Wesley's Child

What About Sin?

2011-11-03T15:37:00.000-05:00

Some time back a member of one of my former congregations submitted a number of questions to me and asked that I respond. This person said that these are the kinds of questions that they are regularly asked about the Christian faith. My assumption is that all of us hear these kinds of questions from time to time, so I want to share both the questions and my brief answers with you. The answers are not entirely complete because the issues that were raised are complicated and require a certain amount of background in Biblical/Christian concepts that not everyone has. Let’s just say that it’s a start.

What about sin? Are there differences in the level of sin, mild, moderate, severe? If I am no better than anyone else, are you trying to say that as a good solid humble, Christian, that I am no better than a murderer, in God’s eyes?

The word “sin” has caused some confusion in the Christian community because the word itself is applied in two different ways.

The word “sin” in the Greek New Testament is “harmartia” which is a word that originally came from the practice of archery and meant “to miss the mark.”

So, when we fail to live up to a standard (whether that standard has been set by God or by people) we could refer to that as “missing the mark” or “sinful.”

The deeper question has to do with “why” we miss the mark? Social science has posited all kinds of theories about biological and behavioral influences that shape the way we act and react in society and I don’t disagree with all of what has been proposed. However, the Bible suggests that our fundamental problem is a spiritual brokenness that moves us to act out in painful and inappropriate ways. The word we use for this fundamental brokenness is also “sin.”

So, sinful behavior is a symptom of a more pervasive disease and when we talk about Jesus coming into the world we say that he came to wash away the spiritual “stain” of sin in our lives but also to heal the brokenness that moves us to sin in the first place.

For years I have been telling confirmation classes (and congregations) that “we are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners.” The root problem is not our behavior; the root problem is our brokenness. Once the brokenness is healed then the symptoms of that brokenness should tend to go away.

So it isn’t a question of “mild”, “moderate” or “severe” sin. The symptoms of our brokenness might be as severe as murder or they might be simple as self-centeredness or greed or lying and cheating on your taxes. The “good, solid, humble Christian” and the “murderer” start out with the same problem.

It is the “nature” of our lives that keeps us separated from God and it is the nature of our lives that Jesus came to heal. He came to carry both our brokenness and our disobedience to the cross.

The healing begins when we are willing to place our lives in Jesus’ care.

Feeling Guilty (Question #3)

2011-09-03T19:15:00.000-05:00

Question 3. Religion is just a guilt trip, and I don’t want to feel guilty. Life is too hard a struggle as it is to be feeling that way all the time. I am not perfect like Christians are supposed to be…like they make you feel they are, and are better than me.

The irony here is that Christianity is about freedom from guilt. Jesus came to lift this burden from our lives but I understand why people come to the conclusion that it is about guilt and I have two reasons for saying that.

First, Jesus came with a message of new life but he also affirmed some expectations about how we should live our lives. The most general of these expectations is that we should love our God with everything we have and then love our “neighbors” (the people around us) to the same degree. We are called to live out these two general principles in hundreds of specific ways.

Living up to Jesus’ standard isn’t easy (even with his help) but there are many people who claim to be followers of Jesus who aren’t even trying that hard. So, when you are aware of Jesus’ expectations and you intentionally ignore them you shouldn’t be surprised if you feel a bit of guilt. The more you are reminded of your failure the more guilt you will feel.

Christianity doesn’t hand out guilt; it just reminds people of the guilt that they already carry. Freedom from guilt comes when we are willing to trust in Jesus and allow Him to show us how to live. That means we have to be willing to admit and confess our sin, repent (turn away from) our sin and let Jesus be in charge of our lives. You can’t be a follower of Jesus without being willing to follow. But, for those who are willing to surrender their lives, Jesus offers forgiveness, freedom from guilt, peace in our hearts and strength for our journey.

In a related way, there are some who claim to be Christians who use their “faith” as a way of criticizing other peoples’ lives. I believe that most of them are acting superior in the hope that they will be superior. I’m afraid they’ve missed the point.

The second reason people might feel like the faith is all about guilt is that religious leaders (priests, pastors and even Sunday school teachers) have recognized that guilt can be a powerful manipulative tool if you are trying to get people to “tow the line.”

I personally don’t believe you can guilt people into heaven (or for that matter scare people into heaven either) and so I think using guilt in that way is counter productive.

Sincere Christians should be the first to admit that they are not perfect (never have been and never will be) and understand that we are all “sinners saved by grace” (the free gift of God).

Question #2...

2011-07-30T19:55:00.001-05:00

Some time back a member of one of my former congregations submitted the following questions to me and asked that I respond. This person said that these are the kinds of questions that they are regularly asked about the Christian faith. My assumption is that all of us hear these kinds of questions from time to time, so I want to share both the questions and my brief answers with you. The answers are not entirely complete because the issues that were raised are complicated and require a certain amount of background in Biblical/Christian concepts that not everyone has. Let’s just say that it’s a start.

Question 2: Do I have to give so much money? Seems the Church just wants money. I’ve watched TV ministries and they always turn to asking for money.

We don’t actually have to give any money but we would hope that you would want to.

We are being asked to love God for what he has done for us, trust God with our lives and then learn to care about the people who live with us in the world.

We are supposed to give because we are thankful for what God has done for us. If we know that Jesus died for us and purchased our salvation (salvation that he offers to us as a gift) then we respond to his love for us by giving back to him. Giving of our time, talents and money is supposed to be something we do willingly and gratefully but, of course, if we don't believe that God has done anything for us then we won't be highly motivated to give anything. It's a faith issue.

The church is really an extension of this conversation. It is meant to be more than just a religious club. The church is a gathering of people who have been called by God to tell everyone about the new life that is available through trusting in Jesus. Consequently, we give to support the work of the church because we want other people to experience the joy and peace that we have experienced. If we are unwilling to support the work of the church it suggests that there is something deficient about our relationship to God. It's a faith issue.

The simplest way to explain it is to say that Jesus gave his life for us and we are trying to gratefully give our lives back to him. Giving is good for us and our sacrifices are supposed to make a difference in the world. It is a faith issue.

Television ministries are hugely expensive to produce and broadcast and so they need a huge influx of cash just to keep their programs on the air. Many of them have carried such a large financial burden that they end up spending too much time asking for money. Many churches are in a similar spot. They have large buildings and large capital expenses and feel pressured to encourage their membership to remember to give. I think we could say that most of these ministries are well intentioned but each ministry should be evaluated by how much they are doing to make a difference in the world. Think about it.

The Conversation Continues...

2011-07-22T19:28:00.000-05:00

1. Why are there bad things in this world if God is such a caring, loving God?

We live in a broken world…nothing is the way God created it (or intended it to be) including the people who populate the world. There are things that we call “bad” (like natural disasters) that are really “neutral” (not bad or good.) They are a consequence of what we know as “natural law.” There are rules that govern the way the world works and sometimes we can be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Why would God let us be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Because He loves us enough to give us a free will. If we are being asked to choose to love God then we must have the freedom to choose to not love God. If we are being called to trust God then we must have the freedom to not trust God. If God were to step in every time we made a poor decision then he would (in effect) take away our right to choose.

In the same way, our freedom to choose to do right means that we have the freedom to do wrong and much of the suffering that we see in the world is a direct result of people choosing to do the wrong thing. Our greed and our hatred create indescribable suffering in the world. It is our fault. God came to the world (in the presence of Jesus) to change us and consequently change the world.

The conversation continues...

The End of the World As We Know It

2011-05-20T20:30:00.001-05:00

I was driving home from La Crosse this afternoon and listening to the radio as I rode along. The news of the day appeared to be a prediction that the Rapture will take place tomorrow and the world “as we know it” will come to an end.

When I got home I opened up my Facebook page to see what was happening in my very limited social network and I found my page spattered with more satirical comments about this same end-of-the-world event.

Now, let me state right up front that I don’t believe the Rapture will take place tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. It wouldn’t bother me if it did, but I don’t honestly think that this is going to be that moment.

What bothered me were all of the comments being made by people who had no idea what they were talking about and how quickly and easily they seem to transfer these “rapture” people into the world of the mentally deranged. Let me say again, I don’t believe that tomorrow you will have to worry about people being swept away into heaven but you will have to live in a world where there are people who believe in things that you might think are crazy. These people (just like the rest of us) deserve a bit of sympathy and a little bit of understanding.

The other thing that was running through my head was the larger context of my travels to and from La Crosse. This past week my father-in-law (one of those people whom we should all aspire to be like) struggled and died in a hospital bed surrounded by his family. The rest of this week has been tied up in preparing for and participating in a celebration of his life. As I was on the road today it came to me, that tomorrow may not be the end of this world for everyone but it will surely be the end of this world for someone and maybe instead of spending our time making fun of people who are apparently prepared to leave this world maybe we should think about making those same kinds of preparations in our own lives.

Like I said, I don’t expect to be swept up into the clouds to meet Jesus tomorrow, but I am ready to meet Jesus tomorrow and there is a significant part of me that is looking forward to that event whenever or however it happens. Maybe tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. we should pause and say a little prayer for that person whose life in this world is ending at 6:00 p.m. tomorrow. It wouldn't hurt.

Knowing The God I Love

2011-04-23T16:52:00.006-05:00

I have lots of friends from my childhood who share a very special spot in my heart. Some of them I haven’t seen for years (or even decades) and yet I still consider them friends.

What’s ironic about this is that if you asked me about what they’ve done or where they’ve been or about what excites them about life I would have to say, “I don’t really know.” If we got together today we would spend most of our time talking and laughing about things we did forty years ago.

These are people that I am more comfortable talking about in the past tense. I still think fondly of them but I can’t really say that I know them anymore. We have spent too much time apart.

There are many people who would have to describe their relationship with God in a similar way. They know about God and they have memories of events or celebrations that focused on God but if you asked them to talk about what God is like or what God desires they would be lost. For many people Easter is one of those moments that is more about memories of celebrations past than it is about a present, living savior.

This is a critical discussion for those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus because we are called to be His witnesses. It is our job to share with the world what God is like and share what we know to be the Good News of forgiveness and eternal life. But, in order for this to happen we need to know the God we represent. This means we need to be serious about all of those ancient Christian disciplines like Bible study, prayer, meditation and worship.

Many people have been raised believing that these holy practices are akin to spiritual caster oil; unpleasant concoctions that are somehow supposed to be good for us but we want to keep at arms length.

What people need to understand (believers and the simply curious) is that these Christian practices are actually more like bridges that bring us closer to the God who came close to us in order to draw us close to Him.

This image is built into the messages of all of our special days. At Christmas God became a human being. He got close. At Easter Jesus invited us to share in His death so that we could share in His life. He invited us close. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit came to fill us with His presence and to write God’s laws on our hearts. He came even closer.

Worship is the thankful celebration of this ongoing relationship. This is what being Christian is all about.

What's A Congregation Worth?

2011-04-02T15:30:00.001-05:00

A recent Christianity Today article attempted to answer the question, “What’s a congregation worth?” The underlying question was, “Does a church’s tax exempt status outweigh the economic value it adds to its community?”

The researcher, a man by the name of Ram Cnaan, who describes himself as “nonreligious”, estimated the monetary value of an urban congregation at $476,663.24 annually. Included in that number are things like money spent in the community for goods and services, time spent helping to keep families together, educational services, volunteer time, employment services and even crime prevention.

For a number of years, there has been a growing perception that churches have become irrelevant, that we have nothing meaningful to say and that we have become a drain on society. It is encouraging to me that someone is taking time to try to put a value on what churches do.

But, from my perspective churches have (or I should say “should have”) a lot more value that ends up going unnoticed simply because it can’t be quantified in dollars and cents.

How many people can be touched by one person who takes their eyes off of personal gain and begins to try to love their neighbor as they love themselves? How many kind words will one person speak in a lifetime? How many times will that person pat someone on the back or treat someone like they really matter and how will the person who has been touched find their life changed? How is the world a better place because one person understood what Jesus did for them and then tried to live their life sacrificially?

Think of the impact of one faithful person and then multiply that one person by twenty or a hundred. What is the impact of a congregation on the community in which they live? This may be the place where the word “priceless” truly applies.

People who see the church as simply a building or as a social gathering are missing the point. In New Testament Greek the word for church is “ecclesia” which means “those who are called.” We are supposed to be those who have been called out of the world to represent and serve Jesus every day. I think the question that the churched and the un-churched alike should be asking is, “How much impact does the ecclesia have on the community in which they live?”

If we, the followers of Jesus, aren’t making our new life in Christ real every day then there is something radically wrong with our relationship to Jesus. If we, who claim the name of Jesus, aren’t continually thinking about how we might love the Lord our God and how we might love our neighbors as ourselves (and then doing all we can to make that real) then we might want to think again about claiming to represent Jesus.

Asking what a congregation is worth is an interesting sociological study, but the question that might have more meaning is the one we ask ourselves. What difference does it make that I am a follower of Jesus?

An Ash Wednesday Reflection

2011-03-13T18:12:00.002-05:00

Psalm 51, the assigned text for Ash Wednesday, is a confessional of sorts. The back-story goes like this: King David had decided to take another man’s wife (something you can do when you are the King.) and in so doing he had sinned against God, against his people and against another man’s family and like any sin there were consequences to his actions.

