A Cloak Worthy of Worship

    Over lunch one day I was having a conversation with a friend about the church.  They told me that they really didn’t have a reference to what the Church in America was because they did not attend one of those typical huge churches that so define Amercian Christianity.  The church they attend is small and very different. From their persepctive, its more communal and intimate.  This is a church that prides itself in not being like those other churches and in being more new testament in its outlook.

    It seems quite en vogue to discuss and debate how we should do church in America.  The questions revolve around how the church should look, how its members should act in relation to the church, and how the church should express its influence in the surrounding society.  Discussions of strengths and weaknesses abound, but what is our purpose?  These discussions have, of late, come to make me unsettled.

    Church should not and needs to stop being a show.  It is not a production, it is not entertainment.  That doesn’t meant that it shouldn’t be engaging to the mind, spirit, or emotion.  There is nothing wrong with beautiful music, language, or architecture.  If anything, Churches are sliding away from these high forms of worship.  In new church plants, the model regarding collective worship seems to be one that appeals not to our higher forms, but to our base passions.  The concern is for ease of entry into worship and ease of mantaining worshipfullness.  Thus, litergies are reduced to simplistic improvised benedictions, worship has come to soley mean singing and such commanded rememberances such as Communion are relegated to once a quarter if at all.  Does the modern protestant church equal the death of reverence?  

   Individualism is killing the church.  The more, it seems, we talk about community, the more individualistic we become.  This is illistrated with two examples.  If a person is looking for a church, for the sake argument lets say that they are already a Christian, and they are taken two different churches.  The first Church is a litergical church, say Episcopal/Anglican (or Catholic, even), and the second a non-litergical non-denominational/community Church.  Regardless of the fact that a whopping 90% of the litergical worship service of the Epicopal/Anglican (Catholic) is straight out of scripture, that person is more than likely going to choose the non-denominational, non-litergical church.  An unscientific, rough estimation would be 1:20 will choose the litergical church.  The reasons for this range from the service being to stuffy to the worship style being too hard to follow.  Or, is it that it is too hard to learn?  Learn worship?  Learn in Worship?

  In Exodus Chapters 26-27 God gives the specific details of how the Isrealites should build the Tabernacle.  Exodus Chapters 35-39 depict the Israelites building the Tabernacle to God’s specifications along with God’s instructions for how the Tabernacle and its worship impliments should be used.  In Chapter 40, God tells Moses how he shall go about erecting the Tebernacle, including how he should anoint the instruments of worship according to God’s design.  In verse 34 the glory of God fills the tabernacle.  In Leviticus chapter fifteen God speaks Moses and Aaron about what will make a person unclean, and in verse 31 states, that they should keep those who are unclean separated so that they will not defile His tabernacle.   

  Matthew 5:23-24 Christ tells us that if we are offering our sacrifice and we remember that we have wronged someone, that someone has something against us, we should first go and be reconciled to them and then come back and complete our offering.  Paul spends a significant portion of 1 Corinthians decribing proper, thoughtful worship.  Prescription of worship found in scripture pains our societally influenced individual focus.  

   One can survive, strictly speaking, on a diet comprised of foods produced by the Mars and Lays companies.  However, beyond the shorter life expectancy, the quality of life erodes into a heavy, lack-luster, and tired muddle of agony which only seems to be amiliorated by more of the same junky cause.  If one lives one a balanced diet of good wholesome food, though at times it may not satisfy the impetuous stomachs craving, the whole body will be stronger, lighter, and overall better joy because it was given what it needed, not what it wanted.

  Eventually we have to heed the biblical advice that we allow ourselves to be weaned from the milk which nourished us when we first came to faith and begin to eat solid food.  Surely Peter admonishes us to nourish ourselves on spiritual milk, but even he must have said so with the organic sense that we would grow in our faith and not remain spiritual infants forever.  Yet, this seems to be where we have gone.  Far from allowing the intellect to be a driving force in our growth, we have turned it to rationalize our lack of growth. Knowledge of scripture and moral living is not maturity in Christ.  Looking like a Christian, being a part of the Christian subculture is not maturity in Christ.  Maturity in Christ is submission to Him who alone can bring it about, the Holy Spirit.

  While this is reflected in all our life, it is most reflected in our worship. Hence, why scripture speaks to the subject of worship prescriptively so often. Insofar as worship is not about us, we should not seek to worship in such a way that makes us feel good, for that is the same logic the hedonist uses to excuse his fornicating lifestyle.  Rather we should seek to always remember that worship is about God.  In order to feed at the banquet table, we must first die to ourselves.  Moreover, when we come before Him to feast, we must shed the clothing of our common days and don the special coat the is befitting the ocasion, lest we find ourselves cast into the darkness.  Let us never forget that fearless “worship” is pretentious and repugnant.

Worship Background

One of the questions we must ask ourselves when we enter into worship is, “what does it look like”?  Does it look like a bunch of people standing in, what in any other context would be considered a rock concert, with their hands lifted and their eye closed in that kinda worshipful squint?  It is sitting in church singing songs composed 400-600 years ago?  Is it a capella (no instruments) voices working for perfect harmony?  Is it falling on our face saying nothing?

