Pastor Mandy on Abundant Life

What Happens After We Say "Yes" To God?

2012-01-24T16:17:00.001-05:00

(Read Jonah 3: 1-5, 10 and Mark 1:14-20)

Do you ever feel stuck? Like you aren’t moving forward in any positive direction? Uninspired? Unmotivated? In a funk, we might say.

In the dead of winter, this can happen to us. Whether its actually the dead of winter, like in the months of January and February, or if we find ourselves in the dead of winter in our souls.

I know I do, but the blah days don’t have feel like the end of the world or like we’re failing in the game of life. They can just be taken in stride. The blah days are the days we treat ourselves to watching movies, eating cupcakes and taking naps, enjoying the simple pleasures of being human.

Life is a journey and a process. The beginning of the journey is when we say “yes” to God. Jesus comes to all of us and says, “Follow me.” And when we reply, “yes,” our lives head off in new directions. The disciples went from being fishermen to fishers of men, and Jonah, after he said, “yes,” went from the belly of a whale to Ninevah to proclaim the message of God. It is in saying “Yes” to God’s call that we find our lives expanding and ourselves transforming. It is in saying “yes” to God’s call that we live into our highest callings.

But this doesn’t happen overnight. What does happen overnight is a great deal of trial, of testing, of wrestling within ourselves and with God. That’s because where we are at and where God is taking us is a journey of the soul.

Think of a caterpillar on its way to becoming a butterfly. It must go through a process of metamorphosis. The caterpillar needs to wrap itself up tightly in a cocoon and allow itself to be changed.

The soul’s journey is no different. If God is calling you to change a way you think or act, you must go through the events and have the realizations that will bring you to a new place. What feels like blah days, what feels like being stuck, might actually be your own process of metamorphosis.

I also like the image of a mother who is pregnant, waiting to give birth to her child. For nine months, she is in a process called gestation. The time is necessary for the baby to develop so that when it is born it can live and thrive in this new world. Our souls also go through periods of gestation. As the Holy Spirit is actively working to sanctify us, we might feel as though we are just waiting around, being unproductive and not moving forward, but in truth, we are making advances in our development, it just takes time.

And here’s the thing, the process that we are going through, the time of metamorphosis, gestation, transition is not something you can force. It happens when the time is right and for as long as is necessary.

This can be one of the most frustrating aspects of the spiritual journey if we don’t understand what is happening because internally we feel conflict. We feel like we are stuck and changing at the same time. We long for some resolution or advancement that is not happening quickly enough.

But, if we recognize that what we are feeling and thinking is normal, if we know that what we are hoping for will in fact happen in its own due process, than we can relax into this stage of our journey. It is preparing us for the greatness to come. I now know that everything I’ve been though I needed to go through to get to that next step, and the same is true for every soul.

Think about actors or musicians who hit it big when they are only kids or teenagers, Drew Barrymore, Brittany Spears, Lindsay Lohan, River Phoenix. These people aren’t ready for their success and they inevitably can’t handle their reality and destruct. When we try to force our growth or be someone that we haven’t yet become, we too aren’t ready for the work that God gives to us. We find ourselves in the limelight without the right words to share. We find ourselves in the job without the skills necessary to complete the tasks required.

But if we are wise, if we allow for the process of maturation and give ourselves the time needed, then when we finally do burst forth, we are ready for it. We are like George Clooney acting and producing film after film of Academy Award caliber. Or author Steven Pressfield who went from being unable to write 10 pages in a six month period to someone who churns out bestseller after bestseller.

While we cannot force the timing of our evolution, we can play a part in our own development. One thing we can do I’ve already mentioned, and that’s trusting the process. Another thing we can do is take one step forward each time we are ready. The journey of a 1000 miles starts with one step. And then another step. And another step. And another. And another. Until one day, we find ourselves in the place we always wanted to reach. Having a willing attitude will make us co-creators with God in order to live into our highest callings.

What happens after we say “Yes” to God?

The journey truly begins. We find happiness in the process. There will be days, weeks, months, hopefully not years, that seem like a waste, but don’t panic. These are actually times of metamorphosis and gestation. When the time is full, we will soar like a butterfly.

Grateful For It All

2011-11-23T09:21:00.000-05:00

(Read Job 42:10-17)

It all becomes so clear when we look back on our lives. How this turns into that. How that turns into this. And we can be grateful for it all.

Hindsight is always 20/20 or so the saying goes. When we reflect upon the twists and turns, it’s much easier to see how God was working to orchestrate our futures looking back than while we were actually going through our ordeals.

For example, Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple Computers, dropped out of college after six months, which was very scary for him considering he had been told from birth that he must go to college. He dropped out because Reed College, where he was attending, was incredibly expensive. Jobs parents’ were working class and all of their savings were being eaten up by his college tuition. Since Jobs had no idea what he wanted to do with his life and didn’t think the required classes that he was taking were leading him down any definitive road to happiness, he dropped out. But in doing so, he started dropping in on other classes that did interest him.

One such class was a calligraphy course. Jobs was fascinated by serif and san serif typefaces, about the amount of space that went between different letters and about the art of typography in general. At the time, the course didn’t have any practical application to his life, but 10 years later, when Jobs was designing the first Macintosh computer, this information had a tremendous impact. Jobs said this in his Stanford commencement address:

“[The Macintosh] was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.”

I like this idea about connecting the dots as we look back at our lives.

Think about your life. Perhaps that bully from school who tormented you is the reason you are so courageous and successful today. Or perhaps your mother who never gave you adequate attention and affection is why you married the loving woman sitting next to you. Or perhaps the school who rejected you or the employee who sent you away is why you are now on a chartered course more in line with your gifts and passions than if you had just followed some generic path you thought you should be taking. Or perhaps surviving cancer is the reason you no longer take life for granted, and the reason you have so much compassion for the suffering of others.

Connecting the dots is something that we do looking backwards, and it is affirms who God is in our lives as the great orchestrator, the One who transforms even the most difficult times and circumstances into our growth and maturation as the children of God. Romans 8: 28 says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
This philosophy about connecting the dots can positively impact how we live today because we now know that the present moment creates a better future. Everything may not be perfect in your current situation, that’s pretty much a guarantee, but everything now is leading to something orchestrated by God and the outcome is secure. That’s a reason to give thanks at all times, no matter if it’s a good or bad period of life.

Rascal Flatt’s wrote a song called “Bless the Broken Road,” and he picked up on this idea in the song. Some of the lyrics are:

"Bless The Broken Road"
I set out on a narrow way many years ago
Hoping I would find true love along the broken road
But I got lost a time or two
Wiped my brow and kept pushing through
I couldn't see how every sign pointed straight to you

[Chorus:]
Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like Northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

That’s connecting the dots.

Take Job for example. He was a man who was afflicted in many ways. To use the language we applied to ourselves, everything was not perfect in his life. Far from it. His donkeys, oxen and livestock were stolen, his children were killed and he had boils from his head to his toes.

At one point, Job cursed the day he was born, but at another point, he refused to curse God and give up his faith. I think Job knew that even his suffering and loss were not reasons to given up on being thankful because healing would be on its way.

That takes us to the text we heard this morning when Jobs fortunes are restored. Scripture says, “The Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42: 10).

The scripture doesn’t tell us Job’s response, but I bet he was giving God thanks and praise for a myriad of things. Yes, that his fortunes had been restored, but also thanks that God had saw him though the period of trial, thanks that he had the courage and fortitude to endure, thanks that his outcome was secure in the hands of the Lord.

Looking back, Job could see the dots connecting. He could see how his relationships with his siblings had improved Scripture says that they came to him and ate bread with him, that they had sympathy for him and comforted him because of all the evil that had been inflicted upon him.

I bet that first meal Job had with his family after his fortunes were restored was the best meal of his life. I bet the hugs he received were cherished unlike any embrace he had formerly known. When he had more children, I bet a day didn’t go by that he didn’t appreciate them. Scripture says he even gave the daughters an inheritance along with the brothers, which was not the practice in those days. There was no amount of generosity too great because Job now knew after all that he had been through the superior value of having people in his life whom he loved.

Every person has a default position. Some people that you know are happy and optimistic, while other people that you know are depressed and fatalistic. Some smile while some are sarcastic. Some want more while some give as much as they can away.

Giving thanks can be our default mindset. By default mindset I mean it can be the attitude we revert to in any given moment no matter what the circumstances are.

Many people make thanksgiving about the blessings we have, and that’s not wrong, it’s just not the full picture. When we give thanks, we are thankful for the good things. We say, I am thankful for my loving family. I am thankful for my good health. I am thankful for my material wealth and the security it affords me.

But what if we gave thanks for all things, whether it feels like a blessing or a curse at the time, knowing that God is plotting a course, and that we will be able to go back and connect the dots later. As crazy as it sounds, the biopsy can be a reason to give thanks. The divorce can be a reason to give thanks. The bankruptcy can be a reason to give thanks.

It can all becomes so clear when we look at our lives. How this is turning into that. How that is turning into this. And we can be grateful for it all.

