Making Room for Jesus Week 3: Leave the Light on

When I was a senior in high school, I remember going to Homecoming at my high school with a member of our youth group. She loved to dance, and I loved dance, so we had a great time. After the dance ended, she wasn’t expected home for a little while, and the stars were beautiful, so we decided to park the car at my house, and walk in our neighborhood which didn’t have street lights…did I say the stars were really beautiful that night? So we pulled up to my house, and all the outside lights were on! I was a little irritated with all the light—was this really necessary?—so I quick ran inside to turn them off—I mean, really…I was 18 after all—and there’s my dad waiting up for me. It was impossible to be irritated with the man who was clearly tired, but doing this for me, so I told him that we were going for a walk, and that he could go to bed if he wanted. In some ways, many of us approach God a little like I approached my dad that night. We are busy out in the world, having a good time, and every so often, we check in at the church and are surprised to see that God has left the light on for us. We are adults, and we are quite good at managing our affairs, and maybe sometimes, we are not so keen for God to know everything we’ve been up to, so we might be surprised—perhaps a little irritated that God has been waiting up for us. “It’s ok, God! You don’t have to care what’s going on in my life. You can go to bed if you want.”

A few years later, I learned something more about God’s light, but not in a way I expected. As a college student, I worked at a wilderness camp in NH, just north and east of Wolfeboro. It was pretty dark out there, but the stars were so bright, that once my eyes got used to it, I could walk the quarter mile from the main lodge to my tent even at night without a problem. But one night it was pouring down rain, and I forgot my flashlight. While I could find the road when the lightning went off, the rest of the time, it was dark as pitch. Still, I could kind of feel my way towards my tent…if I hit any bushes, I was getting off the road. It was taking a long time to get to the side-road that led to my tent, and I was starting to get worried that I had gone past the turn off, when a bright beam appeared off to my right. It was my co-counselor coming up the side-road with a flashlight! I was so relieved! For thousands of years, humanity has been caught in the storms of life, sometimes drenched and cold, sometimes befuddled by the darkness. The darkness is not new to us—violence, oppression, loneliness, addiction, self-loathing, greed, hatred—but at just the right moment, in the middle of the storm, God made a light to shine. Ed Robb writes, “Two thousand years ago, God knew that his children were not going to win their battle against the darkness on their own, so God “Struck a match”—creating a flame that would ignite the world and the hearts of humankind.”[1] Jesus is that match, and His bright beam is still coming towards us, because God knows that we need a guide through the storm.

Which brings us back to my dad waiting up for me with all the lights on. This fall, when Cynthia had COVID, I stayed a few nights with Dad and Sue, and when I got there the first night, sure enough—the lights were all on and my dad was waiting up for me. I realized Dad doing that had nothing to do with how old I was or how responsible I was—Dad was going to leave the light on and be waiting up for me, because he loved me and that’s who he is In a sense, God always leaves the light on for us because He loves us and that’s how God rolls. God is always waiting up for us, hoping the light of Christ, the light of Christmas, will help us find our way home. But Jesus didn’t come to just leave the light on for us, because God is not just waiting for us to come home…Jesus is God heading out into the storm with a flashlight! How amazing to think of Christmas as God coming out into the darkness and storm with a light to look for us!

Of course, what’s even more amazing, is that once Jesus, the Light of the World, has found us in the storm, the Light of His Love begins to shine in us, and Jesus enables us to carry the light of His love into the storms of the world. How do you and I feel about that? Maybe we don’t feel like we could or should be ones to carry the light of Jesus’ love into the world. But as Nelson Mandela put it,

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,

talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so
that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other
people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

…

“Light and life, to all He brings,

Ris’n with healing in His wings

Hark! The herald Angels sing,

“Glory to the newborn King.”

[1]Ibid,  46

Making Room for Jesus Week 2: Welcoming Strangers

When I think of strangers, one of the funny moments that comes to mind was when Cynthia was having our first child, Morgan. We rushed to the hospital about 1:30 in the morning. There was a very kind nurse who helped us and stayed with us most of the time. Cynthia tells the story of how she was taking a breather from pushing, looked up and there were 12 people in the room! And she only knew me and the nurse! One of the things Ed Robb drew my attention to this week was how many strangers kept showing up to where Mary and Joseph after she gave birth to Jesus:

• Shepherds, fresh from the fields of sheep

• Wisemen, with their whole entourage, suddenly filling the space

• Maybe the innkeeper checking things out

Most new moms that I know would not have been a fan of any of those folks walking into the birthing room, but Mary and Joseph seem to take it all in stride. Now maybe that’s a cultural thing—back then, maybe folks were more open to strangers just showing up. But I wonder if there’s something deeper at work.

One of the deep themes of the Bible is God using what happens to us, to help us be deeper and more compassionate people. Did you hear it in our Old Testament passage today? “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Cynthia and I still remember with great gratitude how warm and welcoming you all were when we first got here. We were complete strangers and we had no clue about anything. So many of you, and our neighbors, and strangers we met in the street and at the grocery store helped us figure out where to go, and how to find what we needed, and how things worked here. Whenever we find someone new to the neighborhood, we try to figure out the best way to help them.

Another deep theme of the Bible is God working through strangers to bring grace. Ed Robb tells the story of “a young woman who received a call while grocery shopping, informing her that her grandfather had died. The death wasn’t unexpected, but to hear the news was still a shock. ‘I just stood there and went white and numb. An older couple happened to be standing near me and sensed something was wrong. They asked but I couldn’t make words come out. They sat with me for a while, got ahold of my best friend to come pick me up, AND bought the groceries in my cart…That was one of the worst days of my life and I miss my grandpa every single day, but that kindness and humanity makes me cry in a good way.’”[1] What an extraordinary moment of grace! Are there bad apples out in the world? Sure, and we have to be vigilant, but I think most of the people in the world are far more kind and compassionate than we often think.

The idea that we do the right thing for someone else, help someone in great need, take care of someone who is a complete stranger, is really a crazy idea on the face of it. But this Biblical idea—welcome strangers because you were once a stranger—I think captures something really powerful about grace. Sometimes we are the ones who need grace. We are the ones who are new and unsure, awkward, left out and lonely. We know what it’s like to be with people who think or dress or talk, mourn or celebrate differently from us. And sometimes we are the ones who can show grace.

Welcoming strangers is actually part of why the church is. I love you all and I’m glad we are together and that we have good times together, but God is calling for us to grow even more into the kind of group that looks for the immigrant and the foreigner, for those who are lonely or left out, who are struggling and need a hand, who are lost in all the busyness and wondering if there isn’t something more. For Jesus, “no one was really a stranger to him. Meeting a stranger was an opportunity to demonstrate love and inclusion into the community of God.”[2]

As it turns out, when Morgan was being born, not everything went according to plan, and that crowd of strangers in the room helped everything turn out just great. The best things in life involve risk, being vulnerable, and into that space comes grace. The whole idea of Christmas starts with God taking a risk and becoming vulnerable…and sending Jesus. “Immigration, becoming strangers in a strange land, is never easy. Our Lord experienced this difficulty not only when his family had to flee to Egypt for safety but also when he first came to earth. Isn’t the Incarnation the ultimate example of migration? The story of Christmas is rooted in the truth that God’s only begotten son left heaven and came to earth—Immanuel, God with us.”[3] In Jesus, God stepped out of immortality and was born as a baby. Because God knows what it’s like to be born, and grow up, and have friends, and lose friends, and even die—we know God can help us through, love us into the future. Who knows how and through whom God is going to bless us? Who knows how God will work through us be a blessing!

[1]Ed Robb, Making Room: Sharing the Love of Christmas (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2020), pp. 29–30.

[2]Ibid, p. 29.

[3]Ibid, p. 41.

Making Room for Jesus Week 1: Being a Neighbor

Ok. So we are getting started with Advent, which means we are already thinking about Christmas coming. So let’s imagine for a moment that we were organizing a Christmas Pageant for Sunday School, and we were handing out parts. What parts do we have to find for the kids to play? No fair looking a Christmas pageant up on your phone, but you can use your Bibles if you want. Everything is in Luke 2 or Matthew 2. Let’s make a list together. Ready? Go!

[Take responses from the congregation.]

Great! You forgot one person: the innkeeper. You know why? Because he’s not in the Bible! The Bible mentions an inn, so we all just imagine there has to be an innkeeper, right? So I have to confess that I have always imagined the innkeeper as one of those older men who shouts, “Get off my lawn!” and complains about kids these days. “There’s no room at the inn,” I can hear him say, as if wondering what could Joseph and Mary be thinking of traveling at night without a reservation.

But I have been reading Ed Robb’s Making Room: Sharing the Love of Christmas, and I think I’ve changed my mind. I wonder if the innkeeper is the one who found space for the couple after all. I remember when Cynthia and I were traveling with our first child as an infant, we booked a hotel, and we asked for a crib. But they didn’t have one. We were just too tired by that point, and we gratefully went to find our room. It was clean and the bed was fine. Cynthia pulled out a dresser drawer and lined it with an extra blanket and some towels, and Morgan slept fabulously well that night. I wonder if Joseph and Mary were just glad to have a place out of the wind, warmed by the animals, a place where they could find refuge. So maybe, as Ed Robb suggests, the innkeeper was “doing the best he could to provide accommodations in a nearly impossible situation.”[1] Everything was full, but still this person found space.

I think Jesus calls us to make space in our lives for loving on people too. Of course, we have to prepare our hearts for what “making space” doesn’t and does mean. First, “making space” does not mean that we have to be perfect. In fact, how many times do we not invite someone into our car or our home or our office because it’s perfect enough? If we are honest, we are all a mess. Some of us are messy on the outside. Some of us are messy on the inside. We don’t have to be perfect to make space for someone, just real. So we can’t let our desire to be perfect keep us from making room.

Second, “making space” does mean showing hospitality. Ed Robb writes, “True hospitality involves providing shelter for others with our words and actions. True hospitality involves [the] healing of lonely hearts, of disconnected lives, and of the fear of being unknown and unloved.”[2]

Let me give you an example that may make things clearer. When I was growing up, people said of my mom that she “loved to entertain.” I’m not really sure that was true. You see, entertaining pressures us to be perfect, to have a perfect house, cook a perfect meal, and have a perfectly wonderful time. I think my mom’s real passion was hospitality—taking care of people, providing a place they could relax and be themselves, and know that however they were, they were loved. Sometimes we have to let go of the illusion of perfect entertaining, to find the reality of loving hospitality.

Amazing things happen when we make space for people.

When they first moved into their house, [Jenn] and her husband [Guy] did not take the time to get to know the neighbors…But Jenn’s three whippets and the two neighbor dogs began to engage in exuberant barking “conversations”…Often these barking matches would escalate, and the dogs would lean into the fence, eager to crash through to the other side. The result was frequently broken fence slats.

With each broken slat, Jenn and her husband, Guy, slowly got to know their neighbors, through exchanging names and phone numbers, contributing to a joint lumber fund for replacement slats, and exchanging ideas to outwit their persistent pups. Then late one afternoon, Jenn’s doorbell rang.

It was her neighbor, with another broken fence report. As he was about to leave, he stopped, paused for a minute, and then said, “I know you are a woman of faith. My wife and I see you and your husband going to church on Sunday mornings. Would you mind praying for my daughter?”

The neighbor’s eyes filled with tears as he told Jenn that his daughter, a relatively young woman, had recently been diagnosed with cancer. After listening to his story, Jenn…[asked] if they could pray together right then and there….In that moment, what had first been small acts of reaching out (mostly because of the actions of their dogs) became true neighborly bonding.[3]

We never know when making a little space might lead to God really making a difference through us.

I think lots of us approach the run-up to Christmas like the old version of the innkeeper. So many things to be done, so many people to think about, parties to go to, and traditions to manage. Does it ever seem to be too much? Do you ever feel overwhelmed, even grouchy? Does your life ever seem so full, that like the innkeeper we say, “There’s no room in the inn!” and close the door? “Whew!” we might say to ourselves. “There’s one thing I am not responsible for!” But, “All of us need to connect with someone who cares. Perhaps this was the first gift presented to Mary and Joseph on that bustling starry night in Bethlehem, before the wise men arrived with frankincense, gold and myrrh. Perhaps it was the gift of the innkeeper who cared. Someone with a listening ear who heard their need; someone who, though the inn was filled, made room.”[4]

This Advent, the Deacons and I believe God is calling for us to make space in our lives for Jesus to be born. The idea is that as we make room for our neighbors, not to entertain them, but to show them hospitality and acceptance, we make room for Jesus. In fact, we never know how God is going to use the space we make, to heal a wound, to offer forgiveness, to share a bit of the peace. When we make space for our neighbor, in fact, we are really sharing the love of Christmas, the love that Jesus came to share with us.

[1]Ed Robb, Making Room: Sharing the Love of Christmas (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2020), p. 7.

[2]Ibid, p. 20

[3]Ibid, p. 17

[4]Ibid, pp. 21–22.

