Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Bill Coley and the Lifely Hallows
SPOILER WARNING!! If you are a “Harry Potter” fan and intend to read, but have not yet completed the last book in the series, you may not want to read this entry. Proceed at your own risk (or come back when you’ve finished the book!)
There’s a scene late in the final Harry Potter book in which the title character concludes that if his arch nemesis — the series’ embodiment of evil, named “Voledemort” — is to die, he, Harry, must also die. Willingly, Potter marches into a forbidden forest, on the mission of his life... and death.
On the way to his destiny, he opens a metal object inside which he discovers a magical item called the “resurrection stone,” one of the book title’s “deathly hallows.” (Read the book, if you want explanations for all these Potterisms!) The stone has the power to connect its user with people who have died, though the connection established is neither complete nor satisfying enough to be deemed a reunion.
Seeking comfort and encouragement in his last steps before death, Potter employs the stone to summon his parents, his godfather, and another confidant, all who had died earlier. While the book prompted potent emotions from me, it was this conversation between destined and departed that brought the most fervent tears.
“You’ve been so brave,” says Harry’s mother.
“You are nearly there. Very close. We are...so proud of you,” adds his dad.
Harry wants to know whether death hurts. His godfather tells him death is “quicker and easier than falling asleep.”
Seconds later, the pre-game pep talk concludes this way:
Harry: “You’ll stay with me?”
Dad: “Until the very end....”
Harry: “Stay close to me.”
Conventional wisdom argues the more you care about Harry and his exploits, the more this scene will get to you, but I think its appeal is more universal than that. The prospect of facing life’s ultimate punctuation mark having first been braced by people who have traveled the road you’re on, should sear anyone’s heart.
I envision approaching death’s entrance hand-in-hand with my mom, she telling me about the morning she woke up feeling ill, somehow correctly concluding that she was going to die. I imagine her describing her experience, most likely in minute detail (this is my mom, we’re talking about!), then telling me about the surroundings of heaven before attending to my pressing need for encouragement as I near life’s most mysterious threshold.
I picture my paternal grandparents rising to cheer my carrying on grandpa’s pastoral mantle, as they hold open their arms, affectionately noting how long it has been since they last saw me, how cute I was when I sat on his lap and kissed his puffed-out cheek, and how good it was, all those years ago, for her to have my siblings and me spend nights at their house. Then, I see them calmly and quietly pointing to the gates of glory while assuring me we’ll have plenty of time to talk.
I cried as I read Harry Potter’s forbidden forest conversation, largely because it symbolizes for me a transcendent intimacy and hopefulness. If fear can be vanquished in the face of death, then there is no final fear. If hope can be rekindled in the moments before one’s last breath, then there is no deadly despair. If the people of your past can accompany you to the portals of your forever, then death indeed has lost both its sting and victory.
The ultimate welcoming cheerleader, of course, is Jesus, the one whose example fuels Scripture’s passionate pronouncements about eternal life. Had Harry asked Jesus whether death hurt, I wonder whether Jesus would have said anything about the rusty nails, or the scornful crowd, or the brooding, lonely sky? I rather doubt it. I think he would rather have echoed Harry’s parents encouragement: “You’re almost there.... I am so proud of you.”
At least I pray that’s what Jesus would say to Harry...and to me.
There’s a marvelous song by Carolyn Arends called “We’ve Been Waiting for You,” in which she transforms the welcome home she and her husband have for their newborn child into the welcome she hopes one day to receive herself in heaven. Like the Potter conversation related earlier, these lyrics, taken from the end of the song and intended for her child, bring me to tears. I hope you’ll understand why, and that you’ll experience healing visions of resurrection with the people of your past.
“Another journey awaits us
So when I have to leave
I am pretty sure that I'll be frightened
But even if I cry, please understand
I will know I'm not alone
When my room is ready I'll go home
And when I reach the gate
I'm going to hear them saying
We've been waiting for you
We're so glad you came
We've been looking forward
To showing you the place
There's so much in store and
We've been waiting for you”
Good night, Harry.
Pray with me:
I don’t know whether death will hurt, or whether I will be frightened. But I do know who will be waiting for me, and who cheers and inspires me today. In the present, for the future, I am okay, thanks to you, God. No wonder we have eternal life: to have enough time to express our appreciation. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Still Stained
It didn’t garner me a cover shot on GQ magazine, but recently, for the first time in decades, I wore an undershirt – you know, one of the Fruits of the Loom.
For all of my adult life I had resisted the white cotton things, believing them to be superfluous sweat producers. Whatever human body subsystem it is that produces upper body perspiration has always functioned very well in me. Not wanting to add to the precipitation single layer clothing inspires from me (or, I guess, perspires from me!), I shied away from undershirts.
