In our backyard I have set up several bird feeders and in the interest of fairness I have also done some things for the four squirrels that frequent our yard. I have for them what is called a Squirrel KOB bungee. Yes, I have a bungee cord for squirrels. You hang it from a tree branch so that it is two to three feet above the ground. At the end you attach a “Big OL’ KOB”. This is a two pound block made up of corn, Black Oil Sunflower Seeds, Peanuts and Gelatin. Squirrels love this stuff. The bungee cord is also something they like or maybe it is just for my entertainment. The idea is that the squirrel jumps up onto the cord and eats from the KOB. Out of the four squirrels in our yard, only one appears to be able to make the leap. He/she stands on the KOB or hangs from it and chews away. Or it bites off pieces and later collects them and buries them for another meal in the future.
Now, I said that we have four squirrels. The other day as I watched them, the squirrel on the KOB had knocked off a few kernels and was sitting on the KOB bobbing up and down eating away. Another, smaller squirrel came by and proceeded to eat some of the corn that had been knocked down by the first squirrel. All of a sudden the one on the KOB, perhaps feeling that its hard work had been wasted or feeling its security threatened, jumped down and chased and assaulted the purloining squirrel.
Now as I thought about it, this is a sort of “fable”. You’ll remember that one definition for a fable is that it is “a tale, especially with animals as characters, conveying a moral”, as in Aesop’s Fables (The Oxford Concise Dictionary) .
The morning I saw this drama playing itself out in my backyard I had been reading the various news agencies’ discussions of the current budget debate and especially, the articles which talked about how upset certain politicians and members of big business and banks were about the idea that some of their wealth should be used for programs helping the poor and elderly.
As I thought about what was happening in my backyard I saw a connection between the way the first squirrel acted and the way we so often act when it comes to sharing. The squirrel evidently thought, that is, if squirrels think about these things, or maybe it is simply instinct, that it and it alone should benefit from all the hard work that went into getting those nuts and corn. When it saw the other squirrel helping itself to the kernels and seeds that had fallen to the ground, it was outraged. They were his! Let the other squirrel get its own food. Yes, yes, the other squirrel couldn’t leap as high and didn’t have the benefit of gorging itself on the KOB, but that was just too bad.
If I could have talked with the first squirrel I would have reminded it that I am the one that purchased the food and provided it for him. I am the one who continues to replace the KOBs when they are gone. His failure to share out his bounty was the height of ingratitude and selfishness.
Now I know that we can’t draw too much from the actions of the squirrel or by trying to get inside its tiny head to know exactly what it was thinking, but I do wonder if the way that we “protect” our stuff and fail to share isn’t a form of ingratitude and selfishness. It is also a reflection of our insecurity because if I share with you, I have less and then where would I be.
Christians are reminded that the earth and all that is in it, belongs to God (Psalm 24); that God is good and that he provides for his creation and that ALL OF US are dependent day by day on the mercy and grace of God and this includes the material things that we have (Psalms 103,104). Jesus reminds us that we are to pray daily for God to provide us with the basic resources we need for life, including our strength to work hard (Matthew 6). The Apostle Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians and all believers that “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8). The Book of James, Hebrews and the second and fourth chapter of the Book of Acts remind us that the early followers of Jesus were aware of this and shared out of their substance with those less fortunate, both in and outside the church. They found their security the same place they found their compassion – in God.
But I am afraid that today it is the Donald Trumps of the world who are the models people strive after, even professing Christians, although perhaps without all the bravado. Get what you can and hold on to it. Those who because of health-related issues, discrimination, having been born into and oppressed by dehumanizing social conditions, don’t have enough of this world’s resources are just out of luck. “I got mine, they can get theirs.”
But we forget that all of us, including the Donald Trumps of the world, are in debt to God’s grace whether we acknowledge it or not. And we not only cheat others when we fail to share, but we also spit in the face of God. The parable of the judgment of the nations or the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25 is a reminder that God will judge us on how we respond to the needs of those around us (cf. Isaiah 58:6-8; James 2).
My squirrel still doesn’t share and probably never will. Sometimes, I have to make sure that there are still kernels and seeds and nuts available for the other squirrels who aren’t as fortunate as the bungee-jumping squirrel. And in the same way, I share my material resources with those who share this journey of life with me on this God graced, blessed planet. What about you?
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Desired and Loved
Meister Eckhart, the 13th century mystic, penned these words: “No human being has ever desired anything as much as God desires to be with him or her.” This, for me, is the essence of Holy Week. It is the culmination of Jesus’ life and ministry in which he expressed in word and action the basic truth: God desires and loves each one of us and invites us into relationship with himself. Of course, not all of Jesus’ contemporaries could accept that and ultimately that led to his death. They couldn’t believe that God could love all people -- “them”. Yes, God loves us – the good, the upright, the pious, the chosen. But Jesus showed that God does love “them” – the pagan, the sinner, the religious and the irreligious, the near and the far – all are the object of God’s desire and love.
Another 13th century medieval mystic, Mechtild of Magdeburg, highlights the value each and every person has to God when she wrote: “God has enough of all things. Contact with the soul is the one thing he never has enough of. [God] says: “That I love you exceedingly is part of my nature, because I am love itself. That I love you often comes from my longing, because I long to be heartily loved. That I love you for so long comes from my eternity, because I am without beginning and end.” Since God is love, a love that by its very nature wants to give itself, God gives himself to me. The witness of the Bible is that God loved me into existence and continues to love me at every moment of every day and desires to share his life with me. .
