How the Bible Reads Us

March 6, 2014 By

Most of you know that I an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Covenant Church, a denomination in the free church tradition, with many ties to both Lutheranism and Methodism. This is a paper submitted to a denominational committee in 2007. All of us were required to read Eugene Peterson’s fine book, “Eat This Book: a conversation in the art of spiritual reading,” before we met together. Four of us were assigned to be the writers for four related topics and then all four were to be compiled into one document. Somehow, one part never got written and so one of our NT professors took all the pieces that did get submitted and re-wrote them into one longer paper. I believe that exactly ONE line of my contribution ended up in the final product! (Here is a link to the entire paper, if you’re interested in reading it.) I loved doing the work for this assignment — looking at scripture and at our denominational heritage to re-state what we believe about the word of God. I am posting it here in conjunction with the final post in the Q & A Series. It is an extra resource.

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All scripture references in this portion of the paper are taken from the TNIV

How the Bible Reads Us:
Reading for Transformation
Part 4 of an ECC Resource Paper on
how the Covenant does biblical and theological reflection

written by Diana R.G. Trautwein

 ”Come here and listen to the words of the LORD your God.
This is how you will know that the living God is among you…” Joshua 3:9-10

“If you are sitting there dead in sin and shame, dear one, sit then where it rains…
It is always raining in the Word.  Sit there, and you will soon be drenched through and through.”
 August Pohl (1845-1913) Sermon in Missions-Vanne, September, 1878,
from Images in Covenant Beginnings, Eric G. Hawkinson (1968), pp. 65-67

From its earliest days, the Evangelical Covenant Church has proclaimed both a profound respect and an abiding passion for the written word of God.  Our respect for the Bible leads us to honor its contents with serious study, doing the difficult but rewarding work of textual, historical, linguistic, literary, and sociological analysis.  We train our pastors and encourage our laity to make use of good academic tools, and to read with minds engaged, as we seek to learn together about the biblical underpinnings of our shared faith. We desire to honor God’s word and to serve the church through rigorous scholarship, careful deliberation about interpretive differences and humble appreciation for this rich resource we share.  We stand in awe before the word of God and its complex ancient languages, its variety of historical details, covering thousands of years and dozens of cultures, and its beautiful mix of literary styles and types – all of it working together to tell the story of God’s redeeming work in the world.

Our passion for the Bible leads us to a slightly different perspective when we read God’s word, both personally and as a community of faith.  As a people of God committed to the Word, we firmly believe that in addition to standing in awe before the Bible, we also need to sit in obedience under it.  A foundational truth for the Covenant church is that the word of God is a living thing, a primary place where we go to meet the living God. “The Word of God is ‘spirit and life’ and always meets us as such, and therefore requires of us a spiritual and living response.”  (From Covenant Principles, 1960 and 1973) “We are a people of a Book.  We believe the Bible is the place where God is to be met, where his forgiveness is proclaimed, and where his will is made known…the Bible is for us a meeting place with God.” (From Covenant Committee on Freedom and Theology, Biblical Authority and Christian Freedom  (1963), pp. 6-7).

This gift of God, this living book, is made alive for us and in us through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  It is the Spirit who makes the word “alive and active.” (Hebrews 4:12)  “Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”  Paul picks up similar imagery in his letter to the church at Ephesus when he describes God’s word as “the sword of the Spirit.” (6:17) This remarkable, double-edged sword of the Spirit – God’s sculpting, shaping word – does its work in us in order to transform us.  Through the guiding, probing, challenging power of the Holy Spirit, the word of God works within each of us as individuals, and within all of us as a community, to transform us into the image of Jesus Christ, who is the heart and center of our shared story.

For our story as a denomination, our stories as local congregations, and our individual and personal stories all find their meaning and purpose within the larger story of God, as it is told to us in scripture.  This is most especially true as God’s story is lived out in and through Jesus, who is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”  (Hebrews 1:3)  When we come to this narrative in an attitude of openness, expecting to encounter the life-changing, powerful Word, we discover that we are there, participants in God’s story of love and rescue.  Even though this marvelous word was not written to us, it surely was written for us, and our fingerprints begin to emerge with every turn of the page.  We, too, have bitten into forbidden fruit and paid the price for it; we, too, have wandered through the wilderness, wondering where we’ll land; we, too, have been overwhelmed by a task, only to discover that God is able, that God is faithful; we, too, have been lost and then found.

These discoveries, made in the context of reflective, participatory reading and meditation on the word of God, also lead us into confrontation and challenge.  Not only do we recognize ourselves in the sly ambition of a Jacob or the sibling rivalry of his 12 sons or the chronic complaining of the newly freed Hebrew slaves, as they meander through 40 years of desert living, we also come face to face with the call of scripture to live differently. Sitting under the Bible in obedience means that we must do more than simply smile in recognition, and shake our heads at the vagaries of human willfulness.  Following the admonition of Jesus in the gospel of Luke, we learn to call ourselves blessed if we are “those who hear the word of God and obey it.” (11:28) Obedience to the word of God, which is possible only through the affirming, comforting and challenging presence of the Holy Spirit, leads to transformation in the life of the disciple and in the life of the church.  Conversion is necessary; repentance is required; change is inevitable. We are continual works in progress; we are ever pilgrims on the way; we are always “being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

It is this process of conversion and change, wrought by the living word of God at work within us, “that has been at the heart of the Evangelical Covenant Church since its founding…This dynamic life-shaping power of the word leads us to affirm that both women and men are called to serve as ordained ministers.  It is the reason we intentionally pursue ethnic diversity.  It is the motivation behind every act of compassion and justice through the life of our shared ministry.”  (From Covenant Affirmations, 1976, 1996, 2005.)

Collectively and individually, we are encouraged to continually come to the word of God in a spirit of humility and gratitude, seeking to discover how we are to be changed, how we are to be transformed into the church and the persons that God intends us to be.  We come to the text not simply to ‘feel better,’ nor to find a magic ‘fix’ for a particularly vexing question or problem; not to earn ‘points’ for good behavior, nor for confirmation of a preconceived agenda.  We come to the word of God to wrestle with our own sinfulness, to acknowledge our own brokenness, to learn of God’s redeeming grace one more time.  We come to be changed.

It is only by purposefully placing ourselves, as individuals and as a community of faith, in a posture of submission, receptivity and expectation that the word of God can continue to convert us.  It is there, and only there, that we find ourselves in the best possible place to receive God’s gift of grace, over and over again. Many years ago, C.O.Rosenius wrote these words:  “Thus you see that the Word was the means through which God sustained your life in grace.  It is the same way with the church and with all Christians.  God’s Word is not called a means of grace in vain.  Without this word it is impossible to keep a life in grace.”*  Thanks be to God for the “life-shaping power,” and grace-sustaining winsomeness of the word.

* “On the Purpose and Necessity of Using God’s Word,”
from Images in Covenant Beginnings, Eric G. Hawkinson (1968), p. 113

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: authority, biblical reflection, community, Living the Answers, Living the Questions, personal journey, Q & A, Spiritual Formation, The ECC, Wonderings in the Word

Q & A — Tuesday Wrap-Up: Week Seven

March 4, 2014 By

Painted in Waterlogue

What an amazing collection of words have flown around the blogosphere this week, just here, in our small corner! Thanks to each of you who linked a post on this week’s question — which was: Why do bad things happen to good people?   And thanks to each of you who contributed to the comments thread, too. We’ve been pushing through some tough stuff the last few weeks and I am grateful to each of you for hanging in for the duration, for wrestling well, and for sharing your insights and your questions with all of us.

Every one of the posts this week spoke to some piece of my heart and I encourage you, if you have not already done so, to read each one. Our group is small enough to make that very doable, indeed. It will be well worth your time, I promise.

A pastor friend in Pennsylvania, on the verge of a major move with her young family, wrote an exquisite post this week, weaving together quotes from three writers, and touching on birds, dancers and Mercy. I dare you to read these words without tears!

You are not lost, dear ones, you are held, though you may not yet be aware of it. 

This Mercy, this tender mercy, it is the key to endurance, the doorway to hope, the promise of joy in the midst of deep and tragic sorrow.  

I have only waited for a little thing – a house, a home, a promise – and maybe this song I sing seems as foolish to you as the voices of the birds did that snowy day.  What can I say to convince you?  

There are not words, my friends. 

So I’m singing today in the face of winter, singing from a place I’m coming to know, lifting notes that crack and fail to carry just as often as they sometimes soar.  I’m singing this song of hope in the waiting, pressing these tender shoots of green against the snow and ice, dancing these slow, strange steps with a Partner I cannot always see.

Spring will come, love will unfold, and when it does, you will be found in its midst, held, protected, embraced.

Oh.My.Word.

Another friend from the cold east revisited an old post of hers, a beautiful prayer of thanksgiving after reflecting on deep losses in her life:

You knew my path.

You provided people who
journeyed with me,.
people who did not give answers,
but gave themselves.
And now I can thank You,
not that you allowed the loss –
but that you knew my path
through the loss.

You knew all I would learn
as I processed this deep loss.
And You did not spare me.

You knew I would learn to
“Pay Attention . . . ”
to  see more clearly
your activity in the midst of
daily life.

You knew the self-awareness
that comes from processing grief
would give me the confidence
to stand on my own two feet.

You knew my path.

Everyone who contributed to the conversation this week affirmed the truth of that last line, despite incredibly difficult circumstances for many of us.

A voice of deep wisdom, reflecting a life of rich experience and conviction, took a two-pronged approach. He looked briefly at the historical roots for what he finds to be an American political and religious heresy — the belief that “God’s favor is manifest in material blessings.” To me, this is an important idea, one that we need to think through and speak against, primarily because the logical antecedent to such thinking is that suffering and struggle are indications of God’s disfavor. . . which is what gives rise to exactly the question we’re looking at this week! Prong two sprang from his own personal journey right now, as he walks through a terminal illness:

So from April until September I was in bed on my back. 

But during this time, I realized that I could still pray.  I spent many quiet hours in bed, just being quiet, meditating and praying. 

The treatment I was on failed and in September I started Chemo Therapy, so that as I was trying to recuperate from the surgeries, my body was taking a hit from the chemo.  But that period of quiet, of lying for months on my back gave me the serenity to deal with my status in this life/death cycle.  I don’t consider my situation as a “bad thing” that is happening to me.  I have a wonderful family and church community, and I will live until I die.  But God is with me.

But God is with me. YES! Right there, in the midst of the struggle — this is the gift of Presence, the fulfillment of the promise given as Jesus ascended into heaven, “Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Another voice, again one of deep wisdom born of chronic illness, gave witness to the ultimate story of bad things happening to a good person — Jesus himself:

He didn’t deserve to die. We don’t deserve His sacrifice. Bad things happen to good people. Sadly, this is a sinful, fallen world.