Worship can be all these things.  All these things can also be a complete abomination to God.  That’s right, the most fervent emotional worship can be a stink in God nostrils.  Worship in interesting in that, very often, it is not the form that makes it pleasing to God, its what lies beneath and behind.  It is the motive and it is the action that backs it up.

In Isaiah 58, YHWH depicts the junky “worship” of Israel.  The people seek just decisions from the Lord (now days we’d say, they seek His will and plan) and they delight in nearness to Him (we’d say they want a relevant, intimate relationship with Him).  Great, but God is frustrated that while the people ask for that, they fight and quarrel, oppress their workers, and deprive the poor.

The kind of worship that please God is worship is backed by the following things:

“Loosen the bonds of wickedness,
undo the bands of the yoke,
let the oppressed go free,
Divide your bread with the hungry,
Cover the naked,
Hide yourself from your own flesh.”
-Isaiah 58:6-7

If we look at Worship as a form of sacrifice, then it is important to remember that for a sacrifice to be a sacrifice it has to be worth something.  Its all well and good to desire God’s guidance in your life and to want to be intimate with Him, but what do you bring Him?  Ultimately, you bring Him the only thing you can give, yourself.  What are you worth?  How have you honored the image in which He has made you?

Here’s a disclaimer: the list above often does and will come into conflict with the values of this world.  It may even come into conflict with your values.  If you submit yourself to the Holy Spirit, you may find that God’s principles of mercy to not match up with the world’s.  The world’s may be either too lacking in compassion or too lacking in meaning.  This is why Jesus told us that people will hate us for His name (Matt. 10:24, 24:9; Mark 13:13; Luke 6:22, 21:17)…not just people far off, but people near to us.  Which, again, illustrates the sacrificial nature of worship.

Darkness II

 

         Sometimes these memories we desperately want to go away simply will not.  They don’t leave, and I don’t think they ever will.  I don’t think that Jesus sits at the right hand of God devoid of the memories of the nails going through his hand or the look in Peter’s eyes as the cock crows.  Wouldn’t that lessen the sacrifice?  There’s something not right about looking into your savior’s eyes, saying thank you, and Him responding, “for what?” because the memories of the love he showed you are gone simply because they were painful.

            It is such folly to think we can escape our memories.  To think that the past can be erased to such an extent that we cannot even remember it anymore is ridiculous. We can wish and demand that such things happen, but when we are alone with our doubts we know the truth.  Look at all the things that people do to escape their memories.  They drink themselves to death, offer the bodies up in search of a real lover to erase innocence ripped away, they accumulate wealth and toys to negate their former poverty, they lie in the name of faith to deny that they feel far from God.

            Why do Christians have such a hard time believing that bad things just happen sometimes?  Have we become so purpose driven that we can no longer be honest with ourselves?  Very often when people are going through bad times, we quote Job to them.  Ironically, it seems that most of the time the stuff we say sound a lot more like Job’s three shallow-minded and insensitive friends.

 ”Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?” 

While this is definitely an example of God reminding one of His creations where their place is, does it not also show us how we just can not know or understand the reasons for or why?  “Tell me if you have understanding,” God asks Job.  God was being sarcastic; of course Job had no understanding.  So, why then do we insist on having understanding?  Worse, why do we insist on having understanding of why bad things happen to others?  “Who sinned?  This man or his parents?”  Isn’t this what we ask all the time instead of acting with real compassion and mercy?

            Sometimes there are obvious reasons for why things happen.  They are made apparent to us.  I suggest that it is not our job to decipher the when’s, why’s, or how’s if the are not made clear to us.  I suggest that our preoccupation, as a Christian culture, harkens us back to the oldest sin, our prideful desire to be “as God.”

            This does not mean that we should not seek to know and understand God.  But, there is a vast difference in knowing and understanding God, and attempting to be able to explain why everything happens.  We are limited in what we can know of God by what He chooses to reveal to us.  The same revelation He gives us in the Word is the same voice which admonishes us that, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”  Between us and God, there is an inherent mystery.  We are the work of his hands, we are not privy to the depths of His mind or reason.  We exist because He made us, we are sustained because He loves us, but the truth is that God did not make us gods, He made us human.  And, an integral part of being human is existing within the mystery of our relationship with Him.

            And, accepting this mystery isn’t something we ought to do begrudgingly.  The depths of the beauty of the mystery between us and Him is as deep as the beauty which He is.  This mystery is that feeling you get when you look out upon the vista of a desert evening as the sun goes down, or the beauty of a full moonlit sky when your looking the at the sky opposite of where the moon is.  Beauty found both in the face of the sun and its backside glory.  This mystery is the feeling you get when you read a well written book or hear a passionately composed piece of music and, though many others may have read or heard, its like both were written with you in mind.

            Mystery is not a drain on faith.  Too often we hold to faith as this bank account against which we make withdraws in order to complete the holy actions and thought the “true Christian” is supposed to have in their life.  No, mystery warms our faith and gives it passion.  Mystery is where we stand the scoffer down, be they pagan or over-confident believer and say, I do this not because I’ve got a manual detailing the intricacies of my religion, rather I do this because I serve someone, not something, Who is bigger than the most beautiful place in my life and dreams.  My evidence?  That once I, as scoffer like you, came to believe against my better, earthly judgment. 