This brings us back to Lent and this final week leading up to the glorious celebration of Easter. As we look back on our Lenten journey, we may see quite a few ups and downs, full stops and loops and side trips. Some of the time was spent in the darkness while we acknowledged and wrestled with our sin and failure to always keep faith with God’s love for us and, let’s admit it, those times when we let Jesus down. Other times, there was light and rest as we experienced breakthroughs in our spiritual insight and could see ourselves growing a bit more Christlike. Sometimes we liked ourselves and other times we despised what we saw. But through it all and now in the final stretch, we never lost God’s love for us, even if we lost sight of it, didn’t remember it or feel it or care for it. Brennan Manning, reflecting G.K. Chesterton, calls it the “furious longing of God.” He says that “the furious longing of God is beyond our wildest desires, our hope or hopelessness, our rectitude or wickedness, neither cornered by sweet talk nor gentle persuasion. The furious longing of God, as Dan Berrigan writes, is ‘not to be reduced to a thing, a grand ideal; it is not to be reduced to a plaything, a caged songbird, for the amusement of children.’ It cannot be tamed, boxed, captivated, housebroken, or templebroken. It is simply and startlingly Jesus, the effulgence of the Father’s love.” (The Furious Longing of God, p. 24)
Jesus goes to the cross because he is love incarnate. He goes not only to bear witness to God’s love and transforming desire for our lives, but also because it is through reflection on the depth of his love for us, his willingness, as the Apostle Paul says, to become sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5: 21) that we come to see ourselves in a new light. A teacher was talking about modern discoveries in history class: “Can anyone name something important that didn’t exist fifty years ago” she asked. A youngster in the first row shot up his hand and exclaimed: “Me!” You and I are unique and important to God and that is clear when we look at Jesus’ life, listen to his teachings, reflect on his last week and the Cross.
But what is our reaction? God longs for us to accept his love, commit ourselves to his love, and to live as people who are loved. But committing ourselves to God’s love is an enormous challenge. For some of us it is hard to get beyond the negative voices in our heads that have repeatedly told us how imperfect we are, how much we don’t measure up, how mediocre we are. For others, the conditional love we have experienced from parents, “friends”, even the church, makes it hard for us to accept and live in the unconditional love of God. But the good news of the Gospel is that in Christ God accepts us as we are, not as we should be. But as has so often been said, God loves us too much to allow us to remain as we are. We are to become like Christ. And the good news is that God provides the possibility of becoming who we can be. God doesn’t compel us or cajole us; he attracts and encourages us and provides the resources to grow in that love and the life we are intended to live. And at the heart of those resources God provides is the power of the Resurrection (Ephesians 1:19; Colossians 1:29) and the power of God’s love (Romans 8:31-39) to transform our desires, attitudes, perspective so that they become more Christlike.
Year after year as we gather to tell the Easter story, I wonder if we really hear it. There are lilies and stirring music, lots of pageantry and color, but does the simple and yet profound story about how life conquers death, that love triumph over hate, that reconciliation replaces alienation really seep deep into our hearts and lives? Ignatius of Loyola once wrote: “There are very few people who realize what God would make of them if they abandoned themselves into his hands, and let themselves be formed by his grace.”
My prayer for myself this Easter is that I will abandon myself into the hands of the God who loves me with a “furious love” and will allow him to remake me into the image of Christ. Blessings
Another 13th century medieval mystic, Mechtild of Magdeburg, highlights the value each and every person has to God when she wrote: “God has enough of all things. Contact with the soul is the one thing he never has enough of. [God] says: “That I love you exceedingly is part of my nature, because I am love itself. That I love you often comes from my longing, because I long to be heartily loved. That I love you for so long comes from my eternity, because I am without beginning and end.” Since God is love, a love that by its very nature wants to give itself, God gives himself to me. The witness of the Bible is that God loved me into existence and continues to love me at every moment of every day and desires to share his life with me. .
This brings us back to Lent and this final week leading up to the glorious celebration of Easter. As we look back on our Lenten journey, we may see quite a few ups and downs, full stops and loops and side trips. Some of the time was spent in the darkness while we acknowledged and wrestled with our sin and failure to always keep faith with God’s love for us and, let’s admit it, those times when we let Jesus down. Other times, there was light and rest as we experienced breakthroughs in our spiritual insight and could see ourselves growing a bit more Christlike. Sometimes we liked ourselves and other times we despised what we saw. But through it all and now in the final stretch, we never lost God’s love for us, even if we lost sight of it, didn’t remember it or feel it or care for it. Brennan Manning, reflecting G.K. Chesterton, calls it the “furious longing of God.” He says that “the furious longing of God is beyond our wildest desires, our hope or hopelessness, our rectitude or wickedness, neither cornered by sweet talk nor gentle persuasion. The furious longing of God, as Dan Berrigan writes, is ‘not to be reduced to a thing, a grand ideal; it is not to be reduced to a plaything, a caged songbird, for the amusement of children.’ It cannot be tamed, boxed, captivated, housebroken, or templebroken. It is simply and startlingly Jesus, the effulgence of the Father’s love.” (The Furious Longing of God, p. 24)
Jesus goes to the cross because he is love incarnate. He goes not only to bear witness to God’s love and transforming desire for our lives, but also because it is through reflection on the depth of his love for us, his willingness, as the Apostle Paul says, to become sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5: 21) that we come to see ourselves in a new light. A teacher was talking about modern discoveries in history class: “Can anyone name something important that didn’t exist fifty years ago” she asked. A youngster in the first row shot up his hand and exclaimed: “Me!” You and I are unique and important to God and that is clear when we look at Jesus’ life, listen to his teachings, reflect on his last week and the Cross.
