star in Matthew’s story “astrologer” seems like the best answer.

“The east” can be Persia, Babylon, or Arabia. Again, the best option is Persia. To know why, consult Brown.

Wherever these star-gazing scholars came from, this much is clear. Getting from where they were to where they wanted to be was a very long journey. By the time they arrived in Judea the infant Jesus is no longer an infant. Our manger scenes, featuring a post-partum Mary surrounded by the shepherds and magi from the east isn’t quite right. The magi were late to the party. Late but not left out.

Eventually they made it. They came to the place where Jesus was, they fell before the child and worshiped him and presented gifts. What they sought, they found – it just took a while to get there.

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Once the dishes have been put away after the Thanksgiving meal, most of us set a course for Christmas. Some waste no time getting the journey started. Thanksgiving weekend is the time to buy the tree and decorate the house. Perhaps for love of the seasonal décor – or perhaps because December's merciless schedule will not allow a time to do that kind of thing.

Others of us need a little more warm-up time. Having resisted the siren call of retailers to get ready for Christmas in mid-October, we find we can’t quite work up the momentum we need to embrace December and all that comes with it.

At some point, however, we start the pilgrimage toward the Christ child. We take our first weary steps toward the little town of Bethlehem, fully intending to take our place ‘round yon virgin.

And maybe at some point we realize that the distance to that place of worship and adoration is much further than we thought. The calendar threatens us. December 25 is fast approaching and there’s nothing you can do to slow it down. It approaches at what feels like lightning speed.

But you’re just not there. Your mind is distracted; your heart is crowded with other matters; your body is tired; your schedule is relentless. We all want to arrive at the place where we kneel in glad and humble worship before this child, this King. It just takes a while to get there.

Take encouragement from three visitors from the east who would not be deterred. Stay on this journey. Go hard after God until you find your kneeling place. It’s really about the worship, not the calendar. And it’s never too late for that. You can reach the place of worship – even if it takes a little while to get there.

Prayer:
We would seek you, O God, with determined hearts this Christmas season. Lead us with your light to the place of true worship. Sustain us through detours of busy-ness and the burdens that stretch us thin these days. Grant us joy in this journey, we pray. Amen.

Advent Reflections on Joseph: The Power of "With"

2009-12-14T08:00:00.002-05:00

The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" - which means, "God with us" (Matthew 1:23).

Whether in story or song, we yearn for resolution. We don’t always get it. Some musical composers seem to delight in the discordant, regarding the unfinished sound as artistry. Some writers leave us wondering and guessing, regarding the jagged edges of the tale as closer to reality. They may be right.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the ear and the mind instinctively seek resolution. We want the chords to progress in such a way that we hear and feel the conclusion of the piece. We like for the varied plot-lines of the story to come together in such way that the fragments form a unified whole. “They lived happily ever after” is what we like to hear.

Matthew’s story of Jesus’ birth lacks resolution. As we typically read it and hear it read, the story ends nicely enough with Joseph taking Mary as his wife. But while this ending is simple, it isn’t neat. Much is left untold.

The fall-out from the marriage remains untold. Craig Keener writes that “Joseph’s obedience to God cost him the right to value his own reputation.” And then there’s the little detail about “having no union with her” until the birth of Jesus. They’re married, but not fully married. This isn’t quite happily ever after. Resolution eludes us at the end of Matthew’s story.

There is one line however that helps us make sense of what Joseph did and how he did it. When the Angel spoke the words that the prophet Isaiah had spoken long ago, the child is identified as Immanuel – “God with us.”

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“God with us.” That truth is at the core of the Christmas story, and in some way it is at the core of our own stories as well - especially the messy stories, the stories that lack resolution and leave us groping about for what’s next.

The power of “with” changes everything, precisely because it is truly “with.” God present in the varied realities of this day: God with us in all places and all circumstances. God with us in offices and malls, in gyms and courtrooms, on airplanes and tennis courts. God with us in illnesses and in our sleep, in heartache and in love.

The power of “with” tells us that God is not simply “above”: Aloof, distant, watching to see how we’ll manage and whether we’ll screw up. And it also tells us that God is not “against.” The messy story you’re living right now is not punishment or revenge.

We tend to think that when God is with us, the story will always resolve. We sometimes doubt “God with us” because if it were true, life would surely look differently than it does today. Joseph wouldn’t be stuck in a celibate marriage with a pregnant wife, and we’d be getting something other than we’ve got as well.

But “God with us” means that God enters fully into the life you have right now. And if God embraces your life, maybe you can embrace it too. You can do the hard thing and accept the difficult reality – just as Joseph did. And you can do it with deep peace and bold confidence, knowing that ultimately in all things God is working for your good. All things will one day resolve, and until then we live in faith obedience. That’s the power of “with.”

Prayer:
I will claim the Angel’s words to Joseph as your promise to me, O God. You are with us. In Jesus you entered fully into the experience of life and embraced it all. Because you are with us we can do the same. Grant us the gift of your Spirit that we might live fully in you presence today. Amen.

Advent Reflections on Joseph: Plans

2009-12-10T08:40:00.001-05:00

Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph . . . (Matt. 1:18).

It was a simple plan, well tested and widely practiced. Everyone knew how it went. It was life-changing but it wasn’t complicated. Joseph and Mary would become husband and wife. The plan had been in place for a while, blessed by both families. The process was clear and the anticipation was high. It was a good plan. This is what a young man and a young woman were supposed to do.

This plan had a way of creating momentum for other plans. The wedding would one day be followed by children. The children would require Joseph to invest himself in his trade and create a flourishing business. So many plans and all of them good.

And then, at the height of anticipation, the plan unraveled. As one plan caved, a chain reaction was unleashed in Joseph’s soul and he saw all of his plans shredded, every dream disintegrating like a lump of sugar in hot tea.

The undreamed of and the unimaginable shoved aside the imagined future. An unplanned pregnancy and all that comes with it: questions and speculation, shame and scorn.

And so Joseph devised another plan: a quiet divorce. Damage control. It was the best he could do. He would do what God’s law required while guarding Mary’s reputation as much as he could.

But while Joseph was grieving the death of his dreams and scurrying for an alternative plan, trying to make the best out of what couldn’t have been any worse, he was told that the whole mess was actually part of a much larger plan. This pregnancy was of the Holy Spirit, and through it God was working to save his people from their sin.

Joseph’s life wasn’t being lived according to his own plan; his life was part of a plan that he never dreamed of. The plan at the center of his life was God’s plan – and God’s plan was being worked out while Joseph’s plans were falling apart.

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On the day that Mary and Joseph met, Jesus was already planned and the work of salvation through him was fully formed in God’s mind.

Go back further. On the day Joseph and Mary’s grandparents met, Jesus was already planned. The story Matthew tells us goes back as far as the prophet Isaiah to show us that Jesus was a well formed plan in God’s salvation story.

There is truth in this familiar Christmas story that serves to anchor us when our plans are falling apart – and at Christmas plans are especially vulnerable to falling apart. The big meal didn’t turn out right, the family gathering was awkward, the gifts didn’t fit or missed the mark in some other way, the flight was delayed or the trip was canceled altogether.

We picture the perfect Christmas, but rarely get it. And we picture the dream life but don’t see the dream become reality. Joseph’s story is our story, and it is retold day after day.

But the anchor is this: there is a plan bigger than the one you placed on your calendar. There’s a dream larger than the one you direct while also playing the starring role. God has a plan and this plan will not unravel. It is a plan to reclaim and restore a broken, messed up world. God is always carrying out his plans and purposes – and you are invited to be a part of that story.

God’s plans are being worked out, even when your plans are falling apart. What have you got planned for today? What might God have planned for you?

Prayer:
Gracious God, we wake up and enter every day with plans, both large and small. We dream of our future and schedule meetings. We interview for jobs and book flights. We spend our days planning. And when our plans fall apart the true source of our faith and hope is revealed. Help us to trust you with this day’s plans, and with all that we dream about for our lives. Include us in your story, we pray, and work out your plan for us in all that we do. Amen.

Advent Reflections on Joseph: Waiting and Wrestling

2009-12-08T14:16:00.001-05:00

Because Joseph was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly (Matt. 1:19).

Until I received the email from my son’s wrestling coach last week, I had no idea what I was in for. The world of middle school wrestling is uncharted territory for me. The email did us the favor of not sugar-coating what Saturday’s tournament would be like. “This will be the longest day of our season.”

I had to have my son on the team bus by 6:00 a.m. and myself in McDonough by 9:00 a.m. But the email couldn’t really prepare me for what I experienced this past Saturday. The place was loud and raucous and I knew immediately that I had been a fool for bringing a book along with me, although I wasn’t the only one (and I did see one dad with his laptop).

The tournament was double-elimination. The main gym at Union Grove High School in McDonough had six mats with matches happening simultaneously all day long; another area had two more mats for more advanced wrestlers.

My son lost his first match. At least one more to go. His next match was placed on the schedule and we had about an hour long wait. He won that time. The next match was placed on the schedule. More waiting. Then he won again. His next match was placed on the schedule followed by still more waiting. And then he won yet again. After more waiting he had his fifth match of the day – and that’s when it ended for him. But by that time it was almost 5:00 pm.

I learned plenty about wrestling on Saturday. I learned that a wrestling match can be over in a hurry. This is nothing like watching your kid play baseball. Even a match that lasts a good while is over in a matter of minutes. And I also learned that there are long stretches of waiting.

In a wrestling tournament, good wrestling and long waiting are a package deal.

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The story of Joseph’s discovery of Mary’s pregnancy is a wrestling story. Matthew gives it to us in spare language. Mary is pledged to Joseph, the marital commitment in place without the full benefits and living arrangements of the marital relationship. This is when Joseph discovers that Mary is pregnant. And this is when the wrestling begins, unseen and yet strenuous. Joseph grappling with God, grappling with his own heart and mind.

Again, Matthew shows us none of this except to say that Joseph “considered” how he could divorce Mary quietly and thus protect her from public disgrace. But can such “considering” be anything less than anguish and pain? How long did he “consider?” How many sleepless nights, how many bitter questions hurled at heaven? How many tense conversations with his beloved? How many fake smiles at neighbors as if all was well?

And even once the Angel has appeared and Joseph has taken Mary as is wife, the difficulties are hardly over. Craig Keener notes that Joseph’s decision to go ahead with his marriage was a decision to sacrifice his own reputation. The wrestling surely didn’t stop. Wrestling mingled with waiting until the birth in the Bethlehem stable.

Many of us come to Advent wrestling and waiting; life has us in a head-lock and we’re trying desperately to find the right move that will loosen its grip. With the Psalmist we ask “How long must I wrestle with my thoughts?” (Ps. 13:2). Christmas doesn’t change the fact that we’re wrestling with decisions that need to be made, decisions we wish could make over again, afflicted bodies, conflicted relationships and competing expectations. We wrestle through one challenge only to face another.

But in the midst of the wrestling, Joseph’s and ours, there is this assurance: the Holy Spirit is at work. To see it may require waiting, long waiting and still more wrestling. But God is active in your wrestling story.

What opponent will you wrestle today?

Prayer:
Grant to us, O God, the patience to trust you in all things and the strength to wrestle long until we see your hand at work: show your hand in the difficult situations, the perplexing questions, the stubborn circumstances that refuse to budge. Be present with us in the struggles of this day, making us confident as we wrestle and wait in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Advent Reflections on Simeon: Cradling Salvation

2009-12-07T13:11:00.001-05:00

Simeon took him in his arms and praised God . . . (Luke 2:28)

In the churches that introduced me to Jesus and nurtured my faith, Baptism was a sloppy affair. You had to change your clothes, put on a white robe, hold your nose and allow the pastor to lower you backwards all the way under, at least until the water completely covered your face. That kind of baptism demonstrated real faith – not only in Jesus as Lord and Savior, but in the person who held you and lowered you into the “watery grave.”

I love immersion baptism – the kind where the water doesn’t go on you; you go in the water. When I met with the Presbytery’s committee on ministry in order to become a card-carrying Presby Pastor, they questioned me about some of my reservations about leaving the tradition that had shaped my faith and educated me for ministry. I only had one: “You people don’t use enough water,” I said. They laughed. “How much does it take,” one of them replied.

Let me hasten to add that I love infant baptism too. I’ll confess that I’m probably not able to articulate the most cogent and compelling argument for why we baptize babies. Focus on the word “baptism” in infant baptism and you can end up mired in some thorny theological and biblical questions.

What draws me to infant baptism isn’t the word “baptism.” Rather, it’s the word “infant.” Sure, the act or “sacrament” of infant baptism says something profound about the nature of God’s grace. But on a far more practical level, there’s something very special about holding someone else’s baby and speaking blessing over that child.

Some babies don’t like to be held by the pastor. Some parents bring young ones for baptism who are well beyond infancy and can actually run from you (I’ve had that happen). But some sleep in your arms and still others look at you like they understand clearly every word you’re saying as you name Father, Son and Holy Spirit over them.

It is a great privilege, a sacred moment, when parents place their child in your arms for a word of blessing.

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This is the moment of the Simeon story that holds my attention today. Luke narrates the scene in a terse sentence or two. Mary and Joseph arrive at the Temple to present their son, and the next thing we know Simeon has the child in his arms, praising God with prayerful song.

The story of Simeon is always told at or near the Christmas season. It is numbered among the biblical texts that we associate with the birth of Jesus. But among these nativity stories, Simeon is the only one who actually takes the infant into his arms. His song gives thanks to God that “my eyes have seen your salvation.” But Simeon doesn’t merely see salvation. He cradles it, holds it close, pulls it to himself in an intimate act of worship.

The Shepherds rushed to the stable to “see this thing that has happened.” As best we can tell, their encounter with Jesus was one of seeing and beholding. The magi also journeyed to find the child. Their worship was expressed in the bringing of gifts. There are angels who sing and animals who witness the event. Even in the temple that day the elderly Anna gave thanks to God and spoke of the child (the first woman preacher). But Simeon takes the baby into his arms.

In these days of Advent Simeon’s example invites us to ponder our own response to the birth of Jesus and the salvation accomplished through him. Specifically, we are invited to be more than spectators and observers. We are challenged to do more than give gifts. We are reminded that Christmas can mean more than speaking about Jesus’ birth.

God’s saving work through Jesus is meant to be embraced. As Simeon’s words make clear, this salvation is being prepared in the sight of all people – but many people at Christmas are simply too busy too embrace it. Some find it too familiar. They talk about it, they watch the story from their pew, but have yet to take the Christ into their arms and cradle the God’s work of salvation as their own.

How will you encounter the Christ child this year? Have you embraced God’s saving work as your own?

Prayer:
We give you thanks, O God, for your saving work in Jesus Christ. We marvel that this work is for all nations, prepared in the sight of all people. Knowing that we cannot share what we do not possess ourselves, we will embrace this salvation and hold it close. Change us and save us – and empower us to share the good news of salvation with the world. Amen.

Advent Reflections on Simeon: The Spirit of Obedience

2009-12-03T09:19:00.001-05:00

Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to he Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every first born male is to be consecrated to the Lord.”). (Luke 2:22-23).

She was wide awake long before she needed to be. She hadn’t slept much and what sleep she managed was light, easily interrupted by every sound that came from her baby boy. Even when the baby slept soundly she would lie awake and listen to his breathing. Sometimes she stared into the dark just waiting for the arrival of morning’s first light and the moment when she could nudge Joseph and tell him it was time to get ready. She had been waiting for this day for weeks.

Today they would take their month old son and present him at the temple.

Since the day of his birth they had known they would make this trip to Jerusalem. They knew this because the practice was established by God in the days of Moses. For centuries this is what the faithful had done in keeping with God’s law.

The presentation of their baby at the temple wasn’t their idea. It wasn’t something they discussed as a nice opportunity to make a family memory. It was never regarded as something they chose to do. They were commanded to do it. Even the timing of the trip was set forth in the Law. The time for Mary’s purification following childbirth had to be completed (Lev. 12:1-5). So it now was, and so they would go.

The temple presentation was an act of obedience.

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As Mary and Joseph made their way to the temple that day another man was doing the same thing. This man was not presenting a child. Those days were long gone for him. He was, like the young couple, a man who cared about the Law of God. He was righteous and devout. He knew what God had said and he lived his life according to what God had spoken.

But the defining characteristic of Simeon’s life was his intimate fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit. Yes, Simeon knew the Law, but he was one upon whom the Spirit of God rested. The Spirit had conveyed to Simeon a very significant promise. And when Simeon made his way to the temple that day he did so led by the Spirit.

Simeon arrived at the temple because he knew within himself that the Spirit was prompting him to go there.

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And so they met. An encounter orchestrated by God, a confluence of obedience to the Law and sensitive response to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. An obedient life and a Spirit-led life came together around the person of Jesus. So it is even now, this day. So it is for you.

Responsiveness to the leading of the Spirit and obedience to the written word of God are never two separate ways of living the life of faith. Think long and hard about any kind of spiritual talk that speaks of “fresh winds” of the Spirit that blow in a direction counter to the plainly written words of God in scripture. When Jesus is held at the center of a life of faith, obedience to the law of God and sensitivity to the Spirit of God will meet, congruent and inseparable.