And that is because 1. We are alive to experience all of these things. 2. Because we never know what blessing God will bring out of them. And 3. Because God has placed in each of us the intrinsic ability to take even the most difficult worldly circumstance and turn them into rich and meaningful experiences though God’s Spirit who dwells in us. Steve Jobs was able to do this. Job was able to do this. And all of us are also able to do this.

Giving thanks can be analogous to our breathing. It’s our default position. When things are good, we give thanks, and when things are bad, we still give thanks.

Our faith is that we believe in a God of redemption, a God of salvation. We believe that weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. We believe in a new heaven and a new earth where crying and pain and death will be no more. We believe that all things work for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

There’s always something to be thankful for. We can look at our past, connect the dots and be grateful. We can look at our present situation, count our blessings and be grateful. We can see in our minds eye a future that we know is secure because it is in the hands of God and be grateful.

Those of us who have this default, perpetual attitude of gratitude (and with some spiritual growth, it can be all of us), last longer, recover quicker and become more.

We last longer in the face of adversity. We don’t let hardship beat us down, but we endure knowing God give us the strength and will see us through.

We recover quicker when life doesn’t seem to be going our way or when we are mistreated. We have resilience because God’s Spirit dwells in us and Jesus walks along side of us.

And we become more. We don’t settle for mediocrity because we know God has plans for our future, plans for our good and not for our harm.

So connect the dots and let them give you hope for your future.

It all becomes so clear when we start looking ahead to our lives that are being created. How this will turn into that. How that will turn into this. And we can be grateful for it all.

Say “Yes” to God

2011-11-01T17:30:00.001-04:00

(Read Jonah 1)

One of my favorite scenes in the Academy Award winning film, American Beauty, is this wonder-filled moment when the camera follows a plastic bag being blown by the wind. As the wind whips and stirs, the bag rises in a spiral like motion up into the air, and as the wind calms, the bag drops down to the ground. It dances along in the street for a moment, before it is again taken up by the wind. It is as though the bag has a life, not of its own, but because of the wind. The interaction between the bag and the wind reminds me of the dance between the creature and the Creator.

God is like the wind, bringing forth life and movement. Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, God is the wind in my sails. Imagine that you are a sailboat, propelled forward by God’s strength and energy, by God’s breath and Spirit. When our sails are in line with the wind, we move forward swiftly on the course chartered by God. But when our sails don’t align with the wind, we can find ourselves barley moving or at a rocky standstill. Our lives are more dynamic and flow easier when our sails are filled with God’s Spirit.

God is always trying to do something in our lives. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that God is always trying to get us to do something with our lives. After all, our God is the God of direction. There is always some path we are supposed to be following and some decisions we need to be making. When we resist God, when we effectively say “no,” it is as though our sails are not aligned with the wind. Our boat doesn’t follow God’s trajectory. But when we are willing, when we effectively say “yes” to God, our sails are filled with wind, and we move forward as God intends.

Take the story of Jonah for example. God wants Jonah to do something, to go to Nineveh and cry out against the city because of their wicked ways, but Jonah refuses. He makes his refusal known by fleeing to a different city called Tarshish; this is a place that Scripture says is “away from the presence of the Lord” (Jonah 1: 3). And that’s when things really start to go wrong for Jonah. While on the ship, God raises up a storm, perhaps in his anger, which causes all the men on the ship to quake with fear. When the sailors realize that Jonah is the reason for the storm, they throw him overboard. Jonah brought calamity to himself and others because he said “no” to God.

Throughout my life, this has happened to me in subtle ways, but one time, just like with my friend Jonah, God was very direct. It was in 2002 when I was working in Los Angeles as an assistant to a film producer. I felt God calling me into the ministry, and I even applied to two seminaries in an attempt to follow the calling, but when I got accepted, I decided to turn the offers down so I could stay in Hollywood. In my heart of hearts, I knew the film industry wasn’t for me. I knew because I was actually quite unhappy working there, but I had hopes that things would get better.

One day, I told my boss, Keri, that I had been accepted to seminary, but that as long as I had a job with her, I was going to pass on the option. She assured me that my job was safe and that things were going well. Only a few days later, I left for a week to attend my sister’s wedding in Hawaii. While there, I heard God speaking to me, telling me that he had plans for my life. In my mind I heard a very clear statement that I wrote in my journal. It was: “I am going to give you your land.” I didn’t know it at the time, but God meant that he was sending me to seminary.

When I returned to California, I found out a little bit more about the way God works when we say “no” to his plan. You see, the night I returned, I opened up my mailbox to find a letter from Keri, my boss. I wish I could say it was a letter of thanks for what a great employee I was, but I cannot. It read, “Mandy, I hate to do this to you because you are a very nice person, but you are fired. I think you belong in seminary.” Talk about taking the wind out of my sails! In a matter of second, I had been brought to a dead halt. God was intervening. I had said “no,” but God was saying “yes.”

After crying all night, I called Harvard, the school I really wanted to go to, but they said my position had already been filled. Now, I was really panicking. I called Princeton next, my back up school. They said “yes” I could still attend. I was relieved and overjoyed. I boarded a plane a few days later, and as I was driving through the lush green town of Princeton, I heard the words again, “I am going to give you your land.”

God did what he had to do to get Jonah to go to Nineveh. God did what he had to do to get me to go to seminary. And I imagine, God does what he has to do to get all people following in the direction he wants them to go, for our God is a God of direction. In what direction has God urged you? Or in what direction is God urging you?

Maybe you’re estranged from a loved one. Perhaps God is urging you to reconnect with a family member or distant friend. Maybe you have been working 70 hours a week and are completely stressed out. Perhaps God is urging you to take a vacation or even just a walk in Central Park. Maybe you have been lonely and without the support you need in your life. Perhaps God is urging you to meet new people, to develop relationships. Maybe you feel unfulfilled in your current work. Perhaps God is urging you to take a class or switch fields.

I have learned that saying “yes” to God is the best response because it will make our lives easier and lead us towards our highest callings. Saying “no” can lead us to estrangement, fatigue, loneliness and unfulfillment. Saying “No” is frustrating, moreso for us than for God, because let’s face it, God always gets his way in the end.

Here I am in the ministry, and trust me, getting fired from that Hollywood job was not the route I wanted to take. And I’m sure Jonah didn’t want to get hated by people, thrown from a boat, and swallowed by a fish. But that fish actually saved Jonah’s life, and after three days in its belly, Jonah had a change of heart. When he returns to dry land and God asks him a second time to go to Nineveh, this time you best believe he goes. Saying “yes” is like aligning your sails with the wind. You get to your destination more quickly and with less turmoil.

Remember that bag and how it danced in the wind. This is the dance that happens when we say “yes.” Yes to changing, yes to growing, yes to challenges, yes to the journey, and ultimately, yes to God.

Instead of ending this sermon by saying the traditional, “Amen.” I’ll simply end it by raising my hands to heaven and saying “Yes!”

Think Different; Be Different

2011-08-23T16:31:00.000-04:00

American media and advertisers want us to feel needy. They want us to feel needy so that we will buy their products, use their services and run to them, instead of God, whenever we have a problem.

If we are not feeling beautiful enough, there is some makeup or hair dye that can solve our problem. If we are not feeling powerful enough, there is some car or mutual fund that can solve our problem. If we are not feeling healthy enough, there is some pill or program that can solve our problem.

Whenever “the world,” in the negative sense of the word, tries to make us feel not something enough, not good enough, not successful enough, not skinny enough, not smart enough, not athletic enough, not happy enough, a red flag should go off in our minds because what “the world” is trying to do is make us feel needy, insecure, lacking and dissatisfied. The word “enough” means “sufficient to meet a need or satisfy a desire; adequate,” but used in conjunction with the word “not,” it starts referring to things not being adequate or unable to satisfy us. This is pretty much the opposite of how God wants us to feel and think.

Tanya is a pretty, educated, and successful woman, but she still doesn’t think she is “good enough.” She wants her apartment to be cleaner and her clothes to be nicer and her waist to be thinner. When she talks like this, she is focusing on the negative, on what’s not “good enough” in her life. This is no way to live, especially because God has blessed her in hundreds of ways, and she should be focusing on what is good and right in her life, and not on what “the world” is telling her she still needs.

Errors in the way we think are stumbling blocks to the spiritual life. How can we praise and give thanks to God if we are continually dissatisfied with what we have? How can we present ourselves as living sacrifices to God if we are continually dissatisfied with who we are?

Today’s scripture from Romans says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

Or the New Living Translation says, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2).

If we simply stop using the words “not enough” in reference to ourselves and what we have, we will be making a big step in renewing our minds and transforming our lives.

Two very simple ways we can do this are by being grateful for what we have and by being happy with ourselves.

First, gratitude. Gratitude is an attitude. “Have an attitude of gratitude,” my father always says. We have so many things to be thankful for in life. Our bodies for example. The fact that we have eyes to see, ears to hear and legs to walk. Forget that we are not perfect. We don’t need to be perfect because we have been blessed with health in so many ways.