Seeking Peace, Finding God: Moving from Private Faith to Common Hope

So let me ask you this: do you have a sense of what the world should be? Right before our passage, today, Jesus lays out some of the ways the world is meant to be:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

And there are more, but even when I look at just these, I tend to think that Jesus is not paying attention or has got it wrong. What is blessed about being poor in spirit? Doesn’t that just mean that people are going to walk all over you? What is blessed about someone experiencing loss? By definition, aren’t they in pain? What is blessed about those who want to be peacemakers? More often than not, aren’t they are the ones who get smacked down for reaching out and trying to bring people together? How often do people trying to make a difference wind up on the losing side? Today, Jesus wants to encourage you and me.

First, we are the salt of the earth. Most of the time, we think of salt as flavoring. The curious thing about salt, is that in the right amount, you don’t taste it as a flavor. Rather, it brings out the flavors that are already there. You don’t need a lot of salt to completely change the way food tastes. When God makes a difference in our lives, we change and become the salt of the earth.

Second, we are the light of the world. Lots of us take light for granted, but it’s essential. An old story tells of a desert nomad who woke up hungry in the middle of the night. He lit a candle and began eating dates from a bowl beside his bed. He took a bite from one end and saw there was a worm in it, so he threw it out of the tent. He bit into the second date, found another worm, and threw it away also. He figured that if this went on, he wouldn’t have any dates left to eat, so he blew out the candle and quickly ate all the dates. I feel like our world is quite happy turning out the light so they cannot be bothered by the worms in the dates. We are the light of the world, and because we know Jesus, know Jesus’ love, and have Jesus’ hope—at our best—we remind people what is right and what is not. But light also reveals the world around us, and allows us to navigate without hurting ourselves. When God makes a difference in our lives, we change and become a source of light to the world.

Except we are not very much salt…we are not very big lights. Take courage! God seems to have created the world to take advantage of “not very much” and “not very big.” One of the great principles of the universe is called the “Butterfly Effect.” It was given this name by Edward Lorenz in 1961 when he was studying weather. He learned that no matter how much we know about the weather, the smallest change in local weather can have a global affect. The illustration he provided was of a butterfly flapping its wings in the Andes setting into motion a cascading chain of events that could cause flooding in Bangladesh.[1] A small change can have exponential consequences!

Of course, Jesus turns out to be a great example of this. He lived in a darkened world too—full of faceless global tides, harsh economic realities, greed, injustice, violence and corruption. How did Jesus turn these vast forces into hope? Instead of committing violence and injustice, Jesus absorbed it. Instead of avidly watchingthe extremes and harshness of his society, Jesus spent his life healing those wounded by the uncaring, power-hungry forces of His day. He healed lepers, partied with prostitutes, forgave sinners, and cared for the sick and lonely—helping them (and us!) develop healthy, loving relationships. We, too, are called to turn these vast, uncaring forces into hope, to use the one real tool we have—the love of God poured out in a torrent of grace for us. Jesus told his disciples, “You are salt for the world,” because he knew God’s love in us could bring flavor to a tasteless world. He told his disciples, “You are light for the world,” because he knew God’s grace in us could bring illumination to darkened minds, hope to the hopeless, relationship to the alienated, and peace to the troubled. He did not say it would always be easy or fun—they crucified him after all—but he did say “they will see the good that you do and praise your Father in heaven.”

It’s tempting to think we are not very much and not very big. Especially in a world in which some Christians have been a source of great pain and suffering, we may be tempted to not want to share our faith, or even show our faith. But Jesus gets how the world should be, and Jesus’ love is at work in our lives, and His hope compels us. He was just one man, but here we are. Just one man, but haven’t people’s lives—including ours—been transformed? And so through us, God adds flavor to the world, allowing people to experience Jesus’ grace on the playground and in the checkout line. God helps neighbors with our hands, is company for the lonely with our presence, and defends the weak with our courage. Because of Jesus’ love at work in us, our lives and our community are flavored with gratitude and joy. Through us, God also shines light into our community. Truth is revealed, justice is sought, and love is chosen. Because of Jesus’ love at work in us, the world sees more clearly its brokenness that needs fixing, its people who need looking after, and the way the world could be—should be. Jesus has more than enough grace and justice, power and love to change the world, but change will come only if we are salt…only if we are light. A private faith does only us good, but living out our faith in the midst of our darkened world? That’s how we and our world will find hope. Jim Wallis writes, “Hope means believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change.”[2]

[1]Gleick, in Chaos: Making of a New Science(NY:  Penguin Books, 1987), p. 23.

[2]Jim Wallis, Christ in Crisis: Why We Need to Reclaim Jesus (NY: Harper, 2019), p. 262.

Seeking Peace, Finding God: Moving from Isolation to Community

A mother was making pancakes for her sons—Kevin who was five, and Ryan who was 3. The boys started arguing over who would get the first pancake. The mom thought this was a good moment to teach them a lesson about sacrifice. She said, “If Jesus were sitting here, He would say, ‘Let my brother have the first pancake…I can wait.” Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, “Ryan, you be Jesus!” We laugh, but at some level many of us think like that: “I love the idea of loving like Jesus…you go first.” We and our society wrestle with trying to understand who Jesus is and what Jesus wants, simultaneously drawn to Jesus as He welcomes and challenges, and at the same time, not really sure about how far to go with living like Jesus. Jesus gets that, and in our passage today, Jesus shows us a new way to live.

First, we know the right answer, but we often want to make God more manageable. When I was a senior in high school, I attended a leadership camp where they would bring leaders of character from all sorts of walks of life. One of their guests was a foreign correspondent for ABC News. After he finished speaking, he took questions. I asked, “How do you know how to keep yourself from being corrupted?” He looked me straight in the eye. He said, “You know,” and he held my gaze for a moment. In that moment, I was pierced by his gaze. In our passage, the lawyer gets it right—Love God and love your neighbor—but that’s not enough for him. So he wants to justify himself, to make sure that he’s checked all the necessary boxes. And don’t we do that too? “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” And we want to know…what does that mean?...because we know…we know…that loving God and loving our neighbor is more than just checking off boxes and then moving on. But we ask…and we hope that love will be simple and manageable.

Second, there are always reasons not to stop. A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars. Then wham! Something smashed into the Jag’s side door! He slammed on the brakes and backed the Jag back to the spot where something had hit the car. There was a brick lying in the street. The angry driver jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him up against a parked car, shouting, “Just what the heck are you doing? That’s a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost me a lot of money. Why did you do it?” “Please, mister…please!” the frightened young boy cried out. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t know what else to do,” he pleaded. “I threw the brick because no one else would stop...” With tears dripping down his face and off his chin, the small boy pointed to a spot just around a parked car. “It’s my older brother,” he said. “He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can’t lift him up.” Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive, “Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He’s hurt and he’s too heavy for me.” Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat, he hurriedly lifted the bigger, non-communicative, handicapped boy back into the wheelchair, then took out a linen handkerchief and dabbed at the fresh scrapes and cuts. Nothing too serious. “Thank you so much,” the grateful child told the stranger. Too shaken to speak, the man simply watched the boy push his wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk. It was a long, slow walk back to the Jaguar. The damage was very noticeable, but the driver never bothered to repair the dented side door. Are we driving so fast through our lives, that the only way to get our attention and help is for a brick to hit our car? In Jesus’ story, the priest passes by the wounded man. So does the lay minister. How many reasons did they have for passing by? Are we so focused on where we are going and getting there fast, on what we need to do, on the next box we have to check, that God struggles to get our attention?

Third, we are all neighbors—every act of compassion goes farther than we think. About fifteen years ago, in a suburb of Memphis, Tennessee, a mosque moved next door to a Christian church, named Heartsong. Steve Stone, pastor of Heartsong, writes, “We had been talking with them from the moment we knew they were moving next door to us. These were not enemies or strangers but neighbors, acquaintances, and friends. When they asked us if they could use our space [while they were working on their building]…what do we do? How do we respond? Our response has to be grounded in our love for Jesus and our commitment to follow only him…Jesus intentionally chose as the hero of [the Good Samaritan] one whom his hearers would most ‘naturally’ have feared and hated. He said that the one they despised out of hand is the very one who was the neighbor…The decision was based only on our understanding of the mission and nature of the church.” So they said, “Of course!” A couple years later, the anti-Muslim sentiments were rising, and CNN aired a piece about this church and this mosque, showing this pastor and this imam. Telling this story, Jim Wallis says, “You could tell by watching that these two clerics knew, respected, and liked each other…The reverend and the imam told the story of how their communities had come together…and even minister[ed] together in the community.” But the best part is the story that Wallis heard when he called up Steve Stone. “[Last night,] I got a phone call at two in the morning. ‘Is this the pastor?’ a voice said. ‘Yes, this is Steve Stone,’ I replied. Then the voice on the phone said, ‘We are a roomful of Muslim men, calling from Kashmir, Pakistan [one of the most conflicted places in the world], and we saw the CNN segment. We were all silent for a long time afterward. Then one of us said, ‘I think God is speaking to us through that pastor.’ Another said, ‘How could we ever kill those people?’ I must tell you what happened with another one of us because he can’t speak English to tell you himself. He went out to the small Christian church near our mosque and washed it clean with his Muslim hands. Now we are all back together to call you. Pastor, please tell your congregation that we don’t hate them, we love them. And from now on we will protect that little Christian church near us because of what you did.’”[1] The curious thing is that sometimes we are the neighbor who helps someone who is hurt, and sometimes we are the neighbor who is on the ground hurt and needing help. Who would have thought that acts of compassion and neighborliness in Memphis could forge relationships between neighbors in Pakistan!

Loving like Jesus did is way more than figuring out who gets the first pancake. Loving like Jesus did is more than a checkbox on our life’s to-do list—eternal life secured…check. What Jesus seems to understand about us is that we use checkboxes and reasons to keep God at arms’ length, to keep God manageable. What Jesus longs for is a relationship that’s much closer—to tell Him first about what we’re going through, to put Him first in our decisions, to ask Him first when we hit a rough patch, to seek Him first. We stop trying to manage God and let God manage us. When we do that, when we love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength, and when we love our neighbors as ourselves, change comes to us. We don’t just show gratitude, we become grateful people. We don’t just do kind things, we are kind people. We don’t just do loving things, we are loving people. Becoming. That’s who we are. That’s why we are here. To help each other down that road of becoming. That’s why we are here. To show compassion to neighbors who need it, to defend those who are bullied, to open our doors and our embrace as wide as Jesus has opened His arms to us, so our community can become. Loving like Jesus did means sacrifice and inconvenience. How will they know what loving like Jesus looks like? Only because we love like Jesus first. Grace has a way of traveling much farther and changing people more than we ever imagined.

[1]Jim Wallis, Christ in Crisis: Why We Need to Reclaim Jesus (NY: HarperOne, 2019), pp. 40–42.

Seeking Peace, Finding God: Moving from My Rights to Our Hope

I was online the other day and ran across some arguments they wish they hadn’t gotten into:[1]

• I once bet my buddy that he couldn’t eat 100 peeps. He won, but I had to take him to the hospital.

• I once bet a friend that I could eat his sock. To make it easier, we grilled and seasoned it. It did not help.

• My mom used to bet her older brother she would one day be older than him. She was 5. He still collects a dollar every visit. They are now over 60.

• I bet a friend that I could start smoking cigarettes, and quit whenever I wanted…it’s now 8,031 days into the bet.

• My brother and I bet on the same football game every year. The winner gets to keep the same $10 until the next year. Whoever dies with $10 wins.

• A friend once bet me a $100 I couldn’t get a date with the new waitress! Twenty years later, I’m still with the waitress and never got my money!

• In seventh grade, I bet my lab partner everything I had in my pocket he couldn’t eat the cow eyeball we were dissecting. It turns out a seventh-grade boy will eat an eyeball for 75 cents and a piece of gum.

I think it’s really interesting how much we want to be right, and to what lengths we are willing to prove it. In our first passage for today, Jesus’ disciples get into an argument over who is the greatest that mirrors our society—who’s the greatest? How do we know? And who’s right? Jesus offers some key questions to ask of ourselves and our leaders.

First, who is most important? The argument the disciples were having was about who was the greatest. Each of them said they were. “Who’s the greatest?” Jesus asks. “The person who sits at the table or the servant? Isn’t it really the person who sits at the table? But I’m among you as a servant.” As some of you know, my dad’s dad was a pastor—a great man with many accomplishments, but he worked so much all the time that my father didn’t get much time with him when he was growing up. So my dad, not knowing how to be a father lovingly involved in his children’s lives, set about being the dad he wished he had had. We saw how Dad put God first, for sure, but we knew by my father’s example that we were more important than his job. Healthy leaders don’t bask in their own glory—they look to make others great.

Second, whose interest is served first? Bruce Thielemann told of a conversation with a member of his church, “You preachers talk a lot about giving, but when you get right down to it, it all comes down to basin theology.” Thielemann asked, “Basin theology? What’s that?” The church member replied, “Remember what Pilate did when he had the chance to acquit Jesus? He called for a basin and washed his hands of the whole thing. But Jesus, the night before his death, called for a basin and proceeded to wash the feet of the disciples. It all comes down to basin theology. Which one will you use?”[2] If we always do what’s convenient and helps us first, then we are not living the way Jesus would want us to. Jesus washed His disciples feet, and demonstrates His love for us by being willing to go to the Cross, so that we could have a way home to God. Jesus made it clear that what He wanted, was not as important as what God wanted.

