There is a therapeutic catharsis in the process of putting your thoughts into words. Sitting at a keyboard and placing phrases in an appropriate structure takes time and allows for introspection. But in the long run, there is a haunting, almost minuscule little voice that cries from deep down inside that is constantly asking, “Does anyone actually read this stuff?”
Califorina Highway Patrol and grace
Way back in the day I owned one hot 68 Ford Fairlane two door. It was a very special car and it had a lot of work done. I had all the chrome and emblems removed and painted it with six coats of #44 black lacquer and it was buffed mirror shine. It was fast. It had a 428 cu in (7.0 L) Cobra Jet, developing 335 bhp. The largest tires that would fit under the wheel wells on the rear, gave it a rake that looked mean.
I was employed in a small grocery store as a meat cutter and after work, I was always in a hurry to get home. The little town of Cottonwood was not a large anything and very seldom was there any traffic down the main street; the freeway had passed the sleepy town by.
Not being very cautious and wanting to get home, I pulled out from a blind stop sign in front of another black car. I had cut that car off a little close and I stepped on the gas in response and left just a little bit of black mark on the road. It was out of embarrassment that I had done this dastardly thing. I had wanted to create some additional space between myself and the other black car just for safety sake.
I was well exceeding the posted 35 miles per hour and that other black car flipped on its siren and his Blue light, I had not noticed that trailing black car was a California Highway Patrol car. My turn to home was just a half a block away and wanting to be safe I turn quickly down the street and pulled over with just enough room to allow the officer to park behind.
The rapid turn took the CHP officer by surprise and he tried with all his might to follow but as he turned he realized he was too close and literally slid all four of his tires into the small space behind me with only one foot to spare in a great cloud of dust.
After, what seemed to be an eternity, the CHP officer who had been quietly sitting in his car trying to assume a posture of calm, opened his door and walked very slowly to my window.
Rolling down the window I stated with a large smile on my face, “Can I help you, officer?”
He replied, “I almost rear-ended you twice; the first time when you pulled into the street in front of me. I could have let that slip, but when you sped up I had to turn on my lights.” He continued to say with a small rivulet of nervous sweat coming from under his official brown hat, “Then you turned left abruptly and when I tried to follow, and the excessive speed I was making, my engine died. I lost my power steering and my power breaks. I almost lost control and came close to hitting you again.”
I came to the realization he was almost apologizing for coming so close to my car.
“I could well write you up for a number of things, but I came very near to hitting you the second time, that I just don’t have it within me.” Please slow down and watch your turns.” He walked back to his car and sat down.
I pulled out slowly with the appropriate turn signal as I watched the CHP just sit in his car. My actions as I pulled away were in response to grace. My reaction to grace was not that I got away with something, it was that I had been stupid and I would be more careful, more attentive, and more obedient.
It is the same calling we receive by grace to act accordingly. “The things I believe I do, all else is just religious talk.
GRACE….
One that got away.
I am currently trying to teach a number of men in a weekly Bible study. It is on John 17, the high priestly prayer of Jesus. Together we have looked at the perfect timing of Jesus’s prayer, the Glory of God in that prayer, the perfect knowledge of God, and last week the revealing of God to the world. These men are starting to see the very nature of God displayed in scripture.
Jesus prayed because His time had come, He asked to be glorified, the Father gave Him authority over humanity, this humanity can find eternity in knowing the Father and the Son, all so that we can reveal God to the world.
But what about the one that got away? What about Judas that allowed him to elude the net by the Greatest Fisher of Men? Jesus during this three-year teaching and preaching period, cast a wide net, but not all were wrestled into the boat.
Only the twelve men in all history have had the intimate, personal relationship to Jesus the incarnate Son of God. Judas along with the other eleven has ever been more exposed to God’s perfect truth. No other has had the crash course in experiential love. They all were exposed in an intimate first-hand washing of God’s love, compassion, power, kindness, forgiveness, and grace. No group of followers could come close to the very essence of God. Yet through it all Judas escaped the net. In the most indescribably precious, and blessed years the heart of Judas was not softened.