This has implications for how we live our days. Obedience is never mere obedience, gritting our teeth with determined resolve to do what’s right even if we hate it and even if it kills us. And sensitivity to the Spirit is never vague impulse or a wave of sincere feeling. True God-honoring obedience is made possible by the Spirit, and sensitivity to the Spirit’s leading is shaped by the word.

Following the Spirit, obeying the Law: which of these comes easiest to you? Answer this truthfully, and then pray earnestly for the other.

Prayer:
Lead me this day, O God, in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary: Attentive and obedient to what your word says. Lead me also in the footsteps of Simeon: Sensitive and responsive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Help me to live this day in the Spirit of obedience, to the glory of your name. Amen.

Advent Reflections on Simeon: Moment of Recognition

2009-12-02T09:12:00.002-05:00

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ . . . (Luke 2:27-28).

How did he know? How did he know that they were the ones? How did he know that this was the child?

All he had been given was a promise. At some point in his life, at a time unknown to us, Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. He had been told this would happen, but didn’t have clue as to when it would happen or who he was looking for. No details, no dates, no descriptions. Just a promise.

At first there was an excitement to all of this, an eager readiness to see what the Spirit had said he would see. Every day felt like the day. Every morning brimmed with possibility. Every occasion of temple worship was charged with the presence of the Holy. Something of enormous significance was about to happen. God was going to do a work which generations of faithful men and women had yearned to see. And Simeon would see it.

But years passed. The mornings became increasingly difficult for Simeon. He didn’t charge into the day with the same energy he once had. It took a while to get moving, and when he moved he moved slowly. The brimming possibility of each day had gradually become a wistful perhaps. He still went to the temple. He still said his prayers. After all, he was a righteous and devout man.

The years brought questions. There were moments when he wondered if he had misunderstood what the Spirit had conveyed to him years ago, but the nagging doubts never lingered long. With the passing of time Simeon had lost some energy, he had lost his wife. He had even lost most of his hair. But he never lost his conviction that God would one day bring salvation to Israel – and to the nations of the world as well. Simeon had been given a promise.

And the promise was enough. It was enough to get him out of bed each day, enough to strengthen his soul when his body was weak and tired, enough to comfort his heart when he felt alone, enough to keep him alert and attentive.

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What we imagine to be true of Simeon’s life we know to be true for a fact of our own. Most of us know all too well how the life of faith soars and slumps. We live some of our days in eager pursuit of what God has for us, even if we’re not exactly sure what that is. God is at work in the world and we’re involved. And then there are days when we live as if by muscle memory, saying the right things, doing the right things, but we do so because that’s what we’ve always done.

The enemy of our faith rarely attacks us at the point of our deepest held beliefs. That is heavily defended territory for most of us, and Satan is smart enough to know it. Rather than a frontal attack on our beliefs, the enemy of our faith simply lulls us into inattention. We stop noticing the divine presence. We stop looking for God’s activity in our world. Today will be like yesterday, this year like last year. Our expectations flat-line.

What Simeon never stopped doing was paying attention. That’s how he knew. That’s how he spotted that particular couple and sensed something different about their baby. The long awaited moment of recognition came to a man who held fast to a promise and lived his days believing. That’s not easy to do.

This day is another opportunity to rub the crust from the eyes of your soul and pay attention. Advent is a deep yearning to see God at work in the world. The baby Simeon blessed in the temple that day would one day explain that the Spirit moves like wind. You can’t see where it comes from or where it is going, but you can notice where it is moving (John 3:8). And the moment of recognition belongs to those who pay attention.

Prayer:
Gracious God, I want to live my days like Simeon – grounded in the conviction that you are at work in this world. I confess that there are days when it’s hard to believe this, hard to see what you’re doing. Your absence seems obvious, your presence illusory. Help me to pay attention today and keep me alert for signs of your grace. I will hold to your promises confident that you are holding me as I wait and watch. Amen.

Advent Reflections on Simeon: The Work of Waiting

2009-11-30T08:13:00.001-05:00

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon . . . He was waiting for the consolation of Israel (Luke 2:25).

Love is patient . . . (1 Corinthians 13:4).

It’s been snowing at my house.

Lightly, off and on. A sustained breeze will always bring a flurry and cover the grass with a fresh dusting – not of crystal flakes of frozen precipitation, but brown and brittle flakes from the large branches that canopy my yard. Sometimes the leaves fall and swirl with the intensity of a blizzard. They pile up ankle deep in some places. Unlike a real Georgia snow that often melts as soon as it hits the ground, these flakes must eventually be picked up. My son and I have had the joy of doing that.

My next door neighbor was digging out from under her own blizzard last week. I shouted across her driveway, “Feels like a waste of time doesn’t it?” “It never stops,” she answered.

She’s right. The leaves on the ground are one thing, but it’s the leaves that have yet to fall that mock me. Thousands of them are still clinging to branches. I imagine them hanging there, laughing at my labor, waiting for the very moment when the grass can be seen again and then letting go, floating slowly down like paratroopers on a mission, forcing me to wage war yet again armed with blower, leaf-vac and rake.

There’s a school of thought that says “don’t even bother.” Until every leaf is down it’s futile to pick them up. Maybe so. The truth is we’re all waiting: Waiting for this season to run its course. Waiting for the dead leaves to let go and be gone until spring brings new ones.

There’s a kind of waiting that atrophies into neglect. And then there’s a waiting that works. The work won’t hurry things along. It doesn’t exercise control or set the schedule. But it makes ready. The work is preparation for what will be. This kind of waiting is vigilant against inattention that slides toward forgetfulness and lands in despair.

Advent summons us to the work of waiting.

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Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel. And he wasn’t the only one. Countless others were waiting or the same thing. Generations had waited and gone to their graves without ever having seen what they were waiting for. The expectation was that someday God would enter history and act on behalf of his people, setting the world right. In other words, God would bring salvation. That’s what Simeon was waiting for. That’s what his ancestors had longed to see.

But his waiting wasn’t passive. It was grounded in familiar acts of attention practiced in a familiar setting. This is a man who loved God and loved God’s law. That love was expressed in ordinary ways. What little we know of him suggests a life of faithful worship, regularly visiting the temple. Such practices constitute the work of waiting.

In one way or another it seems we spend our lives waiting: waiting for leaves to fall and market to go up, waiting for something or someone to change, for the big break or the breakthrough. Waiting is hard and the dangers for us lie in two directions: We get tired of waiting and decide to take charge and make something happen – or we get tired of waiting and stop caring, allowing our waiting to become neglect.

Perhaps the work of waiting is simply doing what you’ve been given to do today. Bring your life before God. Be obedient in familiar and simple things. Love your neighbor, pay attention to your family, tell the truth, do good work, bless others with your words, give thanks for good health and good food, for trees and sky and all kinds of weather.

Tend to that plot of ground that is your life; go ahead and rake the leaves. You’re not wasting time. You’re getting ready.

Prayer:
“Come, Thou long expected Jesus, Born to set Thy people free; From our fears and sins release us, Let us find our rest in Thee. Israel’s Strength and Consolation, Hope of all the earth Thou art; Dear Desire of every nation, Joy of every longing heart.” (Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, Charles Wesley, 1745).

Finish Lines

2009-10-20T08:40:00.001-05:00

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever (1 Cor. 9:25).

Last week my wife was out of town. My kids were out of school. Those factors alone would have made for an interesting Monday. Add to that the torrential rains that fell for most of that day, and my parental creativity was stretched to the limits.

So I opted not to be creative. We went to a Chick-fil-a and a movie, bringing along a couple of their friends so as to minimize the potential for sibling bickering that rainy days inevitably bring about.

The cheap-seat dollar theater was playing one of my favorite films from this past summer, the animated feature UP. I had seen the movie back in June, but I loved it then and knew it would easily be worth the $1.50 ticket price. And as for exactly why the “dollar theater” charges $1.50 for tickets, I have no idea. It’s still a deal.

UP tells the story of a man’s life and a dream that stands at the center of his life. The drama begins with his boyhood fascination with adventure and his love for a tom-boyish girl who becomes his wife and shares his love for adventure. They have a dream that is captured by a painting she places over their fireplace – a picture of their house at the top of Paradise Falls.

The years go by. Life happens. Paradise Falls never does. Until one day, elderly and alone, this man – Mr. Fredrickson – eludes those who wish to place him in a retirement home by taking his house aloft with thousands of balloons. He drifts to South America to pursue a dream that he and his dear Ellie never had a chance to pursue together.

Eventually he manages to place his floating house at the top of the Falls, just like Ellie painted many years earlier. As for how that comes about, you’ll have to turn lose of $1.50 and go see for yourself. It’s a great story – but the real drama isn’t in getting the house to the Falls.

Once there, Mr. Fredrickson realizes that the picture he had over his fireplace, the one he had held in his mind and heart for all those years really wasn’t the dream after all. The real dream was simply his life – all the small moments that had made up his life. That was the adventure.

Or to use Paul’s language, that was the real race.

Most of us live with a finish line somewhere in our heads. We have an idea, a picture of where w will be and what we will be doing and what life will look like when we know we’ve “won.” The finish line can be about what we achieve professionally or what we attain materially or how many candles we manage to gather on top of the birthday cake. For some the finish line is a large crowd of children and grandchildren who come back home for holiday meals at a long family table. And of course, many of us live with all of those finish lines in front of us.

While Paul speaks of the crown we receive when the race is won, many commentators understand Paul’s focus to be on the race itself – the running, the discipline. Paul is not telling the Corinthians, or us, to simply finish the race, but to run it well.

The grace is in the running. Sometimes our preoccupation with the finish line keeps us from truly enjoying the race and embracing all that it means to run hard and run well. Paul seems to suggest that when we run hard and run well, the finish line will take care of itself.

What finish lines do you hold in your mind today? Are you enjoying the run and living the adventure?

Prayer:
Gracious God, every day is a chance to train for the race. And every day, in very ordinary ways, we run the race to which you have called us. Grant us the grace to both train well and run well. Show us the joy that you have for us on the course, and not simply at the finish. Amen.

The Race

2009-10-13T09:45:00.001-05:00

Run in such a way as to get the prize (1 Cor. 9:24).

This past weekend was homecoming at Wake Forest University.

I didn’t attend Wake Forest. I was there this weekend by virtue of marriage. I’m an alum-in-law, if there can be such a thing. I walked the campus with my wife and kids, met some people she hadn’t seen in a long time, listened to things she remembered about how the place was back in her day and how this or that has been changed or renovated or removed altogether.

As we walked the campus I also listened to my son talk about what he would be doing when he goes there (my daughter is holding out for UNC). That won’t be until the fall of 2016 but the very prospect of it is enough to wake me screaming in the night.

The memories there were not mine. I didn’t know anyone we saw on campus – but I have a sense of connection to that place that’s hard to define.

My Dad is a graduate of Wake Forest. He attended the school when it was actually located in the town of Wake Forest. The campus re-located to Winston-Salem and my Dad did his senior year at the new location. In the meantime the “old” campus became a Baptist seminary, so after graduating from WFU in Winston-Salem my dad went back to his college campus to attend seminary.

Walking the campus this weekend, I felt like the story of my life is somehow connected to that place. I never took a single credit hour there, but the institution played a role in shaping me. The school was established in 1834 to train preachers for Baptist churches in North Carolina. One of the Baptist preachers they ended up training was my father.

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The New Testament is fond of athletic metaphors for the Christian life. Among them, “the race” enjoys favored status.

Paul uses the image one of his letters to Timothy and in his letter to the Galatians. The metaphor is used as Paul addresses the elders in Ephesus in the book of Acts, and the writer to the Hebrews makes use of it also.

To live life as a follower of Jesus is to run a race – and Paul told the Corinthians to run hard, to “run in such a way as to get the prize.” But how do we do that? How do we win this race?

One answer surely has to do with receiving the eternal “well done” when this life is finished. We live faithfully and do what we’re given to do here to the best of our ability. We use our gifts in the service of the God who gave them to us – and then when we cross the finish line of earthly life we are rewarded with the Master’s commendation and eternity in the Master’s presence.

But maybe there’s more to the race than that. Perhaps the race is much bigger than my own little piece of the course. I may be reading things into Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 9, but I’m certain this has to be true.

Our task is to run well while we’re here – and make sure that when we’ve finished the course set out for us there are others behind us with fresh strength to keep running. I think that’s what I sensed on the campus of a college I never attended. I felt my feet walking a piece of the course that wasn’t mine to run, but which nevertheless belongs to a race that I’m competing in. Together, we make up an enormous relay team.

I want to run well – so that someday in 2016, if and when my son walks the campus of WFU, he won’t simply be going to college. He’ll be running a race that his Mom and his grandfather ran on that very course. And hopefully he’ll sense me running with him too.

Prayer:
Give us strength to run our course well today, O God. And make us aware that there are others yet to run behind us. Use our lives now to shape the race that they will run then, to the glory of your name and the building up of your rule among us. Amen.

When Wisdom Says "Let Go"

2009-10-01T10:56:00.002-05:00

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight (1 Cor. 3:19).

“Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” (Genesis 22:12)

There are things we cherish in this life. Good things. Our hearts knit to these things so that we cannot imagine life without them.

We can’t imagine life without our family, the children that wear us out or the spouse that continues to surprise us or the parents we once rebelled against. We can’t imagine life without meaningful work and the challenges and rewards that come with it. We can’t imagine life without the capacity to see the sky or walk on our own legs or swallow prime rib.

But sometimes we are asked to live without those things. We pay lip service to these things as “gifts’ or “blessings.” But when asked to give them up we feel angry and cheated, deprived of what was rightfully ours. We clutch at the gift and resent the giver.

Sometimes, however, wisdom asks us to let go.

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The story is simple and yet almost impossible to understand. After much waiting and a few messes along the way, Abraham and Sarah had received the child promised to them. Sarah had laughed at the idea that such a thing would ever happen. But it did. The boy was born and named Isaac, meaning “laughter.” This boy was the long awaited fulfillment of a promise that had exceeded their capacity to believe.

And then we get a divine bait and switch. After all the waiting and messes, God appears ready to scrub the whole plan. God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Go up on a mountain, place the boy on an altar, raise the knife, and give back what you waited so long to receive. Here’s the reward for your patient faith: sacrifice your child.

We’re stunned and even angry about this. Amazingly Abraham goes. It has been noted that the only time Abraham speaks in this story is to present himself obediently to God. ”Here I am,” he says. That’s it. “Here I am.” He listens and obeys, walking up a hill with his son, his only son (a significant phrase in the story) planning all the while to do what we could never dream of doing.

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Abraham’s story has the kind of ending we always hope for. The tragedy is averted. Abraham raises the blade above his son but his hand is stayed, Isaac is spared, and God provides a ram for the sacrifice. They all go home together happy and relieved. But there’s nothing in this story that says our willingness to let go means that we will eventually be allowed to keep what we so deeply cherish.

Too many parents have wept over the grave of a child. Too many competent and capable people have been told they no longer have a job. Too many strong and able-bodied people have been incapacitated. Sometimes we let go and we are left empty handed.

This is foolishness to us. Maybe that’s why Paul quotes Isaiah 40:13 in his discussion about God’s wisdom and how it runs counter to our wisdom. “Who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?”

Sometimes wisdom asks us to stand before God with open hands and say what Abraham said. “Here I am.” This means we hold every gift as just that, a gift: Our health, our work, our loved ones. All of it comes to us by grace. The world’s wisdom says that we have a right to these things. God’s wisdom asks us to offer them up – always careful never to worship the gift above the giver.

What are you being asked to let go of today?

Prayer:
We give you thanks, O God, for every gift you place in our life. Make us mindful today of what we cherish, and help us to cherish it rightly – ever thankful, humble before you, never allowing your gift to become a god that rivals your place in our heart. We would live every day with this simple prayer: “Here I am.” Amen.

When Wisdom Says "Wait"

2009-09-30T11:42:00.000-05:00

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight (1 Cor. 3:19).

The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant. Perhaps I can build a family through her (Genesis 16:2).

Our admiration is drawn toward those who know how to make things happen. People who make things happen get promoted and praised. Schooled in the world’s wisdom, we are inclined to be proactive, to take initiative. Knowing how to make things happen is an indispensable quality of leadership.

But sometimes in our drive to make things happen we end up making a mess. We run out of patience and we run over people. Our efforts to shake things up leave a trail of pieces that have to be put back in place. Maybe God never asked us to make things happen.

Sometimes wisdom says “wait.”

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It looked as if Eliezer of Damascus would get it all. The estate, such as it was, would go to him. That didn’t seem like such tragedy to Abraham. Eliezer had been a faithful servant in Abraham’s household. Given that Abraham and Sarah had no children, it seemed only right that Eliezer would be the heir. Law and custom deemed in fitting.

But there was one thing that bothered Abraham about this, nagged at him and wouldn’t leave him alone. It was God’s promise. Abraham wondered at times if he had gotten it wrong, but he kept coming back to the same answer: No. He knew what God had said. God had said that Abraham and Sarah would have their own child. In fact, Abraham and Sarah would have a family that would in turn give rise to more families.

