Some Reflections on June 4th, China and the Power of a Dream

There are some things that are etched in my memory that will never go away – e.g. the time I first saw the woman who would become my wife (now of 43 years), the days our two children were born, the night I received a phone call informing me that my father had passed away, and the events surrounding June 4, 1989.

For those who may not recognize the date – June 4, 1989 is the day of the Tiananmen Square crackdown or Massacre (what else can you call an event where tanks and soldiers come in the darkness and attack a peaceful demonstration of students, peasants, professionals, mothers who had been demonstrating for free speech, more democracy, and against governmental corruption?).

Our family was living in Hong Kong where we were missionary teachers. We had been in Hong Kong for almost a decade and our life was deeply rooted in Hong Kong society, especially in the Chinese churches, Seminary, and with our many local friends. Hong Kong had become our home and we felt very deeply for its welfare and for the Chinese people that we had come to know and love on both sides of the border.

As the events of that summer unfolded, it was clear that something unusual, and wonderful, was happening across the border in China. The papers, news broadcasts, and TV were filled with pictures of an emerging democracy movement, initially led by students, but later joined by individuals from every strata of Chinese society. Other news was coming out of China through faxes, personal reports, pictures, phone calls (NOTE: this was BF – Before Facebook). All the people wanted was a voice that would be heard – a voice against corruption, against oppression, against the trampling of their fundamental human rights. And it looked like they were being heard. Large public bulletin boards were set up for people to express their thoughts, and people exercised their freedom and detailed their grievances and hopes and suggestions for a better China. Peaceful demonstrations, marches and teach-ins were taking place. There were even meetings with local government officials and eventually with representatives of the Central government.

Could this be the dawn of a new era in China? China had opened to the world in the late 70s and now it looked like an even more progressive and democratic wind might be blowing, promising a new era of greater openness and freedom, and maybe even a Chinese-form of democracy, might be possible.

But then it started to go horribly wrong. The Central government, influenced by hard liners and fear began to move against the fledgling democracy movement. The hopeful, even intoxicatingly hopeful, winds of the previous months began to change. It was clear that something was going to happen. But what eventually took place was something that most observers and Chinese couldn’t have imagined – the government ordered the People’s Liberation Army, under the cover of darkness, to invade Tiananmen Square and move against the people. Government fear and uncertainty, especially the fear of losing control, would eventually mean the crackdown and murder of hundreds, if not thousands, of lives – unarmed, peaceful students and peasants, women and mothers, would be slaughtered when the tanks and troops (many of them brought in from areas away from Beijing) finally cleared the Square. In the weeks, months, and years that followed, there would be more arrests, trials without jury, incarcerations and even death to, only God knows how many, Chinese citizens. Even now, 23 years after the event, many of those who took part in the democracy movement still languish in prison.

I remember that night of June 3rd. I went to bed after following the mounting tension throughout the day. I went to bed with a small portable radio, listening to the news and reports coming out of China. Sometime in the early morning hours I fell asleep only to awake a few hours later to the horror and spectacle of troops attacking their own people and tanks rumbling through the wide streets of Beijing and Tiananmen Square. And I cried, as did many people that day and for the weeks, months and years that followed.

I don’t know why this year’s observance of that terrible event is more painful for me. Maybe it is the posts and pictures from my Chinese Facebook friends in Hong Kong and elsewhere. Maybe it is the picture sent to me awhile back from one of my former students. It is a picture of a page from one of the leading Hong Kong Chinese newspapers published less than two weeks prior to the June 4th event containing a half page ad a number of the faculty, staff, and students from the Seminary had purchased in which we included our names in bold clear print expressing our continuing support and prayers for the democracy movement and for a fair and just settling of the societal and political tensions in China. Maybe it is the acute sense of pain I feel at present for our own country and for its future as a democracy and a free and civil society.

But whatever the reason for my particular awareness this year of the events of June 4, I remain hopeful that the winds of change and hoped for democracy which were expressed that summer and continue to be expressed, albeit in a very difficult and often more intolerant political environment in 2012, will still bear fruit.  China is a great country with a rich history and beautiful people. The tide of history is towards democracy and there are hopeful signs that China may yet move in that direction in the foreseeable future. But even if it doesn’t happen in my lifetime or the lifetime of those who were witness to the historic events of the summer of 1989, I am confident that the dreams that seemed so possible then will continue to capture the hearts and actions of generations to come, until they become a reality in the Central Kingdom.

Ascension Day -- A Reminder that Jesus is on Our Side

Like most Baptists, growing up I didn’t think much about Ascension Day (coming forty days after Easter and the celebration of the completion of Jesus’ earthly ministry and return to the Father) and I don’t think the churches I was a part of did much, if anything, about it. Usually we went from Good Friday to Easter and then to Pentecost – the “Church’s birthday”. Of course, I was familiar, somewhat, with the stories at the end of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 24) and in the first chapter of Acts that mention Jesus’ departure and  how “ a cloud took him out of [the apostles] sight” (Acts 1:10). But really for my church we were more focused on the Great Commission/ the Sending of the Church out into the world to be Christ’s witnesses than we were on how the Ascension connected to the rest of the Christ event (Jesus birth, ministry, Passion and Resurrection). I am sure that if I had been a part of a Catholic, Episcopal or Lutheran congregation, I would have heard more about the Ascension and Ascension Day.

Later, as a Pastor I began to think more carefully about worship and the Liturgical/Christian/Church Year and came to see that the Ascension was much more than a dramatic way to let the Disciples know that the comings and goings of Jesus and his appearances over the forty days following Easter were coming to an end. The Ascension has something powerful to say about hope and faithful endurance and the ongoing presence of Jesus and his identification with his people.

In recent years, I have come back more and more to the importance of the Incarnation – the declaration that God has come to us in human flesh in Christ. The traditional understanding of the Incarnation with its affirmation that Jesus (while maintaining divinity) really did take on full humanity reminds us of Jesus’ identification with us in all the stages and experiences of life.

In the Ascension, yes, Jesus is glorified and returns to the Father, but when compared to the pre-Incarnation Son there is something different about the second person of the Trinity. In his glorification, Jesus does not lose his human nature anymore than the Incarnation means that Jesus lost his divine nature. The Ascension reminds us that the humanity of Jesus is indeed taken into the heart of God. The Trinity is different.

The Incarnation and Ascension show that Jesus’ identification with us does not end with the completion of his earthly ministry. The compassion that we see on the pages of the Gospels that was evident in Jesus’ person and ministry continues as Jesus retakes his place in the fellowship of the Father and the Spirit. Jesus’ sojourn on this planet and his experience of the pain and joy, tragedy and triumph of what it means to be human changes Jesus and changes God. There is a new dimension to the compassion of God.

I have often been drawn to that passage in Hebrews 5 where the writer is completing a discussion of Jesus as the compassionate, merciful, and completely sympathetic Great High Priest (the one stands between humanity and God and intercedes on their behalf and is also an ever present, gracious source of strength and encouragement for those who call on him). The writer of Hebrews says of Jesus: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him,  having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:7-10).