Our relationships are another thing to be grateful for. We have friends, family, church family, good co-workers, all sorts of people who make our lives more interesting and offer us support. Instead of dwelling on the one relationship that we don’t have or isn’t going well, we can be thankful for the many people in our lives who bring us joy and comfort.

We have many possessions as well that we can be grateful for. We have homes to live in, beds to sleep in, clothes to wear, and food to eat.

It’s easy to take these things for granted, to want more, to say we don’t have enough, but that’s worldly thinking. We do have enough. And to know this is to have the mind of Christ in us.

William Ward once said, “God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say "thank you?"

A second way we can refuse to conform to “the world,” renew our minds and transform our lives is by being happy with ourselves. God created each one of us carefully and with a plan in mind. And when we constantly berate ourselves because we aren’t this and we aren’t that, we are insulting God. No one is perfect, but each of us is blessed, and until we own that, until we know that, we will squander our gifts because we may not realize that we have something very special to offer this hurting world.

I like this quote by Howard Thurman, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” In God’s eyes, you are a gift and an opportunity. You can create beauty and heal the world by being alive as yourself.

There’s a story called Jonathan Livingston Seagull that exemplifies this quote, and in this story, Jonathon, who is in fact a seagull, is frustrated with the meaningless materialism and conformity and limitation of seagull life. All the other gulls do is eat and balk, which is really boring to Jonathan.

Jonathan realizes that he was meant to fly. And so he spreads his wings and spends hours learning to fly higher and faster, to do rolls and turns in the sky. It is through his pursuit of being fully himself and following his heart that Jonathon is taken to a new level of being. Eventually, he is befriended by other gulls, gulls he didn’t even know were out there when he began his journey, and they guide him into an existence that brings him as close to God as one can get.

Today, I want to invite everyone to be true to yourselves, even if that means leaving the old flock behind and venturing out on your own. We can start by not conforming to this world who tells us that we do not have enough, and we are not enough. Instead, we can be grateful for what we have and who we are, and then continue to move forward by opening up our hearts and living life to the fullest. Remember, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Wrestling With God

2011-08-17T12:05:00.001-04:00

(Read Genesis 32: 22-31)

Submission to God’s will is one of the great spiritual disciplines of our tradition. In the classic book, Celebration of Discipline, the profound teacher, Richard Foster writes, “The most radical social teaching of Jesus was his total reversal of the contemporary notion of greatness. Leadership is found in becoming the servant of all. Power is discovered in submission. The foremost symbol of this radical servanthood is the cross” (Foster, pg. 115). The book of Philippians sums it up when the writer says, “He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). According to Christian teaching, it is through this humbling, obedience and death that Jesus and we ourselves find glory, power and life.

“Every discipline has its corresponding freedom” (Foster,Richard. Celebration of Discipline. pg. 110). And the freedom associated with submission is “the ability to lay down the terrible burden of always needing to get our own way.” Richard Foster goes on to say, “The obsession to demand that things go the way we want them to go is one of the greatest bondages in human society today. People will spend weeks, months, even years in a perpetual stew because some little thing did not go as they wished” (Foster, pg. 111).

And let’s face it, people that insist on their own way all the time drive us crazy. The boss that micromanages and demands that things be just so, the parent that gives their child no freedom and insists that their way is the right way, the friend who always has a plan and gets irritable when that plan is deviated from…these people are missing out on the dynamic movement that is supposed to be a part of a healthy relationship. It’s in the back and forth, the conversation, the compromise that we are most creative with each other and find a way to make whatever the situation is mutually beneficial.

I have a friend who has a very definitive idea of the way she likes things, and sometimes, being around her is like walking on eggshells. I have to watch what I say because I don’t want to offend her sensibilities. Honestly, it’s tiring and not that much fun to be around her when she’s like this.

So, submission is something that we do in order to get along well with others and make the relationship rewarding for all parties. As well, submission is something that we do to imitate Jesus, and through it, we find the life that God wants for us, instead of the life that we want for ourselves. However, there is a season for everything. As Ecclesiastes says, there is “a time to be born, and a time to die. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to seek, and a time to lose.” We can’t always submit. So may I add, there is “a time to submit, and a time to wrestle.” A wise person knows what is called for when.

And that brings us to today’s Scripture lesson of Jacob wrestling with God. Jacob is in the process of taking his family on a journey. They have left their home, but have not arrived yet at their destination when he comes across a man, who turns out to be God. Jacob wrestles with him all night long, and as day is breaking, God says, “Let me go.” Jacob replies, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me” (Genesis 32: 26).

This brings me to my first point: when we decide it’s time to wrestle, to strive with God or with a fellow human being, we must have a purpose in mind. In other words, choose your battles according to what you want most in life. If you really want to be a published writer, then you will send out proposal after proposal because you have a goal, and you will let nothing deter you from that goal of being published. But we have to know what we want in life. Do you know what’s really important to you right now? What’s worth wrestling and striving for?

Choosing your battles based on your overall goals and desires is especially important when you are wrestling with human beings. You don’t want to fight with your mother or mother-in-law about everything, so pick the things that really matter to you and let the rest go.

A second point about this passage: the wrestling goes on all night long and into the morning. When we decide it’s time to go for something, we can’t be faint of heart. We must be ready for a challenge and ready to endure. This can be difficult because many of us get about halfway to where we want to be and settle. “Oh, this is good enough” we say. Jacob doesn’t quit even after his hip is struck out of joint. He perseveres. He keeps wrestling until he gets what he wants.

A third point: God rewards, not punishes, but rewards Jacob for wrestling with him. I know that submission to God’s will is a pillar of our spirituality, but don’t you ever get tired praying, “Thy will be done.” I know for many years I would say the Lord’s Prayer, including the part that God’s will be done, but then would say in my personal prayer time, “God, why can’t it be my way? I know what I want. I know what I need. Why can’t you make happen what I want to have happen?”

The thing is, if we are going to wrestle God for what we want, then we have to take responsibility for making that thing come to fruition. Yes, I believe the Holy Spirit will help us in our weakness, but God does not just present our greatest desires on a silver platter. As the saying goes, God helps those who help themselves.

There is a poem called “Striving” by Robert William Service, and I particularly like these three lines:

I am myself - yet when I strive
I build a self that's truer, higher;
I keep my bit of God alive

I don’t know exactly what you are feeling like right now, but my friends, let’s have some fire in our bellies! Let’s strive, let’s wrestle so that we can be our best selves, so that we can see our dreams fulfilled, so that the part inside of us that is divine can really shine forth.

Today is no day to roll over and play dead. Today is the day to wrestle with God and be blessed. Amen.

No One Can Keep You Down When God is Raising You Up

2011-08-17T12:01:00.002-04:00

(Read Genesis 45: 1-15)

The story of Joseph and his 11 brothers is a long saga, one that begins in jealousy and brokenness and ends in reconciliation and love. There is much we can learn about our own lives and relationships from Joseph’s story.

In Genesis, chapter 37, we learn that Joseph is the youngest of Jacob or Israel’s children, and he is also Jacob’s favorite. This made Joseph the object of his brothers’ contempt. Scripture says, “But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him” (Genesis 37: 4).

As long as Joseph was not a threat to his brothers, they tolerated his existence, but then, to make matters worse, Joseph has a dream that causes his brothers to hate him even more. In innocent exuberance, Joseph says to them, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.”

What was to Joseph a fantastic dream was to his brothers a threatening premonition. They feared that he would rise above them somehow. So perhaps with trembling, perhaps in anger, Joseph’s brothers say to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” (Genesis 37: 6-8).

Suspicion and fear of Joseph multiplies until the day comes that Joseph’s brothers plot to kill him, the young dreamer. But discussing it among themselves, they quickly decide that they cannot kill their youngest brother outright, and opt instead to strip Joseph of his clothing and throw him into an empty pit with no water in it, knowing that death would inevitably be his fate.

However, when a group of Ishmaelites comes by, the brothers again redevise their plan. Instead of leaving him to die in the pit, they decide to sell him into slavery for 20 pieces of silver. And thus, Joseph is taken to Egypt as a slave.

But the story continues that Joseph finds favor with Pharaoh, and so, he becomes a ruler of Egypt. Many years after selling their brother into slavery, Jacob’s sons are forced to go to Egypt to buy grain for there was famine in Canaan where they lived. And who was it that was selling the grain to them? None other than Joseph, although they did not recognize him. So it comes to pass that the one who was betrayed, Joseph the dreamer, now has his brothers’ fate in his hands.
What will he do?