God confirmed the promise. “A son from your own body will be your heir.”

Great. Only one problem. Abraham and Sarah were old. Really old. Knowing this, Sarah decided to make things happen. She took the initiative, giving her maidservant Hagar to Abraham. “Perhaps I can build a family through her.”

In that culture what Sarah did made sense. It was legal, and what’s more, it was effective. Hagar conceived a son, Ishmael. The problem, however, is that God had never asked Sarah to build a family. That was never her job to do. Sarah made things happen and in doing so she made herself and Abraham miserable. She despised Hagar and the child she bore. What Sarah really made was a mess.

********

Few things are harder for us than waiting.

The wisdom of the age is informed by pragmatic concerns. We know what needs to happen. If we can see a way to obtain the desired outcome by means that are both legal and effective, then we should act. Not to act is to be passive and to be passive is to be weak. And, again, the wisdom of this world holds no place for weakness.

But maybe there are times when wisdom – God’s wisdom – says “wait.”

We need to be careful here because a falsely spiritualized kind of “waiting” can be used as a cover for laziness. Mixing our “waiting” with a little God-talk can be a way of avoiding responsibility or refusing to take a risk.

But rightly practiced waiting is a bold expression of trust. It is God’s wisdom, taking the spotlight off of our efforts and skills and plans. God shows our wisdom to be foolishness so that no one may boast. Holy waiting is the means by which we get out of the way and trust God to do what God has promised to do.

When we will not wait, it usually has to do with our fears, and fear is contrary to faith. Those fears lead us to take the wrong job just to get a paycheck, marry the wrong person just to avoid being alone, spend money we don’t really have because we don’t think a deal like that will ever come along again. Fear makes it hard to wait.

Are you taking actions today, making things happen, that are fear-driven? What would happen if you listened to the wisdom that says “wait?”

Prayer:
Give us the grace, O God, to wait on you and your promises. Grant us discerning minds and hearts that we might know when to act. Grant us courage to wait, guarding us from decisions and actions that are driven by fear and not faith. Amen.

When Wisdom says "Simplify"

2009-09-29T12:55:00.001-05:00

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight (1 Cor. 3:19).

The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands” (Judges 7:2).

Schooled in the wisdom of this world we work hard to accumulate things. Our aspirations and ambitions are generally shaped by more, bigger, better. We not only work hard to gather and grow, we work hard to work hard. To be busy is to be important. To be constantly sought after is proof of competence and worth.

But in the rare still moment we sense that the busier we get and the more we accumulate, the emptier we feel. Exhausted and glutted we wonder what’s missing.

Sometimes wisdom says “simplify.”

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Gideon wasn’t stupid. Israel was being oppressed by the Midianites, a ravenous enemy whose terrorist-type tactics involved attacking the food supply. Like a swarm of locusts, they would strike during planting season, destroying crops.

Gideon, exercising good common sense, had taken to threshing his wheat in the confines of a winepress. He was hiding his stuff from the enemy, protecting his assets, guarding what was his. He was living his life defensively because times were hard. That’s when an angel came and appeared to Gideon and commissioned him to raise an army and deliver Israel from Midian.

Gideon obeyed, but cautiously. He asked for signs of God’s presence and favor and God patiently complied. Eventually Gideon amassed an army of 32,000 men.

Having gathered Israel’s strength at full capacity, Gideon was given the battle plan. “You have too many men.” For Gideon to fight at full strength meant that Israel might boast; the people might begin to think that their own strength had won the day.

So God told Gideon to divest, downsize, get small – and then go to battle. With a small army, Israel would come to know the size and might of their God

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We much prefer to live life at the full capacity of our strength: our full earning potential, our complete health, our maximum influence. For most of us the aim of life is to maximize and the key to living well is to maximize even more.

But sometimes wisdom says, “You have too much.”

We have too much stuff, and we worry about protecting it, insuring it, keeping it safe. We have too much to do, and we run ourselves into the ground keeping up with it all, meeting demands and expectations, pleasing superiors and managing those not-so-superior. We have too many options and we feel bored with all of them.

But the world in its wisdom applauds us. God’s wisdom says to slow down and strip down. Simplify. With less of us and our stuff and our agenda, there’s more of God. God removes our sense of pride, takes away our reason for boasting, and invites us to live by grace. But living by grace is foolishness to the world. Living by and for anything else is foolishness to God.

What would it mean today for you to simplify?

Prayer:
You must increase, O God. We must decrease. Make us bold like Gideon and help us to obey you, trusting you rather than what we have. Looking you o you for our identity rather than our tasks or careers. Be large in our living today as we seek to simplify and become small in simple acts of service and obedience. Amen.

Life Received

2009-09-25T08:25:00.001-05:00

For I received from the Lord what I passed on to you (1 Cor. 11:23)

What do you have that you did not receive? (1 Cor. 4:7)

I owned a set of dishes before I got married. They were very functional and nearly impossible to break. The bowls, the cups, the plates – everything was made of thick hard plastic. And they were blue. The set was accented with a collection of cups from places like the 7-11 store and various sporting events. I liked my dishes just fine.

Marnie managed to dump all of it once the vows were exchanged.

That didn’t bother me. It wasn’t much of a loss compared to the new stuff that filled the cabinets of our Houston apartment. Marriage improved my lot in life in a number of ways, one of which was drinking from clear glass and eating off of matching plates adorned with an artistic pattern – something other than the words “Big Gulp” stamped on the outside of the vessel.

When Marnie and I married we lived in Houston. However, our wedding was here in Atlanta. A week or so after the wedding it was my job to drive back to Texas with a car full of wedding gifts. The word full isn’t quite adequate. There was hardly a square inch of free space in our white ‘94 Honda Accord. Just enough room for the driver and whatever space was required to make breathing possible.

One of the great things about early married life – at least for us – is that for a while immediately following the wedding, everything in your home is from someone else. Marnie and I each brought a few items of furniture into our marriage, but most of what we had in our newlywed apartment was given to us. Everything around us reminded us of someone we knew and loved, and who apparently loved us. A set of knives, a coffee maker, a picture frame, a desk lamp or tool box or anything. Every time I handled the gift I thought of who gave it. We were literally surrounded by grace.

And we still are.

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Paul’s distress with the Corinthians and their careless approach to the Lord’s Supper had to do with the given nature of the meal. Paul made it clear: “I passed on to you what I received.” This meal wasn’t an innovation Paul had introduced to Corinth. It wasn’t a work in progress. It was the Lord’s meal: Given by Jesus and handed down to all believers.

The crisis over the Lord’s Supper came about because certain Corinthians were acting as if the meal was theirs: something for their enjoyment, something to satisfy their appetites, something to host for their closest friends.

When grace was taken out of the meal, grace was also taken from the community itself. Once they forgot that the meal had been given, they no longer knew how to share it.

Everything in your life that truly matters is given to you. There’s nothing of true worth and value that you can look at and say “I deserved that” or “I earned that.” Paul confronted the Corinthians with this truth. “What do you have that you didn’t receive?” The answer is simply “nothing.”

Your family, your health, the sunlight or rain, the green light you barely made, the phone call from someone you haven’t talked to in a long time, the words of affirmation that you never expected, the kiss your daughter placed on the back of your hand. Anything that comes to you and makes you say, “I don’t want to ever forget this; I want to stay in this moment for as long as I possibly can.” Whatever that might be is a gift.

Life is received. It comes by grace. When you forget the grace, life is diminished.

What have you received today and how will that grace shape your living?

Prayer:
Gracious God, thank you for the gift of this day and every other gift that will come with it. Whatever the day brings, I will receive it as from you. Help me to live this day thankfully, surrounded and sustained by your grace, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Interruptions and Inconveniences

2009-09-23T07:05:00.001-05:00

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you (1 Cor. 11:23).

Taking the Lord’s Supper hasn’t changed much since I was eight years old. As a general rule it has been a Sunday morning experience, often involving small cubes of Wonder Bread and little cups of Welch’s grape juice passed in silver trays. Honestly, I’ve probably invested more mental energy in not dropping the silver trays than I have in meditating on Jesus’ body and blood.

In the midst of this standard practice, two Lord’s Supper experiences stand out in my mind. One took place at a Promise Keepers conference, a stadium event that gathered thousands of men for worship and teaching and plenty of brotherly admonition to Godly manhood. At Promise Keepers the elements came to us in a little two-unit package. A foil cover would be peeled off of the little plastic cup of grape juice and the smaller compartment that held some kind of unidentifiable bread-like substance. This allowed thousands to be served quickly. No silver trays at Promise Keepers.

The second experience that stands out in my mind was the time I took communion with an Episcopal congregation in Fort Worth, Texas. This was eye-opening for a Baptist seminary student. We walked forward and knelt at a padded rail. The priest gave us a wafer and then we all drank from the same silver cup. I told a nurse about this experience and she was horrified. I explained that the priest wiped the cup with a cloth after every person drank from it. She didn’t care. No way would she do that.

The Promise Keepers experience reminds me that ours is a world that values time and efficiency. The nurse’s reaction to my Episcopal experience reminds me that ours is a world that values the preferences that suit the individual. We share a common meal, but drink from your own cup.

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When the Corinthians gathered for the Lord’s Supper they were being driven by individual preferences and the efficient use of time. The wealthy folks took what they wanted (preference) and they didn’t sit around waiting for the others to show up (time). Paul had to remind them that the meal wasn’t theirs to do with as they saw fit. This meal was given. “I received from the Lord what I passed on to you.”

We live in a world that encourages and extols two values that are detrimental to the Christian community and the Jesus way of life: Efficient use of time and personal preference or taste. This means that many of us live life in a hurry, and we resent the inconveniences that interfere with our personal preferences. This works well in America – but it presents a challenge for those who follow Jesus.

You may already be planning your day in a way that allows you to use time efficiently and avoid inconvenience. You may already feel rushed. You don’t need anyone getting in the way of what you’ve got to do. But interruptions and inconvenience can be a spiritual discipline in your life. You are invited to receive them, not resent them.

This is hard for us. The Jesus way is not always efficient in its use of time. This way of living welcomes interruptions and lingers long. We prefer to get to the point and then get to the next thing. The Jesus way also means that sometimes I set aside my personal tastes and preferences in deference to another. Sometimes we are called upon to be willingly inconvenienced.

How do you typically respond to interruptions and inconvenience? What would it mean to receive these as God given appointments in your day?

Prayer:
Help us, O God, to receive every experience of this day as divinely appointed. Forgive us for assuming that we control our days, that we truly manage our own time and that all things should work according to our preference and plan. Grant to us a humility that truly seeks to follow where you lead, we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Get in the Same Room

2009-09-21T07:42:00.001-05:00

. . . no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:11).

From time to time, for whatever reason, my wife and I will carry on conversation while we’re in different rooms of the house. I don’t recommend this as a primary form of marital communication. It’s good for brief exchanges of information, but not so good for conveying deep concern about a matter or deep affection for one another.

These conversations are particularly risky for someone like me. Unlike my wife, I do not process things verbally. I don’t “think out loud.” The book of James says something about being “slow to speak.” I have no trouble being obedient to that biblical admonition. I like to take my time before I say something, and the process of figuring out exactly what I want to say happens somewhere between my ears, quietly.

Thus the following scenario: My wife, in one room of the house, will ask me a question. I, in an adjacent room, will hear the question and begin formulating a response. Again (see above) the response is prepared in the quiet recesses of my brain. This means that my wife, still in the other room, believes that her question is being met with stone-cold silence, and a question met with silence is a question ignored. Being ignored is an unpleasant thing and does little to facilitate a helpful conversation.

My take-away: Thoughts are best revealed by words and words are best exchanged in the same room.

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There are several places in the New Testament that list various spiritual gifts. Study them closely and you’ll note that mind reading is not named in any of them. Not even once. No one knows your thoughts but you, and those thoughts remain hidden unless you speak.

Paul seized upon this truth and reminded the Corinthians that “no one knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him. In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:11).

There are moments when we’d give anything to know the thoughts of God. So many of God’s thoughts have been recorded for us in the written words of scripture. But what about those moments when you’re trying to make a decision between two equally compelling options? What about those moments when you’re making plans for the future or when a friend asks you for advice about a very difficult situation? What about moments when you’re trying to know exactly how to discipline your child or when you’re not sure if something violates business ethics?

How do you know the thoughts of God? Paul’s letter says it plainly: they are revealed by the Spirit. And we answer, “Great. What does that mean?”

For one thing it means we don’t have to guess or play games. God wants you to know those thoughts just as much as you want to know them. God wants to reveal things to us – to guide us and give us understanding. We are not asked to “figure out” what God wants to do in our lives.

But it also means that at some point we must get in the same room with the Spirit. My wife will be my wife whether we are in different rooms or different states. The relationship remains. But we cannot truly connect unless we get in the same room. Knowing God’s thoughts as revealed by the Spirit requires the same kind of thing. We’ve got to be in the same room. The Spirit present with us, we present to the Spirit.

There’s no formula for this. Connecting with another person requires an investment of time and energy and attention. This is no less true of the Spirit of God. Start by getting in the same room with the Spirit – and then be still and listen. God is eager to speak to you.

Prayer:
We want to know your thoughts, O God. We give you thanks for the gift of your written word and the treasure we find there. Grant to us a willingness to be present to you, in the same room, attentive and eager to hear. Reveal your thoughts to us as you will and in your time, we pray. Amen.

Being Made Ready

2009-09-18T11:07:00.001-05:00

I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it (1 Cor. 3:2).

I probably shouldn’t have looked back, but I couldn’t help myself. Sixth grade boys don’t need a parent to make sure they get inside the front door of the school. And the middle-school principal and school counselor have issued repeated warnings to us about being “helicopter parents,” hovering. “Step way from the child,” they say.

But I did it. I let him out of the car and then I looked back.

It was Monday morning and the day’s events meant that my son was loaded down when he got out of the car. I pulled up in the carpool line and when we had rolled to just the right spot John executed a deployment worthy of a Marine hitting a beachhead. He slipped out of the back seat, deftly pulling with him a book-bag, a laptop computer case, and the small backpack filled with his cross country clothes.

He quickly went to the back of the vehicle and opened the hatch, grabbing his saxophone case and slamming the hatch shut before I could get a good look at him in the rear-view mirror. At that moment he was on his own. Plenty of parents behind me had patiently sat through these maneuvers and they were ready for me to move on. The teacher monitoring carpool that morning seemed ready for me to move on as well. And so I did.

But I looked back. I looked back because he had so much stuff – books, cross country, laptop, saxophone. I looked back because I wasn’t sure he could carry it all. Like David wearing Saul’s armor, he would surely stagger under the weight of it.

I looked back because I thought he had more than he could bear.

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“God won’t give us more than we can bear.” I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say it, and I do believe it’s true. But I wonder sometimes.

For one thing, I don’t think you’ll find those exact words in the Bible. It’s a truth that the Bible supports, but doesn’t explicitly state. The closest thing is something about how God helps us bear up under temptation (1 Cor. 10:13).

And I also wonder about what it says about God and the things we bear in this life. “God won’t give us more than we can bear” makes God sound like the gate-keeper who checks every hardship the way TSA agents check your shoes in airport security lines. Some burdens seem bearable and God lets them pass. Others are just too much so God confiscates them. Maybe the truth about God and our burdens is something other than that.

When Paul told the Corinthians they were not yet ready for “solid food” he implied that they should be, as if being a follower of Jesus meant becoming ready for more substantive things. When Jesus told his followers that he had more to say to them but they could not bear it now he implied that at some point they would be able to bear it. They just had to get ready (John 16:12-15).

Maybe the life of faith means that in some way we are constantly being made ready for more, prepared for the next thing. God is not in the business of guarding our comfort, protecting us from the heavy burdens. Rather, God makes us ready for the burdens we will be called upon to bear. Growing strong in the Spirit means being made ready.

You may be especially weighed down today. We step into every day encumbered by something, pulling all kinds of baggage with us. But God our Father turns his face toward us. God is ever watchful and the Spirit is ever present, making sure we can bear what we have until we’re ready for what comes next.

Prayer:
Work in us today, O God, and make us equal to the burdens we bear. Strengthen us with power by your Spirit so that we might be ready for all that you have for us – both blessings and burdens. We would become people who are ready for solid food, who are ready for more of your truth. We thank you for your faithfulness and ask that in all things we might be a faithful people, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

What Were You Thinking?

2009-09-17T10:05:00.001-05:00

But we have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16).

“What were you thinking?”

The question is short and tight. You won’t find four words that better convey disbelief and utter exasperation. I’ve asked the question. I’ve asked it of my kids. I’ve asked it of myself. My wife has directed the question my way on occasion.

The question is somewhat misleading because it really has little to do with thought. It tends to come up in connection with some kind of action or behavior. Typically, the behavior is totally incomprehensible and so someone else is trying to make sense of what was done or said. The attempt to discern or understand the otherwise senseless act is thus framed with this question: “What were you thinking?”