This passage reflects texts in the Gospels that show Jesus praying in the garden just before his arrest and crucifixion.  The reference to “his reverent submission” reflects Jesus’ willingness to do God’s will rather than his own (a theme throughout the Gospels, especially in the Gospel of John). The same is true with the reference to Jesus’ obedience and the fact that Jesus “learned obedience” through what he suffered/experienced. The writer goes on to say that because of his submission and obedience and suffering, Jesus was “made perfect.” As a result Jesus not only becomes a source of salvation for all who obey him, he (as the writer makes clear in chapter 2:14-18 and 4:14-16) is also a ready and able source of help and grace to all those who are undergoing trials and difficulties in their life.

The reference to “having been made perfect” has sometimes caused Christians to scratch their heads and ask: “If Jesus was God, how has he been made ‘perfect’? What did he lack?” The word translated “perfect” (teleioo) has the idea of “reaching a goal; completing a course; being mature; satisfying what was needed”, etc. In its context here, the writer emphasizes that the human experiences Jesus had, in obedience to God’s will, fitted him, qualified him for the role of Great High Priest. Those experiences of obedience and trials and suffering gave him an identification with humankind that made him the perfect confessor, comforter, encourager, and source of grace and mercy. And all of this is related to his humanity as much as to his sinless sacrifice.

The Ascension is not only the glorification of Jesus and the end of his earthly ministry, it is also the beginning of a heavenly ministry. As he intercedes, Jesus does so as one who has taken humanity into the heart of God. Jesus does not discard his true humanity in his glorification anymore than he discarded his divinity in the Incarnation. In fact, the experience of humanity enables Jesus to fulfill his role as the second person of the Trinity.

It is easy to get bogged down in theological precision and analysis and there is a time for that sort of discussion. But the Ascension, in spite of its strange cosmology and all the questions it raises for modern day believers, is an affirmation that one phase of Jesus’ work was completed and another has begun. The Ascension is indeed connected to the beginning of the Church’s mission to continue Jesus ministry in the world. The Ascension tells us that the Jesus whose mission and message the Church continues is still with his followers in all the conditions of life.

The theologian Shirley Guthrie has written: “The ascension tells us something about ourselves and how we stand with God. The risen Jesus who ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of God is the one who was the friend and not the enemy of sinful people, who defended the cause of all who are helpless, poor, and oppressed. That means, to use the traditional language of the church, that all such people (every one of us in one way or another) have in the risen and ascended Jesus an “Advocate,” one who is on our side, in the presence of God. More than that, it means that the Jesus who shared our humanity has taken it with him into the very “inner circle” of the communion of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If Jesus lives in the very heart of God, then we do too, for he was one of us. If he made the cause of humankind his own cause, then we may be sure that it is God’s cause too.” (Christian Doctrine, Revised Edition, p. 408, note 3)

Easter reminds us that evil, death and despair do not have to have the last word. The Ascension reminds us that the same compassionate Christ we see in the Gospels remembers our humanity and does not only sympathize with us, he comes to our side to encourage, strengthen, console, empower, to be present. In those times when our minds are numb, our hearts are aching, our nerves shattered and there doesn’t seem to be a friend in sight, the Ascension reminds us that our friend Jesus cares with an intimate, knowing, compassionate connection in a way in which we may, if we want, feel the nail-scarred hand clutching ours.

"Superfluous" -- A Lenten Thought

I suppose you are like me and have had times when something gets stuck in your head – a word, a song, an image – and it keeps going round and round. Sometimes it is simply annoying, other times, for example in the middle of the night when you need to rest before a very busy day, it can almost be maddening. If you have never had one (or more) of those experiences you are very fortunate. But I would guess that most of us know what I am talking about.

But I think the experience of getting something stuck in your head can also be an enlightening, even revelatory, experience because it forces you to look at it and ask questions. In the last couple of days the word “superfluous” has been stuck in my head. My concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English tells me that the word comes from two words that have been conjoined; one meaning “more” or “over” (super) and the other meaning “to flow” (fluere). Together the word “superfluous” is used as an adjective and means “more than enough, redundant, needless.” Another source simply has “overflowing bounty.”

Now, I’m not sure why that word got stuck in my head. I probably read or heard it somewhere, but, unlike that word, song or image that gets stuck in your head and won’t let you sleep, this word has helped me think about my Lenten journey.

Lent, with its invitation to pause and reflect on life and the spiritual life (and really these can’t be separated for someone who takes both of them seriously), really has a lot to do with the “superfluous.”

Lent is a challenge to live more simply and fully in God’s presence. It asks us to take a serious look at those things that control or direct or lay claim to our life. And let’s admit it, for most of us, it is our work or our studies or our families or our pursuits (whether they be shopping, watching TV, sports or fitness, etc) that really are the primary focus of our lives. And then we are asked to look at whether or not these things lead us into a deeper relationship with God or away from that relationship. And many of us would have to admit that it is a mixed bag. There are some things that help us grow in that relationship and there are some things that pull us away from that intimate relationship with God. And here is where the word “superfluous” comes in for me.

As I look at my life there are many things that are superfluous in the sense of “needless.” They are more than what is needed if I am going to experience and live a fulfilling life. And honestly, they are things that my world, my culture, my society, my insecure and unloved ego tells me are needed if I am to be happy or popular or safe or well-respected, etc. etc. But they really don’t meet the deep need in my life which is for a sense of well-being and wholeness and joy. They promise a lot, but really don’t deliver in any ultimate sense. They can’t because they are “superfluous” to what is needed for the meaning and joy of life. They can often be enjoyed and used, but at the end of the day, they are superfluous in the deeper search for contentment and satisfaction. They are superfluous/needless/useless because only God can supply what I really need at the center of my being.

Lent invites us to realize that underneath all of these distractions and empty promises there is a call to simplicity that understand that what is fundamentally needed for life is the cultivation of a life with God at the center. As Jesus reminds us, we are to seek above everything else the will of God (Matthew 6:33). When we align our will with that Will we see the real place of the things that we have been so feverishly pursuing. They aren’t all evil, but they really are “superfluous” to the meaning of life and to what brings ultimate wholeness and joy. 

But there is another “superfluous” or “superfluity” that comes to mind as I reflect on Lent. And this one is the “superfluous-ness” of Grace. We see it in the Jesus’ parable of the loving father who lavishes grace (love, acceptance, the re-establishment of a fractured relationship) on his returning prodigal child as well as on his stay-at-home uptight, callous child (Luke 15:11-32). We see it in the Apostle Paul’s repeated wonder at the extravagant grace of God shown to sinful, world-weary men and women in the God News that is the Gospel. Yes, God’s grace is “superfluous” in that it is “more than enough” and an “overflowing bounty.” 

It is this “superfluous” grace that calls to us in Lent and reminds us that our deepest longings and genuine needs are only found in a relationship with God. Lent challenges us to remember, or perhaps discover for the first time, that we are loved by God and that that love is a redeeming love. To surrender to that God is, in the words of Thomas Merton, to “quit keeping score altogether and surrender yourself with all your sinfulness to God who sees neither the score nor the scorekeeper but only his child redeemed in Christ.” To rediscover that love through pausing for Lent to look honestly at our life is grace, grace that is “overflowing bounty.” It is a reminder that dependence on the God of love and mercy revealed in Jesus is the most important lesson that we can learn if we are to really experience Life in all its fullness. 