But then I had an epiphany. Not something dramatic like, “God is telling me to take this new path in life!” Or, “I see now the meaning of all human existence.” No. My epiphany was more meager: I finally understood why people wear undershirts.
I ought to feel stupid writing about this discovery, but I don’t, because for me eye-openers about the obvious are not uncommon. Not wanting to pile on the embarrassment, I will simply tell you that in my youth I had, shall I call it, an “interesting, but not biologically likely” explanation of how daddies helped mommies get pregnant. When I discovered the truth – just before graduating from college, as near as I can recall – it was as if scales fell from my eyes as I beheld a brave new, and far more pleasurable, world.
So it has been with the undershirts. What joy I have known, exercising dominion over underarm sweat stains. What pride has arisen, observing the better fit of my dress shirts. What self-confidence has swelled, realizing I have busted yet another childhood myth. What expectation has grown, predicting the next profound but practical truth I will uncover.
And so it is with my spiritual life. The longer I live, the more I discover how much I don’t know. The more mistakes I make, the more rebellions I lead, the more struggles I face, the more I understand how incomplete is my understanding of God and God’s ways. The more I apply what the world labels “intelligence” to the design of my life, the more I claim to have mastered life and its sweat-producing subsystems, the more it’s obvious my best choice is to shut up and listen because I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Back in the fall of 1982, just weeks into my seminary career, on the drive back to campus from the church I then served I reflected on the results of an apparently pastoral conversation held during my after-worship calls. For the encounter in question, I had concluded that I had been where I needed to be, for the persons who needed me, and had provided the precise and particular word those persons needed to grapple with their reality. Watching the road spill past my eyes still wide with pride, I said in an audible whisper, “God, what we do is so important.”
The remaining years of my seminary experience taught me how arrogant, immature, and spiritually vacuous was that claim. By the time I graduated I knew that what we do hardly matters, and in fact, will usually just get in the way. What’s important is how completely we surrender to God, so that God can do something through us. Twenty-two years in full-time ministry have demonstrated that I will likely never reach a wiser conclusion.
And neither will you, by the way. Don’t permit this essay’s clergy orientation mislead to believe that I intend to exclude you from accountability. Spiritual truths don’t discriminate between clergy and laity, between preacher and preached-to. If you follow Jesus, you need to learn to sit down, shut up, and surrender.
The Apostle Paul told the Christians in the ancient city of Corinth that when he was a child, he spoke and thought like a child, but the longer he lived, the more he put away his childish ways. So it is with us spiritual travelers. We spend this life discovering how little we know, and how dependent we are on the one who gives all life.
People who care about the words of people who preach, invest in those preachers at least the appearance of hope that the preachers have traveled a bit more of the spiritual road, that they understand what matters and why, and have achieved a spiritual maturity worthy of their ministries. While this may be true for some, perhaps several of my colleagues, it may not be true for me. After all, I just figured why guys wear undershirts.
And what about you?...
Pray with me:
You are amazing, awesome, lovely, and patient...oh, so patient, God. Thank you for putting up with me, and for still finding a use for me – and the rest of us. I can’t guarantee that I won’t revert to my childish ways, but I can say I know the only one who can rescue me from their clutches. Thanks. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
For all of my adult life I had resisted the white cotton things, believing them to be superfluous sweat producers. Whatever human body subsystem it is that produces upper body perspiration has always functioned very well in me. Not wanting to add to the precipitation single layer clothing inspires from me (or, I guess, perspires from me!), I shied away from undershirts.
But then I had an epiphany. Not something dramatic like, “God is telling me to take this new path in life!” Or, “I see now the meaning of all human existence.” No. My epiphany was more meager: I finally understood why people wear undershirts.
I ought to feel stupid writing about this discovery, but I don’t, because for me eye-openers about the obvious are not uncommon. Not wanting to pile on the embarrassment, I will simply tell you that in my youth I had, shall I call it, an “interesting, but not biologically likely” explanation of how daddies helped mommies get pregnant. When I discovered the truth – just before graduating from college, as near as I can recall – it was as if scales fell from my eyes as I beheld a brave new, and far more pleasurable, world.
So it has been with the undershirts. What joy I have known, exercising dominion over underarm sweat stains. What pride has arisen, observing the better fit of my dress shirts. What self-confidence has swelled, realizing I have busted yet another childhood myth. What expectation has grown, predicting the next profound but practical truth I will uncover.