Among other things that the question so powerfully conveys is the assumed link between thought and action. Thinking and speaking and doing are inseparable.

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Paul told the Christians in Corinth, “We have the mind of Christ.”

Now that’s interesting. Thanks to the written text of scripture I know plenty about what Jesus did. Those same scriptures have preserved much of what Jesus said. But what was he thinking? What was on his mind when he did and said those things?

“We have the mind of Christ.”

I so want to believe that. But when I look at what Christians do and say – more to the point, when I look at what I do and say – I so have my doubts.

The mind of Christ didn’t rationalize temptation. His thoughts were steely and focused and filled with the words of God.

The mind of Christ didn’t hold a grudge. When a Samaritan village rejected him as he journeyed to Jerusalem he rebuked the indignant James and John who wanted to call down fire from heaven to destroy the place.

The mind of Christ could be inundated with the noise of an adoring crowd and not get swept up in it. In the clamor he heard the cries of a blind man, a man ignored by the crowd.

The mind of Christ could wrestle with God and then finally submit entirely and without reservation to whatever God willed to do. .

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“We have the mind of Christ.” But we don’t come by it naturally, the way some people are effortlessly good at math. And we don’t come by it by effort. The mind of Christ comes to us by the work of the Spirit.

By the work of the Spirit – grace at work in your life – you can think differently today about yourself and your circumstances. With the mind of Christ you know what’s true about you. You are not a failure. You are not a rock star. You need not live with shame and you have no cause for arrogance or pride.

With the mind of Christ you can see your life as Jesus sees it: you need not be afraid and anxious. You need not carry the burdens of regret and guilt. You can genuinely care about your co-workers rather than fear them or compete with them. You can risk being a servant and not fear getting used.

We have the mind of Christ. His mind is a gift that comes by the Spirit working in us. As followers of Jesus we don’t simply do what Jesus did. We think like he thought and gradually his life takes shape in our own.

How are you thinking about yourself and your circumstances today?

Prayer:
Form your mind in me today, Lord Jesus. Help me to see others as you see them, to think your thoughts about them. Help me to see myself and my life with your mind. By the work of your Spirit in me, take away the lies that pose as truth. Let my thoughts and actions and words honor you throughout this day, I pray. Amen.

There's More

2009-09-15T08:30:00.001-05:00

I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it (1 Cor. 3:2).

I have much more to say to you, more than you can bear now (John 16:12).

The stories don’t change much.

Every Christmas Jesus is born in the Bethlehem stable, visited by shepherds and sought out by wise men. Every year Caesar Augustus takes a census and taxes his constituency.
And every year the angelic choir trots out the same anthem. Same song, first and only verse, over and over.

Every Easter the stone is rolled away. Every year we get a week of anticipated suffering that includes a very somber day of execution. The women go early in the morning to properly anoint the body of Jesus and every year they are surprised by a blazing figure sitting where Jesus had been laid. Every year the good news is announced “He is not here. He is risen.”

The stories don’t change much. In fact, they don’t change at all. But the occasion for telling them keeps coming around, relentlessly, year after year, ready or not.

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We didn’t have enough pews to fill the sanctuary we had built. One day we would need more – but for now we had plenty of pews and plenty of floor space with which to do something else. So in the back corner of the sanctuary there was a table where a Sunday school class met every week before the worship service.

Early one Easter morning, long before anyone else would be at church, I went in the sanctuary and took a seat at that table. I was the church’s pastor and within a few hours it would be up to me to tell the never changing story. I would be called upon to announce the good news. That day, however, it didn’t feel like good news to me. It just felt like news, often told and barely heard.

I sat in the sanctuary feeling kind of dead inside and then feeling ashamed because I felt that way. I had heard that story so many times. I hadn’t preached very many Easter sermons, but I’d spent a lifetime on the receiving end. Now it was my turn: my turn to say what people expect me to say or what I think they expect to hear. It’s a good message, it’s a true message. But it’s always the same message.

Looking back, I know now that my problem that Easter morning had nothing to do with the story. The problem was me. I thought I’d heard it before. I thought I’d heard it all.

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“I have much more to say to you,” said Jesus to his anxious followers. And he still has more to say. Jesus has more to say even to those who think they’ve heard it all before. Jesus has more to say to us about what we think we understand.

It’s not hard to get stuck spiritually. Stuck-ness doesn’t mean you no longer believe; it means that what you believe is no longer helpful as you live your life. To use Paul’s image, you’re still on a diet of milk when you should have moved on to solid food. In our infancy, milk supplied what we needed. But it didn’t take long to grow out of that. We needed more.

Jesus has more to say to us. None of us has exhausted the limits of our spiritual life. But when we think we’ve heard it before or we think we’ve heard it all, we stop paying attention. We hear but we don’t listen very well. We settle for milk when our souls need something more substantive.

The good news for those who find themselves stuck somewhere in their faith journey is this: Jesus has more to say to you, and the Spirit will lead you to what it is. Our task is to listen carefully, for when we do our “soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods” (Ps. 63:5).

Prayer:
We give you thanks, Lord Jesus, that your word is a living word and that you still have more to say to us. Help us to hear familiar truths in ways that we’ve never heard them before. Give us fresh eyes as we read the scriptures. Reveal to us more of who you are that we might share more of your love with the world around us, we pray. Amen.

What Was and What Will Be

2009-09-14T07:01:00.001-05:00

Think of what you were when you were called (1 Cor. 1:26).

At first it sounded like thunder. After a few seconds I realized it wasn’t thunder at all, but the Wheeler High School drum line.

If I could blaze a trail directly to Wheeler, cutting through my neighbors’ yards, I could walk there in less than five minutes. My house sits almost directly behind the school, and the sounds of the drum line mark the fall season as surely as the leaves that are now being scattered about on my lawn. September means high school football and high school football means marching bands and drum lines.

The sounds evoked memory. Those distant rumbling cadences on Friday morning became a bridge that took me back to my own days on the drum line – only it wasn’t called a drum line back then, at least not at my school. I loved the drums during football season, but I wasn’t so enthusiastic about being a “band geek.” It was far cooler to dress out for football even you never got on the field except to do pre-game stretching. Our band uniforms were, for lack of a better word, goofy. But I tolerated that for the sound and energy of the drums. To use current vocabulary, we rocked.

“I can’t do that anymore.”

At some point remembering my drumming days morphed into acknowledging present reality. My drumming days are done. Truthfully, I don’t think I ever played as well as what I heard coming from Wheeler High on Friday morning. The bar seems to have been raised a good bit higher. Other thoughts followed. “What if I could do that again? I’d work harder. I’d be better.” And almost as quickly – “I’m so glad to be done with high school.”

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In his letters to the Christians in Corinth Paul is continually holding up before them who they once were and who they are becoming.

“Remember who you were when you were called” (1 Cor. 1:26). In Christ they are a new creation. “The old has gone, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). When Christ returns they will be “blameless” (1 Cor. 1:8).

Our thinking easily drifts in these same directions, looking back to what was or looking ahead to what will be. The looking back sometimes raises all the “what if” questions: what if we had chosen differently or tried harder or understood more. The looking ahead raises all the “what’s up” questions: what is God up to, where is this headed, what’s up next?

For Paul, and for us, the answer to the “what if” questions and the “what’s up” questions is found in Jesus. God is at work forming Christ in you and that redefines everything, past, present and future.

From time to time you may hear the rhythms of a distant cadence echoing from days long gone. You may look back with regret. You may look back with longing. But you are not who you once were. And sometimes you may feel a restlessness that pushes you to your future, the next thing out there that isn’t clear to you now. You are not yet who you will be.

And what holds it together – what holds us together – is grace: All that was, all that is today, all that yet will be is God’s relentless work to form the image of Jesus in you. As the familiar hymn says, “’tis grace hath brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.”

What is God using these days to shape the likeness of Jesus in you?

Prayer:
Our hearts are filled with thanks, O God, for what has been and what will be. Redeem our yesterdays as you prepare us for days yet to come. Use all that this day will bring to shape the likeness of your son in us, we pray. Amen.

Slow to Unlearn

2009-09-11T08:43:00.000-05:00

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? (1 Cor. 3:16).

I learned at a very early age that God had a house and that God’s house was called “church.” And somehow I also came to love that house.

I know this isn’t true for everyone. Some people grow up in houses that they can’t wait to get out of. Once out of the house they return only on holidays, an obligatory visit that is more endured than enjoyed, more tolerated than treasured.

The same happens with God’s house. For whatever reason, there are many who know its rooms and corridors but are only too glad to be done with it. They make it back a couple of times a year, but it’s not home for them in any meaningful way.

For reasons I can’t explain, that’s not my story. I don’t make that claim as a boast – just a fact. The first house I ever lived in was on a small lot right next door to God’s house. The same is true of my daughter Anna. When she was born we brought her home to a house that sat across the street from the house of God. In days that lie beyond the reach of my memory and in days that I will never forget, God’s habitation and my own habitation have been closely connected.

I learned what kinds of behavior are fitting for God’s house, “don’t run in church” being at the top of the list. I grew comfortable with the furniture: little wooden chairs for children, metal folding chairs for grown ups, and pews for everyone. Even now I can detect a scent that seems to linger in churches all over the country. Yes, to me God’s house has a smell that evokes recognition, a recognition of home.

I learned all of that at a very early age. And now, quite a bit older, I am trying to unlearn it. This doesn’t mean that I’m rejecting my love for the place or practice of weekly worship. It doesn’t mean that I hold in derision that which I have always cherished. What I am having to unlearn is the connection between the presence of God and a building.

Of course, I’ve understood for a long time that God doesn’t live in a house the way I live in a house. But deeply ingrained in me is a way of thinking that connects the activity in the building with the activity of God. This means that God is confined to church programs, church services, church meetings. That’s what must be unlearned.

Paul told the Corinthians that they themselves were God’s temple. This is a staggering claim. God does not take up residence in a building or a shrine or a structure. God inhabits a people. God’s very life dwells in you.

This simple truth could revolutionize your life. The reality of God’s very life dwelling in yours changes this day without changing anything you’ve planned to do. Suddenly what you’ve planned to do takes on an entirely new meaning. You are God’s plan for loving and changing the world.

It’s a good thing to invite the world to God’s house. Some will come. Plenty of others will not. But God inhabits a people and every week those people take God to the world.

You are God’s temple, God’s habitation. The Spirit of God takes up residence in your life.

How might this change your day? How might it change you?

Prayer:
Gracious God, you loved the world so much that you sent your son. You continue to love the world by sending us. Empower us today by your Spirit that we may be your very presence in this world. Make your home in us, changing us and transforming our days, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Unsightly Growth

2009-09-09T11:41:00.001-05:00

“You are God’s field” (1 Cor. 3:9).

“All healthy things grow, but not all growth is healthy.”

I’d like to be able to take credit for those words, but I can’t. I’m not sure where I heard them or who said them. Something in my mind whispers to me that Reggie McNeal said that line in one of his keynote addresses at the Presbyterian Global Fellowship conference we hosted here back in February. Whoever said it, the words aren’t mine and a proper footnote needs to be inserted somewhere in this paragraph.

I didn’t craft the sentence but I know its truth well enough. I spent more than three hours in my yard this past Saturday removing growth. Around the right side of my house a small jungle had flourished. I had noticed it for several weeks, but I didn’t want to deal with it. When creeping vines had extended their tentacles as far as a second floor bedroom window, I knew it was time to take action.

My weapons of choice were an old-fashioned sling-blade and two different kinds of clippers. I didn’t need an axe or a chainsaw because not all of the growth was bad. Some of the healthier bushes simply needed trimming. But among the healthy growth I found all kinds of dead limbs and unruly branches. I went after them with the intensity of a personal vendetta.

“Not all growth is healthy.”

What I realize now is that I never should have let things get that out of hand. Looking at my house from the street you would have never seen that unsightly foliage creeping up the wall. You would have never noticed the brittle naked branches of dead plants and bushes. Typically my yard looks quite good. I won’t win any prizes from the homeowners association, but my yard holds its own.

The problem growth was hidden from sight and easily ignored. Quietly, insidiously, it took root and kept spreading until removing it required hours of unpleasant effort. I’ll be paying better attention from now on.

“You are God’s field,” wrote Paul. His point was that the Corinthians – and you – were the site of God’s master work in cultivating the life of the Spirit.

And yet, there are also some things in your life that probably don’t need to be there. Jesus used a similar word picture in his parable of the soils. Some soil allows the growth of weeds that choke the healthy growth of God’s word planted in the heart (Mark 4:1-8).

People may look at your life and never see what is out of control or lifeless in you. We do a pretty good job of ignoring those things and concealing them from others. The yard that is your life looks good, but just around the corner, out of sight from passers by, it’s a real mess.

Some of the most unsightly growth looks like this: anger that gets hidden in public and unleashed at home; envy that grows in the shadows of smiles and handshakes; greed that parades as hard work and commitment to a task; slander offered as a joke or sarcasm.

These are the kinds of things that need to be attacked and pulled up by the roots. Left alone, they’ll do nothing but spread. Eventually, they’ll kill the appetites of the soul that are necessary for spiritual growth (1 Peter 2:1-3).

What might have taken root in your life that needs to be uprooted today?

Prayer:
Show me, O God, that which has found a place in my heart and is not from you. Stir me from the sloth that keeps me from dealing with it and make me bold to remove the dead and lifeless things. Come by your Spirit and grant growth and life, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Field

2009-09-08T08:02:00.002-05:00

You are God’s field (1 Corinthians 3:9).

Richard grew tobacco in a field across the street from our house.

It wasn’t the only thing he did. By the late 1990s the tobacco industry was changing. Thanks to multiple court decisions that reflected the realities of a changing culture, it was becoming harder and harder to make a living farming tobacco.

But in the community where I lived, and in the congregation I served, there were still a few people for whom the annual rite of planting, priming and putting in tobacco was as much a part of life as Christmas or the first day of school. A year without those things was unimaginable. Richard was, and as best I know still is, one of those people.

The field across the road from our house was nondescript. There were many fields just like it in Western Wake and Chatham counties. Given that the regular traffic of my life took me by this particular field over and over again, I paid more attention to what was happening across the street. I took notice of the activity there, the clouds of hot dust from a tractor, the healthy look of the lush broad-leafed plants, the threatening bleached brown that appeared when summer rains refused to fall.

And one year I noticed that none of that was happening. The field across the street looked scrappy and grown over, almost neglected or forgotten about.

I asked about it. I don’t remember, but I might have asked Richard himself. The answer was common sense, even for someone like me who can barely grow grass in the yard. To stay healthy, the soil needs a break from time to time. The same fields are not planted in every year.

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“You are God’s field.” So wrote Paul to the bickering believers in Corinth.

Paul was trying to counter the Corinthian tendency to make celebrities of their teachers. Their attachments to and allegiances with a particular teacher / preacher was causing division among them. So Paul seized upon a word picture: He and Apollos and Peter and anyone else who labored among them were only field hands, planting and watering.

God makes things grow. And “you are God’s field.”

What was true of the Corinthians is true of you as well. God is at work cultivating something beautiful in your life. Specifically, God causes the life of the Spirit to become increasingly evident in you. This is what growth looks like: we become more patient, more inclined to kindness, more self-controlled. Elsewhere Paul called these things “fruit” of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Think of it as what grows in a healthy field.

But like all fields, sometimes the soil that is your soul lies dormant. The field appears to be neglected, overgrown and unruly. The ground feels hard. Nothing is happening there, or so it seems.

God, however, is always cultivating his fields with purpose and intent. The dormant season is not a mistake. What looks like neglect is preparation. What seems to have been forgotten and set aside holds promise for days yet to come. You are God’s field. And God continually cultivates life, especially in the quiet and difficult days when it seems that nothing at all is happening.

Are these days of visible growth or is the field of your life dormant and waiting?

Prayer:
Gracious God we give you thanks for times of growth. And we also give you thanks for the dormant season, knowing that even then you are at work to bring life out of the hardened places in our lives. Do your work among us according to your purposes and in your time, we pray. Amen.

A Spirituality of Place

2009-09-04T09:04:00.001-05:00

“I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:11).

I was two years old when Vince Dooley took the field as head coach at the University of Georgia. When he coached his last season I was in seminary. When Joe Paterno began his head coaching career at Penn State I was four. Paterno still holds that job.

Not long ago while grinding away on an elliptical machine, working hard at going nowhere, I plugged my earphones in to watch a show on ESPN that was surveying the coaching scene in college football. In the banter between the show’s two hosts the observation was made that we’ll never again see the likes of Dooley and Paterno.

It’s not their love of the game or their appetite for winning that seems to be disappearing. Gifted coaches will rise to prominence in every sport and in every era. What we’ll see far less of is the durability of a Dooley or Paterno. One commentator was blunt in saying that a coaching tenure that spans decades in one place is a thing of the past.

It’s not just college coaches who are constantly being uprooted. We are a displaced people breathing the air of impermanence. There’s a restlessness that pervades our culture. Constantly shifting realities are the norm for us, and after a while we grow antsy and bored. Sameness feels like stuckness.