But what is our reaction? God longs for us to accept his love, commit ourselves to his love, and to live as people who are loved. But committing ourselves to God’s love is an enormous challenge. For some of us it is hard to get beyond the negative voices in our heads that have repeatedly told us how imperfect we are, how much we don’t measure up, how mediocre we are. For others, the conditional love we have experienced from parents, “friends”, even the church, makes it hard for us to accept and live in the unconditional love of God. But the good news of the Gospel is that in Christ God accepts us as we are, not as we should be. But as has so often been said, God loves us too much to allow us to remain as we are. We are to become like Christ. And the good news is that God provides the possibility of becoming who we can be. God doesn’t compel us or cajole us; he attracts and encourages us and provides the resources to grow in that love and the life we are intended to live. And at the heart of those resources God provides is the power of the Resurrection (Ephesians 1:19; Colossians 1:29) and the power of God’s love (Romans 8:31-39) to transform our desires, attitudes, perspective so that they become more Christlike.
Year after year as we gather to tell the Easter story, I wonder if we really hear it. There are lilies and stirring music, lots of pageantry and color, but does the simple and yet profound story about how life conquers death, that love triumph over hate, that reconciliation replaces alienation really seep deep into our hearts and lives? Ignatius of Loyola once wrote: “There are very few people who realize what God would make of them if they abandoned themselves into his hands, and let themselves be formed by his grace.”
My prayer for myself this Easter is that I will abandon myself into the hands of the God who loves me with a “furious love” and will allow him to remake me into the image of Christ. Blessings
Friday, April 15, 2011
Synchronicity
Today when I opened my emails I received an email from a dear friend who is a missionary serving in Australia working among Mandarin speaking students and scholars. They have been friends for decades and we served together for a while in the mission in Hong Kong and Macau. Their email contained a prayer request for their 30 year old daughter, a mother of three small children who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma – a serious cancer that attacks the lymph glands all over the body. The next immediate email was from another friend who was one of our teachers and a missionary who had a profound impact on me when we met and was used by God to help shape my understanding of my calling to serve as a missionary, in particular, as a theological educator on the mission field.. He is now back in the States and he wrote to say that he and his wife were going to take a few days for a prayer retreat and wondered if there was anything that we would like for them to pray about. My immediate reaction was to forward the first email and ask for their prayers.
Another event happened this morning when I went to the eye clinic to have some tests done. The person who was running the test was a young single mother. We got talking and pretty soon, maybe because she discovered that I had been a pastor, she was asking me some questions about some challenges she was having with her young son. During one point in our conversation she said, “I am so grateful that you came in today.” She only works three days a week. I originally scheduled the test for yesterday, but had missed the appointment and so had rescheduled for this morning. If I had come yesterday, kept my appointment, she wouldn’t have been there.
Coincidences? Synchronicity? It’s obvious these events are “synchronous” – i.e. occurring at the same time. And some people might see all of this as mere coincidence, but I saw something deeper. I saw them as examples of how God can use “synchronicity” to create healing, helping relationships. They were for me “holy” moments.
I often wonder how many of these holy moments, these opportunities to be present and to make a difference, I miss in life. Usually it is because I haven’t been paying attention. I’m not present to the moment or the person or the event that is taking place. I am reminded of something that writer Frederick Buechner once said: “Pay attention to the things that bring a tear to your eye or a lump to your throat because they are signs that the holy is drawing near.”
These experiences of “synchronicity” got me thinking about the church. It reminded me of the importance of being there for one another. Now, these two missionary families don’t know each other and might never meet in this life, but they do share a kinship in Christ and also some shared experiences and I know that my friends, Chet and Dolores, will pray for the other couple and their daughter and her family. They are there for them. And the young mother somehow felt encouraged and strengthened because of her conversation with another believer. My being there, showing up, made a difference in her life.
Being there for one another, showing up, seeing, making connections, is something that can work miracles. How many of us have had someone say to us in a particularly difficult time in their life – “I am glad that you were here”? Sometimes, it is simply a matter of being present and not saying anything. It is simply being there at the same time.
I find these moments, when they happen and when I am aware of them, examples of what Cathleen Falsani, in her book, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace, calls “Gracespotting”. They are moments of grace because they are unexpected gifts. They give me an opportunity to love and care and, in a small way, be a reminder of God’s care and love. I hope that you too have these experiences of Gracespotting in your life. Peace.
Another event happened this morning when I went to the eye clinic to have some tests done. The person who was running the test was a young single mother. We got talking and pretty soon, maybe because she discovered that I had been a pastor, she was asking me some questions about some challenges she was having with her young son. During one point in our conversation she said, “I am so grateful that you came in today.” She only works three days a week. I originally scheduled the test for yesterday, but had missed the appointment and so had rescheduled for this morning. If I had come yesterday, kept my appointment, she wouldn’t have been there.
