Camp Lee

From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be
praised (Psalm 113:3).

I made the same promise every summer, usually in August. I broke it every fall, usually by late September.

My church youth group made a pilgrimage every year to a holy site just outside of Anniston, Alabama: Camp Lee. Surrounded by the thick pine forests of central Alabama, we were allowed, actually ordered, to find a secluded place each morning for our “quiet time.” This was a no-talking, no-radio, no-friends-around time with God. It was always in the a.m. and it was always outdoors. Since the dew had not quite relinquished its claim on the grounds, the time spent with God was matched by time spent finding a dry place to sit. Nevertheless, every day was to begin with quiet time and a little dampness on your rear wouldn’t get in the way of that.

Those daily quiet times were one of the best parts of our week at Camp Lee. By Friday of the week I was ready to make a commitment to go home and continue those quiet times. I made that promise more than once. I would get home and have a quiet time every day. And then school started. What’s that old saying about good intentions?

My last summer at Camp Lee was more than twenty-five years ago and I’m still learning to keep the promises I made there. I don’t use the phrase “quiet time” much any more. But I still practice the discipline, even if erratically. I learned to value that kind of time with God and I can’t imagine a life not anchored by that kind of spiritual practice.

But I learned something else at Camp Lee as well. Without being aware of it, my “quiet time” taught me that time with God ended when the camp bell rang and called us all back together for some kind of noisy talkative activity. No one taught me to see God in every hour, every activity, every interaction. No one explained to me that there was really no difference between morning “quiet time” and afternoon “free time.” I never thought much about God’s presence in softball games and time spent hanging out. My life of faith was carved up with spiritual slivers here and there: church on Sunday, a little God-time in the a.m. and then on to the business of, well, busy-ness. The 95%.

The Psalmist said that the name of the Lord was to be praised from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets. That’s surely a statement that lays claim to the entire earth, all the acreage from one tip of the globe to the other. But perhaps it’s also a statement that claims time – all the hours of the day, from sun up to sun down, from rising to sleeping again and every moment in between. That’s the focus of “my95.” The life of faith is not lived adequately by having quiet times and going to church. The life of faith involves everything about your life – from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets. Nothing is left out.

If you’re reading this you’ve taken some time for a daily “devotional.” That’s a good thing – but God wants the rest of your day as well. Think through the day, from the rising of the sun to its setting. Ask God to meet you in every meeting, every errand, every class and practice and conference call. Look for God in the 95% and remember that all of time can be “quiet time.”

Prayer:
Your name, O Lord, is to be praised everywhere and all the time; from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets. In these moments I give you praise and thanks for the gift of this day. Help me to continue my worship beyond these “devotional” moments. Teach me how to join you in what you are doing all around me. Help me to notice your presence in all things, from sun up to sun down. Amen.

How He Died: A Good Friday Meditation

And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God.” (Mark 15:39)

Yesterday was the last day of school this week for my children. Since I’m typically the first one up every morning and generally responsible for rousting the sleepy ones out of bed, I thought the “last school day” announcement might work in my favor. You know the strategy: face what you have to do today by focusing on what you don’t have to do tomorrow. Sometimes it works. Yesterday it didn’t.

I’m not all that surprised that my kids offered their standard resistance to getting out of bed. What surprised me was their stated reason for not wanting to go to school.

“Stations of the cross,” they groaned.

“What?” I asked, wanting to be sure I had heard them correctly.

“Stations of the Cross” they repeated, this time a little louder.

Thursday is chapel day at their school and this week the chapel service focused on the Stations of the Cross. For those of you (like me) who might be liturgically challenged, the Stations of the Cross are a depiction of Christ’s passion told in fourteen pictures or episodes. There are variations on the practice, but generally the Stations of the Cross involve walking from station to station, picture to picture, praying through the week of the passion. It is, simply put, the story of how Jesus died.

Frankly, I’m delighted that my kids are exposed to this in their school. I’m not sure how they “walk” through the Stations of the Cross, but I’m sure it doesn’t involve the orderly movement of hundreds of elementary aged children. My guess is that the story is read. That’s fine with me.

What isn’t fine with me is their reaction to the experience. Some of this is certainly typical for a fourth and third grader. I didn’t even have chapel in my elementary school and Sunday pew sitting was merely a tolerated fact of life. I can accept their lack of enthusiasm in that regard.

But my fear has to do with the story itself and its power in their young lives. I don’t want the power of that story to be blunted through too much church. The story of how Jesus died changes lives. That’s what I want my children to know. More than know, I want them to experience it.

The centurion who stood in front of the cross came to a powerful realization about who Jesus was. “Surely this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39). I’ve heard this before and I’ve always thought that this confession was spoken because of the darkened skies and the earthquake. That’s not it according to Mark. The centurion’s words are spoken because he saw how Jesus died. That’s what I want my children to see. That’s what we want the world to see.

The death of Jesus shows us how to live: sacrificially and obediently, not grasping at position but taking the form of a servant (Philippians 2).

The resurrection life of Jesus shows us how to die: with peace and the hope of eternity because Jesus defeated death.

For Today:
On this Good Friday, take time to read and reflect and remember how Jesus died. As you observe how he died, what impact does the story have on your living?

Prayer:
We stand at your cross today Lord Jesus. We see your death, your refusal to vindicate yourself with the forces of heaven, your willingness to humble yourself in obedience to the Father’s will. We see your death – and we want to be like you. But we are afraid: Afraid of suffering and not being in charge of life. Teach us to open our hands today, even as you opened your own. On this Good Friday, help us to live as you died and to face death confident of your eternal life. Amen.

The Guest Room: A Maundy Thursday Meditation

So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, “Go in to the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ (Mark 14:13-14).

“The teacher asks: Where is my guest room . . .” That’s a good question.

We have a guest room in our home. From time to time it has actually been used to accommodate a guest. Most of the time, however, our guest room serves as a multi-purpose-stick-it-in-here room. The guest room is a hodge- podge of this and that, a holding cell for all manner of household detritus. But then someone comes for a genuine overnight visit. And we prepare the guest room, make it homey, clear the clutter.

Walking down the hall today one of my co-workers asked me, “Are you ready for Easter?” It was a conversation in motion, so I don’t think my friend wanted a lengthy discourse in response to her question. I simply replied, “I’m trying to get ready.” I’m sure her question was aimed at the preparations for Sunday church activities: worship, worship, and then worship a few more times. There’s plenty to get ready for. But my answer was more about my own readiness. I didn’t explain all that. Maybe she knew. But that’s where I’m at right now. I’m trying to get ready.

On the day we know as Maundy Thursday, Jesus shared a last supper with his disciples. Most of us know about the supper. We never give a second thought to the preparations. Those sacred moments – “My body broken for you, my blood shed for you” – those moments of being in the company of Jesus didn’t drop out of thin air. Preparations were made. Some disciples were charged with the task, aided by an obscure homeowner and a random guy carrying a water jar.

The key question: “Where is my guest room?” That’s what Jesus wanted to know. That’s what Jesus wants to know now. He asks that very thing of you and me.

We often come to Easter with cluttered lives: some rushing to get back in town after a spring break trip, some planning a big lunch or worried about being on time for those reservations and getting cute pictures of the children in those new clothes with their Easter baskets full of various chocolates and fake grass that drops all over the house. Yes, we can work hard at getting ready for Easter . . . only to find out that what we got ready for wasn’t truly Easter.

Perhaps today – Maundy Thursday – can be a day of making preparation. The kind of preparation that matters. Jesus wants to be present with us this weekend. Jesus loves to show up at worship services and lunches and family gatherings and even egg hunts.

We simply need to make room. What kind of space will you prepare for the living Christ this Easter? The teacher is asking: “where is my guestroom?”

For Today:
What will you do today to prepare yourself for Easter? How will you make room in your life for the living Christ?

Prayer:
We ask you, Lord Jesus, for the help of your Spirit as we prepare for Easter. Help us to make room for you within ourselves, as well as within our schedules and plans. We want to know your living presence among us in these days. Help us to be a people who share in your sufferings for the world and rejoice in the hope of your resurrection. Amen

Former, Not Forgotten: Holy Week Wednesday

While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head (Mark 14:3).

He was known as Simon the Leper.

Mark tells us nothing more about the host of this dinner gathering during the final days of Jesus’ life. Anything beyond “Simon the Leper” is pure speculation and guesswork. But the guessing stirs the imagination. Chances are good that Simon is not actually a leper – inviting guests to his home, dipping his chips in the salsa bowl, touching food, pouring the wine. A leper couldn’t do that, and if he tried it would be a very small and quiet party. No, we’re simply told that he was known as Simon the Leper.