In this case David’s deception and infidelity, lead to a murder and a stillborn child. God saw the entire thing unfold and he sent Nathan, the prophet, to remind David that what he had done hadn’t gone unnoticed.

The one character trait that David had which made him “great” and a “man after God’s own heart” was that he was able to recognized his failure and turn in the right direction. Psalm 51 may be described as David’s journey back to God and it outlines for us some of the critical steps on that journey.

It began with confession:
“1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”

This is how OUR journey toward God begins. We have to be able to see ourselves as we really are, realize the physical and spiritual consequences of our brokenness and then be willing to let God work in our lives to heal us. Until we understand our need for God’s forgiveness we will never look for him or lean on him. We need to recognize our need before we will begin our journey in his direction.

This may be one of the great challenges of the Lenten season. We are supposed to use this time to remember who we are and what our need really is. We are supposed to give more time to building our relationship with this Jesus who was willing to sacrifice his life for us and then surrender more of our lives to his control.

But, for the most part, we have made Lent into a time when we give up unimportant things for no apparent reason and we have made a day that was set aside for us to sweep out all of the excess in our lives and prepare ourselves for this time of penitence into one of the largest hedonistic celebrations in the entire calendar year.

We are supposed to be learning to live humble and sacrificial lives by allowing God to give us a new heart and new desire to be like him. Like David said,

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

This isn’t magic. We are not attempting to manipulate God into giving us what we want. We can’t expect that ashes on our foreheads or a cross in our pockets will somehow make us different. We must come with a sincere desire to be made new and a willingness to surrender everything we have to God’s control.

And if this is done right (if our journey actually takes us into the presence of the living God) then we should see a change in our lives and it should be natural to us to want to share what we have found. Like David said,

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

And if God is making us new then it should be expressed in thanksgiving. Like David said,

15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

So, psalm 51 is for all of us who have found ourselves on the wrong end of the stick. If we are looking for healing then at some point we have to be willing to take our first step in God’s direction. Lent was meant to be that first step.

The Ash Wednesday ashes are a temporary reminder of our weakness and a testimony to our need for God’s forgiveness. The way we live our lives is meant to be an on-going testimonial to a Jesus who lives today and makes a difference in the lives of ordinary people like you and me. As David learned,

17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

These Are Uncomfortable Times

2011-02-23T21:52:00.000-06:00

For the last week I’ve spent time sitting in front of my TV watching the world fall apart. The list of places in turmoil just seems to get longer and longer every day: Egypt, Libya, Iran, Morocco, Bahrain, Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana. It’s kind of scary. If I were an “end times” kind of theologian I would probably be busy right now writing this into my latest end of the world theory.

The problems I have with all the things I see and hear are multiple and in categories.

Some of the problems are my own.
I have a tendency to be overly analytical. You could say that I’m a big picture sort of guy. I try to see all the sides. I want to look at a problem (or an opportunity) from all angles. Part of me believes that if I we lay out all of the facts that everyone will be convinced by the obvious, make the right choices and decide to get along. I sympathize with peoples’ fears and my personality wants everyone to be happy but the world we live in doesn’t operate with those same expectations. Sometimes I am amazed with my own naïveté. My heart aches. These are uncomfortable times.

Some of the problems I see are just splashed across the screen.
I see a lot hate and anger and fear. I hear all kinds of contradictory information and when different people offer differing “facts” on the same subject there’s a pretty good chance that someone is lying. I want to believe that people are honest but what I see and hear doesn’t leave me that option. I see a lot of “the end justifies the means” behavior, which has never been my favorite philosophical model. There is a lot of hopelessness going around. These are indeed uncomfortable times.

So, what can I do? How do I help to change a world that is out of control? What should I do?
The answers (in order) are, “Nothing,” “I don’t” and “Proclaim Jesus!”

I have found myself up against this wall more times than I can count. The world is not always a friendly place, people don’t always play fair and I can’t do anything to change that. One of the reasons I am in the business I am in is because Jesus changes hearts and people need their hearts changed. It’s all right there on the screen of my TV: people needing Jesus. Jesus has a lot of work to do and so do I.

They Were Like Giants

2011-01-28T17:54:00.001-06:00

When I was a kid the Green Bay Packers came to Sandy’s (a local fast food restaurant, the home of the plaid beret.) It wasn’t exactly all of the Green Bay Packers, it was Boyd Dowler (wide receiver) and Fuzzy Thurston (guard) but that was enough for me. They were like giants.

Most people came a lot more prepared than I did. There were people with footballs and jerseys and autograph books all waiting in line for signatures from these two sports idols. All I had was what I was wearing so I asked them if they would sign my shirt and they did; felt tip pen on polo.

After Boyd Dowler and Fuzzy Thurston left the area (you can bet that I wasn’t going to leave while they were hanging around) I ran all the way home, took off my shirt, had my Mom help me frame it and hung it up above my bed. It was there for years. This was one of those Kodak moments that I thought would never change. After all, I had some of it in writing, but what I ended up learning was that nothing in this life is forever.

Some years ago I saw Fuzzy Thurston interviewed on TV. Of course, this was forty years later; he’d had some kind of throat surgery at some point in the intervening years and spoke with a prosthetic device. He looked old. He wasn’t a giant anymore.

I don’t exactly remember when my Mom threw out my shirt. I think it was the same time she got rid of my comic books. They obviously didn’t mean as much to her and they did to me and so they ended up in a landfill somewhere.

I think that this is why when Jesus talks about life that is beyond this life he speaks to an emptiness in our souls that we are always trying to fill up with special moments and special people. I know that the critics of the faith (and even some who work within the faith) will say that we Christians made up a messiah specifically because we recognize that our lives are momentary. This theological approach makes our “faith” a fable on par with Little Red Riding Hood. When we are afraid that it isn’t working for us anymore we just change it.

I come at this from a different place. Jesus changed my life when I was feeling lost and alone. There was a transformational moment when I surrendered my pain to this living God and I have never been the same. So, I prefer to believe (what I think the Bible claims) that God saw the emptiness in our lives and came to give us hope that isn’t dependent on how much money we make or on how many awards we’ve been given. We don’t need “things” to make us special. God declares it so.

What I have always wanted people to understand is that this faith we proclaim is more than just an intellectual proposition and more than just a series of Kodak Christmases. This Jesus (the one we give ourselves to) is more than simply an emotional foxhole to hide in when real life wars around us. Jesus is our reality, the world we try so desperately to shape around us is the dream.

In a little more than a week the most current version of the Green Bay Packers will play in another Super Bowl and we will have another crop of heroes. There will be souvenirs and signatures hanging in little kid’s rooms all over the country but we need to remember that this will be simply one more moment in time and soon this too will be gone and when it does, Jesus will still remain.

Let's Give It One More Shot

2011-01-01T19:30:00.003-06:00

So, all of us have rolled out of bed right into a brand new year and not for the first time. Just like last year (and the year before that) we will now spend time talking about this calendar change as if it has some great (almost spiritual) significance. This is a day of new beginnings. There is a lot of hope in that statement. This is our chance to live our lives differently, but, I think it is important that we acknowledge the New Year for what it is; an opportunity.

There is no magic in 2011. There are no quick fixes or easy answers. The reality is that 2011 will be remarkably like 2010. The sun will rise and set and the seasons will change and we will, most likely, live each day in much the way we have lived up to this moment. We are about to be confronted by the power of habit, tradition and repetition. Anyone who has resolved to lose a few pounds or give up their cigarettes or get more exercise can testify that change is hard.

The good news is that no matter how hard it is to make changes to our lives and no matter how many times we’ve tried and failed in the past we know that change is still possible. This is what makes each New Year a hopeful moment. We have been given an opportunity to be new people so why wouldn’t we want to try?

To be honest, this was an opportunity that was there for us last month and will still be there for us six months from now. Our lives are a series of endless opportunities but before we can move on to become the people we would like to be we have to embrace this moment and then work with it. Much of our lives are dominated by that little voice that says, “been there, done that, no use trying again.”

New Years says to us that it is time to try it again; it’s OK to give it another shot and we should.

The Christian faith is built around this same message of continual opportunity. Jesus invites us to trust in Him and allow Him to transform our lives. It can happen today if we are willing to surrender. What often gets in the way of our chance at new life is that same little voice that says, “been there, done that, no use trying again.”

Think of this New Year as God saying, “let’s give it one more shot. OK?”

Now With Extended Hours

2010-12-16T15:19:00.000-06:00

As I drive back and forth from home to the church I serve I pass by another church which has, on its lawn, a sort of tri-cornered sign. On one of the panels of this sign there is a picture of an Advent candle with the words, “Hope,” “Joy,” “Love,” and “Peace” (a typical Advent display) but then on a small banner underneath this Advent panel it reads, “Now with extended hours.”

I know where the Advent candle panel came from. We are still in the liturgical season of Advent; a time when we are supposed to prepare our lives for the coming of the Savior and so many churches have something “adventish” displayed somewhere either inside or, as in this case, on the church lawn. I also have some insight into the “extended hours” banner. I’ve been up and down this road enough to know that this church also runs a day care and the day care program now has extended hours.

So, it is my assumption that these two signs were not intended to be connected they just are displayed that way. At first I thought of this display as simply humorous but as I’ve thought more about it I’ve decided to take it as a bit of serendipity.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we would (or could) extend the amount of time we spend living out our hope and joy and love and peace? Just think about how our lives and our personal world would change if we spent more time hopefully, joyfully, lovingly and peacefully living our lives for people to see.

And on the other side of this conversation, wouldn’t it be nice if we could be certain that when we needed someone to love us or smile for us or say a hopeful word to us that it would be readily available because they were operating on extended hours?

Our lives can be so easily tied up in petty problems and momentary irritations that we miss all of the good things that are happening around us. Maybe it’s time to take the cell phone out of our ear and pay attention to all of the little bits of wisdom (even unintentional wisdom) that are lining the roadways of our lives. You might find something that will wake you up to a new way of living and the world will be a better place because of it.

It kind of reminds me of a baby in a manger and a world that was never the same. It was almost as if God were saying, “Hope, Joy, Love, and Peace now with extended hours.”

It's Christmas. Isn't It Wonderful?

2010-12-10T23:04:00.001-06:00

I mentioned in last Sunday morning’s conversation that my mother hasn’t put up any kind of Christmas tree for years. The only thing that would suggest that my mother is celebrating Christmas is the nativity scene, a set that has always been a part of our family’s Christmas, which she has set up on her kitchen table. It’s not that she isn’t into Christmas it’s just that she doesn’t have a huge need to fill her apartment with lights and bulbs.

It’s possible that part of her attitude toward Christmas decorations goes back to her childhood. She told me that when she was a child there were no decorations in their home until Christmas day. Santa Claus brought everything with him on Christmas Eve and so she woke up on Christmas morning to a house that had been transformed overnight. Her childhood Christmas tree had candles instead of electric lights and they were only lit for a very brief time so she didn’t really have a lot of childhood memories of rooms full of Christmas baubles.

To be fair, my mother isn’t the only one who has decided not to over decorate for the holidays. I’ve run into a number of people (mostly older people) who have decided they didn’t want to bother with a tree and lights and I’m OK with all of that. After all we keep trying to remind people that Christmas is about more than the decorations and the parties.

However, over the years I have always thought it was kind of sad to not decorate for the day, which gives you an idea of how important the lights and baubles have become to me. It’s not that I need them “spiritually.” I don’t need lights and balls and evergreens to celebrate the birth of Jesus. My relationship with Him is not built upon tradition; it is built upon a spiritual connection that is bigger than anything I can hold in my hand.

But, I am afraid that I need them “emotionally.” They have become a link to the memories I have of Christmases past. In my head they are attached to footie pajamas, transformers and Nintendo games; to times when my children were small and there was wonder in their eyes. It’s kind of scary to think that strings of lights and balls of glass can have such a hold on my life, but they do.

The challenge for me (and maybe for all of us) is to keep the spiritual and the emotional parts of our lives straight. It doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice one in order to have the other, it just means that we need to see them for what they are. Like my mother, I don’t need the decorations to celebrate the birth of my Savior, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t important.

It might be best to remember that we are all complicated creatures and that Jesus understands the complications and is still willing to work in us, with us and through us. It’s Christmas. Isn’t it wonderful?

Taking Time To Get Ready

2010-11-13T18:24:00.002-06:00

I grew up on the north side of La Crosse, two blocks from what came to be called the Caledonia Street Shopping Center. It was actually the business district from a time when North La Crosse had been a separate city. There was a hardware store and a pharmacy, a movie theater and a “five and dime.”
Everything you needed was right there, nestled into two blocks on Caledonia Street.

Every year, in early November, someone would put up a little red house in an empty lot next to the Klinkner & Jensen’s shoe store. This was Santa’s house and all of us knew that when the little red house appeared that Christmas was coming.

Santa’s house was important because Christmas was important and Christmas was important because of all of the stuff that came along with it. It wasn’t just presents (although that was a big part of it) because there were decorations and celebrations and food that were part of Christmas that we never saw during the rest of the year. There was a lot to get excited about.

