The Championship

I’m a ball park Pharisee. It’s not about the rules and making sure everyone keeps them. I’m not that kind of Pharisee. In fact, I neither know nor understand all the rules of baseball. My Pharisee-ism is of a different kind. It’s the kind that Jesus described when he told the story about those two men who had gone to the temple to pray. One of them – a Pharisee – built his prayer around this theme: “Lord, I’m glad I’m not like other people.”

That’s me at the ballpark when my son’s team is playing. I remain calm as other parents scream – sometimes at their kids – and get all worked up. I try to rise above the fray and say to myself “I’m glad I’m not like that.”

But the truth is, I am like that. I’m just not loud about it. That truth became very real to me a few days ago as my son’s baseball team played for the championship of his league. I didn’t change my behavior and suddenly get loud and frantic as if college scouts were secretly seated in the stands and my son’s future hung on this one game. I retained my even keeled demeanor. But what a hypocrite I am. Inside I could feel my vital organs convulsing every time my son took the field and every time he stepped up to the plate to bat.

As I sat there I became aware of how emotionally involved I had become in this game and in my son’s performance. It wasn’t the first time I had felt that way at one of his games. But for just a moment I wondered about this unseen thing that transpires between parents and players, between fathers and sons.

There was moment in the game when I realized that whatever this unseen thing is, it is at some level an exchange of questions: the child asking one kind of question, the parent answering with another kind of question.

An error was made in the field. I don’t even remember what it was – a missed grounder, a bad throw to second. Interestingly, it seemed so critical at the time but it hardly matters now. Of greater significance than the play was what happened for just a moment after the play had ended. I saw the player look over to where his dad was standing. It was a short glance, not the kind where the parent is trying to coach or encourage. It was the kind of look that asked a silent question: “Am I o.k? What do you think of me?”

How often does that question get asked from the field? How often does the question get asked in other places? How frequently do our sons look to us to know if they’re o.k., if we approve of them? John Eldredge says that every boy needs to know that that they have what it takes, and the person who can best tell them that they do is their father.

That quick glance from the field nags at me. I wonder if my own son has glanced my way, perhaps when I wasn’t looking. I don’t know what that young baseball player saw the other day, but I would hope that that kind of glance and the question it carries would always be met with another question. We look back at our sons and ask “do you know how proud I am of you?” “Do you know how glad I am that you are my son?” “Do you know how much I love you?”

There are plenty of us that look to God mainly out of our awareness of our failures, the mistakes we’ve made, the play we missed. For whatever reason, some see God’s response as stern and demanding and the essence of life before this God is about playing flawlessly.

But maybe, when we look to God out of our failure, God answers us with this question: “do you see what I see in you? Do you know how much I love you?”

John’s team won their game – a high moment for players and certainly for the parents. They are champs. The season may be over, but those questions are still exchanged. When my son looks to me, what do I reflect back to him? Is it about the scoreboard or the well executed play? I’ve not always answered him well – but I hope that somehow when he glances my way he’ll know good news. Love isn’t earned by always getting it right. Love is simply there. This is the gospel.

"When I get to college I am so totally going to jump on my bed"

Marnie has been in Cuba on a mission trip since last Friday. She comes home today (praise God!!). I think everyone is ready for Mom to come home. I'm certain I am, and I'm just as certain that my kids are too.

Last night was one of those moments when I could sense that my needle had dropped below "E." The patience well was bone dry and the presenting issue that revealed this was my daughter jumping on her bed. I know . . . this is somethng that kids do, and I'm not above tolerating a little delightful bouncing just before bedtime. But last night I simply wasn't inclined to let it happen.

I made that very clear to my daughter. Very clear. At least I thought it was clear. To my surprise, she didn't get it right away. This evoked more clarification from me - driving my point home with more volume and intensity just to make sure the message got through.

She got it. She stopped bouncing - but then she came out with this unforgettable line that cracked me up (the silent, inward, parent-only kind of cracking up of course). She said, "when I get to college I am so totally going to jump on my bed."

My kids are beginning to understand that "college" means living away from mom and dad. This is a little disturbing to me in that they are only 6 and 8 years old. But Anna's declaration showed me something about how she views who she will be when it is time to leave home. She is taking the present and simply projecting it into the future. Thus, being at college will mean being able to jump on her bed. She might jump on her bed at college . . . who knows. But I doubt it will mean as much to her then as it does right now.

Do we ever outgrow Anna's way of thinking? All of this makes me wonder about who we are becoming, how we see ourselves now and what we expect of ourselves in ten years or so. And how does that compare with what God the Father knows about us and what God intends for us to be? Spiritually, do we think that the greatest thing for us could be an unhindered ability to jump on the bed (whatever that might be), or do we see that as we grow in Christ, that which seems so important now might become less so. We just might take on the mind of Christ. The image of Christ might actually be formed in us so that we are truly transformed? Is it possible that faithful church-going people stop paying attention to their own transformation, as if warming a pew and sitting on a committee is really what Jesus had in mind for us?

I don't think I'll ever forget that line from last night. I hope I won't. Even at this very moment I can see the day when we'll load Anna's things and taker her to college. We'll meet her roomate and help as much as we can until we sense a readiness in her that tells us it's time for us to go. And just before we leave I imagine glancing at her bed, and looking at the young woman she is becoming, and remembering the night before Mom came home from Cuba.

While Standing in Line at McDonald's

So last week we had a tough morning getting out of the house in a timely manner. This meant that in order to drop the kids off in the carpool line without having to walk in to the office and sign them in as “late,” I left the house without eating breakfast. This is never a good thing for me because as soon as van door slides shut and the kids are sprinting to their classrooms with backpacks bouncing from their shoulders, I start thinking about putting something on my stomach to absorb the pot of coffee I’ve managed to down. Almost always I end up at the McDonald’s not far from the school. Sometimes I have a few bucks in my pocket, sometimes I scrape together just enough from the floor of the van and the change holder beneath the AC dials. I’m not especially proud of this – but see my post below of 2/10/06. All that stuff about lousy eating is true.

But I’m not telling this to talk about food or eating habits. On this particular morning, the real take-away from the visit to McDonald’s was a sign that was posted alongside the menu. It was on a plain white sheet of paper in a large black font, all caps. It read “PLEASE REFRAIN FROM TALKING ON THE CELL PHONE WHILE CONDUCTING BUSINESS AT THE COUNTER.”

This was interesting, provocative even. McDonald’s is a fast food restaurant . . . .fast food. And yet, the management of this particular McDonald’s felt compelled to instruct us to not use cell phones while ordering our # 2 combo meals. We can’t slow down enough to get our fast food. The time we’re supposedly saving by stopping at Mickey D’s isn’t enough. We need to keep multi-tasking, staying after it, getting it done, whatever “it” might be.

Just the day before I had read a wonderful story from Mark Buchanan’s latest book, The Rest of God - a book about Sabbath keeping. He tells about his wife’s grandmother, who lived in a gold-mining town. She had a very large stone in her garden and she regularly polished it, reasoning that since it couldn’t be moved it could made to look decent and thus beautify the garden.

On one occasion while polishing the stone, she noticed the slightest smear of something goldish. She touched it with her finger and saw on her fingertip a caking of gold dust. She felt a rush of adrenaline and began to polish the stone feverishly, scrubbing and scrubbing, seeing the gold dust accumulate more and more. After a few minutes she stopped for a break and as she wiped her brow she noticed that her wedding band was lopsided, thick and full on one side, thin and skinny on the underside – the part she had been rubbing against the stone. She had been sanding away her wedding band, chasing a treasure that didn’t exist while destroying a treasure she already had.

That’s the way too many of us live. That’s why a McDonald’s manager feels the need to discourage cell phone use as we order our fast food. What we know as fast isn’t fast enough. We’ve got to move faster, got to do more. We chase an elusive treasure and in doing so lose the treasures we already have.

Reflecting on those experiences from last week sent me searching for a Robert Frost poem that I’ve liked for a long time but had forgotten about. It’s called “A Time to Talk.”

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, “What is it?”
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall,
For a friendly visit.

Sadly, there isn’t time to talk, at least not enough time. We live our days looking around on the hills we haven’t hoed, the things left undone that whisper incessantly for our attention. We shout at interruptions, “What is it?” What now?”