            What does mystery have to do with painful memories?  What does it have to do with the way in which we minister to those who hold them?  Mystery reminds us that we are not God and that if we are going to be of any help and not a burden to those who’s memories, recent or old, crush them, we must remember that it is by the power of the Holy Spirit alone that we can accomplish this.  To Him be the glory forever and ever, Amen.

            But, do we mean that?  Are we trying to serve someone who is so inexplicably bigger than we are, or are we trying to be that person?  Are we trying to be a part of something so vast and wonderful, or are we trying to be the leader of it?  Does part of us say as those words come from our mouth, “yeah, but I was the one actually here”. 

 

 

---

Job 38:4 (NASB)

 

Ibid

John 9:2 (NASB)

Genesis 3:5 (ASV)

Isaiah 55:8-9 (NASB)

McAffe Essays

These are essays I wrote for McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University.  While they are more self-promoting that I would regularly post here, the thoughts contained therein are ones I feel are valuable and want to share.  Enjoy.

1.  Give an account of your Christian pilgrimage.

          When I was born, in Austin, Texas, my dad was a Methodist minister.  I was baptized a few months later as an infant, in accordance with my parent’s beliefs.  Around the age of three, my father decided to return to the denomination he grew up in and was ordained an Episcopal Priest.  Thus, at that time, I became, along with the rest of my family, an Episcopalian.

            My religious affiliations as a child may have had more to do with the vocational decisions of my father, but I am haunted by a recollection that as a young child, I understood things of God better than I have as a teenager and adult.  I sometimes wonder if I will spend my life in the pursuit of knowing God more, only to die and see, hear, and know the things I knew as a very young child.   Paul writes in 2 Corinthians of a man he knew that was caught up to the 3^rd heaven, who saw and experienced things inexpressible by human words.  Could it be that as my cognitive and communicative abilities grew, my innocence diminished and no longer could I conceive the beauties of God?  Perhaps this is inconsistent with the doctrine of original sin, which I hold to, but Jesus did suffer the little ones unto him insofar as to such belong the kingdom…I don’t think he was just making a metaphor.

            At the age of 14 I was standing in church reciting the Nicene Creed, which we always recited after my dad finished his sermon, when a sudden realization came over me.  “I believe in Jesus His only Son…” did not make sense to me.  If God was love, if he was a loving God, then why did I need Jesus?  Somehow, though I grew up in a Christian home, the son of a pastor, I never made the connection either in my mind or in my heart that Jesus was the expression of that Love which is God.  For whatever reason I could not make the justification for belief in Jesus.  It was not for a deep theological reason.  As far as knew, this Jesus wasn’t God and chose to no longer profess Him.

            My sophomore year of high school I went off to boarding school at Subiaco Academy for Boys.  Typically, I would go home on weekends, since my family lived a short distance away.  One weekend my parents were going to be out of town so they gave me the choice of staying at school that weekend or going to a retreat up at our church camp.  I chose the retreat for the very pious reason that there would be girls there. 

            I was exposed to the love of Christ in a powerful way at this retreat.  Suddenly I was enveloped in warmth that I had never experienced, warmth that was beyond description and emanated from the depths of my soul and body.  The whole episode was entirely surprising to me.  At one point we were sent to be by ourselves to think and pray.  I don’t remember the exact point I accepted Jesus as my Lord, as God.  I still really can’t, it just happened.  What I do remember is my reaction when I realized I had changed not only my mind, but also my heart about Jesus.  My confession was not the one they write about in hagiographies of the great saints.  My confession was literally, “Holy <foul explicative>, I believe in Jesus!”

            It wasn’t so much that I found Jesus, it truly was that He found me.  I rejected Him, and he came for me.  Moreover, Jesus met me where I was.  Nothing in my behavior or selfish teenage mindset was or could have been attractive to Him.  To be more succinct, nothing about me earned me the right to have Jesus have an intimate relationship with me.  It was His desire for me, which brought Him to me.  The Father’s Desire, Jesus Love, the Holy Spirits Action…this is what drew me to God.  No longer was mine an interaction with God of getting rules and laws right, now it was a relationship based in His love and expressed in my gratitude, lacking as it often has been.

            A few years later I started going to a Baptist Church.  I was living with my parents during a hiatus from school, and I had decided that I wanted to attend a church where my dad was not the pastor.  Since accepting Christ, I had struggled with how baptism works and when the appropriate time to be baptized was.  My reading of scripture suggested, at the very least, that adult believer’s baptism was the more orthodox approach to baptism.  Moreover, I could hardly consider my personal experience of infant baptism an experience, because I had not the cognition at that time to remember, let alone meaningfully participate in it. 

        Thus, I decided to be baptized as an adult by full immersion and joined the church I was baptized in.  My faith pilgrimage is one that lead me from the very true and real faith of my parents, to a faith that was truly and really my own.  The paradox of my pilgrimage is that as my faith has become more my own, I have been led ever closer to the idea that my faith is not my own.  My faith cannot exist solely on its own; it exists within Christ’s Holy Church.  Binding myself unto Jesus inherently means becoming part of a body comprised of fellow believers and workers of the Kingdom.  As I write this, this is where my pilgrimage has taken me and through which obstacles and turns I am still led by Him.