But it isn’t always an easy lesson because there is so much in our lives that struggles against that truth. Joan Chittister has written, “Dependence on God may be what is lacking in a society where consumerism and accumulation have become the root diseases of a world in which everything is not enough and nothing satisfies.” But here again we have Grace. If we will turn and make the effort to reconnect with God, we will find that God is already there with outstretched arms to bring us back into relationship. That is Superfluous Grace – an overflowing bounty.

“God’s Desire” – A Lenten Thought

In his book on Jesus’ parables, Stories Jesus Still Tells, the well-known pastor/preacher John Claypool relates the story of his daughter, Laura. When she was four, Claypool was attempting to put her to bed one night, but she was like most four-year-olds. To avoid going to bed, Laura took three trips to the bathroom, asked for a drink of water, wanted another story told, needed Dad to put the light on, heard a sound, and so on. Claypool finally took care of his daughter’s needs and went upstairs to write. He was deep into his writing when he could tell Laura was standing at the door of his study, staring at him. He hadn’t seen her or heard anything, he just knew that she was there. Frustrated, he turned around and said, with a bit of anger in his voice, “What do you want me to do, Laura?” Laura came over and stood beside her father, grabbed his arm, and said, “Nothing Daddy, I just want to be close to you.”  

As I think about that story, especially during this season of Lent, I can see that Laura may have been speaking God’s words to us: “I don’t want you to do anything. I just want to be next to you.” I wonder how many times a day God tries to get our attention, to slow us down, to quiet us long enough so that we can hear God’s whisper. 

I wrote recently of the danger our busyness and over-commitments pose to our personal and spiritual lives. Usually, we feel that we have no choice. Life is just like that. If we could, we would get off the treadmill, slow down and take it easy. And we keep telling ourselves that someday in the future – on the weekend, when we get a vacation, or when we retire, things will be different. But will they? I have been down that road as a career missionary, pastor and teacher. I took a subtle pride (it wouldn’t have been “spiritual” to say so) in the fact that I worked 18 hour days, six (and sometimes seven) days a week. I was busy and I was helping people! But now I wonder how much I missed, especially in my relationship with God. I think I have to agree with Marshall Jenkins who writes: “We assume that it is the crazy pace of our lives that is killing us when really it’s our inattention to our deepest desire, the desire for God.”  

Henri Nouwen illustrates this point well (the danger inherent in our busyness and distractions) in a meditation he wrote when he returned to the States for a visit from the L’Arche Daybreak Community in Toronto, Canada, where he shared the final years of his life with a group of people with disabilities: “What most strikes me, being back in the United Sates, is the full force of the restlessness, the loneliness, and the tension that holds so many people. The conversations I had today were about spiritual survival. So many of my friends feel overwhelmed by the many demands made on them; few feel the inner peace and joy they so much desire….There seems to be a mountain of obstacles preventing people from being where their hearts want to be. It is so painful to watch and experience. The astonishing thing is that the battle for survival has become so “normal” that few people really believe that it can be different.” [“The Road to Daybreak,” in Seeds of Hope: A Henri Nouwen Reader, ed. Robert Durback (NY: Doubleday, 1997), 54] 

What about you? Do you believe that it can be different? 

In Claypool’s story about his daughter Laura and her desire simply “to be” present with her father, we have a reminder that God wants us more than our activity. God desires us. And our response in return should be to desire God.  

For years, I have been carrying around in my wallet a quote from the great Scottish theologian P.T. Forsyth. It is a warning to all of us who get caught up in busyness, even the busyness of “ministry.” He writes, “It is possible to be so active in the service of Christ as to forget to love him. Many preach Christ but get in front of him by the multiplicity of their own works. It will be your ruin if you do! Christ can do without your works; what he wants is you.” 

Like John Claypool’s daughter, Laura, God wants us. He wants to get our attention, to slow us down, to be quiet long enough to hear his call to us. And if we will listen, we will hear that: “The heart of [God] loves us as we are and not as we should be, beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity; He loves us in the morning sun and the evening rain without caution, regret, boundary, limit or breaking point.” (Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus, pp. 125-126). 

This is one of the many gifts of Lent. It breaks into our life with a reminder to slow down, be quiet, allow ourselves to be reoriented and refocused and open to God’s presence in our life. If we will pay attention we will see and experience things we have never seen or experienced: we will be more fully alive; we will experience life in its depth; we will be more rooted and less rushing; and we will learn how to be more whole, more loving, more caring, more like Christ. 

Happy Lent!

Slowing Down – A Lenten Thought

In a New York Times article I was reading today (“For Impatient Web Users, An Eye Blink is Just Too Long to Wait”, March 1, 2012), I learned from Google experts that we are a very impatient bunch when it comes to waiting on our computers. The article says that for most of us, waiting for a page to load, even if it is 400 milliseconds-- literally the blink of an eye-- it is too long. Google and other tech companies are therefore on a new quest for speed. The research shows that the average person doesn’t like to wait more than 250 milliseconds (a millisecond is a thousandth of a second) for a website to load. If it takes longer for a page to load, the reader will likely move on to another, hopefully faster, site. Speed means business and money. 

Of course, I didn’t need the article to tell me that. I can see it in myself. And it is all a part of a larger habit of always being in a hurry. I am one of those who doesn’t like to wait – at a traffic light, the line at the grocery store, for a meal, for a website to load, etc. And yet I realize that I have to wait. It is part of life to wait. And slowly I have learned some very valuable lessons while waiting. That is, if I am willing to be taught. I have learned that sometimes in my rush I have failed to listen to the other person or notice their hurt; I have made mistakes because I was working too fast; my stress level goes up because I have failed to slow down; and even more enlightening is the realization that in my busyness I failed to connect with another person who had the potential to enrich my life. Even in my prayers, I sometimes find that am either too busy to pray or if I pray I rush through them. And in the process, I miss an encounter with God.

Now, I have to admit that I’m not quite as bad as I used to be in the busyness category and I attribute that to spending more time working on breaking my busyness habit and learning new ones. Henri Nouwen once wrote: “You don't think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.” Practicing the disciplines of silence and meditation are helping to create new ways of thinking about life and busyness. And that is why times like Lent are so valuable. They remind us of the importance of slowing down and trying to be present to the moment. Just when I start speeding up again, Lent (or Advent) is like a speed bump on the spiritual journey and helps me to apply the brakes and slow down again and settle into a more reasonable pace of life. Lent reminds me that the real meaning of life is not found in its speed or activism, but in its depth and that there is no way to go deep in life without spending time with God.

It is easy in our production-focused society and the constant bombardment of stimuli from ads, entertainment, other people and events to slip into the illusion that being busy is being fulfilled or meaningful or important. Perhaps one of the reasons why it is easy to be taken in by this is because of our fear of boredom. Maybe that is why we keep so busy.

For those who care about growing in their spiritual life, of getting in touch with who they really are, busyness and constant activity can spell ruin.

So, let me challenge you to slow down so that you can listen to the God who is calling you home to that place within that is at once our own heart and God’s own dwelling. We know that busyness can kill us physically by taking its toll in stress and high blood pressure and coronary disease; but we also need to understand that busyness can also kill us spiritually.