And so it is with my spiritual life. The longer I live, the more I discover how much I don’t know. The more mistakes I make, the more rebellions I lead, the more struggles I face, the more I understand how incomplete is my understanding of God and God’s ways. The more I apply what the world labels “intelligence” to the design of my life, the more I claim to have mastered life and its sweat-producing subsystems, the more it’s obvious my best choice is to shut up and listen because I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Back in the fall of 1982, just weeks into my seminary career, on the drive back to campus from the church I then served I reflected on the results of an apparently pastoral conversation held during my after-worship calls. For the encounter in question, I had concluded that I had been where I needed to be, for the persons who needed me, and had provided the precise and particular word those persons needed to grapple with their reality. Watching the road spill past my eyes still wide with pride, I said in an audible whisper, “God, what we do is so important.”
The remaining years of my seminary experience taught me how arrogant, immature, and spiritually vacuous was that claim. By the time I graduated I knew that what we do hardly matters, and in fact, will usually just get in the way. What’s important is how completely we surrender to God, so that God can do something through us. Twenty-two years in full-time ministry have demonstrated that I will likely never reach a wiser conclusion.
And neither will you, by the way. Don’t permit this essay’s clergy orientation mislead to believe that I intend to exclude you from accountability. Spiritual truths don’t discriminate between clergy and laity, between preacher and preached-to. If you follow Jesus, you need to learn to sit down, shut up, and surrender.
The Apostle Paul told the Christians in the ancient city of Corinth that when he was a child, he spoke and thought like a child, but the longer he lived, the more he put away his childish ways. So it is with us spiritual travelers. We spend this life discovering how little we know, and how dependent we are on the one who gives all life.
People who care about the words of people who preach, invest in those preachers at least the appearance of hope that the preachers have traveled a bit more of the spiritual road, that they understand what matters and why, and have achieved a spiritual maturity worthy of their ministries. While this may be true for some, perhaps several of my colleagues, it may not be true for me. After all, I just figured why guys wear undershirts.
And what about you?...
Pray with me:
You are amazing, awesome, lovely, and patient...oh, so patient, God. Thank you for putting up with me, and for still finding a use for me – and the rest of us. I can’t guarantee that I won’t revert to my childish ways, but I can say I know the only one who can rescue me from their clutches. Thanks. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
One (or more) Truly False Church(es)
The lead from an article posted July 10 by the Associated Press, dateline: Lorenzago di Cadore, Italy —
“Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.”
And then,
“"Christ 'established here on earth' only one church," the document said. The other communities "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense" because they do not have apostolic succession - the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles.”
Great.
I thought for sure we had moved beyond this kind of divisive rhetoric in modern Christianity. (Well actually, I thought it had been co-opted by the Bible thumping Protestant groups which live under a delusion that they have some kind of exclusive patent on what it means and looks like to follow Jesus.) As the eminent street theologian of his generation, Rodney King, would ask, can’t we all just get along?
I have no animus toward, no judgment against, no death wish for the Roman Catholic Church. I value its tradition. I celebrate its membership. I thank God for its necessary role in nurturing the Body of Christ through its first 16 centuries. Some of my best and longest-standing friends in the Quad Cities happen to be Catholic. Without fear or flinch I celebrate Catholicism’s place at the table of our – that would be OUR – Lord.
Now why can’t it return the favor?... And it’s not even a favor! Why can’t “The One True Church” acknowledge what Jesus mandated: that all who love each other, tell his story, and follow his commandments are his church?
You might think I am on an anti-Catholic rant, but I’m not. As intimated earlier, Protestants engage in equally mystifying and, I think, unbiblical division of sheep and goats; some of the things Protestants have said about Catholics over the last five hundred years make the Pope’s latest treatise sound flattering. My point is that while it’s sinful when any follower of Jesus diminishes or marginalizes another follower of Jesus because of his or her denominational tradition, when the traditions themselves engage in that diminishing or marginalizing, the sin becomes a destructive curse.
Think about the intrusion of religion into the current political climate. Mitt Romney’s Mormonism has been an issue. Why? Are Mormons spiritually inclined not to care about Iraq, education, or the health care crisis?
Journalist Christopher Hitchens – a self-described “anti-theist” – has published a scathing diatribe against religion called “God Is Not Great,” a best-seller that has been raised temperatures on a host of news channel talk fests. In large measure he strikes out against the practice of religion – oh, I don’t know, maybe the way Christian denominations and traditions speak of each other? – rather than the experience of faith. Can we really blame Hitchens?
I have small ambitions for this piece. I want you to know, and I hope you will share with others the following declaration: Whatever your tradition, in whatever form of faith community you were reared and are now fed, if you call yourself a follower of Jesus, if he is Lord of your life and head of your church, I am humbly proud to believe us parts of the same family. We may disagree on some things, on all things theological, but that's okay because what matters is not what distinguishes us, but who unites us.