Jesus seemed always ready to thrust his hoe in the ground, always willing to make his way to the stone wall for a visit. He stopped in crowds when someone had touched his garment; he heard the shouts of a blind man sitting on the curb, on the margins of the street traffic and action. Jesus stops and calls him over; calls the one to whom I might have said, “What is it?” What now?”

I’d like to live that way. Maybe a place to start is simply in making enough time to actually eat breakfast at home with my children; to begin the day by making my way to a table for a friendly visit.

Astonished

When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13 NIV).

At some point during my first two years of college I discovered C. S. Lewis. That is, I discovered Lewis for myself – learned that such a man had actually existed. I might have heard of him before that, I don’t know. If so, I hadn’t paid attention. But somewhere between 1980 and 1982 I actually held a book in my hands and read words that he had written.

This was important because it was right about this time that the Christianity that had come to me in childhood Sunday school classes, Vacation Bible School, and summer youth camp experiences was no longer working. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. It just wasn’t working. It was as if I was away at college trying to wear a favorite jacket that had been given to me when I was nine and then altered somewhat when I hit the ninth grade. It was threadbare. It didn’t fit me. It wasn’t working.

And then I listened for the first time to C. S. Lewis. It wasn’t Lewis himself or some idea I found in him that gripped me. I think what happened was for the first time I heard someone thinking hard about the faith. Here was a man asking hard questions, looking at objections, offering a cogent defense of all that I had known since Sunday School and VBS and youth camp. That started me down road that led to plenty of others who were thinking about faith and thinking about the scriptures.

Thinking became important.

It still is. I continue to hold in very high esteem those Christians who blend passionate faith with the life of the mind. I’m amazed at the collection of Calvin’s commentaries that sit on my bookshelf – all that careful reflection on the bible written down without a laptop. I marvel at Jonathan Edwards’ pastoral exploration of true signs of grace in Religious Affections. I wonder how he was able to pastor a congregation and spend 13 hours a day in his study. And my admiration isn’t reserved for analytical types only. The pastor poets John Donne and George Herbert merit deep respect as well.

Maybe because these figures from Christian history, as well as so many of my own pastors and professors, have impressed me and influenced me in some way, the statement about Peter and John in Acts 4:13 hit me in a fresh way recently. After healing a crippled man at one of the temple gates, these two preachers are arrested. The day after, they are hauled before the official religious leaders and there they present a powerful and defiant defense. As they do so, their accusers are astonished. They note that these men are not educated. They have no credentials to boast of. They are “common men” (ESV). But what they also recognize clearly is that these men “had been with Jesus.”

I’ve been astonished by great learning. For that reason, I’ve often wished I could astonish others with great learning – or at least the very modest degree of learning I’ve attained. But those who examined and grilled Peter and John were astonished for the exact opposite reason. These men are not educated – but they’ve been with Jesus.

Calvin Miller once remarked that his seminary diplomas “say in bold gothic script that I cannot be arrested for impersonating a preacher.” At one point in his own ministry he felt led of the Spirit to remove his diplomas from the wall and stick them away somewhere until they became less important to him.

Some people – certainly not all - might be impressed by a diploma, but they won’t be astonished. Degrees conferred by the academy may elicit envy or admiration, but not astonishment. The kind of astonishment Peter and John evoked came from something that was not obtained in a book. It wasn’t learning as much as it was insight and wisdom and power. Those things can’t be had by reading, at least not reading in and of itself. Those things come from listening; listening to the voice of Jesus, the whisperings of the Spirit.

It occurs to me now that the learned people who have astonished me were also people who listened as much as they read. What I know about myself is that I live perpetually frustrated at my lack of time to read. But what if I had more time, or made more time to read? So what? If there’s no listening, then “all is vanity.” “Vanity” in every sense: both empty and conceited.

“We don’t have silver and gold, but what we do have we’ll give to you.” Those were the words that landed Peter and John in trouble to begin with. What powerful words. And how fortunate for the cripple at the gate (and for us) that they didn’t follow those words by reading a book to him. They simply spoke the name of Jesus and made the man walk.

That’s more than impressive. That’s astonishing.

For My Wife, February 14, 2006

OVER TABLES

On that day the table was rustic, rough hewn
in a Texas pub made to look like England you asked
“what are you passionate about?”
I was surprised, slow to answer.

On this day the answers hid beneath our covers
shouted “boo!” at me and jumped
from the van, eager to fill the bag and box you tenderly
prepared between “Arthur” and breakfast, running to gather
paper expressions of love in containers made by love.

We sit at table still.
Conference table by morning, dinner table by night
and I hear your question again and look at you and
know my answer without hesitation.

A Drive-thru Diet of Bible: Reflections on "Eat This Book"

I’m a lousy eater. It’s true in the most obvious and plain sense conveyed by those words. My eating habits were formed in the south. I love anything fried, lots of carbs. Gravy can be appropriately slathered on just about anything – especially biscuits. If it’s not good for me, I probably love it.

Eugene Peterson has helped me see that I don’t do much better when it comes to the Bible. His recent release, Eat This Book, seizes upon an image used in scripture for taking in the word of God. The prophet Ezekiel stands out among those who were commanded to “eat” God’s word. God’s call to Ezekiel involved a vision – a hand outstretched, holding a scroll. The Lord commands Ezekiel, “eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll and go speak to the house of Israel” (Ezekiel 3:1-3).

Peterson explores this metaphor thoroughly – literally chews it up. To read the book is to actually observe him doing the very thing he’s writing about.

I love the book, but I come away knowing I’m a lousy eater. Too often, I deal with scripture like I deal with meals. I eat on the run. I eat late when I’m tired. I eat the fast stuff as much or more than I eat something carefully prepared. I gravitate toward certain things.

Listening to Peterson is like having a doctor tell me some really bad news about stuff that’s collecting in my veins, conspiring to keep me from ever meeting my grandchildren or seeing my kids get out of college. Any idea I might have had about things not really being quite that bad in my scripture diet (after all, I’m a pastor!) was dispelled when my bible reading plan took me through Exodus – right at the same time I’m getting the tough reality check from Peterson.

When I started reading the last half of Exodus I could sense the resistance within myself. This is where God gives Moses instructions for building the ark of the covenant, the tabernacle, the furnishings for the tabernacle, the priests’ garments, on and on. It’s excruciating. It’s tedious. It raised my sympathy (only a little) for my six year old daughter who refuses to eat a green vegetable.

But there in the middle of what seemed to be tasteless and bland, I found something delicious. It’s quietly present in the text, not put out on display. It is assumed in the course of the story. I found in Exodus the essence of what is often called “the Christian life.” As people are bringing supplies and offerings to accomplish all this tedious work we read “all the men and women, the people of Israel, whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done brought it as a freewill offering to the Lord” (Exodus 35:29 ESV).

They did what was commanded. They did it because their hearts moved them. God's command and heart's inclination, perfectly wed. When these things are not held and joined together we get a sick spirituality: a spirituality of raw compliance with what God commands, void of heart and passion and joy in obedience; or we get a spirituality defined by whatever our hearts want – which changes regularly, roaming and restless. To live life well before God and with God is to live in such a way that God’s commands and the inclinations of my heart are joined.

The proximity or distance between God’s command and heart’s inclination varies almost daily it seems. We spend a lifetime trying to join them consistently in our living. In Exodus it appears effortless, at least for that season. Israel had a hard time with this too, and the Hebrew scriptures describe this in all its sordid detail.

But I’ve learned something about eating well. Don’t skip things in order to get to the “good parts.” Eat a little slower. You never know where you’ll find the delicacies God has for those who can come to the table and stay a while.

The Spirit at Work in Camden, S.C. in the 1960s

When I was in the second grade in Camden, South Carolina I became good friends with a black boy in my class. The year would have been around 1969. The Civil Rights Act had been signed into law. The Voting Rights Act had also become the law of the land. But real change, social and personal transformation, wasn’t brought about by debate in the house and senate, nor was it obtained by a president’s signature. If such things had been effective in bringing about change, the effects were not yet being felt in Camden – or at least not in some parts of Camden.