Take some time to reflect on the prayer below. It comes from Edward Hays (Pray All Ways: A Book of Daily Worship Using All Your Senses, pp. 189-190). As you pray it reflect on its images; notice those places where what he has to say connect with your life; and, most importantly, ask yourself what God is saying to you through these words. Happy Lent!

A Prayer for Someone in a Hurry

Lord, help me this day
      to slow down.
It will not be easy for you-even you-
      to slow me down
     for I seem caught up in the traffic-rush of life.
I rush through my prayers,
      hurry through my meals
     and run from one thing to another.
But I have faith
      that my choices and your graces together
      can change my racetrack style of life.
I know, Lord, even before you whisper it in my ear,

that you are waiting for me

in the slower, quieter things of life.

Teach me, Lord of Life,

how to eat my food with awareness;
show me how to walk deliberately
rather than to run constantly,

how to truly visit and be present
rather than merely exchanging words.

Help me, Divine Friend,

to take my time in praying to you.

Show me that it is good

just to "waste" time with you

just enjoying a sunset or a friendship.

With your presence and assistance,

I will attempt to do all things with mindfulness:
slowly, carefully

and fully aware of what I am  doing.

Then, with your grace, I shall find you, my

God,

in those unhurried and mindful moments.

Amen (said very slowly)

“Faith is the Measure”: A Lenten Thought

As I enter into the first full week of my Lenten journey I am pretty aware of the fact that I am distracted, tired and prefer doing something, anything other than focusing on the renewing of my faith which is one of the purposes of Lent. I may be one of those who suffer from SADD or SAHDD -- Spiritual Attention Deficit Disorder/Spiritual Attention Hyperactivity Deficit Disorder. Even though I have been practicing Centering Prayer and focused prayer for several years now, I still find it hard at times to be still and focus on the present moment and my relationship with God. Maybe you have the same problem.

If so, you and I are among the 99%. No, not the occupy Wall Street 99%, although I support their cause, but the 99% David Steindl-Rast refers to when he says: "Ninety-nine percent of the time we have an opportunity to be grateful for something. We just don't notice it. We go through our days in a daze".

I hate to admit it. But that’s me – going through my days in a daze. And because I am in a daze – either due to stress, or laziness, or lack of sleep or lack of intention or attention, I miss so much of what God wants to teach me and what life is all about. I miss so much to be grateful for.

That really is why I need Lent. It provides some structure to my life – forty days beginning with Ash Wednesday and running through Easter. It is punctuated with Sundays that remind me of the challenges and blessings of the journey and begins to come to an end with Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday* and Good Friday. I have devotional guides and the church to help with my journey. And the journey is all about slowing down, focusing and learning to see, again.

Juliet Benner reminds us that: “Spirituality is all about seeing. It is becoming aware of realities in which we are immersed but of which we are unaware….Spiritual vision requires learning to notice the presence of God within and around us.”

The Lenten journey, the spiritual journey, is all about learning to see, having our eyes opened to the wonder and the glory of life and God’s presence in it. It is about learning gratitude and to say alleluia! The 18^th century French Catholic Jesuit writer Jean-Pierre de Caussade, who is best known for his work Abandonment to Divine Providence (also translated as The Sacrament of the Present Moment), reminds us that “The present moment is always full of infinite treasures, it contains far more than you have the capacity to hold. Faith is the measure; what you find in the present moment will be according to the measure of your faith.” Thomas Merton says the same thing: “We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through all the time.” And if I still didn’t hear it, there are other voices. The writer Frederick Buechner: “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is…There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always leaving you room to recognize or not to recognize him.” The theologian, Augustine: “God is always present to us and all things; it is that we, like blind persons, do not have eyes to see.”

The world around us, and the life we live in it, is saturated, alive with grace, if we have eyes to see. In fact, if the above voices and centuries of Christian witnesses are to be believed, there is more than we could ever hope to see. But let’s admit it – it is hard to really believe this. Our world of work, messy relationships, challenging classes, global and local tensions, economic concerns, health issues, etc. and etc., make it hard to believe that this world is “full of infinite treasures.”

This brings us back to this thing called “faith.” J.P. de Caussade reminds us that: “Faith is the measure; what you find in the present moment will be according to the measure of your faith.” A weak or shallow faith, a distracted or wrongfully preoccupied faith will find very little of meaning and evidence of the Divine in the present moment. Lent helps us to cultivate the faith that enables us to see. It grabs us by the collar and sits us down and takes our face in its hands and says: “Look! Look at what God is doing in the world and look at what God is doing in your life!”

Faith for the journey, is the willingness to trust God. Faith, in the Biblical sense, is fundamentally trust. It is trust in the character, the integrity, the care and compassion of God. It rests on the testimony of Scripture and Church – men and women who have come to know God in and through the rough and tumble experiences of life. For some, faith is robust and growing, for others it is weak and struggling. I like what Thomas Merton once said about faith. In one of his journals he is describing his many distractions, his weaknesses and the many things that can draw him away from God: “I am happy that I can at least want to love God. Perhaps that is all I’ve got, but it is already all that is essential. And He will take care of the rest.” Faith believes that in Jesus we meet one who knows our struggles, our pain, our experience of emptiness and abandonment, of growing faith and ebbing faith, and he still loves us and will work with that faith to bring us to maturity, if we want.

“What Will We Pay Attention To?” That really is the big question. The world and we are filled with so much noise, so many voices calling for our attention and time. We are constantly bombarded with images and sights that are supposed to tempt us, wow us, tease us, satisfy us.  How are we to hear and see in this vast sea of stimulation? And more specifically, how are we to see and hear and experience God in our midst? Lent helps us to cultivate a listening ear, to sharpen our vision, to sensitize our soul to the presence of the Holy in our midst.

One practical way to do that is to begin with gratitude. Many of us think that gratitude comes from happiness, but David Steindl-Rast reminds us that “It is not happiness that makes us grateful, but it is gratefulness that makes us happy.”

So, let me suggest that for the next week in your Lenten journey you try this exercise. When you wake up in the morning, instead of saying something like “Oh God! It is morning.”; try staying still for a moment and saying  or thinking) “Thank you God for this morning!” A grateful start to the morning can lead to a full day of gratitude; and turned into a daily practice, this grateful beginning creates a grateful life.

For the week, devote at least five to ten minutes each morning to considering life's gifts to you. If you already have or can set aside a special morning meditation time, great! If you have to go to work early or have classes or are immediately plunged into parenting duties or taking care of an invalid, choose some reminder — the first time you take a sip of a beverage in the morning; a chime on your cell phone; the coming to a stop at a red light; getting on or off the bus or train; something—to think of three things for which you are grateful. And then turn your awareness of your gifts into a time of prayer – thank God for the gifts in your life. And look for opportunities to tell someone. Maybe it will challenge them to see the giftedness of life and the graciousness of God.

Some other things to think about: 1) Is your life filled with too much noise to hear God? What are some things you could do that would free up some space to breathe deeply again? You might want to talk with a trusted friend about your decision to do less; 2) What do you think God delights in when God thinks about you? Why does God think that you were special enough to send Jesus for you? What is your response to this grace?

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*Also known as Holy Thursday, Covenant Thursday, Great & Holy Thursday, and Thursday of Mysteries, is the Christian feast or holy day falling on the Thursday before Easter that commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles as described in the Gospels ( Mark 14:12-25; Matthew 26:17-19; Luke 22:7-13). It is the fifth day of Holy Week, and is preceded by Holy Wednesday and followed by Good Friday.