The disease had been healed. The name had stuck.

The name spoke to who he used to be, to the life he used to have and the condition of life to which he had likely resigned himself. Sick, ugly and peeling, smelling of death, avoided by people, grieving the loss of the comforts of home. That was Simon’s life until Jesus came along and changed it.

Now Simon is back home, throwing parties, reclining at table with his friend Jesus and reaching for the salsa bowl with a hand that looks smooth and greets with a firm grip. Why was this man known as Simon the Leper? We can’t say for sure, but everyone at the dinner party probably knew exactly why.

There are plenty of people working hard to escape their former self. The “known as” part of their identity is their shame, or so they think. A few days ago I received a message on Facebook from someone who went to college with me more than 20 years ago. “You may not remember me,” the message said. They used the term “wild child” to describe who they used to be back in the day. This person apparently suspected that those unruly days were lingering in my memory. They wanted to shed that “known as” self.

It wasn’t that way for Simon. “Leper” was hardly a designation to boast in, but every time someone spoke of Simon the Leper they spoke of what Jesus and his grace had done. Simon never wanted to forget that part of his story, never wanted to get over how Jesus had changed him. Leper was a former self; former, but not forgotten.

The death of Jesus on the cross means that life can change. You are not saddled with labels that forever define who you are: addicted, divorced, depressed. The “known as” self speaks to the former you. And the former you speaks to the depth of God’s grace and goodness. Don’t ever forget that.

For Today:
What is your “known as” self? Is there a part of your life story that no longer speaks to your shame but to God’s goodness?

Prayer:
In you, Lord Jesus, we can be made new. Old things pass away and the new comes. We give you thanks for the cross and the price you paid to redeem and renew us. In this Holy Week make us mindful of who we once were, and remind us again of who we are in you. Amen.

Authority Issues: Holy Week Tuesday

They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking again in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you the authority to do this?” (Mark 11:27-33)

When tables loaded with coins are turned over there will be noise. Jarring, unsettling noise. This kind of thing gets noticed, and so it was with Jesus’ temple cleansing broo-hah and short sermon. The episode had drawn the attention of the power brokers who typically hung out in the temple precincts: chief priests, law teachers, elders. They’d had a while to convene and consternate over the audacity of the young rabbi. When he returned to the temple the following day they were probably shocked at his nerve, but plenty glad for the chance to confront him.

And the confrontation was all about authority: “Who gave you authority . . . by what authority do you do these things?” They wanted to see his credentials. Jesus answered their questions with a few questions of his own, and in the end he simply refused to tell them what they wanted to know.

For the priests and teachers and elders, validation came from things like position and education and rank and title. This is how they knew who mattered, who counted, who the real players were. Jesus had none of those things. Jesus simply knew himself as dearly loved by the Father.

And this was enough.

We spend a fair amount of energy trying to tell the world around us that we matter. We want others to know that we count, that we’re players to be reckoned with in whatever sphere of life we inhabit. We’ll open a vein to achieve the things that validate us: the prime positions in the organization, the right degrees behind our name, the most fruitful contacts. This is how we tell the world we matter. Sometimes it’s how we tell ourselves that we matter.

Holy week forces us to consider a different answer: Jesus died for you. God loved you enough to give his son on the cross. That’s how you know you matter. That’s all you need to know to go into the world and change it. You are loved by the Father.

And that’s enough.

For Today:
What would change about your day if you truly knew that God’s love for you in Jesus was the defining center of your life? Is that truly enough for you?

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, Help me to discern the difference between doing my best with what you’ve given me, and trying to prove myself in order to get something from others. Teach me how to rest in your love for me, knowing that your love defines my life. Today, loving God, I belong to you – and that is enough. Amen

Access Granted: Holy Week Monday

Therefore since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus. . . let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:19-22).

For a number of schools in the area this is spring break week. Not for my kids. We did that a couple of weeks ago. I don’t have a clue as to the thinking process that guides school administrators as they schedule spring break. I simply put it on my calendar and wait for the plan. This year it was Washington, D.C.

Thanks to the generous efforts of a friend, we were able to get an appointment for a White House tour. This was a first for me. I hate to admit it, but I did a summer internship in D.C. back in my college days and somehow never made it to the White House. I don’t understand the thinking process that went into that either. But that youthful oversight was remedied on spring break. On Tuesday of the week at 10:00 a.m. we were waiting at the southeast gate ready to go.

And suddenly I was in seventh grade again. As a seventh grader I was in awe of the United States Secret Service. I had every intention of joining their ranks someday. I had seen President Gerald Ford on one occasion and the excitement of seeing the President didn’t come close to seeing the secret service in action. Very serious, almost edgy. Every move deliberate, alive to every detail of their surroundings, all business.

And they were all over the White House. Many in uniform, some not. There’s so much to see in the White House, but for all there is to see one thing is very clear. There’s much that you cannot see, plenty of places you cannot go. A labyrinth of velvet roping and well placed stanchions guide your walk through the White House. Our guide pointed to the foot of a staircase that led up to the President’s residence. The Secret Service had two people posted there. Again, very serious. The message was clear. Don’t even think about approaching these stairs. Access denied.

On Monday of the last week of his life, Jesus went into the temple and overturned the tables of money changers (Mark 11:12-19). The provoking issue: access to the holy place and the Holy One. Pilgrims from everywhere made their way to Jerusalem and to the temple. The temple was to be a house of prayer for all nations, a place to meet with God. The money changers were making access difficult, expensive. In both word and deed that day Jesus made a bold statement about God. Access granted.

And when he died on Friday of the week, the same message was conveyed as the temple veil, the barrier that marked the Holy of Holies, was torn in two from top to bottom. Access granted. In the White House I saw brave people who would die to keep me out.
This week we see a man who dies to bring us in. Access granted.

For Today:
Do you come to God with confidence, knowing that God expects you, knowing that you are welcomed into God’s presence? How does this access shape your prayers?

Prayer:
Thank you Jesus for opening the way to the Father. Thank you for removing the barriers that distance us from our creator: our own sense of unworthiness, our misguided notions of God’s character. Teach us to live in the confidence that comes from being free to boldly enter the most holy place at any time by the presence of your Spirit with us. Amen.

A Troubled Conscience?

How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14).

Most of us know what it feels like. And most of us are good at masking it, ignoring it, numbing it with our rational faculties or with busy-ness. John Piper explains how the cross of Jesus is the answer to the accusations we level at ourselves when our conscience is troubled.

Some things never change. The problem of a dirty conscience is as old as Adam and Eve. As soon as they sinned their conscience was defiled. Their sense of guilt was ruinous. It ruined their relationship with God – they hid from him. It ruined their relationship with each other – they blamed. . . So here we are in the modern age – the age of science, internet, organ transplants, instant messaging, cell phones – and our problem is fundamentally the same as always: Our conscience condemns us. We don’t feel good enough to come to God . . . We can cut ourselves, or throw our children in the sacred river, or give a million dollars to the United Way, or serve in a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving, or perform a hundred forms of penance and self-injury, and the result will be the same. The stain remains and death terrifies.

The only answer in these modern times, as in all other times, is the blood of Christ. When our conscience rises up and condemns us where will we turn? We turn to Christ. We turn to the suffering and death of Christ – the blood of Christ. This is the only cleansing agent in the universe that can give the conscience relief in life and peace in death. (John Piper, The Passion of Jesus Christ: Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die, 50-51)

There might have been a time when Piper’s words were widely understood and generally accepted. There was a day when the place to begin in bringing people to faith in Jesus was with their troubled conscience. It was a fairly safe bet that they had one and that they’d eagerly hear a message about how it could be assuaged.

I’m not sure that time is now.

Last night I attended a fund-raising banquet and found myself at the table with a man who’s been a court-appointed social worker for more than thirty years. I asked him about his work and he made what I regard as a confession. For most of his career he’s done his work believing that there’s good in everyone. Now, he said, he’s not so sure. He’s seen too much, come face to face with too much intractable meanness. He’s reluctantly beginning to think that some people are just evil. Evil at the core.

This makes me think that there are some who simply don’t have a conscience that troubles them. And I’m not talking about sociopaths and hardened criminals. There’s something in our culture that has slowly filed the edge off of our conscience. These days, if you’re conscience troubles you it isn’t because you’ve violated anything that’s inherently right or wrong. It’s your own way of thinking. Something or someone has made you feel guilty, and that’s one of the worst things someone or something can do. Maturity means validating yourself, your own beliefs, overcoming whatever that something or someone might be in your life.

Does the conscience still rise up and condemn?