Advent (the four Sundays prior to Christmas) is a time that the church has set aside to help us prepare for Jesus’ coming into the world. Like Santa’s house it is supposed to remind us that something wonderful is soon to arrive.

If you’re like me, you will still get a bit excited as you put up the decorations, plan for the celebrations and prepare those special foods that are part of this season. But it seems to me that this is the reason we need a time like Advent in our lives. If we aren’t careful we will get so caught up in these seasonal memories that we won’t have any time or room for Jesus. How ironic is that?

So, I offer this reflection early (even before we’ve gotten to Thanksgiving) because I have a feeling that we could all use an extra bit of time to prepare our hearts and lives for what should be one of the most precious moments in our year.

We will still plan to light the Advent candles (in Church and hopefully as families) and set out our nativity sets (and remember all of the players in this beautiful story) and remind ourselves again that there is something, even more wonderful, coming that we can be excited about. At Christmas God became a human being and loved us like we’ve never been loved before.

For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior which is Christ the Lord. +Luke 2:11

When a celebration is as important to us as Christmas is we want to make sure that we take whatever time is required to get our hearts and our heads in the right place. Let us begin.

A Child In The Best Possible Way

2010-11-06T18:31:00.002-05:00

I recently finished up (hopefully) raking and bagging 40 bags of leaves. It was quite a switch for me because the house we moved from had a row of pine trees in the back (read that as no leaves) and one small maple tree in the front yard and most of those leaves blew away before I ever got a chance to pick up a rake. The house we live in now has a nice selection of mature trees, which provide good shade in the summer and good exercise in the Fall. I should have seen it coming.

When I was 10, leaves were all about playing. We would rake up huge piles of leaves just so we could jump in them. Once we got tired of jumping we would spread them out into rows and move the rows around to make the outline of a house (complete with leaf furniture) and then pretend to live there.

When I was a child, the falling leaves were something to celebrate, but today those same leaves have become mostly a nuisance. The leaves haven’t changed. They still smell the same and they still crackle when you step on them. The only thing that has changed is me.

So, I began asking myself, “Is this what it means to get old? Have I become so jaded to the world around me that I no longer have a sense of wonder in my soul; a bit of whimsy in my life?” I’m afraid the answer might be, “yes.”

I tell myself that I’ve just gotten responsible and that this is called “maturity.” I tell myself that this is what is supposed to happen but then I remember that Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Luke 18:17) and I wonder about losing touch with the child I once was.

Then, it struck me that part of my Christian journey might be to re-learn something that I once intuitively knew but have lost along the way. The real issue might not have anything to do with being old or having an abundance of leaves. The real issue might be how much I trust Jesus.

I (like so many others) may have simply decided to let the challenges of life dictate my response to life. Without really thinking about it I’m afraid that I have said to God that He can take a break because I've got it handled and then I come to those reflective moments when I realize just how much of a burden that really is. I'm starting to have sympathy for the OT people of Israel.

To jump or not jump is not the question. To trust or not to trust is. I think I want to be a child again, in the best possible way.

Gratitude

2010-10-30T15:20:00.004-05:00

The following is a summary of the conversation we had last Sunday.

The word for today is “grateful.” We are called to be followers of Jesus Christ, which means that we are all in the process of deciding if we are ready and willing to actually follow. But, the reality is that we won’t follow a stranger. This means that following Jesus begins with a relationship. We experience His presence in our lives and we learn to trust Him more and more every day.

What this means is that everything we do in Church should help us to build our relationship to the living God. In fact, the ultimate goal is for us to become like Him and He has made the way for this new life.So, from time to time we gather together to celebrate this relationship and our transformation and this is what we call “WORSHIP.”

The word that should define everything we do in the Church is “GRATEFUL.” Worship was never meant to be an educational program and it was never meant to be a spectator sport. Worship is each of us individually coming together corporately to declare that we are “forever grateful” for all that God has done for us. Worship is not about us but it says something about us. When we give up our time to be in worship we are making a statement about what is valuable to us. Being in Church (or staying home) are both statements we make about what is important.

And this is the continual challenge we face. If our goal is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, how is that love expressed? If we actually love the Lord with everything we have how do we measure that love? If I keep saying that I love potato salad but never eat potato salad wouldn’t you wonder what I meant by that statement? If I said that I love football but never watched football or played football wouldn’t you want to know what football really meant to me? If I say that I love God and it doesn’t affect the way I talk and act and the way I spend my time and my money wouldn’t you want to know what I mean when I make that claim? Our friends want to know!

What I’m getting to is that at some point our conversation about love has to become pragmatic. What am I willing to do because I love the Lord MY God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength? What sacrifices am I willing to make because I love my neighbor as I love myself? The offering is not us just paying the bills. The offering is me trying to put into real, meaningful terms how much I love Jesus. In that sense, the offering may be the most significantly spiritual moment in the entire worship gathering because it is me putting into real terms what my love for Him really means.

What you and I give should have nothing to do with what your Church’s annual budget is. You and I should give out of thanksgiving for what God has done (and is doing) in our lives. You and I should give because we love Jesus more than we love anything else. In order for me to be thankful my giving has to mean something to me. It’s not enough that I gave more than you did. That misses the whole point. What I give has to mean something to me or it means nothing at all.

I’ve always thought that a tithe was a good place to begin the conversation. Julie and I have been “tithers” for our entire married life even when we had nothing, even when we were raising three small children, even when we had to borrow money to pay our taxes God deserved our love and thanksgiving. It wasn’t always much and it was never enough but it was a sacrifice we were willing to make. It meant something to us. I can imagine that there are people in the world for whom a tithe wouldn’t mean anything at all and for those people a tithe wouldn’t be enough.

My mother is 94 years old and she lives on social security and a small pension my father had from his years with the police department in La Crosse. Last time we talked about it, my mother was giving $20 each week to her local church. Sadly enough, at the time I think that made my mother one of the largest givers to her local church. She gives because she’s thankful.

Every day we express our thanksgiving and as we do there are a number of principles that we need to pay attention to.
“…of him who has much, much will be expected.” (Luke 12:48)
“…the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly” (2 Cor. 9:6)
“You cannot serve both God and wealth.” (Luke 16:13)

It is always about being thankful.

Now All We Need Is A Marching Band

2010-10-12T21:16:00.001-05:00

I was watching the Badger game on Saturday (before running off to Church for a wedding) and I found myself fascinated (again) with the sheer energy of the game and it had nothing to do with what was happening on the field.

There were thousands of people (a sea of Badger red) jumping and screaming and cheering on the team and I know that this scene (except for the Badger red) was being replayed all over the country and I began wondering (not for the first time) what it was, about this game or this setting, that generated this kind of excitement.

My first thought, and the easy answer, was “beer.” Why else would people pay anywhere from $50 to $300 a ticket to spend three hours outdoors on metal bench seats in the cold and the rain and be glad for the opportunity? Intoxication would explain a lot of that behavior but the problem with my “beer theory” is that I personally know people who are practical “teetotalers” and are just as fanatical as anyone else.

The real question I want answered (a question you hear preachers use from time to time) is why are we so willing to act like fools for a game but never express that same kind of passion for Jesus?

I’m guessing here, but I suspect that the difference between the game and Jesus is that we know that the game doesn’t really matter and contrariwise we intuitively know that Jesus is important (or at the very least could be important) and we don’t want to mess this up.

What we have with the game is confidence. What we don’t have with Jesus is confidence. What Jesus came to provide for us is confidence in Him.

Jesus said to the paralytic, “…that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." Luke 5:24

Jesus said to the Pharisees, “…believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” John 10:38

The Apostle Paul said, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints…” Ephesians 1:18

When we KNOW Jesus forgiveness in our lives, when we KNOW He is able to change things, when we really KNOW “the hope to which he has called” us then we can begin to dance and shout and sing in a whole new way and we might even begin to think of ourselves as Jesus’ FANS. We are supposed to KNOW. Now all we need is a marching band.

Maroon Car Jesus

2010-10-05T21:39:00.000-05:00

The other day I was driving down National Ave. when a maroon car with a Jesus fish on the trunk and a cross decal in the rear window made a right turn without stopping and pulled in front of me. I applied the brakes to keep from ending up in “maroon car’s” back seat and then spent the next few minutes following this car and thinking about what it means to be a witness for Jesus.

Two blocks later we stopped at a red light and the person in the maroon car turned right at the red light so that they could turn left into a bank parking lot and then back onto the road, breaking traffic laws, in an effort to bypass the light. It worked, in the sense that the maroon car with Jesus on the back got where it wanted to go without getting stopped by an officer of the law, but it didn’t go unnoticed. Someone is always paying attention.

This is the lesson that all of we who follow Jesus need to understand and apply. When we claim Jesus as our Savior we take on the responsibility of representing Jesus in the world and someone is always paying attention. This means that every word we say, every thing we do, every trip we take, and every dollar we spend is a statement that is being read by someone. This means that our entire lives needs to be laid as a sacrifice on His altar.

Now, I understand that there are extenuating circumstances that no one but God will see or understand and it’s possible that “maroon car Jesus” may have been desperately trying to get to the hospital because of some family emergency but that doesn’t release me from my commitment. My relationship to Jesus needs to be more than just a set of sacred songs or a holy litany performed in a congregation. My faith has to go beyond Sunday or Christmas or Easter and be embodied in the ordinary things of my every day life. Until my relationship to Jesus becomes the core of who I am it hasn’t become what it needs to be.

I expect it is possible that one day it will be my turn to be that one who is rushing to the hospital and when that time comes I know that God will understand if my life (in that moment) doesn’t adequately reflect his love made real. I hope that those who see my desperation won’t blame my failure on Jesus.

But, today, I need to live my life as if someone is watching because someone is.

Spiritual Dieting

2010-09-24T20:23:00.000-05:00

So, I’ve decided that it’s time to go on another diet. I can’t say that it’s something I want to do it’s just one of those things that would be in my best interest. If experience is any kind of teacher then I know (going in) that my chances of success are (at best) mixed. Over the last 30 years I’ve lost close to 150 pounds but the problem is that over those same years I have managed to find about 120 replacements.

The fact that after 30 years I’m down 30 pounds should be counted as a success but I remember how hard it is to drop a few pounds and how easy it is to pick them up. I have a friend who once told me (and I believe he knew of what he spoke) that it is physically possible to gain 3 pounds a day but it is physically impossible to lose 3 pounds a day which creates an interesting dilemma. It is easier to fail than it is to succeed.

We actually might say that about life in general. It is easier to quit something than it is to start something and it is easier to sit than it is to go ahead. We may know it is best and we may want to succeed but we have a life full of things that encourage us to fail. We need support.

For dieters there are groups like Weight Watchers and for people struggling with substance abuse there are groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. These are places where people who are struggling to do what is best can find emotional support for taking up that challenge. For followers of Jesus that place is the Church.

Starbucks is trying to encourage us to “take comfort in rituals” (that’s their new advertising campaign) and there are many people who see the Church as nothing more than comforting rituals or a cultural touchstone and they miss the whole point. The Church is a family of the forgiven and a gathering of the transformed. We have been given a message of new life to proclaim to a world filled with people who are struggling to do what is right and are failing.

So, it is time again for a little discipline and we need each other’s help if we are going to succeed. Just remember, the next time you are trying to decide if you should go to Church, that there are people there who need your help (attending is NOT all about us) and subsequently there are people there who will help you, too. Everybody wins.

Ponytails And Clean Fingernails

2010-09-11T19:57:00.001-05:00

I recently found a place where (for a reasonable fee) they would (as they say) “lower my ears.”

Whenever I go anywhere to get my hair cut someone will ask me what I would like it to look like and since I rarely (or try not to) look at myself in the mirror I always feel like I am not the best one to make that judgment. “You’re the expert.” I always say, “Just do what you think is best.”

Having grown up through the 60’s I have always been somewhat fascinated with hairstyles. From time to time I think about just letting it grow. In my mind I can picture myself as an aging hippie, going through life with French cuffed shirts, three-piece suits, tennis shoes and a ponytail; the 21st century expression of “cool.”

I know that I appear to be a fairly conservative guy (and basically I am) but the length of a person’s hair has never really been that big a deal to me. Maybe it’s because of all the years I’ve worn a beard of some sort. When I first grew a beard (back in the late 70’s…which seems like a long time ago) I would find myself (from time to time) talking to older people who thought my beard was a sort of “abomination” and yet talked endearingly about their grandfathers who were often pictured sporting long, untrimmed chin whiskers. I never quite understood the difference.

In High School, when my hair was actually shorter than it is today, my father (who thought I was beginning to look too much like an actual hippie) offered to pay me $2.00 to get my hair cut. He was a crew cut (flat top) kind of guy. We were operating with differing definitions of the word “long.”

On the surface, following Jesus seems easy. After all, he has done all of the heavy lifting. The complication is that there seem to be a lot of (inconsequential) things that tend to get in the way for us.

So, we end up saying (without saying it) things like, “Jesus died for your sins and all you have to do is trust Him, as long as you get your hair cut and clean under your fingernails.” Or “God really loves you, but He would love you better if you wore a nicer pair of jeans.”