The Apostle Paul, who was definitely NOT a member of my denomination, said it for the ages when to the Christians in Galatia he wrote:
So you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have been made like him. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all Christians—you are one in Christ Jesus. *
Today Paul would write, “There is no longer Catholic or Protestant, Orthodox or Anglican, Methodist or Pentecostal.” Not that the Church(es) would listen....
Pray with Me:
Remind us, God, that we are the keepers and stewards, not the designers, of the flame of Christ on earth. When we, whatever our background, get too high on our holy horses, get our attention – knock us off, if necessary – then remind us of the blessing and promise of your Son, our Lord, Jesus, the one whose Church we ALL are, and in whose name we pray, Amen.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
* Galatians 3.26-28 (NLT)
“Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.”
And then,
“"Christ 'established here on earth' only one church," the document said. The other communities "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense" because they do not have apostolic succession - the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles.”
Great.
I thought for sure we had moved beyond this kind of divisive rhetoric in modern Christianity. (Well actually, I thought it had been co-opted by the Bible thumping Protestant groups which live under a delusion that they have some kind of exclusive patent on what it means and looks like to follow Jesus.) As the eminent street theologian of his generation, Rodney King, would ask, can’t we all just get along?
I have no animus toward, no judgment against, no death wish for the Roman Catholic Church. I value its tradition. I celebrate its membership. I thank God for its necessary role in nurturing the Body of Christ through its first 16 centuries. Some of my best and longest-standing friends in the Quad Cities happen to be Catholic. Without fear or flinch I celebrate Catholicism’s place at the table of our – that would be OUR – Lord.
Now why can’t it return the favor?... And it’s not even a favor! Why can’t “The One True Church” acknowledge what Jesus mandated: that all who love each other, tell his story, and follow his commandments are his church?
You might think I am on an anti-Catholic rant, but I’m not. As intimated earlier, Protestants engage in equally mystifying and, I think, unbiblical division of sheep and goats; some of the things Protestants have said about Catholics over the last five hundred years make the Pope’s latest treatise sound flattering. My point is that while it’s sinful when any follower of Jesus diminishes or marginalizes another follower of Jesus because of his or her denominational tradition, when the traditions themselves engage in that diminishing or marginalizing, the sin becomes a destructive curse.
Think about the intrusion of religion into the current political climate. Mitt Romney’s Mormonism has been an issue. Why? Are Mormons spiritually inclined not to care about Iraq, education, or the health care crisis?
Journalist Christopher Hitchens – a self-described “anti-theist” – has published a scathing diatribe against religion called “God Is Not Great,” a best-seller that has been raised temperatures on a host of news channel talk fests. In large measure he strikes out against the practice of religion – oh, I don’t know, maybe the way Christian denominations and traditions speak of each other? – rather than the experience of faith. Can we really blame Hitchens?
I have small ambitions for this piece. I want you to know, and I hope you will share with others the following declaration: Whatever your tradition, in whatever form of faith community you were reared and are now fed, if you call yourself a follower of Jesus, if he is Lord of your life and head of your church, I am humbly proud to believe us parts of the same family. We may disagree on some things, on all things theological, but that's okay because what matters is not what distinguishes us, but who unites us.
The Apostle Paul, who was definitely NOT a member of my denomination, said it for the ages when to the Christians in Galatia he wrote:
So you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have been made like him. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all Christians—you are one in Christ Jesus. *
Today Paul would write, “There is no longer Catholic or Protestant, Orthodox or Anglican, Methodist or Pentecostal.” Not that the Church(es) would listen....
Pray with Me:
Remind us, God, that we are the keepers and stewards, not the designers, of the flame of Christ on earth. When we, whatever our background, get too high on our holy horses, get our attention – knock us off, if necessary – then remind us of the blessing and promise of your Son, our Lord, Jesus, the one whose Church we ALL are, and in whose name we pray, Amen.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
* Galatians 3.26-28 (NLT)
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Broken Promised Lands?... ADDENDUM
[TO UNDERSTAND THE CONTEXT OF THIS ADDENDUM, YOU MIGHT BENEFIT FROM FIRST READING THE POST THAT IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWS IT.]
As I wrote the original “Broken Promised Lands?” post, my car sat in the parking lot of a local grocery store, the victim of either a bad battery or starter. My sister-in-law had kindly provided me a jump – to no avail – and then a ride home, where I called my auto dealer to learn its preferred towing company. When I called the towing concern, I heard only its voice mail, which assured me of a call back within five minutes.... An hour later I called the tow company again, apparently so that I could enjoy again the soothing strains of the voice mail’s five minute promise.