Like most everyone else in the nation, I’ve been watching the sad story of New York’s governor and the way he’s made a mockery of the vows he took at inauguration, not to mention the vows he made to his wife. Does his conscience trouble him? I can't answer that. Only the Spirit can see this, cut through spin and carefully crafted statements for the media. But here’s the thing: modern understandings of maturity aside, most people would say his conscience should bother him.

We still know there’s a conscience and even if it’s been numbed, there are moments when it ought to writhe with that old affliction we know as guilt. Guilt isn’t a psychological shackle that someone else imposed on us. Guilt is God’s gift because it has a way of prodding us, nudging us to the cross of Jesus.

Prayer:
“What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh! Precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
Amen.
( Robert Lowry, “Nothing But the Blood,” pub. 1876)

The Grandiose Self

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me (Mark 8:34).

I was there first with my blinker on. I’m certain of it.

At the ballpark where my son was playing baseball there is a small parking lot right behind the outfield fence. The thrill of actually finding a parking spot in that lot is like winning the lottery. So when I saw the red taillights of the SUV and realized that it would be vacating a place that was perfectly suited for my mini-van, I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I pulled up close enough to make my intentions clear and put my blinker on signaling that I would be occupying the prized piece of real estate.

Another vehicle rolled slowly from the other direction, having explored the lot and missed the opportunity which I was about to seize. As it happened the departing SUV positioned itself in such a way that for a moment my access to the parking space was blocked. That moment was all it took for the other driver to pounce like a beast on its prey. The car quickly shot behind the SUV and slipped into the place I had been waiting on.

I was stunned. Did that really just happen? The driver got out of his car and walked toward the ball field without as much as a glance my way. Disbelief quickly turned to a mix of anger and humiliation. And then came the fantasies: I chase him down, get in his face, and shame him into contrition as he slinks back to his car apologetically. Fat chance.

I then mused on the satisfaction of parking there anyway - ramming my own worn-out vehicle repeatedly into the crowded space until the chrome emblem marking his expensive car lay like crumpled foil on the ground. That felt great, but was not financially viable. Time to move on. Searching for another place to park, I nursed my wounded pride and stewed in my righteous indignation.

There came a point in Jesus’ ministry when he began to speak plainly about how things would end for him, where it was all headed. As Mark tells it in his gospel, Jesus spoke plainly about suffering and rejection and rising again. He made it clear that to follow him meant taking up a cross. As if that weren’t hard enough, Jesus coupled taking up a cross with something else: “Deny yourself.”

When Jesus tells us to deny ourselves he’s telling us to do more than pass on the Oreos and hold off on that big purchase. To refrain from indulgence is not the same as denying the self. What Jesus has in mind is more like saying “get over yourself.” This is a kind of death and we resist it.

The self can be healthy and whole. It can also be huge, grandiose. The grandiose self has a never-quite-satisfied appetite for approval, recognition, respect, acknowledgment, compliance from others. This self loves to be affirmed by having other selves defer to it. It likes to win, to get its way. And to take up a cross, to follow the Jesus way, means that this self must be put to death.

The grandiose self manages to hide, or we manage to hide it, until someone takes our parking place. Typically, it’s the smallest offenses that stoke the monster. At the most negligible slight we’ll drop our crosses and assert our selves. Letting it go, overlooking the dismissive remark, forgetting the insult, ignoring the disregard – it feels like death. Maybe that’s because it is.

For Today:
The healthy self lives by serving and loving others. The grandiose self lives by getting from others. How has your grandiose self been wounded lately? What will it mean to follow Jesus in that situation?

Prayer:
Without a word, Lord Jesus, you went like a lamb to slaughter. We are reluctant to follow you there. Among our great fears are being taken advantage of, embarrassed, treated like a doormat, shown as weak. Help us to learn how to deny self in the practical details of every day. Give us the courage to take up our cross as we walk into this day. Amen.

Who Wins?

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it (Mark 8:35).

Let’s be honest. Crucifixion in every detail looks like a massive defeat. We need to pause before we quickly endow the cross with nobility and glory. The one on the cross is stripped naked and exposed. The crucified are jeered and taunted. Finally, they’re dead. That’s about as defeated as defeated can get. And yet, this loss is somehow God’s victory. Today we listen to C. S. Lewis and Leslie Newbigin to try and make sense of that claim.

At last she drew near. She stood by Aslan’s head. Her face was working and twitching with passion, but his looked up at the sky, still quiet, neither angry nor afraid, but a little sad. Then just before she gave the blow, she stooped down and said in a quivering voice. “And now who has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? . . . Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you have lost your own life and you have not saved his. In this knowledge, despair and die.” (From C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).

If the cross is the end, then there is no future. But it is not [the end]. The resurrection is the revelation to chosen witnesses of the fact that Jesus who died on the cross is indeed King – conqueror of death and sin, Lord and savior of all. The resurrection is not the reversal of a defeat but the proclamation of a victory. The King reigns from the tree. The reign of God has indeed come upon us, and its sign is not a golden throne but a wooden cross (Leslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, 127).

Who wins? Jesus does. We do. His beating heart and breathing lungs were not the only things that stopped on the cross. In his death every shameful memory we have, every whisper of guilt that we still hear, every lousy choice we’ve ever made, every destructive behavior we’ve ever embraced – all of that was put to death once and for all. Who wins? Well . . . you do.

For Today:
Have you ever experienced a defeat or loss or disappointment that turned out for your good?

Prayer:
Remind us today, O Lord, that you often disguise your best work with the appearance of loss and hopelessness. Help us not to despair as we look at our ravaged world and encounter broken people all around us. Today we look boldly at what seems to be defeat, and we invite you to bring forth new life. Make us confident and expectant as we go through this day. Amen.

Cross Prayers

They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left (Mark 15:27).

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 forsaken-ness. 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 as much as getting results, getting rescued, getting out, getting away. The caustic words of the petition reflect the words of the surrounding crowd, 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 both sides of the cross.

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. 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.

For today: 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.

Interrupted

As they led him away they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus (Luke 23:26).

Rev. David Smith, professor of theology in Magee College, Londonderry, first published The Days of His Flesh in 1905. The book is a retelling of the life of Jesus that blends narrative elements from all four gospels. Smith’s work is scholarly, but he’s never reluctant to throw in a piece of vivid detail that has grown up around the gospel texts. Such is the case in this passage describing how Simon of Cyrene was ordered to step in and bear the cross of Jesus to the site of crucifixion.

Looking around for one whom they might impress, the soldiers spied a man who had been about to enter the city as the procession poured through the gateway. He was a Hellenistic Jew named Simon from Cyrene, a North African city where a large Jewish colony resided; and he had come up to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast. He has his lodging outside the walls of the city, and he was on his way to the temple to join in the morning prayer. All unexpectedly and sorely against his will he was called to a holier service (David Smith, The Days of His Flesh, 492-93).

As Smith tells it, all Simon wanted to do was make the morning prayer service at the temple. I picture him hurrying, wanting to be on time – much the same way many of us make our way to the place of worship each week. His objectives are worthy. He is a devout man attending to the practices of his religion.

And then he gets stuck in traffic. A throng of spectators are following Jesus to the place outside the city known as Golgotha. Somehow Simon attracts the attention of the Roman guards and he is conscripted; he takes the cross to his own shoulders. He’ll not make the prayer service.

The cross is indeed an interruption. Many of us are content to make our way to the weekly services. We faithfully attend and do what we believe our faith requires of us. This is a good thing and most days we feel satisfied with that. And then we encounter the cross.

The cross won’t allow us to settle for the weekly scramble to the place of worship. It calls us to a “holier service,” as Smith puts it. The cross demands that we trade religious duties for a walk with Jesus. That walk can take us to places we didn’t plan to go. It can bring discomforts we didn’t ask for; it can disturb our routines. For people content with religion, the cross is terribly inconvenient.

For Today:
Look ahead to the day you’ve been given. The cross means your plans may be interrupted. Where might you be asked to walk a hard path with Jesus today?

Prayer:
In all I have planned for this day, Lord Jesus, I want to walk with you. Make me ready to take up a cross. Prepare my mind and spirit so that I will not resent the interruptions you bring my way. Use me for a holier service according to your will. Amen.

More than Metaphor

. . . one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side bringing a sudden flow of blood and water (John 19:34).