Coincidences? Synchronicity? It’s obvious these events are “synchronous” – i.e. occurring at the same time. And some people might see all of this as mere coincidence, but I saw something deeper. I saw them as examples of how God can use “synchronicity” to create healing, helping relationships. They were for me “holy” moments.
I often wonder how many of these holy moments, these opportunities to be present and to make a difference, I miss in life. Usually it is because I haven’t been paying attention. I’m not present to the moment or the person or the event that is taking place. I am reminded of something that writer Frederick Buechner once said: “Pay attention to the things that bring a tear to your eye or a lump to your throat because they are signs that the holy is drawing near.”
These experiences of “synchronicity” got me thinking about the church. It reminded me of the importance of being there for one another. Now, these two missionary families don’t know each other and might never meet in this life, but they do share a kinship in Christ and also some shared experiences and I know that my friends, Chet and Dolores, will pray for the other couple and their daughter and her family. They are there for them. And the young mother somehow felt encouraged and strengthened because of her conversation with another believer. My being there, showing up, made a difference in her life.
Being there for one another, showing up, seeing, making connections, is something that can work miracles. How many of us have had someone say to us in a particularly difficult time in their life – “I am glad that you were here”? Sometimes, it is simply a matter of being present and not saying anything. It is simply being there at the same time.
I find these moments, when they happen and when I am aware of them, examples of what Cathleen Falsani, in her book, Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace, calls “Gracespotting”. They are moments of grace because they are unexpected gifts. They give me an opportunity to love and care and, in a small way, be a reminder of God’s care and love. I hope that you too have these experiences of Gracespotting in your life. Peace.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Transformation Hurts
Margaret Minis has written a book on the Christian Journey with the engaging title: I Don’t Mind Suffering As Long As It Doesn’t Hurt. It is an account of her own struggle with following Christ. She writes: “This book is about the process of loving which has gone on in my life. God has been pulling me out of my self-protectiveness into relationship, opening me like a flower. This has been—and still is—scary. It has often hurt. I am not brave and I hate pain. I would rather understand suffering. Let me just talk about it! I don’t want to feel it, to hurt, and I have gone to great lengths to avoid it. But God isn’t content to let me—or any one of us—sit securely on the edge of the dance floor of life, where I can’t get stepped on and won’t get sweaty or tired, only occasionally tapping my toes to the music. God keeps inviting me to dance, with him and all you others, some of whom God knows perfectly well I can’t stand. Sometimes God even takes my chair. I can, of course, still refuse: I can say, “Not now; maybe later”; that I never liked that sort of thing; that I don’t know the steps; that it’s not my kind of music; that I’m tired; or maybe I simply don’t want to do it. The choice is mine,…” (pp. 3-4)
All of us have probably been there. I know I have. Let’s admit it, transformation, real transformation – not the little cosmetic changes that we sometimes make in our lives or the faked conversions that only involve our lips but leave out our hearts – but real, shaking of the foundations, turning our world upside down transformation, hurts. And I will usually do anything to avoid the pain of change.
One of the symbols of transformation that we often see is the butterfly. We admire its beauty and freedom. We know a little about how it moves from caterpillar to cocoon/crysalis to butterfly. We know that the process of becoming a butterfly doesn’t happen overnight. No matter how much a caterpillar desires to become a butterfly, she must wait. And the process of metamorphosis is anything but gentle. In a segment on “The Secret Life of Butterflies” on the NPR program Studio 360, we learn that Nanoscience (the study of matter on the atomic or molecular level) helps us to understand a bit more what happens to the caterpillar as it goes through the process of morphing into a butterfly. In a lab at UCLA, scientists have used high-tech tactile microscopes to read the vibrations inside the cocoon. Those vibrations are then transformed to audio. The sounds are like that of an agonizing cry. The process is not one of passive waiting for the chrysalis, but agony and pain as the transformation takes place. The caterpillar has to die to being a caterpillar in order to become a butterfly. There is no other way. You can’t simply glue a pair of wings on a caterpillar and wish it to become a butterfly. It has to go through the process of transformation and that process hurts.
The same is true of us if we want to become mature disciples, followers of Jesus. This is true of the whole Christian journey, but is something that is especially brought home to us during Lent. We are caterpillars on our way to becoming butterflies. It is no wonder that the butterfly has long been seen to be a Christian symbol of resurrection, of new birth. But we can’t get to Easter without going through Good Friday and that means it is going to hurt and we are going to be stretched and we are going to suffer. It might not mean acute physical suffering for us (apart from those initial headaches we might have experienced when we gave up coffee for Lent), but it does mean dying to ourselves—our priorities, our ideas of what is ultimately best for us, of what makes life happy and content and meaningful. And that can be painful.
We can’t ask the butterfly whether or not the pain of transformation was worth it, but we can look at ourselves. We know that despite our fear and avoidance of pain, that almost everything worthwhile in life does involve pain and discomfort – whether it is our birth, learning to relate and love, growing beyond childish conceptions, moving beyond satisfying our immediate wants for something more lasting and satisfying. And in the Christian life it is no different. Growing up in Christ means growing pains.
I hope that your Lenten journey has hurt, at least a little; that you have been stretched and challenged; that Christ has been formed a bit more in you. You’ve experienced a little bit of Good Friday – the pain and suffering part as you allowed God’s Spirit to point out areas of your life where you fell short of what God wants to do in your life and that needed to be transformed. But the Good News, to quote Tony Campolo, is that “Today is Friday, but Sunday is coming!” You are a caterpillar in the process of being transformed into a beautiful, fascinating, free-flying butterfly. May you soar with Christ!