None of us here have been sold into slavery by our families, yet, many of us have been betrayed by our families in some way. Children who have been molested or beaten have been betrayed by their families. Children who have been neglected or abandoned have been betrayed by their families. More subtly, children are often the recipients of their parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins’ dysfunction. These people don’t intentionally try to hurt us, but because they are broken and needy themselves, they help to form in us brokenness and need. For example, I know a woman who was not happy with the way that she looked. She was insecure. Then, when she had a son, she used to cover his mouth when he laughed because she didn’t like the way his teeth and gums looked. What was happening was her own insecurity and shame was being acted out on her son, who then in turn felt embarrassed and ashamed about himself. I think this is why the bible says that a family’s sins are passed down from generation to generation. In this case, the boy inherited the shame of his mother. But there are a myriad of dysfunctions and unhealthy thinking and behaviors that can be passed among family. Feelings of worthlessness, extreme guilt, fear, indifference, anger, addiction…the list goes on.

Oftentimes, we aren’t even aware of the cycles that our families are caught up in, and thus it is nearly impossible for us to break them. But if we do become aware through self-reflection, observation, and the insight that comes from God, we have the opportunity to be healed. Nobody can keep us down if God is working to raise us up.

As God, as Jesus, as the Holy Spirit works in our lives to mend our brokenness, there comes a time when we must face the people who have hurt us. In the beginning, anger and resentment are natural and a healthy part of the process, but in time, an understanding needs to set in that stops casting blame. If we are ever to truly heal, we must be able to forgive.

That is why the story of Joseph gives me pause to think. There he is with his brothers before him, their lives now in his hands. Does he take an eye for an eye? Does he seek retribution? No. He has mercy and compassion for his brothers and their families.

In today’s text, Joseph says to his brothers, “Come closer to me. I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life” (Genesis 45: 4-5). Rather than yell at them and accuse them and blame them, he forgives them and tells them to come live with him, and he kisses them and weeps on their necks. And they kiss him back and weep on his neck because the guilt and burden they felt for all those years is finally being released.

I think about my brokenness and the ways that I’ve been hurt, and when I am in a healthy, evolved state of mind, these things don’t make me bitter, they make me feel compassion for myself and for the world. Like Joseph, you and I, can take what we’ve been through and use it to bring healing and life to others.

One small way I do this in my own life is that I often felt left out as a kid because I was the youngest. Nobody intentionally left me out, but that’s how I felt nonetheless. Now, I have a nephew who is the only young boy in our family. His girl cousins play together, and oftentimes, he sits there by himself playing his DS. He’s lost in his own world, but because of my experience, I always go over to him and say “hi” and see if he wants to play catch or talk or whatever. We can use what brought us down in life to raise others up.

God doesn’t want us to stay down forever. God wants to raise us up. God wants us to be well and happy and whole.

There’s this empowering poem by Maya Angelou called “Still I Rise.” In it, Maya, who is an African American woman and knows what it is to be marginalized and betrayed, refuses to stay down because of what has happened to her. She writes:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya rose.

Joseph rose. He came out of the pit he was thrown in. He came up to help others who tried to put him down.

Jesus rose. He came out of the grave he was buried in. He came up to save everyone so that we wouldn’t have to stay put down.

You can rise. I can rise. We don’t have to let anything that happened before keep us down. We can rise ourselves, and we can help others to rise as well.

Thanks be to God who gives us the strength, the courage and the fortitude to rise.

All Things Work for Good

2011-07-25T08:24:00.000-04:00

(Read Romans 8:26-39)

Adversity is all around us. There’s the homeless man on the street struggling with mental illness and addiction, and then there’s the person near you in the pews struggling with the same disease, but fortunately, they have a place to call home.

There’s the famous actress battling cancer, your cousin battling cancer, and then there’s the person near you in the pew also battling cancer.

Disease, divorce, drugs. Depression, anxiety, loneliness. Adversity is all around us.

And when it happens to any of us, we often feel compelled to ask the question, why? Why, oh Lord, is this happening to me or to someone I care about?

Several years ago, my sister in law, Alex, and my brother, Jason, ran into one of the greatest adversities of their lives. After four years of marriage, they could not conceive a child. It came to the point where the doctor recommended invetro fertilization, and fast! Alex was already 41 years old so their clock was ticking.

Alex and Jason did everything the doctors recommended because they desperately wanted to have a child together, but after two round of IVF, they still were not pregnant. In sadness, confusion and frustration, Alex came to me and asked me if I’d pray with her.

I remember the day like it was yesterday. Alex and I sat on the floor of her and my brother’s living room. We lit a candle. We held hands, and we prayed, “God, please may it be your will that Alex and Jason conceive and bare a healthy child. They want this more than anything. Will you please bless them?”

It was a sacred moment that Alex and I shared, but at the time, I couldn’t assure her that all things would be well.

In the past, I not only asked God “why?” when it came to the matter of suffering, but I also struggled with being angry with God in my suffering. I would challenge God, saying, “If you are an all-loving God, how could you let this happen? If you are an all-powerful God, why won’t you do something?” In my greatest times of anger, I would stop praying altogether.

But then, one day I heard a quote from a friend that helped to reframe my thinking. He said, “God doesn’t promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, or sun without rain, but God does promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way. If God brings you to it, God will bring you through it.”

It sets us up for failure if we think that if God really exists, if Jesus really loves us, that bad things won’t happen to us. As scripture says, “God makes the rain to fall on the just and unjust alike.” Mature faith requires us to go through some times of trial and tribulation believing that God will see us through.

In today’s passage from Romans, we hear Paul say, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

And this is a very important message for all of us to know and to believe, that God does make all things work together for the good, hopefully in this life, and definitely in the next. God is in the redeeming business. God brings transformation out of suffering and life out of death. We experience hardship, adversity, challenge, and somehow, out of those things, God can bring our most beautiful blessings. It’s not that God wills our suffering so that we will grow and learn, but once suffering comes into our lives as it surely will, God knows how to use our experience to bring him glory. God makes us stronger, more courageous, more grateful, more compassionate people. God uses what you and I have gone through to make this world a better place, or in Christian language, to make heaven come to earth.

Marilyn is a former parishioner I know who had breast cancer some six years ago. She is a source of inspiration to everyone who knows her because, not only did she survive breast cancer, she now works with other women struggling with breast cancer. She is one of the most grateful people I have ever met, never taking a moment of life for granted. And she is a witness to the very idea I am speaking about today because she said to me, “Mandy, I don’t know why I had to get breast cancer, but I do know that God brought me through it. And now, I am going to use the strength and hope I’ve learned to help other people go through what I went through.” God is using Marilyn to help others not only survive, but to thrive. God wants all of us to thrive, not merely to get by.

Now, I was telling my friend all of this the other day, and she said, “Yeah, but what if the cancer doesn’t go away. What if the baby is never conceived, or even worse, what if the baby dies when he or she is only a few days old? How is God making that work for the good?”

No one can justify babies dying, but I’m not trying to justify suffering and the evil that exists in this world. I’m trying to tell you a spiritual wisdom that I have learned to be true and many others know to be true. What we are talking about today is a way of seeing the world that will decrease our anger, increase our faith, and all in all, grant us a better experience of life.

Can you relate to what I’m talking about? Have you ever had a really difficult time in life, but after it was over, in hindsight, you could see that some grace, some blessing came out of it? I don’t tell people that “everything happens for a reason” because sometimes, there doesn’t seem to be a reason. It’s just plain, old suffering and misery. But what I can witness to, what Marilyn and Jason and Alex and countless others can witness to is that somehow, God transforms our suffering to create blessing. God works all things for the good.

This Romans passage goes on to say that God is for us, so who or what can really be against us? No one and nothing can win over God’s love, mercy and goodness.

Paul says, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

He is saying that nothing can separate us from love. Cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s can’t separate us from the love of God. Whether or not you can have a child, whether or not your children are healthy or have serious problems in their life, nothing can separate you from the love of God. Whether you are sinful, greedy, gluttonous, envious, nothing can separate you from the love of God.

You know what? Cancer has returned to Marilyn’s life. She is fighting the battle once again. But if you call her up and listen to her voice message, she continues to say, “It’s Sunday. And I’m still grateful.” She is not letting this separate her from the love of God.

And I am so filled with joy to tell you that on December 20, 2006, Samantha Carolina Iahn came into the world. She is Alex and Jason’s beautiful, baby girl. She is the good that God brought out of that whole terrible episode that they went through.

Brothers and sisters, adversity is all around us, but nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. May you know this and find peace in your soul.

Amen.

You Can Walk on Water

2011-07-20T10:12:00.001-04:00

Read Matthew 14:22-33

What do you think sounds worse: seeing a ghost or drowning? Because both almost happen to Peter this week.

I have to go with drowning even though I’ve never experienced it myself. Well that’s not true totally. I have experienced a sort of drowning in my life. It was more of a feeling though than an actual experience of being submerged underwater.

Depression feels like you’re drowning or struggling to keep your head above water. Anyone who has ever suffered from depression knows how hard it is to do even the smallest, most basic tasks like getting out of bed, taking a shower and doing your laundry. Depression chokes the joy from life like drowning chokes the air from your lungs.

I picked this scripture this week because I can relate to Peter at this point in my life, and perhaps you can too. Peter is in the boat with some other disciples, and when he realizes it is Jesus walking towards him out on the water, he wants to walk on the water too. “Lord,” he says, “if it is you, command me to come to you on the water” (Matthew 14: 28).