Being Healed

I think that many of us avoid or fear Lent and its call to spiritual self-examination and change in the same way that we avoid going to the dentist or doctor. It is a mixture of fear and pride. Fear that we might discover something that will unsettle us (we waited too long to get that growth checked and now it is infected; or we waited too long to treat the cancer and it is at an advanced stage) or cause us pain (an impacted molar, the need for a root canal or the simple lecture from the dentist that we should be having regular check-ups) or pride (“I can take care of myself”; “I’m not feeling well, but I will get better”; “The doctor is a quack, what does he know?”). And so we stay away.

When it comes to Lent, the penitential, reflective season of spiritual examination and call to renewal and starting again, we think it is nice for some people, but we really don’t need it. We may not be what we should be in our relationship with God, but we are certainly not that bad.

But Lent doesn’t let us off the hook that easily. It starts with Ash Wednesday. On Ash Wednesday we are reminded of our mortality (”From dust you came and to dust you will return”) and our sins (“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin” Psalm 51:1-2). In fact the traditional reading of Psalm 51 is full of words like “transgressions”, “judgment”, “guilty”, “broken and contrite heart”, etc. Words that we like to avoid or fear. And it continues through the forty days as we are brought face to face with the goodness and claim of God on our lives and our continual falling short and our need for God’s help if there is ever going to be any change and if we are ever going to experience the fullness of life that God calls us to. It is easy to want to avoid Lent. Fear and pride, as well as sloth and preoccupation with other, seemingly more pressing things get in the way.

But the Season of Lent, like the regular visits to the dentist and doctor, is intended to help us and keep us spiritually healthy. Yes, we are confronted with our mortality and our sin and our repeated laziness or lack of interest in spiritual things or our preoccupation with temporal and more immediate pleasures and concerns, but at the same time we are reminded over and over again of God’s love and grace and God’s coming alongside of us as we travel this Lenten road towards greater self-awareness and transformation.

Several years ago, Edward Hays wrote a Lenten devotional guide entitled The Lenten Pharmacy: Daily Healing Therapies. It is a quirky, enticing book, like many Hays writes.  In it he focuses on Jesus the Healer. Each day, like a good doctor, Hays offers up a prescription to encourage the reader to explore his/her life and open themselves up to the spiritual healing Jesus offers. Along the way we are introduced to diseases like: “Tomorrowitis” – that procrastination fungus the postpones reform until next year’s Lent or even until one’s deathbed; “Sabbath Dis-ease” – that restlessness of always having to be productive or busy and failing to slow down and be present to the God-filled moment; “Templeitis” – the half-hearted religious life that puts its trust in ritual and routine, but neglects the passionate embracing of a relationship with God that shows itself in a transformed life.

All of these diseases afflict us as they do the people Jesus meets in the Gospel stories. And like a compassionate, sensitive healer, Jesus wants to bring us from dis-ease to ease; from illness to health; from a so-so life to a full and holy life. But if that is going to happen, it requires a response from us. And often our response is like the man who said to Jesus: “I believe, help my unbelief.” And in that honesty healing takes place.

Jesus once told a story which the physician-turned-Gospel writer Luke records in his gospel. It is found in Luke 18:9-14. Here is Eugene Peterson’s retelling of the story in contemporary English in his paraphrase The Message: ^9-12[Jesus] told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: "Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: 'Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.'  ¹³"Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, 'God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.'" ¹⁴Jesus commented, "This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself."

In this parable, Jesus gives us a prescription for beginning and continuing the Lenten journey. It starts with humility and an admission that we need God’s mercy if we are ever going to be the people we are intended to be and if God is ever going to be glorified in our lives.

The disciplines of the journey – prayer, Bible reading, silence, fasting, worship, service – are ways to help us grow in humility and wholeness. Don’t procrastinate or think that you are too busy to slow down or hide in your comfortable or safe religious routine. True healing and wholeness comes with a cost and that cost is being humble enough to place yourself in the caring, healing hands of Jesus. That is the Lenten challenge and that is the promise of discipleship. Happy Lenten journey!

"The One You Feed"

There is a familiar Native American story called “The Two Wolves.” One version goes like this: One evening, an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One wolf is “Evil.” It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, and superiority. The other wolf is “Good.” It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, faith…and contentment.”The grandson was amazed at this. You could see it in his face. You could also see that he was puzzling over what he had just been told. Finally, he could no longer restrain himself, so he asked, “Which wolf wins?”The old Cherokee grandfather smiled slightly and softly replied, “The one you feed.”

The story reminds us that we all make choices in our life. And the consequences of those choices can sometimes spell the difference between joy and peace and sorrow and regret.

The season of Lent is also about making choices. Lent is an invitation. It is a call to reflect, refocus, refresh, and renew. It invites us to slow down and pause in the midst of life and to look within at the war that often is going on deep within us, or maybe not so deep within. We all carry wounds and scars from this battle. For some of us it seems like it is an eternal struggle with no way out. We have tried to calm the beast that rages within and also to fight against the ones that attack us from without, but we never quite seem to get the upper hand. This is even true for those of us who claim to follow Jesus, the Prince of peace.

When I look at my own life, I find that “evil” usually gets the upper hand because I forget to feed my soul. Instead, I fall into the habit of feeding my fears, my distrust, my anger, my resentment, my insecurity, my …. I feed them through allowing myself to see things as urgent, as normal or usual, as acceptable, as reasonable or as all that there is.

Grace alone can bring about a lasting change in our lives, a transformation of our deepest self. Grace alone can help us to push back against the darkness. Without grace – simply relying on our power alone -- we cannot be faithful to the divine calling and direction God has in mind for us from the beginning. What we need to do is create space for grace. And to do that means feeding those things that help create that space and make the gift of grace a reality in our lives. Only then can we come to know the serenity, the peace, the contentment that Jesus promises.

Someone has written: “If everyone is running around wringing their hands and crying, and you are cool, calm, and collected, you don’t understand the situation.” To live with serenity/contentment does not necessarily mean that outward conditions have changed. Serenity is an inner peace that is present even in difficult surroundings. It is a deep, inner sense that all will ultimately be well. The experience goes beyond our systems of emotional or rational intelligence. It is an intuitive or spiritual knowing that produces in us the inner experience of calmness, clarity, and awareness. In serenity, we learn to live more fully in the now moment rather than being bound to the past or living anxiously in the future. And because God is present in the now, God is present with us in the now, and no matter what we face, God will be there with us.

But as the story above reminds us, this awareness, this reality, this settled and settling conviction doesn’t just happen, it requires a response, a choice, a decision, an effort on our part. “The one you feed.” We can feed our fears and illusions or resentment or anger or self-pity, and they can continue to dominate our lives and overwhelm us with a hopelessness that can paralyze us; OR we can feed or cultivate that relationship with the God of peace who wants to give us LIFE and help us see our daily lives in a new and liberating light.