At some point during that second grade year my mother received a phone call from my teacher. She was expressing concern that I spent too much time with one child in the class. She thought it would be a good thing for me to expand my friendships, include other kids. My mother was able to read between the lines. I don’t know exactly what was said. My teacher was a member of the church my dad served as pastor. I think she was uncomfortable with the friendship I had developed with a black kid. Being the pastor’s wife, my mother didn’t want to be rude to a church member – but I think mom knew what was going on. She told me about my teacher’s concerns regarding having “more friends.” I think I knew what was going on as well. I was given no mandate in the matter, but something changed with my friend. I wish my memories were a little clearer about it all.

Today Martin Luther King, Jr. is being remembered and his achievements celebrated. And in the midst of the remembering and celebrating, there is an awareness of something not yet fully obtained, of a dream not fully realized.

Yesterday, just before dozing off for my requisite Sunday nap, I caught a few minutes of a documentary on MLK - a montage of old film footage and interviews with King’s friends and associates. One of the men remembering MLK spoke specifically of the day Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. The film showed Johnson seated, signing the legislation, King and many others standing behind him. There is a smile on King’s face, a look of deep gladness and satisfaction. It was clearly a significant moment, one long waited for and prayed for. But now, roughly 40 years later, what seems clear is the powerlessness of law to change human hearts. And until hearts are changed, King’s dream remains elusive.

The church my dad served in Camden, the church to which my second grade teacher belonged, didn’t escape the tremors sent through the nation (especially the south) during the racially tense 60s. On one Sunday morning about 20 students from the predominantly black Mather Academy came to the First Baptist Church and seated themselves in the sanctuary. As my dad tells it, that event sent shock waves through the congregation and provoked a moment of decision. Would black people be seated in worship services at the First Baptist Church? About two months after the event the congregation met to vote on the question. The result was that the church voted to seat any and all persons who came to worship.

But the real story happened at the end of the meeting. As a traditional way of ending and dismissing on a positive note, my dad asked that a hymn be sung. I don’t remember the meeting. I’m sure I wasn’t there. I can only imagine the emotion in the room. After all, votes don’t change hearts and there were surely some bitter people among the relieved and triumphant. But something happened during that hymn. An elderly woman, Mrs. Richburg, slipped out of the pew and made her way to the front of the sanctuary where my dad stood. No “invitation” had been extended with the hymn – but she came anyway. She told my dad that she had come forward to make a rededication, a renewal of her commitment to Christ. After Mrs. Richburg came, others came to do the same. The meeting became revival, lasting another 45 minutes.

King was a prophet, and the words of prophets aren’t born of political and social machinations. Yes, prophetic words have political and social implications, but the vision and words are born of the Spirit. And it’s the Spirit that changes hearts and causes old southern women to make recommitments to Jesus. And it is by the Spirit, not legislation, that the dream will be claimed and lived.

That Narrow Place In The Road: Believing In and Walking With Jesus

While he was still speaking there came from the ruler’s house some who said, “your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” (Mark 5:35 ESV)

Urgency will drive us to Jesus, but what keeps us there when the sense of urgent need no longer exists?

Sudden illness, financial crises, fragile relationships, unexpected and unwanted news that leaves us disoriented, not having a clue what’s next – these things drive us to Jesus and drive us to our knees before him. But eventually these things resolve. The illness becomes health or is finally healed in death. The crisis passes. The disorientation leads us to what is often called a “new normal.” And what then? What keeps us at Jesus’ feet? Or do we wander off and take care of our own stuff until the next crisis pushes us back to the ground where Jesus patiently stands.

Jairus had a twelve year old daughter who was dying. Things don’t get more urgent than that. This urgency has pushed him to seek out the teacher. In the circles in which Jairus moved, Jesus was likely looked upon as a renegade. Jairus has some connections with the well established religious structures of his day. He’s a synagogue ruler – not an “ordained” person but someone who has authority and responsibility in the place of worship. It’s hard to imagine that he hasn’t heard things about Jesus. He’s overheard and been in on the conversations, the disparaging remarks, the questions, the theological critiques of what the young rabbi says and does. Jairus has been watching Jesus froma distance.

And as he has watched and wondered about Jesus, his daughter has gotten worse.

When your little girl is dying the esteem of colleagues doesn’t mean much. After all, none of them have been of much real help. Maybe a pious word, a promise to pray. But Jesus isn’t into pious talk. He heals. He touches sick people and something happens to them. He makes a withered hand nimble, capable of playing a flute. Limp and useless legs are made strong and straight with only a word. That’s the kind of thing Jesus does. So when a crowd gathers on the shore of the Sea of Galilee to meet Jesus, Jairus is there. His words and actions reflect both boldness and desperation. He falls at Jesus’ feet. “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her.”

And Jesus goes with him.

The same urgency that drove Jairus to the shore and pushed him to the wet dirt at Jesus’ feet now sustains him patiently in the walk home. Jesus delays. He stops to discover exactly who had touched his garment. This surprises, even amuses, Jesus’ closest followers. But Jesus is intent on knowing what it was that had called forth power from him. The timid woman steps forward and identifies herself, explains her actions. They talk.

And Jairus endures this interruption. Why doesn’t Jesus seem more attentive? Why won’t he hurry? She’s dying . . . the journey resumes.

It is at this point that the drama of the event reaches its full intensity. Many dramatic things happen in Mark 5, but the most critical moment in the story is here. As Jesus and Jairus and others continue their journey, a delegation from Jairus’ house meets them. The news is not good. The dreaded report is blunt. “Your daughter is dead.” And then this directive disguised as a question: “why trouble the teacher further?”

The question thinly masks a kind of despair. Those who report the death of the little girl are saying, “it’s over, the need is gone, it’s too late. Why bother the teacher anymore?”

It is this kind of moment that reveals the nature of faith. Looking to God, calling on Jesus is one thing in the midst of urgent need. But when the urgency is gone and there seems to be a finality that won’t be changed, what happens then. Some would tell us “it’s over, too late, don’t bother the teacher anymore.”

But in such moments Jesus invites us to keep walking. His words to Jairus seem to ignore what has been reported. “Don’t be afraid; just believe” (Mk. 5:36). This is hard. How do you believe when your daughter is dead? How do you believe when the marriage is beyond repair or the business is bankrupt or your job is being eliminated? How do you believe in moments like that – and exactly what are you to believe? Doesn’t belief begin to look a little like denial?

Maybe the believing is simply in the walking. Jesus is ready to keep going. He doesn’t come right out and make promises about what he’ll do or what will happen next. He simply extends an invitation to keep walking, to make the journey all the way to the house.

That invitation is extended even now, and perhaps directly to you today. The urgency that drove you to Jesus may no longer be hanging over you – but don’t stop walking. Don’t quit the journey.

Who knows; this walk may well lead to a miracle, but only those who persevere will see it.

Lift Up the Cup and Call on His Name

When I started writing this there were roughly 40 minutes left in 2005. By the time I finished and got around to posting this the first day of 2006 was nearly over.

There’s a line from Psalm 116 that seems fitting for the cusp of a new year. The Psalmist asks, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” (Psalm 116:12-13 ESV). These verses contain a question (v. 12) and an answer (v. 13). The question belongs to the year past. The answer belongs to the year ahead.

I look back and ask with the Psalmist, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?” I’ve known so many benefits this year, gifts small and great, sometimes recognized, sometimes not. It hasn’t been all benefits – but the benefits loom large in my mind tonight.

The only right response to that question is provided by verse 13, and it turns my thoughts to the year that will begin in minutes. We don’t respond to God’s gifts by repaying him, by giving something back. Every year, every minute comes to us by grace and is defined by grace. We live continually by that grace as we lift up the cup of salvation and call on God to fill it. We live by grace as we lean into the new year relying on God.

John Piper explains it this way. “When God helps us – as he does every moment of every day – we will not repay him with wage labor to even our accounts, but we will (again and again) lift up an empty cup of need and call on him to fill it.”[1]

I leave 2005 blessed, a cup filled and running over. I enter 2006 in need of more grace, dependent, calling on God to pour out grace yet again.

Gracious God, giver of days and years,
Time belongs to you and all that time brings comes from you. How can we possibly thank you for the way you sustain us from day to day, faithfully present in our sorrows and joys. We prayerfully lift the cup and ask you to fill it yet again as you see fit to do in these coming days. Amen.
__________________________________________
[1] John Piper, A Godward Life, vol.2, page 155.