Jesus invites Peter, saying, “Come.” I can imagine Peter joyfully jumping out of the boat, excited because he is a part of a miracle.

This is kind of how I felt when I received the call to come to Park Avenue UMC. Oh, how exciting, I thought. I get to go to the big city and work at a beautiful church. I took a leap of faith and jumped out of the boat I was in.

But very quickly after arriving here, I became afraid. Of what, you may be wondering. It was the simple things like figuring out how to ride my bike to work or take the subway from the upper west side to the lower east side. And I can’t even tell you how much stress I felt initially over who was going to take care of my dog while I was at work. The first Sunday before church I woke up with my heart beating in my throat, and I wasn’t even preaching. Transitions are hard, but I’m glad to say that only one week later, my fear is starting to diminish.

Peter also became afraid very quickly. He jumped out of the boat all excited, but scripture says that when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened and began to sink.

This image of the wind blowing, and Peter noticing the wind blowing, getting afraid and starting to sink is a powerful image. I imagine the waves on the water, and Peter’s hair whipping all around. And then there is that loud noise that wind makes… There is chaos on the sea in that moment that Peter starts to sink.

For Peter, the wind is what made him afraid, and so I can’t help but to think about, what is the wind in my life? And what is the wind in your life? What is it that is blowing through your world hard and strong, perhaps making you doubt, making you afraid, making you sink? The wind can be an obstacle in your path. The wind can be a situation that you can’t quite get a handle on. The wind can be a person who puts you on edge. The wind can be anything that makes you doubt yourself or God.

Adjusting to living in New York City is my wind right now. But I can’t let this awesome place overwhelm me anymore than Jesus would have let Peter sink right before his eyes. God wants us to walk on water with him. God wants us to be successful and confident even in the face of fear and danger because God has plans for our good and not for our harm.

When Peter began to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately, Jesus reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Why do we doubt? Why do we fear?

I’ll tell you a story. My friend Lisa worked very hard to get her PhD, and then got a job as a professor at a Catholic university. She was one of the youngest people on staff and the only Protestant. Her first year teaching she was filled with fear about what other members of the staff thought of her and what her students thought of her. After one student came into her office and criticized her because of the grade she had given him, she really began to doubt herself. She began to wonder if she was doing a good job teaching… She wondered if she was she being too hard on her students…

Much of the fear and doubt Lisa was experiencing, and much of the fear and doubt all of us experience, is a product of our own minds and our own insecurities. The threats are more mental than physical. The storms swirl up in our thoughts and rock the boat that is our lives.

But trust in God, trust that Christ will save us, can prevent the storms from getting too big and too debilitating. Often, we just have to give it time. Even in your darkest moments, use your faith to keep you going. God will help us. God is helping us. You will not sink even if the wind is whipping about you.

After about a year at the university, Lisa started to feel more confident in herself. She received positive feedback from students and other professors, and this helped her to believe that being a professor was truly the task God had called her too. But it took time.

“Patient Trust” by Teilhard de Chardin

Above all, trust in the slow work of God
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages,
We are impatient of being on the way to do something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

My friends, let us not be afraid because of the wind. Let us trust in God to hold us up. There is a song called, “Be Still, My Soul” that says: Be still, my soul: the Lord is on your side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain; leave to your God to order and provide; in every change God faithful will remain…Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know the Christ who ruled them while he dwelt below.

Jesus Ascends, But We Are Not Alone

2011-06-01T21:48:00.000-04:00

(Read Acts 1:1-11 and John 14:15-21)

We live in the digital era. A time when you have access to all the information you could possibly need or want, and then some. A time when you can be connected to people around the globe via email, text, phone, even video chat.

I once wrote a poem that said, “Heaven is instantaneous travel in space; I want to be with you and here you are.” Well, we are not so far away from that reality of being together even across the miles. Because of video chat, I can be here in New York and you can be there in San Francisco, but somehow we can see each other’s faces and hear each other’s voices. The only thing we are missing is touch. But oh, how important touch is.

While the digital era connects us in a way like never before, it does have its minuses. On the negative side, we are never alone, and being alone is necessary for the human spirit. It gives us time with ourselves and time with God, time to reflect and plan. But we are never alone now. Sure, we might be without people around, but our phones and computers make it so that we are always being bombarded, always having to respond to something or someone. I know for myself, it’s hard to turn off my devices and just be. The phone sits there waiting to ring. The computer sits there waiting to deliver. In this day and age, we must be intentional about creating quiet time for ourselves.

While it’s important to be alone at times throughout our week, no one likes to feel lonely. There’s a great difference between being alone and being lonely. Being alone has the potential to be nourishing and calming, a time of respite and renewal, a time to collect our thoughts. But being lonely just feels plain old bad. When we are lonely, we actually want to be with people; we need them to nourish us and comfort us. Because let’s face it, the best thing about life is being surrounded by people that we love.

We need people surrounding us, and we need God surrounding us in order not to feel lonely and in order to be truly happy in life. And the one certainty, the one guarantee is that we are always surrounded by God. While Jesus was still on this earth, he told his followers that once he left this world, we would not be alone. He said, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever” (John 14:16). This Advocate is also called the Helper or the Holy Spirit. Jesus says that he will not leave us orphaned as children without our parents. We will have this Advocate who will abide in us and be with us always.

To me, the Holy Spirit might be one of the most beautiful aspects to Christianity. God did amazing and miraculous things in and through Jesus Christ, but the Holy Spirit is the way that we connect to Jesus after all these years. The Holy Spirit is both in you and around you. The Spirit is the one who helps to transform our lives and guide our paths.

I want to read you a poem about destiny. It is thought-provoking, and while you hear it, keep in the back of your mind the thought that it is the Holy Spirit who leads us into our destinies.

Read “Follow Your Destiny, Wherever It Leads You” by Vicki Silvers

There are three lines of the poem that really stick out to me:

First, “The pattern of life does not necessarily go as you plan. Beyond any understanding, you may at times be led in different directions that you ever imagined, dreamed, or designed.” This is the primary work of the Spirit. The Spirit is wiser than our understanding, and that’s because the Spirit is God’s understanding. And so, in a continuous motion, the Spirit plans our lives for us and leads us into directions with God’s intention for our lives in mind.

The second line of the poem that I want us to reflect upon is: “Rather than wondering about or question the direction your life has taken, accept the fact that there is a path before you now.” We all have ideas and dreams and hopes for our lives, and that is a good thing, but we must ultimately hand over our lives to God’s will. The Advocate’s primary work is to give us a path and to encourage us forward on that path. And in fact, we are on that path right now! No matter what your life has been or will be, right now is the most imporatnat moment for you to sink in and get in line with what God is doing in your life.

The third line: “Keep your belief in yourself and walk into your new journey.” I would also add, “Keep your belief in God and walk into your new journey.” Even if you feel stagnant right now, you are not. You are on a journey and God is leading you forward into your destiny. Change is always happening in big ways and small ways. People of great faith know that life is not about the destination, it’s about the journey we are on now.

Through all of this, I have found a name for God that rings true to me. God is the Great Orchestrator. God is the true designer of our lives, and he always has a symphony in mind when it comes to our destinies.

I say all of this with hopeful, but bittersweet news. The Bishop has asked me to leave Trinity and move to Manhattan to serve Park Avenue UMC as their associate pastor. It’s a great opportunity for me to be in the city, but it will be hard for me to leave the life I have come to know here, most importantly the people I know here.

This is such a beautiful church filled with beautiful souls, I will miss you dearly. I will miss the green grass and the big blue sky as well. But back to what I was saying early, it has been lonely for me here in many ways. I have had plenty of constructive alone time, but it’s been hard to meet people. I’m hoping New York City, surrounded by millions of others, will not be so lonely.

My friends, Jesus has ascended to heaven, but we are not alone. We are surrounded by and filled with the Holy Spirit, who is orchestrating all of our lives in ways unknown. Do not be afraid. Be filled with joy and confidence. The journey that you are on is not a dead end road, it is a mystical path fulfilling your destiny.

You Are the Mountain

2011-05-15T12:37:00.000-04:00

Perhaps there is nothing sadder to witness than a sad child.

Childhood should be a time of happiness, of laughter and play and wonder, a time when you rejoice in discovery and exploration. Childhood is a hopeful time when you imagine dreams coming true.

But some children don’t have that experience. Many children in fact see the realities of life all too early. They hear parents arguing over money. They are abused by relatives. They have classmates bully them at school. Many children are consumed by worry and fear just like an adult might be.

I recently watched a news program on TV that talked about the number of homeless children in America. The program focused on those kids living in motels surrounding Orlando, FLA, the home of Disney World.