Third, is being right going to get you what you really want? When Cynthia and I were first married, I had this pride thing going on. A couple of times, when we were having a “discussion,” I pressed hard to win the argument, only to discover that I had actually won several days of frosty Cynthia. Paul talks about how being right meant thinking of how others were affected by our choices and actions. He writes, “We should all be concerned about our neighbor and the good things that will build his faith. Christ did not think only of himself.” When we approach our relationships with a bigger view to what’s the best good and best for relationships—not just that I’m right, and I have a right to this—then we are mindful of what will make for a real win for all of us.

Who is most important? Whose interest is served first? Is being right what really matters? All three of these questions suggest we need a change in how we approach our lives and our choices. What would change if instead of me trying to be important, I thought of God as most important? How would our lives and our society be different, if we put the common good ahead of our own interests? What would happen if having better lives and better communities were more important than us being right? It’s a curious thing to think about as I look at how Jesus lived. Though He was the Son of God, Jesus took off his cloak, put on a towel and washed His disciples’ feet—including the feet of Judas, who would betray Him! Though Jesus could have stopped the crucifixion at any point, still He stayed with it, not for His sake—but for ours. The promise we have is that when we live like Jesus, when we love like Jesus, when serve like Jesus, being right is not nearly as important as loving. Just as God raised Jesus from the grave, so we trust that God will bless all the living, loving, serving and sacrificing that we do. Yes, we will be redeemed, but really that’s not why we do it. We are not in it for what we get out of it, but because we know that if we are willing to give up being right then not only will we have hope, but so will our world.

[1]https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/21-people-who-deeply-regretted-starting-an-argument-517410/

[2]Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching, ed. Craig Brain Larson (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), p. 220.

Seeking Peace, Finding God: Moving from Fear to Love

Bob Woods, in Pulpit Digest, tells the story of a couple who took their son, 11, and daughter, 7 to Carlsbad Caverns. As always, when the tour reached the deepest point in the cavern, the guide turned off all the lights to dramatize how completely dark and silent it is below the earth’s surface. I don’t know about you, but I think being in that dark place would be pretty scary. You don’t have to go far to learn that our world can also be a pretty dark place. All we have to do is check the news and we know. Is it any wonder we struggle to find peace? Is it any wonder that peace seems so elusive in our society? In our passage for today, Jesus shows us that through our darkened world, there is indeed a path to peace.

The first step on our path to peace is to recognize that fear is very natural for humans. We, humans, are wired for fear. In some situations, fear helps us—it keeps us from doing something dangerous, or helps us know when flee a dangerous situation, or gives us an adrenaline rush to help us focus in a critical moment. God knows this about us, so one of the first things God usually says when God shows up is, “Do not be afraid!” According to Jim Wallis, in 365 verses of the Bible tell us not to fear.[1] In our passage for today, Jesus doesn’t criticize His disciples for being fearful. He recognizes they will be fearful, and He says, “It is I—do not be afraid.” For us to be fearful is perfectly natural.

The second step on our path to peace is to recognize that the presence of Jesus breaks the power of fear. He says to the disciples, “It is I—do not be afraid,” and it’s not just the fact that Jesus is familiar, but that they know how much He loves them. They are safe in His presence. I remember when she was little, Morgan broke some glass and then picked up a broken piece and cut herself badly enough that we had to go to get some stitches. At first, she was freaked out that she was bleeding, but I wasn’t all that anxious, and she calmed down too. Before long, we were off to the ER and everything worked out. In the same way, every day we run into all sorts of situations that could be freaky or anxiety-producing. “Marcie Rahill…describes how fear can create a ‘spiritual amnesia’ where we forget who God is and forget God’s promise to always be with us.”[2] In the moment when fear is speaking loudly in our lives, Jesus says, “It is I—do not be afraid.” Fear and its powerful cousins, anxiety and worry, want to have their way with us, but Jesus is not freaked out, and in His calm presence we know we can take a deep breath. God is with us! The Psalm says, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” And Jesus adds, “It is I—do not be afraid.”

The third step on the path to peace is to understand that love is the antidote to fear. John writes in his first letter, “God is love…There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”[3] In Jesus’ time, people legitimately feared leprosy. These days we have medicines that can cure leprosy, but back then, if you developed one of these dreaded diseases, you had to leave your family, never to touch them or get a hug again. And when folks with leprosy found their way to Jesus, He could have made sure they stayed away, but instead He would talk with them, and to heal them, He often actually touched them. Fear shuts us down and closes us off. Love winds us up and opens us up. Perfect love—God’s love—casts out fear, because we can look to God, to find that we are safe, that God has got our backs, that God will walk with us. The Psalm says, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear, for You are with me, Your rod and Your staff they comfort me.” Paul wrote Timothy, his son in the faith, “For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-control.”[4] And Jesus says, “It is I—do not be afraid.”

Our dark times are scary, and many people play on our fears. Advertisers play on our fears of aging, of not being cool, even our Fear of Missing Out. Politicians play on our fears of those who are immigrants, of crime, of rights being taken, and elections being stolen. Jim Wallis writes, “In this situation we need to ask, ‘Who are we being made to be afraid of and why?’ And as the gospels remind us, bringing the presence of God into our divided communities helps to heal the fears that some seek to put in our hearts and in our public policies.” Fear motivates people, but trust makes community. We cannot buy our way out of fear, and we cannot fear our way to the lives and the world we want. Let us not listen too much to voices of fear that only add to the darkness. Jesus stands outside of our boats, outside of all the systems of fear, and says, “It is I—do not be afraid.” Will we invite him into our boat, and into our lives?

One of the darkest times we ever have in our lives is when someone we love dies. Whatever the relationship, the things we used to do together will not be the same, the patterns and routines of our lives have an empty spot where they used to be, and the dreams we shared together can seem broken. The pain of loss and grief is real—and we may even wonder how we are going to make it through those dark times, if we will ever be able to smile again. Fear leads us to dark places, but into our emptiness and sadness comes Jesus, and he says, “It is I—do not be afraid.” And we know Jesus will walk with us all the way through.

Dark places can indeed be scary. The little girl, suddenly enveloped in the utter darkness of the Carlsbad Caverns, was frightened and she started to cry. Immediately her brother comforted her: “Don’t cry. Somebody here knows how to turn on the lights.” We are the people who know God, and God knows how to turn on the Light! We are the ones who know God is truth and love, and when we focus on the truth found in love and grace, fear is displaced by love, like the emptiness of a cup is displaced as liquid is poured in. God knows how to turn on the Light! God knows how to drive out the fear! We are the people who try to live in the light of love, to let love seep into our pores, fill our hearts and change our lives. We are a people called together—young and old, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, regardless of race and ethnicity—called to shine like stars in the darkness. Jesus said of us, “You are the light of the world.” And here we are today, people of love, empowered by love, the Spirit filling us so we can bring healing and hope to a darkened world. Can you feel it? So let us be the church on the hill, and in the darkness, let us shine like stars reflecting the grace of Jesus Christ. Through us, may fearful, hurting people hear Jesus say, “It is I—do not be afraid.”

[1]Jim Wallis, Christ in Crisis: Why We Need to Reclaim Jesus (NY: HarperOne, 2019), p. 135.

[2]Ibid, p. 144

[3]1 John 4:16, 18 (NIV)

[4]2 Timothy 1:7 (my translation)

Seeking Peace, Finding God Four-fold Path Part 2: Forgiving and Renewing or Releasing

All this fall, we have been seeking peace together, exploring the themes of forgiveness and reconciliation and how we—each of us—but also we—our church fellowship—can become sources of grace in our families and our community. Last week, we had the first of two very practical, “how to” sermons on forgiveness, based on Desmond and Mpho Tutu’s, The Book of Forgiving.[1] When we are wounded or betrayed by someone, we have the choice to enter into the Revenge Cycle,

Revenge-Forgiveness Cycle, Desmond and Mpho Tutu’s, The Book of Forgiving. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EaVXxnKWkAIs5py.jpg:large

which leads us and the perpetrator into an ever-darker cycle of pain, dehumanization, and violence…OR…to choose the path of healing. The Tutus lay out a Four-fold Path that leads us out of pain and into new life, not forgetting the pain but rising above it. Last week, we talked about the first two steps—Telling Our Story and Naming Our Hurt—and today, we take the next two steps with a really challenging teaching from Jesus.

In his book, The Applause of Heaven, Max Lucado tells the story of his friend, Daniel from Brazil.[1]

Daniel is big. He used to make his living by lifting weights and teaching others to do the same. His scrapbook is colorful with ribbons and photos of him in his prime, striking the muscle-man pose and flexing the bulging arms…

Daniel was living in the southern city of Porto Alegre. He worked at a gym and dreamed of owning his own. The bank agreed to finance the purchase if he could find someone to cosign the note. His brother agreed.

They filled out all the applications and awaited the approval. Everything went smoothly, and Daniel soon received a call from the bank telling him he could come and pick up the check. As soon as he got off work, he went to the bank.

When the loan officer saw Daniel, he looked surprised and asked Daniel why he had come.

“To pick up the check,” Daniel explained.

“That’s funny,” responded the banker. “Your brother was in here earlier. He picked up the money and used it to retire the mortgage on his house.”

Daniel was incensed. He never dreamed his own brother would trick him like that. He stormed over to his brother’s house and pounded on the door. The brother answered the door with his daughter in his arms. He knew Daniel wouldn’t hit him if he was holding a child.

He was right. Daniel didn’t hit him. But he promised his brother that if he ever saw him again he would break his neck.

Daniel went home, his big heart bruised...He had no other choice but to go back to the gym and work to pay off the debt.

A few months later, Daniel met a young American named Allen Dutton. Allen befriended Daniel and taught him about Jesus Christ. Daniel and his wife soon became Christians and devoted disciples.

But though Daniel had been forgiven so much, he still found it impossible to forgive his brother. The wound was too deep. The pot of revenge still simmered. He didn’t see his brother for two years. Daniel couldn’t bring himself to look into the face of the one who had betrayed him. And his brother liked his own face too much to let Daniel see it.

But an encounter was inevitable. Both knew they would eventually run into each other. And neither knew what would happen then.

Are you like Daniel? Have you been hurt by someone? Stabbed in the back? Maybe your wounds are so deep you don’t even have words for that kind of hurt. Our passage for today offers you and me a way through the pain to a new place of healing.

Before we get to forgiving others, though, we need to recognize the great mercy we have been given. Like the servant in our story, the one forgiven $10 million dollars, we are debtors of the highest order. Regularly, we spend the blessings God gives us on ourselves, drop the ball He gives us to make the play, and walk past those who need our help. Instead of beating us up or throwing us out, God says, “I love you!” How much? In Jesus, He stretched out His hands and said, “I love you this much,” as He died on the cross. Though our lives could have ended last night, today we have a new chance to walk with God. Truly, we have received mercy beyond anything we could repay. If this is a new idea to you or you haven’t experienced God’s great mercy poured out for you, won’t you take myself or someone you know aside and ask about it? We are more than happy to pray for God to do that in your life today.

So on we go!

The third step in the Four-fold Path is forgiveness. When Peter asks, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my sister or brother when they sin against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.’” Jesus makes this number so large because forgiving is to become part of who we are. Later, Jesus says we are to “forgive our sister or brother from the heart.” The Tutus ask, “How do we know when we grant forgiveness that we really mean it?...I wish I could give you a one-size-fits-all answer. For some, it feels as if a huge weight has been lifted. For others, it is an overwhelming feeling of peace. Often it can simply be that you know you have forgiven when you wish the other person well, and if you can’t wish them well, you at least no longer wish them harm…there is freedom in forgiveness, and when you feel this new freedom, you know you have truly forgiven.”[2] For some people, though, forgiving someone really only starts the process of healing. In an article in Guideposts, Corrie ten Boom told of going to a Christian conference and seeing one of the Nazi guards who had imprisoned her, but who had since demonstrably given his life to Christ. She had forgiven him, but she kept rehashing the memories and so, couldn’t sleep. Finally, Corrie cried out to God for help in putting the problem to rest. She writes:  “His help came in the form of a kindly Lutheran pastor to whom I confessed my failure after two sleepless weeks. ‘Up in that church tower,’ he said, nodding out the window, ‘is a bell which is rung by pulling on a rope. But you know what? After the sexton lets go of the rope, the bell keeps on ringing. First ‘ding,’ then ‘dong.’ Slower and slower until there’s a final dong and it stops. I believe the same thing is true of forgiveness. When we forgive, we take our hand off the rope. But if we’ve been tugging at our grievances for a long time, we mustn’t be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while. They’re just the ding-dongs of the old bell slowing down.’” The third step in the Four-fold Path is forgiveness.