Blessings.
All of us have probably been there. I know I have. Let’s admit it, transformation, real transformation – not the little cosmetic changes that we sometimes make in our lives or the faked conversions that only involve our lips but leave out our hearts – but real, shaking of the foundations, turning our world upside down transformation, hurts. And I will usually do anything to avoid the pain of change.
One of the symbols of transformation that we often see is the butterfly. We admire its beauty and freedom. We know a little about how it moves from caterpillar to cocoon/crysalis to butterfly. We know that the process of becoming a butterfly doesn’t happen overnight. No matter how much a caterpillar desires to become a butterfly, she must wait. And the process of metamorphosis is anything but gentle. In a segment on “The Secret Life of Butterflies” on the NPR program Studio 360, we learn that Nanoscience (the study of matter on the atomic or molecular level) helps us to understand a bit more what happens to the caterpillar as it goes through the process of morphing into a butterfly. In a lab at UCLA, scientists have used high-tech tactile microscopes to read the vibrations inside the cocoon. Those vibrations are then transformed to audio. The sounds are like that of an agonizing cry. The process is not one of passive waiting for the chrysalis, but agony and pain as the transformation takes place. The caterpillar has to die to being a caterpillar in order to become a butterfly. There is no other way. You can’t simply glue a pair of wings on a caterpillar and wish it to become a butterfly. It has to go through the process of transformation and that process hurts.
The same is true of us if we want to become mature disciples, followers of Jesus. This is true of the whole Christian journey, but is something that is especially brought home to us during Lent. We are caterpillars on our way to becoming butterflies. It is no wonder that the butterfly has long been seen to be a Christian symbol of resurrection, of new birth. But we can’t get to Easter without going through Good Friday and that means it is going to hurt and we are going to be stretched and we are going to suffer. It might not mean acute physical suffering for us (apart from those initial headaches we might have experienced when we gave up coffee for Lent), but it does mean dying to ourselves—our priorities, our ideas of what is ultimately best for us, of what makes life happy and content and meaningful. And that can be painful.
We can’t ask the butterfly whether or not the pain of transformation was worth it, but we can look at ourselves. We know that despite our fear and avoidance of pain, that almost everything worthwhile in life does involve pain and discomfort – whether it is our birth, learning to relate and love, growing beyond childish conceptions, moving beyond satisfying our immediate wants for something more lasting and satisfying. And in the Christian life it is no different. Growing up in Christ means growing pains.
I hope that your Lenten journey has hurt, at least a little; that you have been stretched and challenged; that Christ has been formed a bit more in you. You’ve experienced a little bit of Good Friday – the pain and suffering part as you allowed God’s Spirit to point out areas of your life where you fell short of what God wants to do in your life and that needed to be transformed. But the Good News, to quote Tony Campolo, is that “Today is Friday, but Sunday is coming!” You are a caterpillar in the process of being transformed into a beautiful, fascinating, free-flying butterfly. May you soar with Christ!
Blessings.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
The Witness of a Life -- Being Transparent
I have been hanging out the last couple of days with our youngest granddaughter who is four (her birthday was last month). It has been an incredibly joyful experience and an enlightening one. I always enjoy playing with Angelina and the other two granddaughters. But these last couple of days I have been reminded of the power of modeling, particularly my example. Angelina doesn’t miss anything and her probing “why” questions keep me on my toes. She is alert to the smallest thing and wants to know “why”?
As I was thinking about this, I was thinking about my modeling of the gospel before a watchful world. Of course, a great deal of those around us don’t really care or pay attention to the way we act or what we say. But some do, especially when they know that we claim to be followers of Christ. While there are many people who take great delight in pointing out the inconsistencies between word and life in those who profess to be followers of Jesus, there are many others who are sad and disappointed because they really wanted to know if there was something about this gospel of hope that they have heard about.
In a biography on Saint Francis of Assisi, the author writes these words: “Saint Francis filled the whole world with the gospel of Christ…by proclaiming everywhere the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. In doing so he made his whole body a tongue, so as to edify his listeners by example not less than by word.” This wholistic, incarnational witness gave rise to one of the little stories that circulated about Francis. Francis invited a brother to go with him into town to preach. They went together into the city, but Francis kept on going until he came out on the other side and left the city behind. Then the brother objected: “But we were supposed to preach.” To which Francis answered, “And so we did.”
If we claim to be followers of Jesus we are preaching by the way we conduct our daily lives -- by our priorities, our behavior, our choices, as well as our words.
There is a story about a boy who went to church with his mother on a sunny day. He was enthusiastic about the colorful figures that the sun traced through the stained glass windows onto the floor and he excitedly asked his mother what this and that meant. She whispered that this was such and such a saint, and that was another. Some time afterwards in Sunday school the teacher asked if anyone knew what a saint was. “I do,” the boy announced, “Someone that the light shines through.”
This isn’t a bad description. Saints are those who are transparent to the wonder and grace of God and allow it to shine through them. We don’t always get it right, but we can try to make sure that there is nothing in our lives that blocks or distorts or keeps the glory of God’s grace from shining through. This is one of the lessons we learn from Lent-- that as we journey through life, following Christ, we are to be transparent witnesses. We witness to the light that God wants to shine through us. And as we do, hopefully people see through us to the light that can enlighten and transform their lives.