We live in an upside-down, here-but-not-here-yet Kingdom where we begin to accept the cloud of unknowing is part of belonging. 

And we look to the cross. Consider Calvary. Weep for the loss and rejoice in the resurrection. Marvel that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. 

All He asks is for us to lean on Him. Rest on His word. Seek strength and help in time of need. Find comfort and share it with others.

Meanwhile, we live with smoke and mirrors, with mystery and mayhem, with pain and with promise, with unanswered questions and faith. . . 

Prayer draws us nearer to God’s heart and there we find all the comfort and reassurance we need to keep us afloat. We begin to see an open door of hope through the painful places.

Though we may still emerge with unanswered questions, in the listening and leaning we learn to release the pressing need to know and rest in trusting all that we do understand.

Our traveling poetess returned home just in time to contribute these lovely and succinct words:

I am learning to surrender
my need to know
giving up the why?
again and again
I find myself confessing
my heart on its knees
let it be enough to know that You know
so we can move on
to the now what?
remembering we are still in Your arms
even when nothing feels safe
or certain

 help us turn the question
on its head, and ask instead
why do we deserve all the good poured out upon us?

 grace, Your grace alone

I loved these words, offered just prior to telling the stories of  ‘three good men,‘ each of whom suffered greatly, two of whom died in the midst of the pain. As always, stories are powerful tools of Truth, especially as we are trying to live the questions. . .

Nobody is actually good. Really, we all deserve much worse than we get. It’s one of those things you decide to believe to be humble and reverent, while somewhere inside you’re mad because these bad things just don’t seem right. 

And these words? Wisdom way beyond the writer’s years!

Suffering catches us in the middle of things and feels like chaos. The attempt to lay out sensible reasons and answers feels to me like trying to lasso a tornado. I remember declaring vehemently to a friend: “I don’t want God to tell me why Dad died, because I know I wouldn’t really understand it, and no answer would seem good enough.” I find it disturbing that in their arguments for God’s sovereignty, some people seem to stretch “God works all things together for good” to “all things are good.” I’m confident both God’s power and His love will survive without that kind of mental gymnastics. I hope that as we all continue to grow and to know God better, that we will learn to see how He touches us as whole people, beings of body and mind and heart. We don’t have to make God work for us. He is present with us–as present with our broken hearts as with our careful theology. We don’t have to make everything work. Because He is, and is with us, no matter what.

 These opening words surprised my by their logical clarity — why didn’t I think of that?

No one seems to feel God has to explain why good things happen, and everyone seems quite at ease with bad things afflicting the Bad. Of course Good things happening to Bad people is often fodder for a few outraged headlines, but in the end, we are concerned with ourselves, and we rarely consider ourselves bad.

This same writer then continued to dig deep and to speak to her own greatest fear — that her children would suffer:

I have been so scared at times, not knowing, simply not knowing.
And not trusting.
I am not ready to let them be free. Free in the loving care of Jesus.
I hold my daughters in chains.

Bad things must not happen to the fruit of my womb.

And I am thrown again on the passage from Romans 8 where Paul insists that nothing can keep us from the love of God. Surely that is the most important thing for us to hope for.  That we are never separated from God’s love. . . 

My head accepts things far more readily than my heart. Should serious harm ever come to my dear girls I make no promise I won’t rant and rail and I am sure I may well doubt the love of God. And I will have need of friends who will sit with me in the dark times clinging on to my old certainties for me whilst I can not.

May my love for my daughters set them free to follow Christ and lead me to love, serve and intercede for all his daughters and sons.

My lovely young friend from New Zealand poured her heart out on her brand-new blog, agonizing over a national tragedy in her country and over her own terror for the safety of her husband and children. This post got injured in the link-up and was only connected late in the day yesterday, so if you have not read it, I urge you to follow the link and read every word:

Despite praying for their children’s protection, their parents, families and friends were left grieving and devastated.  And the question nags at me – why do I pray for my family’s protection when God may chose not to answer it?  What is the point of praying this way?

The best answer I’ve got is that I can’t not.  I ask God to protect the ones I love, because I trust Him, and because that is my part.  My part is to ask, His is to answer.  I have no control over the answer, but if I have at least asked, then I have done my part. . . 

We got to the part of the service where we have communion, and as we were singing the song following communion, I was hit by a revelation.  I had just had communion, which somehow joins me both to Christ, and to the rest of His body.  I knew that my family (still in the cult I left) would have had communion earlier that morning, and I thought about Diana and all of the rest of the people I am getting to know on the interwebs, who would be having communion while I was asleep.  I thought about my sister-in-law who died a month ago, and remembered the line in the Anglican liturgy that talks about the whole body of saints, those who have gone before, those who are here now, and those who are to come… and I realised that in some way, despite all our differences of denomination, location and even state of being, we are ALL ONE in Christ.  Taking communion is actually a point of connection with my family, who are believers but major on the minors, my friends, who are believers who happen to live on the other side of the world, and my sister-in-law who was a believer and is now ‘in Christ’.

For some reason, I’ve never really seen it that way before – despite our worst denominational efforts, we are all part of one body, and the griefs, tragedies and heartache that we have to deal with cannot change that.

I don’t really know how that ties in to why bad things happen to good people… except that it is all a mystery.  How this whole thing works, good or bad, is a mystery.  We truly are living in the shadowlands, and there is so much we never see or understand.  I cannot trust that God will always answer my prayers the way I want Him too, but I can always trust what I know and have seen of the character of God – He is kind, just, merciful and ‘has compassion on us because He knows that we are dust.’

You all did such stellar work and I am so grateful for every one of you. Please read through the comments section, too, because there are some gems in there. Here are just two:

Asking “why” only wearies me and makes me a bit crazy. Because there are no answers I try not to go there. My prayers in times of sorrow are usually ” please let me feel your presence and walk with me”. I look at the world and no one is without their own private grief. Why should I be exempt? The rain falls on all of us. And so does the sunshine!

 

I have to work from the foundation of this truth…God is Love… And true love never forces Itself on anyone….so much of this suffering is at the hands of other broken people…and so often people wonder ….why won’t God deal with that rebellious son….husband…but what that means most of the time is…why doesn’t God shorten my suffering and deal hard with the other person….but if we think about it…when we want God to be the ” enforcer” in someone else’s life…where are we willing to let Him be the same in our lives….where do I want my free will to be violated. 

God has been good to us, to give us each other for this stretch of the journey. My thanks to each of you as we head toward home this week.

Friday’s question: What do I do with all the hard/weird stuff in the Bible?

 

 

 

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Blogging, community, Confession, death, Encouragement, Hard Things, Living the Answers, Living the Questions, personal journey, Q & A, Suffering

Q & A: Week Five – Living Loved

February 14, 2014 By

Welcome to week five in a series of longish reflections on some of life’s harder questions. We’re having a rich conversation in this space and I am grateful. Last week opened the door to a series-within-the-series, a set of questions that touch on the Big Topic of suffering. This week’s question jumps in a little deeper:

What do we do with our suffering?

Next week: How do I make all the pieces fit? DSC00973

Valentine’s Day has never been a favorite day for me. It’s become over-commercialized and too often leads to tiny heartbreaks instead of warm fuzzies. Yet I find it oddly appropriate that this week’s question should fall on this day. Why? Because at the heart of all that I’ve learned by living this particular question is this strong, clear truth:

The greatest task, and the deepest joy, of the human journey is learning to live loved.

Trusting that despite all kinds of evidence that might, at first glance, seem to be to the contrary, we are loved. Loved beyond reason, beyond our ability to comprehend, beyond imagining.

Why are we loved?

Because we are. Because we live. Because we existed in the mind of God before ever we drew breath. Because each and every one of the billions of us who have walked the deserts and jungles of this planet is beautiful, lovable, glorious and a totally unique bearer of the image of God. A Great God, who is both beyond us and with us, who rejoices when we rejoice and weeps when we weep. 

We are loved.

Everything else begins and ends with that statement.


DSC00947On days when the sun is shining, the sky is clear, and we and our loved ones are busy enjoying the good things this life has to offer — on those days, the whole idea of living loved seems possible. Good feelings overflow, endorphins rush through our brains and bodies, and Life.Is.Good.

Yes, maybe we are loved! Maybe this is what love looks like — happy feelings all around, blue skies wherever my eye lands.

DSC00952But when the blue begins to fade a bit, and clouds drift by, when harder things hit us, interrupt the good vibes of blue-sky days. . . well, then that whole idea begins to seem a lot more iffy, doesn’t it? Something uncomfortable begins to intrude, a physical ailment or a ruptured relationship, job dissatisfaction or not enough money at the end of the month — living loved? Not likely. Living ignored feels more like it.

DSC00962

But here’s what I’m coming to believe. I’m not all the way there yet, but I’m getting there, and I’m breathing prayers for grace and patience to live into this truth:

It is when the storm looms large that all the edges of living loved begin to be visible. It is in the storm that we meet God most intimately. And we encounter ourselves there, too. We learn a heckuva lot more about who we are, how we’re built, where our strengths and weaknesses are, and what our own personal shadows have to teach us when we’re navigating through gale-force winds than when we’re enjoying a blue-sky day.

If I’m honest — and I’m trying to be! — I don’t like this very much. I prefer sunny days and happy feelings. I’m grateful for loving family and financial stability and good health and the ability to be generous — and it’s easy to be grateful for all of that. 

But life is not simply blue-sky days. And when the storms hit, gratitude is much harder to find. Sometimes we can go years without seeing a hint of blue in the scene unfolding around us. Life is complicated, often difficult, sometimes filled with pain. What then? Living loved? 

Now, it feels more like living abandoned.

Last week, we encouraged one another to give ourselves permission for the tears that come with all those feelings, all those stormy days. I believe scripture invites us to lament, giving us words and emotions and stories that underscore the reality of human suffering. Biblical faith is not stoicism and it is not saccharine or cheesy, either.

Biblical faith is muscular, tough, stubborn. Joseph held onto hope despite calamity after calamity. Jacob learned everything the hard way. David was great at music and kingship, but lousy at parenting and integrity. Elijah was aces when the big show demanded it, but fell apart when fatigue overwhelmed. Hannah cried out to God when her life felt empty and bitter and then gave up God’s gift when he arrived. Ruth begged and borrowed the very food she and Naomi needed while learning to trust Israel’s God. Mary pondered and sang, questioned and grieved. 

Suffering is never minimized in scripture. It is acknowledged on almost every page. We are never told to ‘rise above it.’ Instead, we are invited to live into it and to learn from it. And to recognize that God is right here with us, in the middle of every sob session, in the heart of every loss, right here in the muck with us. 