That may just be the way it is. But the life of faith finds practical expression within the context of place – the home we inhabit, the cubicles or boardrooms we sit in for hours, the other people who sit in those places with us, the traffic we negotiate, the weather we plan around. Following Jesus is a way of life, and life is always shaped by a place.

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It would be nice if the Bible gave us a straightforward theology of place. You can look, but you won’t find it. In calling his first disciples Jesus asked life-long fishermen to leave their boats and nets and step away from the family business. Sometime later however, having healed a man of demon possession in the region of Decapolis, Jesus insisted that this man return home. Some are called to go, some are called to stay put.

Some of you woke up today in the same place you were when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter. You’ve claimed a home and you’ve stayed in it – but everything around you has changed. It hardly feels like your place anymore. Your children are gone, the neighbors are different, streets have been widened and new construction has crept closer to your door. You’ve not left your place, but at some point the place left you.

Some of you will leave your house and go spend the day in a place you resent. Your skills are underutilized and you’re convinced you’d make a bigger impact somewhere else. But professional transitions in this economy are tough to navigate, and the debts you owe don’t show the slightest sign of going anywhere. So you gut it out in the place where you are right now and you remind yourself every morning that you’re really lucky to be there.

Some of you are in a new place. Every day you discover new people and new possibilities. You’re on an adventure, and your place is full of mystery and promise.

Whatever your place is like today – and regardless of how you feel about it – God has something for you there. Paul’s example to us in the city of Corinth is one of being faithful in the place where you are right now. Jesus reminded Paul “I have many people in this city.” That is to say, “I am at work right here in ways that you cannot see right now. I am doing more than you know.”

The place where God would have you be is the place where you are right now. God is at work there – and God has a reason for you to be there too.

Prayer:
Send us into this day, O God, knowing that you have assigned us a place in this world. We are not stuck or forgotten or left to manage as best we can. We are your people in the places where we live and work. Grant to us a sense of being co-laborers with you, wherever we may be. Give us the grace we need to be faithful where you have us right now, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

What We Already Know

2009-09-03T10:55:00.002-05:00

Do not be afraid . . . for I am with you (Acts 18:9-10).

“People need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed.” I have those words written in a small notebook, attributed to Samuel Johnson. Whoever said it, our life experience bears it out. Sometimes we simply need to be told what we already know. We don’t need to discover a new truth. We just need to be deeply convinced of the truths we already cherish. So it was with Paul when he came to Corinth

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By the time Corinth came up on the itinerary, Paul’s resume was thick. He had an impressive testimony, complete with blinding light accompanied by the voice of Jesus and temporary blindness. That’s hard to beat.

As far as his ministry was concerned he was seasoned and tested. In Paphos Paul had cast out a demon. In Iconium he had worked miraculous signs and wonders. In Lystra Paul had healed a lame man and in that same city Paul had been beaten with rocks, dragged outside the city and left for dead.

His mind was sharp and his theological arguments tightly honed. In Jerusalem Paul had gone head to head with Jewish disciples and insisted on the inclusion of Gentiles in the Christian community. In Athens he had stood boldly in the Areopagus and presented Jesus to would-be philosophers, scoffers and skeptics and intellectual snobs. Many dismissed him, but some of them had come to faith in Christ.

Well traveled, Paul arrived in Corinth with scars on his flesh and weariness in his bones. He came with tools in his pack and a burden on his heart. Reasoning in the synagogue was nothing new to him. Being rejected there was also nothing new. And making converts of Gentiles, again he had done that too.

He had seen it all before. But there was a moment when he needed to be reminded. He needed to be told what he already knew. And so God granted a vision to Paul, and Jesus spoke this message:

“Don’t be afraid. Keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you . . .”

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Sometimes we need to be told what we already know. Maybe we’ve heard it a thousand times before. We need to hear it again. We need to be reminded.

There are time when our courage wanes. God shrinks as our fears and problems grow. Faith withers as our doubts put down deep roots. At such times we need to be told again. We need reminding. God is present. God can be trusted. God is actively involved in the place where you are and the life you’re living right now.

Even Paul, the mighty missionary apostle, needed such reminding. He needed to be told what he already knew. He needed fresh courage to keep on going. He needed a fresh awareness of the presence of Jesus. Perhaps you need the same thing today.

These words are offered to you as nothing more than a reminder. Bear with me while I tell you what you already know. You are not alone. Take heart and don’t be afraid. Jesus stands with you. Jesus left his followers with his presence and his power. Both are yours today.

Prayer:
By the work of your Spirit, O God, remind us today of what we know to be true: that you are with us; that you are at work in our lives and in the world around us. Give us courage to be your people, people sent into the world as a living reminder to others. Use us today to speak what others need to hear – the good news of your presence and love, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Closer than Julia

2009-09-01T08:37:00.003-05:00

. . . because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them (Acts 18: 3).

Over the weekend my wife and I, child-free on a Friday night and celebrating our thirteenth wedding anniversary, went to see Julie and Julia. This is probably where I ought to tell you how I really had no interest in a “chic-flick” about cooking, but being the great husband that I am I made a chivalrous concession to my wife’s choice of films. I could tell you that – but I’d be a liar. She suggested the movie but I was more than willing to see it and it did not disappoint.

Perhaps a brief synopsis would be helpful: The movie tells the true story of Julie Powell (Amy Adams), a would-be writer stuck in mind numbing government job. Powell gets the idea to cook her way through Julia Child’s magnum opus, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Along the way she blogs the entire experience. The challenge she sets for herself is to successfully execute all 536 recipes in 365 days. Powell’s story is skillfully blended with Julia Child’s story, portrayed with characteristic brilliance by Meryl Streep.

I like to think that Julie Powell had a kind of “daily devotional” for people who cook. That might be a stretch, but whatever it was it launched her writing career, and that part of the story interests me more than the cooking.

And this part was especially interesting: As Powell immerses herself in Julia Child’s world of cooking she begins to speak of Child as a living presence. When Powell is cooking she senses that somehow Julia Child is right there with her, in the kitchen, watching over her every move. Something spiritual was happening in the act of cooking.

Now, change the scene and change the story. Substitute your own kitchen or office or classroom or sales territory – wherever you spend the most ordinary hours of your most ordinary days. If Julie Powell sensed the presence of the master chef, shouldn’t we expect to the sense the presence of the Master?

Somehow – and I’m not sure how it happened – Jesus got sent to his room, grounded in the space beneath the steeple for six days of every week. This means that we speak of Jesus’ presence in church, but then go through the week without the slightest notion that Jesus is interested, much less involved, in the work we’re doing.

Jesus is present as depositions are being taken and motions filed. Jesus stands next to surgeons and sits bedside bus drivers. Jesus is behind the counter at Starbucks and has his head under the hood at Jiffy Lube. Whenever and wherever followers of Jesus go to work, Jesus is there.

Paul was a tentmaker. Acts 18 tells us that while in Corinth he did his theological work on the Sabbath when he “reasoned in the synagogue” (Acts 18:2-3). But during the week he worked in a tent-making partnership with Aquila and Priscilla – and you just have to know that in his tent-making Paul sensed that Jesus was present. The Master didn’t just hang out at the synagogue.

And one more thing. Julie Powell never met Julia Child. She wanted to meet her, dreamed of what it would be like, but it never happened. But Jesus knows you, knows every detail of your life and the number of hairs on your head. Jesus is closer to you than Julia ever was to Julie – and he delights in the work you do every day.

How will you attend to the presence of Jesus as you go through this day?

Prayer:
Gracious God, we give you thanks for your presence with us in all places and your careful attention to every aspect of our lives. You’re eyes are on us even when we are distracted. You hear our words, even when we don’t offer them as formal prayers. We would be attentive to you in all that this day brings to us, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

So, Who's Really Crazy?

2009-08-31T07:10:00.001-05:00

. . . from now on I will go to the Gentiles (Acts 18:6).

Was he confident or crazy? My first guess: crazy. He’d have to be. He was standing on the corner of Peachtree and Piedmont, clutching a big Bible to his chest and shouting a message from God at people who sat at the red light with their windows rolled up, not even looking in his direction.

My curiosity got the best of me. I rolled my window down just enough to allow me to hear his sermon, not enough to encourage him to walk over and get in the passenger seat. After all, he’s nuts – right?

I didn’t hear much of the sermon before the light turned green and I made my way down Piedmont with the rest of his congregation.

Confident or crazy? He might be crazy, a poor soul who should have never been released from whatever facility it was that could no longer keep him. That might be it.

But he looked confident. That corner was his pulpit and he stood there like a man called, a prophet who, like Jeremiah, had a “fire shut up in his bones.” And part of me admired his reckless preaching.

From time to time I too have the chance to preach in the Buckhead community. But I know better than to take my stand at the corner of Peachtree and Piedmont. No, I wait until Sunday morning. I don the appropriate garment for one rightly ordained to speak God’s words. I stand on a wooden box in a beautiful room and speak to those who willingly made the decision to come and sit in that room for an hour or so.

If the point of preaching is to spread the message about Jesus, it’s worth asking: who’s really crazy? The bizarre character on the corner of Peachtree and Piedmont, or the guy in a robe waiting for an audience on a weekend morning?

I love the way the story of Jesus is told when God’s people gather for worship each week. I’ll never abandon that practice. I also know that I’ll probably never take my post on a street corner. But if the message of Jesus won’t be widely shared by a man on a street corner or a man in a pulpit, what does that leave us?

The answer to that is simple. It leaves us you.

The most effective way for the story of Jesus to penetrate the city of Atlanta, or any city for that matter, is for people to take that story to the ordinary places where they live life every day.

When Paul went to Corinth he had more than a message. He had a strategy. His intent was to make a major impact on a major city. Corinth was a difficult place and getting a hearing for the story of Jesus was no easy task. But Paul spent eighteen months in Corinth, and after that time he left something there that had not existed when he arrived: a Christian community.

This week we’re going to be thinking about what it takes to live the Jesus life in a difficult place. Some of you spend every day in an environment where a Christian presence is not warmly received or highly regarded. How will you make a difference in your place? We need a strategy that doesn’t ask you to stand on your desk and read the Bible aloud. We also need a strategy that understands that gathering you in a big room with other Christians every week will have a limited impact on the city.

Wherever that place may be, you are a key piece of the strategy. “Do not be afraid. Do not be silent” (Acts 18: 9).

What’s your strategy for making an impact on your place today?

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you gave us a great command when you told to love people and love God. You also gave us a great commission when you invited us to do those things in a world that is indifferent to God and difficult to love. As we try to be obedient today, give us the wisdom we need to know how make an impact on our place, our homes, our cities, our schools. Amen.

Blame Less

2009-08-28T07:59:00.000-05:00

He will also strengthen you to the end so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:8 NRSV).

When things go wrong it is often said that there’s plenty of blame to go around. True enough. And most of us are pretty good at knowing exactly where it should go, who gets it and how much.

Two questions might be worth pondering and praying over today.

First, what is it in your life that isn’t working according to plan?

Second, who do you blame for that?

Sometimes we take the high road by answering that we blame no one but ourselves. But blame is still blame, even when you aim it at yourself. Blaming the self is no less violent than blaming another.

Blame is a form of self-defense, a way of distancing oneself from a problem. Blame avoids personal responsibility, shifting the focus to someone or something else. Blame often masks pride, an inflated regard for “me” and a disregard for “you.”

Placing blame on the Corinthians would have been so easy for Paul to do. They were in a mess and all of that had come about in Paul’s absence. Time for heads to roll. But Paul doesn’t do that. Instead, he sounds like a man in denial, as if he just can‘t bring himself to get real about what has happened in Corinth.

Paul calls the Corinthians “those sanctified in Christ Jesus.” He insists that they “lack no spiritual gift.” He maintains that they have been “enriched in every way.” He sees a time when they will stand before God “blameless.” The ESV translation uses the word “guiltless.”

Why does Paul talk this way?

Before getting all worked up over what the Corinthians have done, Paul seems most aware of what Jesus has done among the Corinthians. In Jesus Christ the Corinthians (and all believers) are indeed relieved of guilt. In Jesus the Corinthians are blessed, not blamed – and Paul will not presume to do what Jesus has not done. Paul is not in denial. Paul knows that there are problems in Corinth, and he’ll confront them head-on soon enough. But what matters most is what God has done in Jesus Christ. Because of this, and only because of this, Paul withholds accusation and blame.

The moment you begin to see others as blameless is the moment you become a person who blames less.

Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn (John 3:17). God didn’t send his son to assign blame for the wrecked condition of the world. Why are we so quick to do what Jesus never did and never meant for us to do, even if we do it in his name?

For today, make it your aim to blame less. Sure, there will be a judgment, but that’s not something you’ve been invited to help out with. God will handle that when it’s time. What we need to know is that the people who make you miserable, who did you wrong and might have done you in, are people who may one day stand with you before Jesus blameless. See them blameless, maybe you’ll blame less.

When was the last time you blamed or received blame for something? Is there someone in your life whom you need to stop blaming?

Prayer:
We give you thanks, Lord Jesus, that your work among us was not a mission of assigning blame. We give you thanks for the grace that exposes our sin and then cleanses us from it. We thank you for the way you make us a new creation. Knowing that we are blameless in you, we ask for the grace to blame less and to love more, just as you called and commanded us to do. Amen.

All You Need

2009-08-27T07:56:00.001-05:00

Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed (1 Cor. 1:7).

As of last night every member of my family has a laptop computer. Most parents fear that as their children approach adolescence meaningful conversation will cease. A fifth grader with a laptop virtually guarantees it.

Last year my son was issued a computer on the first day of school, and last night it was my daughter’s turn. Having lived her entire life watching her older brother do everything first, she’d been waiting for last night for the past twelve months.

Getting the laptop is a big deal that requires a parents meeting and a brief orientation session with the resident computer guru at the school. For the fifth graders it’s a social event in which the party favor as you leave is a 13 inch Mac Powerbook.

“Daddy, we’re going to be late.”

I reminded my daughter that I had done this last year and that I knew from experience that we wouldn’t miss anything that really mattered. My assurances fell on deaf ears. Maybe fifth grade is when a daughter begins suspecting that her Father is intent on ruining her life.

We sat through the orientation meeting, my daughter squirming beside me because we ran just late enough to make her miss the chance to sit with her friends. My son was slumped in his seat, trying to look cool because now he’s in middle-school and he’s a pro at having a laptop. And me, I slipped off into a private nostalgic reverie for just a few moments.

I tried to remember fifth grade. It’s really not that hard. My teacher at Highland Springs Elementary School was Mrs. Treadway. I was on the safety patrol. And there were no laptop computers.

I’m amazed at the resources my children have for their education. I’m blown away by what they can do and what they have access to. They have everything they need in order to learn. But the learning is not guaranteed. Having resources and getting an education are two different things.

In the opening lines of his letter to the Corinthians, Paul reminds them that they “do not lack any spiritual gift.” Again, as with his reminder of their call to holiness, Paul is seeing something that would not have been readily to evident to you and me had we been in Corinth. The Corinthian church looked spiritually bankrupt. But Paul saw abundance. They had everything they needed to be the people God had called them to be.
Knowing that, Paul was able to day “I always thank God for you.”

Genuine gratitude is rooted in what God does. Paul was convinced that grace was at work among the Corinthians. At the moment, however, they were not living out what grace had worked into them. It’s like having a laptop and getting an education. The mere possession of a machine won’t make learning happen.

Today you have exactly what you need to live the life God calls you to live. You’ve been given the gift of the Spirit and the Spirit empowers you to be the person God calls you to be. You lack nothing. You have all you need. But grace will never exempt you from growth and learning. That’s why we undertake daily practices like prayer and reading God’s word and pondering what God has said to us. Grace is there everyday, always adequate for the needs and demands of your life. And for that you can give thanks.

Is there some aspect of your life where you are most aware of needing grace today?

Prayer:
With every new day, O God, teach us to live by your grace. Grant to us an awareness and deep assurance that your Spirit lives within us and we are not left to make it through the day as best we can mange. You have given us all we need to live the life you call us to live, and we give you thanks through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The True You

2009-08-26T07:29:00.001-05:00

. . . to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy (1 Cor. 1:2)

There was a moment when the parchment was blank.

There was a window of time, a long pause before taking up the pen, in which Paul had to determine where and how he would begin. A moment spent pacing the room. A moment spent rubbing the skin above his eyebrows trying to ignore the headache.

There were problems in Corinth. Paul had been thoroughly briefed on what was happening there. The news made him angry one moment and then broke his heart the next. Now it was time to respond. They had questions that needed answering. They were confused and needed counsel. Some of them were downright defiant and needed a firm rebuke.

New Testament scholars are not entirely clear as to whether Paul wrote the letter or spoke his thoughts as Sosthenes wrote them down. It really doesn’t matter how the letter was composed. At some point the parchment was blank, waiting for words, waiting to become the conduit of Paul’s heart and voice. The issues in Corinth formed a pile of debris in his mind. How would he sort through it all? Where would he begin?

We might expect Paul’s opening words to be a direct assault on their failures. That’s not what we get. Instead we read this surprising line, a tender address to a wayward but loved people: “To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy.”