 

2. Tell the story of your personal commitment to ministry.

           There is a wonderful girl in Cheng-du, China serving as a missionary with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.  Her passion for God, sweet disposition, warm company, and, honestly, attractive features, drew me to her with immeasurable magnetism.  She had my commitment, my devotion, and my heart.  She knew better than to accept it.

            She was going to China.  She knew this two years ago.  As I write this, she has been in Cheng-du for about three weeks.  How mad I was at her when she told me we had to go separate ways.  Now, I am deeply thankful that she looked through her own desires, her own pain at having to make a sacrifice for Him.  She and I are still very good friends.  Often, when we talk we are struck by how our relationship is a living parable of the supremacy of our commitment to ministry in Christ.  We sacrificed a passionate romance for our greater passion Christ Jesus.  Moreover, we sacrificed that passionate romance so that we may fully attain the ministry He set before us.

            I remember sitting in an older friend’s office one night as she emphatically stressed to me that I was to “teach!”  People, she said, understand God and His things when I talk to them, be that in conversation, in the pulpit, or in front of a class.  The supremacy of God’s call in my life was burnt into my heart that night.  “And, everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children for My Name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29, NASB)

            Truly, the rewards for following Christ are great.  But, even if they weren’t, if in this life I were to receive nothing, I would continue to follow Christ in the ministry he has set before me just like Peter and the others who alone remained with Jesus after the hard teaching, “to whom shall I go?”  I believe Christ has, “the words of eternal life.”  They are a river of living water flowing from my, “innermost being” (John 7:39, NASB)

 If I were to dam them up would be to cause them to stagnate and cease to provide life.  The words He has put in me were not meant to be for me alone, but to further His kingdom.  Life begets life, when life is hoarded, it ceases to be what it is and becomes corruption.

            My friend in China is one example of how even the beautiful things and people of this life must be subjected to the Supremacy of Our Commitment to Ministry in Christ Jesus.  While I had chosen to follow His call to ministry many years before, it was at that point that I realize that in my zeal for Him and His work, there could be no compromise.  Does He allow me beautiful things in this life?  Yes, I do not believe that he has called ministers to some sort of ascetic masochism where we reject all that bring us happiness.  But, when those things conflict with the true joy of serving Him, I believe that we must willingly return them to God as a sacrifice and as an acknowledgment that He is sovereign over our ministry and us.  Moreover, when we do so we show our belief in His unfailing goodness and love for us.  We submit to the fact that even in the ministry He sets before us, He is the one taking care of us.

 

3.     What factors have led you to apply to McAfee School of Theology for your theological training?

         Many of my professors have spoken very well of McAfee in my classes.  They spoke well of both the ministry preparation and the scholarship at McAfee.  In my opinion, ministry and scholarship go hand in hand.  Scholarship has played an important role in the seminaries and divinity schools that I have chosen to apply to.  My experience in my undergraduate program is that my ministry has been greatly benefited by my studies.  I want to continue this trend in my graduate studies.  Ministry, whether it is the formally trained pastor or the lay person to whom the pastor is charged to equip, must be informed.

            As I was researching McAfee, I came across a quote by Jessie Mercer, which conveyed to me a belief that McAfee was very much a school I wanted to consider studying at.  The quote was something to the effect of, “Lord, deliver us from ignorant preachers.”  I believe that Christianity in this country is in desperate need of leadership that is as sound of mind as they are full of passion.  We are told by our Lord in Matthew 22:37 to love God with all of our heart, soul, and with all our mind.  Too often in my life I have found myself confronted with well-intentioned, but thoughtless and ignorant Christians who have, rather than provide comfort and peace in hurting times, made things worse…both to others and myself.

            I have for some time felt that the cornerstone of the ministry God has given me is to develop, by my teaching and example, a love for God in the minds of those to whom He sends me to minister.  McAfee has presented itself as a school that strives to allow the Holy Spirit to seamlessly merge the passion of the heart and soul with the renewing of the minds of their students in order to form well educated and heartfelt ministers of the Gospel. 

4.  What are your ministry goals? (The kinds of ministries you envision for yourself)

        The ministry I envision for myself is one that is characterized by compassion and intelligence all to the glory of the Father.  My talents and gifts lay in two areas, giving counsel to people (be it discipleship, or in times of grief and hardship) and in teaching.  I have found that the counsel I give people affects the way I teach, and my teaching informs the way that I counsel.  Not that I do ministry to feel close to God, but one of the times I feel closest to Him is when my mind snaps and pops to the order of thoughts He has given me to respond to the hardships and confessions of a person in need, or of a person who desires to do the Lord’s work and seeks guidance for that endeavor.  It never ceases to amaze me the verses of scripture that come to mind and the seemingly obscure theological concepts that suddenly are so useful in speaking the gospel into someone’s life.  And, that is not just for believers, this happens with non-believers as well.