This coming Sunday begins Holy Week when we reflect more deeply on the passion and transparency of Jesus. My prayer for all of us is that we might grow more and more like Jesus; that our lives might reflect God’s love and mercy, grace and peace for all the world to see. So that, even if they fail to hear our verbal testimony to what Jesus means to us, they will see it in our lives.
Blessings.
As I was thinking about this, I was thinking about my modeling of the gospel before a watchful world. Of course, a great deal of those around us don’t really care or pay attention to the way we act or what we say. But some do, especially when they know that we claim to be followers of Christ. While there are many people who take great delight in pointing out the inconsistencies between word and life in those who profess to be followers of Jesus, there are many others who are sad and disappointed because they really wanted to know if there was something about this gospel of hope that they have heard about.
In a biography on Saint Francis of Assisi, the author writes these words: “Saint Francis filled the whole world with the gospel of Christ…by proclaiming everywhere the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. In doing so he made his whole body a tongue, so as to edify his listeners by example not less than by word.” This wholistic, incarnational witness gave rise to one of the little stories that circulated about Francis. Francis invited a brother to go with him into town to preach. They went together into the city, but Francis kept on going until he came out on the other side and left the city behind. Then the brother objected: “But we were supposed to preach.” To which Francis answered, “And so we did.”
If we claim to be followers of Jesus we are preaching by the way we conduct our daily lives -- by our priorities, our behavior, our choices, as well as our words.
There is a story about a boy who went to church with his mother on a sunny day. He was enthusiastic about the colorful figures that the sun traced through the stained glass windows onto the floor and he excitedly asked his mother what this and that meant. She whispered that this was such and such a saint, and that was another. Some time afterwards in Sunday school the teacher asked if anyone knew what a saint was. “I do,” the boy announced, “Someone that the light shines through.”
This isn’t a bad description. Saints are those who are transparent to the wonder and grace of God and allow it to shine through them. We don’t always get it right, but we can try to make sure that there is nothing in our lives that blocks or distorts or keeps the glory of God’s grace from shining through. This is one of the lessons we learn from Lent-- that as we journey through life, following Christ, we are to be transparent witnesses. We witness to the light that God wants to shine through us. And as we do, hopefully people see through us to the light that can enlighten and transform their lives.
This coming Sunday begins Holy Week when we reflect more deeply on the passion and transparency of Jesus. My prayer for all of us is that we might grow more and more like Jesus; that our lives might reflect God’s love and mercy, grace and peace for all the world to see. So that, even if they fail to hear our verbal testimony to what Jesus means to us, they will see it in our lives.
Blessings.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Memories and Remembering
Two weeks ago the Sunday magazine, Parade , had an article by Roger Rosenblatt celebrating the opening of baseball season. On the page, right in the middle, was a picture. It was a black and white picture of the great New York Yankee player, no. 7 – Mickey Mantle-- with his back to the camera just before the fifth game of the 1964 World Series. The picture is taken at the old Yankee Stadium. When I saw the picture a rush of memories came flooding into me. Growing up in that era and as a New York boy, the Yankees were my heroes and at the head of the list was Mickey Mantle.
I remember as a very young boy being taken by my father from our home on Long Island to the Bronx to see my one and only Yankee game. I remember walking by an open door and being able to see into the outfield and being overwhelmed by the sea of green. Later when we got into the park and got to our seats with the necessary hot dog (and hot dogs always seem to taste best when eaten at the ball park), I sat in awe of the huge, beautiful stadium and the crowd and the wave of excitement rolling throughout the park. I don’t remember much of the game, but it is an experience and a feeling that is forever etched into my soul. To this day, whenever I go to a ball game, these memories come flooding back to me and give me a deep sense of joy.
Memories. We all have them. Of course, not all memories are good ones. There is a lot of trauma and hurt and sadness associated with some memories. I am grateful that there are people whom God can send into our lives to help us with the healing of memories. But we all have some good memories that stir us or bring a smile to our face when we remember them or sustain us when the going gets rough.
The Lenten journey is related to a memory. We follow Jesus through the 40 days leading to his passion and resurrection. We remember his temptations, his struggles, his faithfulness, and his death. We gather for worship and we are reminded through the communion meal of our connection with Jesus and the followers of Jesus down through the century who have gathered around the table to remember him. And this memory can kindle in us a renewed commitment to continue the journey.
In a recent article in The Christian Century magazine, Baptist pastor Anne Jernberg shares a memory of attending a prayer service at a monastery during Holy Week. There she was on her knees on the cold slate floor with monks and others who had gathered for evening prayer and together they were singing the Taize refrain, “Stay with me; remain here with me, watch and pray, watch and pray” over and over again. It was a song, a request and a prayer. It is based on the request Jesus had spoken to his disciples who were with him in the garden on that last night. Jernberg writes: “It was then that I realized that Jesus needed me to walk with him…..It never dawned on me that the usual evening prayer service would be radically altered because we were remembering an unusual evening in Jesus’ life. I experienced something that night….That night on my knees changed my understanding of what it means to follow Jesus.”