That’s how Paul saw them. That’s who they were. A people set apart and called to holiness. Their calling defined them more than their conduct did.

The morally confused and sexually promiscuous Corinthians were sanctified people called to holiness. The bickering factions of people who claimed to be followers of Jesus were sanctified people called to live holy lives. The socially elite and intellectually enlightened who acted arrogantly towards others in the church were sanctified and called to holiness. The teachers who confused error and truth were likewise called to holiness.

Paul began by speaking to the Corinthians based on who they were in Christ, not on how they were acting.

Every day we get to make decisions about how we will respond and relate to those around us. The golden rule tells us to treat others as we wish to be treated. That sounds nice - but after a while it becomes evident that no matter what we do people aren’t going to treat us as we wish to be treated. We begin to relate to them based on their behaviors and actions.

Their rudeness evokes our own rudeness. Their failures prompt our disdain. Their disregard for us makes us angry. We label them in our minds. The question we have to answer every day is this: will I relate to this person based on how they act or based on who they truly are – a person created and loved by God.

Paul managed to see the Corinthians in light of what Jesus had done for them. He did not speak to them based on their success in being like Jesus. He began his letter by reminding them of their true identity. Maybe he was also reminding himself. To truly believe that the most difficult people in my life are people made in God’s image will change how I deal with them. A difficult boss, a difficult child, a difficult client, all of them are something other than what they do. They are more than how they act.

And so are you. “Called to holiness” is the true you. That’s how God sees you.

How do you see those whom you deal with every day? How do you see yourself?

Prayer:
Merciful God, help me today to see others as you see them. Guard from quick judgments and knee-jerk responses based on how they act or how they behave. Forgive me when I dismiss those whom you died to save. Remind me that I too stand constantly in need of grace, and grant me the grace I need through Christ our Lord. Amen

Entropy

2009-08-25T07:17:00.000-05:00

To the church of God in Corinth . . . sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy (1 Cor. 1:2).

Today we begin a series of reflections from Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth.

Day one of 1 Corinthians causes me to imagine what’s it’s like to be in base camp the night before your begin to climb Everest. After a restless night, I’m waking up this morning, pulling my pack on while I look at this imposing mountain of a book, wishing I could just curl up in my own familiar bed and climb nothing more demanding than the stairs in my house.

As with any climb or any journey there’s a first step to be taken. Once taken, the next step is right there. Steps accumulate and after a while you’re amazed at the ground you’ve covered. That’s what I’m praying for as we ascend the heights of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Today is step one.

Oddly enough we begin with a principle from physics. That’s a little surprising to me since I never actually took physics. Somehow 1 Corinthians keeps bringing this word to mind. The word is “entropy.” My Webster’s dictionary tells me that “entropy” is the “measure of the degree of disorder in a substance or system: entropy always increases and the amount of available energy diminishes in a closed system.”

I have no idea how that works in the world of physics, but I know how it works in my house. Occasionally, usually on a Saturday, we will literally get our house in order. Hosting a party is always a great motivator for this kind of work. When we’re done the house smells fresh and the floors shine, the countertops are cleared and the sink is empty and fresh sheets are on the bed. On a good week that fresh just-been-cleaned look lasts for about twenty-four hours.

What happens? Entropy. Disorder inevitably creeps back into the system called “house.” A dish or two is left in the sink, a bath towel doesn’t get placed back on the towel rack, clothes are thrown toward the hamper but not in it. The system gravitates toward disorder. Apart from intervention it soon becomes a full blown wreck.

Entropy is also at work in the life of faith. If you want to get a picture of how that works, read 1 Corinthians. Paul had spent about eighteen months in Corinth sharing the story of Jesus, bringing people to faith. Living the Christian faith in Corinth was a form of urban warfare. But Paul managed to pull together a church, helped them get on their feet and then he moved on, as missionary church planters are prone to do.

Some time after he had left, he received a letter and a visit from some friends from Corinth. The house was in disarray. They were bickering with each other, they were confused about moral issues, they were buying into some whacky doctrine, they were suing each other and going to court instead of working out their own problems. The Christian community there was falling apart like a wet tortilla. Entropy.

It was time for Paul to intervene and he did so with a written masterpiece of encouragement and correction we know as 1 Corinthians.

In the weeks ahead we’re going to think about the life of faith and how our spiritual well being is not perpetually self-sustaining. Entropy is at work. It is often slow, so slow that we barely notice it. But apart form careful attention and a measure of discipline our walk with Jesus will go off the rails. We’ll be watching how it happened in Corinth – and hopefully we start noticing how it happens to us.

When and how have you experienced spiritual entropy?

Prayer:
Gracious God, I don’t want my life to be a closed system. Disorder gradually seeps into my soul, even as I’m trying to follow you faithfully. Use these coming weeks to help me detect those places where my spiritual energy has diminished. Let Paul’s words to the people of Corinth be your word to me. Amen.

Seafood Tonight, Drive Home Tomorrow

2009-08-13T21:48:00.004-05:00

This is Marnie and John across the table, waiting on seafood. It's been a good week. We'll make the drive home tomorrow. Time to pull the curtain on summer '09. Back in the office on Monday and then school starts on the 25th.

Back on the Porch at Watercolor

2009-08-10T18:18:00.004-05:00

A good and generous friend has allowed us to use his beach house in Watercolor, Fla. We've enjoyed coming here for the past four years or so. This is my favorite part of the house. Once the sun has been up a while the porch is unbearably hot. But mornings are pleasant and coffee is especially good in one of those chairs.

This year on the porch I'm reading Robert Benson's The Echo Within: Finding Your True Calling.

Benson's basic premise is that when God created, God did so by speaking. What was true of sun and sky, land and sea, is also true of each of us. God spoke us into being. Vocation is discovered by listening for echos of that voice.

Of that voice, Benson writes:

We worry that we are just talking to ourselves. If it sounds like me, it cannot be God, we think. And so we are afraid to trust what we hear, afraid to trust that voice that has been within us all along. The fact that the voice that calls to us often sounds like our own is not something to be mistrusted or feared. It is a sign of how close God is to us (p. 17).

"This Ain't Happen'in"

2009-07-28T10:38:00.006-05:00

Today's readings:
Morning Prayer: Psalm 119:1-24
Acts 16:6-15
Mark 6:30-46

At some point our relentless commitment to a goal can become a stubborn refusal to be led by the Spirit. I wonder how often I've prayed for guidance that I really didn't want? Two of the lectionary readings this morning had this idea as a subtext, a drama working quietly beneath the real action of the story.

Paul wanted to go back and visit churches that he had planted on an earlier missionary journey. A good idea, sensible and right, worthy of faithful church planter. You can read Acts 16:6-10 and get the story of how that plan was tanked.

In Mark 6, Jesus had sent out the twelve to preach and heal and cast out demans - and they did it. They had stories to tell and experiences to reflect on and learn from. They needed time away, and that's exactly what Jesus suggested. The only problem was that people wouldn't leave them alone. The planned retreat was ruined - but in the midst of that, a miracle took place (Mark 6:30-44).

At what point do you stop pushing the plan? It's an admirable thing to be commited to a task and to not be easily discouraged. Remember the movie Rudy? Have you heard how John Grisham's first novel was rejected by more than 30 publishers? They didn't quit. They didn't stop after two or three polite "no thank-yous." But at some point it seems that you just have to come clean with yourself and with God and step back and say "this ain't happn'in."

Sometimes we push the plan in ways that are aggressive and driven. We will make it happen. All the while we're doing this prayerfully, looking to God for the strength we need to do what we know God has called us to do. The resistance we encounter is nothing more than God's way of testing us and in so doing making us stronger.

Sometimes we push the plan quietly. We take to heart the frequent biblical admonitions to "wait upon the Lord." We preach to ourselves a familiar sugar-stick sermon, remembering that our timing is not God's timing. We resolve to wait on God to act, taking as our model Abraham and other giants of the faith who persevered in hope. We wait and wait and wait.

This is not a theoretical question. It is real and painful for many today: for applicants seeking a job, for couples trying to conceive, for patients going for yet one more round of chemo, for single people who always planned to be married, for writers who dream of being published and students whose career plans depend on acceptacnce to a school.

There's no formula that answers this. There's no magic eight-ball to shake that will tell you to "hang on a little longer" or "hang it up now."

When Jesus taught us to pray, he gave the words "thy will be done." He did not teach us to pray "thy will be known." Maybe the best answer is nothing more than prayer - prayer for what we want and for guidance and all the usual standard requests, but also prayer as Jesus taught us to pray. And then we trust God to do what God wills to do.

We pray with confidence because we know that with God there's always "somethin' happen'in." And we will not be left out.

Lighters and Cell Phones

2009-07-24T13:15:00.001-05:00

Hallelujah . . . (Psalm 150:1).

It used to be cigarette lighters. Back when “The Omni” was still the primary concert venue in Atlanta that’s how people called for an encore. Little flames appeared all over the auditorium and the crowd would be going nuts, and once enough little flames popped up and the volume was sustained long enough, the band would come back for an encore.

I always felt left out of that moment. I never had a cigarette lighter. My personal habits were such that a lighter was not something I just happened to have in my pocket. Stopping to get one just for a concert never occurred to me, so I just stood there and made noise while others speckled the blackness with their little lights.

But today things are a little different. The light of choice at the end of a concert is a cell phone, and that I have. While the source of light has changed the experience is still the same. Lots of noise, a galaxy of cellular light spread across the darkness – and then the encore.

The final five Psalms are an on-your-feet celebration. The entire Psalter ends with succession of five exuberant “Hallelujah” Psalms, five different ways of saying “Praise the Lord.” When we pray these Psalms we’re standing up, holding our cell phones high, voicing light that shatters darkness with the Praise of God. We’re calling for an encore; we’re yearning for more of the music of heaven and the works that God accomplishes day after day.

Praise is not only the end of the Psalms. Praise is the end of all things. This is where everything is headed. And that includes you and me. We see a picture of it whenever we sing the old hymn “Amazing Grace.” The hymn ends with a picture of eternal praise, as fresh after ten thousand years as if it had just begun five minutes ago. All things end in praise. This is what we were made to do; it what “everything that has breath” was made to do.

Borrowing words from a familiar friend, we are helped by this explanation:

This crafted conclusion for the Psalms tells us that our prayers are going to end in praise, but that it is also going to take a while. Don’t rush it. It may take years, decades even, before certain prayers arrive at the “hallelujahs” . . . Not every prayer is capped off with praise. In fact most prayers, if the Psalter is true guide, are not. But prayer, a praying life, finally becomes praise. Prayer is always reaching toward praise and will finally arrive there. If we persist in prayer, laugh and cry, doubt and believe, struggle and dance and then struggle again, we will surely end up at Psalm 150, on our feet, applauding “Encore! Encore!” (Eugene H. Peterson, Answering God, p. 127).

This Sunday the Tour de France ends in Paris. The final stage is an exuberant triumphant ride into the city, crowds lining the streets. If the number one spot is not being contested, you’ll see some of the riders sipping champagne as they pedal the closing kilometers. It’s a party on the streets. It’s even a party on wheels.

It is fitting that today we conclude the Tour de Psalms. We come to the final reflection and give our attention to a single word: “Hallelujah.” The very last Psalm, Psalm 150, begins and ends with this word. And this word is where our lives are headed. This is the trajectory, the destination, of the ride of your life.

It may take a while to reach that destination. This ride is a long one. But there’s no doubt as to where we’re headed. You can begin today. Even in a dark place you can raise your cell phone. Break open the champagne if you wish. But get on your feet and find a way to give God praise.

“Hallelujah.”

Prayer: Psalm 150
Praise the LORD.
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with tambourine and dancing,
praise him with the strings and flute,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD.

One Way or the Other

2009-07-23T06:48:00.001-05:00

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord (Psalm 150:6).

Something odd happened in one of our church services this past Sunday. Nothing weird or offensive, just odd: as in peculiar and unfamiliar, slightly out of place but by no means inappropriate.

We had sung three verses of the opening hymn, a glorious text that extols God as “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.” This hymn text, composed in 1876, is based on 1 Timothy 1:17. “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”

I love this hymn. It’s a standard piece of our worship repertoire. The tune is familiar. The words are familiar. What was less familiar this past Sunday is what happened on the front pew as we started singing that last verse.

Someone raised their hand.

That’s right. They lifted their hand straight up in the air like they had a question. They extended the arm heavenward as if reaching for a jar on a high shelf, as if beaming their words to the Almighty with what some have referred to as the “Holy Spirit antennae.”

There are many churches where this kind of thing is as common as passing the offering plate. Ours is not one of them. Presbyterians in general are not given to bodily expressions of praise. We stand and sit, and occasionally push the envelope with measured applause, but hands being raised to organ music? As I said, that’s a little odd.

When that hand went up in the air, a couple of thoughts went through my mind.

The first was simply “Yes . . . that’s right . . . that’s fitting for what we are doing in this moment. It is so right for what we are saying with our mouths: ‘Great Father of glory, pure Father of light, thine angels adore thee all veiling their sight.’ Mere singing hardly seems to do this justice. Our hearts will not be lifted by singing only. Raise the hand with the voice. It is right.”

And then came the questions: “If it seems right, why do I not do that myself? Is it fear? Is it my upbringing? How is God to be praised?”

When Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, exuberant disciples greeted him with words of praise. Apparently the celebration bordered on raucous. Some of the more dignified religious leaders tried to maintain order. They urged Jesus, “Teacher rebuke your disciples.” Jesus basically told them that containment of praise was a waste of time and effort. “If they keep quiet the stones will cry out.” (Luke 19:39-40).

I have long resisted the notion that those who truly know how to praise God in fullness and freedom will do so with physical acts of worship. God is certainly praised in that way – but that’s not the only way. Episcopalians are just as capable of praise as the “holy rollers.” The restrained are to praise God as well as the expressive.

But whether restrained or expressive, what we all need to know is that God will be praised one way or the other. Praise isn’t optional. Jesus had it right. Either we’ll do it, or the rocks will take up the song. But God will be praised. Presbyterians are not exempt from praise. And the Pentecostals are not the only ones who know how it’s done. God will be praised and that praise is to come from everything that has breath. That includes you.

How do you praise God?

Prayer:
“Praise Ye the Lord! O let all that is in me adore Him! All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before Him! Let the Amen sound from His people again: Gladly for aye we adore him” (Praise Ye the Lord, the Almighty, The Hymnbook, 1).

Seeking Stability

2009-07-21T20:25:00.000-05:00

I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart (Psalm 138:1)

I’m not stable.

That’s not a psychological assessment or medical diagnosis, it’s a biblical truth. The Bible is quite clear that a double-minded man is unstable in all that he does (James 1:8). I’m afraid that’s me: Double-minded and thus unstable, at least for this week.

This week I’m trying to live with the story of Job, mining the opening chapter of that perplexing story for a singular clear message to speak on Sunday. The story of Job is unnerving and dark. This man is plunged into the deepest kind of suffering: the loss of his family, financial ruin and the loss of his business, and eventually the loss of his health. He ends up sitting in the dirt, scraping his flesh with a shard of pottery. That’s too much for us and we don’t know what to do with it. We turn our faces.

At the same time, every morning this week I have the opportunity to rummage the book of Psalms and pull together a few words about praise. The Psalms end with a crescendo of praise, reveling in God’s creative power and redemptive love. Since the Psalms end with praise it seems only right that a series of reflections on the Psalms end the same way. So praise it is for the remainder of the week.

It should be fairly obvious why my mind is divided, pulled one way by the words of praise and then another by pictures of suffering. It’s hard to get our minds around the praise of God and the anguish of people. Majestic chords reverberate above while melancholy strains echo here below. The dissonance is unbearable.

The bible, especially the Psalms, don’t merely encourage us to praise God. Praise is commanded. Do it. Praise the Lord. We’re willing, but pain makes it hard. We see the story of Job lived out again and again in so many ways. There’s a good chance you’ve lived that story yourself. How do we hold praise and suffering together – not simply in our thinking, but in our living? How do we live honestly in this world and still respond to God with praises?

The answer – or at least an important clue - to that question is found not in philosophical speculation, but in the text of the book of Psalms itself. As we spend time with these prayers we begin to notice that praise is possible in the midst of suffering.

It’s not unusual for a Psalm to give voice to deep distress and disturbing questions in one moment and then blurt out a word of praise to God in the next. It’s sounds a little strange to us, but it’s common in the Psalms. Psalm 13 is an example: five blunt questions are followed by three calls for help – and then a final sentence of praise. Where did that come from?

Dr. Steve Hayner, the newly appointed President of Columbia Theological Seminary, maintains that the essence of praise in the Psalms is found in the way those who suffer keep moving toward God, taking steps toward God in every circumstance. The Psalmists insist on dealing with God in all things, even their suffering. That’s why all of the Psalms, even the complaints, are called “Praises.”

This is a powerful and important insight. Praise is not an emotion. Praise is not even a type of happy language or God-talk. Praise is about the direction of your life, even in experiences of great affliction. To praise is to keep dealing with God, living life God-ward in all things.

How have suffering and praise mingled in your life experience?