The name Thomas Steagald won’t be found in the indices of textbooks on Christian History. His fine volume Praying for Dear Life, while helpful and beautifully written, isn’t regarded as a devotional classic. Steagald is a Methodist pastor in Stanley, North Carolina where he lives out the vocation of a garden-variety pastor, and then writes about it with eloquence. In addition to pastoral duties, Steagald has at times in his ministry served as the church’s choir director. Reflecting on the singing of hymns in the congregation, Steagald writes

The scattered congregation sang some of the great hymns when their pastor asked for their favorites: “The Old Rugged Cross,” which Frederick Buechner says he learned to sing at bedtime and before he knew what a hymn was or what a cross was or why it was something to sing about at night. We sang “There is a Fountain filled with Blood.” My wife and daughter really do not like that song, though it is one of my favorites. I keep telling them it is a metaphor, a metaphor – but to no avail. We sang “It is Well with My Soul,” and I pledged that though “Satan should buffet and trials should come” to “let this blessed assurance control: That Christ has regarded my humble estate, and has shed his own blood for my soul.” That is not a metaphor (Steagald, Praying for Dear Life, 192).

Sometimes we allow meaning to evaporate from the cross under the heat of our words and thoughts about it. The way we seek to understand the cross with our minds, the way we speak of the cross with our words, the way we wear the cross around our necks or place it in our churches – all these conspire to make the cross a symbol, and little more than that. A symbol.

The language of metaphor – words that help us to see and understand by means of an implied comparison – this language surrounds the cross. But the cross is not a metaphor.

The “Fountain filled with blood” is poetry. We may not think it very good poetry, but is poetry nonetheless. The fountain of blood washes away “all our guilty stains.” It is an image that helps us get our minds around what happened on the cross.

But there is a reality that goes beyond imagery. Jesus “shed his own blood for my soul.” Simple straightforward language. This is not an image; this isn’t poetry. As Steagald says, “this is not a metaphor.”

For Today:
It is one thing to say what the cross represents. It is something else to say what the cross actually does. How would you state the difference?

Prayer:
Gracious God, help us to see the cross as more than a symbol. Help our words to convey more than imagery and metaphor. Remind us that the cross is your way of changing lives and changing the world. Help us to know that change personally and directly, and empower us to tell the story of the cross so that others are changed too. Amen.

Our Secrets

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave a series of lectures that were later placed in manuscript form by one of his students and eventually published. The result was the little book Spiritual Care – a study of Christian caregiving. In the following excerpt, Bonhoeffer reflects on how the cross makes it possible for people to speak the truth about their lives; it also makes it possible to hear that truth with grace.

At the cross of Christ we learn to see ourselves and others as sinners. What sin can be greater than the godlessness which took Christ to the cross? We show an impoverished understanding of the cross of Christ if we are “shocked” by a great sin which we learn about, for example, in confession. At the cross of Christ we learn to look such things in the eye and in the process become aware of our nearness to others. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Spiritual Care, 38).

Somehow people of faith are portrayed as frequently shocked and offended. They are always scandalized by something: by dancing or lewd behavior or short skirts or salty language. Shocked and offended – that’s standard posture of people who take Jesus seriously. But that’s a misrepresentation. It’s a caricature, and it’s wrong.

Bonhoeffer grasped that people who truly understand the cross will not be “shocked” by the things they learn about other people, especially their secrets, their failures, their sin. This means that the cross is what makes genuine Christian community possible. The cross puts an end to our impression management, our need to appear all put together. Christians are people who can hear someone else’s secret and not be scandalized. What’s more, Christians are able to admit the truth about their own lives. The cross tells us that we all have secrets. The cross also takes our shame.

For Today:
Someone around you may need to confide in another person today. Perhaps that person will be you. As you listen with grace, the work of the cross becomes real. Maybe you need to confide in someone today. To whom are you able to speak the truth about your life?

Prayer:
We give you thanks, O God, that you did not send Jesus to die for righteous people or for good, but for sinners. Help us to acknowledge this truth: that we are all sinners, people with secrets that keep us distant from you and from one another. By your spirit help us to be people who can extend your grace to others. Help us also to receive it, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Jesus Suffered

A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master (Matthew 10:24)

Irenaeus lived during the second century and was one of the most significant thinkers and leaders of the early church. He was a student of the great bishop Polycarp who was said to be a student of the apostle John. The significance of the student– teacher relationship can be heard in this brief excerpt from Against Heresies (c. 180 AD)

If he did not really suffer there was no grace . . . and when we begin to endure real suffering he will clearly be leading us astray in exhorting us to endure scourging and to turn the other cheek, if he did not first endure the same treatment in reality; . . . in that case we should be ‘above our master’ . . . but as he, our Lord, is our only true master, so he is truly the good and suffering Son of God, the Word of God the Father made the Son of Man (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, cited in Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers, 107).

In Irenaeus’ day there were some sincere, very intelligent Christians who simply could not accept the fact that the Son of God died the excruciating and ignoble death of crucifixion. Jesus’ death on the cross presented them with an uncomfortable theological problem. They dealt with the problem by maintaining that the “human” Jesus was crucified while the “divine” part of Jesus was taken to God before things got really nasty.

Irenaeus would have none of it. Jesus is the suffering Son of God. He didn’t escape the cross by leaving the husk of his body on the tree while spiritually whisking away to the heavens. Jesus was there in his fullness. All of him: feeling every lash of the whip, every nail, the tongue cracking thirst. Jesus suffered.

And this matters precisely because we too suffer. Jesus never asks us to endure what he himself has not endured. And when we try to avoid or deny suffering, we elevate ourselves above our master, student seeking to surpass teacher.

For Today:
What does suffering look like in your life today? Does the reality of Jesus’ suffering change what you are experiencing? What would it mean for you to enter into the suffering of others?

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, we’re thankful that you entered fully into the experience of suffering; we’re thankful that you understand fully the sufferings we experience. Help us to find you in the midst of our own anguish. And when our days are bright and blessed, teach us to follow your example as we enter into the suffering of those around us. Amen.

An Empty Cross

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel – not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross be emptied of its power (1 Corinthians 1:17)

The testimony of faith is that no matter how things look in this fallen world, all God’s acts are wrought in perfect wisdom . . . The atonement too was accomplished with the same flawless skill that marks all God’s acts. However little we understand it all, we know that Christ’s expiatory work perfectly reconciled God and men and opened the Kingdom of heaven to all believers. Our concern is not to explain, but to proclaim. Indeed I wonder whether God could make us understand all that happened on the cross. According to the apostle Peter not even angels know, however eagerly they may desire to look into these things. (A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, 68)

We celebrate an empty cross. Jesus absent, no longer hanging there. Protestant churches rarely display a crucifix. Hard to find are images in which the dead or dying Jesus remains suspended in the shame and humiliation of the cross. No, we celebrate an empty cross. The empty cross silently proclaims resurrection. With a touch of boasting we say, “Our cross is empty because Jesus is alive.” True enough.

But sometimes our delight in the empty cross leaves us with an “emptied” cross. Like those friends of Jesus who hurried to remove his body before sunset ushered in the Sabbath, we too hurry to take his body down, wrap it up, place it in the tomb. We do this by our reluctance to linger at the site of execution. Something is rushing us to the tomb, to Easter.

And we do this with our explanations. A. W. Tozer wisely reminds us of two things that shape our praying today. First, the event of the cross was God’s wisdom. It wasn’t error or things gone wrong. As Paul stated it, the wisdom of God is foolishness to us. Second, our task is not to explain it. When we seek to understand the cross by use of our own wisdom, we end up with an emptied cross – drained of power, a mere symbol. It doesn’t actually do anything.

For Today:
Tozer says our concern is not explanation, but proclamation. How would you explain the cross if a friend asked you about it? In the course of a typical day, what does it mean for us to “proclaim” the cross?

Prayer:
Gracious God, your wisdom is beyond our explaining. So let us live this day in such way that the cross is proclaimed. Let our lives say clearly that forgiveness is more powerful than vengeance, that your grace matters more than our good intentions and best efforts to please you, that even in suffering you are present. May we proclaim the cross clearly and not empty it of power. Amen

Meant for You

Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures . . . (1 Corinthians 15:3).

In his book Letters to a Young Evangelical, Tony Campolo tells the story of being in a communion service with his parents when he was very young. Seated in the pew in front of them was a woman visibly distressed. Her quiet sobbing, the shaking of her shoulders, continued through the service, right up until the time communion was served.

The minister had just finished preaching on the text from 1 Corinthians 11:27. “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.” As the elements were passed to this woman she waved them away and lowered her head under the weight of whatever churning inside of her that morning.

Campolo recalls that is was at this very moment that his father leaned forward and in his choppy Sicilian English spoke over her shoulder: ”Take it girl! It was meant for you . . . do you hear me?”[1]

The cross was where it happened. It was on the cross that Christ’s body was broken and his blood shed. And that violent drawn-out death was for you. This is an amazing claim. The cross is not merely something that we as Christians affirm historically. The cross is an event that we enter into personally. Somehow, in ways beyond our understanding, the death of Jesus bears directly on you and me. It was meant for us. Our tradition and scripture make this tight assertion: Jesus died for our sins. You’re included. It was meant for you.