Judas defies comprehension. Judas constantly and with persistence of mind rejected the very truth of God in the flesh. And he hid it from everyone around him with skill. The only one to see into the heart of this chosen fisher of men and see the wicked rebellion was Jesus. And He called him a devil.
Judas did not escape from guilt. Just like the pain we feel as we accidentally burn ourselves, so guilt is an intrinsic and automatic warning of spiritual danger. It was guilt that drove Judas to remorse which in turn led to his death. Do not confuse guilt and remorse with the requisite answer to both. The answer to both is repentance. Repentance is an act of the will. Judas was teachable but he was not willing to change. And in the last moment of his life, his unwillingness to change is what condemned him.
Shock and Awe
For thirty-three years, Jesus never tried to shock people. Never-the-less, He was never afraid of shocking people. As I sit back and examine the world in which I live, which includes what is called news and the prevalent excuse for entertainment, there seems to be a juvenile kind of thrill being exampled of just trying to shock people. Every item tries to stretch the point to a point that would draw attention to itself.
Sometimes this effort to shock people simply comes from a desire to draw disinterested people to attention. “I don’t have much breaking news, so I will just proclaim something shocking.” At other times it is just a part of habit. One person always must have the last word and if it is not extraordinary and shocking no one will pay any attention to me. I think it is simply ego.
The sad thing is that this shock malady is dripping over into the church. The title of the sermon must catch ones interest if it is to be effective.
But Jesus was not this way. In his teaching and preaching, He did not purposely try to shock people into understanding. But when He did it was always with truth and not hyperbole. I can imagine how a cautious adviser might have spoken to Jesus. “Now, Master, of course, your ideas are important, but please don’t say them so bluntly.” “You can’t go around calling the religious elite a brood of vipers.”
Jesus was never deterred from His witness to God by asking, “What will people think about this?” or “How will it affect my safety or popularity.”
I believe the church is trying so hard to shock with a title they forget the awe of the message.
Just my opinion.
I may be me…
Church, I want you to step up and make this “love of Jesus” thing real and real to me. I am here, in my flawed, screwed-up, wounded, shell-shocked, doubting, disillusioned personhood, ready for the full-on Jesus stuff. Step up and show me the supposedly relentless and all loving Jesus; make it real.
Church, the word for today’s world is tolerance. Tolerance for everything that can be accepted by the broad and wide way. Right now, I need you to tolerate me. For that matter, you need to tolerate those of us who, for hundreds of reasons, you may characterize as un-Christian. I am so weary of feeling the only thing that goes on around here is a religious agenda, an argument to win, a point to make, a cause to defend, a soul to save. You can’t promote your cause without accepting me as who I am.
I want to be more than a number on a tally sheet. I want more than to be counted with those who “like” a Facebook site. I want to be more than a prop in a baptism ceremony. I want more than applause and high fives when I show up and am soon forgotten when the music ends.
I am waiting for the time when you stop doing your thing and listen to my thing. Stop evangelizing us, preaching at us, fighting us, judging us long enough to simply hear my pain, my garbage. I am fully aware of my own foibles. It is not your place to put up a mirror, that is God’s job.
Listen carefully church. Even if we are all sinners like the woman with adultery, or the doubting follower, or the rebellious prodigal or even the demon filled man, there is little we can do about it. It is all that we are. Don’t value us because of what we could become but love us because we need simply to be loved. I need, we need, the world needs, a church big enough, tough enough, and loving enough to look us in the eye and love us unconditionally. Not for what we may become but what we are now.
I am well assured you think you are what God wants. You go about your ministries and try to be inclusionary to all. You make every attempt to love and care. In the shoes, I walk in, in the world in which I live, strive, struggle, question, feel rejection and try to just be me, it does not feel as though you care and love. It feels more like space and silence.
If I am hurting, telling me it will get better does not help. It only adds to the distance and space between us.
If I share that my very soul is wanting. If I voice my conviction that I don’t feel included, don’t ignore me. It is so frustrating for you to say it is not right to be hurt. It is a conversation ender.