My first thought upon receiving the voice mail’s reprise was, I’m not supposed to have the car towed; it’s only the battery, which we will be able to replace on our own. [TRANSLATION: It’s a God thing.]
Well, the towing people never called, and I never sought other options – I think because my spirit was so convinced of the God-thing thing – so nothing happened until Shari returned home from her day’s overtime hours. We scurried over to my car, discovered it to have no more pulse than four hours earlier, then trekked down the avenue a bit to an auto parts store, which sold me a battery and even provided loaner tools to complete the replacement. We were back home, two working vehicles in the garage, within an hour of when we left the house.
Now that’s was a God thing. Clear. Unmistakable. Not debatable.
But it wasn’t just one God thing; it was two. The first was that my battery died in a safe place, not far from home, my sister-in-law’s kindness, or the auto parts store. The second was that it came on the same day and in the middle of the original post’s storm clouds of doubt and hesitation about our congregation. God worked multiple magic in my life today.
I’d ask why can’t all God things be this obvious, but I fear what would have to break down in order for me to get the answer!
Pray with me:
You are good, God. I’m not, at least very often, but you are. And for that, at least until my next season of doubt, I praise you. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
As I wrote the original “Broken Promised Lands?” post, my car sat in the parking lot of a local grocery store, the victim of either a bad battery or starter. My sister-in-law had kindly provided me a jump – to no avail – and then a ride home, where I called my auto dealer to learn its preferred towing company. When I called the towing concern, I heard only its voice mail, which assured me of a call back within five minutes.... An hour later I called the tow company again, apparently so that I could enjoy again the soothing strains of the voice mail’s five minute promise.
My first thought upon receiving the voice mail’s reprise was, I’m not supposed to have the car towed; it’s only the battery, which we will be able to replace on our own. [TRANSLATION: It’s a God thing.]
Well, the towing people never called, and I never sought other options – I think because my spirit was so convinced of the God-thing thing – so nothing happened until Shari returned home from her day’s overtime hours. We scurried over to my car, discovered it to have no more pulse than four hours earlier, then trekked down the avenue a bit to an auto parts store, which sold me a battery and even provided loaner tools to complete the replacement. We were back home, two working vehicles in the garage, within an hour of when we left the house.
Now that’s was a God thing. Clear. Unmistakable. Not debatable.
But it wasn’t just one God thing; it was two. The first was that my battery died in a safe place, not far from home, my sister-in-law’s kindness, or the auto parts store. The second was that it came on the same day and in the middle of the original post’s storm clouds of doubt and hesitation about our congregation. God worked multiple magic in my life today.
I’d ask why can’t all God things be this obvious, but I fear what would have to break down in order for me to get the answer!
Pray with me:
You are good, God. I’m not, at least very often, but you are. And for that, at least until my next season of doubt, I praise you. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Broken Promised Lands?
I think I had a God moment on Sunday.
I’m preaching a sermon series on change – our congregation’s need for and resistance to it. While the first two parts of the series laid out the need and some symptoms of resistance, Sunday’s third part took the series’ first dig into the teaching of Scripture, focusing on the complaints and criticism of change voiced by the Israelites on their way out of Egypt to the Promised Land.
The sermon’s invitation was for those who, in spite of their personal attitudes and ambiguities toward change, wanted our church to reach the Promised Land God intends for us. In the first 30-45 seconds of the song that followed the sermon, there was no movement in the pews. Then quickly the ice broke, and out of the corner of my eye I saw people from all over the room moving forward, a higher percentage of the room on the march than my sermons ever generate. (Some Sundays, I swear my invitation to stand while we sing sparks interest in only half the room!)
The small throng of us gathered at the front of the worship center held hands and prayed that something genuine was happening, that God’s spirit was the instigator in the incident of which we were clearly a part. The prayer ended, people moved back to their seats, worship continued to its close, and all of us – those who came forward and those who did not – walked out of the church building, into the rest of our Sundays.
Later in the day it occurred to me that something important may have happened during our worship. So many people, some with tearful eyes, responding to a call for change in our church, a congregation steeped – “mired” might be the better word – in its past. Over the next 24 hours I heard from others who had been in the room Sunday morning. They, too, reported the germination of serious hope as a result of whatever had happened.
For several years we have been pursuing a change agenda; as Sunday languished in its final hours, I wondered whether the worship experience had dislodged us from an ice jam?... Or, had the congregation merely been giddy that the changes in our worship service that had taken effect that day were actually going to cut the length of our worship by the advertised 10-15 minutes?