So if you have made the decision to feed your soul this Lent, here are some things to focus on: Slow Down – just as it is hard to enjoy a meal on the run, you need to allow time for rest and meditation; Reflect -- on where you are in life and what God, through Scripture, has to say about where you can and should be; Practice – the disciplines of prayer, silence, Bible Reading, worship and service; Don’t Give Up – nothing worth achieving comes easily and without effort; Live Thankfully – realize that each day, each breath, each opportunity is a gift God is giving you to grow in personhood and fullness; and Remember Grace – the God who invites you into relationship with himself also provides the resources to grow in that relationship. When we fall or fail, God is still there, ready to forgive and restore. While Grace is free, it is not cheap; it requires our surrender and willingness to receive it and live in it. Grace is the good news that, in Christ, I am more loved than I ever thought possible and that there is nothing in this life that I will ever have to face that God will not be there to face it with me.

Recalibration

Today is the first day in the Season of Lent, the forty weekdays leading up to Easter. I know that for many people “Lent” carries a negative tone and means self-denial and giving up something. And that is part of the tradition of this season. Lent is a time for introspection, to pause, reflect, reassess, repent, and refocus our relationship with God and the life that God has called us to in Christ. And to make time to do that and to focus on the deeper side of life often means that we have to carve out some space in our busy schedules by giving up something so that we can use that time, or be reminded by that sacrifice, to use the time to reflect on some deeper spiritual realities. As the British mystic and writer on the spiritual life, Evelyn Underhill put it: “Lent is a good moment for…a spiritual stocktaking; a pause, a retreat from life’s busy surface to its solemn deeps.” It is a sort of mid-course correction or as I have come to think of it this year – Lent is a time for recalibration, a spiritual recalibration.

            Recently, I took my car in to the shop for a tune-up. It was running a bit rough and I knew that the gas mileage and performance of the car would be improved if I had it tuned up. In the same way, Lent is a time to recalibrate our soul. To calibrate means to “correlate the readings of (an instrument) with those of a standard in order to check the instrument's accuracy.” In other words, there is a standard and we see how well something is performing in accordance with the standard. And when something gets out of calibration, we need to recalibrate it.

            I see Lent as something like that. It is a time for me to pause and see how well I am measuring up to the standard of what it means to follow Jesus, to be a disciple. In other words, how does my life measure up to Christ since Jesus calls me to follow him and learn from him and to imitate him?

            I could skip Lent. I could simply rock along on the way to Easter just like I could forget about tuning up my car and put up with the rough ride. But if I do, I will miss something.

            Lent is a time of returning to God. It is a time to reflect on where we have been looking for joy, peace and satisfaction as we make our journey through life. What standards, what instruments, what measures have we been using?  Have we sought it in the people and things that are around us? Do we really know what we are looking for, what we want, what we need, how to recognize it when we find it? It is so easy to use the standards, the measurements of the people and society around us and get hopelessly lost, frustrated or disillusioned. Without stopping to recalibrate, it is easy to get the wrong readings and forget that only God can give us what we really need. It is easy for our life, our thinking, our pursuits to get out of sync and miss the deeper things in life. This is one of the reasons we need Lent – to recalibrate our spiritual life.

Of course, we are not cars or instruments that can be so easily recalibrated. We can deny it, fight it or fake it. The choice is really up to us.

This brings us back to something I said at the beginning. Lent for many of us is frightening. It is frightening because it reminds us that to get to Easter – Life, we have to pass through Death. Henri Nouwen puts it this way: “Yes, Lord, I have to die—with you, through you, and in you—and thus become ready to recognize you when you appear to me in your resurrection. There is so much in me that needs to die: false attachments, greed and anger, impatience and stinginess. O Lord, I am self-centered, concerned about myself, my career, my future, my name and fame. …O Lord, make this Lenten season different from other ones. Let me find you again.”

What needs to die in you?

Spiritual recalibration means work. Through the Scripture readings for the Season, the devotional books written especially for Lent, the worship services, through regular times of silence and solitude and reflection, we recalibrate our souls – clean, repair and reset them. We correlate/align our understanding and measure of what makes up a good life, a satisfying life, a meaningful and fulfilling life with the standard/will of our Creator. And with that recalibration we are ready to see how Easter is more than bunny rabbits, chocolate eggs and pretty bonnets. It is the Good News. It is the Good News of what it means to be truly alive.

So I hope that as you journey through Lent this year you will experience a spiritual recalibration of your soul and that, in the midst of the hard soul-work involved, you will know peace and joy.

"The Ears of God"

As part of my devotional reading for this year I am reading excerpts from the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and theologian who was martyred by the Nazis in the closing days of World War II. Bonhoeffer was just 39 years old when he died. He had spent some time teaching in the States and could have stayed and avoided going back to war-torn Germany, but felt compelled to return to help his fellow Christians and Germans live faithfully through the nightmare that was The Third Reich. He wrote much on what it means to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus. His powerful attack on “cheap grace” – that is, professed faith in Christ that fails to understand and live out the radical claims of the Gospel, is a message that needs to be heard again and again, especially in our Gospel-weak and highly culturally-adapted understanding what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

In his little book, Life Togethe, Bonhoeffer shares some practical advice on what it means to live in Christian fellowship. In one section he talks about “The Ministry of Listening.” I was struck by this passage:

The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, so the beginning of love for other believers is learning to listen to them. God's love for us is shown by the fact that God not only gives us God’s Word, but also lends us God’s ear. We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them. So often Christians, especially ministers, think that their only service is always to have to “offer” something when they are together with other people. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.
     Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking when they should be listening. But Christians who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longer be listening to God either; they will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God too. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there is nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension which chokes on pious words. Those who cannot listen long and patiently will always be talking past others, and finally no longer will even notice it.  Those who think that their time is too valuable to spend listening will eventually have no time for God and others, but only for themselves and for their own words and plans.
     …But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been entrusted to them by the one who is indeed the great listener and in whose work they are to participate. We should listen with the ears of God, so that we can speak with the Word of God. (pp. 97-99 adapted)

I suppose these words struck me because I have seen in others and in myself the absence of the ministry of listening. We speak too much. Or we listen, as Bonhoeffer also said, with “half an ear.” That is, impatient, inattentive listening. We already know what the other person is going to say, or we are only waiting for them to finish so that we can speak. No real listening here.

I have been trying to work on this. I try to listen to the store clerk or the tired service manager at the auto shop or the post office employee or the person waiting in line with me or the person in the pew next to me. People are hungry for someone to listen to them. And unfortunately, we Christians, often don’t do a very good job at listening.

I remember watching the TV series “Cheers” and sometimes feeling that there is often more of a ministry of listening in a bar than there is in the church. Ouch!

Several years ago one of our Seminary professors often started his classes with reflective, meditative readings. During one of those readings I was introduced Michael Quoist. Michael Quoist was a Roman Catholic priest and writer who worked mostly in the inner city and among young people. In 1954 he published a book of contemporary prayers that refreshingly showed God’s interest in all areas of life. One of the prayers is called “The Telephone”.

The Telephone

I have just hung up; why did he telephone?
I don’t know….Oh! I get it….

I talked a lot and listened very little.

Forgive me, Lord; it was a monologue and not a dialogue.
I explained my idea and did not get his;
Since I didn’t listen, I learned nothing,
Since I didn’t listen, I didn’t help,
Since I didn’t listen, we didn’t commune.

Forgive me, Lord, for we were connected,
And Now we are cut off.