The final step in the Four-fold Path is to renew or release the relationship. This is what the king assumes would happen in Jesus’ parable—that the forgiveness the servant experienced would be the beginning of a new life. The Tutus write, “Renewing our relationships is how we harvest the fruit that forgiveness has planted. Renewal is not an act of restoration. We do not make a carbon copy of the relationship we had before the hurt or insult…We make a new relationship…regardless of the realities of the old relationship.”[3] But sometimes we cannot renew our relationship and we must learn to release it. The Tutus add, “Renewing the relationship might harm you further, or you do not know who harmed you, or the person has died and is not someone you carry in your heart…You can choose to not have someone in your life any longer, but you have released the relationship only when you have truly chosen that path without wishing that person ill. Releasing is refusing to let an experience or a person occupy space in your head or heart any longer.”[4] After Corrie ten Boom took her hand off the rope by forgiving, she writes, “There were a few more midnight reverberations, a couple of dings when the subject came up in my conversations. But the force—which was my willingness in the matter—had gone out of them. They came less and less often and at last stopped altogether.” If forgiveness is taking our hand off the rope that rings the bell, then releasing is when the bell stops ringing. The fourth step is to renew or release the relationship.

As Daniel knew it would happen, he did run into his brother on a busy street one day. Daniel told it this way:

I saw him, but he didn’t see me. I felt my fists clench and my face get hot. My initial impulse was to grab him around the throat and choke the life out of him.

But as I looked into his face, my anger began to melt. For as I saw him, I saw the image of my father. I saw my father’s eyes. I saw my father’s look. I saw my father’s expression. And as I saw my father in his face, my enemy once again became my brother.

Max Lucado continues, “Daniel walked toward him. The brother stopped, turned, and started to run, but he was too slow. Daniel reached out and grabbed his shoulder. The brother winced, expecting the worst. But rather than have his throat squeezed by Daniel’s hands, he found himself hugged by Daniel’s big arms. And the two brothers stood in the middle of the river of people and wept.”[5]

In Step 1 of the Four-fold Path of Forgiveness, we “Tell the Story” of the hurt we experienced, and we are the victim. In Step 2, we “Name the Hurt” we received, and we look our pain and loss in the face. In Step 3, we “Grant Forgiveness” to the person who has wronged us, and we are freed from the inner prison of our anger and pain. In Step 4, we “Renew or Release the Relationship,” and like Daniel with his brother, we re-write the story of being wronged. Where once we were the victim, now we are the hero. Where once we experienced suffering, now our suffering has meaning. Instead of being embittered by our experience, we are now ennobled by it.[6] We can live forward, freed from reliving that wrong over and over again, and freed totell the new story of a new life and a new relationship.

Isn’t that Jesus’ story? Innocent, Jesus was hung on a cross the authorities with the crowds cheering them on, and Jesus died a horrible death. But that’s not where Jesus stayed. Good Friday is not the only story we tell about Jesus. Because Jesus forgave those who scorned and murdered Him, because Jesus gave up His vast power to show God’s steadfast love, God raised Jesus from the grave. New life. New hope. New story. And when we forgive, when we give up our right to take an eye for eye, when we die to our need for retaliation, forgive those who wrong us, and by the grace of God show the grace of God, then God does something amazing and new in us. And it all begins, when we realize, how much we are forgiven by God.

[1]Desmond and Mpho Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World (NY: Harper Collins).

[1]Max Lucado, The Applause of Heaven (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1996), pp. 105–106.

[2]The Book of Forgiving, op.cit, p. 128–129

[3]Ibid, 148

[4]Ibid, pp. 154–155.

[5]Lucado, op.cit, p. 106.

[6]The Book of Forgiving, op.cit, The Tutus talk about choosing to be “embittered” or “ennobled.” On p. 134:

“The guarantee in life is that we will suffer. What is not guaranteed is how we will respond, whether we will let this suffering embitter us or ennoble us. This is our choice. How do we allow our suffering to ennoble us? We make meaning out of it and make it matter. We use our experiences as many of the people in this book have used theirs: to make ourselves into richer, deeper, more empathic people. We may, like the people you meet in this book, work to prevent such harm from happening to others.”

Seeking Peace, Finding God Four-fold Path Part 1: Telling the Story, Naming the Hurt

Revenge-Forgiveness Cycle, Desmond and Mpho Tutu’s, The Book of Forgiving. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EaVXxnKWkAIs5py.jpg:large

When I was a kid, my mom found child psychology, and it made me crazy. If I had done something wrong, she said, “Let’s talk about it.” On at least one occasion, I remember saying, “Can you just punish me, so we can get this over with?” Then we had to talk about that too. Oh my gosh! I thought I was going to scream! In each of our lives, we have things that have happened that make us want to scream with frustration, grind our teeth with rage, and cry rivers of sadness. In their Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World, Desmond Tutu and daughter, Mpho, write, “Hurt, insult, harm, and loss are inevitable aspects of our lives…it is not the trauma itself that defines us. It is the meaning we make of our experiences that defines both who we are and who we ultimately become.”[1] How do deal with pain? How do we make sense of trauma? As it turns out, the Bible actually has some amazing things to show us about that process.

The first step of processing any hurt or loss we have experienced is to tell the story. Lay out the facts. The story is told that one Sunday, a boy and his mom were having lunch. “So honey,” the mom asked, “what did you talk about in Sunday School today?” “Oh it was great! We talked about this mean king, named Pharaoh in Egypt, and how God sent in tanks, F-15s and marines to free God’s people. Then God asked Moses to help, and he made a pontoon bridge across the Red Sea, and God’s people got away.” The mom asked, “Is that really how it happened?” The boy replied, “No, but you wouldn’t have believed me if I told you the truth.” If we want to find healing, though, we have to lay out the truth, at least as we understand it. No sugar-coating it. As the Tutus write, “Telling the story is how we get our dignity back after we have been harmed. It is how we begin to take back what was taken from us, and how we begin to understand and make meaning out of our hurting…When you tell your story, you no longer have to carry your burden alone.”[2] Surprisingly, when we read the passage from Jeremiah, God is doing exactly this—telling the story of what the Israelites did and said, and how they thought everything would be wonderful. John, in his first letter, talks about the importance of telling the truth, but from the perspective of those who have done the hurting—to come clean and tell the truth, and find God’s forgiveness. The Tutus continue, “When we tell our stories, we are practicing a form of acceptance. When we tell our stories, we are saying, ‘This horrible thing has happened. I cannot go back and change it, but I can refuse to stay trapped in the past forever.’ We have reached acceptance when we finally recognize that paying back someone in kind will never make us feel better or undo what has been done.”

The second step of processing any hurt or loss we have experienced is to name the hurt. How were you hurt? What have you lost? I am profoundly grateful for passages like the one in Jeremiah, because God lays it out there—you betrayed me, you worshiped other things, you thought I didn’t care because you didn’t care. As I read this in Jeremiah, I can almost feel God’s pain. Desmond Tutu writes, “A hurt is a hurt. A loss is a loss. And a harm felt but denied will always find a way to express itself…The only way to heal this hurt is to give voice to what ails us. It is only in this way that we can keep our pain and loss from taking root inside us.”[3] When I was a kid, my dad said he would give me a dime for every dandelion I dug up. I thought, “Yeah baby! I’m going to rake it in!” And then he talked with me about how important it was to get the whole root, and showed me how to dig it out completely, so that the dandelion wouldn’t regrow again. Naming our hurts completely, truthfully, really does allow us to recognize and not be controlled by our hurts.

When I was a teen-ager, my Mom’s deeper understanding of relationships was really tested, because there were times I didn’t even know what I was feeling, but I kept doing and saying things anyway. I don’t know how she put up with me—I’m not sure I would have put up with me. The curious thing about forgiveness and reconciliation is that it has to begin somewhere. She thought it began with talking. I thought she was insufferable. Haha But she was patient. She told her story about the pain I had caused, and she named the hurt—so I could see it in her. And then I had a choice. I want you to hear today, that however much you have done to hurt another person, God is even more patient and loving than my mom. Where my Mom sometimes struggled with her own demons, John writes that in God there is no darkness, only light. God is love, and when we tell the story of the hurt we have given or received, God creates space for us to choose. Will we turn the hurt to more pain—in violence towards others or self-destruction towards ourselves—or will we allow God to restore us, so we can live in right relationship with each other and with God? It’s the kind of healing and hope we long for…and God is more than able!

[1]Desmond and Mpho Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World (NY: HarperOne, 2014) p. 70.

[2]Ibid, pp. 71–72.

[3]Ibid, pp. 96–97.

Seeking Peace, Finding God: Praying for Our Enemies

Little Johnny (or Jenny) and his family were having Sunday dinner at his Grandmother’ s house. Everyone was seated around the table as the food was being served. When Little Johnny received his plate, he started eating right away. ‘Johnny! Please wait until we say our prayer.’ said his mother... ‘I don’t need to,’ the boy replied. ‘Of course, you do.’ his mother insisted. ‘We always say a prayer before eating at our house.’ ‘That’s at our house.’ Johnny explained. ‘But this is Grandma’s house and she knows how to cook!’” Johnny has a lot of confidence in his Grandma’s cooking, but he seems a little confused on why we pray. I think Johnny is not alone, because most of us aren’t clear on prayer. Jesus, on the other hand, is super clear about praying.

First, when we pray for our enemies and those who harass us, we pray for their good. It’s natural to want to hurt our enemies. Jesus points that out when He says, “You have heard that it was said, “Love your friend and hate your enemy.” It’s the way the world tells us it should be: what goes around comes around. Revenge is a dish best served cold. And when we are hurt, striking out is often our first reaction. During the dark days of autumn, 1936, the empire of Japan invaded China through Korea and into Manchuria. Thousands upon thousands of Japanese troops poured in, bringing their tanks, bombers and a ruthless brand of extermination and torture. The Japanese feared the Chinese Christians and went out of their way to destroy their churches and kill believers whenever they had the chance. Among the believers were the president of China, Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, Madame Chiang. At the height of the conflict when the Japanese troops were at the walls of the capital city of Beijing, Madame Chiang rushed through the chaos to her mother’s room in the palace. Finding her Mother’s door closed she gently pushed it open. Finally, as her eyes became accustomed to the dim light, she saw her mother in the corner of the room, kneeling in prayer. As the bomb flashes lit up the room she could see that her mother’s face was peaceful, even content. Madame Chiang rushed over to her and knelt beside her. “Mother,” she whispered. “You are so powerful in prayer. Are you praying for the defeat of our enemy? Will you ask God to crush them before our entire country is wasted? Could you pray for an earthquake to annihilate them?” The old lady smiled gravely and then gently caressed her daughter’s face. “No, my daughter. This is not my prayer. When I pray, don’t expect me to insult God’s intelligence by asking Him to do something which would be unworthy of you, a mortal.” It was a lesson Madame Chiang never forgot over the many years she and her husband spent in exile on the island of Taiwan. (Adapted from Macartney’s Illustrations) Certainly, as we read the Psalms, there are times when the writers get so carried away with their passion for God, that they begin to think that a holy God would want their enemies destroyed. We just don’t see Jesus do that. When he prays for the people who oppose him, it’s with sadness, compassion, and hope. He prays for Peter, when he knows Peter will betray Him. He prays for Judas, who has Jesus arrested. So when we pray, let’s be clear, praying for destruction and evil is unworthy of God, so we pray for what is best for people.

But how do we know what is best for people? This leads into the second idea for praying: it takes humility. One Sunday morning at a small southern church, the new pastor called on one of his older deacons to lead in the opening prayer. The deacon stood up, bowed his head and said, “Lord, I hate buttermilk.” The pastor opened one eye and wondered where this was going. The deacon continued, “Lord, I hate lard.” Now the pastor was totally perplexed. The deacon continued, “Lord, I ain’t too crazy about plain flour. But after you mix ‘em all together and bake ‘em in a hot oven, I just love biscuits. Lord, help us to realize when life gets hard, when things come up that we don’t like, whenever we don’t understand what You are doing, that we need to wait and see what You are making. After you get through mixing and baking, it’ll probably be something even better than biscuits. And if God has a better idea of what is best for us, won’t that be true for others? The problem with me deciding what is best for my enemies is that I am doing that out of pain, while God decides what is best for even my enemies out of love. Jesus says, “[God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” Praying for our enemies and those who harass us will require us to ask God to show us what God wants for them.

Praying for our enemies even loving them is not normal. It’s not natural. It is supernatural, and it can only happen when our hearts have been transformed by the power of Jesus Christ. It’s this kind of love that Jesus showed as He hung dying on the cross, in an agony of pain—he prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” It’s this kind of love that transforms lives, and not just of those around us. Soren Kierkegaard writes, “Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.” How can we not be changed, when we seek God’s guidance with humility, look with compassion and humanity on our enemies, and pray for not just for what we think would be best, but for what God does. So let us learn from Jesus how to pray for enemies, and so release into the world—including their hearts and ours—the transforming power of God!

"Seeking Peace, Finding God: Called to Restore'

Love makes people do the craziest things. When we’re in love, who knows what we’re going to do? But how do you know when you’re in love? To help you, I offer the “Top Ten Signs You’re in Love.”