Christmas Rush: An Advent Meditation on Luke 2:16

“So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.” (Luke 2:16 NIV)

I want you to take just a few seconds right now and think through your schedule for the next couple of weeks. What do you have planned? Where will you go or who will be coming to you? ‘Tis the season. Everyone seems to be on the move and in a hurry. It seems especially true at this time of year, but if you do any driving around Atlanta you know it’s true all the time. We are a people in perpetual motion. We never stop. And strangely, the hours of the day around this city that we designate “rush hours” are the hours when we can barely move at all.

I don’t have any illusion that someday this will all change, that we’ll suddenly decide to quit living this way. Living at full capacity is simply a reality, and honestly it isn’t always a bad thing. There’s energy, a “buzz” about it that can be exciting. Living with intensity and urgency isn’t the problem. My concern is that our urgencies are misplaced. Our hurry isn’t making us better people; it doesn’t seem to bring a greater sense of fulfillment and purpose to our lives. Far too often our hurry leaves us depleted, irritable and exhausted.

About a year ago I had taken my children to school and found myself sitting in a long line of traffic at a very short light. The light stayed green long enough to let three or four cars slip through and then went back to red. Every time that light went to red, so did I. I don’t know why. I was not late for an appointment. I wasn’t being expected anywhere. I just hated being at that light. I hated missing the green and having to wait. Eventually my car crept close enough to the “zone.” Only one car separated me from the light. When the light turned green, the person in front of me didn’t move. I looked and noticed that her head was lowered and she wasn’t even looking at the light. She appeared to be digging around in her purse. Meanwhile the clock was ticking. There was no way I was going to miss that light. I leaned on my horn (but I did that in a very Christ-like way). My hurry made me impatient and irritable- for no good reason.

Charles Hummell says that most of us live under the “tyranny of the urgent.” We are driven by things that seem urgent and demanding, but aren’t really important. We are driven by time, driven by the clock, driven by others’ expectations. Other cultures have some proverbs about how we live in the West. A Filipino proverb says that people in the west live with little gods on their wrists. An African proverb says that Americans have watches but no time; Africans have time but no watches.[1]

The answer to this dynamic is not to be languid and listless in the way we conduct our lives, but to harness that intensity in a worthy direction. If we are going to live with intensity and urgency, I simply want to be intent and urgent about the things that matter. We get a picture of this in Luke’s telling of the birth of Jesus, and particularly in the announcement to the shepherds.

When Jesus was born, there were some shepherds working the night shift. I’ve worked the night shift, and everything seems to slow way down at night. You can’t sleep, but there is a stillness that settles in with the deep darkness. Suddenly, the stillness and darkness is shattered by the shining glory of God and the voice of an angel. The voice tells them good news: unto you is born a savior.

After this brief sermon and a rousing anthem from the heavenly host, the shepherds say to one another “Let’s go and see it.” And then in Luke 2:16 we get an interesting detail. “They hurried off and found Mary and Joseph.”

The word that gets my attention is the word “hurry.” The KJV says “they made haste.” I don’t picture night-shift shepherds as men who frequently hurry in their work. Following livestock in the deep of night is not a career for ambitious type-A people. But at this announcement – unto you is born a savior – they make haste. They rush off. They hurry to Bethlehem.

It seems that there are two ways to live with urgency and hurry in our lives:

One way is an urgency and hurry that comes because we feel pushed and driven. This is a hurry born of fear and arrogance. We’re afraid of what will happen if we don’t meet someone’s expectations, perhaps our own silent expectations that no one else knows about. In addition, there is beneath all of this a kind of arrogance that behaves as if everything depends on me.

The other urgency is where something we desire, something we yearn for, draws us to it. It is an urgency that comes from being pulled toward, not pushed. Mark Buchanan calls this kind of urgency a “Holy Must.” Jesus lived this way. His life was all about doing the will and work of the Father. A Holy Must produces a kind of intensity in our living that isn’t fear driven.

That’s what we see in those shepherds. The announcement of the savior’s birth gave rise to hurry, urgency, intensity. They made haste. They went to seek it out and to see it – and then they went to tell about it.

Knowing the savior, sharing the savior. What could be more urgent?

_______________________
[1] These proverbs are quoted in Os Guinness, Prophetic Untimeliness, 28.

Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room

Some time ago, over a long holiday weekend, I attempted to make a bank deposit at an ATM. It was one of those Monday holidays on which banks are closed. As I recall, we really needed this deposit to be there when business resumed on Tuesday. Apparently we were in good company. Over the weekend many people had made deposits at this particular ATM. The deposit slot on the machine was so full of deposit envelopes that the little intake door didn’t close completely – a fact I didn’t notice until I had already started my transaction.

When it came time for me to actually insert my deposit envelope I realized that the deposit slot was absolutely crammed full. At this point I had some options. ATM machines aren’t too hard to find in Atlanta. This would have been a good time to stop the transaction and go to another machine. But no – I was in a hurry. I was going to make my deposit. I pushed the envelope in, carefully sliding it in between other envelopes. When the careful sliding didn’t work, I resorted to some slight shoving. There was still resistance, but I was going to gain victory over this ATM. I pushed the envelope into the deposit slot, pushed it in good. It was far enough in that it couldn’t be retrieved or stolen. But just as I won the shoving contest, the machine beeped and flashed a message on the screen: “transaction canceled.” This was not good. The envelope was irretrievable. Further, I had no credit for a deposit. The bank had no record that I had actually given them my money.

This experience gave new meaning to the phrase “pushing the envelope.” Many of us push the envelope all the time. It’s a way of life. We stretch ourselves to the limits, leaving only the narrowest margins around our lives for the things we say are important: family, relationships, reflection. We seem particularly intent on pushing the envelope during the Christmas season. Church programs, Christmas parties, shopping, visiting family, receiving family – all of these things are good. Still, the sense of the season as hectic and busy is universal. The manger lullaby sounds nice, but silence and calm rarely characterize our December nights.

I learned a lesson at the ATM machine. When something is crammed full, frenetically working in one more thing, just one more little thing, is not a good idea. What is true of an ATM machine is true of us. If we insist on “pushing the envelope” we’ll eventually find our resources depleted with no credit or reward for our exhaustion.

I can’t help but hear the familiar opening line of “Joy to the World.” After announcing that “the Lord is come,” the song gives this exhortation: “Let every heart prepare him room.” Make space, clear the clutter, create a welcoming place. This line carries some powerful implications that may be lost beneath the familiar tune and oft repeated singing.

First, it suggests that right now there is no room in the heart. The space needs to be readied and created. The song seems to know that our hearts are full; filled with our own hopes and dreams and aspirations, and also filled with regrets, resentments, hurts, disappointments.

Second, the song suggests that room must be prepared and that will require us to do something, put forth some effort to get our hearts ready for the God who comes to us. When someone comes to our home, we usually have to do something to get he place ready. The God who comes to us is not passively received. But what does this preparation look like? What does it involve?

We get some help in answering this from the gospel according to Mark. Mark is abrupt in his telling of the Jesus story. He begins by quoting two prophets, and both quotations make use of the word “prepare.” I will send my messenger in front of you who will prepare your way (Malachi 3:1). Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight path for him (Isaiah 40:3). From these two prophets Mark leaps to John the baptizer, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance. Both his message and his activity are anticipating one who will come and do more than baptize with water. One is coming who will baptize with the Spirit. Repentance is the way to get ready. Repentance is the work of preparing room. It is the soul work that looks at what’s within us and gets rid of what needs to go.

Preparing room (repenting) in the heart isn’t easy to do. It is far easier to convince ourselves that we’ve got room, that our heats are ready just as they are to receive the coming Lord. But the truth of the matter is that our hearts are full. And rather than preparing room and clearing the clutter and debris, it’s easier to push the envelope and convince ourselves that our crowded hearts and lives will be able to take just a little more.

And then – as ridiculous as this may sound – in the middle of the holiest of seasons we wonder why God seems so distant and why we feel so tired. The reason may be simple. When our hearts are crowded we miss the very gift John was trying to prepare us for, and called us to get prepared for. We miss the Spirit. Transaction canceled.

There are alternatives to pushing the envelope. What would it mean for you to “prepare him room?”