It seems to me that God’s love for us is non-negotiable and his sacrifice for us is thoroughly sufficient. I always put things like church attendance, tithing, Bible study and service as expressions of our thanksgiving. These are some of the things that I expect to see in me because I love Jesus more than anything else in this life. These are things that I expect we should all do gladly because our relationship with Jesus is making a difference in our lives every day. I suppose (under certain circumstances) I could insert clean clothes and personal grooming into the conversation at this point, but I would never want to get these carts in front of the actual horse (if you get my drift.)

So, I expect that when I finally get the nerve to move into my ponytail/three-piece suit stage that Jesus will love me just as much and I will love him the same (or hopefully even more.)

Rad Dog

2010-09-04T19:52:00.001-05:00

The other day I was following a Toyota Avalon (that’s a car) with the license plate “RADDOG” and my first thought was RADDOG doesn’t belong on a Toyota Avalon. RADDOG is a license plate for a Grand Am (that’s another car) or maybe an Alero (car) but RADDOG on an Avalon just didn’t seem right to me. I have always thought of Avalon people as “Golf Wisconsin” people or “Endangered Resources” people, nothing flashy. RADDOG on an Avalon is like wearing white socks with a black suit, it’s just not done.

Then I thought maybe RADDOG was a Grand Am guy who was moving up in the world and just couldn’t get the State to change his plate to something like MUVNUP (because all the good ones are already taken.) Or maybe RADDOG found himself in an Avalon but he was still a Grand Am guy at heart and “what can you do?”

Then I wondered where all of this was coming from. Do I really carry all of these unspoken prejudices with me all the time? Do I really make those kinds of associations? I guess so. Can my mind’s inner monologue really take me so easily from reality to fiction? Apparently. And is it possible that I can walk through this crazy line of reasoning and then think that it’s actually true? You know, like looking at a photograph of an event so many times that you begin to think that you were actually there? This is just scary.

Not too long ago I had another one of those conversations with someone who wondered if Jesus really expects us to “pray without ceasing” and I realized that this person (and lots of others) interpret the statement to be a command rather than an opportunity. The text from 1 Thessalonians (5:16-18) says, “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks” and it seems to me that I need to be doing all of these things continually or else my imagination can take me to places that I should not go. I have been given the opportunity to be in a relationship with Jesus that is constant and continual. What a blessing.

There were no pragmatic consequences to my experience with RADDOG except to remind me that I have to be careful where I let my mind take me. If anything, this little conversation has reminded me that I have been called out of the world to be (as Peter said in 1 Peter 2:9) a “royal priest, a holy nation, God’s very own possession” so that I might “show others the goodness of God.” If I’m going to get this done I have to be paying attention because I want all of the RADDOG’s in the world to know the “goodness of God.”

So, drive on Mr. RADDOG and drive anything you want…except maybe an Escalade. Oops.

A Harry Potter World

2010-08-24T21:37:00.001-05:00

I’m sitting here somewhat engrossed in the fifth movie in the “Harry Potter” series (for those of you who haven’t been keeping up with all things Hogwarts that would be “The Order of the Phoenix”) and I’m asking myself why this particular movie world has become so popular for so many people.

I guess it could be the quality of the product. I’m not much of a movie critic but each of the films in the series seems to be fairly well produced, decently acted, with nice special effects and fairly true to the book on which it was based.

What I think is happening is that there is something appealing about a world filled with magic where nothing about life is set in stone. How many of us grew up wishing we could wave a wand and change the size of our noses or whisk off a few extra pounds? There was a time in my life when I actually wanted to be a “wizard.” It was an irrational dream but I was young and insecure and thinking about it today reminds me of how desperate life can be.

I’m starting to think that we want to believe in a Harry Potter world because life is hard and we are weak.

Some people would say that we believers in God do so for the same reasons but I see it as just the opposite. In the Harry Potter world I either have magical powers or I don’t, some are blessed and some are not. In God’s world all of us have been equally invited to belong to Him. All of us can know his love and forgiveness in our lives. In a Hogwarts world I manipulate the world to make it what I want it to be. In God’s world I have come to learn that God is the author of all creation and that I have been invited to be one of his stewards. In a Harry Potter world I escape from reality. In God’s world I come face-to-face with the person I really am.

I still like a good fantasy. I have been a sci-fi guy since I picked up my first Superman comic but I understand the difference between make believe and reality and I am here to testify that it doesn’t get any more real than Jesus.

Isn't God Amazing?

2010-08-13T22:21:00.000-05:00

I was reading an interesting article in the most recent “Christianity Today” about a man who was moved to return to faith through reading the writings of Albert Camus, a French philosopher (and atheist) who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. It reminded me a little bit of my own faith journey.

I’m not trying to suggest (or even imply) that I was filling the quiet moments of my teenage years reading the works of Albert Camus, I had never even heard of Camus until I was in college, but one of the big players in my spiritual journey was the rock musical, “Jesus Christ Superstar,” a musical and dramatic piece that was never thought of as being that complimentary to the historic Christian faith.

“Superstar” was the only thing that I asked for on my 18th birthday. I listened to it incessantly and after years of singing in Church choirs this was the first time that I consciously remembered hearing about people like Caiaphas (the High Priest in the temple in Jerusalem) and Judas Iscariot (the disciple who betrayed Jesus.) I learned the story of Jesus passion from Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

I didn’t give my life to Jesus because of “Superstar” but I did hear the story in a way that I had never heard it before. No matter how inaccurate (or inappropriate) “Superstar” was socially or theologically it became a piece of the spiritual puzzle that I was struggling to understand.

In 1 Corinthians 10 the Apostle Paul said, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is beneficial” and I believe that to be true. There are lots of things that can influence us away from hearing or following after Jesus. Not everything is helpful, but I wonder if we sometimes dismiss things too quickly. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I believe that God is able to use an amazingly diverse collection of things to draw us closer to Him and we should never underestimate what God is able to do with ordinary things and in the lives of ordinary people. I guess what I’m trying to say is, “Isn’t God amazing?”

Sailing Through Life With A Smile

2010-08-06T19:23:00.002-05:00

I was driving home from Church a few weeks back and I happened to glance in the rearview mirror and realized that the woman behind me, driving a rather large SUV, was flossing her teeth. With two hands doing the flossing there were no hands left for the steering wheel. I’ve heard some car companies suggest that their vehicles practically drive themselves. At this particular moment I was hoping the claim was true.

And, to make matters worse, while I was using my rearview mirror to check on what was going on behind me (something my Driver’s Ed. instructor told me I was supposed to do every eight seconds) this woman was using hers to check her smile.

Now, I have nothing against good oral hygiene, but I wanted to say to the woman with the clean teeth, “WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?” And then I found myself praying for a complete stranger in a big SUV who happened to have a nice smile.

This picture in my rearview mirror was also a reminder to me that the world around me is outside of my control. I can order my own life to the best of my ability (keep both hands on the wheel and pay attention to where I’m headed) and still be run down by someone who thinks they are somehow exempted from common sense.

This, in turn, reminded me that I really do need to trust in someone who is bigger than me; someone who is bigger than SUV’s and inattentive drivers.

Some people might call this need for someone to order my “order-less” life a weakness but I think of it as just being smart. If I know that there are large segments of my life that are beyond my control it seems to me that I (we) need to give control to someone who can take the randomness of our lives and make it meaningful.

I’m not talking about a self-centered protectionism. This is not a relationship that exempts me from the stupidity of the people around me. But, this is a relationship that can help to make sense out of the stupidity that we see lived out every day. In His own miraculous way, our God is able to take the “out-of-control” and use it to transform the world. I’m just saying. You have to pay attention.

Run Away Life

2010-07-28T09:08:00.000-05:00

I apologize for being away so long but these last couple of months have been crazy.

For those of you who don’t know us that well, Julie and I found out at the end of January that we were being reappointed to Community United Methodist Church in Elm Grove, Wisconsin and since that time we have shopped for and found a house to purchase, arranged for new flooring, appliances and countertop, sorted through 15 years of accumulated memories, packed our entire lives into boxes, moved to New Berlin, unpacked countless boxes and tried to create some form of a “new normal” life.

What I have been learning (and not for the first time) is that “life” has a way of grabbing you by the nose and leading you from one challenge (or opportunity) to another, leaving you very little time for the things you want to do or for things you know you should do.

It’s an interesting thought...to be enslaved by our own lives. To paraphrase Walt Kelly, “I have seen the enemy and he is me.” To paraphrase the Apostle Paul, “our battle isn’t against flesh and blood (other people)”, our real battle is against our own desires, our dreams and fears.

Jesus’ message has always been that if we are willing to trust in Him He will help us re-order our lives. He can change the way we see ourselves and the way we see everything around us. Jesus can fulfill our dreams and take away our fears. This is the kind of help we all need.

So, as I watch my life run away with me I realize that I need His help. The temptation will always be to work harder or get up earlier and try to bend my life to my will. I have played that game and lost a number of times. Our help will always be found in Jesus. That’s the first thing we need to recognize and then we need to learn to lean on Him.

Spiritual Meatloaf

2010-05-12T22:25:00.003-05:00

May 12th:
The other day I was enjoying a meatloaf sandwich (some things are just better leftover) and mid-bite a morsel of ketchup and mayo covered meatloaf fell out of the sandwich, bounced down my shirt and on to my pants. It’s one of the risks one accepts when you’re dealing with culinary perfection. Consequently, after the sandwich was gone I went to change into a spot-free outfit.

As I was going through my clothing change I thought back to my childhood to a time when my shirtsleeves were my napkins and dirt simply wasn’t that big of a deal. This led me to wonder what it is about youth that makes appearance such a non-issue and what it is about adulthood that makes appearance such a big deal.

I’m not sure I have all of the complexities of this issue figured out, but the word that came to mind was “oblivious.” It seems to me that children have a tendency to be oblivious to what is happening around them including what other people think. Ketchup spots just don’t register.

The question then became, “When Jesus suggested that we all need to be like children was he encouraging us to be “oblivious” to the world around us?” I don’t think so. Jesus sends us into the world to “seek and save the lost.” That doesn’t happen unless we care and in order to care we have to pay attention.

Maybe what Jesus was saying is that we need to learn to be “oblivious” to ourselves. We need to surrender ourselves to God’s love for us and then (because we are convinced of that love) we will begin to understand how unimportant all of the temporary things in our lives really are. Ketchup spots just don’t matter and neither does the style of our clothes or the size of our houses. We are not the sum total of our things. We are special because God declares it so. The challenge of faith (for those of us beyond our childhood) is to be oblivious to our own lives and passionately involved with everyone else.

Like I said, I’m not sure I have all of the complexities of this issue figured out, but I am working on it. One thing I do know for sure. I like meatloaf sandwiches.

The Value of Things

2010-04-24T20:21:00.001-05:00

April 24th.
At one point in our house search we made an offer on a house that had been on the market for over 500 days. This house was priced higher than what we wanted to spend and when we looked at all of the details we decided that it was priced higher than what it was actually worth. So, in real estate lingo, we made a “low ball” offer which was, not so promptly, rebuffed. My Dad used to always say that things were only worth what someone was willing to pay. We (buyers and seller) had a difference of opinion about value.

This difference of opinion actually moved us to make an offer on an alternate house that, it ends up, will be our future home. So, we are convinced that this whole part of the process was God directed.

As we prepare to move we have been living out a different kind of “value” experiment. Our Denomination pays to move the first 12,000-pounds of our stuff and after that we get charged something like 39 cents for each additional pound. A representative of the moving company has already estimated that our load will be 14,000-pounds which means that we have to dispose of a ton of stuff. The bottom line is that “valuable” things have a place in a moving box, things that don’t matter end up in the garbage or in a bag headed for Good Will.

When you are forced to sort through your entire life you begin to realize (rather quickly) that “value” has very little to do with how much money something can generate. We have already given away items that cost us hundreds of dollars to buy and then, in contrast to that, there are pieces of paper covered with crayon marks that I would never sell for any price. Value is an interesting thing.

I often say that if you want a sense of how valuable you are all you have to do is look at the cross where Jesus died. Jesus came to save us from our brokenness to sin and to bridge the gap between God and us. The price required to accomplish this miracle of salvation was Jesus’ life. This is how much God was willing to pay and subsequently this is how much you and I are worth to Him.

This value conversation is worth spreading around. Everyone should hear that they are important enough to God that He was willing to surrender Himself to the cross. I mean, once people understand the incredible price that was paid for them maybe they will begin to live like they are people of value. Then maybe those valuable people will begin to treat the people around them like they are valuable as well. Value is an interesting thing. It can change the world.

Fortune Cookie Wisdom

2010-04-18T17:30:00.002-05:00

April 18th.
So, my fortune cookie said, “Be calm and collected, peace is a virtue.” To which I replied, (Yes, I’m having a conversation with a cookie) “Peace is a fruit of the Spirit.” I didn’t dig it up from somewhere it is part of the gift of a changed life that Jesus offers those of us who trust Him. My cookie’s only response was an opportunity for me to learn how to say “popcorn” in Chinese. Popcorn?