         My gifts and passions being what they are, I look to minister in such a way as to best use them such to grow the kingdom.  Essentially, I envision myself in a bi-vocational ministry. As a counselor, I envision myself in the pastorate, preaching, listening, and equipping men and women for the service of gratitude we are all called to.  As a teacher, I envision myself teaching young minds how to minister effectively and compassionately.  To show them that passionate ministry does not preclude intelligent ministry. The ministry I envision in the future is much the same as the ministry I now see myself in, one in which my teaching informs the way I counsel and guide, and my counseling effects my teaching.  For me, the two are intertwined such that I cannot imagine one without the other.  And, I find that beautiful, as true reflection of God’s work in my

Experience

          Everyone one experiences darkness.  It is folly to ignore that fact.  Yet, I am forced by the experiences of life to wonder if in fact everyone experiences the same lack of light in their darkness.  Perhaps what is more dangerous is the inability, or the lack of desire of people to admit that they have not experienced the darkness that the person across the table, over the phone, through the Internet, has experienced.  As Americans, we have a great desire to shove absolutely everything into a convenient box, claim that God alone can lighten the night, and then proceed to tell you that you haven’t pushed the button on the flashlight God has given you correctly and that is why God alone can’t lighten your night.

            Dallas Willard writes, “The general human failing is to want what is right and important, but at the same time not to commit to the kind of life that will produce the action we know to be right and the condition we want to enjoy.  This is the feature of human character that explains why the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  We live in a Christian society that preaches that it wants to help us, but don’t become a burden to us.  If you can’t accept the advice we give you, unreflective and simplistic as it often is, then the problem is not we, its you for not having the faith to get the job done.  Combine this with those whose darkness exceeds the typical pale eerie fear of being a burden on others, even those who God sends into their lives to help with healing.

            Yes, God sends people into others lives to be His instruments of healing.  Yes, as the Church we are an indispensable part of God’s plan of healing and salvation.  There is a quiet heresy that many many people in the Church hold today.  Perhaps it is more insidious even than Prosperity Doctrine, more dangerous because of its paralyzing effect.  I shall express it in the terms expressed to me.  Upon coming into a certain group of people’s lives I was exhorted by them to “trust people, because in order to trust God, you have to trust people (by people they meant people in the Church, Christians)”.  However, later upon a very sudden and wrenching rejection of love, many of the very same people expressed with genuine shock, “of course she hurt you, you can’t trust people, you can only trust God!”  Aside from being a great example of how Christians walk up to their wounded and with kind soothing words put a bullet in their brain, it demonstrates a disturbing tendency away from responsibility among Christians.

            Hypocrisy aside, the problem demonstrated is that Christian’s have found the perfect method for doing absolutely nothing while sounding very holy.  We speak words of invitation to come and be supported.  We tell the world, “Come!  Let us shoulder your burdens!  Let us soothe your wounds!”  Yet, when they enter in, quickly they find that there are only so many burdens and wounds we are willing to shoulder and soothe free of charge.  The charge?  Only too often is that our egos and understandings are pet at the same time by the one we are helping. 

            Give God the shout out, the one really important here is us.

            Christians don’t walk with people when their own lives and spirituality are in danger.  As soon as we see our good feelings (which we use the phrase, “spiritual lives”) being infringed upon, we set a line in the dirt…we construct a box, and if the person we are trying to “help” can’t put their issues in that box, we blame them and walk away.  We set ourselves up as god with pat answers and methods to healing.  In our desire to help, we have become blasphemers.  We don’t trust God enough to put our well-being on the line.  God blesses us with streams of living water that flow from within us[1] and we turn around and dam those waters up because we lack the faith to believe that the source is eternal.  Like a tank on a Texas ranch around mid-August, that water ceases to be life giving and becomes putrid, slowly drying up leaving cracked ground in its place.

            Maybe the truth is that we don’t trust God enough to be helpless.  How uncomfortable we become when our words and actions don’t elicit the response of healing and gratitude we seek.  We may genuinely seek gratitude from our hurting sister to go to God and not us, but when it doesn’t appear in the form we look for, how despondent we quickly become.  Is it that our faith is only as strong as the amazing and undeniable miracle we need God to do in the one who hurt’s life?  There is a truth to be known, one not readily accepted…perhaps one not seen because we’ve blinded ourselves to true miracles in the way we will only accept the “big” ones.  The truth is that when you are looking at your mother, best friend, girlfriend, pastor, or complete stranger and the tears will not stop flowing from their eyes and the words of despair will not be stopped up you are doing more good than your ego will let you know.  Maybe the greatest miracle that can happen is that you will stop praying for a sudden miracle, a quick change of heart or emotion in that dear person, and will start praying for your own patience. 

            Most of the time we pray for patience we pray for it only in light of bearing with difficult people and situations.  Most of us need patience to complete the work God is doing in and through us, with “fear and trembling.”[2]  Yes, its not good to loose your patience with a annoying situation, but may it be suggested that it is far worse to loose it when you are walking with someone who is in darkness?  Patience is not just avoiding aggravation, it is also dieing to yourself and your own wishes.  The romance of love is so often portrayed as the beautiful part of love (among Christians, this can not be shoved off on the secular world), but the most beautiful part of love is how two people bear with each other and lives full life with them.  Just as the joy of the gospel heard in a sermon is completed by the remembrance and partaking of a death in communion, so is the romance is sealed in walking in each other’s darkness.  People who are truly deeply in love do not desert one another when they feel helpless to help the other.  They partake.