On Raking Leaves and Giving Thanks

"Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

I raked leaves yesterday. Raked and raked and raked. They’ve been falling since sometime in September, recent weeks seeing the heaviest deposits on my lawn and driveway. Yesterday was my first effort to bring order to Mother Nature’s random acts of unkindness. I was severely outnumbered. The piles into which I gathered the leaves seemed mountainous. I stayed at it from noon until 5 pm and all I did was clear the deck behind my house, the driveway, and the walk leading to the front door. There’s still more to do, plenty more.

This morning as I went downstairs to make coffee, and then climbed those stairs again to come to this room, I could feel in my back and legs every stroke of the rake, every leaning over to pick up leaves. I will admit feeling some gratification at laboring for hours and then seeing my cleared driveway. When you rake leaves there is a tight connection between effort and result. Every handful of leaves bagged is making a difference, even if that difference isn’t immediately seen. That’s not always true of my “regular” work as a pastor. Still, even with obvious results after more than four hours of work, I didn’t enjoy raking the leaves. This shouldn’t be hard for most people to understand. There’s nothing enjoyable about raking. It’s tedious repetitive work.

And yet, the leaves that so inconveniently cover my yard and driveway and deck are themselves laden with grace and majesty. This is too easily missed. The very nature of raking leaves requires staying focused on the ground, on the dead foliage that has become nothing but litter to be removed. I cannot say that there was a moment yesterday when I stopped and looked up. The leaves at my feet had come from majestic tall trees that stand in my yard. Trees that were there long before there were streets nearby or houses; trees that predate my birth and the birth of my parents. Months ago those very leaves had emerged with the warmth of spring and the approach of summer. They emerged quietly and without being noticed.

I think of the opening lines of one of Wendell Berry’s Sabbath poems:

I go among trees and sit still.
All of my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.

I didn’t do that yesterday. I went among trees and complained silently within myself and endured the moments and cursed the breezes that blew my neighbor's leaves into my yard and disturbed my neatly formed leaf-piles and made it harder for me to get the job done quickly. I missed the grace of creation and the wonder changing seasons, how they move in line, each taking their turn up front.

The leaves at my feet were like manna. Not edible of course, but there on the ground every year, every fall morning as a gift – the gift of time. Like the Hebrews who eventually grew tired of the gift of manna, I too saw only inconvenience. I did not give thanks. The movement of time is too gradual and quiet to notice and the massive towering trees were above me where I never bothered to look.

I am more like Jonah. As Jonah waited for God to destroy Nineveh God provided a tree for shade, a comfortable place from which the prophet could see God do exactly what he wanted God to do. After a while God sent a worm that withered the tree and killed it, and the sun baked Jonah’s exposed head and made him miserable. Jonah became angry because he understood the tree solely in terms of his own comfort and convenience. God was trying to teach Jonah about mercy, but the little book of Jonah ends and we never see the prophet celebrate or give thanks for God’s grace in sparing Nineveh. We leave Jonah sulking, inconvenienced and disappointed because things were not working out as he had hoped.

Raking leaves yesterday reminded me that genuine gratitude will never come from a heart that measures everything in terms of convenience or some direct benefit to the self. One who cannot go among trees and sit still, or who never bothers to look up and gaze at what towers above or who fails to realize the simple gift of every day – such a person won’t truly give thanks.

In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians there are at least three times where he mentions being thankful or giving thanks. None of them have anything to do directly with Paul. He gives thanks for their steadfast faith and for the way they responded to the message of good news concerning Jesus Christ. At the conclusion of the letter his counsel to them is simple and straightforward. “Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:18). The truth is, not all circumstances are convenient or pleasant or desirable. Yet God wills that we be thankful in all of them. This will require seeing something above us and beyond us.

For that reason, giving thanks isn’t an occasion as much as it is a discipline. We’re not always good at it. We need practice. Tomorrow I’m planning to rake more leaves in preparation for visiting family. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go among trees and in the midst of the labor look up and give thanks.

Reflections on a Long Life that Only Lasted 54 Years.

Jonathan Edwards only lived to be 54 years old. At the age of 42 I began reading George Marsden’s masterful biography of Edwards, Jonathan Edwards: A Life. At the rate I’m going I’ll be 54 before I finish this hefty volume.

It’s not that the book isn’t “good” or interesting. It is in fact a wonderfully engaging telling of Edwards’ life and the era in which he lived. But it’s not a book that can be read quickly. What’s more, Marsden is excruciatingly thorough. There’s so much in every chapter to take in and sort through and keep up with. Arnold B. Cheyney, in his little book Writing: A Way to Pray, recalls his surprise as a student when one of his professors encouraged students to feel free to “check out” in the middle of a lecture. The professor wanted his students to have the liberty to actually stop and think about something they had just heard.[1]

Marsden’s biography requires that kind of reading. It invites reflection – even requires it. I can’t truthfully say that my slow progress through the 505 pages of text can be attributed to my deep thinking about what I’m reading. Frankly, I’m easily distracted. I don’t do a good job of reading through one book before starting another one. Edwards keeps losing out to other things. But that’s what makes the biography interesting. I’ll read something from a contemporary author, and then discover that the spiritually engaging questions of today are nothing new. What captures us now captured a New England pastor in the 1740s. Some of the ways I’m seeing this in the life of Jonathan Edwards would include:

Upheaval and change in the culture: There’s no shortage of material being published today about doing church in the “postmodern” age. Old assumptions no longer hold. Established practices no longer work. Of particular interest today is a shift in the locus of authority. Authority no longer resides in the sacred text or the ordained pastor. While post-moderns may retain respect and regarded for the Bible and the pastor, something more is required. Truth is authenticated by the community, or in some cases by the experience of the individual. While the particulars are different, Edwards lived through similar upheaval. Edwards was an aristocrat and his worldview assumed a hierarchical structure to “the way things are.” This applied to pastoral ministry and the authority of the pastor in the church and community (which by the way were barely distinguishable). Edwards lived at a time when “grassroots” movements were gaining strength. The familiar hierarchies were being challenged. To some degree this factored into his eventual dismissal from his pastorate in Northampton. The world was changing, then and now.

Order and ardor (enthusiasm) in worship: what constitutes the right worship of God? In recent years the term “worship wars” has been coined and no small amount of carnage has resulted as congregations slug it out over what is and isn’t “fitting” for worship. These days music and musical styles seem to be at the center of the turmoil, but just beneath the surface are questions about what worshipers are expressing and how they are expressing it. At a superficial level, the issue is about emotion or emotionalism in worship. Some want worship that is “free” and “heart felt.” Others want worship grounded in the Church’s long established liturgies and thus well ordered. Again, there’s nothing new here. During the awakenings and revivals that were spreading throughout New England in the 1740s there were various expressions associated with the work of the Holy Spirit. A work of God in worship might lead to shouting or fainting or crying.

This kind of thing was known as “enthusiasm” in the 18th century and not all clergy welcomed such manifestations of the Spirit. Edwards’ chief nemesis in these debates was a Boston pastor, Charles Chauncy. Chauncy believed in seeking the Spirit’s outpouring on the church, but he also felt that much of what was being seen in the awakening was a “dishonour to God.”[2] Two camps emerged: the “Old lights” and the “New lights.” The old lights valued intellect. The new lights – Edwards among them – wanted both intellect and passion, what Edwards called the “religious affections.” Edwards and Chauncy traded carefully crafted blows in print and from their pulpits – and it seems that the issue has never gone away.

My slow trudge through Marsden’s biography of Edwards has been humbling, and not simply because of the daunting challenge it presents to my capacity for reading and comprehension. It’s humbling because it puts my era and my ministry in perspective. Where I walk now, others have already walked. The survival of the church really doesn’t depend on me getting it right on post-modernity or the emergent church. Reading about a pastor from almost 300 years ago reminds me that Jesus is the foundation of the church. From age to age, century to century, Christ builds the church just as he promised he would.

Making my way through the 505 pages on Edwards' life is like watching God’s deliberate and faithful work in history. And then I ponder that fact that the God who worked then is working even now. Suddenly, I don’t feel so pressed to finish the book just to say “I read it.” Edwards’ life was short. Marden’s Life is long – and so is the Kingdom. I’ll take my time.

Now for page 320.

________________
[1] Arnold B. Cheyney, Writing: A Way to Pray (Loyola University Press, 1995), 1-2.
[2] Marsden, 271.

In On The Action

. . . and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew (John 2:9).

This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him (John 2:11).

The aim is flawless perfection.