So, I moved on to my second cookie (they’re small), which said, “You have executive ability. Apply this in the future!” and I found myself saying, “Oh, all right…Hey!” (Which would be a rather obscure “It’s A Wonderful Life” reference.) I’m not sure I like this “mini-cake’s” implication. I didn’t even bother with the lucky numbers.

The third (they’re only 10 calories) said, “You have a flair for adding a fanciful dimension to any story.” We call that the “5th Dimension”, thank you.

The last of my Chinese treats said, “Analyze only when necessary” to which I replied, “It is always necessary.” Being a follower of Jesus means always paying attention to the details of life. Being one of Jesus’ Disciples means I am always analyzing, not only my actions, but also my motivation. Being Christian means always paying attention to the people I meet and to the things that are happening around me. There is no automatic pilot in the Christian life. I need to be introspective and realistic, contemplative and practical. So should we all.

I don’t place much store in fortune cookie fortunes, but they make a decent low cal snack and every once in a while they even make me think. In case you’re wondering the Chinese word for “July” is “qi yue.”

Time To Modulate

2010-04-10T18:41:00.001-05:00

April 10th.
I am beginning to feel more and more like John the Baptist.

John had a particular role to play in God’s plan and for a time he took his place on center stage in order to prepare the way for Jesus. For a time John had everyone’s attention, he was making a difference, he was gathering disciples and he even had the Pharisees coming to listen to his preaching.

For a time he was famous, but, then things changed. John’s role in God’s plan was played out and it was time for him to step aside and point to the one who was coming. I have no doubt that John knew his place. I believe he understood his part, but I have begun to suspect that John’s transition from center stage to supporting player wasn’t as easy or as seamless for him as it has always been presented.

In his definition for “transition” Webster uses the word “passage” which makes it sound like John was (and we are) on a journey of some sort and I believe the word captures what was (and is) happening. He was (and we are) on a journey. It is just that this journey is measured in relationships instead of in miles.

I am beginning to understand how hard it is to let go of something when you have spent a significant amount of time learning to care about what will soon be behind you. The only thing that would have made it tolerable for John (and for us) was his certainty that God was at work and the conviction that stepping aside was the best way for God’s plan to be worked out.

When we talk about transitions in music we use the word “modulation” which means a change from one key to another. The song doesn’t stop it just moves in a new direction and often times the movement brings new energy and excitement to the tune.

Let’s just say that it is time to modulate. I wonder if John was a singer.

After The Party Is Over

2010-04-01T22:14:00.002-05:00

April 1:
In my life Thanksgiving was one of the few times when the entire extended family gathered in the same room at the same time and I was always excited about that particular meal because it meant that the cousins and aunts and uncles were all coming from exotic places like Nebraska and Iowa. We called it “Thanksgiving” but we really spent our time celebrating family, good food, football and Canasta (in that order.)

We’ve all heard (or preached) messages before that suggest that sincere “thanksgiving” has to be something that happens inside our lives before it has a chance of being something we express on the outside of our lives. We’ve all learned that a big turkey dinner doesn’t make us automatically thankful for God’s blessings.

I started with American Thanksgiving because the Passover meal that Jesus and his disciples gathered to celebrate (on the day we call Maundy Thursday) was similar to our November holiday. It was also meant to be a time when God’s people paused to remember and celebrate God’s faithful love. It was a day to be thankful.

In Jesus’ day the meal would have been lamb, bitter herbs and unleavened bread. These menu items were a reminder of the lamb that was sacrificed and whose blood was spread over the doorposts of the houses, the bitterness of Israel’s slavery in Egypt and fact that they were leaving in a hurry (no time for the bread to rise.) Everything they ate or drank in their Passover gathering was meant to remind them to be thankful for what God had done. But, like our thanksgiving gatherings just gathering to eat the meal was not the same as being thankful. What they did after the party was over was far more meaningful.

Judas stayed for dinner with Jesus and he even hung around while Jesus washed the disciple’s feet. But after that was over he left and arranged to betray Jesus to his enemies. The other disciples stayed for dinner and the foot washing and even some teaching time after that but then all they wanted was a nap. So when Jesus asked them to stay awake with him and pray they all went to sleep. Then when the soldiers finally came to arrest Jesus they protested for a few moments but eventually they all ran off to hide.

For those of us who gather to celebrate Maundy Thursday, the question shouldn’t be, “How many times did I come to dinner?” The question should be, “What will I do after the dinner is over?”

I would suggest that (rather than emulate Judas) we must never act like everything we do in the congregation is meaningless and empty and (unlike the other disciples) we should never fall asleep to the opportunities and challenges that come with being a follower of Jesus. The world is watching!

So, the question remains, “What will you do now that the dinner is over?” Hopefully we will all go out and help Jesus change the world.

Dinner With The Dead

2010-03-24T09:30:00.002-05:00

March 24th:
John 12:1-8
1Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2Here a dinner was given in Jesus' honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. 3Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

4But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5"Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages." 6He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

7"Leave her alone," Jesus replied. "It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me."

This is a lunch that is rich with symbolism.

On the surface this seems like an ordinary gathering. Jesus was in town and was invited to a luncheon in his honor that was being held at the home of a man known as Simon the leper. Simon was known as “the leper” because he had been a leper but Jesus had healed him. So, this was an “ordinary” lunch being hosted by a man who had for years been considered dead to the world but was now alive again.

Attending this dinner were the 12 disciples and Jesus’ good friends Mary, her sister Martha and their brother Lazarus, who had been dead for four days and was called out of his tomb by Jesus. So, it was just an ordinary lunch being hosted by a man who had been socially and emotionally dead and attended by a man who had been physically dead and had been raised to life by the power of God. OK, so it’s not so ordinary, but it is interesting.

And then, somewhere during their time together, Mary decided to offer Jesus a very expensive gift. She took a bottle of perfumed oil, about the size of a ½ liter bottle of water, and poured it on Jesus’ feet. This was oil that was extracted from the roots of a plant which grew in the Himalayan Mountains. It had to be processed and imported and so it was very expensive to buy. Some people even bought it as an investment. This oil (nard) was so precious that it was used to anoint “kings” and, in her mind, that may have been exactly what Mary was doing. She saw the kind of impact Jesus’ ministry had on people. She knew that they were on the verge of something big. She could very well have been anointing her king for his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

And this was the next event in the life of Jesus. After this “ordinary” dinner Jesus would be riding into the city of Jerusalem on the back of a colt (which, by the way, was how conquering kings entered a city) and people would stand on the side of the roadway and wave palm branches in the air.

Mary may have been anointing her king, but Jesus knew that she was anointing him for his burial. Jesus knew that he was going to Jerusalem to die.

Against this backdrop we have Judas Iscariot complaining about money.

Simon and Lazarus recognized Jesus to be the Lord of life. Mary recognized Jesus as her king. Jesus was preparing to ride into Jerusalem to sacrifice his life for the sin of the world and all that Judas cared about was a few dollars.

Judas was sitting in the presence of a man who had healed Simon the leper and called Lazarus from his grave. Judas was sitting in the presence of a man who had walked on water, healed the blind, multiplied loaves and fish and forgave sin and all that Judas could see was that someone was being overly generous with some perfume.

It struck me that we often struggle with this same kind of “blindness.” Judas saw but he did not see because he was so focused on temporary things that he missed all of the really important things that were unfolding around him.

How many people do you know whose lives have been changed by their relationship to Jesus? If you haven’t seen them yet, then you need to start paying attention because they are all around you. How often have you paused to admire the complexity of a leaf or marveled at the birth of a child and missed seeing the hand of God at work in these amazingly “ordinary” things? It is time for us all to open our eyes so that we might see what has been right in front of us “hiding in plain sight.”

Lent is supposed to move us to look at things we rarely see and recall things we have forgotten. Easter is supposed to remind us again of a God who loved us too much to leave us alone, but instead came into our lives to save us from ourselves. Judas wasn’t seeing what was right in front of him. We should never make that mistake.

Calling The Prodigal Home

2010-03-18T19:15:00.002-05:00

March 18th:
Luke 15:11-32 (in the New Testament) is one of the most familiar parables that Jesus told; the story of the “prodigal son.”

There are a number of memorable characters in this short story and most of us find ourselves relating to one or the other of them. However, what often gets missed as we follow the progress of this run away boy is that this “made-up” story was addressed to two groups of real people.

It struck me that if we are going to get any real value out of this bit of teaching we might want to take a look at who the story was being told to.

The first group was “tax collectors and "sinners." Jesus had a habit of reaching out to those people who were the outcasts of society. Tax collectors were Jews who worked for the Roman government and they were considered to be the worst kind of traitors. The Romans didn’t care how much money the tax collectors collected as long as they got their cut. So, tax collectors basically extorted money from everyone and used Roman soldiers for protection.

“Sinners” is a word that would have included people like prostitutes, the physically crippled and even lepers. These were the members of society that honest, decent people avoided. These were the members of this society that were considered to be un-redeemable. I would assume that when you’ve been told for years that you are not acceptable that after a time you wouldn’t even want to try anymore. Jesus was a ray of hope for people who had no hope.

The other “real” people in the story were the “Pharisees and the teachers of the law.” They were the ones who spent their lives telling people what they could and could not do. They were the ones who determined who the “real sinners” were and who was “in” and who was “out.” They weren’t very “gracious” and they didn’t offer a lot of “mercy.” They were “hardnosed religious types.”

It was to these two groups of “real” people that Jesus told this story about two sons. The older son was a good boy. He stayed home, he did his work and he followed the rules. The younger son was just the opposite. He turned his back on his “decent” family and ran off to do the kinds of things that decent people don’t do. In fact, he went so far away and so far off the deep end that his family considered him dead. He was lost to them physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Most of the story is about how this “prodigal son” came to his senses and decided to return home to his father, but the point of the story isn’t so much about his decision to return as it is about the responses of his father and his older brother.

The older brother could only see how he, himself, had been “offended.” He was acting morally superior, which was bad enough but his real problem was that he had no mercy in his life. He had no forgiveness in his heart, no grace to offer. He wanted his brother to stay dead. The father (on the other hand) saw what was really happening. He loved his son and understood that the son was stepping from death back into life. The father was willing to forgive and welcome his “lost son” back into the family.

But we have to come back to the fact that this make believe story was being told to two groups of real people and the implications are pretty clear. The tax collectors and sinners are the “son who walked away” from the family. They were the ones who had made poor choices and had found themselves far away and lost. The Pharisees and teachers of the Law were the “elder son” who chose to be offended and had forgotten about things like mercy and grace. They cared more about being right than they did about these other people. At least on the surface, they were the ones who were following the rules and doing their jobs, but they had no heart.

And the application is also fairly clear. If you have wandered away and your life is coming apart IT IS TIME TO COME HOME. Your heavenly Father is waiting for you to come and will welcome you back into the family. He wants you to move from death to life.

If you have never strayed then you need to remember that IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU! Be grateful for all that you have been given and learn to care about those “lost” brothers and sisters. Don’t turn them away. Invite them home. This is OUR job.

Home Blessed

2010-03-04T21:29:00.002-06:00

March 4:
For the first time in my life I am feeling homeless. It’s not like we are out on the street or living under a bridge. We still have a roof over our heads. It’s just that, for the first time in our lives, we know that we are leaving where are living now (we are here on limited time) but we don’t know where we are going to end up.

Normal people do this all the time. It’s just that for the last thirty plus years we have been parsonage dwellers. I don’t have time nor space to elaborate on parsonage living (it has both advantages and disadvantages) but let me just say that we are looking forward to being first time homeowners. But, until we find the house that God has set aside for us we are in a kind of property limbo. I guess it would be more accurate to call us “property-less” or “place where we keep all of our stuff-less.” Whatever the label, it’s still a little unnerving.

I have always heard it said, “home is where the heart is.” What this means is that I actually have a number of “homes.” I gave my heart to Jesus thirty-seven years ago and I have been trying to keep myself from taking it back every day since. As of this moment, it still belongs to Him (at least a sizeable piece of it.) My wife and children all lay claim to pieces of my heart as well. When I think of them I think of many of those things that make life special.

Ok, I take it back. I’m not “homeless” I am “home blessed.” I’m just not certain where I’ll park the car after July 1st.

You know, I'd be willing to bet that, if you think about it, you will discover you are “home blessed” as well.

In It For The Long Haul

2010-02-22T15:42:00.001-06:00

February 22:
So, I’ve been off blog for a while, but I have a good reason. Or maybe I should say that I have a bunch of reasons. Three weeks ago just before Sunday services the District Superintendent (my supervisor) sat in my office and asked me to consider taking a different appointment. In short, I was being asked to move from Fort Atkinson (where I have served for fifteen years) to serve the Church in Elm Grove.

The idea of moving wasn’t really a problem. Of course it would be hard to leave the home where we raised our children and the many friends we have made over the past fifteen years. But, when I decided to go into this line of work I signed up to go where I was sent. I fully expected that one day we would be asked to move to another assignment.

The problem with the whole process was that I was asked to make this move on Sunday, the 31st of January and then I was expected to keep it all a secret until yesterday and we did. But, it was three weeks of not sleeping and not eating well. It would make a great weight loss program if I could figure out some way of synthesizing the constant anxiety.