In the weeks ahead as we approach Easter we’ll be reflecting on the cross. Keying to the sermon series that will anchor weekly worship at PPC, we’ll daily explore why the cross mattered.

The content of these daily reflections will be largely gleaned from the works of others. So many gifted thinkers, writers and teachers have meditated on and wrestled with the meaning of the cross. On most days you’ll be given a brief excerpt along with a comment or question to help you think about what you’ve read.

And here’s an invitation: some of you may have read something about the cross that has been meaningful to you. If you know of compelling quote that you’d like to share during the course of this series, please share it in the comments section of this blog or send it to cross@peachtreepres.org. Please be sure to include your source since some of your submissions may be used in this devotional series.

These days ahead may be an Emmaus Road (Luke 24). The living Christ meets you every morning and walks with you – and along the way Jesus may help you understand more about why he suffered and died. By the time we reach Easter you’ll know it’s true: “It was meant for you.”

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, it isn’t hard for us to affirm that you died on the cross. The hard part is in understanding that you did so for us; that your death truly matters and makes a difference for people today. Guide our thinking and praying in the days ahead that we might better understand the cross. Empower us by your Spirit to live each day in gratitude for what you did on our behalf. Amen.

[1] As cited in the Winter 2008 issue of Leadership Journal, page 60.

Theology in Crayon

In the beginning God created . . . and God saw all that he had made and it was very good (Genesis 1:1, 31).

Some of the first things I ever learned to do in church were coloring, drawing and singing. That was the way I came to know who Jesus was and what it meant to be one of his followers. My teachers taught me songs – songs about how Jesus loves little children and how Zacchaeus climbed up in a tree and how the B-I-B-L-E is the book for me.

And while we were learning all those songs we made things. We colored pictures and formed things out of construction paper and Popsicle sticks. If nothing else, drawing was what I did to pass the time during my Dad’s long sermons. I didn’t draw religious images, but somehow the words of scripture and scripture stories and songs of the faith got connected with drawing – whether in Sunday school or in the pew.

Then I got older. The changes were gradual. In middle school and high school we still sang. We sang on retreats and at camp; the songs were a powerful part of our faith experience. But we didn’t color or finger paint or draw. That was for kids and it wasn’t cool.

It didn’t take long for the singing to slow to a trickle. Most of us stopped singing except for the two, maybe three, Sunday hymns. Back in the day, there were churches that had “hymn sings” on Sunday night. A few still do, but not many. Most grown-ups sing begrudgingly and self-consciously.

As for the drawing and coloring and finger painting – that became a distant memory unless you agreed to work with children in Sunday school or teach VBS. Adults abandon those creative exercises for more cerebral learning methods. We formulate discussion questions. We read a book together. We secure a guest speaker.

Seminary doesn’t help things either. The institution that conferred two theological degrees upon me was structured around three educational tracks: Theology, Church Music, and Christian Education. The running joke was that you earned a degree from the school of education by mastering skills with scissors and construction paper. Theologians didn’t have time for that kind of thing. We were too busy parsing Greek verbs and diagramming sentences.

But maybe our theology suffers for that very reason. Could it be that our doctrines are emaciated and crusty because somewhere along the way we started thinking about God without engaging the imagination? I’ve heard laments about biblical illiteracy, and I’ve spoken my own now and again. Maybe the problem isn't with people or the Bible they don't read. Maybe the teachers and preachers bear some responsibility in this. Is it possible that we’ve managed to vacuum pack our teaching? It’s tightly reasoned, but you can’t breathe in it. Perhaps some of our best theology is done in crayon.

In his book, Scribbling in the Sand, Michael Card writes,

The imagination is the bridge between the heart and the mind, integrating both, allowing us to think / understand with our hearts and feel / emote with our minds. It is a vehicle for truth. Through the use of images, metaphors, stories and paradoxes that demand our attention, it calls for interaction. The imagination is a powerful means for communicating truths about God, and so God shows an awesome regard for the imagination in his Word. (Michael Card, Scribbling in the Sand, 55)

After plenty of theological education and twenty years of ordained ministry, I’m feeling a desire to rejoin what the years have put asunder. I want to recover the connection between the arts and faith. That doesn’t mean I’ll become a painter or a sculptor or a poet – but it does mean embarking on a search for God in all of those things. I want to go back to the start of things: to the start of my own faith journey where crayons expressed a love for God and told God’s stories. And even back further than that, to the start of creation when the supreme creator looked at all the things his glorious imagination had done and said “it is good.”

Enemy of Soul

Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord! (Psalm 143:9).

David had enemies. Real enemies. The kind that lurk in the dark with both the intent and the capacity to do you harm. The kind that draw blood and leave you for dead; the kind that lie to smear your name or cheat to leave you bankrupt. There’s nothing theoretical about the damage they can do. From the moment David heard the cursing taunts of the Philistine giant, David knew he had an enemy. From the moment Saul hurled his spear at David’s singing face, David knew he had an enemy. This was simply a part of life, and he learned this early on. It never changed.

When you know you’ve got enemies you learn to keep your eyes open. You discern their presence intuitively because your life depends on it. To listen to David’s prayers it seems that he had grown adept at naming his enemies, and not just the cursing giants and half-crazed kings. David knew the insidious presence of other enemies, and we would do well to learn from him. The soul has enemies. Real enemies. And they are alive and well in metro Atlanta.

I’m reading Psalm 143 this week. There’s plenty of standard enemy language here, but reading it this morning I started to wonder about who this enemy is. What is the prayer dealing with? The enemy language blends with prayers for the well being and preservation of the soul. The soul, the deepest part of the self, is being threatened. That’s what Psalm 143 is about. Or is it? Sure, the enemy that wants to cut your throat can also play havoc with soul and spirit. Soul health isn’t abstract and ethereal. The steely blade that opens your jugular can also tear at your soul. But the language of Psalm 143 suggests a particular concern for the dangers confronted in shadowy interior places.

For the enemy has pursued my soul (v. 3)

My spirit faints within me (v. 4)

My soul thirsts for you (v. 6)

For to you I lift up my soul (v. 8)

Bring my soul out of trouble (v. 11)

Every Monday morning I meet with a group of men for prayer and talk mingled with Bible reading. Yesterday we were joined by Maqsood Kamil, the head of the Presbyterian Church in Pakistan. He is also professor of theology at the seminary in Gurjanwala. Yes, there is a seminary in Pakistan. Maqsood’s presence with us for an hour, the chance to listen to him and ask questions, this was a great gift to us. He lives his faith in a very difficult and hostile setting. He understands enemies. Real enemies.

And as he talked with us I think we all became increasingly aware of how easy it is here. We have our stories about gunmen who storm into schools and churches; we know that terrorism is a real threat in our land. But in the conduct of daily life we still assume safety. This is the “normal” we insist on maintaining even in the age of terrorism. It is an assumption so closely connected with our notions of freedom that we cannot let it go. We walk the streets and go to school and drive our roads with the assumption that we will accomplish whatever we have on our to-do list for the day.

In some ways the absence of enemies is itself our great enemy. Maqsood remarked that when every meal is provided for and easily obtained, the prayer “give us this day our daily bread” doesn’t have much meaning. Of course, we can pray it in our wealthy churches, but those who have little food, or who don’t know where a meal will come from, they pray it differently. I don’t have answers to the questions that confront the church given its affluence. Folks like Ron Sider have thought long and hard about it. Not me. I say that to my shame.

Right in the center of Psalm 143 are the words “my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.” Thirst and hunger are by definition rooted in some kind of lack, a deprivation. It may seem that in a place like Pakistan the enemy has the upper hand. Perhaps, in the land of plenty, where there is little or no hunger and thirst of soul, the enemy has in fact already won.

Yesterday in the Pew

I open my mouth and pant, longing for your commands. (Psalm 119:131)

My son wasn’t listening to the sermon. At least it didn’t appear to me that he was. I know that what he was actually hearing was probably beyond observation. My ability to fully ascertain what he’s grasping is admittedly limited. All I know is he didn’t appear to be listening. Those types of listening behaviors – clues you look for when you’re the one speaking – those acts of attention weren’t evident to me as I sat next to my son in church yesterday.

But it didn’t matter. Just before the sermon my son, along with about 50 other fourth graders, had been presented with a new Bible. We do that every year in our church. The presentation of Bibles to our fourth graders is a marker on their journey to student ministry – “youth group” as I used to call it.