It’s the question of exactly what did happen that intrigues me, and upon which I invite your reflection. Some of us are interpreting Sunday’s experience as a “God thing,” a presentation of the holy in our midst. But was it? What qualifies as a “God thing”? When does an “everyday thing” transform into its godly cousin?
I ask, because in my spiritual journey numerous have been the occasions when I believed God was intervening in my/our congregation’s situation, when God was acting purposefully on my/our behalf or for my/our best interests. It was a feeling I had, a hunch that possessed me, an intuitive surmise that the current course of events was no coincidence, no happenstance encounter with good fortune. I believed God was leading me/us out of our exile. That is, I was having a God thing.... But it didn’t turn out that way. What I thought were good leads, led to murky dead (or dying) ends. What I perceived as divinely inspired paths to destiny, destined me/us to fates and frustrations not much different from, and obviously not much better than the status quo. What I thought were “God things” were...not.
....Or maybe they were.
I hope I am confusing you, because if I am, then I am making myself clear. There are moments when I know I am in the midst of a God thing...and it turns out I am right. There are other times when I know I am in the midst of a God thing...and it turns out I am wrong, at least apparently. How and when do you know the difference? By what criteria do you discern whether God’s is the hand stirring your life’s cauldron?
I am not certain of the answer, but I do know these are some of the issues that fueled a fog over my Sunday enthusiasm. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the moment, nor that I thought it insignificant that so large a proportion of the worship group came forward to pray, but that I was not sure where it all fit in to our larger, longer journey toward our promised land.
There’s a moment in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah when God says this to the residents of Judah, then on the way to exile in Babylon:
“The truth is that you will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me in earnest, you will find me when you seek me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and bring you home again to your own land.”
How about this? My problem is I don’t know how many of my seventy years have passed.
How about your count of yours? Think about it and let us know. I’d love to receive your response to these issues.
Let Us Pray:
God, you’re alive, you’re working, you’re engaged in our lives. We will grant you those, now grant us more. Tell us, show us, demonstrate to us that exiles end, seventy years time frames don’t last forever, and your things can still be our things. We await your help to direct our paths to the promised lands you have in store for us. We look forward to your hand’s guidance and your grace’s provision until we get where you’re leading. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
I’m preaching a sermon series on change – our congregation’s need for and resistance to it. While the first two parts of the series laid out the need and some symptoms of resistance, Sunday’s third part took the series’ first dig into the teaching of Scripture, focusing on the complaints and criticism of change voiced by the Israelites on their way out of Egypt to the Promised Land.
The sermon’s invitation was for those who, in spite of their personal attitudes and ambiguities toward change, wanted our church to reach the Promised Land God intends for us. In the first 30-45 seconds of the song that followed the sermon, there was no movement in the pews. Then quickly the ice broke, and out of the corner of my eye I saw people from all over the room moving forward, a higher percentage of the room on the march than my sermons ever generate. (Some Sundays, I swear my invitation to stand while we sing sparks interest in only half the room!)
The small throng of us gathered at the front of the worship center held hands and prayed that something genuine was happening, that God’s spirit was the instigator in the incident of which we were clearly a part. The prayer ended, people moved back to their seats, worship continued to its close, and all of us – those who came forward and those who did not – walked out of the church building, into the rest of our Sundays.
Later in the day it occurred to me that something important may have happened during our worship. So many people, some with tearful eyes, responding to a call for change in our church, a congregation steeped – “mired” might be the better word – in its past. Over the next 24 hours I heard from others who had been in the room Sunday morning. They, too, reported the germination of serious hope as a result of whatever had happened.
For several years we have been pursuing a change agenda; as Sunday languished in its final hours, I wondered whether the worship experience had dislodged us from an ice jam?... Or, had the congregation merely been giddy that the changes in our worship service that had taken effect that day were actually going to cut the length of our worship by the advertised 10-15 minutes?
It’s the question of exactly what did happen that intrigues me, and upon which I invite your reflection. Some of us are interpreting Sunday’s experience as a “God thing,” a presentation of the holy in our midst. But was it? What qualifies as a “God thing”? When does an “everyday thing” transform into its godly cousin?
I ask, because in my spiritual journey numerous have been the occasions when I believed God was intervening in my/our congregation’s situation, when God was acting purposefully on my/our behalf or for my/our best interests. It was a feeling I had, a hunch that possessed me, an intuitive surmise that the current course of events was no coincidence, no happenstance encounter with good fortune. I believed God was leading me/us out of our exile. That is, I was having a God thing.... But it didn’t turn out that way. What I thought were good leads, led to murky dead (or dying) ends. What I perceived as divinely inspired paths to destiny, destined me/us to fates and frustrations not much different from, and obviously not much better than the status quo. What I thought were “God things” were...not.