Here are some powerful, beautiful words from Fred Buechner that begin to summarize what I want to say today:

 “The world floods in on all of us. The world can be kind, and it can be cruel. It can be beautiful, and it can be appalling. It can give us good reason to hope and good reason to give up all hope. It can strengthen our faith in a loving God, and it can decimate our faith. In our lives in the world, the temptation is always to go where the world takes us, to drift with whatever current happens to be running strongest. When good things happen, we rise to heaven; when bad things happen, we descend to hell. When the world strikes out at us, we strike back, and when one way or another the world blesses us, our spirits soar. I know this to be true of no one as well as I know it to be true of myself. I know how just the weather can affect my whole state of mind for good or ill, how just getting stuck in a traffic jam can ruin an afternoon that in every other way is so beautiful that it dazzles the heart. We are in constant danger of being not actors in the drama of our own lives but reactors. The fragmentary nature of our experience shatters us into fragments. Instead of being whole, most of the time we are in pieces, and we see the world in pieces, full of darkness at one moment and full of light the next.

It is in Jesus, of course, and in the people whose lives have been deeply touched by Jesus, and in ourselves at those moments when we also are deeply touched by him, that we see another way of being human in this world, which is the way of wholeness. When we glimpse that wholeness in others, we recognize it immediately for what it is, and the reason we recognize it, I believe, is that no matter how much the world shatters us to pieces, we carry inside us a vision of wholeness that we sense is our true home and that beckons to us. It is part of what the book of Genesis means by saying that we are made in the image of God. It is part of what Saint Paul means by saying that the deepest undercurrent of all creation is the current that seeks to draw us toward what he calls mature humanhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
— Frederick Buechner, from a sermon included in the book, “Longing for Home”

Wholeness. Living loved brings us as close to that as we can get this side of heaven. Choosing, every single day, no matter the weather, to believe that God loves us — and to learn to love ourselves because God loves us — this is the only path I know that leads to wholeness, to healing.

That means jettisoning a lot of bad theology along the way. It means choosing to hold the tension of God’s sovereignty and God’s goodness loosely and humbly. It means choosing to live with unanswered questions. It means letting the tears loose, crying ‘uncle,’ stomping our feet on occasion or shaking our fists in heaven’s direction. And then. . . sitting still long enough to hear the gentle whisper of love echoing in our hearts — right there, in the middle of our frustration, our rage, our impotence.

DSC00968It also means refusing to put suffering on a sliding scale of any kind. If you find yourself in the middle of deep personal pain for any reason — ANY REASON — then you are suffering. Please do not undervalue your own struggle by looking across the aisle, or across the newspaper, or across the world to someone else’s struggle. You will always find someone who is ‘worse off’ than you are. I promise. Instead, fully inhabit your pain, as much as you are able. Release the anguish of it, take it to God and say, “See this? Do you see this? Do you see how hard this is? Are you God or aren’t you? Can you fix this or can’t you?”

Yes, go ahead. Pour it out.

And then — shut up.

Sit by the side of the road and listen. Listen to what God has been teaching you about love and about yourself. Really listen. “I am with you always,” God says. “I collect your tears in a bottle.” 

DSC00968 - Version 2

And remember that when these times hit — and they do, they will — that you are in such good company, the author of Lamentations to name one. He rages and sobs. . . and then he remembers. He listens to what he knows:

13 He shot his arrows
    deep into my heart.
14 My own people laugh at me.
    All day long they sing their mocking songs.
15 He has filled me with bitterness
    and given me a bitter cup of sorrow to drink.
16 He has made me chew on gravel.
     He has rolled me in the dust.
17 Peace has been stripped away,
    and I have forgotten what prosperity is.
18 I cry out, “My splendor is gone!
    Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost!”
19 The thought of my suffering and homelessness
    is bitter beyond words.
20 I will never forget this awful time,
    as I grieve over my loss.
21 Yet I still dare to hope
    when I remember this:
22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
    His mercies never cease.
23 Great is his faithfulness;
    his mercies begin afresh each morning.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
    therefore, I will hope in him!”

The LORD is our inheritance.

Can you still ‘dare to hope?’ No matter what sort of crap life hands you? Do you know how loved you are, even when the s**t hits the fan? Do you know how to love yourself when the pain level rises? Can you release the temptation to write off your own pain because someone else’s may be worse? 

And here’s the question I need to ask myself right now, in the middle of the muck that we’re wading through: can I remember that there is only one Savior and that Savior’s name is Jesus? Can I release my need to be the giver of help and begin to receive what I need to get through this round? Can I believe enough in the immensity of God’s love for me that I can make good choices, ones that lead to health and healing? 

I’m workin’ on it. 

You?

Next week, we’ll continue to delve into this enormous and complex topic by asking:

How do I make all the pieces fit?

Filed Under: biblical reflection, community, Confession, Encouragement, grief, Hard Things, hope, Lament, Living the Answers, Living the Questions, personal journey, Q & A, Spiritual Formation, Suffering

Q & A Tuesday Wrap-Up: Week Four

February 11, 2014 By

 

There are a lot of words in this wrap-up — and most of them are from all of you!DSC00924

What a rich conversation we’ve had this week! Thank you all for your insights and your articulate, kind responses to me and to one another. Thank you for helping us all to wrestle well with the question of ‘tears.’ Yes, yes. There is room for our tears in the body of Christ, even though many of us have felt them to be unwelcome in particular corners of that body. The words you’ve shared, both in link-ups and in the comments section, have added so much liveliness and depth to living this particular question. I am grateful.

One of the earliest link-ups this week was breathtakingly beautiful, with reminders that life lived on planet earth is only an introduction to the life that is to come. She wrote: “I love crawling close in hospital beds and into the stories with their glimpses of the main stage, and inviting the next chapter into the room. It’s painful and gorgeous all at once. It’s the most beautiful thing my soul has ever felt. We are in the lobby. We have only caught a glimpse of  beauty.” I encourage you to read the entire post.

Several posts this week were written in poetic, prayerful format, asking the church to be more open to letting the tears flow freely and unashamedly. We were encouraged to:

Make room in our own woundedness to walk the road with others who are weak and in pain. Be a sanctuary for the seeking, the saved and those sick in body, mind or heart. 

Weep with those who weep. Rejoice with all who rejoice. Lift and uphold each other in prayer. Come alongside and be Christ’s ambassadors in caring for all in need.

Another faithful friend wrote a story of freedom, of permission to be all of who she is in the presence of God:

my younger self
was never known to cry
perhaps it was scolded out of me
having too often heard
“I’ll give you something to cry about”

but my God gave me tears
when I surrendered to Him
my harsh and stoney heart

 now I am known
as a woman who weeps
long and deep tears 
born of joy, pain, awe 
and intercession

A regular contributor chose to offer a poetic reflection on both life and scripture in response to this question about tears:

The woman brought her tears,
rained them on our Lord’s
dusty feet. The body of Christ knows
(though we have forgotten)
the fellowship of tears.

And a regular member of the conversation joined her blog for the first time this week, also writing her thoughts in poetry:

While some have been tears
of deep grief,
sometimes tears tell me
it’s time to
stop
pay attention
see what God has for me.

Although not always readily apparent,
the time spent paying attention
until it becomes clear
is time
well-spent.

This beautiful and poignant post came from the deep wells of personal pain and loss and speaks to the hard but necessary truth that we don’t always know where our tears will lead, how our sorrow will be redeemed:

It will be days, months, maybe years, to process what God has done and to see the fruits from the passing of this small seed.
New life is coming, even from this death, and there will be more to write.
Leah has her own story to tell, but I will share some of the precious words she said to me,
“Mom, we will never be the same.  He taught us so much.”

His name was Garrison Isaac.

You know ‘Isaac’ means ‘laughter’–and he is–laughing, I know.  
With Jesus.

A really important corrective came from this once-Catholic-maybe-still-Catholic writer who reminded those of us with conservative/evangelical/Protestant stories that there are other stories about tears, too:

Well, Catholicism has no problems with tears. Repentance is regular and necessary and tears are often part of that. Life is accepted as being full of pain so there will often be tears. There isn’t any pressure on believers to be joyful. So when I came across this sense of failure over feeling unhappy or depressed or sad I was puzzled.

Tears have accompanied deep revelations of sinfulness and forgiveness. . . 

Perhaps there should be some tears shed for the harm that has been done to the church by our disunity.

And the comments section this week simply soared, with heart-to-heart connections and beautiful words. A few of my favorites:

“He doesn’t let a single tear go to waste.
And the day is coming when He will dry each one.
Now that’s a promise to hold on to.”

About bad theology in the church:

“Once, not long after my miscarriage, I was told (taught, actually) that–if we’re not joyful–we make God the Father look bad. I rejected that idea in my spirit immediately, but I still feel a little angry when I think about it. We can be so careless w/ one another.”

A couple of deeply personal stories about the power of Holy Spirit tears:

“My cancer is well advanced in my bones, but I have made the commitment to sing in the choir the whole sesaon. I am pretty much the bass section. 2 weeks ago the anthem was “Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world.” The verses always start out the with basses belting out “I want to meet my Jesus,” or some variant on that theme. It was tough going for me. I did it, then went back to my seat and put my head down and started bawling while someone in the congregation stood up and thanked the choir for their spirited anthem. It was all good. These tears are gifts from God.”

A great reminder of a famous movie quote:

“Do you remember the line in “Steel Magnolias”? “My favorite emotion is laughter through tears” I’ve always loved that line.”

A profound question:

“Can I grieve my way back to owning tears? For so, so long, I had no safe place–and it seems I’ve forgotten how.”

Two reminders that early childhood lessons can sometimes trip us up as adults:

“Somewhere I picked up the idea that they [tears] are often manipulative or embarrassing, and I cringe now remembering ways I have dismissed the tears of others.”

“I decided as a young child, that my sister would use her tears to manipulate my parents whenever she was getting in trouble, and I vowed I would never do that.”

Testimonies of gratitude for the freedom to accept tears, those of others and our own:

“God has been slowly chipping away and breaking down the walls around my heart and in the last two years I cried more than my whole life. (I am 59) He weeps with us and gives us comfort.”

“A book that was instrumental in the process for me was, ‘The Wall Around Your Heart’ by Mary de Muth. I can highly recommend it. This breaking down in order to rebuild can feel like a strange unravelling where ground shifts beneath our feet and all seems uncertain.”

“I do feel I am doing this not only for me but for the precious people who are coming along behind me and I am grateful the opportunity to keep growing. Love the community here.”