Prayer:
I want to praise you with my whole heart and my whole life, O Lord. I want to move toward you with all that I am and all that I experience: when my cup is filled to overflowing and when it’s empty, when I’m at my best and when I’m at my worst, in the pleasures you give to me and in the pains as well. I will praise you with my whole heart, stable and steadfast by the help of your Spirit. Amen.

Learning Our Lines

2009-07-20T07:58:00.002-05:00

. . . a song of praise is fitting (Psalm 147:1)

During the summer months it seems like a new movies hit the theaters every week. In recent days I’ve seen two of them: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince followed a couple of days later by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

In most ways, these two movies couldn’t be more different.

Though not requiring it, the Harry Potter movie assumes a literate audience in that the movie is based on a series of novels. There is an implied history to the movie and one’s capacity to follow and enjoy the drama is enhanced by knowing about the earlier books and / or films.

Transformers, by contrast, merely requires that the audience have a pulse. Yes, this recent installment is a sequel, but plot takes a back seat to stunning high-tech special effects and frequent explosions. One’s capacity to enjoy the drama is predetermined to some extent by the amount of testosterone coursing through one’s body. Watching a tractor trailer truck “unfold” into an enormous robot is great fun, especially when you’re at the movies with your son who thinks you’re just as cool as Optimus Prime for taking him to the show, leaving the women in the family to find some other form of entertainment.

As different as these two movies were, there is one thing they share in common. Both of these movies are about a very ordinary person caught up in an epic story of conflict between the forces of good and the forces of evil, between light and dark, between life and death, between blessing and curse. Harry moves closer to an inevitable confrontation with the Dark Lord. Sam is once again the human ally of Optimus and the hunted foe of Megatron and his ilk.

These huge sweeping stories are what draw us to the movies to begin with. And while it may be a stretch, that kind of thing may be what draws us to the Psalms. The Psalms give us language for entering into the epic drama of what God is doing in the world. Beneath the specific petitions and laments and praises of each individual Psalm there is one abiding conviction that undergirds every one of these 150 poems. God is present and active in the world and we are involved in what God is doing.

When it comes to perceiving the drama of God’s work around us, we are too often crusty-eyed and thick-lidded. Failing to see the action, we live from day without the slightest sense of our role in what’s taking place. We feel plain. Our days are defined by expectations and obligations. We may not dislike the story we’re living, but it hardly seems epic and large; nothing of great significance hangs in the balance. And it hardly qualifies as sacred.

Perhaps one of the most basic ways we find our place in the large story of God’s activity in our world is by learning our lines. This makes sense for those who have a role in a drama. The lines we speak are what the Psalms call “praise.” As we enter into this final week of the Tour de Psalms, praise will be our focus. We’re going to work on learning our lines.

Praise is what we do when we become aware of God around us. It’s what we speak and sing and tell as we get a feel for the divine drama unfolding around us. More than that, it’s how we live into that story. We see that we are in fact caught up in something huge, something far more than obligations and habits. To praise God is to play our part, to speak our lines, to take our place in the epic story.

What do you think it means to “praise God?”

Prayer:
I want to find my place in your story, O God. As the drama unfolds around me today, help me to see it – and help me to answer you, to speak back as you do your work in this world. Teach me how to praise you with my life today. Amen.

Even in Our Wandering

2009-07-17T13:09:00.002-05:00

He guided them with the cloud by day and with light from the fire all night (Psalm 78:14).

It seems crazy, but it happens all the time.

We pray for guidance. We ask God to show us the way, to lead us in his truth, to direct our steps according to his will. And then we decline to accept it. Thanks, but no thanks.

Sometimes this is a failure of discernment. We simply get it wrong. We choose a way that seems blessed, marked with all the characteristics of divine approval. But having set out on that way our certainty begins to evaporate. Questions take root in the mind, eventually growing like kudzu. Maybe God had something else in mind for us?

But sometimes we are hindered by a lack of will. We sense God’s leading. What we sense is confirmed by others that we trust. But it’s a hard way. We had rather move in a different direction. So we refuse the guidance given to us. We’re good at spiritualizing such choices, sparing ourselves the discomfort of outright disobedience.

********

That’s what God’s people did at a place called Kadesh Barnea. God had delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and promised to take them to a good land. Poised on the threshold of the land God had promised, a twelve member scouting party was sent out to explore the terrain. When they returned, ten of the spies gave a report that discouraged and frightened the people. “We cannot take the land.” Only two chose to believe what God had promised. The majority won – and 40 years of wandering followed (Numbers 13:26-33).

God had made a promise and then guided them to that promised place. They refused to enter. That promise was placed on hold until a generation passed away. Until then, Israel’s story would be a story of wandering, learning to trust, learning to worship, learning to obey.

And even in their wandering, God would guide them. Psalm 78:14 reminds us of the story. A cloud guided them by day, a pillar of fire by night.

********

God is faithful in guiding us. God is far more faithful in guiding than we are in following. That means that the guidance you chose to ignore yesterday will never keep you from finding the guidance you seek today. You do not need to live your life looking back, wondering “what if” and “if only.”

So much of modern life is characterized by wandering. Some wander from job to job, never making the connection between daily work and divine purpose. Some wander from marriage to marriage, convinced that the next person will be the one they’ve sought all along. Others wander through a wasteland of credit cards and debt, intent on buying joy and peace. And some even wander from church to church, never quite satisfied that what they’ve found is “spiritual” enough.

In all our wandering, God still manages to guide us. The harsh elements of our modern deserts are blunted by the daytime cloud and the nighttime fire. God still guides us, even in our wandering.

What kinds of deserts have you wandered through? How did God lead you?

Prayer:
“Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. I am weak, but thou art mighty; hold me with thy powerful hand. Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven, feed me till I want no more; feed me till I want no more” (Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah, The Hymnbook, 339).

A Dangerous Prayer

2009-07-16T11:42:00.002-05:00

He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way (Psalm 25:9).

To any and all who, like me, often pray for guidance, a word of caution is in order. Let the pray-er beware: Prayers for guidance are dangerous prayers. The writer to the Hebrews assures us that we can approach the “throne of grace” with confidence. But when it comes to your quest for guidance, don’t let your confidence make you careless. Tread lightly before God when you seek God’s guidance.

The reason: God will likely answer your prayer.

As I’ve thought about this I’ve had to admit that my prayers for guidance are often no more than a series of multiple choice questions that I’ve placed before the Almighty. In other words, I’ve identified the acceptable options and what I’m really seeking is the divine cheat-sheet, thus insuring the right answer among the various options I’ve already envisioned for my life.

Without editing for pastoral correctness, my prayer goes something like this:

Lord . . . I don’t know what to do here . . . I could do this, and then that will happen . . . I could do that and then live with the implications for thus and such. But surely, you will guide me to this or that. Please let me know which. Amen.

Of course, there may be more than two options on the table. The point is, we often pray for guidance having already determined the acceptable destinations. The reason prayers for guidance are dangerous is that God is perfectly free to answer in ways we never imagined. We offer such prayers cautiously because to ask for God’s guidance also means that we’re ready to follow it, wherever it might lead us.

There’s Peter, going to the rooftop to pray, observing the liturgical prayer hours like a good and faithful Jew. As Peter prays (surprise, surprise) God answers. God asks Peter to eat forbidden slimy things. God tells Peter to go with strangers to the home of a Gentile soldier. Was this the kind of guidance Peter sought as he faithfully observed the afternoon hour of prayer? (See Acts 10:9-48).

There’s Paul, packing his duffle bag and setting off to check up on all those little congregations he had helped to start years earlier. When he tries get back to the province of Asia the Spirit stops him. Paul then tries to enter Bithynia only to be stonewalled yet again by the Spirit of Jesus. And then, trying to grab some sleep in the midst of this frustrating journey, Paul dreams a dream in which he is being summoned to Macedonia. Macedonia was not on the itinerary. But guidance doesn’t always show up on the AAA trip-tic (Acts 16:6-10).

God wants to answer your prayers for guidance, but be ready. God may take you to a place you never would have chosen to go. God may lead you to do something you never thought you’d do. God may have someone in mind that, as of today, you’ve never laid eyes upon. Be ready and be warned. God answers prayers for guidance.

Psalm 25 provides the language we need when asking for guidance. Verses 4-5 ask God to “show me your ways” and “teach me your paths.” The request is repeated as the Psalmist says, “Guide me in your truth and teach me.” A key to how God answers that request is found a few verses later. “He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.”

God guides the humble – those who don’t know the destination and know they don’t know, those who are most willing to go wherever God leads, those who have given up trying to determine the best possible outcomes and options. As we pray we will think through our options. We are free to ask for what we want. But true guidance comes to those who are humble, open to wherever God may lead. These are dangerous prayers – but worth the risk.

Are you really ready for God to guide you today?

Prayer:
Our prayers for guidance often limit you, O God. We confess to setting agendas and laying out the best options – then looking to you for help. Grant to us a humility that is willing to go wherever you lead and do whatever you ask, to the glory of your name above all else. Amen.

Directionally Challenged

2009-07-15T07:15:00.001-05:00

He leadeth me beside the still waters (Psalm 23:2).

I love Microsoft Outlook. Maybe it’s because it fosters the illusion that I really can manage my own life. Maybe it’s because of the rectangular boxes that neatly contain each hour of the day. Perhaps it’s the fact that I can click on a button near the top of my screen and Outlook will show me my entire work week at a glance.

Take today for example: an 8:30 a.m. meeting followed by an open morning that will (hopefully) allow me to write Tuesday’s devotional reflection. Then a lunch appointment and an afternoon meeting to review and proof-read an early draft of the Sunday worship bulletin. Assuming I made some decent progress on the devotional earlier in the day, I’d like to get to the gym late in the afternoon.

Yes, I do love Microsoft Outlook. It’s all right there: God’s will for my life arranged vertically.

There is one thing, however, that Outlook does not do for me and never has been able to do. It does not stop me from praying for guidance. The crisp neat boxes for every hour and the easy access to a week of plans and appointments do not relieve me of the sense that I need some kind of direction from beyond myself. I pray for guidance all the time. Maybe you do too.

We carefully schedule the meetings that we must attend in order to do our jobs well. But perhaps deep down we’re sensing the need for some guidance when it comes to the direction of our vocation. “Is this what I’m supposed to be doing?”

We make plans to go out on the weekend, but we crave guidance when it comes to the relationships we’re forming. Maybe one particular relationship requires so much energy. “Is this what it takes to be close to someone? Am I investing too much energy in something that isn’t right?”

Whether you use Outlook or a plain old-fashioned monthly calendar that hangs on your kitchen wall, you can have plenty of plans but still feel the need for guidance. Sometimes guidance has to do with the daily decisions we make. Just as often, guidance has to do with the direction of our life.

Guidance is what we pray for when we’re trying to see the connections between what we do with our days and what our days are doing with us. We may be good with plans, but directionally challenged. The good news: God is patient and merciful to the directionally challenged.

The Psalms remind us repeatedly that God loves to give guidance. God leads us beside still waters (Psalm 23). God guides us with his counsel (Psalm 73:24). God’s word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 119:105). God will be our guide to the end (Psalm 48:14).

This week we’ll spend a few days thinking and praying about God’s guidance. Even if you’re at a place in life where you’ve got your bearings and you know where you’re headed, God’s guidance is something we need constantly. Maybe you need to be reminded to seek it. Maybe you’ve been seeking it desperately for some time. Either way, these prayers can be prayed with confidence. God is a faithful guide.

Where do you need guidance today?

Prayer:
“He leadeth me: O blessed thought! O words with heavenly comfort fraught! What e’re I do, where e’re I be, still ‘tis God’s hand that leadeth me. He leadeth me, he leadeth, by his own hand he leadeth me. His faithful follower I would be, for by his hand he leadeth me” (He Leadeth Me, The Hymnal, 338).

"One Thing I Ask"

2009-07-14T06:20:00.001-05:00

One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple (Psalm 27: 4).

You will fill me with joy in your presence (Psalm 16: 11).

If you were to ask one thing of God, what would it be?

Take your time. You’ve got one shot. We’ve all played some version of the three wishes game, but the stakes are much higher here. With God we don’t make wishes, we make petitions. And following the example of the Psalmist, we’re tying to determine the one thing we’re seeking most from God.

“One thing I ask . . . this is what I seek.”

Are you aching for answers to things you simply can’t understand? Would faith come easier if you could just get some kind of explanation for the tragedy that took someone you loved . . . a short list of reasons why some people are starving while others are glutted on affluence . . . some sliver of insight into God’s will and purposes and why the life you have looks nothing like the one you used to dream of?

We’ve observed this week that the Psalms are full of questions. Hard questions. Sometimes a few answers would be nice. But is that really what we seek above all else?

Maybe you don’t want to ask about something, you want to ask God for something. Not something silly like a new car – but something that could profoundly change your life. Maybe you would ask God for a mate. You might ask God to stop the pain in your body that persists day after day and keeps you awake most nights. In these days, it might be a job – not for the money, but for the sense of waking up and having something to do that makes a difference in the world.

All of these could easily be the “one thing” we ask of the Lord. But none of those things are what we hear in Psalm 27:4. The Psalmist isn’t looking for answers and explanations and insights. The Psalmist isn’t asking for some thing that life is lacking.

The one thing that places at the top of the list, above anything and everything else, is more of God: Dwelling in God’s presence, beholding God’s beauty. The Psalmist’s greatest desire is nothing less than God’s presence.

Psalm 16:11 helps us understand that request. In God’s presence is fullness of joy and eternal pleasures. In other words, when you have God, you’ve got it all.

To seek God more than anything else doesn’t do away with our hard questions. But in our struggles to understand how life works we will be satisfied in the holy presence.

To seek God above all else doesn’t mean we no longer think about having meaningful work or getting married or being free of illness – but we know that those things can never really satisfy our souls like God can. There’s no substitute for God.

Now back to where we started. Back to the most important question we’ve considered all week long. What one thing are you asking of God today?

Prayer:
The Psalmist prayed, “Whom have I in heaven but you, and earth has nothing I desire besides you” (Psalm 73:25). I struggle to pray those words, O Lord. My desires are pulled in so many directions and I am too often dissatisfied when I get what I think I want. Heal the desires of my heart so that my one great desire is to know you better and live fully in your presence. Amen.

"Whom Shall I Fear?"

2009-07-13T05:35:00.002-05:00

The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? (Psalm 27:1)

Now it was their turn. What they had seen Jesus do, they were being told to do.

Jesus’ instructions must have been daunting to those disciples; they would heal all kinds of sickness; they would preach the good news of the kingdom; they would cast out demons; they would restore leprous skin to wholeness.

Along with the instructions, Jesus gave authority. He didn’t tell them to do something they couldn’t possibly do. He told them what to do and promised them the power to do it.

Their effectiveness would be closely connected to their faith, their willingness to trust and to risk. They were not to pack a bag or take money with them. No last minute ATM withdrawals. No backpacks with peanut butter and saltines and Vienna sausages. They would live in complete dependence, claiming nothing for themselves but the grace of God.

Authority to make a difference in the world thrives in a trusting heart.

And, according to Jesus, that same authority becomes a shriveled empty husk when fear is present. Jesus made this plain to those whom he called to whom he gave authority. Be on your guard. You will meet resistance. But don’t be afraid. Don’t fear those who can do nothing more than kill the body. They have no real power.

Fear will quench your power. Trust will feed it. (See Matthew 10:5-30).

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Ours is a fearful age. We are eaten up with anxieties. In recent months our fears have been rooted in the economic crisis. These fears are not entirely unsubstantiated. People are really losing jobs and homes, and when this happens some measure of concern is perfectly understandable.

Nevertheless, the pervasive dis-ease in our land is hard to deny. We’re afraid for our children and the would be abductors and abusers that lurk in the most benign places.
We’re afraid of illnesses and words like “pandemic.” We know all too well now that we’re not immune from terrorists.

Psalm 27 asks a question that’s critical for our time. “Whom shall I fear?” The answer is implied: “I will fear no one.” Psalm 56 asks the same question with different words. “What can mortal man do to me?” Again: the answer is “nothing.”

Questions like these are intended to help us re-vision the realities around us. It’s not that the Psalmists never felt fear or anxiety, and is certainly not true that the Psalmists had no reason to be afraid. They felt fear and they had good reasons for being fearful.

But fear did not define reality for them. These words of prayer are a way of claiming that God stands at the center of all things, every threatening circumstance, every unnerving piece of news.

We need to pray these words because now it is our turn. Jesus sends us into this anxious world to do what he did and live as he lived. Don’t be afraid to love people. Don’t be afraid to offer blessing. Don’t be afraid to help. Don’t be afraid to speak of your faith. Fearful, anxious people are too busy stockpiling resources and building bomb-shelters to go into the world and change it.

What do you fear today? How does it hinder your walk with Jesus?

Prayer:
“Lo! The hosts of evil round us scorn thy Christ, assail his ways! From the fears that long have bound us, free our hearts to faith and praise. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage for the living of these days, for the living of these days.” (God of Grace and God of Glory, The Hymnbook, 358).