            Jesus, for whatever mystery, had no choice but to suffer on the cross.  Do you really think that Peter, James and John had the answers for Christ that night in the garden?  Are we so arrogant to think that we would have?  In such darkness that blood droplets flowed from his agony and fell quietly into the dirt from which we all came knelt the Son of Man, Son of God, our Hope’s Revealed and Completed, all alone because his friends were asleep.  They were heavy of heart and didn’t know what to do or say.  So they left him alone.

            Jesus has borne the darkness of the hurt and abandoned.  Jesus over came it.  He over came it for us all.  Why, then, do we fail to grasp the wondrousness of it?  Why instead of silently giving strength do we fall asleep when our objections to the words we are hearing, and our declarations of complete and total devotion fail to change things?  We were not called to that.  To do such is to throw our pearls before swine and mock the sacrifice Christ made for us, it is to abuse grace.  Christians have gotten so far from what we were meant to be.  We make corbin for our beloved, and leave them to die alone in their darkness.

            Truly it is time for us to lay ourselves down before our neighbors, once again.  The world should not marvel at our smiles because of what we have in our lives, rather they should marvel at our smiles in spite of what we have.  Moreover, our smiles should not be the shallow masks of the content, but evidence of workmanship wrought in the heat of the fire and the pounding of the hammer.  They should be the evidence of things not seen.  Seals of faith.

---

[1] John 7:38

[2] Philippians 2:12

Fathers

I remember once while I was a boarding school at Subiaco, my dad drove in to visit me and take me out to eat.  We drove to this pizza place on the far side of Paris, Arkansas, near the school.  It was a warm, spring evening.  There were storms blowing in from all over, so though it was yet to rain, lightning flashes illuminated the clouds in the sky that had yet to form a complete blanket to block out the stars.  What causes that night to stand out in my mind is that it was one of those times where that feeling that the world just beyond our perception is a little bit closer.  It was an occation where the joy of a son getting to have some alone time with a father he adores is intensified, where it was more than an outing, indeed was religious feeling in nature.  Religious not in that it was God, but that God was in it, revealing Himself with power and fury, like the flashes of lightening in the sky, and we, father and son, saw the beauty of Him as His light reflected off one another’s countenance.

This God we serve, He’s so dangerous isn’t He?  How great it would be if he stood guard over our houses and churches as a flaming pillar by night and a cloud by day.  Oh, that we could see the glory of our God in such a way.  But, I wonder if we would still remain faithful to Him.  The Hebrews saw all this glory.  When Moses states, “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” (Deuteronomy 4:24 NASB) they would have remembered the pillar of fire, insofar that it wasn’t a distant memory for them.  Earlier, Moses had exhorted them to, “…give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons.” (Deuteronomy 4:9 NASB)  But, we all know that in a few short generations, the people of YHWH had in fact forgotten those things which God had done before them.  No longer did they keep their souls diligently or themselves righteously.  They had ceased to fear God.  Israel no longer stood in wonder before YHWH’s powerful and mighty works.

Do we stand in fear of God’s powerful and thunderous works?  We’ve worked so hard to erase the false image of God as a Long Bearded Meanie in the sky, only to replace them with equally false images of a big huggable teddy bear in the sky or cosmic vending machine waiting for us to pull the lever that will give us what we want.  How is it that we have such a hard time understanding that we can both fear and love God at the same time?  When people talk about God, He’s either your best friend who’d never do anything to make you feel bad or He’s this judge just waiting to send you to the hotter part of eternity for your sins.  

There is a reason God refers to himself as Father.  A good father instills love and fear into the heart of his children.  Fear?  Yes, fear.  Not terror, which is often confused with fear.  Terror is unbridalled, fear has an inherent amount of respect.  One can love shooting a shotgun, but don’t take me shooting with someone who does not fear the capacities of the shotgun.  My father did not raise me up to be a good man with flowery words and logical arguments.  Those came second, first he raised me up with expectations and consequences.  Flowery words and logical arguments, expectations and consequences; all were derived from a position of love and compassion for my well-being.  The strength of the muscles that were used to inflict punishment were (and are) the same strength that encircled me in loving protective embrace.  That, in a paradoxical way, communicated my father’s love to me as true, strong, and legitimate.

Some people have violent, filthy men for fathers.  That is sad.  They see only the power and fury, which without love is vile hatred.  Other people have wimpy, unengaged, placating fathers.  They hear only the words of love, but see not that which ensures love’s vitality.  YHWH loves strongly.  YHWH loves compassionately.  YHWH loves perfectly.  

A friend of mine wrote me telling me about her day, and in the process wrote that she had “spent time with Abba.”  Truly interesting was that for some reason, in this instance, I did not find it cheesy. Because I know her, I read that and saw a person who regarded God as her Father, her Dad, her Abba.  She understood all her writings entailed.  I’ve heard criticism laid against referring to God as “Father” in today’s society where so many people have abusive or negligent fathers.  The critics say that it is a block to people knowing God, because they associate Him with their poor earthy fathers.  However, bad fathers are not new to our present age, they are found throughout history.  Fallible fathers are not anything new either.  From the earliest days, Adam who failed to raise his son in such a way that he wouldn’t be jealous and Noah who failed to raise his son to be a respectful and shameless man, fallible fathers have been with us.  The most perfect (earthy) dad is not God.