A beautiful pledge to commit to openness and break the family pattern:

“but somehow to me, because of their stoicism, it felt like trusting God meant I didn’t feel the depth of the pain. I just had a visit with my only living Aunt last night who was only 5 years older than me. We wept together on the phone, sharing the sharing the pain of this approach – my grandmother not talking to her about my Grandfather (her dad) dying and my parents not talking to me about how i felt about the loss of my two siblings when I was a child. these are kind people who loved us, but they did as they had learned – but at the time, it seemed to us like we were to be brave and soldier on. by the time i could have talked to my mom about this, she got sick and soon died thereafter. I am determined to be open about my journey.”

And these words, from someone new to the conversation – well, they rang true in places deep and dark:

“Once when I was on a panel with other moms, discussing how women can minister to one another, I said, “Sometimes the greatest gift is to have someone cry with me.” Indeed, aren’t we uncomfortable with tears often, quickly sniffling and stuffing them away in our sinuses. I hold firmly to the thought that tears are a gift, and a gift to be shared with those who choose to walk with us. To have another share a time of tears is beautiful, to let them flow freely, not holding back, is a source of healing. One time when I had a blood test for inflammation, my sedimentation rate was off the charts. Later in the day a dear friend and I shared a precious time of talking and crying together. For some reason I had another blood test the next day. The inflammation was within normal limits. Shared tears can be healing indeed! On the other hand, Joy hold its own in the healing arena. I have had people ask me how I could possibly be so joy-filled when I experience such great pain. The answer, of course, is Jesus. The constant Joy is another gift, not manufactured by me, but given to me by a God who sees and loves deeply. The Joy and Tears are compatible, not mutually exclusive. They come together, share the same heart. I fully believe we can be shedding tears of sadness or pain and yet walk in Joy in the same moment.”

Another new ‘talker’ expressed regret and frustration with the ‘cheerfulness’ of too many church gatherings and how that can shut people out:

“I too could take the “good Cheer” better if we also were allowed to let the cracks show. That vulnerability is something most people just don’t want to face, it is too real, I guess.”

And almost immediately, there was this good word, reminding us all that we need people in our lives who know us, all of us, and who love us anyhow!

“I hope you have a “posse.” Through one of the hardest ministry hurts we experienced, i had four friend who knew the all of the story. they saved my sanity – my life.”

And I wonder how many of us can empathize with these words of realization, this glimpse into the full mystery of our own hearts:

“I have recently been surprised by my tears over something that I thought had been dealt with years ago, and realised it was because God was bringing healing to an area of my heart, of which I had been completely unaware! Which makes me wonder how much more of my heart is unknown to me…”

And to wrap up this week’s wrap-up, this lovely story of grace re-discovered through the healing, releasing power of tears:

“The worst period of my life was marked by a state of denial that refused to accept I was struggling. I used a false religion of acceptance (false because I was actually angry, resentful and playing the long suffering pious martyr) that hardened my heart and for a long time no tears fell. I was often ill and now it seems to me that these things were linked. Stress built up inside me and when not aknowledged and released as tears it manifested in other physical ways. (I do not believe that this explains most illnesses btw!) It was this experience that led me to believe that in some ways I was saved by grief. Mourning my sister’s sudden death paved the way for mourning unaccepted losses. Tears allowed more tears and joy came in the morning.”

A  HUGE thank-you from me to all of you for your generous gift of time, thought, and words. We all richer for the connections made in this space.

 

Filed Under: biblical reflection, community, Encouragement, Friendship, God's gifts, grief, Hard Things, Holy Spirit, Living the Answers, Living the Questions, personal journey, Q & A

A Sacramental Faith

February 10, 2014 By


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It’s been a rough week. A niggling ankle injury turned out to be a seriously shredded tendon, which may require surgery next month. In the meantime, I’m wearing a boot to try and immobilize it and encourage healing.

My mom took a nasty fall, splitting her fingers apart and bruising herself all along one side of her body. Fortunately, nothing was broken, but she is tired and more confused than ever.

My husband and I tend to take our worries out on one another, at least initially, and so we’ve been doing more than our share of sniping and growling. We’re moving back to center again, and I am glad.

I sit, with my foot iced and propped, encased in a serious boot, surrounded by too.much.stuff, all of which needs sorting. I wonder how and when to set aside enough time to do more than the basics. Meal prep, laundry, keeping appointments, writing – these seem to fill all the blanks on the calendar — and in my spirit — and there isn’t much room left. 

I went to worship almost reluctantly yesterday. We’d missed the week before and I came close to missing again. I was tired, anxious and sore, not eager to make conversation with anyone, unsure about a lot of things.

Which, of course, is EXACTLY when I need to be there, sitting and standing with the community, offering praise to God in the middle of the mess and listening for the Spirit’s breathy voice in the midst of the sanctuary. 

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As I perused the bulletin before the service began, I saw that there would be space this week for prayer and anointing. This is not a usual occurrence for us, but as soon as I saw the words, I knew why I was there.

Turns out, a lot of people had the same response.

Even after all the years that church has been part of my life, even after almost 20 years of professional leadership in the church, I am still amazed at how and when the Spirit blows across a room full of people. It stuns me every time.

And every time it happens in this particular community of believers, there is something sacramental happening in the service. Eucharist, baptism, renewal of baptismal vows, anointing.

These physical signs of spiritual truths, these tactile things — they are the pieces that the Spirit of God uses in our midst to move us, shake us out of the pews, stir our hearts. I don’t understand it, I just recognize it when I see it.
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It’s a powerful thing to see people streaming down the aisle to be touched by a pastor. We encourage prayer for healing after every single service, and very few people take advantage of those opportunities. But add oil? Make it part of the service itself?

They came by the dozens. And I went right up there with them.

The sermon leading into this event was built around a text in John 12, Mary pouring a large jar of pure, perfumed oil, spreading it lavishly all over the feet of Jesus. Pastor Don asked us to think about fragrances, how powerful they can be — for both good and ill. And the communion table featured trailing vines of jasmine, sending sweetness into the first few pews.

This is a story close to my heart. The very first sermon I ever preached in my life came from Mark’s version, and I preached on John’s text last year. (I wrote an abbreviated reflection on it during Holy Week.) And the closing line of my own reflection was right in line with yesterday’s theme: “. . . the surest sign of a true disciple is the delicious aroma that permeates every corner of the house.”

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We had two kneelers in place, two pastors with vials of oil, and we sang. Oh, how we sang. “Holy Spirit, Come,” as printed on the screens and one or two others that rose spontaneously as we listened to that Breath of Life within us.

One of the joys of our worship is the participation of lay people in the service each week — in the reading of scripture and the offering of community prayer. Yesterday’s prayer was written and offered by one of our resident poets, Professor Paul Willis, whose words always slow me down and make me think. The ones he chose yesterday were strong, muscular, maybe even hard to hear at points. But they were exactly what we needed. 

I invite you to pray them along with us as you read, because this prayer walks right with us, from the sanctuary of togetherness to the sanctuaries that we inhabit all around the city in the days between our gatherings. And those sanctuaries — our homes, places of employment, dorm rooms, school classrooms — these are reminders, too. Reminders that we are, indeed, a sacramental people, body, soul and spirit. . . of a piece.

Lord, so often we are satisfied with mere deodorant
to cover up our stinking selves. 
What would it mean to learn a new fragrance,
to be a new fragrance,
to offer that fragrance to you? 
What would it mean to take pure nard
from the farthest reaches of the Himalayas
and to pour it lovingly over your feet—the feet of our Savior? 
What would it mean to bathe ourselves from head to toe
in the fragrance of our Savior’s blood?

Lord, make us each,
remake us each,
into that aroma which will consecrate us,
each one,
into that individual fragrance of holy service
you have uniquely set out for us,
each one of us,
a path of service and holiness
that you have marked out for each of us,
whether that path lead into the High Sierra
or into the lower East Side of Santa Barbara,
whether it lead to the front of the classroom or to the back,
whether it lead to changing laws in the legislature
or changing diapers in the nursery.

Lord, right now we’re stinking it up. 
We always have been. 
Fill us with your redeeming fragrance,
and let us offer it back to you. 
Amen.
            — Paul Willis, February 9, 2014

IMG_3918Sunlight through the poppies when we had lunch with ‘the moms’ after church.

Linking today with Michelle, Laura, Jen and Jennifer

 


Filed Under: Beauty, biblical reflection, community, Confession, Encouragement, God's gifts, Holy Spirit, Marriage, Spiritual Formation, Sunday Reflections, worship

Q & A: Week Four – The Gift of Tears

February 7, 2014 By

WARNING:

THIS IS A MUCH LONGER INTRO THAN USUAL. FEEL FREE TO GLANCE, SKIP OR IGNORE:

This week marks the halfway point in my original layout for this series. I designed Q & A around a set of topics I’ve been noticing as I read around the Christian blog world; six basic concerns that surface repeatedly and that often feel more than a little bit unsafe and scary to many people. When I wrote the introductory post for Q & A, I solicited additional questions from you. Two of you wrote back with a whole series of questions that crystallized around two main areas, which brought my total topic list to these eight:

1. Why is there so much talk about obedience?                      (January 17)
2. What’s with this ‘more of Jesus, less of me’ stuff?              (January 24)
3. What’s with all this talk about ‘sin?’                                (January 31)
4. Is there room for my tears here?                                       (February 7)
5. What do we do with our suffering?                                  (February 14)
6. How do I make all the pieces fit?                                       (February 21)
7. Why do bad things happen to good people?                       (February 28)
8. What do I do with all the hard/weird stuff in the Bible?   (March 7)

As you can see, these questions are broad, and fully half of them deal in one way or another with the huge topic of suffering. That is intentional. I don’t want to waste time, space or effort by delving into too much detail on any one topic, yet the facets of suffering are many and require careful parsing out. As we work our way through this list, you’ll notice that my reflections will always be general in nature, not specific. I don’t want to open a can of worms with any of these, but I do want to foster a safe space for discussion and conversation, rather than debate. Disagreement is welcome, as long as it’s kind and open. We don’t have to agree about all that much, actually, to be connected through the goodness of God made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. I am ordained in a small, evangelical denomination that I love. (You can meet us here.) We hold only six affirmations:

We affirm the centrality of the word of God.
We affirm the necessity of the new birth.
We affirm a commitment to the whole mission of the church.
We affirm the church as a fellowship of believers.
We affirm a conscious dependence on the Holy Spirit.
We affirm the reality of freedom in Christ.

And it is that last one that I cling to whenever I find myself in disagreement with another Christian on any topic that isn’t directly connected to those first five affirmations. There is room to ‘agree to disagree,’ and for the last 35 years, I have been privileged to be a part of a church family that lives that truth.