If I tell you I am starving for compassion, relationship, authenticity, the last thing I want to hear is that I need to be corrected for my hunger.
Oh, you may be doing your thing and it may be good enough for you. But for me, it is just one more excuse to stay away. By the way, if the problem is me, it’s me who you are supposed to be reaching.
The hour has come
Behold, my hour has come.
The Passover meal is set before us in the place I have chosen. Passover is to be a celebration of the deliverance of my people in the face of desperate persecution and slavery. Judas had made his exit, leaving a cloud of speculation and disappointment. There seems to be a marked change in the countenance of the remaining eleven. Somber, yet inquisitive eyes, all trying to understand. Trying to figure out the next chapter. They don’t really understand it all. I have taught so much in such a short time. But they don’t yet understand.
I recline here with my friends, my companions for well over three years. I love them. I have cared for them. I have fed them from God’s abundance. Buy my example of care and affection, I have tried to explain the purpose of my life and of their lives. They do not understand the time is at hand.
To demonstrate to these special men the love I have for them, I remove my cloak and overshirt and wrap myself in a towel. All the while, they stare and whisper. With a slow deliberation, I pour water into a bowl and I move to each person in turn and wash their feet.
Of course, Peter, my rock, my skeptical fisherman would not let it go. My servanthood lesson could not go unchallenged. Looking down at my attempt to show my love for him he stated, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
I looked up into Peter’s impetuous and alarmed eyes and said, “Peter, someday you will understand.” You see, my hour had come.
In his own rough scratchy voice and pulling back his feet from my hand, Peter says, “You shall never wash my feet.” After much discussion and further objections, the deed was completed.
“Do you really understand what I have done for you?” You see my hour had come. It was the place of no turning back. No more would there be laughter and fishing. No more would there be a few fish turning into baskets full. No more walking along the Sea of Galilee. It was the first moment of the end of my earthly life. My hour had come.
I am filled with emotion and deep feelings. I lean back at that table of now somber men and remember the beginning of it all. I remember the hour I spoke, and the world came into being. The hour I walked in the cool of the evening with Adam. I was there in the beginning. I was there witnessing all the trails of tears of Israel. I had to come to be a part of my treasure. And now my hour had come.
I close my eyes to see Mary and Joseph. I remember well the time I told my mother, “My hour had yet not come.” Three years and it is now over. I am now at the time where it is to end. The end of my purpose. My purpose to walk, talk, understand, care, hope, be disappointed, to teach, be misunderstood, to be hailed, and to be criticized. It was time to give up and let go. My hour had come.
From that first hour, this world has made its path around the sun. It has been the home of my greatest treasure. Yet it has been corrupted by war and famine and disease. My greatest treasure has darkened the surface with suffering, pain, and hate. They have wallowed in despair, never understanding the true nature of the purpose.
This despair and pain were unavoidable. It came with my gift of freedom. That freedom became license. That license became the darkness. My greatest treasure became without worth. No money would ever buy the redemptive value of my treasure. I had to come and pay the price. My hour has come.
The darkness will be even more intense. Man will always be cruel. The poor will always be on the street corners asking for one more coin. There will droughts, famines, war, pestilence, hate, disease. Yet, in the middle of it all will now be a bright shining light. There will be a hope. There will be redemption offered. My hour has come
Someday a new hour will come, and I will plunge a fiery sword into the very innards of the earth. It will split like an overripe fruit. This world of pain will pass away. It will be swallowed up and obliterated. The mountains, seas, oceans, plains, deserts, forests will all pass away. Someday that hour will come. But as I listen to the hushed tones of my friends and realize I must teach some more. I still have work to do. I must give them my words of life. To help them understand the end is near. I must tell them, “My hour has come.”