These kids don’t get to go the Magic Kingdom to explore their fantasies of being princesses and knights. Instead, they live in one cramped room with their parents who are out of work and their siblings. During an interview on the show, one young girl said that she worried about what the other kids thought of her and her family. She was ashamed to be living in a motel. But you see, the problem has become so prevalent in Orlando that this girl isn’t alone in her struggle. The school buses now pick up handfuls of children who live in the motels surrounding Disney World.

These children, and others like them, those who lose their innocence too early, become wise souls at a young age. They are wise because they come to know and accept the full spectrum of what life is, that life is not just some fairytale, something many of us don’t realize until much later when we are hit hard by reality. I have two friends, Mark and Veronica, who both had very difficult childhoods. Mark, his sister and mother were abandoned by their father at a young age, and this caused a great deal of anger and sadness in their family, plus economic struggles. Veronica’s mother commit suicide, and this also caused a great deal of anger and sadness, as well as shame in her family. But now that they are in their 30’s, both Mark and Veronica feel more prepared to deal with the world because of the hardships that they went through as children. While I would never want a child to lose their innocence early, perhaps there is some advantage to learning at a young age that sometimes life is fair and sometimes it is not, that sometimes life is good and sometimes it is not, that sometimes your life feels blessed and sometimes it does not.

A wise person understands that life is a mixed bag. There are days of sunshine and laughter, and there are days of rain and tears. There are moments when you feel a sense of belonging and cared for, and there are moments when you feel alone and neglected. You can’t have the good without the bad. In fact, without the bad, the good is not even possible. You wouldn’t even know it.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus promises us that if we follow him we will have abundant life, or another way of saying that is that we will have life in all its fullness.

When I was naïve, I thought this meant that life would just be good. That there would be no bad. Life in God’s kingdom was the stuff of Disney World and Christmas mornings.

But the truth is, abundant life means experiencing the vast range of human emotions, both positive and negative. Abundant life means experiencing the sin and the goodness that people are capable of doing to one another. Abundant life is not a promise that life will be easy; it is the promise that life will be complete in its fullness. This means living in the peaks and the valleys; it means experiencing the ups and the downs. It means doing right and wrong.

What Jesus promises us is a life that is dynamic and complex, and the assurance that God the Shepherd will be with us through it all, calling us by name and leading us to safe pasture.

Part of what we must do on our spiritual journeys is learn to embrace that which plagues us. By embrace I don’t mean that we have to like our trials and tribulations, but that we must let them be a part of our life, that we must go through them just like we go through the celebratory times and the blessings.

Part of the reason that embracing is so important is because what you resist persists. If you resist the ongoing argument you are having with a member of your family, the argument persists. In fact, resistance fuels the flame. If you resist and deny your declining health, it won’t go away, it will persist. The best way to help yourself is to embrace yourself and what you are going through.

There is something called a mountain meditation. And in this meditation you are the mountain, and no matter what happens on the mountain, you stand firm. Imagine yourself as a mountain now.

Some days, the sun shines brightly overhead, and you feel its warmth and bask in its light. Other days, the sun is too hot, and it scorches the earth and rock.

Some days, the sun is hidden from the mountain by the clouds, and it feels so cold that you shiver. On these days, the wind is like a whip against your skin, and the storm tares up the trees that rest in your soil. Debris blows across the mountain.

Other days, the heavens open up and rain falls gently to the earth providing it with much needed water. Or snow falls from heaven and covers you in a gentle blanket of white, that though it is cold, there is no harm to you for you are covered as if by a down comforter.

This meditation is to help you understand that you are the mountain, firm and resilient. You are not the elements, which change beyond your control. The elements swirl around you and sometimes they make life pleasant and good, but at other times, they make life miserable and bad. Through all of this, you, the mountain, stand honorable and true.

The elements are like the changing circumstances of our lives, but we, in our souls, are steadfast and firm like the mountain.

Life is not just falling in love. It is also falling out of love. Life is not just landing a job. It is also leaving a job. Life is not just rejoicing in your child’s achievements. It is also staying up at night worrying about their wellbeing. But this is what Jesus offers to us as the full path to life. It is the noble path.

Don’t be afraid to walk it. Do not resist it. Simply stand firm and remember, you are the mountain.

The Stone to the Tomb Has Been Rolled Back; The Gates of Heaven Are Open

2011-04-25T16:49:00.002-04:00

Humanity is capable of heinous crimes, breaking laws set by both man and God. History is filled with tales of entire people being enslaved, oppressed and slain, the Israelites, the Incas, the Mayans, Native Americans, the Jews.

In more recent history, we have seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears how in Rwanda more than 1 million people were killed, and on this very day, Kaddafi is still using the Libyan army to kill its own citizens.

In light of all this, it is hardly notable that one, simple man was killed by the Roman authorities some 2,000 years ago. One more crucifixion in Rome was not history in the making, and Jesus of Nazareth surely wasn’t the only innocent man who hung on a cross.

And yet, we know his story better than we know almost any other. How the crowds shouted, “Crucify him.” How the sun refused to shine on that fateful day, how the curtain of the temple was torn in two after he uttered his last words, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

What makes Jesus story so exceptional is not his death wrought by human hands. We have come to expect such foolishness from ourselves and our peers. What makes Jesus story so exceptional is that he was resurrected from the dead because God’s power is greater than any horrible act man can commit.

Now some of you may be filled with doubt about God’s power in your life because of the suffering and limitations you have known. All of us have had our hopes disappointed over and over again. All of us have been sick and in despair in our hearts, in our minds and in our bodies, and have wondered, “How long, o Lord, must I wait for you to rescue me?” All of us have been hurt or betrayed by those around us, and because evil looks like its winning, we have doubted the power and benevolence of God.

Even Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’ closest companions, had no idea what God was capable of doing. She witnessed Jesus hanging on the cross; she cried as they laid him in the tomb, and when she went to sit with Jesus’ body in the early hours of the morning, when it was still dark, her eyes were not the eyes of faith.

Jesus’ body was missing. Because she knew the realities of the world so well, she did not hope for resurrection, she immediately assumed more evil on the part of humanity. She thought Jesus’ body had been stolen.

It wasn’t until Peter and John ran to the tomb to see for themselves that it was empty did another reality come into the picture. It was John who first believed as he put two and two together. He remembered everything Jesus had said, and what the scriptures said, “that he must rise from the dead,” and as he figured it out, the power of God, which seemed like a distant reality before, became very real.

You see, Good Friday is about what people are capable of. Easter Sunday is about what God is capable of.

And God is capable of taking a person’s worst fate, suffering, pain and death, and bringing forth from it a person’s greatest blessing, joy, love and life.

There’s a song that very popular on the radio right now by Nicki Minaj called, “Moment For Life.” And in that song she says, “I believe that life is a prize, but to live doesn’t mean you’re alive.” I like this lyric because I can relate to it. We all know what it means to have blood pumping through our veins but to feel dead inside.

Death is not only physical; it is spiritual and emotional. When we suffer from depression, fear, anxiety, boredom, anger, guilt, addiction, we are experiencing a limited form of life.

But God has other plans for us. God wants to move us from these deadly states to lively states, such as happiness, confidence, contentment, inspiration, understanding, goodness, freedom.

Today is the day when we celebrate life. Death does not have the final say, God has the final say, and God has firmly declared in the resurrection of Jesus that life triumphs over the evils of humanity and death in whatever forms they present themselves.

Scripture says, because Jesus lives, we too shall live.

What this means is that in any way that you experience the limitations of this world, in any way you are chained down, beaten down, let down, God is proclaiming to you that this is not your destiny, this is not the end state of your life. You too will experience resurrection.

In life, we need each other to keep one another believing. I need you to testify to me about the goodness of God. I need to hear your stories of how the Living God has been merciful to you, how God has been gracious to you, how God has blessed you. And you need the same from me. One person’s faith helps to light up another person’s faith.

Mary Magdalene was struggling with her faith until Jesus called her by name in the garden. But once her eyes were opened to God’s power in this world, what did she go and do? She went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and it was through her testimony that others first believed.

It is through our experiences of the Risen Lord and by living together enlightened by God’s power in our lives that we become fully alive.

My sisters and brothers, the stone to the tomb has been rolled back, the gates of heaven have been open to all of us.

Heaven is not simply some reality we are waiting for later, after we die. Heaven is also the possibility for us to have abundant life now.

Where are the pearly gates? They are your mind and heart, which this day have been opened through your faith in God’s power to raise Jesus from the dead.

Today, we live in heaven, together.

I Used Everything You Gave Me

2011-03-21T09:04:00.002-04:00

(Read Matthew 25:14-30)

Serena Williams is arguably the best women’s tennis player of all time with over 27 Grand Slam titles. She started playing as a youth with her father, who coached her and her older sister, Venus. I heard a story that very early on, the Williams sisters' father entered Venus in a tournament but not Serena. So you know what Serena did? She entered the tournament on her own. From the beginning, Serena had a great competitive spirit. She was both gifted and driven.