This time table for our conversations, our ‘delving into the mystery,’  overlaps by two days with the beginning of Lent this year. I am hoping to do another daily devotional series during Lent; the last time I tackled that was 2012. So, after Easter, if there are further questions that you would like to work through, please let me know and we’ll have at it during the weeks of Eastertide. I am also open to continuing the Q & A format as an occasional series, so let me know if there is ever a topic you’d like for us to address together after we’ve finished this series. Thanks so much to everyone for your wonderful contributions to this endeavor.

As you can see from the schedule, the question for next week is:
What do we do with our suffering?

 

My reflections for this week do not fit the surfing theme! Instead, I am focussing on three treasures of mine, things I have always kept nearby on my pastoral and/or personal desk, things that teach me some important truths every time I look at them.

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Treasure Number One: One weekend in early April, nearly thirty-five years ago, we had a brief respite after a huge rainstorm that lasted almost a week. So we piled our three kids in the car and drove an hour west from our home in Altadena, towards the ocean. All of us walked out onto the beach and immediately noticed that there were thousands of tiny shells scattered all over the hard, damp sand left behind by the ebbing tide. We don’t get a lot of shells in southern California. Sometimes; after a big storm, we might find a few here and there. But this was just stunning to see — and delightful. We all began to gather as many as we could in the hour we’d set aside for beach-walking.

My middle daughter, who has always had great observational skills, was the champ that day, bringing back several handfuls of these beautiful, delicate things, almost all of them scallop shells. We rinsed and dried them and I kept some of them separate from the several baskets full of shells that have always adorned our homes over the years.

These were special to me. They were small, very small. And they were perfect. Something about them spoke to a deep place in me. Ever since then, I have had this clam shell full of them sitting on my desk(s), either at home or in my office. 

DSC00944Treasure Number Two: Within the first two weeks of moving to Santa Barbara to begin my very first (and only) paid position on a pastoral staff, I was browsing among some of the quaint shops on State Street in my new hometown. I quickly located a place that remains on my top 10 list to this day, a tiny, crowded shop that features jewelry, brightly colored linens, wonderful seasonal decor, and collections of tiny things. Do you see that basket? It’s about an inch and half square. And can you see what’s in it? Five tiny loaves of bread and two small fish. Does that sound familiar to you?

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Treasure Number Three: The last piece of my favorite trio is this small carving of the weeping Jesus of Lithuania, a gift from a friend who used to be my boss. This is what Wikipedia (yes, I know!!) has to say about this figure:

Wooden carvings of Rūpintojėlis, “The Jesus who cares for us,” are often seen at crossroads and in cemeteries. He always rests his head on his right arm, his left hand rests on his knee, a crown of thorns on his head shows drops of blood, and his face is full of solicitude and sorrow.

The pose may represent Jesus’ anticipation of his crucifixion, after his scourging and crowning with thorns. It is also said to depict Jesus after his resurrection and before his ascension. One legend has it that Jesus traveled throughout the world wearing his crown of thorns; during his journeys, he sometimes sat on stones near the road and wept.
(italics mine)

At first glance, it might seem to you that this last piece of the three is the one that relates most readily to the question of the week. And, in one way, that is indeed true. This is a small copy of a figure that appears all over the country of Lithuania, a figure that encapsulates the suffering endured during communism’s rule, that reminded faithful Catholic believers that Jesus had not forgotten them in the midst of their suffering. His tears made their own more bearable somehow.

In truth, however, it is also the shells, and those tiny reminders of the miracle on the hillside, in combination with the weeping Jesus figure — all of these together — that help me to remember and believe that my own tears are seen by God. Not only are they seen, they are treasured, collected in God’s bottle and remembered. I believe that my tears, and your tears, are gifts from God and to God.

And also? Your tears and my tears are gifts to the larger body of Christ. 

Tears are small things, you see. Tiny, actually. Just droplets of water that flow from our eyes when we’re feeling deep emotions or when we’re enduring physical pain. Did you know that the tears that come when you are peeling onions or blinking at a fierce wind are not a chemical match for the tears you shed in either pain or joy? ‘Real’ tears carry toxins away from the body, they are a cleansing agent, a release. And part of God’s design.

I also believe that they are evidence of the Holy Spirit’s good work within us. I believe that tears can be a charism, not unlike tongues or prophecy, wisdom or miracles. No, they’re not listed anywhere in scripture. But I believe it nonetheless. For me they are the gift that came when I asked for the gift of tongues, the gift of a special prayer language. I have not received the language, but the tears spring forth, unbidden, many times when I pray, when I counsel others, when I read the Word. And over and over again, I have learned that they are gift.

They are also often sign, providing a ‘pay attention to this’ inkling that God is up to something in my heart or the heart of another. Yes, they are tiny. But they are perfect — just like the shells. And they represent what God’s Spirit can do in and through us when we relinquish what we have, when we let go of our tendency toward too-tight control over our emotions and our thought life. A lesson that I remember whenever I look at the loaves and the fishes.

God, you see, can do miracles with very small things. And sometimes, those very small things are our tears.

So, why then, I wonder, do so many Christians shy away from them? Why is the predominant mood on Sunday morning too often one of incessant good cheer, hail-fellow-well-met, I’m-fine-thank-you-I’m-just-fine? In truth, the Sunday morning good cheer wouldn’t bother me so much if I were confident that the tears that I KNOW most people are carrying in their bodies and their spirits were given permission to flow somewhere in the midst of the community, maybe on another day of the week! 

What worries me is that too many Christians simply do not feel safe admitting that they carry those tears, believing instead that they have managed to flunk the primary test of authentic discipleship. Where is the JOY? they wonder. Where is the gratitude? I have Jesus, why am I not ‘fine?’

What I want to say — what my beautiful shells and my small reminder of miracles and the figure of our crying Jesus remind me — is that life is not always grand. And that is to be expected.  Injustice abounds. Wars rage. Children die. Health gives way. Minds deteriorate. Relationships break apart. Jobs are lost. Bad habits persist. Doubt looms large. Everything is not just hunky-dory all the time, you know? We are so.not.fine.

And. . . there is this, oh-so-important piece of our story:

Jesus wept.

Hang onto that truth. With all that is in you, hang onto it. Our holy book is laced with the language of lament, fists raised to the heavens, tears streaming down the cheeks. Because tears are a part of what it means to live as human creatures in a broken but beautiful world. Tears are a primary means of release, of communication, of grief, pain, loss and even of joy and gratitude. It all melds together, you see. Mourning and dancing ‘kiss each other,’ and all of it is part of what it means to live a full, real, human life. 

This is a huge topic, so many layers to be unpacked and wrestled through. But for this week, the most important answer to our weekly question is YES, there is room for your tears here. In fact, they are welcome here. Because if you let me see your tears, then I know you are giving me a gift; you are giving me the truth. You are letting me in, so that I can weep with you, and then together, we can weep with God.

When we offer our tears to one another and to the living, loving God of the universe, we are allowing ourselves to be truth-tellers and image-bearers more powerfully than at almost any other time in our lives for precisely this reason: we know a God who weeps with us. And his name is Jesus.

Thanks be to God.

 Next week’s question: What do we do with our suffering?   

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Filed Under: Beauty, biblical reflection, Blogging, community, Confession, Encouragement, God's gifts, grief, Hard Things, Lament, Living the Answers, Living the Questions, personal journey, Q & A, Spiritual Formation, Suffering

Q & A Tuesday Wrap-Up: Week Three

February 4, 2014 By

DSC00878I’m thinking maybe this week’s topic — SIN — felt too big for some of our usual conversational partners, because a few voices are missing this time around. We picked up a few new ones, however, and so the conversation continues to be rich and challenging. My thanks to all who linked and to all who left comments over the weekend. We’re wrestling things out together and I am glad.

I write with some frequency about my own journey with Jesus from fundamentalism to what I hope is a more grace-based space on the faith spectrum. What has surprised and saddened me as I continue to explore the world of faith blogs is the number of people who have been terribly, sometimes irreparably, burned by the church. My own experience is decidedly NOT that and I want to say that as clearly as possible. Yes, I had to unlearn some of the things that my earliest church experiences taught me. But my emotional connections to that early church are strong and universally positive. There were people there who loved me, worship was beautiful and thoughtful, and I actually loved earning ‘spending money’ for the treasure chest of goodies that Bible memory work made possible to the serious young student!

Some of you cannot say the same. Perhaps these words sum up what too many of us have experienced as a result of early church experiences: And I am still getting my head around how to achieve the balance between hating sin yet not hating myself. Maybe you get stuck there too? 

Reading this paragraph, however, brought hope that we can, by God’s grace, learn to move away from old paradigms and embrace the truth of the gospel:

I begin to glimpse how death connects to sin, not as some arbitrary punishment, but an intrinsically linked growth–plant from root. Sin no longer seems like failure of some cosmic test, but some dark and awful thing that wants to eat us alive. God is not removed on some academic seat waiting for my proper supplication in order to expunge my “F” with Christ’s blood and replace it with His “A.” He is stooping beside an angry Cain, urging him, “Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” He is eating with the sinners, insisting, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” He is sitting beside the four-year-old girl who has shut herself in the closet to pray, again, not to go to hell. And though she doesn’t love Him–doesn’t even want to love Him–yet, He loves her.

One essayist hoped to wax eloquent and speak in theological terms about the concept of sin, only to find herself falling into a familiar pattern, one that reminded her that “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak!”

Our thoughtful, neighborhood poet gave us two pithy, thoughtful examples of her good thinking, one in the comments:

oh to have His eyes
that cut through fog
to see the heart of us, the heart of all
and with a breath of His Spirit
He brings clarity we can’t find in our own power

pondering long before I blog…

And one on her blog:

so I need not think long about sin
I need not give too much power 
to the darkness, no
I won’t deny His sacrifice
I instead choose freedom
choose light, choose life

Our conversation this week was enriched by the addition of two voices in a lower register, with links to two essays by thoughtful writing men. One wrote about our need to look sin square in its dark face in order to embrace the light. And the other pointed us in the direction of systemic sin, looking at the lectionary passages for the coming week.

Sometimes we have trouble looking at the judgmental texts of Jesus. If we take these texts as condemning individuals, they are harsh indeed. But if we understand that they are judgments against systemic sin, a general cultural abandonment of the values of their religion, we can pay more attention to them and learn from them.

I wonder about the general materialism of our culture. Might not this be such an example of “systemic sin?”

Each week, I am moved by and grateful for the comments that are offered on the weekly topic/question. Here are a few of my favorites, in no particular order:

“I took my first deep breath of grace. I am still breathing grace and always in need of more.”

“It seems to me we often forget that in the very first place God created us all. Deliberately. Desiring us. Loving us. Sin is what gets in the way of our loving relationship. It is not the ESSENCE of our very selves”

“I was raised in a church where I knew that Jesus died for our sins, but I didn’t really understand that it was a free gift of salvation and that I could be changed by the power of Christ IN me.”