10.  You’re reading Song of Solomon for your bedtime devotional reading. Steamy!

  9.   You’re in federal prison for trying to make the head of the Lincoln Memorial look like your husband.

  8.   You’re beginning to think the way her nose drips is kind of cute.

  7.   You decide the cats, dogs, monkeys, rats, mice, snakes and yes, even the moose can stay.

  6.   You find yourself in the car on the way to get what she craves and don’t remember asking her what time it was.

  5.   You think an 8-hour drive to see your significant other is normal.

  4.   Your latest invention is pads for your sweaty palms.

  3.   You get lost in her eyes and meet the last six guys she dated.

  2.   You find yourself breaking into song whenever he walks in the room.

  1.   You decide it would be okay to use her toothbrush just this once.

Love makes people do the craziest things.

If you wind back the clock to 1914 and think about what all this area was like, you’ll see how crazy love can be. Today, we see houses everywhere, but in 1914, there were not that many houses here. Squantum was mostly a summer destination with a few resort hotels and vacation homes, as people tried to escape the summer heat of Boston. But there were some families—farmers mostly—who lived here year-round who wanted their children to know God loved them, wanted their children to grow up knowing the Bible was a book that could change their lives, wanted their children to make a difference. To start a church, with such a small year-round population was pretty crazy. To start a church, when you had so many different ideas about church—we had evangelical Swedes, Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and others—that was crazy too. The people embraced their differences, and they started a church—our church. Love makes people do the craziest things.

During the 1950s and 1960s, churches were filling up, and Squantum had two, right? First Church of Squantum and the Catholic church, Mary Star of the Sea. The priest at the time—some of you may remember—told his parishioners they were not allowed to even set foot in this church. Fifteen years or so ago, when the Archdiocese shut down Star of the Sea, the people who had been part of that fellowship, who had loved and served and shed tears together were looking for a place to worship together—on Squantum—and this church opened its doors, so the people of that church without a building, could worship God together. That’s crazy! Why would we do that for them? But they were our neighbors and our friends and our hearts were broken with them at the loss of their church. Love makes people do the craziest things.

In 2013, the people of this church did something crazy—they decided to call a full-time pastor. Only seven years before, in 2006, this church was down to a couple handfuls of people, and loving God and each other and this community brought the church roaring back to life—at just the right time to help change this community for the better. Were you there that day, nine years ago, when I first stood in front of you? I remember standing up to read scripture before my sermon that day, and feeling the love of God move among us so strongly those of us there could feel it. Call a full-time pastor? What, are you nuts? Together, we have worked together, laughed and cried and served together! We have made new memories together—dances and parade floats, baptisms and weddings, funerals and confirmations, VBS and youth groups. We have opened our doors to the community—for school board nights and mayoral candidates, neighborhood watch meetings and meditation classes, and Halloween and potty breaks. For why? Love makes people do the craziest things.

It's true. At the end of the day, the love Jesus had for God and for each of us, led Him to do the craziest thing of all—to be willing to be killed. His willingness to do something crazy to help us find forgiveness for the wrongs we have done, find acceptance beyond what we deserve, find open arms when we expect hostility—wow! That’s wild! And Jesus’ love for us is not something we just find and then we are good—back to living our own best lives. Jesus’ love for us rewires us, changes our hearts, leaves us wanting more and wanting to do more to forgive, accept and embrace our friends for sure, but also our neighbors and the people who troll us on Next Door, or gossip about each of us, and the ones who aren’t really sure why we are here. We are not just a non-profit—we as a people and as a place are a sign of God’s grace to this community. We keep on loving like Jesus would. Where the world talks about divisions, partisanship, and breaking things down, God has planted us here to be a sign that Jesus’ love is more and showing Jesus’ grace can become a lifestyle.

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us…”(2 Cor 5:18–20a)

But there it is—love made God do the craziest thing in sending Jesus, love made Jesus do the craziest thing in being willing to die for us. And when we love like Jesus did, when we live a life marked by that grace, other people will see how crazy it is, and know that our love is for real. And if our love is for real, then maybe God is for real. And if God is for real…well then…tell me about this love that makes people do the craziest things. We could all use a little more of that crazy kind of grace and hope in our lives and our world!

"Seeking Peace, Finding God: Because I Have to Brush My Teeth Too"

The title of the article in the September 3rd Chicago Tribune read, “He beat up and robbed a man who was doing pizza deliveries. Then they became friends.” Journalist, Adriana Perez, continues,

“On a snowy night in 2013, 22-year-old Ed Daniels Jr. jumped out of a red Ford Taurus on Chicago’s West Side with four men in tow. They beat up 56-year-old Guillermo Diaz—who was delivering pizza—and took all his money. Daniels was arrested that same night. It was once Daniels sat within the confines of a jail cell, chipping paint on cement walls and rusty green bars separating him from the rest of the world, that he had time to think.

“’I just sat there thinking all night long,’ Daniels said. ‘Is he all right? Like, did we kill somebody? Is he breathing? Is he in the hospital?’

“Daniels didn’t know it on that December night, but Diaz would decline to press charges against him. And Diaz didn’t tell his family about the attack, because he didn’t want them to worry. Instead, the pizza restaurant owner did something else that would change Daniels’ life forever: He offered him a second chance.

“’The lessons that I learned and the grace that he gave me, makes me who I am today,’” Daniels told the Tribune.

As I read the article, I was struck by how deeply this one story got to the heart of what it is like to be human and hurt, and how the Bible shows us the way to a different way of thinking about life.

First, the Bible says we have to take sin seriously. In English, sin is one of those words that makes us squirm, but really sin describes the state of a relationship between us and God, and between us and each other. As Ed Daniels Jr. is beating up Guillermo Diaz, that human relationship is as broken and beat up as Guillermo. As Ed steals from Guillermo, he inflicts not just physical pain, but heart-pain as well, showing Guillermo he is just a thing, a source for cash, to be left discarded like trash in the snow. In the Hebrew Testament, the reason animal sacrifice was required is so that people would know that breaking trust and relationship with God and people was serious. You had to give up some of your flock your livelihood, and that creature was going to die because of what you had done. When we are hurt, that hurt matters, and we carry that pain with us into the rest of our lives. But the Bible also recognizes that the one who has done the hurting—they are also wounded by the wrong-doing, their heart scored and scratched by the violence they have done. There’s no sugar coating it: if you have hurt someone that’s a real problem for them and for you.

Second, the Bible also talks about a way to restore that relationship. The fancy word for that is atonement. When I look at the word, the three syllables say it all—"at,” “one,” “ment”—because atonement takes a broken relationship, a heart wounded by wrong-doing, and makes it whole again. For the Israelites—and later, the Jews—animal sacrifice made atonement, literally covered over the sin. It was said that because of an atoning sacrifice, God overlooked the covered-over sin. For Guillermo and Ed, the details were different, but the healing was the same. “Guillermo didn’t press charges against Ed, but instead, the Lawndale Christian Legal Center (representing Ed) asked if Guillermo wanted to be part of a ‘peace circle.’ He and Ed would get a chance to meet, to talk ‘about the harm done and ways to move forward and heal.’” After meeting, Guillermo and Ed agreed that Ed could make atonement for his crime by volunteering at the pizza shop for a month. Perez notes that Ed worked there for three. “’At the end,’ Ed said, ‘[Guillermo’s] response to everything was: He forgave me a long time ago…His response was: Am I OK? He didn’t want to see me in prison. He chose grace, especially for me. Because I was labeled as the leader of it all.’”

Underneath the powerful ideas of sin and atonement is a powerful undercurrent of compassion. Guillermo was an immigrant. He had come in with nothing and worked his way through, managed his family, bought a pizza restaurant and made something. And he saw the brokenness in Ed. Turns out Ed had been an amazing football player—played through high school and got a scholarship to play for Lake Forest College. Perez writes, “’While on a break during his sophomore year, [Ed] was running through the last 20 minutes of NFL combine drills with two trainers when he jumped to catch the ball and his right leg entwined with the resistance parachute he was wearing. He fell and broke his tibia and fibula, dislocating his ankle and fracturing his kneecap. Ed said, ‘There was no more whistles, there was no more cheering, there was no more scouts…Nobody…The accident ‘killed parts’ of him, he said…His sadness and depression turned to anger, rage and bullying. And then came the fateful night when he encountered [Guillermo]…’” Ed said later, “’Meeting Guillermo made me believe that I was worth more than just a football player.’” Yeah…grace has a way of doing that.

In our politics and in our community, seeing the humanity in those who are different from us is part of what we need most. When we label people—those heartless Republicans, those ‘woke’ Democrats, those monsters, those idiots—we dehumanize them, and that makes it easier to hurt them. But what we need is to see past the opposition, past the hurts that have been done to us and the fear they bring, to see we are all in this country and this world together. We need the guidance of God’s Word here—all of us need to own when we hurt someone. When we take something that’s not ours, when we put amassing power over caring for people, when we label and dehumanize those made in God’s image and treat them as things or statistics, when we would rather complain about a problem than work towards a solution, then we are indeed breaking relationships, trust and community. Sin is serious, and it’s breaking our relationships and our country right now. If we can’t or won’t require change in our own lives, how will we require it of those in power? If we want something different in our leaders, we will have to look for and require something different from our leaders. The only way out will be one in which we all recognize the hurt we have done and are doing, to share our brokenness with each other, and ask God to show us a way to be different together.

Whether it’s Guillermo seeing the humanity in Ed, or it’s Jesus seeing the humanity in us, grace always looks the same. We all need to brush our teeth. We all want to be loved and to have someone to love. We all want our kids to have a better life than we did. And we all make mistakes. We all have our broken places, and we all have done things that have broken relationships and harmed others. We all stand in need of grace. Paul writes, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” But how do we make it right? How do we straighten out what is crooked? Someone has to pay the price. Big-hearted Guillermo helped a young man back on the road to humanity by setting aside revenge and punishment for relationship. In a sense, Guillermo paid the price for Ed, then Ed had the chance to say thank you. How amazing is that? Not as amazing as what Jesus did. Where the Jewish animal sacrifices had to be repeated over and over again, Jesus took on our humanity, and became the perfect sacrifice. Dying for our brokenness, forgiving all of us from the Cross, and rising again, Jesus demonstrates that when we give up power for love, when we forgive instead of retaliate, then the world shifts and hope can begin. We have the chance to heal, and to say “Thank you,” by becoming a source of healing. Yeah…grace is crazy like that. That’s what makes grace amazing!

"Seeking Peace, Finding God: The Way Out of the Mess We're in"

One of my early lessons in peace-making came on the playground in 3rd grade. That year, I was in a split-grade class—3rd and 4th grade—and the head bully was a 4th-grader, named Mark. He and his buddies delighted in making my life hell every day, and I was pretty scrawny, so they could pretty much get away with it. I remember one time he surprised me. He and his buddies came and sat next to me at lunch, and I thought, “Oh boy! This is not good.” He said, “I’ve been thinking. We’ve been giving you a hard time.” He looked at his friends who smiled at me and each other. Something was going on…maybe it’s good? Everyone’s smiling. At least he wasn’t trying to steal my lunch. He said, “I want to make peace. No hard feelings?” He held out his hand for me to shake and I shook it. Peace sounded like a great idea to me. We smiled at each other. I went to take another bite of my sandwich and someone smacked me in the back of the head. Laughing hilariously, Mark and his friends ran away, and I chased them, hoping I would catch up to them and pound someone. I learned some hard lessons about peace-making that day, and as I look around in our community today, I think a lot of folks have learned the same hard lessons. Don’t show weakness. If someone has been mean to you, probably they will do it again. If someone is mean to you, get angry and get even. People with power will use it against you. I see and hear people living out of these lessons online, in our politics, and sometimes even in our neighborhood. The thing is, I’m pretty sure it’s not making our lives better. In fact, doesn’t it feel like if we don’t change, things are going to get worse? How do we help things be different? Perhaps you won’t be surprised to hear that I think Jesus can show us a way out this mess that we’re in.

But Christians are part of the mess that we are in! Our hyper-partisan politics have people who are Christians on both sides. How can that be? Jim Wallis imagines a conversation in which a reporter asks a millennial, “What do you think of Christians following Jesus?” To which the millennial responds, “I think it would be a good idea.”[1] Wallis quips, “It’s always amazing to me how Jesus has apparently survived all of us Christians.”[2] I agree. Who is the real Jesus? What does Jesus really think and value? Can we find the bedrock of a true and deep relationship with Jesus? We can’t look to the Left to understand Jesus. Nor can we take what the Right says about Jesus as gospel. We will have to go deeper into God’s Word, to go deeper into who Jesus is, and how Jesus changes everything. We have to get Biblical. We have to be honest. We have to go deeper. Because what we really want is peace, and Jesus gets it, and Jesus can show us the way. You know, when the Sunday School kids were asked what they wanted to learn about, they said, “Peace.” So this Fall, we are going to look for the deep wells of peace Jesus offers…and it all begins with forgiveness.

Jesus’ first lesson in forgiveness is that it is freeing. When we were first married and living in Baltimore, Cynthia and I had a date planned. I was looking forward to having dinner together, then maybe going for a walk. And just before I left the office, somebody called and ruined my day. I was so mad at them! It was all I could think about as I headed for home, and when I got home, I stomped around the house, complaining and kavetching about it. Finally, I looked at Cynthia, and she asked if I still wanted to go out. I swallowed my anger, went upstairs to brush my teeth, and I looked at myself in the mirror. Was this person’s thoughtlessness going to ruin just part of my day, or my evening too? So I asked Jesus to help me through, to free me from my anger, and forgiveness ended up being part of it. In our passage for today, Jesus prays, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” Why does Jesus pray that prayer? I wonder if it’s because Jesus knows He has the toughest day of His life ahead, and He needs the freedom to meet it head on, without hatred or anger or fear weighing Him down. The first thing Jesus does on the cross is to forgive people who put Him there. Forgiveness frees us to go God’s way.