Memories can do that. They can change the way we see the present and the future. They can give us renewed strength to press on. That is what the writer of Hebrews is trying to convey in that great statement in Chapter 12: “Since we are surrounded by so great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.” The “cloud of witnesses” are those who have run the race, as has Jesus. This is the memory that inspires us, encourages us, gives us hope that the journey, while difficult, is worth the effort. And that is why we need each other on this pilgrimage to and through the cross, our Lenten journey. When I forget or can’t remember why it matters to keep on, you can remind me. When you forget, I am there to remind you and encourage you. When we both forget we have a community that supports us and prays for and with us and gathers with us around the Lord’s Table as a congregation of the people of God on pilgrimage.
What memories inspire you? Delight you? Frighten you? Hurt you? Encourage you? Do you remember your life-changing encounter with Christ? Do you remember when it first hit you, really hit you, that God loved YOU? Maybe that memory has faded and as you walk the Lenten path you aren’t quite sure why? REMEMBER that you are loved by God with an unconditional love. Remember that you are not alone on this journey, that Christ and a community of the faithful travel with you. Peace
I remember as a very young boy being taken by my father from our home on Long Island to the Bronx to see my one and only Yankee game. I remember walking by an open door and being able to see into the outfield and being overwhelmed by the sea of green. Later when we got into the park and got to our seats with the necessary hot dog (and hot dogs always seem to taste best when eaten at the ball park), I sat in awe of the huge, beautiful stadium and the crowd and the wave of excitement rolling throughout the park. I don’t remember much of the game, but it is an experience and a feeling that is forever etched into my soul. To this day, whenever I go to a ball game, these memories come flooding back to me and give me a deep sense of joy.
Memories. We all have them. Of course, not all memories are good ones. There is a lot of trauma and hurt and sadness associated with some memories. I am grateful that there are people whom God can send into our lives to help us with the healing of memories. But we all have some good memories that stir us or bring a smile to our face when we remember them or sustain us when the going gets rough.
The Lenten journey is related to a memory. We follow Jesus through the 40 days leading to his passion and resurrection. We remember his temptations, his struggles, his faithfulness, and his death. We gather for worship and we are reminded through the communion meal of our connection with Jesus and the followers of Jesus down through the century who have gathered around the table to remember him. And this memory can kindle in us a renewed commitment to continue the journey.
In a recent article in The Christian Century magazine, Baptist pastor Anne Jernberg shares a memory of attending a prayer service at a monastery during Holy Week. There she was on her knees on the cold slate floor with monks and others who had gathered for evening prayer and together they were singing the Taize refrain, “Stay with me; remain here with me, watch and pray, watch and pray” over and over again. It was a song, a request and a prayer. It is based on the request Jesus had spoken to his disciples who were with him in the garden on that last night. Jernberg writes: “It was then that I realized that Jesus needed me to walk with him…..It never dawned on me that the usual evening prayer service would be radically altered because we were remembering an unusual evening in Jesus’ life. I experienced something that night….That night on my knees changed my understanding of what it means to follow Jesus.”
Memories can do that. They can change the way we see the present and the future. They can give us renewed strength to press on. That is what the writer of Hebrews is trying to convey in that great statement in Chapter 12: “Since we are surrounded by so great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.” The “cloud of witnesses” are those who have run the race, as has Jesus. This is the memory that inspires us, encourages us, gives us hope that the journey, while difficult, is worth the effort. And that is why we need each other on this pilgrimage to and through the cross, our Lenten journey. When I forget or can’t remember why it matters to keep on, you can remind me. When you forget, I am there to remind you and encourage you. When we both forget we have a community that supports us and prays for and with us and gathers with us around the Lord’s Table as a congregation of the people of God on pilgrimage.
What memories inspire you? Delight you? Frighten you? Hurt you? Encourage you? Do you remember your life-changing encounter with Christ? Do you remember when it first hit you, really hit you, that God loved YOU? Maybe that memory has faded and as you walk the Lenten path you aren’t quite sure why? REMEMBER that you are loved by God with an unconditional love. Remember that you are not alone on this journey, that Christ and a community of the faithful travel with you. Peace
Our Responsibility toward Creation
There has been a lot of news recently about the environment, some of it not good. This is especially true with our stewardship of creation. Recent oil spills, the request by BP executives to restart their drilling in the Gulf, albeit with renewed “promises” to adhere to stricter safety rules, the recent action by the House of Representatives’ Energy Panel’s to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its ability to regulate greenhouse gases. The sad thing is that this decision came despite the scientific evidence that at least in part global warming is caused by human behavior in the form of carbon emissions and their contribution to the creation of greenhouse gases that not only contribute to rising global temperatures that are melting the Polar ice caps and glaciers, but are also responsible for the increasing volatile weather around the world. But instead of listening to the overwhelming voice of the scientific community, they listened to the voices of big energy companies who care more for profits and satisfying their shareholders than they do for the future of the planet and coming generations.
For a follower of Jesus this is unconscionable. The Apostle Paul was right (Romans 8), the creation “groans” and waits “with eager longing” for its redemption. Its anguish and decay, to some extent, maybe a great deal, is due to human sin. That sin comes in the form of clear, selfish, violent raping and polluting of the earth, water and air; and in the form of blind neglect and acquiescence in the name of human progress.