Marnie and I had highlighted a verse in his Bible. So had our senior pastor and our children’s minister. The verses were not disclosed to John. This meant that during the sermon my son was foraging the pages of his new Bible looking for the verses that we had highlighted for him. During the pastor’s prayer he leaned over to me and whispered, “Where is John the Baptist born?” Maybe I should have shushed him, but I leaned over and whispered back, “It’s in Luke 1.” Safe to say my son wasn’t really praying either – not as far as I could tell.

But again, I’m not complaining about that. In fact, I’m pleased. I treasure the sight of my son rummaging through the Bible with an appetite; exploring its contents the way most of us plunder the fridge late at night. It seems that the years have a way of taking the edge off of that appetite. Sadly, it’s often the grown ups in church who most noticeably lack it.

These days I’m learning a little more about prayer with the help of a Methodist pastor, Thomas Steagald, and his fine book Praying for Dear Life. A couple of days ago I read a passage in which he describes coming to the pages of scripture in the practice of midday prayer. Steagald writes:

I open my Bible to near the middle, but very gently as the gold-edged pages that faithfully cradle these good psalms have all but lost their grip on the binding’s spine. I have turned to these pages so often, and most often when I needed a word only this Word could provide, that they are wounded for my many transgressions and bruised with my iniquities. Some verses I have highlighted so many times and in so many different colors that the pages seem to have developed age spots. Other places the pages are all but sliced through on account of my many underlines, but by these stripes I have been healed time and time again. My Bible: a suffering servant. (Steagald, Praying for Dear Life, 109).

The passage reminds me of a quip Vic, our senior pastor, likes to use when he presents Bibles to children. “Worn out Bibles belong to people who aren’t.”

So I don’t know how much of the sermon my son heard yesterday (and his Mom was preaching!). But I think of that powerful image of a worn and fragile Bible. A Bible weary with use. I pray that someday my son will own a Bible like that. And maybe someday, by grace, I will too.

Losing It

After yesterday's post I received an email from someone asking, "what was Moses' 'one rash act act of disobedience'." Good question. The story is in Numbers 20. Last summer during the series of meditations on the Fruit of the Spirit, I wrote about this story with a view toward the matter of self-control. As the Moses series ends, I thought it might be worth posting here.

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Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank (Numbers 20:11).

For the rest of his life he would remember that moment; he would play it in his mind again and again with a faint hope that at the critical juncture something else might happen and the story would unfold differently. It never did. No matter how deeply we reach into our memory we can never grasp a moment and change it. Pictures of time can be retrieved; time itself cannot.

Were Moses here to tell us the story he might explain to us that he simply ‘lost it.’ The quarreling and complaining had become too much. This time it was the lack of water that provoked grumbling and accusation from among the people. “Why did you bring us out here to die?” Moses handled the situation wisely. He laid the matter before God, and there at the tent of meeting God assured Moses and Aaron that he would provide water for the people, and he told them what to do.

But even after his prayer session, Moses was wound tight, edgy and seething. God had told Moses to speak to the rock and the water would flow. But Moses lost it. He lashed out at the ingrates, named them for the rebels they were, and then he raised his staff and swung it twice against the rock with a sharp slap. And from the rock grace flowed, gushed wet and abundant for the people to drink.

As the water made mud on the dry earth and people cupped their hands beneath the impossible fountain, something inside Moses dried up, shriveled and twisted. He knew the moment had unfolded badly; the great irony was that now Moses was the rebel. God had said ‘speak’ but Moses had felt compelled to ‘strike.’ What should have been an act of obedience had become a loss of self-control.

This story has always troubled me because of its consequences. Moses was told he would not be allowed to enter the land God had promised. After the burning bush, after ten plagues in Egypt, after the waters parting at the Red Sea, after the manna and the quail, Moses was not permitted to cross the finish line. And all because of that moment; the moment of lost self-control, losing it with the people and taking it out with a stick on a rock.

All of us have had moments when we lost it; did something we wish we’d thought about before we did it; said something we shouldn’t have said; spouting off, lashing out, knee-jerk reactions. Every one of us knows what that’s like. This story tells us honestly that lost self-control has consequences, but it is not a story about punishment. If anything we see that God remains faithful. God gives water. God continues to lead the people and fulfill the promise made to them.

This story is a story about trust. What God says to Moses is “you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites” (Nu. 20:12). At root, self-control is about trusting God. Self –control asks “can I stay out of the way long enough for God to act in this situation . . . Can I hold my tongue, can I get a grip on my anger, can I stop indulging this fantasy?” To say “yes” in that moment honors God as holy.

For Today: In what area of your life are you most often tempted to ‘lose it’? What will it mean for you to trust God with that part of your life today?

Prayer: Gracious God, I want my life to show that you are worthy of trust; I want to live every detail of this day knowing that you really have everything under your control. Knowing that your control is sure, my self-control is then possible. Help me to live this way today. Amen.

Two Endings

Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo . . . there the Lord showed him the whole land . . . “I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.” And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said (Deuteronomy 34: 1, 4-5).

The Moses series ends this Sunday, and I’ve got to be honest. I wish the whole thing ended better.

The sermon series itself has been a great ride. We’ve been included in the Exodus journey, feeling the heat of the walk, the fear of leaving the familiar, the gratitude for daily bread, the challenge to live well and whole in response to God who delivers us. The series will conclude on Sunday morning with robust worship, Dr. Vic Pentz and Rev. Marnie Crumpler preaching, and then at 4:00 that afternoon with children telling the Moses story in song as they present Moses and the Freedom Fanatics.

The Moses series will end well. The Moses story ends on a less celebratory note.

There’s something tortuous, almost cruel, about what happens on Mount Nebo (Deut. 34). Moses climbs the mountain alone, a solitary figure ascending with God, ascending to God, as he has done before. Only this time he will not be returning. He will not make the climb back down to speak God’s words to the people. From the top of this mountain God allows Moses to see what the past forty years have aimed at. Moses is shown what his heart has yearned for, what his mind has dreamed of. Moses is shown what he will not be allowed to have. His eyes see the Promised Land, but he will not enter it. One impulsive act of disobedience and this is his sentence.

Except for the death part, some of you know exactly what it’s like to be on Mount Nebo. You know what it’s like to want something, to plan and dream and work and pray for it – and oh how you’ve prayed - only to have it denied you. A promotion, a family of your own, plans for retirement, a winning season, children who call you occasionally. Sometimes we stand on Mount Nebo and see what will not be. As we say, “It ain’t happnin’.”

I’m reading a book on prayer that has just gone out of print. This morning I found the author’s blog site and read a post he had written about the dismal sales of his book. He used the word “heartbroken.” He had poured himself into that work, rejoiced at its publication, only to see it crater badly. That’s a Mount Nebo moment.

But the ending of the Moses story reveals a tragedy far greater than what happens on Mount Nebo. The greater tragedy is what happens down below and in the land that people eventually enter. God had told Moses, “Once you’ve died and these people enter the land, they’ll start chasing other gods. They’ll keep repeating their same stubborn faithless mistakes” (Deut. 31:16).

That Moses dies on Mount Nebo without entering the land is a major disappointment, but it isn’t as tragic as it seems. Moses ends his days in God’s tender presence, buried by God. Not bad. The real tragedy is the other ending. Tragedy is getting what you’ve always wanted and then forgetting the God who gave it to you.

These weeks of keeping company with Moses have really been about keeping company with God. To keep company with God means we’ll participate in what God is doing in this world. In the end, that’s what living is all about. In the end, that’s all that matters.

Prayer:
“Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom. May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us.” Amen (Psalm 90:1-2, 12, 17).

Distance and Darkness

The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was (Exodus 20:21).

So the Ten Commandments are an invitation; God’s invitation to a life lived well and whole. The Ten Commandments bring us into dialogue with the God who has claimed us and delivered us from those things that held us captive. That’s been the core of the message we’ve gleaned from the Ten Commandments so far this week.

But one can’t help but notice that when the commandments were given, they didn’t seem too effective in drawing people closer to their God. The people remain at a distance. They want Moses to be a mediator – a buffer between them and the God whose voice they fear. To say that the commandments are an invitation sounds nice, but there’s not much happening on Mt. Sinai that looks cozy and affectionate.

In the commandments God has spoken to us. When it comes to our response it seems we have two choices. We can remain at a distance, or like Moses we can approach the thick darkness where God is.

Finding God in the thick darkness is hard for us. Maybe we prefer to stand off, hearing the commandments, doing our best to keep as many of them as we can, but never dealing with God. Maybe we’re not sure that God exists in those dark places. We’re afraid we’ll approach only to find God isn’t there.