Jesus’ second lesson on forgiveness is that it’s not fair. The thief on the cross next to Jesus asks Jesus to remember him. Jesus says, “Today, you’ll be with me in paradise.” That’s not fair. Fair would be Jesus cursing everyone who was laughing at Him—and then having fire come down and burn them up. Fair would be the thief finding a nice, uncomfortable place in one of the Circles of Hell. Fair would be Jesus getting down off the Cross and smacking that smug look off the face of the Roman soldiers who gave Him the crown of thorns and mocked Him as king. Don’t get mad—get even. Revenge is fair. Striking back is fair. Fair would be you and I getting what we deserve too. That our anger would lead to more brokenness. That our addictions would lead to more suffering. That our arrogance and selfishness would yield more bitter fruit. That would be fair. Forgiveness breaks the cycle of pain and retaliation, to find a new way that brings healing. Desmond and Mpho Tutu write, “…there is no end to the creative ways we humans can find to hurt each other, and no end to the reasons we feel justified in doing so. There is also no end to the human capacity for healing…Out of [our] brokenness, we hurt others. Forgiveness is the journey we take toward healing the broken parts. It is how we become whole again.”[3] Forgiveness is not fair, but that’s part of why it works.

Third grade was a tough year for me. I got punched a bunch and I punched the folks who hit me. I found striking back—physically or verbally—didn’t keep me from getting picked on, and didn’t make me feel any better. I also learned over the course of the year, that Mark’s dad was an alcoholic, and I started noticing that he came to school with bruises. It was harder to rage against Mark, when I actually felt sorry  for him. That year I also learned that by striking back I was allowing the bullies to decide how my world worked—violence creating brokenness and pain expressing themselves in more violence and pain. Isn’t that one of the great problems we face? Will we let the trolls and bullies use the love of power to define the world and how we relate to each other? Or will we seek Jesus, who gave up power for love? Fear and anger come from how we are hurt, and so making decisions out of fear and anger only creates more hurt and brokenness. Kindness and sacrifice break the cycle. Forgiveness brings healing and hope. I see how Jesus’ weakness on the Cross, turns to strength on Easter, as God turned sacrifice into healing. Somehow, Jesus’ response to the cruelty and evil around Him transformed the world. Don’t we long for our lives and our world to be transformed too? I am convinced that the path Jesus walked, the way Jesus taught, and the forgiveness Jesus practiced can show us the way out of our mess. So let us learn the ways of peace together with Jesus. With God, all things are possible, even peace.

[1]Jim Wallis, Christ in Crisis: Why We Need to Reclaim Jesus (NY: Harper Collins, 2019), p. 1.

[2]Ibid, p. 2.

[3]Desmond and Mpho Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World (NY: Harper Collins, 2014), p. 3.

Can My Life Carry Water?

When I was little, I remember going to the beach. One of the earliest times we went to the beach, someone showed me how to make a sand castle, complete with a moat. Of course, by that point, I had figured out that moats are supposed to have water in them, maybe with alligators or sharks I thought, so my moat needed to have water too. So I started heading to the water with a bucket to bring back water for my moat. I made a lot of trips back and forth, and discovered I had two problems:  the first was that no matter how much water I put in the moat, it always went down into the sand; and the second was that I had been given a bucket full of holes! The people of Israel faced a similar situation in Jeremiah’s time. The people in the area kept giving them buckets to carry spiritual water, but they were completely full of holes, and so the life-giving spiritual water always seemed just beyond their reach. The three leaky buckets they were given are leaky buckets people still try to give us today—that God is whatever you want God to be, that believing in God is all you have to do, and that spiritual health is about meeting our needs.

Leaky Bucket #1: God is whatever and wherever you want. We live in an age of designer religions—take a little bit from Buddhism, another bit from Christianity, a third bit from New Age stuff—mix them all together and you have something that works for you. We kind of like the idea of God, but let’s not make it too restrictive. That’s similar to the situation the people of God in Jeremiah’s time were facing—surrounded by all sorts of religions, many were making their own, including taking as much of God as they wanted. Jerry Adler of Newsweek remarks that we want “religion without the hard parts.” Take the best seller, Conversations with God, that “offers advice, jokes and opinions on a wide range of subjects, but nothing in the nature of commandments.”* This bucket just doesn’t hold water! We don’t decide what and who God is, God does. It’s not whatever and wherever we want, but what has God told us and shown us in the Bible and in Jesus. Baal did not rescue the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt or part the Red Sea, and Buddha didn’t die on a cross for us. And we didn’t receive “25 Guidelines for Healthy Living,” but the 10 Commandments. People can believe what they want, but that doesn’t make it the best, the most real, the most challenging, the most fulfilling. As Harry Emerson Fosdick, NY City pastor during the mid-20th century and known for his tolerance, “Don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.” Jeremiah’s message is that only the Lord is the fountain of living water that completely refreshes us. God is always the source.

Leaky Bucket #2:  Believing in God is all you have to do. Was it really thirty-one years ago that Cynthia and I were married in Atlanta on a hot and sticky day at the end of June? You know, that was a great day. We have lots of great memories of our wedding, but Cynthia and I knew that day was not THE finish line. The real goal of getting married is to build a life and home together. In the same way, the children of Israel, remembered the way God rescued them from slavery, but it was a memory not something they lived their life by. As great as it is to accept the grace and love of Jesus Christ, that is not the finish line…we complete the race by living a life under Jesus’ direction. The Lutheran pastor and World War II martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”** The message that accepting Jesus is all you have to do doesn’t hold water. Accepting Jesus is just the beginning! The best parts of walking with Christ come as we bring our lives in line with Christ.

Leaky Bucket #3:  Spiritual health comes from meeting my needs. I am a fan of looking for a church home. I believe that when we find the place where God wants us to grow, we will have a sense of coming home and belonging. But I know some people who go church shopping this way: which church has the right kind of music (meaning, what I like) and the most attractive building or the funniest pastor? The danger of course is that we start to turn church into a kind of spiritual mall, going wherever the product suits our needs best. In Jeremiah’s time, the people of Israel did all sorts of things to try to be spiritually healthy, but were they actually seeking God? In our day, we have to remember that we are not the point of church—God is. Above all else, we gather to offer God the worship of our hearts, a pleasing sacrifice of thanksgiving—all we are for all He has done. We’re not here for a concert or a good self-help session, but for God. At times, God’s Word will make us uncomfortable where God is stretching and growing us. At times, we will come to God with our broken selves and find Jesus meets our confession with healing. And sometimes we will find ourselves catching a vision of the life we might have—if only we would trust a little more. In the end, it’s not just about us being refreshed, but about letting God shape and mold us into channels of grace so God’s love can flow more clearly to our neighbors, classmates, families and workplaces. Spiritual health comes as our lives give glory to God.

Can your life carry water? Sometimes in our lives we feel like the sand on the beach, dry and wanting water. The world tries to hand us all kinds of buckets, but they just don’t hold water and always run out. The versions of God we make for ourselves just can’t compare to the real, wild, wonderful, loving God of Scripture, who came in Jesus Christ to show what love really means. We don’t even need buckets, because when Christ is in us, the refreshing life of Jesus is the fountain of living water that completely refreshes us. If Jesus is really our model, then we find true spiritual health and hope as our lives become like His. And we discover that buckets are not for us to drink from, but to carry that refreshment to others. Just as Jesus lived to make God’s Will real in His life, even if that meant His body was broken for the world, so we are meant to carry the living water to the world, to be poured out so thirsty people can experience the living water and learn how to find Him. The water is sweet and there is more than enough to share and as people drink from the spring of grace, we will see our lives and others’ lives changed. Can your life carry water? Don’t you wish your life could carry more?

*Jerry Adler, “Heaven's Gatekeepers,” Newsweek, March 16, 1998.

**The Cost of Discipleship [New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., (1937) 1963], 47.

Becoming Rightly Focused

So I’ve been thinking about getting some therapy. I wanted to show you a video of the therapist I’m thinking about going to. Would you watch it with me? I would really like your opinion.

[Show the video clip:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyu9FdreMVk 

Laughing…So what do you think? Should I go with this therapist? No?!

What are the details he’s focused on?

What are the details that actually matter?

In our passage for today, Jesus talks about two ways to pay attention to the wrong things, and one way to pay attention to the right things.

First, Jesus points out that the conflict is not what matters. I have a friend who just likes to argue. Do you know anyone like that? She doesn’t care what about. She just wants to argue. She doesn’t even care what side she’s on—you pick first and she will happily take the opposing view. So why does she argue? She argues not for better understanding, or to make a difference in the world. She argues to win, and she’s willing to completely demolish you and your point of view in the process, just to prove how smart she is, and because she thinks it’s fun. These days, we have lots of conflict all around us, in part because we have a curious mix of some folks who just want to win, and quite a number of folks who are focused on the wrong details. According to Jesus, some divisions are perfectly natural, because Jesus is focused on loving completely, living a life of grace and sacrifice—the baptism Jesus will undergo is dying on a cross, even for the folks who hate Him. To live a life of putting others first, of loving even when it’s hard, and refusing to stop showing grace even if it’s going to hurt—that’s going to put us in conflict with people who are focused on the wrong details and just wanting to win. Conflict isn’t the point—showing grace is. Winning isn’t what matters—faith expressing itself in love is all that matters.

Second, Jesus points out that we are always trying to predict the wrong things. So let’s think back to our video for a moment. At what moment did you know how the video was going to end?

[Take responses from the congregation.]

Ok, good! So now—imagine with me—what if the person paying attention to the shoes was the guy whose wife was having the affair, and the therapist was trying to get him to pay attention to the right details. What would that conversation have been like? If you were the therapist trying to help the guy focus on the right details, what are some questions you would have asked?

[Take responses from the congregation.]

In Jesus’ time, many of the folks listening to him had livelihoods that depended on knowing what the weather was going to be—farmers, merchants, parents. They paid attention to the details of the weather so closely that they could predict the weather with some accuracy. But they were not paying attention to the more important signs of the times—the conflicts between people, the economic divisions, people trying to earn their way into God’s graces, people thinking they had all the answers, people just wanting to be king of the mountain. Rather than trying to predict things that don’t matter, Jesus focuses our attention on what does—caring for the people around us and for the relationships between us.

Finally, Jesus says time is short—make peace now. If the conflict isn’t what matters, if we focus on loving and showing grace, then what matters is people and relationships. If we have broken relationships, then let us mend them. If we have a broken relationship with the planet, then let us live responsibly. If we recognize there are injustices around us, then let us strive to make them right. If there are divisions in our politics, then let us seek to heal them. Broken relationships, mistreating the planet, tolerating injustice, and destructive politics tell us really bad things are coming. Time is short—it’s time to seek peace together.

Part of what makes me belly laugh about that video is how clearly ridiculous the therapist is. He is so clearly clueless. As we engage the sometimes clueless people around us with grace, we are likely to experience division. Jesus knows that’s a little like stepping into a fire, but the encouragement we are given is these divisions, these conflicts are not a fire that will consume us. Stay steady. Stay focused on grace. Keep loving even the people who hate us. They may not understand because they are focused on conflict and the wrong details. The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself in love—loving God with our whole heart and loving our neighbors as ourselves. But time is short—and we need each other. It’s worth remembering that we, too, are often clueless. I wonder, if we sat with Jesus for awhile, if we told Him about all the things we thought were important, would Jesus agree? Who are the people who really matter in your life? How are your relationships with them? And your relationship with God…how’s that going for you? This week, I was reminded about how often the many details of my day distract me from thinking about how much Jesus matters in my life, and how I long to focus on what Jesus thinks matters most around me. Let’s sit with Jesus for a few moments to ask Jesus—what really matters?

After a pause for reflection, pray…not just to do loving things, but to become loving people. Not just do grace-filled things, but to be filled with grace until all we are looks like Jesus who never stopped loving the people who hated and opposed Him at every turn. He did not fear the fire of conflict, and stayed faithful and loving even if it meant a cross. Help us to love and live like that! Amen!

True Freedom in Grace: Living Life in Tough Times

I was rooting around on the internet, trying to find the humor in tough times. I found a set of videos on YouTube that feature 91-year old Clara who takes a few minutes to show a younger generation how to make ends meet with Depression-era cooking. Let me show you a couple of minutes, and then we’ll talk.

Clara Cooks Poorman's Meal

[Try to show the video clip. If it fails, say, “While Clara is peeling potatoes, dicing onions and slicing up hot dogs for her Poorman’s Meal, she talks about how she had to quit high school because she couldn’t afford socks and how her grandson and his friends love her cooking. “But we survived,” she says.]

What are some of the things that you noticed? What were some of the things you learned?

[Take responses from the congregation.]