If you throw into the mix three funerals, one of those for the 22-year-old son of our office manager, a boy I’ve seen grow up for the last fifteen years and you might understand a bit of the tension I was feeling. I was having a hard time even writing in complete sentences. This is not intended to be a “pity party” and I’m not looking for sympathy. I just wanted to clarify the reasons for my silence…and maybe vent a little bit…OK, maybe just a little sympathy.

But, what’s been bothering me beneath the surface of all this tension is that I keep hearing those words in my head, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.” Philippians 4:6 (that’s in the New Testament.)

“Be anxious for nothing?” I understand the “prayer and supplication” part. This making “my requests known to God” thing is easy for me. I believe in prayer. I believe it draws me closer to my Lord and gives me the perspective I sometimes desperately need. I want God to hear about my wants and needs. It keeps me open and honest with Him. This I can do.

I get the “with thanksgiving” part. There isn’t anything I have that hasn’t come to me directly from this God who has loved me first. Thanksgiving is fundamental. But, I’ve learned a thing or two about anxiety over these last three weeks and I have been reminded, again, of just how small my faith can be.

So, I guess the bar has just been raised a bit and I have just identified another one of my growing edges. This is a good thing because I do want to grow in my faith. I’ve been reminding my congregation that being a Christian is not a sprint it is a marathon. I am in it for the long haul.

The Pain Of Caring

2010-01-27T21:11:00.000-06:00

January 27th:
I have been living in a delusion.

I have always said (mostly to myself) that I am too sensitive to do the work that I do. I take everything personally. Complaints and criticism make my stomach roil. I am always ready to quit on Monday. All of these things together had me thinking that I was unsuited for the work I do and I had begun to wonder why God had called me to this particular service.

Then, some years ago I read an article that suggested that Mondays were the most natural day for pastors to take-off because, doing what they do on most Sundays means that on Mondays, they are going through adrenaline withdrawal. The symptoms include physical exhaustion and depression. So, apparently the Monday “thing” was a “natural” drug induced state of dissatisfaction. Who would have guessed?

And then I began to realize that when we decide to care we also decide to be disappointed and dissatisfied and discontented. It happens like night follows day. It sounds redundant (and it is) but if I don’t care then I DON’T CARE. People can do whatever they want, believe whatever they want and act out in whatever way they choose and it will mean nothing to me. But, on the other hand, when I care, then I CARE and it hurts when people hurt themselves and others. It hurts when people manipulate and abuse the people around them. It hurts when people walk away from a God who has loved them. It should hurt.

Years ago, I was trying to minister in one particularly difficult congregation and every day I had to deal with complaints and criticism. In the midst of this turmoil the Staff-Parish Relations Committee chairperson said to me that I should just learn to not care so much. My response was, “Do you really want a pastor who doesn’t care?” The answer should be obvious.

At the time, the pain of those personal attacks was so constant that I missed the obvious lesson. Anyone who really cares will risk the possibility of being hurt. This is not “bad,” it just is. This is not “pleasant,” it just is.

I decided that I have to choose. I can either care (with all of its attendant pain) or I can protect myself and let people go to hell (literally and figuratively.) I choose to care. Which means that I won’t always be happy and I will never be satisfied with my performance. Let’s call it “holy discontent” or “compassionate dissatisfaction,” but let’s recognize that it is indeed the cross we have been called to bear.

Holding Each Other Accountable

2010-01-23T20:23:00.001-06:00

January 23rd:

I don’t want to sound like I’m picking on John Edwards but hearing his “revelation” got me thinking about our cultural attitudes toward commitment.

In the church we use the word “covenant” which is a term that has become somewhat passé in 21st century North America. In secular society we use the word “contract” and these two terms (covenant & contract) are similar but there is a subtle distinction that I want to explore.

Technically, both words describe a “formal agreement.” The difference for me is that a “contract” can be between two people, but a covenant almost always involves at least a third. Let me try to illustrate what I’m thinking.

The God of Israel called His people into a “covenant relationship” with Him. There were expectations for both sides and promises were made. But, the final piece of this “covenant” was circumcision (now we’re talking commitment). Circumcision became the visible expression of the covenant. The whole nation of Israel was supposed to carry with them a physical symbol of their agreement and everyone was a witness to it. Let’s move on…

In a wedding, couples make promises to each other in the presence of both God and witnesses. Then they exchange rings. The rings are (as the ceremony says) the “outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, signifying to all the uniting of this man and this woman in holy matrimony.” In this way, the whole world is being given the opportunity to witness this “covenant commitment.” I often say that we are sending newly married couples out into the world to be “evangelists” for commitment.

When we join a congregation (Church with a big “C”) we are often asked (and rightly so) to make a public testimony to our faith in Jesus Christ. This is because we are entering into a covenant relationship that involves us, our God and all those people we call the “church” (church with a small “c.”) The church (and the Church) are supposed to hold us accountable to this covenant promise. The whole thing is reflected in the words of Jesus when he said that our two obligations are to “love the Lord our God” and “love our neighbors as we love ourselves.”

Here’s where I’m headed.
What I often see reflected in the modern Church is a desire for a relationship with God that has room for only two. I think we’re missing something. I admit that I may splitting hairs here, but it seems to me that what we have been offered is a personal relationship with the living God that is made real because of our place in God’s family. It has to run in both directions. If we want to be the best we can be and if we want to be all that God wants us to be we have to be willing to be covenant people.

Confession Is Good For The Soul

2010-01-21T21:25:00.001-06:00

January 21st:

Here’s the headline that caught my eye this morning:
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards finally admitted Thursday he fathered a child during an affair before his second White House bid, dropping long-standing denials…

Was anyone really surprised? Most of us read all of the details of this story months ago while we were standing in the checkout line at the local grocery store. Some of us were convinced at that time that the story was true. Some of us were assuming (or hoping) that what we were reading would be better grouped with the stories about alien abductions.

I was one of those people who was hoping all the stories were just rumors. Infidelity (marital disloyalty) is sad enough but when you add in a wife fighting cancer, grown (and not so grown) children, another woman and a baby named Quinn it becomes contemptible. I wasn’t being naïve about the possibility. I’ve seen it all before. I was just hoping.

I am always fascinated with the popular assumption (even held by many believers in God) that as long as no one has a picture and there is no “money trail” that somehow we have gotten away with something.

The truth is that we have a tendency to act as if our God is both blind and deaf or that He sees and hears but doesn’t care. I choose to believe that neither of these propositions is true. In fact, one of the great promises of the Christian faith is that our God knows all about us (even our secrets) and He loves us anyway. He is not blind to our infidelities (our lack of faith) and he is not deaf to our disloyalty. He simply sees within us the possibility that (with His help) we can be better than we ever dreamed.

Let’s face it, we all mess it up from time to time. We all make bad choices. We all speak without thinking. We all find ourselves in situations where we are willing to sacrifice other people’s best interests for our own self-interests. We live broken lives. What we need to recognize is that we’ve already been caught.

The really good news is that Jesus came to heal this broken world and all of its broken people. It’s a healing that begins when we are willing to trust Him to transform our lives. This journey to new life begins when we admit that we need what only He can provide. We call it “confession.”

The fact that John Edwards has finally gotten to that point where he is willing to admit to his failure (for whatever reasons) could be a good sign. Knowing you’ve been caught is the hardest part. Let’s hope and pray that the rest of his journey can bring some healing to all of those involved.

What About Haiti?

2010-01-18T20:08:00.000-06:00

January 18th:
Let me take a stab at a difficult question. You should never try to do theology in 500 words or less, but I’ll give it a shot.

The day after Haiti was devastated by a massive earthquake the Rev. Pat Robertson made the following statement:
"They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."

I have never thought of Rev. Robertson as much of a theologian. He has a history of making statements that seem to be based on nothing more than private revelation. Private revelation is a part of the process, but it always needs to be tested. I’m not sure he feels the need to go to that next step.

Anyway, his statement has raised a couple of questions that many people ask after disasters like this one. “How did this happen?” and “Why did this happen?” The two questions always seem to be connected.

Rev. Robertson implies that this earthquake was the direct action of the almighty God (that’s the “how”) and that it was a punishment for the behavior of the Haitian people (that would be the “why.”) This is actually a fairly popular assumption, just not on this scale. There are a lot of people who expect that God will (or should) reward them for their behavior and since they see themselves as basically good they are expecting a nice, three bedroom ranch in heaven, after a long, fulfilling life, which ends with them slipping away peacefully in their sleep. So, then if they don’t get what they expect, the assumption is that God didn’t come through. So, anything short of our expectations becomes proof that God hates us.

Most people are a bit repulsed by the idea that the same God who is supposed to reward might decide to punish. However, no matter how unnerving it might be for us, knowing that God cares enough about our good behavior to take notes, assumes that he will be making note of our bad behavior as well. I guess what we want is a God who cares about the nice things we do and ignores everything else. That doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Having said all of this let me offer a slightly different model for all that we have seen happening around us.

Let’s picture God as our heavenly Father. He wants the best for us. He wants us to choose to do the right thing. He could (but won’t) choose for us because it would make us into puppets and any love or faith we might express would be a sham. So, he gives us a certain amount of control over how we live our lives. He could take it away at any time, but because he loves us he lets us choose and then holds us accountable for the choices we make. What He wants most of all is for us to trust Him. He offers us a relationship with Him that is built upon trust.

This Father doesn’t need to micro-manage every wind that blows or storm that comes. This Father has set up a system that is, for the most part, self-sustaining. Why do I say that? Because, it is observable. He “could” micro-manage if He wanted to but if He stepped in and changed the rules every time he felt like it, we would all go nuts, literally crazy. So, we live in a broken world where, sometimes, continental plates shift and the earth moves, buildings fall down and people get hurt.

This heavenly Father wants us to know Him. To know that no matter what happens around us He will love us and sustain us. This heavenly Father wants us to “love our neighbors as we love ourselves.” Which means that when the earth moves and people get hurt it should move us to do all we can to care for them.

Ok, 700 words or less.

What About The Hungry? Part 3.

2010-01-17T17:18:00.004-06:00

I was thinking about how to continue this conversation and I was re-reading some of what John Wesley had to say on the subject. I decided to include it here.

John Wesley on Giving: Serving God with Mammon
John Wesley's wisdom for hard economic times: EARN all you can, SAVE all you can, and GIVE all you can.
A Sermon on Luke 16:9

"'The love of money,' we know, 'is the root of all evil;' but not the thing itself. The fault does not lie in the money, but in them that use it. It may be used ill: and what may not? But it may likewise be used well: It is full as applicable to the best, as to the worst uses. It is of unspeakable service to all civilized nations, in all the common affairs of life: It is a most compendious instrument of transacting all manner of business, and (if we use it according to Christian wisdom) of doing all manner of good."

"It is true, were man in a state of innocence, or were all men 'filled with the Holy Ghost,' so that, like the infant Church at Jerusalem, 'no man counted anything he had his own,' but 'distribution was made to everyone as he had need,' the use of it would be superseded; as we cannot conceive there is anything of the kind among the inhabitants of heaven. But, in the present state of mankind, it is an excellent gift of God, answering the noblest ends. In the hands of his children, it is food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, raiment for the naked: It gives to the traveller and the stranger where to lay his head. By it we may supply the place of an husband to the widow, and of a father to the fatherless. We maybe a defence for the oppressed, a means of health to the sick, of ease to them that are in pain; it may be as eyes to the blind, as feet to the lame; yea, a lifter up from the gates of death!"

"It is therefore of the highest concern that all who fear God know how to employ this valuable talent; that they be instructed how it may answer these glorious ends, and in the highest degree. And, perhaps, all the instructions which are necessary for this may be reduced to three plain rules, by the exact observance whereof we may approve ourselves faithful stewards of 'the mammon of unrighteousness.'"

"The first of these is (he that heareth, let him understand!) 'Gain all you can.' Here we may speak like the children of the world: We meet them on their own ground. And it is our bounden duty to do this: We ought to gain all we can gain, without buying gold too dear, without paying more for it than it is worth. But this it is certain we ought not to do; we ought not to gain money at the expense of life, nor (which is in effect the same thing) at the expense of our health." …

"Having gained all you can, by honest wisdom and unwearied diligence, the second rule of Christian prudence is, 'Save all you can.' Do not throw the precious talent into the sea: Leave that folly to heathen philosophers. Do not throw it away in idle expenses, which is just the same as throwing it into the sea. Expend no part of it merely to gratify the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life." …

"But let not any man imagine that he has done anything, barely by going thus far, by 'gaining and saving all he can,' if he were to stop here. All this is nothing, if a man go not forward, if he does not point all this at a farther end. Nor, indeed, can a man properly be said to save anything, if he only lays it up. You may as well throw your money into the sea, as bury it in the earth. And you may as well bury it in the earth, as in your chest, or in the Bank of England. Not to use, is effectually to throw it away. If, therefore, you would indeed 'make yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness,' add the Third rule to the two preceding. Having, First, gained all you can, and, Secondly saved all you can, Then 'give all you can.'" …

"I entreat you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, act up to the dignity of your calling! No more sloth! Whatsoever your hand findeth to do, do it with your might! No more waste! Cut off every expense which fashion, caprice, or flesh and blood demand! No more covetousness! But employ whatever God has entrusted you with, in doing good, all possible good, in every possible kind and degree to the household of faith, to all men! This is no small part of 'the wisdom of the just.' Give all ye have, as well as all ye are, a spiritual sacrifice to Him who withheld not from you his Son, his only Son: So 'laying up in store for yourselves a good foundation against the time to come, that ye may attain eternal life!'"