I don’t know of many endeavors in life where that is the expectation. In sports the aim is to win, and errors are recognized as part of the game. People who love their jobs will tell you they have to do things they’d rather not do, that no job is perfect. The best of relationships have some rough edges, always requiring work. There are no perfect relationships.

But the bar gets raised considerably when it comes to weddings. The aim, the dream, is flawless perfection, not a glitch. And even if something does go wrong such as a late father of the bride, candles that don’t fit the candelabra, an elderly relative being rushed to the hospital after falling while walking into the sanctuary (I’ve seen all of this in recent months) – all of these are to be quietly concealed from the bride. If the day can’t actually be perfect, we can all conspire to make sure the bride thinks it is.

And what’s true today might have been true in the first century. At least something like that seems to be true given the concern over the lack of wine at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. Mary presents the problem to Jesus (whether as observation or request is a matter of scholarly debate). Jesus remedies the problem by turning water into wine, and very good wine at that (2:10).

The narrative in John 2:1-11 is familiar to me, but it isn’t necessarily clear. I find the meaning of the event elusive. In the hands of commentators the story seems to get lost in interpretations that make frequent use of the word “eschatological.” At that point the episode just becomes boring. Probably not something a seminary educated person ought to admit, but that’s what too much scholarship does to a good story in my opinion.

However, a few days ago I read the story again and saw something new - at least it was new to me . (Can that be said of any other book?) My discovery was the role and activity of the servants in the story. They are silent characters in the drama. They never speak and they never initiate anything. But towards the end of the story, when they take the water-now-become-wine to the master of the banquet, John slips in a short comment. The master of the banquet did not know where the wine had come from, but “the servants who had drawn the water knew.”

The servants, quiet and unnoticed, faithful and obedient – they are in on the action. They know what has happened. They know where the new wine has come from, and from whom it has come. No one else seems to know. The host of the feast does not know – he’s clearly surprised and delighted, but he isn’t truly aware. We don’t hear anything about Mary after 2:5 – so we’re not really sure what she knows or when she learns of what has taken place. The crowd is clearly oblivious, some of them having had too much wine by this point in the celebration (2:10). The disciples know something since this event or “sign” leads to their putting their faith in Jesus (2:11). But they seem to be observers, or they learn of the event second-hand.

But the servants are in on the action, participants in what Jesus is doing.

Wherever Jesus is being glorified and people are coming to faith in him, there will always be found those quietly obedient people who draw water from the jars and carry that water to others.

Being a servant is hard. It’s hard because it’s easily unnoticed and overlooked. That may be why this latest reading of the story seemed “new.” The servants have always been there, but they are so easily ignored. Other roles are far more appealing. Mary brings the problem to Jesus, even seems to delegate to him. She gives orders to the servants. “Do whatever he tells you.”

Of course the role of Jesus looks very appealing. We never say this out loud – but ever since the Garden of Eden we’ve had a hankering for the star role. We’d love to be able to fix the problem and turn water to wine.

Even the host has an enviable place in the story. He gets the benefit of an abundance of fine beverage for his guests – all of whom will go home raving about the wonderful party he threw and how he really “went all out” for the event. Jesus does the miracle, but the host will certainly get some credit. We like getting credit.

But the role of the servant does little to evoke excitement. It isn’t attractive. Servants receive instruction (“do whatever he tells you”) and carry out tasks (“draw some out and take it”). Yet, it is the servants who are in on the action. They participate directly in what Jesus doing. And that is very exciting.

When it comes to servanthood, my talk exceeds what my heart feels and what my life does. I’m not good at saying “I want to be a servant” and really meaning it deep down. But I do want to be in on what God is doing. I want to see Jesus doing a new thing that transforms people and homes and communities and churches. I want to participate in Jesus’ work.

Wherever Jesus is being glorified and people are coming to faith in him, you’ll find servants who draw out the new wine and carry it to someone else. I want to be in on that action.

Meditation on a Coffee Spill

5:40 a.m. No lights on upstairs. Cup of coffee in one hand, computer tucked under my other arm. Conditions ripe for some kind of disaster.

I should have never tried to walk back to my study without a free hand to grope for the wall and a light switch. I make this walk every morning at roughly the same time. The cup of coffee is a constant too, but not the computer. The trek to the study leads through the guest bedroom, the very room my wife had diligently prepared for friends who would soon arrive for a weekend visit. Everything in the room was ready, including the white bed cover, now freed of the laundry stack that typically concealed (and protected) it.

The darkness was too black to navigate without some help, whether from light or from the slight sweeping motion of my outstretched arm. My plan was simple. I would place my computer on the bed and turn on a light. I moved over toward the bed to put my computer down. At this point I’m not sure where the plan went wrong, simple as it was. As I placed my computer on the bed I heard in the darkness the sound of coffee dribbling on the laundry free white bed cover.

Any early sluggishness of the blood flow in my veins disappeared with the help of a sudden adrenaline surge. The fact that my wife would not be up for nearly an hour gave me plenty of time to do some crisis management. I really have no idea what to do to a coffee stain on a white bedspread. I got a wet towel and did the best I could – which actually turned out to be a decent dissipation, if not removal, of the stain.

In fact, our guests might have never noticed the stain on the bedspread. My efforts at getting rid of it had not been entirely successful, but you wouldn’t see it unless you knew where to look.

But I can see it. I know where to look.

The word “stain” has longed served as a metaphor for sin. This goes as far back as the prophet Isaiah. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow (Isaiah 1:18). I grew up singing gospel hymns that pictured sin as a stain and the blood of Jesus as the cleansing agent. Several weeks ago I gave my Bible study class a short quiz on these "blood hymns." I asked who could state the entire verse or sentence that went with the following hymn lines.

“There is a fountain filled with blood . . . “[1]
“Would you be free from your burden of sin . . . “[2]
“What can wash away my sin . . . . “[3]

It may seem silly or even banal, my early morning coffee-spill crisis. But I came away from that with a fresh sense of what those hymn writers were talking about and what preachers of a bygone era so eloquently and passionately conveyed from their pulpits.

I recognized that the real stain of sin isn’t visible. The real ugliness of what sin leaves behind is something inward. My spill brought with it feelings of anger and self recrimination (that was such a stupid thing to do). I felt the shame that comes from others knowing what happened (will our guests see this?). I felt the regret of messing up what my wife had worked hard to make nice and presentable. All that stuff was churning around inside of me.

I further recognized that the physical stain can be disguised and hidden – and so can the internal turmoil. By my own efforts at sin management I can remove the stain well enough so that those who look at my life will never really notice the stains. The visible mess is nicely doctored up, and the internal is simply out of view. No one would know anything about it unless they knew exactly where to look.

But I know exactly where to look, and that’s the problem.

Here’s where the good news comes. This is what made hymn writers sing and caused preachers to raise their voices.

The blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin (1 John 1:7).

These are they that have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14).

I still make the early walk upstairs every morning, making my way through the guest room back to the study. I keep one hand free and I turn on a light to show the way. And occasionally I notice the stain (when I look very closely). It’s a reminder. There will be other spills, missteps, faulty moves, careless acts. But a spill can always be trumped by a flood. As the hymn says, sinners plunged beneath that flood loose all their guilty stains.


[1] . . . drawn from Immanuel’s veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood loose all their guilty stains.
[2] . . . there’s power in the blood, power in the blood.
[3] . . . nothing but the blood of Jesus.

The Old Man in the Gold Coat

Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did (1 John 2:6).

When I started seminary in 1985 I would occasionally notice an elderly man walking into the seminary library. He always looked the same to me. He wore a hat on his head, the kind that might have been worn by men in the 40s and 50s – but by 1985 looked right only on a person of age. He always had on a goldish colored wind-breaker. It looked large on him, draped down nearly to his knees. He was slightly stooped but his step was sure.

I remember wondering why this man kept coming to the library. That a person of his age would still be active in the pursuit of knowledge and learning struck me as admirable. I feel somewhat embarrassed writing that statement (as if older people don't use their minds), but that’s what I would think when I saw the old man in the gold coat walking into the library.

After being at the seminary for a while, I learned that the old man in the gold coat was T. B. Maston (1897-1988). Maston taught Christian ethics at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for 41 years. I’ve been thinking about him lately. A few weeks ago I started teaching through the book of 1 John on Sunday mornings. Every week a group of folks gather and we work our way through the text, a little exegesis, a lot of application. About a week ago we came to 1 John 2:6. “Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.”