“Obviously we know there is sin and evil in the world. But I’m not sure that the Augustinian “original sin” idea is the only way to account for it. You know the Celtic church was less influenced by Rome and therefore by Augustine, and they believe that one is born in holiness and returns to holiness at death. Now a lot happens in between, but I like the sense of the holiness of our life, derived from the fact that we bear God’s image and are born in his holiness. I think this speaks to our value, to our ability to choose to follow Jesus, and to have the offering of our life in discipleship to be a process of continual transformation. Which doesn’t mean that forgiveness and grace is not needed, but is more part of the process than the main thing.”

“Loves comes first…doesn’t it break a heart wide open when we see a place of blindness in our lives…places we have walked in ignorance …and His love opens our eyes…and we see through the lens of His love how wrong we have been…and the waves of grace come over us…He saw it all the time…and His love never stopped…His love patiently and continually called to us…called us out of the fog into the light…”

And to wrap-up the wrap-up once again, our Kiwi friend gave us a gift that looks like this:

I DID behave badly, and cause problems and stress. But nobody seemed to be able to see anything more than that – that underneath all those problems was a little girl, scared, alone and desperate for someone to love her. So when I was told that God couldn’t bear to look at me because of my sinfulness, and that He only wanted to look at Jesus, it made perfect sense! Of course God would feel that way, just like it seemed everybody else did.

It took leaving everyone and everything I knew and creating a completely new life (which also involved a new church) before I started to believe any differently. I had always known that God loved me, as long as ‘me’ was submerged and invisible in Jesus, but ever so slowly I started to learn and believe that I was of value to God. Not just as a container for Jesus, but as me. That God loved my strong will, and had intentionally given it to me (it wasn’t a design flaw after all!), that He loved my sense of humour, and that He actually liked me! Gasp! This was a completely earth-shattering revelation. God cared for me so tenderly and kindly in those first few years of transition that I started to be able to trust Him, instead of only fearing Him.

I am still – alas! – a sinner. And I am still often overwhelmed by how very far I am, from even my own standards, let alone God’s. The difference now is that I am getting better at knowing that God loves me, and that I give Him joy… even in my sinful state, He SEES me. The real me, the one He made and loves. It’s the difference between thinking that God looks past my pitiful attempts at goodness, sees my great sinfulness, and says “I knew it, you’re just a fraud!” and thinking that God looks past my sinfulness, sees my heart, the daughter He loves, and says “Come back to me, I miss you!”

WONDERFUL words from all of you – I thank you!

Week Four will be up a little after midnight on Friday morning and the Linky will be open until the following Monday at 4:00 in the afternoon, PST (If I can remember how to correctly program the dang thing!) Our question for this week: Is there room for my tears here?

  

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Blogging, Encouragement, God's gifts, Hard Things, Living the Answers, personal journey, Q & A, Surfing!

Q & A: Week Three – Remembering What Comes First

January 31, 2014 By

Welcome to Q & A, a weekly series of ‘living the questions,’  questions that we often struggle with as people of faith. You are invited to read along, to comment with as many words as you like (just keep them in a conversational tone, without sharp edges, please), and/or to write a reflection of your own and link it back to this conversation. Each week the linky will be open from midnight Thursday/Friday until 4:00 p.m. on Monday (PST), allowing time for weekend wondering and writing. Then, each Tuesday, I’ll attempt a wrap-up post, with links, to help us begin to ‘live into the answers.’

This week’s question: “What’s with all this talk about ‘sin?'”

Next week, we’ll wrestle with this one: “Is there room for my tears here?”

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Interesting surfing weather this week. I took another trip out to Coal Oil Point and discovered that the entire coast — and at least 200 feet inland — were shrouded in fog. The sun shone through it, which actually made it more difficult to orient myself, as the light bounced around the thick air. As I walked that gravel path, I thought to myself that the entire experience was akin to trying to write the essay for this week. SIN is a huge topic. An important one, and for most of us, absolutely central to our understanding of who we are, who God is, why Jesus came to earth, and what the cross means. So wading out into this particular topic is a whole lot like wading out into the fog. It’s harder to see what’s coming at you, it’s tough to find your fellow travelers, and it feels decidedly more scary than the exact same water does on a sunny day.

In my introductory post for this series, I featured photos taken at the exact same spots along the path that you’ll see here. They look decidedly different today. This weather feels slightly threatening, even a bit frightening and pretty much mirrors my feelings as we delve into a discussion about sin this week.

So . . . here we go.

Remembering back to my earliest years in Sunday School, at about age 4 or 5, I can see a little booklet. It had no words, just different colored pages, and the teacher used it to tell the gospel story. I don’t remember all of the pages and their contribution to the overall narrative, but I do remember these: a deep black double page to represent the state of my small, 4-year old heart, completely darkened by something the teacher called ‘sin,’ then a bright red page which represented the spilt blood of our Savior, then a white page, to indicate my now-clean heart if I said ‘yes’ to Jesus, followed by a shiny gold spread, which assured me of my eternal destination.

Oh, I loved that book! And I loved that story. And I wanted that white heart, yes I did. And I definitely wanted that shiny gold future. This little tool was meant to be a good, simple means for helping children begin to understand some of the truths of the Christian faith. I’m not sure, however, that those truths actually sank into my little heart as intended.

And here’s why:

Children that age are just beginning to understand about good and bad behavior; they have no real concept of ‘sin.’ I think I internalized the message this way: Jesus wants me to stop doing bad things; if I don’t stop doing bad things, I am a bad person and I cannot get to heaven. So, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I worked very, very hard for a very, very long time to be a very, very good girl. 

And I began to believe that my sinful self was the most important thing about me. Otherwise, why did Jesus come? Why did Jesus die? 

Because I am a sinner. Everybody is a sinner. And that’s all that matters about us: we are sinners.

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I had a sense of diligence, of always working hard to be better, of trudging through life, walking the straight and narrow  I was a church girl — and I loved church, don’t get me wrong. I was a church girl in conservative southern California (and no, that is not an oxymoron. . . there was a lot of fundamentalism in CA in the mid 20th century). And every single invitational sermon I ever heard in the first twelve years of my life was centered around how sinful I was and how much I needed to be assured of a place in heaven someday. So by cracky, I’d better raise my hand, walk down that aisle and say ‘yes.’

I overstate. A little. But I think you catch my drift, right?

Then we moved and began attending a different church, one where I came to know Jesus in a much different way. The central truths were the same; it was the presentation that differed. More layers were added and the story of salvation took on deeper, richer hues. There began to grow in me the sense that maybe there was something more to be found in Jesus than forgiveness.

Forgiveness is powerful, wonderful stuff – and it is so very important. BUT. There is also Restoration. Empowerment. Redemption. Transformation. And I was deeply moved by the stories of Jesus I read in the gospels, the way he moved to the edges, called out the best in people — even people the rest of society had already written off, like Mary Magdalene, the Samaritan woman at the well, Zacchaeus.

Jesus saw something else in them that no one else seemed to see: he saw something worth his time, worth his goodness, worth his invitation. He saw them.

He also, of course, saw their sin. And he did not ignore it — he exorcised, he healed, he questioned, he called for newness. But here’s what I began to understand during my adolescent years and then reflected on more and more in my 20s and 30s:

Jesus saw beneath their behavior, beneath the swirling demons, beneath their bad reputations. He saw something else, something real and true and more important, even than their sin: he saw God’s image in them, and God’s design.  And then he reached right in and pulled that beauty out so that others could see it, too!

Take a look at these two photographs for a minute.

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When I put my camera up to take this shot, I saw only water with my naked eye. My camera, however, showed me — ever so dimly — that there were surfers out there! At least four of them! And then, I hit the ‘enhance’ button in iPhoto and voila! There they were, in sharper contrast and detail — four strong surfers, doing their thing, despite the messy day.

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God can see us, my friend. He can see us beneath all the fog of sin and brokenness.
Not only that, God LOVES what he sees, desperately, passionately, eternally. God hates sin, that is true. God hates anything that cuts us off from relationship, from ‘walking in the garden’ together. That for me is the clearest, simplest and best definition of the word — ‘sin’ is anything that separates us from God.

But God loves us. And that means that sin is NOT the most important thing about us. Our created humanity is. That’s what needs rescuing, that what’s needs saving, that’s what needs restoration, that’s what needs transformation. 

And that’s why Jesus came as one of us: to show us what it means to live a fully human life, with all of its ups/downs/struggles/joys/questions/answers. And to show us that neither sin, brokenness nor death has the last word. The cross followed by the empty tomb become the place where heaven and earth meet, where God shows us what it means to be a ‘king,’ where power and authority (and forgiveness and redemption) are redefined forever.

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I’m not sure how or why the dominant picture of the atonement — what happened in the incarnation/death/resurrection — became sin-centric in the last few hundred years. It has not always been so. Scripture teaches us that many things happened with the Great Event of Jesus.

Indeed, we do need to grapple with, understand and relinquish our inner ‘bentness,’ our direction-toward-sin, and we need to do that each and every day. Confession is good for the soul, and by that I mean it is good for the soul. It reminds us that God is God and we are not.

But. BUT. When we focus so much of our attention, our study, our prayers, our worship, our conversation on what a mess we are (even though we are, indeed, very messy people!), we take the focus off of God’s ongoing work of redemption and transformation within us. We lose sight of our utter loveliness to God, despite the messes we make, despite our proclivity for willfulness and idolatry. 

LOVE COMES FIRST. And if we can allow ourselves to be loved, without apology or hesitation — well, the earth moves,  you know? Read the story of the Forgiving Father in chapter 15 of Luke’s gospel. Read it through carefully and prayerfully. The father loves that boy long before he sees him coming down the road. Long before the boy repents of his sin. Long before anything.

Love comes first.

 “To God be the glory, great things God has done!” 

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I look forward to your comments and any reflections/responses you’d like to link up to this week. Even through the fog, there are great rides to be had! I am grateful for all the ways you are choosing to ‘live the questions,’ and then ‘live into the answers.’

Next week, we’ll wrestle with this question: “Is there room for my tears here?”

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Blogging, community, Encouragement, God's gifts, hope, Living the Answers, Living the Questions, Mystery, personal journey, Q & A, Surfing!, The Sea

Are You Listening? John 10:1-41

January 26, 2014 By

If you prefer to listen to sermons rather than read them, you can find a downloadable audio version here. It starts in the middle of a sentence, but you do hear the Readers’ Theater version of the scripture reading of the day.DSC00832
John 10:1-42
with Ezekiel 34:1-12, Psalm 23

A Sermon preached at Montecito Covenant Church
by Diana R.G.Trautwein
January 26, 2014

The reading of the passage from Ezekiel began this preaching time.