"How Long?"

2009-07-11T07:20:00.001-05:00

Lord . . . if you had been here my brother would not have died (John 11:21).

How long, O Lord? (Psalm 13:1)

People of faith are not people who have stopped asking questions, sleeping soundly at night with every riddle answered, every doubt removed, every tension eased. If deep faith means the end of hard questions, then faithful people are hard to find, even in the Bible.

The Psalms are full of questions. “No questions asked” may reflect something of the way God’s mercies are offered to us. But questions frequently characterize the way our prayers are offered to God.

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Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. When Jesus finally arrived in Bethany his presence seemed an empty gesture to those who grieved, especially Lazarus’ sisters. Martha, not one to mince words, spoke what everyone else was probably thinking. “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.”

Her words sound partly like a rebuke, partly like a statement of faith. But beneath the words there’s a question: Where were you when we needed you?

It’s a fair question. Earlier in the story John tells us that when Jesus had learned of Lazarus’ illness “he stayed where he was two more days” (John 11:6). That’s troubling to us. We’d like to see some urgency. We’d like to see some miracle working power being released on behalf of Jesus’ dying friend. Apparently Jesus healed someone he didn’t know from a distance by simply speaking a word. And yet, upon learning of his friend’s illness, Jesus lingers.

Why did Jesus linger? Where was the power, the life giving word? When Jesus finally shows up, four days of rot have been at work in the tomb’s darkness. “Where were you?” Martha’s asking what we all want to know. She’s asking what many of us have asked at some point in our lives.

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A repeated question on the lips of the Psalmist is “how long?” That’s a familiar question to many people of faith because those who take God seriously often struggle to understand God’s timing. In Psalm 13 the question is asked four times in a psalm that is only six verses long.

The question reflects faith in that it assumes that God is present and doing something. The question eats at faith because it wonders exactly what God is doing and when it will make a difference. How long will it take me to find a job? How long will it take us to get pregnant? How long will I need chemo treatments? How long will this war last?

It seems to us that God lingers, and in some cases lingers long. And the lingering raises questions for us. But hard questions do not mean lack of faith. As Peter reminds us, God’s timing isn’t like ours. With God a day is a thousand years and a thousand years are a day. To ask “how long?” isn’t sin. In the Psalms, it’s prayer.

Is there something in your life that has caused you to pray “How long?”

Prayer:
Remind us today, O God, that what feels like neglect and delay is actually a divine plan. This is hard for us to understand – and so we are bold to offer our prayers and bring our questions before you. As we pray “how long?” make us strong in faith and grant us patient endurance until you arrive and bring new life, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

No Questions Asked

2009-07-10T08:22:00.002-05:00

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him, for he knows how we are formed . . . (Psalm 103:13).

Last week I took my kids and two of their friends northward to experience the seething energies of the town of Cherry Log Georgia. Actually we were just north of Ellijay, not quite to Cherry Log. “What,” you might ask, “is in Cherry Log Georgia?” Not much. But there is a treasure up there, known to a few.

For years Fred Craddock taught preaching at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. When he retired he went north and began a ministry that does many different things under the umbrella of “The Craddock Center,” now headquartered in the booming metropolis of Cherry Log.

One of those things is the Story Express, a van full of books that makes forays into the mountain counties and gives books to children. That’s why I took my own kids, plus two, to Cherry Log. We had books for the Story Express. We also had the chance to receive visitors to the Express at the Gilmer County Food Bank. Kids could browse for books while their parents received groceries.

On the door of the Gilmer County Food bank I saw a small poster advertising free lunches during the week at a place called “Bread and Bowl.” The language of the poster caught my attention and evoked some thinking. It read something like this.

Lost your Job? Can’t pay bills? Worried about keeping your home?

We want to help during these difficult times.

We will be serving a FREE LUNCH every day from 12:00 noon to 1:30 pm

NO QUESTIONS ASKED

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Psalm 103 rehearses the many ways that God is merciful to us. Those mercies come to us because of God’s compassion. The word compassion shows up three times in the NIV Bible, anchoring the center of the Psalm at verses 8 and 13.

The very word compassion carries the meaning of “suffering with” someone else, knowing what they are going through, entering into their experience and being moved to mercy.

I heard compassion in the words of the poster: “no questions asked.” When the Psalmist says that God forgives our sins and puts them as far from us as east is from west, I can almost see the words “no questions asked.” Of course, those words don’t appear in the Psalm, but they wouldn’t be out of place if they did.

There is an invitation in the words of Psalm. Our compassionate God receives us in our imperfect, flawed state. No questions asked; no need to offer explanations, no need to come up with excuses, no defense necessary.

This is strange to us. Silently, we do raise questions of others. Our own compassions fall far short of God’s. What’s more, many of us spend plenty of time explaining ourselves, making excuses, defending our actions or ideas. We expect to be grilled and questioned. But God doesn’t deal with us in that way.

God says, “No questions asked.” How does that impact how you will live today? And how would you be different if you were to say the same thing to others around you?

Prayer:
We give you thanks today, O God, for your great compassion; for the way you put our sins far from us. You know exactly what we are like and the weaknesses to which we are prone. Put them away from us, we pray, and make us bold to come to you freely, trusting in your great mercy. Amen.

A Meditation on Psalm 19 and Jennifer Aniston

2009-07-02T06:49:00.002-05:00

The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart (Psalm 19:8).

Lately she has smiled at me nearly every Sunday morning as I ride the Peachtree express from the Cates parking lot to the church welcome center.

She’s not actually smiling at me – but she’s definitely smiling in my direction and it sure looks like she’s smiling at me. Jennifer Aniston’s face is magnified and majestic on a billboard on Roswell Road just south of East Andrews. Every Sunday morning our bus sits for few moments at the red light where Roswell and East Andrews meet. Look to the right, and there’s Jennifer.

The actual message of the billboard is very short and somewhat vague. The product is some kind of bottled water. The water part of the billboard is eclipsed by Jennifer’s hard to ignore face. Maybe that’s the intent. Create a connection in the mind between the compelling image and the product.

The thing about a billboard is that it’s out there for everyone to see. The billboard is aimed at the entire city of Atlanta, or at least that significant part of the population that drives south on Roswell Road. To see the billboard and enjoy the face of Jennifer, all you have to do is look up. If you’re driving you may need to look quickly and perhaps several times – but it’s there for free. Just glance up and there it is.

As is obvious by now, my attention is often drawn to the billboard while sitting at the red light. And while it’s nice to see Jennifer smiling in my general direction I have no expectation that I will ever have a conversation with Jennifer Aniston. I’m not hoping that someday she’ll actually talk to me about bottled water or anything else.

On the billboard there’s a message for me and anyone who will pay attention. But a message is not a conversation. The conversation will never happen. I can live with that.

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The first six verses of Psalm 19 are like a billboard that God has placed in the heavens. The skies are proclaiming a message that goes out to the ends of the world, day and night. This message is for everyone. All we have to do is look up, pay attention, take it in.

But Psalm 19 does not end at verse six. The Psalm continues and makes a dramatic shift. The same God of whom the heavens speak also wants to speak personally to you. That kind of speaking comes to us through a different medium. God’s ways and will are revealed most clearly in the written text of God’s word. The Psalmist speaks of God’s law, statutes and precepts.

Plenty of people enjoy Jennifer Aniston on a billboard but never plan to actually hear her voice or speak directly to her. Sadly, plenty of people deal with God in the same way. They enjoy the heavens, especially when they see those heavens spanning the ocean’s horizon or forming mist over mountain peaks. It’s not hard to stand and gaze at the skies and be moved in some kid of vague way that feels good. Some describe this as a “spiritual” experience.

But the God revealed in the heavens and skies very much wants to say something to you. God has a message for your life, a word of hope for your struggles, a word of forgiveness for your failures, a word of acceptance for the person you are right now. To hear this message will require something more than a walk on the beach. These words are in God’s book. When you pick up a bible, do so with the expectation that God has a word for you. That’s a conversation we can’t live without.

Have you heard God speak personally to you through the written words of the Bible?

Prayer:
It staggers our minds, O God, that you wish to speak with us in ways that are personal and direct, not vague and abstract. Forgive our neglect of your written words. Give us an appetite for your scripture. May the words written on the page become for us a living voice, we pray. Amen.

Good Heavens

2009-07-01T06:27:00.001-05:00

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands (Psalm 19:1).

My wife occasionally accuses me of selective hearing, screening out messages that might be inconvenient or unpleasant or otherwise disrupt important endeavors like reading and napping. She may be right, but I maintain that most men are thus afflicted. This isn’t a deliberate inattentiveness. I never consciously choose to ignore my wife. But I’ll admit that there are times when I’m just not dialed in.

What is true of my domestic life seems to be equally true spiritually. The heavens are declaring the glory of God. The skies are making proclamation, pouring forth speech. This happens every day, all day long. And too often I’m not dialed in. As best I can tell I don’t deliberately ignore God or God’s voice. But for whatever reasons, I too easily miss what the heavens are declaring.

This wasn’t true two weeks ago. There’s a beach on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica called “Playa Bonita.” There I found it very easy to pay attention that what the heavens are always declaring. In Costa Rica this time of year the sun goes down between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m. Sunsets at Playa Bonita are astonishing. Large outcroppings of rock in the ocean collide with breaking waves and send curtains of sea spray into the air against the canvass of a distant sky that mingles hues of orange and blue.

The skies proclaim the work of his hands. No doubt about it. And at Playa Bonita I can actually hear what they are saying. The skies make proclamation, and we speak back in prayer. The conversation comes naturally at places like that.

But this week I’m back in Marietta, Georgia. The heavens are still declaring and the skies are on broadcast as well, but my selective hearing issues are showing up again. Why is that?

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Psalm 19 says that the heavens are like a tent for the sun, a massive canopy in which the sun makes a daily course from one end of the earth to the other. I think we all recognize that the Psalmist didn’t write these words as an essay in astronomy. What we’re reading is more poetry than lecture. But it seems plain enough that the skies that cover the Pacific Ocean at Playa Bonita and the skies that hover over Marietta are part of something singular and whole.

Every day the heavens make their declaration, and far too often I move through my days deaf to their words. I heard them loud and clear a couple of weeks ago on a beach far away – but most of my days are lived here, bordered by Roswell Road and the 120 loop. Why is it harder to listen to God in this place?

The heavens declare and the skies proclaim. But the skies around us here are cluttered, interrupted by massive towers that speak to the glory of corporate America. Added to that, the skies around this place are so familiar. What they proclaim starts sound like blah blah blah. And maybe we need to admit that we rarely look at these skies anyway. Our gaze is held by computer screens, the traffic bearing down on us in the rear view mirror, the pile of post-camp laundry or the grass that needs mowing.

For the rest of this week we’ll spend some time with Psalm 19 and let it tutor us in effective listening skills. God is never at a loss for words; every day “pours forth speech.” Don’t miss a word.

Where are you best able to hear what the heavens declare and the skies proclaim?

Prayer:
Gracious God, we want to be attentive to your voice in all places. We want to see your glory in the skies over beaches and mountains and distant places, as well as in the heavens that cover our own backyards. Teach us to listen. Help us to pay attention to the message being proclaimed all around us every day, we pray. Amen.

Numbering our Days

2009-06-29T08:41:00.001-05:00

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90: 12).

I’ve been numbering my days lately. Maybe you have too. I’m not talking about something morbid or morose. The kind of numbering I’ve been doing, the kind that the Psalmist speaks of, isn’t done with a calendar. It has little to do with measuring time and more to do with entering into it, sensing how it moves and pondering what it means. That’s what I’ve been doing, especially since Thursday.

On Thursday I did some day numbering as I called my parents to wish them a happy 49th anniversary. My Mom and Dad both expressed the kind of disbelief you feel when a number that sounds so long feels so short. I’m beginning to know what they mean.

On Thursday I did some day numbering as I drove with Marnie to North Carolina to retrieve our children from three weeks of camp. When we had dropped them off twenty days earlier I was apprehensive about a three week camp experience. It sounded like a very long time for my kids to be away. It wasn’t. Just as you begin to really adapt to a child-free home, it’s time for the camp counselors to give them back to you. “Didn’t we just drive up here?”

On Thursday, making our way up I-85, we listened to constant news reports about Farrah Fawcett. I did a little day numbering, remembering the year when “Charlie’s Angels” was the big new show of the fall television season. I was 14 years old. The home of a Baptist pastor didn’t allow wall space for the iconic poster – but I knew exactly what it looked like. News of her death prompted some day numbering for much of the nation.

And then at dinner on Thursday, dining on southwestern cuisine in Black Mountain, I saw the caption at the bottom of the flat screen TV on the restaurant wall. Michael Jackson had died. Enough is being said about that, and will be for weeks to come. But I can’t hear anything from the Thriller album without being taken back to college. And long before college, there was a Saturday morning cartoon called the “Jackson 5.” More day numbering.

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The Psalmist speaks of numbering our days within the context of prayer, a petition spoken to God. The request asks God to “teach us” to number our days. We don’t do this naturally. We need help. Day numbering is a learned behavior.

Usually the help we get comes to us as some kind of reminder that days have a limit. The reminder need not be a tragedy, but somehow we need to be faced with the truth that our days do not stretch our before us in infinite supply. It doesn’t matter how well you eat and how often you work out. There’s a limit to our days. The hard part is facing the limit with honesty and courage. This is how we number our days. It’s has little to do with counting.

Some refuse to number their days because it makes them fearful and anxious. Others refuse to number their days because they regard that kind of thing as depressing or sad. According to the Psalm, both of those reactions are mistaken. In the Psalm, numbering our days makes us neither anxious nor depressed. It makes us wise.

Those who “gain a heart of wisdom” are those who have also gained clarity about what life is for. Every single day comes to us as a gift, and what we do with every day is determined by the giver. To number our days doesn’t diminish life, it enhances it.

What life events have taught you how to number your days? How will you live this one?

Prayer:
Teach us to number our days, O Lord, and make us wise in the learning. Guard us from the fear and sadness that grasps at time but fails to live. Make us bold and glad in our living, trusting you for every day, honoring you in the way we live. Grant us a heart of wisdom we pray, Amen.

Deep Clean

2009-06-26T21:13:00.001-05:00

[This post originally appeared in slightly different form in October 2005]

Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow (Psalm 51:7).

5:40 a.m. No lights on upstairs. Cup of coffee in one hand, computer tucked under my other arm. Conditions ripe for some kind of disaster.

I should have never tried to walk back to my study without a free hand to grope for the wall and a light switch. I make this walk every morning at roughly the same time. The cup of coffee is a constant too – but not the computer. The trek to the study leads through the guest bedroom, the very room my wife had diligently prepared for friends who would soon arrive for a weekend visit. Everything in the room was ready, including the white bed cover, now freed of the laundry stack that typically concealed (and protected) it.

The darkness was too black to navigate without some help, whether from light or from the slight sweeping motion of my outstretched arm. My plan was simple. I would place my computer on the bed and turn on a light. I moved over toward the bed to put my computer down. At this point I’m not sure where the plan went wrong, simple as it was. As I placed my computer on the bed I heard in the darkness the sound of coffee dribbling on the laundry free white bed cover.

Any early sluggishness of the blood flow in my veins disappeared with the help of a sudden adrenaline surge. The fact that my wife would not be up for nearly an hour gave me plenty of time to do some crisis management. I really have no idea what to do to a coffee stain on a white bedspread. I got a wet towel and did the best I could – which actually turned out to be a decent dissipation, if not removal, of the stain.

In fact, our guests might have never noticed the stain on the bedspread. My efforts at getting rid of it had not been entirely successful, but you wouldn’t see it unless you knew where to look. But I can see it. I know where to look.

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I grew up singing gospel hymns that pictured sin as a stain and the blood of Jesus as the cleansing agent. One of the more rousing hymns asked “what can wash away my sin?” Answer: “Nothing but the blood of Jesus” (with gusto!). The blood hymns seem to have fallen out of favor these days. Our loss.

It may seem silly or even banal, my early morning coffee-spill crisis. But I came away from that little crisis with a fresh sense of what those hymn writers were talking about and what preachers of a bygone era so eloquently and passionately conveyed from their pulpits.

I recognized that the real stain of sin isn’t visible. The real ugliness of what sin leaves behind is something inward. I further recognized that the physical stain can be disguised and hidden – and so can the internal turmoil. The visible mess is nicely doctored up, and the internal is simply out of view. No one would know anything about it unless they knew exactly where to look.

But I know exactly where to look, and that’s the problem.

Here’s where the good news comes. This is what made hymn writers sing and caused preachers to raise their voices. The blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin (1 John 1:7). Psalm 51 beautifully anticipates what Jesus did on the cross.

I know that there will be other spills, missteps, faulty moves, careless acts. But a spill can always be trumped by a flood. As one old hymn says, “sinners plunged beneath that flood loose all their guilty stains.” Thanks be to God.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, today we would be done with guilt and all the baggage we carry around because of it. We let it go, not because we know better or because we’ve determined to do better – but because in your death you did everything that needed to be done to make clean, white as snow. Amen.