The full text of this sermon (The Use of Money, Sermon #50) appears in the United Methodist archives: http://gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/

What About The Hungry? Part 2.

2010-01-16T00:39:00.000-06:00

January 16th:
Jesus said…
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

So, what do we do about Phil? (Not his real name.) What do we do with the people I call “professional users?” Phil has been in and out of the court system for 20 years. He is a registered sex offender (convicted twice of misdemeanor sexual assault.) He’s not a rapist. He’s not a child molester. He’s been arrested for domestic abuse; he’s been sued for not paying his rent. Phil has spent most of the last 20 years hitting up anyone he can for a free meal or a few nights in a flophouse motel. It’s not his fault. He explains that to anyone who will listen.

What do we do with Phil? He is not easy to deal with. To say that his social skills need work would be an understatement. Phil has learned to use guilt like a tool. Truth has little meaning for him. He believes that God should fix his problems. What do we do with Phil?

Part of me thinks that Phil needs consequences. If he has to spend a night out in the cold maybe he will put some of his energy into changing his life. It should make a difference. Except Phil is a hard case. He has been dealing with consequences for the last 20 years. What consequences have taught Phil is that he has to work even harder trying to “button hole” someone new.

Part of me thinks that Phil needs compassion. If he just understood that someone really cared about him then maybe he would respond to that love and turn away from his empty life. But, Phil has learned to see compassion as a weakness that can be exploited. For Phil compassionate people are a resource.

All of me thinks that Phil needs Jesus. Jesus is the one who can transform even Phil’s broken and diseased heart. Jesus can change the way Phil sees his life and point him away from his slavery. Jesus can do this kind of work in Phil’s life, but Phil has learned to not listen to this message of hope. He’s been too busy surviving.

Having said all of this the question remains, “What do we do with Phil?” Does his dysfunctional past and our continual ineffectiveness mean that we don’t have to care about him anymore? Does the fact that he makes caring hard mean that we stop trying? I don’t think so. I don’t think that we’ve been given that option. Our resources are often limited, but our calling is clear.

We are called to love. How people respond to that love is not for us to decide. We can’t let the Philips in the world determine how we live out our relationship with the living Jesus. We can’t let those who will not hear keep us from speaking. We cannot let those who will not be changed keep us from offering the opportunity.

When it comes to Phil I have to admit that I don’t have answers. I cannot change him, but I can still determine to be faithful; to love and give and take on the hard cases. Sometimes being faithful is all we can do.

What About The Hungry? Part 1.

2010-01-15T17:16:00.001-06:00

January 15th:
Jesus said…
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

As followers of Jesus, we have been trying to take Him at his word. On the surface, it sounds like it shouldn’t be that hard. Those who have the money and the time to serve give a little of what they’ve been blessed with to care for those who are struggling. The hungry get fed and the homeless are provided with shelter. Piece of cake (no pun intended.) After all, it’s not that big of a sacrifice. If everyone would set aside a little (say 10%) of what they have been blessed with there should be plenty enough to go around.

But what happens if all of us get over extended? What happens if we get caught up trying to keep up with all the many things we’ve filled our own lives with? What happens if we don’t recognize how much we have been blessed? Then that little bit of time and that little bit of money never come. The hungry remain hungry. The homeless never find even a room of their own.

One of the problems that many of us have (we who have been so blessed) is that we don’t see the really needy. Our lives never take us to those places where the poor hang out. What that means is that it is easy for us to forget that the problem even exists. It’s easy for us to drop a quarter in the Salvation Army kettle and think that we have made a difference.

I might conclude this part of the discussion by saying, “something has to change” and (at least part of) that “something” is us. We have to open our eyes to see what is really happening in our world. We need a new heart for those who have been less blessed. We need a new willingness to sacrifice a little of what we have been given to make a difference in somebody else’s life. The Good News is that Jesus is in the “new eyes” and “new heart” business. He is the one who makes giving more of a privilege than a sacrifice. Let Jesus show you the way.

p.s. If you would like to help with the earthquake relief in Haiti, you can donate through the United Methodist Church at umc.org. 100% of what you contribute will go to the relief effort.

Just Another Good Beginning

2010-01-13T21:45:00.001-06:00

January 13:
I assumed this day would come. I just didn’t think it would come so soon.

When I started this electronic diary I seemed to be able to just crank them out. For a time I actually considered making this a daily blog. I was being naïve. I have that problem.

And then one day (it seems so long ago) I realized that I didn’t know what I wanted to say. It’s not that I stopped having new thoughts. I have a whole collection of un-posted blog entries that are nothing but clever beginnings. At this point they are simply words that go nowhere. For a while I toyed with the idea of trying to convert Wesley’s Child into a fill-in-the-blank blog. But, again, it was the beginning of an idea that is going nowhere.

So, I guess I will just have to be patient with myself. I’m assuming that at some point this “bloggers block” (a sort of 21st century writers block) will work itself out. In the mean time I will keep writing beginnings and wait for the endings to come.

Life is like that. (I feel an ending coming on.) Getting things started is easy. Getting things done is hard. I’ve started a hundred diets, sketched out a hundred unfinished paintings and written the first verse of a hundred poems. My life is littered with things undone.

In a similar way, deciding to follow Jesus is relatively easy. Following Jesus is hard. Lots of people have (as we say in the trade) “walked the aisle” (come forward to make a commitment to Jesus) but had it make no difference in their daily lives. I’ve said for years that the biggest problem we have is that the day after we commit our lives to following Christ we wake up in the same bed and go off to the same job we had the day before we made that commitment. This is where the church comes in. The church is a support group for people who are trying to live a Christian life. We need each other.

So, maybe I should work on my fill-in-the-blank blog. Wait! I’ve got another idea!

A Book Of Miracles

2010-01-10T18:27:00.002-06:00

January 10:
Here’s a peak at this morning’s conversation…

Over the years I have come to realize that I am not as good at this pastoring thing as I thought I would be when I first started.

When I first responded to Jesus’ call upon my life (thirty-five years ago) I thought that God was calling me to accomplish great things. After all, I understood that He had gifted me with a voice for singing and a heart for preaching and teaching. So, I pictured myself one day leading a large congregation that would reach thousands with the Good News about Jesus.

Looking back it sounds (even to me) like arrogance but I would actually call it ignorance. I honestly believed that the reason people didn’t trust in Jesus was that no one had made it clear enough how wonderful a relationship with Jesus really is. But, I was wrong. I didn’t really understand our capacity for hearing but not listening. I didn’t realize at the time how distracting our lives could really be.

For 35 years I have watched people attend church (some of them every Sunday for years) and still have it not affect the way that they live. I have watched as people listened to preaching (some of it very good preaching) and still not learn anything about their faith, their Savior, their Church or their lives. When I started, thirty-five years ago, I had confidence in my abilities. I am far less confident today.

But what I have also noticed over the last 35 years is that when people begin to read and study the Bible it changes their lives. This is not something that I profess to understand. This is simply an observation. The writer of Hebrews (in the New Testament) said, “…the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit…and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

We’re not talking about some sort of Christian magic. There is no mystical blessing attached to this tome. This book is like any book; paper and ink. But the Author, the one behind the hands that actually penned the text, has a way of speaking through the text directly to our hearts.

This is why people like me will say (over and over again) to congregations of people that they have to spend time in the Bible. It will change your life. Don’t ask me to explain it. Just try it. This is the power of God’s word.

So, if you see yourself on a spiritual journey this is the one thing that you must commit yourself to. Open up your Bible and take the time to read it and studying it. This book, unlike any other book, will allow God to speak to your soul.

Some people think that we call it a book of miracles because it is filled with amazing stories of what God has done. But, we should call it a “book full of miracles” because it works miracles in our lives.

Living With Hate Mongers and Idiots

2010-01-09T18:12:00.000-06:00

January 9:
Most of the country has been blanketed in cold this winter. I suppose it seems kind of strange if you’re living in Florida or Texas, but for those of us who live in Wisconsin it’s all fairly normal.

There is, however, an interesting wintertime tradition in Wisconsin. Nobody seems to remember, from year to year, what winter is supposed to be like. I suspect the memory loss is somehow beer (or brandy) related, but it is consistent. So, even in Wisconsin people have been talking like this is the coldest it has ever been or like this is the most snow we’ve ever had to shovel. Let me testify that neither of those things is true. I suspect that some of the complaining comes from the fact that the weather is one of the few things that we can complain about without making somebody else mad.

My mother always told me that I wasn’t supposed to ask people about politics or religion. She thought it wasn’t polite. In retrospect, it was probably just smart. Politics, religion (and we should add “money” to this list) are all things that are personal. When things get personal we get uncomfortable and when we get uncomfortable we get defensive. All of a sudden conversation about things that might be hugely important get dismissed as the babbling of hate mongers and congenital idiots.

Since I regularly spend time trying to engage people in conversation about all three of the previously mentioned taboos, I guess I am, at least by some people’s definition, both a serial hater and intellectually challenged. And all I am trying to do is care about people. Somehow, caring isn’t enough.

What seems to be required for us to have meaningful conversations about these extremely personal topics is a huge level of trust. If I trust you and I am convinced that your motives are pure then I might even think about what you have to say.

That’s what makes pastoral ministry difficult. It is hard to talk about spiritual things with people who only show up sporadically, sit in the back and never interact with anyone else. It’s time for us all to recognize that it is not enough for Churches to simply count the number of attendees and assume that if the numbers go up that they are succeeding. And it isn’t enough for attendees to think that they can simply punch in and check out and it will somehow make them more holy. Trust requires more.

In the same way, trust is what makes friendships actually work. It’s not enough to just show up at Thanksgiving or send a card at Christmas time and assume that we are close. Trust requires commitment and commitment requires time.

So, interacting on Facebook or MySpace or reading someone’s blog (even if it is a daily blog) is not enough. It’s a start, but in order for us to talk about the really important things and in order for us to really care about each other we need more. Let’s hope and pray that we can find the time and the opportunity to spend time with the people we care about. Let’s hope and pray that we can learn to trust each other enough so we can care about each other even more.

I Remember Elvis

2010-01-08T22:30:00.001-06:00

January 8:
This is one of those stories that fascinates me…

“MEMPHIS, Tennessee (Reuters) - The cold couldn't keep them away from the "King."
Hundreds of Elvis Presley fans braved frigid, snowy weather to celebrate the late rock 'n 'roll legend's 75th birthday on Friday at his Graceland shrine, part of a marketing machine that generates $50 million a year.
"It feels like his presence is here," long-time Elvis devotee Debbie Bradshaw of Texas said during a tour of the Memphis mansion where Presley died in 1977 from heart failure, aged 42.
Some 1,500 people shivered and sang along with the early Presley hit "That's All Right" in 11-degree temperatures (minus 11.7 Celsius) as snowflakes swirled.”

Fifteen hundred people came to a birthday party for a man who died thirty-three years ago. Fifteen hundred people stood in 11-degree temperatures hoping for what? Hoping to do what? Is it a memorial? A tribute? Or is it like spending the day at Disney? I honestly don’t get it. Maybe they were serving really good cake.

I suppose you could say that they came to honor this man’s contribution to the music world. But, do you think there will be fifteen hundred people gathering on the 27th to remember Mozart’s birthday? He’s been dead 219 years. Is there a statute of limitations on honoring dead musical geniuses?

Now, this whole conversation might seem a bit strange coming from a guy who has chosen to build his life around a man who died almost 2000 years ago. So, what’s the difference between Elvis and Jesus? Jesus changed the world and Elvis changed the world. Not to the same degree as Jesus, but I admit that his contribution was significant. Jesus has followers. Elvis has followers. Not nearly as many as Jesus, but fifteen hundred people gathering in the cold after thirty-three years is quite an accomplishment. Jesus died. Elvis died. I think that even the faithful who gathered in Memphis today are willing to admit that “The King” is dead. But this is where we part company. The thing that inspires and empowers the followers of Jesus is a conviction that our King, who once was dead, is now alive.

I understand that there are people who think Christians are as “loony” as half frozen Elvis groupies. But, what can you do? This is our testimony to the world. Jesus is alive. I just hope that they see it reflected in my life.

It's A Marathon

2010-01-07T22:06:00.001-06:00

January 7:
I weigh myself every day. It’s not easy, but it is necessary. You could call it “self-monitoring” or you could call it “accountability.” I mostly call it humbling.

Now, context is important. I am 42 pounds lighter than I was at my heaviest so by that measure I would have to say that I am moving in the right direction. But the big picture is often overshadowed by the moment. I may be a long-term success, but I am most often a day-by-day failure. When I step on the scale in the morning I have a tendency to forget the larger context. All that really matters are those three little numbers.