Thank you, Bruce, for reading what amounts to the bad news for this morning. That prophetic voice in Ezekiel, calling out the leaders of the Jewish people as ‘bad shepherds,’ downright lousy leaders. This is an important passage to bear in mind as we dig into the wonders of our passage from John’s gospel this morning.

For our second reading, we’re going to turn to the OT testament once again, this time to hear about the best kind of leader, the best kind of shepherd. But instead of reading it, we’re going to do something a little different: we’re going to sing it.

I first learned this call-and-response hymn at the memorial service for a dear friend and mentor about three years ago. My husband and I were both moved to tears by the way in which the composer took such familiar words and reworked them into poetry that was beautiful, both musically and literarily. The song is called, “Shepherd Me, O God,” and it’s a paraphrase of Psalm 23, perhaps the most well-known chunk of scripture anywhere in the world. In fact, this is the psalm that was read responsively last Sunday, so you’ve heard it recently.

But there was no way I could preach on John 10 this morning without somehow visiting this beautiful picture of the Good Shepherd, so today — this time –we’re going to sing it. We’ll learn the words to the chorus first, because that’s the part that we will sing. Then the worship team will sing the verses. And, at the end of each verse,  we’ll chime in with our sung response; it will be the same every time. Simple, right?

 Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants,
beyond my fears, from death into life.
God is my shepherd, so nothing shall I want.
I rest in the meadows of faithfulness and love.
I walk by the quiet waters of peace.
Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants,
beyond my fears, from death into life.
Gently you raise me and heal my weary soul,
you lead me by pathways of righteousness and truth,
my spirit shall sing the music of your Name.
Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants,
beyond my fears, from death into life.
Though I should wander the valley of death,
I fear no evil, for you are at my side,
your rod and your staff, my comfort and my hope.
You have set me a banquet of love in the place of hatred.
Crowning me with love beyond my pow’r to hold.
Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants,
beyond my fears, from death into life.
Surely your kindness and mercy follow me
all the days of my life.
I will dwell in the house of my God forevermore.
Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants,
beyond my fears, from death into life.
— words & music by Marty Haugen

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Thank you, Bob and team, for learning this song and then teaching it to all of us.

And as we turn to our text from John’s gospel this morning, that is my prayer for all of us — that we would invite the Good Shepherd to carry us beyond our wants, beyond our fears, from death into life.

We come to our text for today with two pictures in our minds – the Good Shepherd, whom we’ve just sung about, and the bad shepherds that Bruce read about earlier. In that passage, the prophet Ezekiel rips into the kings of Israel, who were given the task of shepherding the national flock. And God, the Holy, Righteous God, tells those shepherds, in no uncertain terms, that they have failed to do their jobs well, utterly failed. Therefore, they are out!

Instead, in a beautiful prophetic view of the future, we learn that the Lord Himself will ‘search for my sheep and look after them.’ God will be shepherd for his flock, his people.

So now, with both of those pictures in mind, we come to the tenth chapter of John’s gospel. Allow me to set the scene for you, before I invite some friends up to help me read this long passage.

First of all, the setting: Chapter 10 picks up right where chapter 9 leaves off – with lots of red letters. Jesus is addressing the Pharisees, the same Pharisees who have thrown the blind man out of the synagogue. You remember him from last week, right? The man, blind from birth, whom Jesus healed by mixing spit with mud and coating those eyes, eyes that had never seen anything, ever.

That remarkable miracle that got everyone jabbering. Remember? And the man at the center of all the buzzing, that blind man didn’t quite know what hit him. All he knows is that a man named Jesus made it possible for him to see – by offering mud and spit and a command to “go wash.” And the man who once was blind says that anyone who could do that is no magician, but a messenger straight from God.

And for that little statement, he gets thrown out. And Jesus, hearing this news, comes to the one he healed and asks a critical question in the closing verses of chapter 9: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

And yes, the blind man truly sees Jesus, and worships him. The Pharisees who were watching, however, do not get it. The ones who claim to see, to understand God and God’s ways, turn out to be the ones who are blind, indeed.

So that’s what has brought us to this big chapter, this turning point chapter numbered 10 in our Bibles. It contains the last set of public teachings in the entire gospel, the last time Jesus wanders through the streets of Jerusalem and the temple courtyards before the events of Holy Week.

This is a watershed moment, these 41 verses, and the work Jesus does here, the teaching and the arguing, and the accusing, and the claims he makes — these are pivotal and worth our careful attention today.

Greg and Janet Spencer have agreed to help me read for you John 10:1-41. I invite you to listen with your Bibles open in front of you, because we’re going to be going back to various parts of this long reading later in the sermon.

READING [This was a very fun Readers’ Theater for Three Voices that I suggested and my friends agreed to, with Greg re-working the verses into a much-appreciated dramatic format. 41 verses in 1 voice can be deadly. But 3 voices, reading dramatically? Everybody paid attention.]

The Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

Thank you, Spencers, for your fine reading skills. I am grateful for your help.

There is a lot going on here, isn’t there? A lot of red letters in this chapter, a lot of Jesus-words. But also a lot of push-back, argument, anger, enough anger to threaten stoning. And all of it coming from a simple story about sheep and shepherds, about thieves, and hired hands and wolves and gates.

Well, maybe it’s not so simple after all. Our altar piece indicates this is far from a simple story with just these few pieces, doesn’t it? The staff, hat and cloak of a shepherd. And a handful of stones spread across the table. No, it’s not simple. But it is rich.

So to delve into that richness, I want to take just a few key phrases out of all these words and focus on those with you this morning. I want to try and distill the goodness for us, by reflecting for a few minutes on these ideas:

                                    He calls his sheep by name.

                                    My sheep listen to my voice.

                                    Believe the works.

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I think it is important for us to understand that this chapter is integrally connected to the healing of the blind man in the chapter before it. Why? Because healing is at the heart of all that Jesus came to do and all of who Jesus is, for us and for the world.

Whether we always recognize it or not, each one of us yearns to be healed, to be whole — to have our blindspots washed away, to have our hearts comforted, to know that we are seen, that we are heard, that we are loved. And, as he so often does, Jesus chooses to teach us about what our own healing looks like by telling us a story. Twice.

In the first telling, Jesus claims that he is ‘the gate,’ the place of entry into the safety of the sheepfold. And in the second, he says, “I am the Good Shepherd.” Two strong statements about who he is, using terms and images that were familiar to his listeners. Everybody knew about shepherds. So many of the villages and towns that comprised ancient Palestine bordered that great wilderness area that covers thousands of miles across the Middle East, all of it populated by herds of sheep, each one with its own shepherd.

But at another level, everyone also knew about the repeated use of shepherd imagery to describe leaders, both human and divine. Like our Ezekiel passage, like the 23rd psalm. That image of the strong, brave, selfless shepherd was used to describe ancient kings, religious leaders, even Almighty God.

It quickly becomes clear that in Jesus’ story, there is only one shepherd who truly cares for the sheep. And it ain’t the religious leaders, who were so quick to toss out a miraculously healed, blind-from-birth, gospel-witnessing recipient-of-grace back there in chapter 9. No. Jesus himself is the true shepherd, the one who knows each sheep by name.

There’s something special about hearing your name spoken out loud by a caring voice. I think that’s why those of us who own names that are closely related to other names make a big deal about others getting ours right.

My dad debated a long time before he put that ‘a’ on the end of my name. And, to tell you the truth, it took me a while to grow into it. I wasn’t so sure I liked it growing up. But as I listened to my dad, this man who loved me so well that I could understand all of the Father imagery for God in scripture without a moment’s hesitation — I began to appreciate the gift that this name is in my life: my dad picked it. And he put that ‘a’ on the end.

Diane is a fine name – I like it a lot. But it’s not my name, you know? So when you keep that ‘a’ in place when you talk to me or write to me, that tells me that you see me, you care enough about me to get my name right.

Jesus knows my name. All my names, the ones I’ve been given through birth and marriage, and the ones I sometimes call myself, too. And those are not so pretty. I’m betting that each of you knows something about those kind of names, too: “clumsy”  “stupid”  “foolish”  “lazy”  “ugly.”

But hear me when I tell you this: those are not your names, nor are they mine. If we look to Jesus as our Good Shepherd, these are our names: “safe”  “loved” “fed”  “rested”  “led to green pastures”  “anointed”  “blessed.”

The Good Shepherd knows our name. Our truest name. He calls his sheep by name. And. . .My sheep listen to my voice.

There are six different places in chapter 10 where Jesus makes reference to listening, more specifically, listening to his voice, the voice of the Good Shepherd, the voice that knows our names. Six times. That tells me that the whole idea of listening is central to everything that’s being taught here.

Listening is tough to do. And it’s getting tougher. There is so much noise in this world! And sifting through it to find that still, small voice . . . well, it’s not easy. It takes intentionality. And it takes time. Both of which are often in short supply. The Pharisees in this chapter are a case in point. They heard Jesus, but they weren’t listening. And there’s a difference.

My husband gets frustrated with me because I often don’t listen very well. I hear him, I hear a voice saying words, but I’m not listening. I’m distracted. I’m reading. I’m thinking about something else. I’m physically present, but aurally absent. I’m working on it, but sometimes it’s a tough go.

And listening to the voice of the Shepherd? If I’m not intentional, if I’m not quiet for at least a few minutes each day, if I’m not developing the habit of ‘praying without ceasing’ (which to me means keeping the channel deliberately open all day long, tossing up breath prayers in and around all of my thinking/reading/ writing/talking out loud) — if I’m not prayerful, then how can I possibly be listening?

As part of my training to become a spiritual director, I had to do several different listening exercises, the most excruciatingly difficult one was this. We were assigned to groups of six and each person was to bring a pre-written life story to read and share with the rest of the group. The rest of us were told to listen as carefully as possible and then. . .to simply reflect back what we heard.

Think about that! No asking questions. No giving advice. Nothing but evidence that we had indeed been listening to what was read.

Man, that was tough. But it was so important. What it did was to teach us to listen well to one another, but also, at the same time, to listen to the voice of the Spirit within. Which is, in sum, what the work of spiritual direction is all about: listening to the other, seated across from you, and listening the whispers of the Spirit at the same time.

Whether or not I’m ever able to facilitate anything of value in the life of those who meet with me, those exercises were in many ways life-changing for me. They helped me grow my inner listening skills. Like anything else, good listening takes practice.

And I’m guessing that my husband would probably appreciate it if I’d pull those skills out a little more frequently in our day-to-day life, too!

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Lastly, this phrase from the second half of long this chapter: Believe the works. It comes in the discussion late in the chapter, when everyone is in Jerusalem for a time of celebration, The Festival of Dedication, remembering the time when the temple was restored to the people of Israel 200 years earlier, when the foreign idols were thrown out, and the beauty of Jerusalem’s centerpiece was once again vibrant and real.