This is a sad prayer reminding us that so often we miss a real opportunity to be present for another person when we fail to listen. Through our failure to listen we may have inadvertently missed an opportunity to be a healing, life-refreshing, hope-instilling presence in another’s life.

Bonhoeffer also reminds us that to fail to listen – to the other, to God – can be the beginning of the death of the spiritual life. It is easy to become so preoccupied with talking and being in control that we fail to miss what God wants to say to us and because we do, we fail to nourish that relationship that makes us more Christlike. Jesus often invited his audience to “listen”,  to “hear” what God was saying through him, the world, their life experience, the Scriptures and others.

What we need is to listen with God’s ears to the sighs, the cries, the longings, the silence, as well as the words of those around us. And if we can learn that, maybe we will be able to listen to our own deepest cries and the still, small voice of God as it speaks to us of peace and healing.

Maybe a good resolution for this year is to heed the words of the Book of James: “be quick to listen, slow to speak.” (James 1:19).

"I Want You"

In his timely book, which probably should be required Christmas reading for all followers of Jesus, Christmas is Not Your Birthday, Mike Slaughter quotes Alan and Deb Hirsch who point out in their book Untamed: “Of all the ways culture influences the church, nothing has had more of an impact on us than that of a consumerist vision of society. We have all been impacted by the powerful experience of society that is preoccupied with the acquisition of consumer goods. From good old Santa Claus (a religious symbol co-opted to disciple children in thorough-going materialism from early childhood on) to the complete ubiquity of niche marketing, we are daily being nurtured in the worldview generated by late capitalism of the twenty-first century—consumerism.” (Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship. Baker Books, 2010, 137).

We could elaborate on how this cultural influence can be seen in the ways that we approach worship, build and equip our worship places, buy “Christian” brands, gauge our success as churches by how many people we get in the seats, etc. But since they mention Santa, let’s just focus on Christmas.

I often get the feeling these days that I am not a very good American, not a patriot, because I am not consuming as much as I should. After all, the daily drumbeat of the news, with its constant eye on the Dow Jones, is a reminder that it is Christmas that makes or breaks the retail market, and, by implication, the health of our economy and country.

I just refuse to play that game. If I read the Gospels correctly and listen to the witness of the church, Christmas is a reminder that in the midst of all the “stuff” the world promises us, gives us and surrounds us with, what we really need is God’s love. First John puts it this ways: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God. Dear Friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:9-11)

A while back I came across the story of a little girl who had to spend some time in a hospital. She came from a very well-to-do family, and her family show¬ered her with expensive gifts during her stay in the hospital. There were large overstuffed toys, including a 6 foot tall giraffe, dolls and a dollhouse, games of every description. The mother, who was well known in social circles brought something new every time she came to see the little girl. But she never stayed long because she always had to get to some luncheon or party. But she never failed to bring a gift. The nurses com¬plained about the enormous amount of toys that made it difficult for them to move about in the child's room. One day the little girl was particularly unhappy in the midst of all her many gifts, and held desperately to her mother as her mother tried to break free so that she wouldn't be late to a bazaar she was scheduled to attend. The mother tried to divert the child's attention to the new toy she had brought. "Mommy," cried the little girl, "I want you." Surrounded by gifts, surrounded by “stuff”, she wanted the most important thing of all, her moth¬er's presence and her mother’s love

I wonder how long it will take for us to realize that about Christmas, in fact, our total pursuit of the “good life”? What we really need is not just more stuff, but love. What we need most is not the promised security of things, whether it be a healthy bank account or a well-armed military to protect our “stuff”. What we need most is a meaningful personal relationship with the God who loves us and cares for us. And as a result of knowing that love, the ability to love others and to be loved by others.

Christmas IS first and foremost about love. Christmas tells us that God has come into our broken and lonely world to love us and show us what true love is. It is a love that is not based on how good we are or how smart we are, or how well connected we are, but simply because we ARE. Experiencing the love of God and allowing that love to wash over us and through us to others is one of the greatest experiences we can have this Christmas. Will it be yours and mine?

Bypassing Advent

A few years back, Stanley Grenz wrote an article that appeared in Christianity Today entitled “Drive Through Christmas.” Here is an adaption of what he wrote:

“On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me." Tony Bennett's voice wove its subtle magic throughout the shopping mall. How appropriate, I thought, as I watched the shoppers scurry from store to store. The advertisements promised "just the right gifts at just the right price," allowing us to "give like Santa and save like Scrooge."

As I listened, I was struck with how we have turned Christmas around—not so much by commercializing the season, but through something deeper. Our McWorld of drive-through expectations has replaced patient waiting, followed by heartfelt joyous celebration, with the idolatry of instant gratification.

As members of the fast-food generation, we have become so eager to get to Christmas that we bypass Advent. Whereas an earlier generation encouraged fasting and reflection, we try to enjoy days filled with more Christmas festivities than we can endure. Christmas has displaced Advent on our calendars.

But our bypassing of Advent runs deeper—altering our attitude to the story of Christ's birth. We know how the story ends. Knowing the end of the story so well, we want to rush through the long and tortuous details of how God prepared a people—of how "God sent his Son…when the time had fully come" (Galatians 4:4). Rather than entering into the sense of expectation lying at the foundation of the story of Christ's entrance into human history, we read only the story's glorious climax. Rather than savoring the plaintive mood of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," we immediately want to hear a robust version of "Joy to the World, the Lord Is Come." In short, we have our Christmas early and create a drive-through Christmas."

What Grenz is lamenting is the reality that for many people there is no time or room for Advent, those four weeks preceding Christmas. It gets in the way. Like kids who just want to get to the dessert, we want Christmas.

But Advent is important. That is why the church for centuries has been observing it. With its emphasis on expectation and hope, peace and joy and the need for and discovery of real love, Advent helps prepare us for Christmas. It helps get us ready to fully appreciate and celebrate the real significance of Christmas and to see it in the grand scope of God’s plan for the universe.

In our home, for decades we have lit an Advent wreath. Each day of the four weeks, beginning with the fourth Sunday before Christmas, we pause in the evening to light the appropriate candle for the week (Hope/Expectation, Peace, Joy, and Love), read a passage of Scripture and a brief meditation on the passage in the light of that week’s theme, and pray. For me, this practice sanctifies time and reminds us that Christmas is more than decorations, parties, hectic shopping and gift giving. It is a time to rest and allow the profound truth that God, the Sovereign God of the universe, because of love, enters into the drama of our human lives and history in the person of Jesus. God comes as a vulnerable baby, dependent on others.

Advent helps me to see that in a world so often devoid of hope, peace, joy and love, that God comes to give us these gifts. Yes, Christmas carols and songs and some of the trimmings of Christmas can remind us of this truth. But spending four weeks reflecting and preparing for the celebration of Christmas can allow us to enter more deeply into the profound joy of the season.

As I write this we are already into the third week of Advent. In those three weeks, Connie and I have enjoyed the opportunity to pause, ponder and prepare. Advent reminds us, through its readings and emphasis on hope, peace, joy and love that no matter how much the culture around us wants to redefine these words through its hype and suggestions that these things come in neatly wrapped boxes from department stores, real love, joy, peace and hope are only found in opening ourselves up to the gift of relationship that God gives us in Christ.