Yet, we still have an a priori knowledge of what a good father is.  We know that a good father is just, fair, protective, loving, kind, enacting discipline, gentle.  Do people with good fathers understand this easier than those without them?  I rather imagine so.  But, the truth is that we know what a good parent is.  We know what is good and we know what is wrong…

That night as we drove back from getting pizza, as the tumult raged around us and lightning excited the night sky behind the monastery where my boarding school was, I remember being filled with the most tangible feeling of my earthly dad’s love, and having newly professed faith in my Heavenly Father, I was struck by the depth of my father’s love for me, a love that was derived from our Father’s love for both he and I.  I enjoyed Abba in the warm love of my dad, and in the power of creation I possessed, willingly, the fear of the Father.  The truth is this, the weakness of my dad matched with the power of my Father brought me to touch the plane of divinity.  Christ’s mediating work enabled this son, to know the Father.  The work of one Son, brought a dad and son closer to each other, and closer to their Father.

Have you ever wondered, at the end of a bad day, week, month, or year how you made it there?  Why is it that sometimes hurt inspires us to do our best?  Are you ever scared that simply existing gives people a reason to turn their eyes away from your pain?

Have you ever been so exhausted, so ready to sleep, only to lie down and not be able to fall asleep for all the helplessness you feel?  The phone, you pick it up and put it down ten times.  You pick it up due to an unrestrained impulse to try and fix something you know you can not fix.  You lay it back down, restrained by the knowledge that there is nothing you can do, and if you could no one would care.

 Oh, people care.  So many people care and for that you honestly and truthfully, with joy in your heart, lift up your praises and thanks to God.  Immediately thereafter ask Jesus to take hold of your heart because you just noticed that you’ve unconciously said outloud, “I’m not going to make it” for the third time.

 Maybe you didn’t know what love was.  Maybe you didn’t feel it.  Maybe it was to pie in the sky.  You were sure you knew it was love, but now you “know” you never knew what in the hell it was…

“Love is patient, it is kind, and it is not jealous.  It doesn’t brag, and is not arrogant.  It does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, it is not provoked, does not take into account wrongs suffered.  It does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes in all things, endures all things.”

Conviction.  Turns out that you yourself have fallen short of what is in fact love.  But, with honestly you can say that you have strived far and wide to perfect your love.  There is an element of turning your sword on yourself.  Doesn’t take into account wrongs suffered seems to fail in light of all your suffering.  Lord, help me.

Knowledge.  It wasn’t that what was happening didn’t feel like love.  Its that love stopped, and that’s why what was happening stopped.  No more bearing, no more enduring, no more belief…no more hope. 

It wasn’t you that gave up, but all the same its gone.

Storms II

Are you ever glad that someone near you is experencing the same suffering that you are, yet at the same time you would do anything to make their pain go away because since you too are experiencing it, you know how terrible it is?  It is an odd paradox.  Its the place we get stupid comments like, “God is allowing you to go through this so you can help others who experience it.”  I think the “God is allowing it” stuff is pretty much a complete load, seriously, I’ve been so blessed by people who (thankfully because why would we wish pain on another person just so we can feel better?) are not and have not gone through what I have gone through.  That being said, I also don’t think that God is just going to let our pain and suffering sit in isolation.  If there is a way to get some good out of it, He will.

That is where I found myself one night as I drove toward a thunderstorm the next county over with a dear friend whose pain I would gladly of taken from her if I could.  I guess there were plenty of other places we could drive, but perhaps it was the recklessness that has been borne from our confused hurt, or the desire to be near something so obviously greater than ourselves, or maybe we’re just freaks for thunderstorms, but that’s where we drove and that’s where we wanted to drive.  For thirty minutes or so we drove as lighting streaked miles and miles across the sky in front of us.  Have you ever stopped to realize that?  The lightning we see are miles long streaks of electricity.  We see them from our perspective, but lighting is so powerful.

We didn’t see a raindrop until we got about two miles or so from the storm.  As we drove closer, passing cars and trucks on the side of the road, we began to see a well defined super-cell which was illuminated periodically by lightning flashing behind it.  It was definately something to behold.  Once we started seeing hail, we turned around and drove the other direction for about five minutes.  After five minutes though, the reckless desire returned, and we turned around and drove back toward the storm.

This time we met the storm much quicker than before.  We stopped in the midst of the down pour and I tried to catch a piece of hail but soon realized that, one, if I did actually catch a piece of hand, it would hurt really bad.  And, two, the hail was very large and blowing in almost horizontally.  so, we turned around and started to drive away from the tornado that we had not-so-accidentally driven into.  Long story short, we made it out, but only after much prayer and my appologies to my friend for “killing us.”