We’re not so different from the Israelites. They much preferred a god they could see, a god who would go before them in way that made sense. A manageable deity. That’s why they melted their jewelry and fashioned a calf. That, as we saw, was a big mistake.

But God can’t be managed. We don’t figure God out. We can’t live a life a faith and bleach the mystery out of it, try as we might. We either stand at a distance, or we draw near and approach the unknown and unseen, finding God in the dark places of our lives.

Maybe you’re familiar with thick darkness. Those moments when you have no idea what’s next or what you’ll find tomorrow. Sometimes the darkness settles on you like a mist or it seizes you like cellophane around your face.

But the thick darkness is where God is. Don’t be content to stand at a distance.

Prayer:
God of light, you conceal yourself at times in dark places. Help us to find you there. We don’t want to stand a distance. Make us bold in approaching you with every circumstance of life, and grant to us the light needed to live this day. Amen.

Six Words

“I am the Lord your God . . .” (Exodus 20:2)

Economy of words is a daily struggle for me. And I mean daily. If you receive these reflections each morning there’s a good chance that the first thing you do is scan your screen, sizing up the length of the piece. Maybe you read. Maybe you move the cursor to that little ‘x’ in the upper right hand corner of your screen, planning to come back later. Maybe you simply ‘delete.’ My defense: I really do try. My confession: I’m prone to wordiness.

Deeply aware of my lack of verbal restraint, I was fascinated by an AJC article about a book titled Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. The book is co-authored / edited by Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser. The premise of the book is simple: People were invited to write their life story in six words. That’s it. More than 15,000 submissions were received. It’s surprising what you can say in six words.

Some of the responses, as you might expect, were quite amusing:
New Jersey to California: thank God.
Became my mother. Please shoot me.
It was embarrassing so don’t ask
It’s pretty high. You go first.
I think. Therefore I am bald.
Made a mess. Cleaned it up.
Must remember: People, gadgets. That order.

Others were not so amusing. Six words can cut deep.
Found true love. Married someone else.
Was father, boys died, still sad.

Old Testament scholarship has given us an impressive word for the Ten Commandments: the “Decalogue.” Decalogue literally means “ten words.” The Ten Commandments are God’s ten words to us – ten words that capture what life looks like when it is lived well. The first half of the Decalogue talks about life before God. The second half deals with life with our neighbors and families. Naturally, we are inclined to give our attention to these ten words because they tell us what to do, how to behave.

But before being told what to do we are reminded to whom we belong. In the English Bible, God did that with six words: “I am the Lord you God.” Before we get to the ten words, we get six words that define and shape all that follows. Yes, the ten words are important, critical even. But if we skip the six words, we won’t understand the ten.

These six words tell us that God isn’t giving us rules so that we can become his people. God is inviting us to live life whole and well because we are his people. Maybe God’s message to us in the commandments can be captured with these six words: “You belong to me. Live well.”

And with that, I’ve said enough.

Prayer:
Gracious God, remind us today that we belong to you – not because we have behaved well, but because you have loved us freely. Empower us by your Spirit to live well; to live in accordance with your words to us; to live every moment of this day so that you will be pleased and honored in all things. Amen.

Learning Our Lines

They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen, but do not have God speak to us or we will die” (Exodus 20:19).

My ten year old son is learning Shakespeare. He’s doing “The Tempest” in his drama class at school and he has the role of Prospero. I just finished helping him go over his lines for scene 10. I’ve got to admit I’m impressed, and not just in that proud father kind of way. I majored in English literature back in my college days, might have read some Shakespeare in high school, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t know who the man was when I was ten years old.

My son’s script may be to Shakespearean English what the Living Bible is to the King James Version – but still . . . we were working with words like “bedimmed” and “abjure.” That’s Shakespearean enough for me. My own enthusiasm for words might have gotten in the way of our rehearsal time. I kept asking John if he understood what “bedimmed” meant. I took a dictionary and had him look up the word “abjure.” It was plain to me that my interest in such matters far exceeded his.

John just wanted to go over the lines. And not all the lines. Just his lines. This was interesting to me for two reasons. First, it was clear that he was simply trying to meet the bare minimum study requirement: 15 minutes of script review. Second, meeting that 15 minute requirement didn’t allow for context. Skip the dialog. The fullness of the conversation was sacrificed on the altar of time efficiency. Just 15 minutes with the lines, that’s it.

Say “The Ten Commandments” and most people see lines; lines chiseled in stone. The lines are written in all caps as if God was shouting English at Moses. Each line is designated by a foreboding Roman numeral. What God expects, we assume, is that we will learn these lines. Learn them well and then do them.

And so we try. But we do it the way my ten year old son does Shakespeare. We set about learning our lines without the trouble of the whole dialog. Just give us our lines. Just tell us what we need to do to be decent people.

What God had in mind goes beyond that. The Ten Commandments aren’t simply lines we learn, but our place in a dialog. Oddly, we learn the commandments, but these are God’s words. God speaks, and we live in response to what we hear. The Ten Commandments cannot be understood apart from this dialog; like it or not, we’re involved in a conversation.

To truly know the Ten Commandments, to learn our lines well, we’ll need to do more than just read. We’ll need a discipline that goes beyond memorization. To know our lines we’ll need a dialogue, a conversation with the God who authored these lines.

Maybe people who best know the Ten Commandments are not those who behave well, but those people who pray honestly. We learn our lines by listening. Read the Ten Commandments again, but this time hold conversation with God as you read. God isn’t barking orders; you’re not memorizing rules. The Commandments are an invitation to dialog. The way you live this day is your chance to be a part of the conversation.

Prayer:
There are times, Lord, when following the rules seems easier than dealing with you as an active presence in our lives. But you give us more than rules. You invite is to join you in your very life, your work in the world. We thank you for the lines you gave us through Moses. Help us today to listen to them, to learn them, and to live in response to what we hear. Amen.

Said and Heard

And God spoke all these words. . . (Exodus 20:1)

You said one thing. Something else was heard.

Ever had that happen? That gap between what was intended and what was interpreted, that hairline fracture between what was offered and what was received, that tiny little space is plenty of room for hurt feelings to breed and fester into full blown alienation.

Spoken to the driver: “Why did you go that way?”

Heard by driver: “This was a bad choice and you’re stupid for choosing this route.”

Spoken to cook: “How long did you grill the burgers?”

Heard by cook: “You messed up my meal.”

Spoken to spouse: “Is that what you’re wearing to the party?”

Heard by spouse: “You don’t so look good in that.”

Of course, not every conversation is marred with these miscues. There are plenty of times when what was meant is what was sent, and what was sent hits the bulls-eye. But the ease with which we miss each other is remarkable. The slightest expression, a peculiar tone of voice, a question asked with implications attached – next thing you know someone is withdrawn and quiet or defensive and combative.

And if this kind of thing happens so easily with the person who lives under my roof or offices just down the hall, how much easier does it happen with God? So it is with the commonly known mantra that designates the Ten Commandments: “You Shall Not.”

Our first mistake is thinking of the commandments as being framed entirely in the negative – no, don’t, can’t. But the greater error has to do with how our perception of the commandments shapes our thinking about God. The prohibitive rules come from an angry God, or so it seems. In his book The Ten(der) Commandments, Ron Mehl makes a case for understanding the Ten Commandments as an expression of God’s love for us. Mehl is fighting an uphill battle, and he knows it. He writes

Some people, of course imagine it to be the exact opposite. They don’t hear love in these statements at all. What do they hear? They hear the clank of chains and the rattle of padlocks (p.15).

In the Ten Commandments God said one thing. We tend to hear something else. God spoke love. We hear anger. God gave a gift. We sense God taking something from us.
God intended to give the keys to wholeness. We feel the weight of guilt.

God spoke all these words. The question is how do you hear what God has spoken?

Prayer:
We give you thanks, O God, for you great love and for the variety of ways in which your love is shown to us. You provide for our needs. You lead us out of difficult situations. You hear our prayers. And you tell us how to live. You instruct is in the art of living well. Help us to hear your instruction as you intend it to be heard, as an expression of your love. And help us to love you in return by following what we hear. Amen

Trust Fund

So Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar and put an omer of manna in it. Then place it before the Lord to be kept for generations to come” (Exodus 16:33).

I’m trust impaired. My beliefs are built on terra firma, anchored by two degrees from a seminary and a decent grasp of biblical theology. Raised with the sights and sounds and songs of the Church as a natural habitat, believing comes fairly easily. But trusting is a different matter. Honestly, there are times when I wish I didn’t have to trust God – or that I could at least pass enough trust-tests to graduate, putting the struggle to trust behind me. But that’s not going to happen.