So, let me encourage you to not “bypass Advent.” Savor it. Enjoy the four weeks leading up to the celebration of Jesus’ coming. Let this time bathe your soul and help you to really enter into the joy of the celebration of God’s greatest gift. Happy Advent!!

Incarnation and Wonder

Albert Einstein, one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, once said: “One who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead.” Perhaps we could say, “If we can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, our spirituality is as good as dead.” There is a definite link between having a sense of wonder and living the Christian faith—so much so that it’s fairly safe to say that a sense of wonder is an essential trait of a healthy, maturing spirituality. Wonder is often the prelude to as well as result of meeting God.

The Bible reminds us how wonder can lead us to a meeting with God. For example, there is the story of Moses and his encounter with God in the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-17). Moses is overwhelmed by the sight of a bush that is burning, but not consumed. As he comes closer, God speaks to him and reminds him of the sacredness of life and the holiness of God. Out of that encounter Moses is transformed and called into service. Something happens in Moses’ life. He is sent into the world to bring God’s redeeming, liberating, life-changing word to his people and through them, the world.

We might ask ourselves: what would have happened if Moses had not noticed the bush in the first place? What if he had been so preoccupied with his work of tending the sheep that he never even saw the bush? Or what if he saw it but felt he couldn’t afford to take the time to go and have a closer look? Way too busy watching those sheep! The answer is both clear and sobering: Moses would have missed an opportunity to meet God. I think there is a reminder here for all of us. An attitude that often stifles wonder is one that is too preoccupied or too busy to pay attention to things. Our sense of wonder is nourished by our periodically laying aside our preoccupations and our work in order to pay closer attention to our world and the people around us. It is when we learn to sloooow down, to open our eyes and really look and be attentive to the world around us and especially to the indications of God’s presence in the drama of life that we cultivate and experience wonder.

For me, this is one of the things that happens in the four weeks of Advent and at Christmas when I think about the mystery of the incarnation – God coming to us—God becoming “enfleshed” in the person of Jesus-- “God with us.” This is grace. This is wonder. This is the mystery of Christmas.

That is why at this time of the year, and maybe especially this time of the year, we should slow down, spend time refocusing and giving attention to the spiritual meaning of this Good News about God showing up in our world in the person of Jesus. What does it mean and what can mean for my life and my world? It is easy to relegate this sort of reflection to our Sunday morning worship experiences or to the Christmas Eve or Christmas day service. But as Herbert O’Driscoll reminds us: This paying attention should take “place in the ongoing events of my life. This task I may be doing now, this person I am with now, this joy or pain I am feeling now, this work of art I am experiencing now—each of these can become the context of the spiritual, each can become the meeting place with the extremely contemporary Christ. This is what the mystery we call the Incarnation means, that the Christ comes...in the seemingly ordinary fabric of today’s events and tasks.” (Prayers for the Breaking of Bread, p. 3)

If we can learn to pay attention to the God who not only came, but continues to come, we can cultivate a sense of awe and gratitude and are given a new vision, a new hope and strength to go back out into the world to live and witness to the ever new, ever liberating good news of the inbreaking of God’s kingdom into the world. And when that happens, the wonder of God with us is not just a Christmas experience, it can become an everyday experience of wonder.

Prayer: Lord, we admit that so often, as we make our way toward Christmas, we are distracted by the busyness that is taking place around us and the stress and chaos that is happening within us. The period of waiting that is Advent and the celebration that is Christmas often leave us without a real sense of wonder. Instead of looking for your wondrous coming to us in the events of our daily lives, we are more focused on presents and deadlines, busy schedules and all the trappings of the shopping season. We find ourselves resentful of all the pushing and shoving, and before we know it, Christmas has come and gone. We missed it. We missed the wonder of “God with us,” of the reminder that you so value us and our world that you entered it in Jesus. We are sorry and ask that you might help us to pause, focus, and pay attention to the wonder that is all around us – in the world, in the people that we meet, in the silence through which you speak peace into our hearts. Amen

“This is a difficult moment to treasure!”

Charlie Brown’s team is behind 98-0, and he is standing on the pitcher’s mound, talking to himself: “Boy, I must be stupid to stand out here and take a beating like this! The other team is laughing at me; my own team hates me; I’m a lousy pitcher; my stomach hurts. I don’t know why I play this game. I must be really stupid!”

Lucy comes over to console him: “Charlie Brown, you can’t go on like this. You’ve got to change your attitude! The years are going by, and you’re not enjoying life at all! Just remember, Charlie Brown, that the moments you spend out here on this pitcher’s mound are moments to be treasured! We’re not going to be kids forever, Charlie Brown, so treasure these moments!”

Then Charlie Brown, with determination on his face, tugs at the bill of his cap, rears back, and fires a pitch toward the plate. The batter swings and rips a scorching line-drive back through the pitcher’s box, knocking Charlie Brown off the mound. His cap goes one direction; his glove goes another. Knocked right out of his shoes and socks, he lands flat on his back. Lying there, Charlie Brown studies the situation and says: “This is a difficult moment to treasure!”

Charlie Brown expresses what we all have experienced sometime in our life, maybe many times, —that many moments in life are “difficult to treasure.” Life can be painful, and no one is exempt from the pain. And when those times come – times of such pain and anguish that they grab our hearts and squeeze them until we want to cry out or break down in tears, we are confronted with the question of faith. Do I have a faith that will sustain me? Do I have a faith that sees beyond the pain and sorrow and darkness into the light?

To have this kind of persevering faith is something that needs to be nurtured long before the storms come. It doesn’t just come. That is at the heart of the spiritual journey and why we are called to give attention to the spiritual life. In our spiritual journey, we are creating the resources that will enable us to not just cope with the daily stresses and strains and challenges of life and the potentially life-crushing moments, but will also help us to live abundantly. We can admire Charlie Brown’s persistence, but we need more than persistence, we need persevering faith. And so the question is: Am I/are you developing that faith? The care of the soul is a life-long process. Is it important to you? Do you spend time working on it? And if we are, even in those moments that we feel overwhelmed or feel completely inadequate to face the challenges, we will find that God gives us the resources to cope and even grow.

Flora Slosson Wuellner, in an article entitled “When the Stars Begin to Fall”, reminds us that “The moment of our greatest fear, the moment when the ground shakes beneath our feet, is the very moment of God’s deepest presence and power within us. It is the moment of our new beginning.” But we might not recognize that presence and the giving of that power if we haven’t been seeking to walk with God in the sunshine and the daily routines of life. One of the things that prayer does is give us perspective and awareness.

Let me invite you to take some time to stop and reflect on your faith journey. Are you building up the spiritual resources you will need when the storms come?  Would you be able to recognize God’s presence and power in the dark night of your fear or when your foundations begin to shake?

Prayer: Dear God, like Charlie Brown, we all face moments that are hard to treasure. In fact, there are some things that we encounter in life that scare us, cripple us, and leave us dazed and confused. We ask that you will help us to cultivate that depth of relationship with you that not only lives gratefully in the sunshine, but can also recognize your presence and power in the darkness. We are weak people and we know that left to ourselves, that even in spite of our courage and persistence, we will fail. We thank you that you are always present and that your grace undergirds all of life. Help us to grow in the awareness of that gift so that at all times and in all places and in all circumstances we may experience its life-enabling power. Amen.