As I was reflecting on what our responsibility should be to the great gift of life and the world around us, I came across this journal entry of Thomas Merton, written almost half a century ago. His words are worth hearing again:
"Obedient unto death ...." Perhaps the most crucial aspect of Christian obedience to God today concerns the responsibility of the Christian in a technological society toward God's creation and God's will for His creation. Obedience to God's will for nature and for man--respect for nature and for man--in the awareness of our power to frustrate God's designs for nature and for man--to radically corrupt and destroy natural goods by misuse and blind exploitation, especially by criminal waste. The problem of nuclear war is only one facet of an immense, complex and unified problem.
There are very grave problems in the implications of certain kinds of Christian outlooks on "the world." The crux of the matter seems to be to what extent a Christian thinker can preserve his independence from obsessive modes of thought about secular progress. (Behind which is always the anxiety for us and for the Church to be "acceptable" in a society that is leaving us behind in a cloud of dust.) In other words, where is our hope? If in fact our hope is in a temporal and secular humanism of technological and political progress, we will find ourselves, in the name of Christ, joining in the stupidity and barbarism of those who are despoiling His creation in order to make money or get power for themselves. But our hope must be in God. And he who hopes in God will find himself sooner or later making apparently hopeless and useless protests against the barbarism of power.
These are prophetic words in that they ask us, challenge us to look deep into our own and collective soul and to see if we are among those who “radically corrupt and destroy natural goods by misuse and blind exploitation,” “frustrate God’s design for nature and man,” “join in the stupidity and barbarism of those despoiling God’s creation in order to make money or get power.” Like all true prophetic challenges, we feel uncomfortable and hopefully, guilty.
I like the fact that Merton brings it back to hope. Let’s admit it, most of us, while saying that we hope in God, really look for our security in the things around us. That is why we are so often complicit in the over-accumulating of things that we hope will not only ensure our security, but also make us happy. In many ways our hope is really in things and what we think they bring and not in God. If we really hoped in God, not only for the promise of life after death for those who are in Christ, but for the “daily bread” we are to ask him for, this would change not only the way we relate to God and one another, but also to God’s creation. Friends, we are called to be stewards of God’s creation, holding God’s good earth in trust. Anything else is irresponsible.
In the liturgy for Ash Wednesday Many Christians prayed: “For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us, Accept our repentance, Lord.” Maybe as we journey through Lent we need to pause and ask ourselves, do we really hope in God? Do we really find our security and ultimate happiness in God? Are we really being true stewards of all the gifts that God gives to us? And if we find that we can’t truly answer those questions with a “yes”, may we be able to also pray: “Accept my repentance, Lord.”
For a follower of Jesus this is unconscionable. The Apostle Paul was right (Romans 8), the creation “groans” and waits “with eager longing” for its redemption. Its anguish and decay, to some extent, maybe a great deal, is due to human sin. That sin comes in the form of clear, selfish, violent raping and polluting of the earth, water and air; and in the form of blind neglect and acquiescence in the name of human progress.
As I was reflecting on what our responsibility should be to the great gift of life and the world around us, I came across this journal entry of Thomas Merton, written almost half a century ago. His words are worth hearing again:
"Obedient unto death ...." Perhaps the most crucial aspect of Christian obedience to God today concerns the responsibility of the Christian in a technological society toward God's creation and God's will for His creation. Obedience to God's will for nature and for man--respect for nature and for man--in the awareness of our power to frustrate God's designs for nature and for man--to radically corrupt and destroy natural goods by misuse and blind exploitation, especially by criminal waste. The problem of nuclear war is only one facet of an immense, complex and unified problem.
There are very grave problems in the implications of certain kinds of Christian outlooks on "the world." The crux of the matter seems to be to what extent a Christian thinker can preserve his independence from obsessive modes of thought about secular progress. (Behind which is always the anxiety for us and for the Church to be "acceptable" in a society that is leaving us behind in a cloud of dust.) In other words, where is our hope? If in fact our hope is in a temporal and secular humanism of technological and political progress, we will find ourselves, in the name of Christ, joining in the stupidity and barbarism of those who are despoiling His creation in order to make money or get power for themselves. But our hope must be in God. And he who hopes in God will find himself sooner or later making apparently hopeless and useless protests against the barbarism of power.
These are prophetic words in that they ask us, challenge us to look deep into our own and collective soul and to see if we are among those who “radically corrupt and destroy natural goods by misuse and blind exploitation,” “frustrate God’s design for nature and man,” “join in the stupidity and barbarism of those despoiling God’s creation in order to make money or get power.” Like all true prophetic challenges, we feel uncomfortable and hopefully, guilty.
I like the fact that Merton brings it back to hope. Let’s admit it, most of us, while saying that we hope in God, really look for our security in the things around us. That is why we are so often complicit in the over-accumulating of things that we hope will not only ensure our security, but also make us happy. In many ways our hope is really in things and what we think they bring and not in God. If we really hoped in God, not only for the promise of life after death for those who are in Christ, but for the “daily bread” we are to ask him for, this would change not only the way we relate to God and one another, but also to God’s creation. Friends, we are called to be stewards of God’s creation, holding God’s good earth in trust. Anything else is irresponsible.
In the liturgy for Ash Wednesday Many Christians prayed: “For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us, Accept our repentance, Lord.” Maybe as we journey through Lent we need to pause and ask ourselves, do we really hope in God? Do we really find our security and ultimate happiness in God? Are we really being true stewards of all the gifts that God gives to us? And if we find that we can’t truly answer those questions with a “yes”, may we be able to also pray: “Accept my repentance, Lord.”
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