Into the midst of this celebrating, Jesus strides along Solomon’s porch, a covered portico with pillars 38 feet high, a place where Gentiles were welcome, where wintertime gatherings were a little more comfortable.

And, once again, He is immediately surrounded by angry Jewish religious leaders. “How long will you keep us in suspense?” they shouted. “Tell us now, tell us clear: are you the Messiah?”

The more times I read through this scene, the more I sense that these over-anxious Jewish leaders were baiting Jesus, snarling at him, pushing him to declare himself. And Jesus’ response? “I’ve already told you who I am. But you choose not to believe me. I’ve told you by what I do as much as by what I say.” And every one of them immediately picks up a stone, making ready to heave them at Jesus.

Several verses later, Jesus continues to say, “Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father. Believe the works.”

You know, this just slays me. It becomes pretty clear that all the talking in the world is not going to convince these dudes of anything. Jesus even does some pretty nifty biblical interpretation in there, and he talks about his unity with the Father. He consistently reminds them that HE is the Good Shepherd and they are not. He uses his words, over and over again.

And they will have none of it.

And yet. . . right here in Solomon’s Porch, Jesus still gives them every opportunity to step through the gate of the sheep, doesn’t he? “Believe the works. Even if you struggle with what I say, even if you can’t quite believe I am who I say I am, there is room for you with me, if you will look at what I do, and see that it can only be from God. Believe the works.”

Friends, when we find ourselves in places where we simply can’t take in the words, when we find it hard to believe that Jesus is all he claims to be, when we’re not sure what to believe, then it’s time to believe the works.

Do we see evidence of Jesus’ healing work in us and/or in others? Do we see people acting with love and concern? Do we experience unexplained urges to do something good and kind that we might not ever think to do in our own steam? Can we look around our world and see the occasional spark of beauty, the rare moment of understanding, the surprising acts of kindness?

Believe the works.

They may be few and far between. The ugly things may seem to be in the ascendency, the darkness may loom. But are there flashes of light? Do we see beauty in the face of someone who is suffering? Can we find examples of healing and grace and laughter and light?

THINK ON THESE THINGS
Believe the works.

But these angry men cannot hear, and they cannot see. In chapter 9, the false shepherds are blind, though they claim to see. And here in chapter 10, they are deaf, though they claim to hear. And once again, they circle round him, furious, trying to grasp him, seize him.

The time is not yet, however. The time for grasping Jesus will come, but not today. And he slips away.

So at the very end of chapter 10, we find Jesus back where he began. He went ‘down by the river to pray,’ right back to where John had baptized him when he began these years of preaching and teaching and healing.

And note this, too. The healing continues. Next week, we’ll read about the biggest miracle of all, the raising of Lazarus.

As we finish our reflection on John 10 today, I am wondering, where do you need to find healing, wholeness, safety today?

Do you need to remember that Jesus knows your name?

Do you need to find more space for listening to the Shepherd’s voice?

Do you need to look for and then believe the works?

As we sing that sweet chorus we sang in the opening set one more time, will you look inside and see what it is you’re longing for today?

I have a Maker
He formed my heart
Before even time began
My life was in his hands

I have a Father
He calls me His own
He’ll never leave me
No matter where I go

He knows my name
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
And He hears me when I call
—  music & lyrics by Tommy Walker

If you are unfamiliar with the songs that were woven into this sermon, here are a couple of decent YouTube versions for your listening and worship:

Filed Under: authority, biblical reflection, biblical study, Encouragement, hope, preaching, Sermons/Homilies, Spiritual Formation

Q & A: Week Two – Fear of Abandonment

January 24, 2014 By

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This week, we’re moving out beyond the first set of breakers in this adventure we’re taking, out into the deep waters of our faith. I’m grateful for your companionship along the way, and look forward to your response to this week’s question: “What’s with this ‘more of Jesus, less of me’ stuff?”

The story I tell this week is a deeply personal one, and very likely not many (if any) of you will be familiar with some of the emotional and psychological backwater I’ve had to push my way through, by the grace of God, to learn a different way of understanding that phrase. But I think what I’ve learned is important for all of us, at the very least because this story might help us all to be more careful and thoughtful with our choice of words, especially when we’re teaching those who are young — in age, or in the faith. I look forward to your responses.

Next week’s question set, for Friday, January 31: What’s with all this talk about ‘sin?’
DSC00670When I was a little girl, faithfully attending Sunday school each week, we had a little saying that went like this: “Jesus, Others and You – that’s how you spell JOY.”

And I inhaled that sentiment like it was the sweetest of perfumes. YES! We should always be last on the list, giving ourselves away to Jesus and to other people. That’s how you live like Jesus, right? That’s how you are a good girl, a truly good girl.

As I got older, that simple phrase became a little more complicated, and the scent of it a little more cloying. This time, it went something like this: “He must increase, I must decrease,” lifting the words directly out of the mouth of John the Baptist near the end of chapter 3 in John’s gospel.

From there, it morphed into, “More of Jesus, less of me,” and the older I got, the more terrified I became when I heard those words.

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I didn’t recognize it as terror initially. In fact, I didn’t know how deeply this message had affected me until I began to be interested in spiritual direction. I first learned about direction by reading a series of novels, of all things. In the late 80’s and early 90’s, British author Susan Howatch wrote a great bunch of stories about priests in the Anglican church and I devoured those books when I was in my 40’s. They were earthy, to be sure, but they were also rich and filled with beautiful tidbits of theology and ecclesiology. Throughout the entire series, some of my favorite characters were spiritual directors.

So I began to read some rich and informative non-fiction books about direction, and to ask likeminded friends about it. One of those friends was a woman of spiritual depth and breadth with whom I co-taught several Sunday school classes for adults. She was also a psychologist and a spiritual director. In the mid-1990’s, I met with her to explore whether or not we might enter into a director/directee relationship. At our first session, she handed me a copy of Foucald’s “Prayer of Abandonment” and told me to take it home and reflect on it. Here is that prayer:

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord. 

Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you
with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord,
and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands,
without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father. 
     — Charles de Foucald

It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Filled with love, joyful submission, and trust.

But I could not pray that prayer.

I tried, but I’d get to the word ‘abandon,’ and start gulping great gasps of air. I prayed about it, I talked it over with the woman who had given it to me, and her immediate response to me was this: “Diana, you need therapy. Not direction.” (Did I mention I was in seminary at the time and beginning to hear God’s call to professional ministry? What??? Pastors might need therapy? Well, that’s a great big YES.)

DSC00793I have spent the last twenty years trying to unpack what happened inside me as I read that prayer and, in the process, I have taken a long look at that old Sunday school saying and the use (or mis-use) of that verse from John 3. And I’ve done a TON of personal work on all kinds of important things. . . all because I gagged on the word, “abandon.”

We all have a fear of abandonment. Along with the fear of falling, it’s one of the most primal fears human persons carry. But what I was feeling was not quite that, was it? This is what I finally realized: I was terrified of disappearing. I had somehow inhaled some really lousy theology along with that early Sunday school ditty; I had taken the words of John the Baptist completely out of context* and come to believe that the way to the heart of the gospel was for me to somehow be sublimated to the point of extinction, for Jesus alone to inhabit this flesh.

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There are all kinds of interesting reasons why this particular woman came up with these particular fears and most of them, I understand a whole lot better now than I did then. But what I want to talk about here is the sometimes dangerous way we throw words around when we teach and when we preach.

Because this is the beautiful truth of the gospel, the powerful, life-changing, miraculous truth:

As we learn more about the heart of Jesus, as we open ourselves to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, this happens:

“More of Jesus, MORE of me.”

Yes, you read that right. Think about it for a minute or two: why would God go to all the trouble of creating the wildly different and wholly beautiful human race if the goal was for each one of us to disappear, to lose our distinctiveness, to be pushed into the waters of oblivion that some have chosen to call “Jesus?” 

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Is that wave supposed to cover us completely?

In some ways, YES, YES, YES. We are covered by the grace of God made tangible in the blood of Jesus. We are; yes, we are.

BUT also, NO. We are not lost when we are covered by the grace of God. We are not ever lost. No.

WE ARE FOUND. 

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The true me, the real me, the best me, the apple-of-God’s-eye me, the very particular, very unique, highly individual me is given space. Room to breathe and grow and flourish. The heart of the mystery, the wonder is this: the more we allow Jesus to fill us with love, to inhabit us, the more ‘me’ we discover. The me that God had in mind when he created the world, the me that reflects the image of God, the me that Jesus sees when he moves in for good.

And I do mean for good. 

Because Jesus is the one who calls forth from us health, wholeness, obedience — in the best sense of that word — and life. And in the growing and refining process that we use such big, ole theological words to describe (like sanctification, even justification. . . ohh, they make me shudder a little!) what emerges, over time, through all the good stuff that happens and all the hard stuff that happens — what emerges is the truest ‘me’ possible this side of heaven.

There is another entire blog post (or maybe a chapter??) to be written about all the possible pieces of this truth. Things like good self-care, healthy boundaries, learning what it means to love ourselves so that we can more fully and healthily love others. But for today, I want to give witness to the truth that the beautiful prayer listed above, the one that started me down the road of serious self-reflection and earnest biblical study, is now one of my favorites.

Because today I know that God has no desire to devour me, to make me some kind of freakish ‘walking dead’ person. No. Jesus came to this earth to show us what a truly human life looks like. And he wants us to discover what OUR truly human life looks like.

It’s true, we will look a lot like Jesus.

But we will also look like ourselves. 

 

*John is replying to questions from his followers who have become jealous of all the attention Jesus is getting. John recognizes that his own work is done, that Jesus is now at center stage. In that context only, he says, “He must increase and I must decrease.” Like so many other catch phrases grasped from scripture, this one cannot be directly applied to each of us, at least not in the way in which it too often has been. When we come to Jesus and ask him to live in us, we are joined to this Elder Brother of ours as partners — not equal partners, but partners nonetheless. This is the way God designed it — God works through the likes of us. Amazing. It is my heartfelt prayer that I will more and more closely resemble this Brother of mine. But it is also my prayer that I will more fully inhabit myself, the one Jesus came for. The one Jesus died for. The one Jesus prays for at the right hand of the Father.

As always, I invite your comments here. If you have a blog, and feel inspired/moved/challenged to write a response to this post or to the question itself, please do link it here. So here’s the linky – and be sure to grab one of my buttons from the sidebar for your own blog post. Thank you!

Next week’s question, for Friday, January 31: What’s with all this talk about ‘sin?’

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Confession, death, Encouragement, Hard Things, Living the Answers, Living the Questions, Mystery, personal journey, Q & A
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