T.B. Maston wrote roughly 30 books in addition to numerous articles. The book that made the deepest impression on me takes its title from 1 John 2:6. “To Walk as Jesus Walked.” I recently read that Maston regarded 1 John 2:6 as a defining theme for life. That doesn’t surprise me. Maston walked that way. As I learned more about the old man in the gold coat, my respect deepened. I never actually got to know him, but when he died in 1988 it was a loss for the entire seminary community. I attended his funeral.

One of Maston’s former pastors recently recalled visiting Maston in the hospital at a time when he was hovering between life and death. Beside Maston’s bed was a pad of paper with dense notes in tight small script. When asked about this, Maston explained that he had been re-reading the gospels and making notes on new things he was learning about Jesus from the scriptures.

Maston and his wife had a son afflicted with cerebral palsy. They cared for Tom Mac every day of his 60 year life. Within months of his son’s death, Maston himself died.

Maston’s life reminds me of a book by Phyllis McGinley called Saint Watching. McGinley is basically showing that in the history of the church people have learned holiness by watching holy people. As she puts it, "if I cannot learn to fly like them or sing like them, I can learn a little of their ways (p. 12)." Her premise has biblical support. Paul told the Corinthians, “imitate me as I imitate Christ.” Maston stands out to me as a man worthy if imitation. To learn even a little of his ways would be to make progress in walking as Jesus walked. Maston's walk embodied a lifelong love of learning, of devotion to Christ and faithful love for his family.

And all of it hidden beneath a gentle demeanor and a gold coat.

Fooling Ourselves

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).

I’m weighing in late on the whole Katrina mess. Plenty has been said and written in an effort to capture the enormity of the loss and the depth of the pain visited upon the gulf region and New Orleans in particular. The words are sometimes helpful, but not always. Sometimes too many words have a way of diminishing that of which they speak. When Job suffered the loss of his children and property and health he had three friends who came to be with him and comfort him. At first they did quite well. They wept with Job. They sat with him in silence, no one saying a word, for seven days and seven nights. And then . . . they started talking. Things went south from there.

Ignoring the negative example of Job’s friends, I’m throwing my own words into the mix. But the words that come to me now aren’t really about pain and loss. I don’t have much to say about who should have done what and when they should have done it. What I find worthy of discussion, weeks after the storm, is simply us. People. People everywhere, not just along the gulf or in New Orleans.

Katrina raises significant questions for people of faith, especially those of us who treasure ideas like the sovereignty and providence of God. What did God have to do with this? Does God get directly and actively involved in nature? If not, what kinds of things does God actually do? If yes, why would God allow this kind of devastation? These aren’t new questions. I was asking them back in December when the Tsunami struck Southeast Asia. I didn’t arrive at a good answer then. I don’t have good answers now.

But here’s something of which I am absolutely certain. The Bible is right about us. It describes our condition perfectly. It does so with stories. It does so with logical argumentation. Over and over in scripture our condition is named. We are sinners. There’s something fundamentally wrong within us.

That’s what Katrina has shown me. There’s the obvious evidence that came out of the flooded and incapacitated city of New Orleans. It’s as if something wicked was unleashed in the city, something different than what was already there. But theft and rape and lawlessness don’t get to the depth of what sin is. Katrina has forced us to look at the social and racial issues surrounding poverty. Attitudes have been revealed; attitudes of indifference, attitudes of blame, as well as attitudes of entitlement. They are born from a common source – the bent condition of the human soul. We are sinners.

I want to be quick to add that much that is good and noble has been called forth by the tragedy of Katrina. A spirit of benevolence, a willingness to sacrifice, courage and strength and love – these have been present in good supply from all over the nation. But to say we’re sinners doesn’t mean we’re totally void of anything good and worthy. It simply means that what is good and worthy is damaged.

Eugene Peterson, in his recently released Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, makes reference to a 1910 book by G.K. Chesterton title What’s Wrong with the World? Peterson says that our standard answers to that question have to do with knowledge, power and money.[1]

If the world’s real problem is ignorance, then the answer is more and better education. If the world’s real problem is weakness, then the answer is political reform that gives power to the marginal and neglected. If the world’s real problem is poverty, then the answer is providing resources and putting more of the world’s people to work so they can sustain meaningful life.

But none of these get to our real problem. As good and important as education, government and business is to our well being, “at the core of who we are there is something wrong.”[2] Our scriptures name the real problem: sin.

It’s gotten rather hard to say that these days. Not many are buying it – and that includes the many who occupy church pews every week. There are plenty of decent well behaved people who understand sin solely in terms of immoral and criminal activity. But sin, biblically understood, isn’t an act as much as it is a condition. “It is a diagnosis.”[3]

That’s why John says so bluntly, “if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves.” To think that we’ll be made right by education, government or commerce is wishful thinking. If we think that way we’re simply fooling ourselves. The only real answer to what ails us is forgiveness. When we tell the truth about ourselves and own what’s truly gone wrong, God is faithful and will do the work of making things right.

In the aftermath of Katrina we’ve been made aware of great need. There is need for shelter, clothes, jobs, medical care. And among all of this there is a need for good news. This kind of good news will not likely be announced by the President, but is weekly announced by God’s people, the church. What is wrong can be made right. As John reminded his people, “the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin.” This is the gospel, and if we think the world will be changed for the better without it, we are truly fooling ourselves.

[1] Eugene H. Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, 317-19.
[2] Ibid., 319.
[3] Ibid.

Prayer After Sitting in the Car Pool Line

A week ago my children went back to school. There’s much lamentation these days about the way schools seem to be starting earlier and earlier. In the minds of most students, August is barely a part of what they regard as “summer.”

Well, this summer the Crumplers got a taste of the way it used to be. (I hear it used to be this way – I really don’t know). We didn’t start school until the day after Labor Day. My kids have been back at it now for a full week. This means that we had the entire months of June, July, and August for summer break. It was a great summer, and while it does seem that most schools systems are robbing their students and families of perfectly decent, hot summer days, I have a confession to make. We were ready for the day after Labor Day. I mean . . . really ready. Ready for some routine. All this talk about requiring schools to begin the school year after Labor Day sounds great until it gets to be August 15th or 20th and your children are still roughly a decade away from driving a car.

But we made it. And now we’re a week into the school year and starting to feel the weekly rhythms.

Since my kids are at a new school this year, Marnie and I have had plenty to be prayerful about. We’ve prayed for a smooth transition, for new friends, for teachers who will connect well with them and thus teach them well, for their sense of competence in the work required of them. But sitting here on a Tuesday morning, having just dropped them off at car pool about an hour ago, I’m thinking about wisdom. For me, and perhaps for most parents, this is the prayer above all prayers. I want my kids to gain wisdom. In his introduction to the book of Proverbs in The Message, Eugene Peterson offers this definition of wisdom:

Wisdom has to do with becoming skillful in honoring our parents and raising our children, handling our money and conducting our sexual lives, going to work and exercising leadership, using words well and treating friends kindly, eating and drinking healthily, cultivating emotions within ourselves and attitudes toward others that make for peace. Threaded through all these items is the insistence that the way we think of and respond to God is the most practical thing we do.

Accordingly, Peterson renders Proverbs 1:7 as follows:

Start with God – the first step in learning is bowing down to God; only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.

I want my children to make good grades, but more than that I want them to make good decisions. That may not seem like such an urgent matter when you’re talking about a first grader and a second grader. The weight of decision making sits light upon them these days. But their capacity to bear the weight later, when the stakes are higher, is being formed right now.

And here’s what’s truly unsettling about all of this. There’s nothing in the book of Proverbs (as far as I can tell) to suggest that wisdom will come from some kind of educational institution. Schools have role in cultivating and teaching wisdom, but they can’t be looked to as the source of wisdom. Scripture seems to assume that wisdom is gained and passed on in the context of relationship. Wisdom’s natural habitat is personal, not institutional. Throughout Proverbs there is the sound of teaching that takes place from parent to child, one on one. Wisdom isn’t gained by reading as often as it is by conversation. “Pay close attention friend to what your father tells you; never forget what you learned on your mother’s knee” (Prov. 1:8, The Message). If my kids are to gain wisdom, it’s up to Marnie and me.