Discernment
If ever there was a person that looked for the little things in life it was Jesus. He had that habit about Him. He is full of sympathy and sensitivity. I can only imagine walking the dusty and dirty streets of Palestine with eyes flashing back and beyond, always looking, always seeking, always noticing. When He entered the house of Peter, Jesus noticed his Mother-in-law was down with a fever. Matt 8:14. No one needed to tell Jesus of the problem. No one slipped up to his ear warning the dinner might be late because one of the servers was sick. He just noticed. He perceived the situation and went straight to her and touched her hand.
Jesus walking with the disciples noticed everything. He noticed the patched garments of the children, the long lines of men out of work. He noticed the great and the small. He noticed the hypocrisy of the priesthood. He noticed a sore back from fishing all night and showed where the easy fishing was. In the middle of one of his greatest sermons, He stopped and took notice that they “were hungry.” In the shadow of one of the greatest architectural masterpieces in that part of the world, the Temple, He stopped and noticed a woman putting in her last coin. He noticed the uneasiness of the keeper of the purse at the last supper. He noticed the women at the cross amid the terrible pain.
It was His habit. It was his character. It was one of the characteristics of the life of Jesus. It is close to the center of his being. God notices.
Are you suffering in silence, God notices. If you can’t seem to stretch that last dollar to the end of the month, God notices. If you can’t seem to find the light at the end of the tunnel of your life, God notices. If the kids are driving you crazy, God notices.
And we too must take notice. To walk through life with a glazed over, blank stare is to miss all of life’s finer adventures and to miss the very things God would have us see. If we blunt our hearts to the suffering and heartache of those around us, we will lose the God-like gift of noticing.
God’s gift to us is noticing and our gift to those around us is noticing. We need that gift of seeing the small, to see the currents within the grand sweeping river of life.
It is a God-given perception of the small. It is noticing.
Comments?
Viewpoint and disagreements.
With apologies to Dr. Henry T. Hodgkin a medical doctor and Quaker missionary in the early 1900’s, I wish to share with you a philosophy that he wrote just prior to the first World War. He was a true pacifist and was feeling the brunt of the national ardor of becoming part of the War of all Wars. It speaks to me as what a Christian attitude should be. I have taken a little license to paraphrase his text to bring common vernacular and understanding. It is primarily what kind of attitude one should have when confronted by someone with a differing opinion.
- I will always seek to discover the best and strongest points to any brother’s position.
- I will give credit for sincerity and persistence in opinion.
- I will try to avoid classifying him and assuming that his position is only because of a class or membership of which they belong.
- I will emphasize our agreements and convergence points.
- When others criticize, I will try to bring out favorable points.
- When there is misunderstanding, either I of him or he of me, I will go to him directly.
- I will seek opportunities to pray with him.
- I will try to remember that I may be mistaken and that God’s truth is too big for any one mind.
- I will never ridicule another’s faith.
- If I have been found criticizing another’s viewpoint, I will seek the first opportunity of understanding if my criticism is just.
- I will not listen to gossip and second-hand information.
- I will pray for those from who I differ.
Arguments rarely solve anything. It is when the rational and reasonable come together willing to listen and understand other points of view that change will happen.
Comments?
Insipid Salt
I’m no chemist, but one of the most stable substances in the world is salt. The chemical bond is very tight. You see, sodium and chlorine are happy to become one and share their one electron. The life of the salt is very tight. Mr. Sodium and Mrs. Chlorine are happily married. They are like the happily married couple that just loves to be married, no matter what hits the fan. Little can separate them.
So what was Jesus talking about in Matthew 5:13?
“Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage”. (The Message)
“You are the salt of the earth. But if salt becomes insipid, what can make it salt again? After that, it is fit for nothing, fit only to be thrown outside and trodden by the feet of men.” (Moffatt)
Jesus was talking believing followers which He calls blessed in the previous verses often called the Beatitudes.
The greatest danger which the body of believers called the church faces then and now, is to lose its tang, its zest, its cutting edge. The Church will never die. It is in no danger of falling on its face to a worship of the devil. Ultimately good and God will prevail. Never-the-less, there is an ever-present danger which lurks to snatch us unaware to become insipid. Merriam Webster defines the word insipid as: 1) lacking taste or savor, 2) lacking in qualities that interest, stimulate, or challenge; being dull, flat, ignored.