Which of course got me thinking about our times: how can we better make ends meet? Some of us may be asking, “How can we invest when we don’t have much money?” Others may be wondering, “How can I get the most out of what I have?” Our passage for today is full of good ideas for both.

First, invest in character. Some of you may remember Robert Schuller, the pastor of the Crystal Cathedral in Southern California. He preached a series of sermons later made into a book, entitled “Tough Times Don’t Last, But Tough People Do.” Paul says to the Christians in Galatia, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load.” Are you learning the lessons these tough times are teaching? When you make it to the other side of the tough times, what kind of person will you be? Are you someone who is making the world better by sharing the burdens of others, or are you looking out for number one? Invest in character.

Second, invest in people. In verse 9, Paul says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” If tough times don’t last, but tough people do, then doing good for other people is a great investment. Do you remember when you were first looking for a job? Did you get any good breaks? When I was looking for a summer job in college, the CEO of a multi-million-dollar, plastics distributor attended my church, and I worked up the nerve to ask him if I could work for him. I spent most of the summer wrapping packages for shipping by UPS—but I’ll never forget his kindness for taking a chance on me. Whenever we have the chance to do someone a kindness—a stranger, or even our kids—we can seize that opportunity to be a blessing. Helping each other through tough times means we will all be stronger and better on the other side. Invest in people.

Third, invest in making God smile. Paul writes in verses 7–8, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A person reaps what they sow. The one who sows to please their sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” Tough times come and go, and so do good times. Through it all, steady as a rock is God Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, who came in Jesus Christ to reveal what love was really about. Jesus chose to go the cross instead of a palace, because He knew that was what God wanted. Jesus sowed to please God, and God was faithful and raised Jesus from the grave. In the same way, you and I have chances every day to “sow to the Spirit” and do what we know would make God smile, even if we can’t always understand how it will truly make things better for us. Invest in making God smile—God will pour out unexpected blessings!

I know times are tough in our society, challenging for sure. Some of us are having to make due with less than we were ten years ago. Others have such an abundance, it’s hard to know how to really make it count. It’s wonderful to have folks like Clara around to remind us we will get through all this craziness. Some of us don’t have as much money to give as we would like to, so we give what we can and then we can invest ourselves in making God smile, then we can invest our time and our talents in thanking the God who gives us all that we have. Whatever you can do, offer it to God and watch God bless what you do! As a fellowship, we are discovering we have to work together more than ever before, and it will indeed take all of us. Now is the time to show grace. Now is the time for us to show what we are really made of, the love of Christ in us. Giving what we can, sharing what we have, investing in people, God and character, will allow us to become those loving people, in a loving church, that God made us to be. This poem captures what I’m after here:

I’ve never made a fortune

 and it’s probably too late now,

But I don’t worry about that much

 I’m happy anyhow.

And as I go along life’s way

 I’m reaping better than I sow,

I’m drinking from my saucer

 ‘cause my cup has overflowed.

Haven’t got a lot of riches

 and sometimes the going’s tough,

But I’ve got loving ones around me

 and that makes me rich enough.

I thank God for many blessings

 and the mercies God’s bestowed,

I’m drinking from my saucer

 ‘cause my cup has overflowed.

O, remember times when things went wrong,

 My faith wore somewhat thin,

But all at once the dark clouds broke

 and sun peeped through again.

So Lord, help me not to gripe about

 the tough rows that I’ve hoed,

I’m drinking from my saucer

 ‘cause my cup has overflowed.

If God gives me strength and courage

 when the way grows steep and rough,

I’ll not ask for other blessings

 I’m already blessed enough.

And may I never be too busy

 to help others bear their loads,

Then I’ll keep drinking from my saucer

 ‘cause my cup has overflowed.

May God help you see that your cup is overflowing with more than enough to share today.

True Freedom in Grace: Changing Our Recordings for God’s Recordings

So a while back, I found this great app. It makes sound effects. It’s hilarious! Want to hear?

[play some sounds]

That’s great, isn’t it? So did you notice that they all have at least one thing in common? What are some of those things?

[take responses from the congregation]

Very good! Yes, you are really paying attention. The biggest thing that they have in common is that they are recordings, and no matter how many times you push the button, you get the same sound. I think a lot of us have recordings we have made over the course of our lives, but they not only record people’s voices, but feelings as well. You make a bonehead play in a game, and what kinds of recordings do you get? “Wah-wah. You stink!” You do just the right thing at the right time, “The fans go wild! Cheers!” Or maybe something happens and a recording of your mom or dad comes out of your mouth. Sometimes these recordings are helpful, but sometimes they begin to get in the way. In our passage today, Paul talks about how to free ourselves from the recordings that can dominate our lives.

First, recognize the emptiness of the recordings. Paul writes, “Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.” In the original language, the word for “conceit” can mean empty of honor or glory. Tim Keller adds, “So conceit is a deep insecurity, a perceived absence of honor and glory, leading to a need to prove our worth to ourselves and others.” This emptiness often leads us to do one of the things Paul warns us not to do:  provoking or envying. Keller writes, “’Provoking’ is the stance of someone who is sure of his or her superiority, looking down on someone perceived to be weaker. ‘Envying’ is the stance of someone who is conscious of inferiority, looking ‘up’ at someone they feel is above them.” What’s interesting is that when we do either of these things, we are focused on ourselves, right? Either we are proud that we are just soooo good, or we are worried that we are not good enough. And in an odd way, we are looking to how other people make us look and feel to find out how we should look and feel. My sophomore year in high school I wanted desperately for people to like me. I wasn’t really sure how I fit in, if I could fit in, but I really wanted to be liked and included by the kids in my church youth group. I tried so hard, mostly out of insecurity. At school that same year, however, I have a feeling that I was insufferably arrogant about my classes, which were going well. Both my fears and my arrogance came out of my insecurity. Regardless of whether one of our internal recordings is provoking us to feel superior or trying to make us envy what others have, what they offer is empty promises. Being self-focused and depending on others to know how to feel about ourselves will never find us hope or meaning or purpose. The recordings that tell us how to feel are empty.

Second, recognize the power of God’s recordings. One of my father-in-law’s favorite songs has a chorus that goes like this:

Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble,

When you're perfect in every way,

I can't wait to look in the mirror,

I get better looking each day.

I can imagine someone trying very hard to be humble, but of course the harder we try, the more pride we get in our work…which is not very humble. C.S. Lewis once said “humility is not thinking less of yourself: it is thinking of yourself less.” That’s the “law of Christ” Paul talks about us fulfilling in verse 2—thinking of God more and ourselves less. Jesus lived and taught and died and rose, not for Himself, but for His heavenly Father, and so we too might hear God say, “I love you! I love you for who you are not what you’ve done! I loved you before you did anything to deserve it.” That’s grace. Those are the recordings God wants us to listen to not only with our ears, but with our minds and our hearts. We end up not comparing ourselves to others, but simply trying to live truly in light of God’s great “I love you!”

Finally, we carry each other’s burdens, but our own load. I remember as an 8th grader, I realized on a Friday, that I had a major poetry project due in English on Monday, and I hadn’t even started. At first, my mom got after me a little for lack of planning, but before long I was buckled down and writing poem after poem, working on the clipart that had to go with it. My mom worked with me off and on, not doing the heavy-lifting for me, but staying up late with me, helping me to organize and hole-punch the project. She carried my burden—isolation (I felt like I was alone in my problem), frustration (It was going so slowly, but she helped me understand it was still going), despair (I will never get this done!)—but still it was my load. I will never forget my mother’s kindness that weekend. The image Jesus uses is a yoke, a kind of harness for two that allows sharing the load and learning the task. Jesus says, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.”(Matthew 11:28–30) When we help carry other people’s burdens, that’s the way to do it. Not provoking or envying, not condemning or judging—just doing what we can. We can’t live another person’s life—they have to carry their own load—but we can help them shift their burdens.

I do love the sound effects app, but I like some of my internal recordings a lot less. I’ve spent most of my life trying to become aware of the messages I have received from others. The farther down that path I go, the more I realize these recordings have no real hold on me. Oh sure, I have knee-jerk reactions to things some times, but knowing God loves me, knowing that Jesus died for me, knowing that what God thinks about me is what really matters, that’s really helped me take a deep breath. You see we really play for an audience of One, for Jesus, and in that knowledge, we have true freedom. We are all learning to trust that the Spirit will give us what we need when we need it. May we learn to lose the empty conceit, and gain the fulfilling trust. By the grace of God, we have today to live in light of that grace, to invite God to change out our recordings, for His.

True Freedom in Grace: Gospel Character

In life, we all face questions that get at the heart of existence. I ran across one the other day: Where do the characters go when I use my backspace or delete them on my PC?[1] It turns out characters go to different places, depending on whom you ask:

·     A Buddhist might say: If a character has lived rightly, and its karma is good, then after it has been deleted it will be reincarnated as a different, higher character. Those funny characters above the numbers on your keyboard will become numbers, numbers will become letters, and lower-case letters will become upper-case.

·     A 20th-century, bitter, cynical, nihilist might say: Who cares? It doesn't really matter if they're on the page, deleted, undeleted, underlined, etc. It's all the same.

·     Stephen King might say: Every time you hit the (Del) key you unleash a tiny monster inside the cursor, who tears the poor, unsuspecting characters to shreds, and eats them, bones and all. Hah, hah, hah!

·     Some Christians might say: The nice characters go to Heaven, where they are bathed in the light of happiness. The naughty characters are punished for their sins. Naughty characters are those involved in the creation of naughty words…

·     Dave Barry's explanation: The deleted characters are shipped to Battle Creek, Michigan, where they're made into Pop-Tart filling; this explains why Pop-Tarts are so flammable, while cheap imitations are not flammable.

·     IBM's explanation: The characters are not real. They exist only on the screen when they are needed, as concepts, so to delete them is merely to de-conceptualize them. Get a life.

·     An animal rights activist might say: You've been DELETING characters??? Can't you hear them SCREAMING??? Why don't you go CLUB some BABY SEALS while wearing a MINK coat, you pig!!!!

Of course, I’m not sure Jesus would have much to say about deleting characters on a screen, but I think Jesus has a lot to teach us about character. In fact, I think perhaps the greatest question of our time is not what happens to the characters we delete, but how do we build character that is good news? Paul it turns out has been tip-toeing his way towards talking about character, and in our passage he uses the metaphor of fruit to get to the core of the mystery of building character!

But what is character? Character is who we really are when there’s no one else around, but it is sometimes most visible when we are with others. Abraham Lincoln famously said, “Reputation is the shadow. Character is the tree.” So the way people know our character is by what we do, define one decision at a time, every day, all our lives. Ralph Waldo Emerson even said, “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”[2] Following Emerson’s logic, we might think controlling our thoughts is the key to building character. Paul thinks it’s like growing fruit.

Because what we really long for are the fruits of the Spirit. Timothy Keller points out four things about how the Spirit works that are like fruit.

First, fruit is gradual. Like apples on a tree, zucchini on the vine, or raspberries on the bush, it happens day by day, moment by moment, the individual changes so small they are almost imperceptible. Children are like that too. We look at a child and it seems like we only look away for a moment, and they have grown!

Second, fruit comes in bunches. Have you noticed that with fruit, you usually don’t get one apple, one zucchini, one raspberry at a time? It seems to come in multiples. So it is with the fruit of the Spirit. A loving person has joy and peace, shows patience and kindness and becomes a person of integrity and trustworthiness, marked by gentleness and self-discipline. Some of these we may be better at than others because of our temperament, but those who sincerely follow Christ will find Christ’s character growing and fruiting in them.

Third, fruit comes from roots. Without good roots, the fruit will not grow and fill out, having the sweetness it’s meant to have. So it is for us who are seeking Jesus. If we are only living on our strength, our wisdom, our resources, then Christ will never come to full fruit in us. Jesus even said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If someone remains in me and I in them, they will bear much fruit.”

Fourth, fruit is inevitable. When we are trying to follow Christ, trying to know Christ better, trying to make more of ourselves available to Christ, we don’t have to stress about whether we will have fruit. We don’t have to worry. Like pears on a tree, beans on the stalk and blueberries on the bush, the fruit will come.

How do we build character? When I was a kid, my parents would ask me to weed the garden in the hot sun, and I didn’t really want to do it. They said, “It builds character.” When I attended basketball camp and had to play basketball 12 hours a day, my leaders said to me, “It builds character.” When I had a really mean boss, but I really needed the job, someone said to me, “It builds character.” When I spent four and half years dating Cynthia, but most of it away from each other, we used to sigh and say, “It builds character.” When a grandma called me to come be with her granddaughter after her baby died, and I had a recital to go to and a sermon to write, I said to myself, “It builds character.” We build character as we face ourselves, as more than one good meets another and we must choose. . In verse 5:16 and 17, Paul talks about the two competing parts of us who have chosen to follow Jesus. The self-seeking, self-focused, selfish part of ourselves he calls the “sinful nature” that reflects our brokenness and fearfulness. The Spirit is that part of who we are that is all for Jesus, completely redeemed for God, all-in for our Lord. Who am I going to follow in this moment? We have a chance to get ahead at work, or meet our child after school. We have a chance to get some email done, or go for a walk with our spouse. These are not easy choices—getting ahead at work can mean a better life for our family, but time with our families builds relationships. Or maybe someone verbally attacks us and we have the chance to attack back or find a different path. The sinful nature is us at our smallest, meanest, and most self-indulgent. Paul’s first list of the sinful nature are selfish, self-indulgent, and fearful responses to life. They are all things we do, or attitudes we have and they are all about immediate gratification. When we live by the Spirit, we break free from our limitations, and can choose the path of love and grace.