So many storms come our way in life.  Some of them are outside of our control, but it seems like others we drive ourselves into.  By that, I don’t mean that they are nessisarily created by our own bad decisions, though that does happen.  Sometimes they are created by our pursuit of good things like friendship or love.  More, if we seek to truly follow Christ, it is inevitable that we will find ourselves surrounded by the storm.  Think of how the disciples found themselves in stormy weather as the rowed across the sea.  When we let Jesus guide us, the path He sets out for us will take us through storms.

Jesus told a parable that went like this: ”Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.  But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” {Matthew 7:24-28}

Perhaps he just speaking about life generally.  But, I think there is something to it for us.  If we follow Him, if we say that we want to pursue God and a life of holiness, we must build it upon Christ’s words.  The word that tells us to follow Him we must bear our own cross, drink from His cup, partake in His suffering.  It seems that the longer I live out my Christian life, that most happiness is fleating and joy is all that is left.  Its not a happy thing to have the storm blast against your house, but when you can walk out when its done and see your house still standing…there’s some joy in that.

So, though sometimes we just get caught in the storm, sometimes we really do drive into them.  Joyfully even.  And, there is hope insofar that in our reckless desire which takes us into the storms, Jesus had no problem walking or sleeping through the storms.  Its like Jesus is telling us not to worry so much that we don’t enjoy what beauty we can find in the storm.

Illumined Worship

While we don’t worship simply so that we can be close to God, it is true that in worship we draw near to Him. Stop and think of some of the things that have been illumined to you in worship. His love for us is illumined. Sometimes our sin and need of forgiveness. That we are being healed by the Holy Spirit. Our need for community is found. This all makes sense, really. Because, if we worship in spirit and truth, then the it makes sense that when we come before God to worship Him, we would also find ourselves in the presence of truth. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth; and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me” -John 14:6 (NASB) Therein lies the blessing of worship. Though we worship God, first, because He is God, and because of what He has done for us, in that act we come into the presence of Christ. This is why often people will figure out how to handle problems in their lives when they worship. It is why people who are despairing will see hope…life. When people have questions, they will often walk away from worship feeling like they have answers, even if its only a feeling that everything will be okay. Ultimately, in all these things we find the Father. Ultimately, in worship we are reminded of who we really are in light of the Father.

Travesties

   There is a kid in my youth group who has found a very interesting way of insulating himself from the travesties of the world.  He readily admits that the horrors of the world happen, he makes no attempt to lessen them or to rationalize them away.  He doesn’t simply tune out images on television or refrain from conversations of unhappy occurrences.  In fact, he took an advanced class offered by his high school that looked in depth at the occurrences of oppression, famine, and war that happen to the poorest people of our world.

            Interestingly, it is behind this knowledge of savage injustice that he finds his insulation.  He knows the problems, understands the cycles of poverty and revenge, and grasps the scope of the problem.  He realizes that it is a very complex problem, where a simple answer is unachievable.  He can do very little, so he thinks, so the logical thing is to do nothing.  Yeah, he’ll help when he can. But, idealistic pursuit of a solution?  That is pie in the sky.

Now, if he were a classmate of mine at my University, I would rip him a new orifice.  How cold!  How insensitive!  But, then again, how very different am I?  I study the problems.  I read about the plight of African countries, how “relative peace” in the DRC is only 1,200 people dieing a day due to armed conflict.  I saw “Invisible Children” and cried.  The sex trade in places like Thailand and India appalls me.  That makes me better than the guy who sat behind me in Church History last semester and during a discussion about poverty and what Christians should do about it tried to make the point we shouldn’t do anything because, “what about the people who want to be poor?” Right?

            The problem I have is this…I’ve insulated myself in my knowledge of all the bad stuff going on.  I study it, I get enraged by it, formulate my opinions about national and world political and religious leaders in regards to it.  But, what do I do about it?  I feel really significant until I think about actually doing something about it.  At that point I feel the vast insignificance of one person in a world of hurt.  I wonder if I have what it takes to make an ultimate sacrifice if I need too.  I even wonder if I have what it takes to make a small sacrifice.  When I convince myself that I have what it takes to make an ultimate sacrifice, or any sacrifice at all, I wonder if it will actually mean anything.

            Do I pray?  No.  It’s far easier to judge the actions or lack thereof others.  It’s easier to become angry, despondent, and opinionated.  My passion stirred, it arouses in me indignation I am more than willing to share with anyone who will listen.  My passion stirred, it should arouse in me a desire for fervent prayer.  It’s the beginning, and essential no matter what my part is in seeking the solution. 

Our Lord came into a world of hurt with a solution, how at times he must of been despondent at the reticence of the world to embrace peace.  Perhaps this is why He sought out the lonely places early in the morning to pray.  However, the Lord’s example is not just one of words and empty prayers.  His example is one of power.  1 Timothy 1:5 says that the gospel is not spread by word, but by power.  Jesus’ prayers and words were made meaningful in the power of the way He saw them through.  He healed, fed, and resurrected in order to show us how important showing mercy for the sick, feeding the hungry and bringing hope to the despairing are to Him.  In contrast to the Pharisees and Scribes of the day, Jesus did not teach with word and not follow them; He embodied His teaching.

His healing touch could rest upon every lame or blind person in the world, but that did not stop him from touching those he could.  His saving blood rejected by many, didn’t stop him from shedding it for those who would accept it.