If we look at the story of the Exodus with a wide angle lens we’ll begin to see that trusting God is never an accomplishment; God’s people never seem to master the simple act of trusting. When God rains manna from heaven the shower falls after the repeated demonstrations of power in the plagues. The people grumble after the parting of the Red Sea. They go out to gather the daily bread after God has turned the bitter waters to sweet at a place called Marah. They’ve been well schooled in God’s sufficiency. Still they are slow to learn. Even after the gift of manna and quail they will grumble again – this time about what they’ll drink. They’ve walked a long way, but they haven’t come very far. Not where it really counts.

The apostle Paul made a statement in his letter to the Philippians that suggests that believing is a gift. “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him” (Philippians 1:29). Belief is granted to us; it is a gift. But trust is learned. Every day presents us with moments and circumstances and events that confront us with a basic question: can God be trusted? Every day gives us a new chance to answer the question. Last year’s answer doesn’t carry over to this moment. We practice trust continually. Hopefully, from year to year, we’re learning how to trust God more. God is a patient teacher.

Moses told Aaron to keep a jar of manna. Typically, canned manna would rot – but not this time. This handful of heaven’s bread would be kept for generations to come. It would remind the people of how God provided, of how God came through when they thought they would starve, of how God showed mercy when they grumbled. This jar of manna would be an object lesson in teaching trust, long after the wilderness journey was over and Moses and Aaron and every desert pilgrim was gone.

That’s not a bad idea, keeping a jar filled with the memory of God’s faithfulness. Maybe your jar isn’t glass or pottery, just a collection of stories and memories that you keep and pass on to the next generation. What kinds of stories do you tell to show your children and grandchildren that God can be trusted? Every such experience that you treasure up and pass on is a kind of trust fund. A reservoir of trust and faith. What are you passing on to the generations to come?

Prayer:
Faithful God, the question comes to us again today: will we trust you? We give you thanks that you know even now where we struggle to trust. You know what we fear, what we desperately try to manage. We also thank you for patiently teaching us that you can be trusted. Help us to rest in you with the details of this coming day. We will remember your faithfulness and tell it to the generations to come. Amen.

Be Mine

“Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none. Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions?” (Exodus 16:27-28)

Printed on candies and cards, exchanged in classrooms and carried home in decorated paper sacks, this little message is arguably the central theme of the Bible.

God created us to be his own. This isn’t a complicated arrangement. “You will be my people and I will be your God.” That was the design from the very start.

But that didn’t sit well with us. We chaffed at the idea of “belonging” to anything or anyone but ourselves. “I am my own,” sounded far more appealing. Words like “master of my fate, captain of my ship” sounded high and noble and enlightened. So this is what we chose. It happened quickly in the biblical story; first book, third chapter.

And the rest of the biblical story is about God’s ongoing endeavor to bring us back to himself.

“Be mine” God said as he led his people out of slavery in Egypt.

“Be mine” God said as he parted the Red Sea.

“Be mine” God said as he rained manna from heaven each morning.

“Be mine” God said as he gave them water from the rock.

“Be mine” God said as he gave them his law and showed them the best way to live life.

“Be mine” God said with every prophet.

“Be mine” God said in his son Jesus.

“Be mine” God said finally and definitively from the cross and the empty tomb.

And someday, when the final pages of this story are being turned and every element of tension and discord in the plot is finding resolution, God will say “You’re mine” and people from every tribe and tongue will respond with sung exultations, “Indeed, we are yours.”

Prayer:
“Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture . . . for the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” Amen (Psalm 100:2-5)

Tested

“. . . The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions” (Exodus 16:4b).

The tests don’t stop after school. Even after we earn that final degree, life has a way of giving us the “third degree.” If you’re out of school you know this. Those still in school may know it, but are still refusing to believe it. We’d like to think that someday the tests will end. But they don’t; professional certifications tests, annual reviews with a supervisor, blood tests and eye exams as we age. Every test bumps our anxiety up a notch. At every stage of life, in every setting, the same old question lingers. Did I pass?

We associate testing with struggle, even pain. The exertion of sustained mental energy involved in study, the mixture of affirmation with blunt feedback about our work – tests are generally unpleasant. And when it’s God testing us, we assume this means suffering. God tested Job and we know what happened to him.

But God surprises us as we join the Israelites and make the wilderness journey out of Egypt. There in the desert God tested his people by “raining” blessing upon them. Literally. God told Moses “I will rain down bread from heaven for you.” Part of the surprise, as we saw yesterday, is that God responds this way to a people who grumble against him. But even more surprising is the fact that this shower of blessing is given not simply to ease their hunger; it is more than a cause of joy and relief and celebration. It’s a test.

Sometimes God tests us with blessing. Sometimes God tests us not by inflicting pain, but by providing for our comfort. Sometimes we are tested not by loss and deprivation, but by the abundance we receive. So it was in the desert. God rained down bread for his people. “In this way I will test them.”

Every good gift that God gives us brings with it a test. With every blessing something is at stake. The test is basically this: will we treasure God more than we treasure God’s gifts? Sounds simple, but this test isn’t easy. In fact, most of us will fail it a time or two, maybe more. Our hearts have a hard time with this test, the same way our minds might have a hard time with organic chemistry.

This test isn’t asking us about our thoughts or our beliefs or our worldview – it’s asking about our hearts and what we truly love. Do we love God or do we love what God gives us? Will we honor God by being obedient to his word, or will we simply rush out and cram our tents full of food so we won’t get hungry again?

God tested his people with bread in the desert. When you’re stomach is growling, sick on empty, that’s a hard test to pass. Will the bread simply be a way for me to sate my hunger? Will the bread move me to love and worship God, the bread maker, the bread giver?

Prayer:
We give you thanks, Gracious God, for the abundance of blessing that you rain down on us. Your gifts speak to us of your goodness and the depths of your love. May our love for you grow with every blessing we receive. Guard our hearts from becoming attached to the comforts of this life – as if you owe us these things or as if we deserve them. Make us a people who treasure you and worship you above all earthly gifts. Amen.

Grace and Grumbling

The Lord said to Moses, “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites . . .” (Exodus 16:11-12)

How long did it take? At first there were only whispers. Murmurs exchanged in private conversation. Everyone was thinking the same thing but words were still being carefully guarded, remarks tempered and measured.

Finally the whispers gave way to openly shared “prayer concerns” as small groups of Hebrews gathered in tents for times of mutual support; group members nodding their concern over the shrinking food supply. Eventually, well, forget about those piously spoken prayer concerns. They’d had enough. The whispers were now full blown complaints. The people grumbled, their words a blend of venomous accusation and pathetic whining.

As much as I hate to admit it, I’m a skilled grumbler. Raised in the South, I am practiced at grumbling with a polite smile. I’ve grown adept with remarks spoken sideways, slipped in with just enough edge to scrape without drawing blood. I know how to lob a comment into mid-air, aimed at no one in particular, a hail-Mary kind of sentence thrown out for anyone willing to reach up and grab it. My grumblings often begin in silence. They don’t stay that way for long. They morph into innuendo and interrogative. Finally they bloom as bald complaint. Usually my wife is the lucky audience in these moments.

Please understand. I don’t grumble all the time, just enough to keep my skills sharp. From time to time a circumstance arises that can easily be blown out of proportion or obsessed over until the grumbling bubbles to the surface. Maybe you struggle with this too. Scripture tells us to give thanks in everything, but gratitude and grumbling compete for air time. Too often gratitude loses.

Amazingly, the same God who hears the cries of his people in Exodus 3 also hears their grumbling in Exodus 16 – and responds to both with grace. The cries of the people reached God and God delivered them from slavery. Their grumbling also reached God, and God gave food, manna in the morning and quail in the evening, day after day.

The story of how the people grumbled in their hunger is not meant to show the pettiness of the people. This is a story that shows us the mercy of God. We can understand how the cries lifted up in slavery would move God to mercy – but the grumbling? Still, the response is the same. “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites.” And God gave them food. As the Psalmist says, “God spread a table in the desert” (Psalm 78:19).

Why does God tolerate our grumbling? Why does God agree to fill his people with heaven’s bread? Here’s why: “Then you will know that I am the Lord your God” (Ex. 16:12).

God’s intent is clear, whether we’re grateful or grumbling. God wants us to know who he is, and to know ourselves as a people belonging to God. There’s plenty of grace even in our grumbling; we get what we don’t deserve. And maybe, we get more of God.

Prayer:
I ask you, O God, to make me grateful and forgive my grumbling. Teach me to look for you – not only in the blessings you give, but in the disappointments as well. Reveal yourself to me, even as I complain. As I learn more of you, may grumbling fade and every part of my life be a response to your goodness and grace. Amen.