That’s an amazing thing to ponder. As I do, it becomes clear to me that as this school year begins I need to do more than pray for my children. I need to pray for myself. I need to pray for something to pass on to them. I need to pray for wisdom.

If any of you lacks wisdom he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him (James 1:5 NIV).

I’m counting on that.

For Marnie on Our 9th Wedding Anniversary

Marnie,

The house is quiet and you are sleeping – you and two others who were only a hope to us on this day nine years ago.

I just went downstairs to find a little volume of poems by Wendell Berry. The book bears the title The Country of Marriage and I thought I might find something to quote: something more beautiful than what I’m able to write on my own, something that spoke with eloquence of the love I feel for you and the life we’ve shared for these nine years.

I found the book – but not a poem. Berry doesn’t sound like me. Better said, I don’t sound like him (unfortunately. I’d love to write like that).

This is a little book you gave to me, but I had forgotten when. As I thumbed through the pages, finding nothing for you in the poetry, I found something from you. A brief sentence you had written on the title page. You always like for something to be written inside a book when you give it (and receive it). Even now I think of the first book I gave to you early in our dating days. I was so formal and careful. You were under-whelmed with what I wrote as I recall, and it was indeed under-whelming.

But there on the page bearing the words The Country of Marriage, you added a few handwritten words of your own. “We’ve entered this wonderful world and country.” And then the date – September 1, 1996. You gave this to me the day after our wedding. I had not remembered that. I can only guess that you had bought the book before our wedding and you gave it to me that day. As I remember September 1, 1996 we didn’t go in any bookstores. We’re both geeky sometimes, but not that geeky.

Here’s something that strikes me as fitting. As I searched in the basement office for The Country of Marriage I came across another book entitled Blink (by Malcolm Gladwell - not about marriage). The title of one book speaks to the title of the other. Our nine years in the country of marriage seem to me like a blink. Our seniors may smile at that because they’ve got 20 or 30 or maybe even 50 years to reflect upon – but what is true of decades is no less true of a decade minus one.

The other day you told me you had found some important video tapes – our wedding, your ordination, my ordination. I think about nine years and it occurs to me that in the same sanctuary where we were married nine years ago, I was ordained nine years prior to our wedding. And on that warm Sunday evening in May of ’87 you were seated in the choir loft singing with the choir. It causes me to marvel at what I would have never dreamed on that night. There we both were, in the same sanctuary, seated on the platform behind the pulpit (as we so often are now) but without the slightest idea of what would take place in that same room nine years later. Did we even speak to each other that night in 1987? Your father placed his hands on me and prayed or said something. He knew no more than we did. I would not even know he had participated in my ordination were it not for the video record of it.

(Those two who were only “hopes” to us nine years ago have come into the study. They are very real and wanting some attention. I’ll finish later).

In May of 1987, kneeling in the sanctuary, I could not imagine what God was doing or was going to do over the next nine years. On August 31, 1996, standing with you in almost the exact same spot, the same was true. I was certain and remain certain of our vows, but we had no idea where the next nine years would take us – to our little house on Jane Street, to our semi-rural home in North Carolina, to the stomping grounds of our youth in Atlanta; growing from 2 to 3 in Houston, and then becoming a foursome in Raleigh. God has been so good to us.

This day of our anniversary is marred by the images and news of destruction and loss on the gulf coast after hurricane Katrina. There’s a slight sense of dissonance in sitting comfortably in front of this computer, now with sunlight streaming through the windows, meditating on the string of blessings that runs through our years of marriage. There is and always will be much in the world that is broken. Today these words from Calvin Miller resonate with me as words that are right and honest.

And though the floods of life may come and the waters of life threaten us, (this) scripture still stands: “Many waters cannot quench love, rivers cannot wash it away” (Song of Sol. 8:7).

So these nine years, as I think of them this morning, speak so clearly to me of grace. The gift of grace that you are to me; the ways you bring life to me and our home; the laughter and determination and restless zeal; the ways you parent our children; the grace of seeing you use the gifts God has poured into your own life. These nine years speak of the grace that is hidden in the mystery of time; grace that does what we never dreamed of.

I’m writing this to let anyone who reads it know that I am a blessed man, that God has been kind to me far beyond my deserving.

I’m writing this to let you know that I love you and I love the nine years we’ve shared. What will the next nine, or next one, hold? We will live by grace and continue to make our way through the country of marriage.

Finding Your Way Home (wrap up)

Tom Hanks as Commander Jim Lovell

Two sons, both far from home.

The younger removed by miles, impatient in his youth, having no regard for his father’s honor or the family’s reputation. The elder son stays close to home, but the joy of being in the family has been replaced by duty. When it’s time to celebrate, he can’t come in.

As Jesus tells this story, we never see what the elder son decides to do. But in the story of the younger son we see that there are a couple of different ways to find your way home.

Some time after leaving home, the younger son ran out of money. At the very same time the economy took a terrible turn because of a famine, and he began to be in need. He took a job feeding pigs, but the job didn’t pay. He was hungry and he envied the pods that were given to the pigs.

In this state of need and hunger, the younger son comes up with a plan. He devises a speech that he will present to his father. Kenneth Bailey summarizes as follows: “having failed to find a paying job in the far country, he will try to obtain his father’s backing by becoming gainfully employed in his home community. He will yet save himself by keeping the law. Grace is unnecessary. He can manage himself – or so he thinks.”

The younger son does not return home out of remorse. He is driven by hunger, and he has a plan whereby he can make things right.

In her book Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott recounts a time in her life where she was falling apart. Her life was an absolute mess – a relationship with a married man, too much alcohol, too much drugs, the wheels were coming off. In desperation she called a priest. Gradually, and with the help of this priest she made it through this dark time, and years later she asked her friend the priest to tell her what that first meeting was like when she had called him in her desperation. He told her
Here you were in a rather desperate situation, suicidal, clearly alcoholic, going down the tubes. I thought the trick was to help you extricate yourself enough so you could breathe again. You said your prayers weren’t working anymore and I could see that in your desperation you were trying to save yourself.

“In your desperation you were trying to save yourself.” When the younger son is hungry and in need and no one will give him anything, that’s what he does.

But there is another way to come home. While the younger son was running through his money, and then feeding pigs, his father seemed to know that someday he would return. His father also knew that if his son did return, there would be great shame and rejection from the village. The only way to avoid this was to get to his son before the neighbors did. So he waited and watched, waited and watched, until the day came. While his son was still at a distance, he did something unheard of. He ran to him. By getting to him first, by embracing him, he demonstrated publicly that there was reconciliation. The rejection of the neighbors was no longer fitting because the father had received his son and brought him home.

The son had a plan to become a wage earner; to work hard; to make things up. But there is a better way to come home, and that way is to simply allow the father to bring you home. This is grace. You don’t come home with your plan for making things right. The father comes to you, and he brings you home. He comes to you and he removes your shame.

This is how we are saved. Jesus comes to us. As Paul wrote it, though he (Jesus) was equal with God he did not regard equality with God something to be grasped, but he humbled himself and took the form of a servant. He came to us and submitted to death, even death on a cross.

There’s a scene in the movie Apollo 13 in which family, friends and people from NASA have gathered at the home of commander Jim Lovell as they anxiously wait for the astronauts to return home. They are all gathered around the TV and the newscast is showing a piece of an interview with the astronaut in which he is telling about his experience as a naval aviator, trying to land on an aircraft carrier in the Sea of Japan.

Because of combat conditions the carrier was blacked out – no lights. Lovell had no radar and no homing signal. When he turned on his map light the entire cockpit shorted out. He was surrounded by pitch blackness, he had no idea how he would find the carrier. Then down below in the ocean, he saw a trail of green. The carrier was churning up algae in the ocean, a phosphorescent green algae trailing behind the ship like a carpet. If Lovell’s cockpit instruments had been on, he would have never seen it. Lovell concluded the story by saying, “you never know what events might transpire to take you home.”

Our standard navigational instruments are the things we rely to make our own way home; those things that we look to or depend upon to tell us we’re o.k. That might be our money, our connections, our smarts – whatever. And sometimes those navigational instruments simply aren’t working. It’s then that God goes to work down in the deep places. This is the work of the Spirit leading us home.

The God we come home to knows us even at a great distance; he runs to us and meets us where we are. He takes our shame and brings us home. And there’s no better way to get there.