Imagine if Serena had not pursued playing tennis. She could have come up with plenty of excuses not to. She was just a poor girl from a poor neighborhood. African Americans were not widely seen on the tennis circuit. She had dreams of being an actress instead. If Serena had given up on tennis, generations of people would have lost out on seeing this sport taken to a higher level, and especially, minority women would have lost one of the greatest role models of our day.

It is not that Serena hasn’t had her challenges. She has been plagued by injuries of worn out tendons and has had two surgeries on her right foot alone. Also, in 2003, one of Serena’s older sisters, Yetunde Price, was murdered, and of course, this devastated the young star.

On February 18th, Serena suffered another setback, and she almost died from it. While on a routine airplane ride, Serena noticed that her left foot was tremendously swollen. In a recent article in People magazine, she said, “My foot was huge. Imagine the size of my thigh, just above my knee; that’s how big my foot was.” Thinking this was weird, but nothing of significance, Serena decided that she would ice her foot when she got home. But then, as she walked through the airport, she found herself inexplicably struggling to breathe. Again, not thinking there was anything seriously wrong, she made a mental note to herself that it was time to get back to the gym and really get in shape.

It wasn’t until she called her big sister, Venus, who was working out with her trainer, that Serena got it through her head that something must be wrong. “You have a blood clot, Venus told her. “You have to go to the doctor!”

As it turned out, the cause of Serena’s symptoms was a pulmonary embolism, a potentially fatal blood clot that had traveled to her lungs. Pulmonary embolism is diagnosed in approximately 600,000 Americans each year, and it is fatal in some 10%.
Serena was successfully treated for the problem and now proclaims, “I’m lucky to be alive.” While she is in recovery, she will remain on blood thinners for many months. One doctor recommended to her, “If I were you, I wouldn’t play tennis again.”

And so here we have it, a monumental decision for Serena Williams: will she ever play professional tennis again?

Serena’s story is more dramatic than most of ours, but each day, we are all faced with the decision of if and how we will use the gifts, the talents that God has given us.

Many of us our afraid to use our talents. We fear failure and rejection. We fear the pain and discomfort of stretching ourselves to grow and doing something that’s challenging. We procrastinate instead of digging in and working hard.

And if our fear doesn’t stop us, some time plain old indecision does. We know deep down that we are gifted, that we have something to offer the world, but we aren’t sure in what way we can use our talents for the good, and so we do nothing at all.

Not all talents are as obvious as Serena’s, but in God’s eyes they all have equal value. Perhaps you have been born with the talent of caring for small children or developing trust with teenagers. Perhaps you have been born with the gift of mending broken ties or the ability to bring laughter to a hurting world. The point is, there are millions of talents, and its important for you to know what yours are and use them.

This idea relates to the parable of the talents that we heard this morning. In the parable, a man is going on a journey, and he leaves his property to his slaves. He gives one servant 5 talents (which is a form of money), another 2 talents and another 1 talent, each according to his ability, and then the man goes away. None of the men squander the money for their own purposes, but the difference is this: the men who received 5 talents and 2 talents put the money to work and doubled it. While the man with one talent buried it in a whole so it would be safe.

We can interpret this story in this way: the man who leaves on the journey is Jesus leaving the earth, and we are the servants he leaves his property to. God gives to each of us some talent in the literal sense of the word and wants us to use our talent to grow the kingdom of heaven on earth. Two of the servants are obedient, courageous and wise and do just that, but the other servant plays it safe. Instead of using his talent and making it work for the kingdom, he buries it deep inside himself. You know the song, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.” Well, two servants let their lights shine while the other hides his light under a bushel.

When the Master returns, he is deeply appreciative to the servants who have doubled his money. He says, “Well done, good and trustworthy servants; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21).

When we use our talents, God is also deeply appreciative and greatly pleased. And the more we use our gifts, the more opportunities we have to use them. In this way, our lives grow more meaningful and we have more abundance.

However, the opposite is also true. The Master is deeply displeased with the servant who buried his talent in a hole. The Master takes the talent away because it is being wasted and gives it to one who is more trustworthy. The Master also sentences this servant to the outer darkness.

When we do not use our talents, when we bury our gifts out of fear, insecurity or laziness, we upset God. He gave us these gifts so that they would be used. And in this way, the one who does not believe in him or herself, the one who does not use what they have been given for the kingdom’s growth experiences a life that is dark and covered in shadows. In essence, this person really misses out.

God gives us skills and talents so that we can use them. As we discover how we are gifted, we must begin the task of utilizing our strengths in a fashion that achieves God’s goals. Otherwise, we will never truly be happy. We won’t be expressing ourselves fully, and we will feel incomplete and unsatisfied.

I know that all of us have legitimate fears and insecurities that hold us back. We also get lazy and procrastinate because we don’t want the hard work. But, when we do this, we are not being faithful disciples. We are doubting God’s plan and purpose for our lives, and not only does God feel frustrated, but we feel frustrated with ourselves.

I told you in the beginning of 2010 that I was going to write a book, and I didn’t do it. I had legitimate reasons, like I was putting my energy elsewhere, and I wasn’t even really sure what to write. But I was frustrated as a person, and I think the forward movement, the growth in my life was halted or at least slowed because I refused to use my talent in a way that I believe God is calling me to use then.

Finally, I have reached a place where there are no more excuses. I’m doing it. I am in the process of writing my first book, which for now, I am calling, A Father Talks to His Daughter: The Story of Two Lifetimes and One Bloodline. I really believe that my life will remain stuck until I do this thing for God, for my father and for myself. I’m still scared. I don’t know if it will be any good, but I have to do it. Just like the servant with 1 talent had to put himself out there, had to take a risk, in order to please his Master. The other servants had success, why would he not? Other people write books all the time, why can’t I ?

God spoke to me in prayer the other night and said, “Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid to think. Do not be afraid to write. Do not be afraid to say what you know. Believe in yourself. Believe also in me.” And since I gave up doubt for Lent, I have no choice but to heed these words and move forward with courage and faith.

Benjamin Mays said, “…the tragedy in life does not lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream.” Well, I think we should all have goals and dreams. I think we should go after them, which requires hard work and for us to use the very best of what we have been given. And the result, we can’t worry so much about the result that it stops us from beginning the task. We can’t measure results in terms of worldly success. We can only measure results in terms of having been true to our talent. God will decide the success of our efforts.

Is there something that you are not doing, something deep inside of you that has been given to you from God that you are hiding or wasting? Today, is a day of reckoning for all of us as individuals and as a community.

After we sing and pray, Frazer Pehmoeller is going to act as a spokesperson for our church, and he is going to call us to think about new and creative ways we can use our talents to build up God’s kingdom and make our church a self-sustaining, vital force for many years to come. I hope you will listen to his message with the parable of the talents in mind. And I hope you will listen as people of faith and believe that what God has given us, God will bless as we use it according to his will and for his purposes.

Erma Bombeck wrote more than 4,000 hilarious newspaper columns chronicling the everyday life of a suburban housewife and her kids. Erma said, “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say,‘I used everything you gave me.’”

May we all be able to stand before God and say the same thing, “I used everything you gave me.”

As for Serena Williams, I know she’s using all the talent she has been given, and I know she will keep on using it for as long as she can. In response to that doctor who told her, “If I were you, I wouldn’t play again,” Serena said, “You’re not me….I like having a challenge, and this will be my biggest challenge yet.” She hopes to be competing in women’s professional tennis by this summer.

I believe God is pleased with Serena’s intention and will one day say to her, “Well done, good and trustworthy servant; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” (Mattew 25:21).

The Freedom of Saying “No”

2011-03-13T14:59:00.001-04:00

(Read Matthew 4:1-11)

Jesus said “no” to the devil, and it set him free. The story goes something like this: Jesus has been out fasting in the wilderness for forty days and nights. When he reaches a point of being famished and weak, the tempter or the devil comes to him and asks him three different questions, all as tests that could lead Jesus to abandon his mission and calling. First, the tempter says, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” He is tempting Jesus to provide for his own needs. “No,” Jesus says. “I don’t live by bread. I live by the word of God.” Second, the tempter says, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself off the pinnacle of the temple and let God rescue you.” He is tempting Jesus to challenge God, to test God’s power and faithfulness. “No,” Jesus says. “I’m not putting God up to some test. I know who I am, and I know who God is in relation to me.” Third, the tempter says, “I’ll give you whatever you want in all the world, if only you will worship me instead of God.” He is tempting Jesus to put power and wealth above his relationship to God. “No,” Jesus says. “What I want most in all the world is to worship God and serve only him.”

And because of these three wise responses, the devil must depart from Jesus. He has no hold over him, no control over him. Jesus is free. And suddenly, angels come and wait on him.

Most of the time when we think of freedom, we think of the freedom to be able to do things, the freedom to be able to say “yes.” When you are 16, freedom is getting to take the car and go out with your friends. “Yes,” we think, “I can do that now.”

At 21, freedom is going out to a bar and having an alcoholic beverage. “Yes,” we think, “I can do that now.” But anyone whose ever had a hangover knows that sometimes the real freedom is in saying “no.”