The thing I have learned over the years is that computer characters are rarely truly deleted. Each key stroke we type is recorded, part of the history of that document. If you have the right software, you can read all those keystrokes. In the same way, everything we do, every word we say and every choice we make contributes to who we are. Will we act on our unconscious, often selfish desires, or will we be led by the Spirit and self-forgetful grace? And when our physical presence is deleted from the earth, what will remain behind? Wreckage and regrets…or grace and gratitude? Starting today, we can look at our roots—are they deep in the Word of God, drawing on the loving power of Jesus? We may not see all the fruit in our lifetime, for fruit is gradual. We may not see all the fruit in our lifetime, but others will know we follow Jesus by our fruit. We may not see all the fruit in our lifetime, but we do know—if we walk with Jesus, if we are led by the Spirit, if we stay rooted in God’s love—the Spirit’s fruit will grow in our lives…it’s inevitable! Because our character is built on the Good News of Jesus Christ, our lives become Good News to the world.

[1]http://jokes.cc.com/funny-god/un7pvp/some-character

[2]Ralph Waldo Emerson is the first to phrase this thought this way. It’s an ancient thought. For an interesting exploration of the history of it, see https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/01/10/watch-your-thoughts/.

True Freedom in Grace: The Only Thing That Counts

One of our family’s favorite TV shows for a while was called, Clean House. A while back, they went in search of the messiest home in America. They found it in Cincinnati, OH. The daughter, Bridget, had written to the show, pleading for help with the home she lived in with her mother, Sharon. Not long after, a team of people showed up at their door, ready to help them sort through their clutter and mess. As the team stepped gingerly through the piles and mounds of clutter, Sharon denied she had a problem with hoarding things, or that she had a problem with buying things and bringing them home, even if she didn’t need them and couldn’t use them. With the team’s help, Sharon and Bridget put most of their clutter in a rummage sale. Get this:  they had enough stuff to fill an empty K-Mart—with departments! With the money they made at the rummage sale (plus some matching money from the show), the Clean House team were able to redesign and organize Sharon and Bridget’s home to the tune of $75–100,000! What amazes me is how hard it was for Sharon and Bridget to part with things which in most cases they hadn’t seen or used in years, and it had all piled up to the point where their lives had become narrow lanes through their home, and the roof of their living room was bulging down with the weight of what was above it. Many of us have issues like this—oh, maybe not having piles and piles of clutter. But many of us sometimes feel trapped by our lives, as if the walls are closing in until we only have narrow lanes in which we live. What is it that keeps us in those narrow lanes of living? And how do we escape from the prisons in which we live? Our passage for today talks about freedom—how we give it up and how we can find it again.

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“How do we give up our freedom...and how can we get it back?”

— Rev. Doug Gray

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Let’s begin with how we give it up. The Christians in Galatia are struggling with both their fears and their hopes. The well-intentioned missionaries who have arrived have played on their hopes by encouraging them to “get serious” and “go hardcore” in their faith by piling on rule after rule to their walk with God. But these missionaries have also played on their fears:  what if what we are doing for God is not enough? What if we have to show our love more than we are now? This fear can take us into dark places. Like Sharon, afraid to give up any of her things, afraid to make the changes that will open things up, we too can clutter our lives with rules thinking they mean God will love us better, while they gradually curtail our freedom. We forget that we can’t make God love us more than God already does. All too often we give up our freedom for false promises of security, but we were made for freedom.

Of course, the other extreme of how we give up freedom is the folks who throw out all the rules. I remember my first semester of college. Yeah baby! Mom’s not around. Dad’s not around. Woohoo! I’m staying up all night! Yeah, and I’m eating pizza and frootloops at every meal. I thought, “I’m walking on the wild side!” I could go on, but maybe that’s for another time. The point is that kind of living lost its luster pretty quickly for me. It felt like what mattered most to me got lost in that approach. I realized going to classes was actually something I wanted for me—a way to say “I love you!” to the me I wanted to become, and a way to say “Thank you!” to the God who gave me the gifts that brought me there. I started looking for ways to make a difference in the lives of the people around me. I didn’t have the words for it, and some of the time I felt really isolated from people and angry at God. I was trying to figure out how to be the boss of my life, but I hadn’t figured out how to trust God to be my real boss. I was trying to learn what Paul means when he writes, “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Freedom is more than being able to do whatever we want, because just living for ourselves is slavery to our appetites and wants. True freedom is being able to do whatever…is loving. Paul says, “the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

Which may lead us to ask ourselves:  What do I trust? Where have I placed my hopes, my identity, my sense of security? If our faith is in a certain level of income, a degree of status, or our grip on “The Rules,” then we are driven by these things, and the fear of losing them. If one of these things should fall through, then we can feel lost and adrift, even feel that our world has ended. Like Sharon, how often have we chosen to let our lives narrow out of fear of missing something or losing something, until we have nothing but a dark maze. For Jesus, loving and trusting meant He could conquer his fear and face the cross, trusting God would bring things right in the end. And on that first Easter, God surprised the world by raising Jesus from the dead, to even greater freedom. What counts is not “The Rules” or being able to do whatever we want…what counts is faith expressing itself through love. When we know the right and loving thing to do, then we do it—trusting that the same God who loved Jesus as He was doing the right and loving thing on the cross, will help us do the right and loving thing too. And that’s when the true freedom is born with unexpected bursts of grace!

So where do you place your trust? Do you feel like you are on a roller-coaster, white-knuckling it through life, wishing things would just stop moving? Like Sharon, are you holding on to things, the comfortable and familiar, trying to pretend that nothing is going to change? You know Sharon’s story has a really sad ending: as the cast and crew were showing Sharon around her beautiful, spacious house, you could see the storm clouds forming over Sharon. And in the middle of filming on the last day, Sharon said, “I hate it!” And she walked away, got in her car and left… She only came back after everyone but her daughter had left, and she started bringing junk back into her house. Once we get that we are free, Paul says, “Stand firm…and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Only by taking the risk and letting go, can we get past fear and learn to trust the Lord who loves us so deeply and only wants to give us more. From that place of trust, deep friendships and loving relationships can grow and fill our lives with the intimacy we crave. From that place of trust, we can share what we have—even if we don’t have much. From that place of trust, we can truly help another person, opening ourselves to them as we trust that God has a plan. From that place of trust, we can have deep peace about whatever is to come, because we know that the same Lord Jesus who loved us enough to go to the cross, will walk hand-in-hand into the future with us. Only as we get past fear and find that place of trust do we truly have the freedom to live after God’s own heart. Thanks to grace in Jesus Christ, we catch a glimpse of how perfectly free each of our lives, and our neighborhoods, and our cities, and our nation are meant to be, but best of all that we are freed to love. No fear—only love. What counts is faith expressing itself in love.

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“...we are freed to love. No fear—only love. What counts is faith expressing itself in love!”

— Rev. Doug Gray

True Freedom in Grace: The Cure for Insecurity

As some of you know, I grew up in Hollywood, CA, and that meant having colorful characters around. Though we lived in a modest, quiet neighborhood, Alan Hale, the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island lived a couple of streets over. Michael Jackson shopped at our grocery store and attended the same elementary school I did. And down the street from us lived the deGarza family. They had a nice pool in the backyard and their son, Jeffrey, was just a year or two younger than my younger brother. My Mom struck up a relationship with Mrs. DeGarza and we went over to their house to go swimming. While we were there, I heard Mrs. DeGarza and others say things to Jeffrey like, “You’re such a lazy boy! You’re good for nothing.” Frequently they called him, “the little monster.” Anyone ever been called hurtful names? I’m guessing all of us have. When someone called you names, how did that make you feel?

In Isaiah, other countries have been calling Israel all sorts of names. “Ha ha! Babylon won the war, knocked down your walls, took your leaders, and made your country a wasteland. Hey, your name isn’t Israel after all. I bet your name is ‘Deserted’ because not only are your streets deserted, but your God deserted you!’ ‘No wait,’ said someone else. ‘I know, your name is ‘Desolate.’ Your country is a wasteland and no one loves you.” From where the Jews sat in Babylon, there seemed to be a lot of truth to those names. That’s what really hurts about the names people call us. We start to wonder, “Maybe it’s true.”

But the worst hurt comes when we start calling ourselves names and really mean it. How many of you have ever been so mad at yourself that you said something like, “I can’t believe you did that. You are so stupid!” The times when we are most likely to do that is when we fail at something, and (if you are like me) we are the nastiest about it when we make a promise and blow it. This is often especially true when we try to change long-standing habits and fail. If we try to change and blow it enough times, we begin to say things to ourselves like, “You are such a loser. What a failure.” And that can take us down a dark road into depression, tension, anger and despair. Calling ourselves these names may even make it more likely that we will blow it again, and when we do, that takes us further down the road in a vicious cycle that makes our lives seem darker and darker. Whether other people call us names or we call ourselves names, when we believe all the rottenness that comes at us, we become slaves. Slaves? Oh yes, we can be dominated by these ideas about who we are. If we let them, they will rule our lives and darken our days. Paul writes, “…when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods.”

Lots of forces push against us every day, trying to name us, to define us. Those who sell things try to persuade us to define ourselves with their products. They define us by their stuff and they make money. The powerful call us ‘powerless’ so that they can have more power. Bullies will try to label us ‘weak’ so they can push us around, use or abuse us for their own gratification. Others will label us ‘immoral’ so they can feel all goodie-two-shoes about themselves. The forces that name us want us to believe they are the ones that matter, that we have to “give them their due,” that “that’s just the way it is.” It’s so easy to fall into a place where we feel boxed in and hopeless in the face of this, more subtle name-calling. That’s just where these people, these forces, want us to be.

And if we are honest, we do our own name-calling, don’t we? Sometimes we internalize the messages we receive and pass them on to others. We do it with our words, our actions, our thoughts and our dreams. We participate in the “name-calling” when we don’t stand up for those who are being bullied or treated unjustly. We participate in the “name-calling” when we show less honor to someone because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, intelligence, or socio-economic status. Oh yes, we do our own name-calling, don’t we?

To my knowledge, there is only one way out of slavery to the name-calling, only one way out of bondage to our habits, and that path lies through Jesus. Jesus knows what to do with the names that others give us and the ones that we give ourselves. And Jesus can transform us by His grace, so that we can uncouple ourselves from these forces and stop the negative name-calling we do. Paul writes “now that you have come to know God, or more importantly to be known by God…” When our oldest, Morgan, was in elementary school, she went through a period where she got sadder and quieter. When we asked her about it, she shared that she was being bullied. It had started with name-calling. We asked her what kinds of names do they call you, and she told us. “And you believed her?” we asked. “Do we call you those things?” She shook her head. “Why would you believe her? She doesn’t even know you!” Imagine how much more we are known by God, how the grace of God defines us, how we can be transformed just by believing that we are loved!

That’s what God longs to do with each of us. When we give our hearts and lives over to Jesus, God tells us our real names. They are who we really are, the persons God created each of us to be. For the children of Israel, God was going to change their name from “Deserted” to “My Delight Is in Her.” Instead of “Desolate,” God was going to make her “Married” because of God’s great love and God’s great desire for intimacy and trust with the children of Israel…and with us. In Galatians, Paul talks about how the name “Slave” is replaced with “Son” or “Daughter.” And the implications of that are huge: we are wanted; we are loved; we are provided for; we will never be alone; we can talk with God and know God will listen. Paul even writes that because our name is no longer “Slave” but “Son” or “Daughter,” we can actually call God, “Daddy.” God wants us to come close!

Not long after our pool times at the deGarza house began, Mom asked if Jeffrey would like to come to our house before nursery school and then Mom would take him. It added a certain amount of craziness to our family life and seemed unnecessary to me, so I asked Mom why she would offer to do this with Jeffrey. She said, “I wanted there to be at least one place where people spoke kindly to him.” She paused, then added, “People tend to become what they are called. If you call someone “little monster” long enough, pretty soon they begin to believe it. I wanted Jeffrey to hear people call him the names God has for him.” And that’s our mission this Juneteenth! Juneteenth is the holiday when the blacks at the farthest reaches of the South heard their reality change. No longer would they be called, “enslaved” and inferior. Now their names were, “free” and “citizen.” Juneteenth is a great time to consider leaving our old ways and our old selves behind, to let God erase the old, negative, and enslaved names we have been called or have called ourselves, and to ask God to share with us our real, hope-filled and freed names. But this is also a great time for us to decide to use the God-given names for people, rather than the ones others have come up with. What if, like our Heavenly Father Who loves us, we set about the work of erasing the rottenness of the world’s names for people, and reminded them instead of the names God gave them? Happy Juneteenth! Happy Father’s Day!