Jesus was warning to the church never to lose its bitingly Christian flavor. I just had a quantity of California Sushi rolls for lunch. In the package was a large glop of oddly textured green material. Some would say right away it is wasabi. It is there to add zest and to add a juxtaposition to the mild sushi. By the way, don’t take that whole thing and put it into your mouth. But I digress.
What Jesus was looking for was a people with a zest, a tang, a flavor. Jesus’ way of life was a stark contrast to the world around Him. Jesus’ task was to add that zest that makes a difference. A specific tang that anyone tasting it would immediately recognize it. The only way to make salt insipid or worthless is to dilute it, to mix it with something that it is not meant to be mixed. If we lose our tang, our zest, our taste of Godliness, if we become insipid, what good are we?
It is just too easy to sidestep the tough questions. It is less risky to voice simple platitudes in the face of opposition. We can, and often do, straddle controversial issues and flee to a safety zone of non-committal. It is salt that has lost its saltiness; insipid.
The Church started in this world with a cutting edge of the truth of Christ. It faced Roman culture and politics so peculiarly that it turned the world upside down. Consequently, as it grew it became more reasonable, more sane, more strategic, more flat, less tangy, no distinctiveness. I don’t think that Jesus is happy with the adulterated salt of what goes by the name of Church.
I like that word, insipid. A good word to ponder and concentrate upon. Even better to think if it describes ourselves.
Comments.
Bubbles
“If I do this.”
If I drive an electric car, I will be making a difference to the polar bears.
If I live a good life, I will have good karma.
If I drive defensively, I will not get run over.
If I go to church once and while I will be accepted.
There was an invalid who every day would be found by a special place. It had five great colonnades or walkways with alcoves on both sides. They surrounded a great pool of water. He had come there every day for thirty-eight years. The common understanding was when the pool was disturbed by a visiting angel, the waters would start to bubble. “If I am the first in the pool, I will be saved.
Year after year trying to be as close as possible so when the bubbles began he would roll into the healing water. Like himself, hundreds of sick, lame, blind, disadvantaged all depended upon the bubbles. They put their trust in the bubbles. They had faith in the bubbles. The bubbles made all the difference. The water no matter how cooling or inviting was not good enough; it had to have bubbles to be effective.
Every day was spent staring intently at the surface of the pool. It was a danger just to blink and miss the first bubble as it disturbed the surface. In our lives, we too wait anxiously for the next bubble in lives. That next stirring will make the difference.
The malady of the day is the dependence upon the bubbles and not on the source of healing. There have been great revivals, great outpourings of God’s Spirit on men. These great stirrings have made a great difference. The great Reformation drew millions to a new faith-based belief. The concept of evangelism crusades as espoused by Rev. Billy Graham gave place to millions of lives changed. But these great stirrings were not little bubbles upon the pool. They were great upheavals. They were not choices of what is contemporary one moment and outdated the next.
Faith in bubbles is the problem. If sing the right song in an easy key and repeat the verse repeatedly, I will be moved. If we make the church more relevant, you will hear, “Here it is. Here is the agitation that will turn people to God. A well-orchestrated worship experience will save the church.” “The bubble will be our cure.”
We tend to be polarized in our experiences. When things are going well we have great things to praise God for. When things are going poorly we have things to pray to God for. They are both just disturbances in our lives. And like the poor man at the pool, we are not saved by it.
It is all showman’s tricks. It is all smoke and mirrors. It is all bubbles. It is trading a true faith in God to a faith in bubbles. The man at the pool was saved not by the bubbling disturbance of the waters beneath the colonnade. It was no external disturbance that would heal the wretched man. What healed that invalid by the pool was a person. It is the advent of Jesus into the middle of our lives that provides the healing of spirit and of mind. By faith, we are saved. Faith in the commander who said, “Pick up your mat and walk.”
The Kingdom of heaven does not come with the observation of the bubbles.
What do you think?