....Or maybe they were.
I hope I am confusing you, because if I am, then I am making myself clear. There are moments when I know I am in the midst of a God thing...and it turns out I am right. There are other times when I know I am in the midst of a God thing...and it turns out I am wrong, at least apparently. How and when do you know the difference? By what criteria do you discern whether God’s is the hand stirring your life’s cauldron?
I am not certain of the answer, but I do know these are some of the issues that fueled a fog over my Sunday enthusiasm. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the moment, nor that I thought it insignificant that so large a proportion of the worship group came forward to pray, but that I was not sure where it all fit in to our larger, longer journey toward our promised land.
There’s a moment in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah when God says this to the residents of Judah, then on the way to exile in Babylon:
“The truth is that you will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me in earnest, you will find me when you seek me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and bring you home again to your own land.”
How about this? My problem is I don’t know how many of my seventy years have passed.
How about your count of yours? Think about it and let us know. I’d love to receive your response to these issues.
Let Us Pray:
God, you’re alive, you’re working, you’re engaged in our lives. We will grant you those, now grant us more. Tell us, show us, demonstrate to us that exiles end, seventy years time frames don’t last forever, and your things can still be our things. We await your help to direct our paths to the promised lands you have in store for us. We look forward to your hand’s guidance and your grace’s provision until we get where you’re leading. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
A Hole-y Life
In the last two weeks technology has betrayed me, abandoned me, laughed at me, and enjoyed the senseless tirades with which I responded to its rebellion.
By now I am so beleaguered, I won’t get the sequence correct, but I believe the first act of aggression was my PDA — one of those handheld computers people use to organize, communicate, and entertain. I’d been experiencing intermittent problems for several months, but one night, during an attempt to backup the unit’s data, its screen went black and stayed black. All recovery methods failed, prompting me to search Ebay for a replacement.
Next came the laser printer at the church office. The task was simply to print some mailing labels for the newsletter we were preparing for the post office. The first page of the labels printed without issue until its final two rows, upon encounter with which the printer made a horrifying screech, produced two rows of solid black rectangles, and then unceremoniously shut down, two onboard dummy lights the only visible sign of distress.
Next was our newly-installed satellite television system. So smart I thought I was to recommend to my household that we switch from cable, whose rates had increased four times in the last sixteen months. Though I don’t yet question my suggestion, the morning one of the four TVs we have connected to the system refused to work, my best efforts online and on-hold with tech support not withstanding, had me shaking my head...and nudging a few middle fingers.
This morning in worship the issue was our projection software, the application we use to beam worship visuals, Scripture verses, and song lyrics to the congregation on a large screen. In the middle of my sermon I heard a ping, one you may occasionally have heard from your Windows PC, depending on your setup. To hear any sound at that moment of worship was unexpected and most likely bad news. Sure enough, the worship software had frozen. Dead. Useless. New worship center wallpaper. Our only recourse was to reboot the computer while I proceeded with my message, reading a referenced Bible text, not from the screen, but from, of all things, an actual Bible. It was quite the scene, watching Shari return to the software and then catch up with me in the sermon slides.
You have no cause or intention to care about the arcane minutiae of my recent techno pratfalls, but I share it with you to season your receipt of this piece’s core observation about what we hold on to.
I am a techie, a geek, a gadget freak. I like most anything that glows or goes when pushed, prodded, or powered on. I depend on my gadgets – personal, portable, owned, or borrowed – to inform, delight, and occupy me. Without them I am not on my game, in fact, I'm not sure I have a game without them.
* When the PDA expired, so did I, at least until I recovered from the shock.
* When the “dish” died, it was like our household had lost a quarter of its nine lives.
* And don’t get me started with reading Scripture from an actual Bible!
None of these failures was permanent; in time I discovered costless workarounds for all of them. But the experiences reminded me how fragile are our dependencies. We connect lifelines, expectations, and future plans to people and possessions that don’t always, can’t always meet them. (God, the horrors were I required to pay bills by check through the mail!) What’s worse, most of us have inadequate backup systems, so that, when failures occur, we’re in a mess.
Some years ago one of the church vitality gurus I appreciate used the astrophysics concept of a “wormhole” to describe the present age. Wormholes are theoretical points of rapid transit from one time/space of the universe to another. The church vitality expert said life is changing so fast in the modern era that it’s like we’re in a wormhole. And in the wormhole, only one thing is sure not to change: Jesus. Hold on to no-thing, no one else, because no-thing, no one else is guaranteed to get through unchanged.
What do you hold on to? On what do you depend with an expectation that it will always be there, just as you need it, whenever you need it? Your health? Your financial holdings? Your family? Tomorrow morning’s alarm?