Over the years I have learned that there are no quick fixes, no magic pills, no easy systems. Weight loss is, like many things in life, a marathon not a sprint. But, sprints are over quickly which means that success is measured in bursts of effort. Marathons take a long time and long after the sprinter has finished and is sitting on the sidelines with a cold Gatorade the marathoner is still pounding it out. I’d rather have the Gatorade. I’d like to be a sprinter. But I’ve tried sprinting and I always fall about 26 miles short of where I really want to be.

I’ve used this image before. Life is like dieting. If I intend to be the best that I can be then somehow in the process I have to be held accountable. There has to be a measure for my success or failure in order for me to know which direction my life is taking. But, the problem with life (like dieting) is that I don’t like accountability. It makes me feel bad and I don’t like to feel bad. I want to be “better” and “healthier” but those things take way too much time and require way too much effort. What I want are all the benefits of a marathon without having to do anything more than sprint once in a while.

And here’s the spiritual piece. Every so often, I hear someone try to bring God into this discussion. It goes something like this. , “God wouldn’t want me to feel bad,” they say. “God loves me and that means that he would want me to be happy.” It’s great strategy, it’s just really lousy theology and even lousier self-care. Let’s face it, “good” is hard, “great” is even harder and God wants us to be great. To get there we have to be willing to step on the scale from time to time. What we will probably find, when we do, is that we still have a ways to go. That’s OK. Just remember, it’s a marathon.

A Child of the Wesleys

2010-01-06T14:25:00.001-06:00

January 6:
Wesley’s Child is a double entendre. My father’s name was Wesley Wells, which means that I am Wesley’s child. For 26 years Wesley was a “cop” in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. He had a stroke when he was 54 (I was 14) and he was forced into retirement. He spent the next 20 years (the last 20 years of his life) being a “house husband” of sorts. Wesley had problems with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and chronic bronchitis, all of which were made worse by years of cigarette smoking. Wesley spent his healthy years working two jobs in order to provide for his family. He rarely took time off. He lived a simple, honest life as if he had something to prove. I believe the word we use today is “workaholic.”

I am Wesley’s child. I resemble my Dad. I have issues with blood pressure and cholesterol (although not nearly as severe as his.) I have some of his mannerism. I sometimes say things that he said. I clear my throat the same way he cleared his. But, it’s not simply biological. Like my father the cop, I tend to be a law and order kind of guy. I have a hard time taking time off. I am Wesley’s child. It’s actually kind of scary at times.

But, (and here’s where the double entendre part comes in) I am also a disciple of John Wesley (the founder of Methodism.) I was converted from “religion” to faith in Jesus much like Wesley. I agree with him that God is able to do anything, even sanctify (make holy) broken people like me. I believe (like Wesley) that God has called us to care about the people we live with on this shining sphere we call Earth. This Wesley called it “personal holiness.” I am first and foremost a follower of Jesus, but I work out of a Wesleyan theological model. So, I am (in a spiritual sense) a child of this other Wesley.

All of us seem to be an interesting composite of biology and avocation. We are what we have been made to be and what we have chosen to be. We don’t have much choice about the biological part. Our faces will always be a subtle reflection of people who have come before us. We do, however, have quite a bit of choice over what we do with what we have been given. All of us decide how we will live out our own personal theology or cosmology.

I believe it was Bob Dylan who said, “You're gonna have to serve somebody.” “Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you're gonna have to serve somebody.”

So the question always becomes, “As I live my life day after day am I more a reflection of my ancestry or of my convictions?” Am I living out my biology or my spirituality? There is a bit of both Wesleys in me. I suspect it works that way for all of us.

Dying For Monetary Reasons

2010-01-05T15:59:00.002-06:00

January 5:
The headline said, “Last Year for Estate Tax Break; Cheaper to Die in 2010.” What an interesting picture. Dying for monetary reasons. I know that people will die in 2010 but I don’t think that there will be many who will choose to pass on just to save a few bucks. Most of us just aren’t that organized.

But, the headline got me thinking about “buying the farm” (so to speak) and about what would motivate me to pay that particular price.

Like a lot of people, I have always liked to think that I would give my life for my family or my country or my savior. But, these are all statements that are rarely tested. And we make them knowing (in the back of our heads) that no one is likely to call us on them.

So, how do I know? I guess I won’t until the opportunity presents itself. But,if we are going to pray for that opportunity just remember that there is some advantage to doing it in 2010.

Let me take this conversation in a slightly different direction.

In the early church giving your life for Jesus was considered a great honor. The Greek word “martoos” (μάρτυς) means “witness.” It is where we get the English word “martyr.” To give your life for Jesus was the greatest witness you could make to your love for Him.

Again, we live in a culture where opportunities for martyrdom don’t pop up very often (not like we’d want that to change) but opportunities for “witness” are almost endless. And most of them (at least on the surface) don’t seem to be that huge of a sacrifice. I can give some of my precious time to help feed someone who is hungry. I can give some of my precious money to someone who needs it more than I do. I can give some of my talent to benefit someone other than me. It’s not like dying, but it may be more significant to me and mean more to the people I help than my death ever would.

The reality is that dying (whether there’s a tax break involved or not) is probably easier than giving away our time, our money or our talent. That’s what makes them so valuable.

Holy, Holy, Holy

2010-01-04T15:06:00.000-06:00

January 4:
This is sort of summary of what I was talking about in Church yesterday.

For years I’ve heard it said that after a time husbands and wives begin to look alike. I have always believed that people have a tendency to “become” like the people they spend the most time with. It’s not so much a physical thing as it is a perceptual thing. People who spend a lot of time together have a tendency to adopt the same mannerism, use the same phrases when they speak and even dress alike. So, long time partners end up sharing enough similarities that, to the casual observer, they appear to be the same.

The most obvious application for this observation is that we need to intentionally spend time with people we want to be like and we need to avoid spending too much time with people we don’t want to “resemble.”

The most incredible application of this train of thinking has to do with our relationship to God. God told Moses “…you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” And then in the book of Leviticus He said, "you shall be holy, for I am holy." What this means is that the holy God wants us to be like Him! Anything less is not enough! God wants us to be holy because he is holy.

And if we continue with my original premise: we become like Him when we commit ourselves to spending time with Him. This is why prayer is so important and why spending time with the Bible and gathering together with other believers is also important.

The word “holy” literally means, “set aside.” God is described as holy because He is “set aside” from the world. We become holy when we allow ourselves to be “set aside” for God. We are taking on the nature of God.

The really remarkable thing (from a Christian perspective) is that this God who is totally different from the world we inhabit has called us to be like Him. This God wants to take broken, worldly creatures like us and make us like Holy.

And as this process begins to take hold we should see it in the way we live our lives. We see ourselves feeding the hungry and caring about the homeless. We see ourselves taking an interest in the environment and working for justice in the world because we are becoming holy. We are becoming like Jesus. This is the way it is meant to work. This is the way it is meant to be.

Being a Christian is not working harder to try to achieve some impossible goal. It is not about obeying a set of arbitrary rules. Being a Christian is becoming what God is! Holy. Don’t sell yourself short and don’t settle for anything less.

A Playoff Prayer

2010-01-03T15:30:00.002-06:00

January 3:
We’re getting close to the playoffs and lots of “true believers” are even now praying for their favorite team. I would suspect that if you asked these "pray-ers" if they really expected God to back their team they would say, “no.” They don’t believe that much.

But, it seems to me that the theological crisis here (if there is one) is that for most people prayer seems to have lost all meaning. It has been reduced to a spiritual letter to a cosmic Santa Claus. A Santa that we aren’t even sure we believe in anymore.

The other problem in our increasingly secular world is that we have made prayer a sort of litmus test for God’s existence. It goes something like this…if I pray and God gets me what I want then it is proof that He exists. If I pray and I don’t get what I want then it is just another reason to not believe. The way I hear people talk, many of them are just one unanswered prayer away from atheism.

As the playoffs approach, and the prayers start to flow, let me see if I can simplify this whole prayer discussion.

If prayer is “talking to God” (like we tell our children) and if God is our heavenly Father (like we tell our children) then prayer is like talking to our father.

And when we talk to our father we talk about…? It kind of depends on what our relationship with our father is like. If we trust him we might tell him personal things. If we think he’s particularly wise then we might ask his advise. If we think that he is someone we would like to emulate we might want to know more about him. Like I said, it kind of depends on what our relationship with him is like.

Now, let’s pretend that our father is all knowing and all-powerful. Should I expect that he will give me everything I ask for? I hope not. I mean, if he knows more than me then I would want him to do for me what he thinks is best. Now we’re back to that “how much I trust him” conversation.

I guess what it comes down to for me is “relationship.” When I talk to my heavenly Father I get to know Him better. As I learn to know Him better then I learn to trust Him more. As I learn to trust Him more then the more willing I am to let Him decide for me.

As the game begins I might still say a simple prayer that my God (my heavenly Father) might help my favorite team. But, this little bit of heavenly conversation won’t really be about supernatural intervention. This will fall into the category of personal things that I trust Him with.

Hitting The Target

2010-01-02T19:16:00.002-06:00

January 2:
As you may have guessed, I am rather new at this blogging thing and I am truly indebted to Google for making this whole process so easy. And “no’ that was not a shameless bit of sucking up to Google. I don’t think that sucking up to Google would get me much even if I tried and it would be really scary (really scary) to think that there was some Google employee somewhere whose only job was to read the millions of blogs that they sponsor looking for shameless promoters of all things Google. But, just in case, let me repeat, I am truly indebted to Google for making this whole process so very, very easy. Let’s move on.

One of the things that was offered (by Google) as I formatted this regular ramble was the opportunity to include targeted advertising. The promise was that “they” would pick ads that were appropriate to my site and every time someone visited my site and clicked on one of the links I would get paid. I’m planning on keeping my day job.

Anyway…when I checked back to see what types of appropriate, targeted ads were included with my blog I found that most of them were ads for weight loss programs. Weight loss programs? Somebody decided that the most appropriate, targeted advertising for a blog site called “Wesley’s Child” would be weight loss programs? Now I’m starting to think that somebody from Google saw my picture and is making a not so subtle comment on my apparent proportions. And I thought the black robe was kind of slimming.

OK…so this whole experienced has reminded me of how close to the surface my personal insecurities really live. I have said for years that I don’t like photographs because they look too much like me. It’s the kind of humor that is meant to cover up the reality of what the words say.

Here’s the good news. It was this same kind of personal awareness that moved me to recognize my need and then trust Jesus to help me. I am a different person today (and in a different place in life) because my personal discontent moved me to trust someone who is bigger than I am.

Some might say that this conversation is proof that my spiritual surrender hasn’t worked. I started out with poor self-esteem and I am still struggling with those same issues today. I still struggle, that is true, but, there is something about the honesty of where I am today that makes all the difference. Before I began my spiritual journey I spent most of my time lying to myself and trying to find temporary covers for what I didn’t want to see. Today I live in an honest relationship with both myself and my Savior. I wouldn’t trade this for anything.

So, in the mean time, I continue to diet because I want to be the best I can be. If it makes me look less fat that would be a bonus.

So It's A New Year

2010-01-01T15:37:00.002-06:00

January 1:
So, it's a new year. I can't help but ask again, "What's really new?" For most of us the only thing that separates today from every other day is that we have this day free from our regular work. And even that isn't "new" for all of those people who are presently between jobs.

The weather today is a lot like the weather we had yesterday and the forecast for tomorrow is much the same. I've been told that there is fractionally more daylight today than there was yesterday, but I didn't really notice. It has always struck me that the first day of the new year (no matter which year you choose) is remarkably similar to the last day of year that has just passed.

Having said all that...I am always amazed at how much HOPE is expressed on this extraordinarily ordinary day. For some reason we all feel that we have been given a chance to do things differently. We probably won't be making any more money than we did last year and we probably won't be having any more free time than we did 24 hours ago but, we walk into this new year determined to lose weight or get more exercise or call our mother more often. The new year comes filled up with an almost irrational HOPE that things will be all different.

This whole New Year's resolution process suggests to me that we are all looking for opportunities to be "better" than we have perceived ourselves to be and that we are willing to be honest with ourselves on this one day in a way that we tend to avoid for the 364 days that follow.

In the Christian faith we talk about how Jesus came to offer us an opportunity to change our lives. Our whole message is about hope and new life which sounds a lot like what all of us New Year's day people are longing for and yet the when we use words like "confession" which means being upfront about what needs to change in our lives and "repent" which means turning away from what has been, so that we can embrace new life, it is seen as narrow minded and uncaring. I wouldn't be the first person to suggest that the church has a marketing problem.

The real similarity between new year's and the Christian faith is that we all might want a new life, but we have a really hard time letting go of the old one. Losing weight sounds great until we realize that we might have to give up chips or beer or chocolate cake. Stepping away from our old life sounds good until we realize that all of our friends and our jobs and our entire way of life are connected to that old life. That's why new year's resolutions and the Christian faith are both opportunities we should never attempt to do alone. We need each other. We need support. We need strength that comes from beyond ourselves. After all, if we could make these changes easily we would have done it last year.

This one day of the year is the moment when our hope and our need both become the most apparent. Let's take advantage of this new day.