I am not about to surrender my tech connections, but the failures described at this piece’s beginning have served sufficient notice that I need more effective backup measures. I don’t know what’s been swirling around you lately, but chances are the notice thereby served to you is not much different.
We live in a wormhole. It’s good and helpful for us to hold onto each other, but let’s make sure we have our free hands raised and secured.
Pray with me:
In ways I can’t describe and only you can know, you pulled me through another day today, God. Thank you. Today felt different from yesterday. Chances are, tomorrow will feel different still. Disabuse me of temporary, ineffective security blankets. Make clear to me the path and the connection to your Son, the only one guaranteed not to give up, give in, or fail on me. May he always be my dependency, as I live and pray in his name, Amen.
By now I am so beleaguered, I won’t get the sequence correct, but I believe the first act of aggression was my PDA — one of those handheld computers people use to organize, communicate, and entertain. I’d been experiencing intermittent problems for several months, but one night, during an attempt to backup the unit’s data, its screen went black and stayed black. All recovery methods failed, prompting me to search Ebay for a replacement.
Next came the laser printer at the church office. The task was simply to print some mailing labels for the newsletter we were preparing for the post office. The first page of the labels printed without issue until its final two rows, upon encounter with which the printer made a horrifying screech, produced two rows of solid black rectangles, and then unceremoniously shut down, two onboard dummy lights the only visible sign of distress.
Next was our newly-installed satellite television system. So smart I thought I was to recommend to my household that we switch from cable, whose rates had increased four times in the last sixteen months. Though I don’t yet question my suggestion, the morning one of the four TVs we have connected to the system refused to work, my best efforts online and on-hold with tech support not withstanding, had me shaking my head...and nudging a few middle fingers.
This morning in worship the issue was our projection software, the application we use to beam worship visuals, Scripture verses, and song lyrics to the congregation on a large screen. In the middle of my sermon I heard a ping, one you may occasionally have heard from your Windows PC, depending on your setup. To hear any sound at that moment of worship was unexpected and most likely bad news. Sure enough, the worship software had frozen. Dead. Useless. New worship center wallpaper. Our only recourse was to reboot the computer while I proceeded with my message, reading a referenced Bible text, not from the screen, but from, of all things, an actual Bible. It was quite the scene, watching Shari return to the software and then catch up with me in the sermon slides.
You have no cause or intention to care about the arcane minutiae of my recent techno pratfalls, but I share it with you to season your receipt of this piece’s core observation about what we hold on to.
I am a techie, a geek, a gadget freak. I like most anything that glows or goes when pushed, prodded, or powered on. I depend on my gadgets – personal, portable, owned, or borrowed – to inform, delight, and occupy me. Without them I am not on my game, in fact, I'm not sure I have a game without them.
* When the PDA expired, so did I, at least until I recovered from the shock.
* When the “dish” died, it was like our household had lost a quarter of its nine lives.
* And don’t get me started with reading Scripture from an actual Bible!
None of these failures was permanent; in time I discovered costless workarounds for all of them. But the experiences reminded me how fragile are our dependencies. We connect lifelines, expectations, and future plans to people and possessions that don’t always, can’t always meet them. (God, the horrors were I required to pay bills by check through the mail!) What’s worse, most of us have inadequate backup systems, so that, when failures occur, we’re in a mess.
Some years ago one of the church vitality gurus I appreciate used the astrophysics concept of a “wormhole” to describe the present age. Wormholes are theoretical points of rapid transit from one time/space of the universe to another. The church vitality expert said life is changing so fast in the modern era that it’s like we’re in a wormhole. And in the wormhole, only one thing is sure not to change: Jesus. Hold on to no-thing, no one else, because no-thing, no one else is guaranteed to get through unchanged.
What do you hold on to? On what do you depend with an expectation that it will always be there, just as you need it, whenever you need it? Your health? Your financial holdings? Your family? Tomorrow morning’s alarm?
I am not about to surrender my tech connections, but the failures described at this piece’s beginning have served sufficient notice that I need more effective backup measures. I don’t know what’s been swirling around you lately, but chances are the notice thereby served to you is not much different.
We live in a wormhole. It’s good and helpful for us to hold onto each other, but let’s make sure we have our free hands raised and secured.
Pray with me:
In ways I can’t describe and only you can know, you pulled me through another day today, God. Thank you. Today felt different from yesterday. Chances are, tomorrow will feel different still. Disabuse me of temporary, ineffective security blankets. Make clear to me the path and the connection to your Son, the only one guaranteed not to give up, give in, or fail on me. May he always be my dependency, as I live and pray in his name, Amen.
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