I spent Friday night celebrating the 40th birthday of a dear friend, Jeff Scholes. I know Jeff from Seminary, and he’s a fun and interesting person, as are many of the people that I went to Seminary with. One of Jeff’s distinguishing characteristics is that he went gray in his 20’s. So the joke on the eve of his 40th birthday was that he was finally growing into his hair.

Another thing about Jeff is that he is an avid smoker, a pack a day of American Spirits. While we were visiting, I was standing outside with Jeff and his girlfriend while he had a cigarette, and he was telling us how sick of smoking he is. He lamented that no one smokes anymore and about how expensive cigarettes had become. “But,” he said, “what really bothers me is that I’m a slave to these things. I can’t go anywhere without them. They drive me from my bed. They drive me from my office. I have to leave the restaurant in the middle of dinner to smoke. I’m a prisoner.”

My response to Jeff was something that my father had said to me many years ago. “Jeff,” I said, “I think it’s time you learned that there is freedom in saying ‘no.’”

I told my parents I was preaching on the freedom of saying “no” today, and my mother, who is by far the most caring, giving woman I have ever known, jumped right on the idea. She said, “Sometimes in life, people ask too much of you, and you cannot do what they want you to do. You have to say “no” for your own well-being. It can be really hard,” she went on “because sometimes people won’t like you for saying “no.” But I’m at a point in my life [She’s 66, a wife, a mother of 3 and a grandmother of 3] where I have to say, ‘I don’t care if you’re mad at me or not, the answer is “no.” If you always have to do something for someone else, it robs your soul of yourself.”

Pretty powerful words, and I understand exactly what she means. We all want to be liked and do our best for people, but at what cost? Quite often, we end up depleted, resentful and unhappy. Instead, we must be wise, and when we are teetering on the line, it’s most important for us to be genuine and truthful with each other about what we can give in a truly healthy way. Sometimes, that means saying “no.”

The quest for freedom, which leads to happiness and health, can be personal or it can be communal. So far I’ve been talking about personal freedom, but look what’s happening in the Middle East right now.

Five nations are in revolt: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and Tunisia. Tunisia was the first, and within two weeks of the people revolting and essentially saying “no” to their government, the leader had stepped down. He listening to his people, and he respected the freedom of saying “no.”

However, Kaddafi, the leader of Libya, refuses to listen to his people and is killing them with bombs. What he is saying is: “You don’t have a right to say “no.” In fact, if you say “no,” you don’t have a right to live.” And anybody in the whole earth can see that what Kadafi is doing is evil.

So I just ask you, as you are walking your road to redemption this Lent, to ponder some things. Consider whether some of the freedom that you seek can be yours by the power of one word, “no.”

I believe my friend, Jeff, will quit smoking because there is no worse pain than being a prisoner. And it’s even more awful because he is imprisoning himself. I also believe all of us here are capable, by the grace of God, to be freed from our own prisons, whatever they may be. Liberation doesn’t always mean doing whatever we want. Very often, liberation comes from the power of saying “no.”

Reborn Every Moment

2011-02-27T12:05:00.001-05:00

(Read Romans 8:9-17 using The Message)

In The United Methodist Church, the Baptismal Covenant begins, “Brothers and sisters in Christ, through the Sacrament of Baptism, we are initiated into Christ’s holy church. We are incorporated into God’s mighty acts of salvations and given new birth through water and the Spirit. All this is God’s gift, offered to us without price” (UM Hymnal, pg. 33).

I have often pondered the significance of baptism. How does the Church understand it? What does baptism mean for us years after we’ve experienced it? It is one of our two Sacraments so it must be very important, and it only happens once. John the Baptizer performed baptisms of repentance to prepare the way for the Messiah. Jesus himself was baptized by John, even though he was greater than John, and as “Jesus came up out of the baptismal waters,” God’s Spirit, which looked like a dove, descended and landed upon him. “And along with the Spirit, a voice: ‘This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life’” (Mt. 3:.16-17). Or in the words of the translation we are more accustomed to, “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt. 3:17). Baptism was also practiced among the earliest of believers as recorded in Acts as the initiating right into Christianity, and it continues as the initiating right of a Christian.

The central idea is that through baptism, a person is brought into Christ’s church, receives the promises of forgiveness of sins and resurrection to eternal life, and is cleansed and reborn by the water that is put on his or her head, and transformed by the Spirit who comes into his or her life from there on out.

This new birth is what fascinates me and has captured my attention. I want the new life that comes with the new birth that we are given in baptism. In fact, at times, I believe I am already living it, but at other times, the life that I live seems more like the old life.

To me, the old life is a life that is stuck. Nothing ever changes for the good; we are doomed to repeat the same old mistakes, misfortunes and sins over and over and suffer from the same types of negative and fearful emotions over and over. The old life is filled with effort and striving only to learn nothing new and gain nothing of value. The old life is marked by scarcity, in contrast to the new life, which is marked by abundance. That means no matter how hard you work, there is never enough. The things of God, like love, peace and joy are scarce in the old life. And that is why it is so important to be born again of water and the Spirit; because it is the kind of life our souls long for, life in relationship with God where all things are possible, and we are free to truly live, in the greatest sense of the word.

Listen to what Romans, chapter 6 says, according to the Message translation: With baptism we enter into a new life, a new country of grace.
“That’s what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus, when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light filled world by our Father so that we can [live] in our new grace-sovereign country. Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the Cross with Christ…What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection.” (Romans 6: 3-9ish, from the Message translation).

The resurrected life is the life we hope for and know in our hearts is possible because of God’s abundant love. Jesus Christ defeated sin and death for eternity on the Cross, and that means his disciples enter into a new kind of living. The new life is assured in the grand scheme of things, as is God’s victory over death, but one of the struggles we still must face in our day to day experience of realty, is that both death and the old life continue to hold sway. They are still being worked out as God’s kingdom is being worked in.

That’s why we sometimes feel like we are in the new life, and other times, in the old life. Because we are continually moving from one to the other, growing and changing, becoming more and more alive.

Jesus had to die before he rose, and that pattern continues for us. We enter into our new ways of living by going through the cycles of death and birth, birth and death. This is how we are reborn. This is why we continue to suffer even with all of God’s promises. The important thing to remember is that every time the old life knocks our legs out from under us, the Spirit is there waiting to pick us up and set us back on the path to glory.

Eckhart Tolle talks about this reality in his book, Practicing the Power of Now, (although he uses a different sort of language). (By the way, the concept of now is important to the discussion of rebirth because now, the present moment, is the realm of God. God exists, God lives, God works in the now, in the present moment.)

Eckhart Tolle says:

The down cycle is absolutely essential for spiritual realization. You must have failed deeply on some level or experienced some deep loss or pain to be drawn to the spiritual dimension. Or perhaps your very success became empty and meaningless and so turned out to be failure

There are cycles of success, when things come to you and thrive, and cycles of failure, when they wither or disintegrate, and you have to let them go in order to make room for new things to arise, or for transformation to happen.

If you cling and resist at that point, it means you are refusing to go with the flow of life, and you will suffer. [Parts of our lives must disintegrate or decompose into fragments] for new growth to happen. One Cycle cannot exist without the other, [like the cycles of birth and death] (pg. 103-4).

Baptism is no quick fix, but it does lead us down the worthy path, and it gives meaning to the ebb and flow of life. Our lives repeatedly fall apart, and God puts them back together for us in God’s own, superior way.

Even though change is good for us, and these processes we are talking about are the path to our enlightenment, they can be very painful and difficult to deal with especially if we don’t realize that God is present and working in every circumstance that we face.

The cycle of birth and death and the process of transformation demand that we let go of that which we have come to know and rely on. Our attachments to the things of this world often make us resistant to what God is doing. We hold on to what we know instead of making what God is doing most important. (It’s my house, my job, my dog, my love, my dream, my addiction, my pain, etc)

Again Eckhart Tolle writes,

As long as a [persons judges a condition as “good”], whether it be a relationship, a possession, a social role, a place or your physical body, [then you become] attaché[d] to it and identify[y] with it. It makes you happy, it makes you feel good about yourself, and it may become part of who you are or think you are.

But nothing lasts in this dimension where moth and rust consume. Either it ends or it changes, or it may undergo a polarity shift: The same condition that was good yesterday or last year has suddenly or gradually turned into bad. The same condition that made you happy then makes you unhappy. The prosperity of today becomes the empty[ness] of tomorrow. The happy wedding and honeymoon become the unhappy divorce or the unhappy coexistence.

[Another possibility is that] a condition disappears, so its absence makes you unhappy. When a condition or situation that [you have] attached [yourself] to and identified with changes or disappears, [its terribly difficult to deal with and accept]. [We] cling to the disappearing condition and resist the change. It is almost as if a limb were being torn off your body (pg. 104-5).

Our happiness plummets in the cycle of death mainly. The process of birth is more exciting and hopeful as the Spirit works to build us up; the painful part is creating space for that building to occur-- the letting go, the death cycle.

For example, when I was fired from my job working in film production in West Hollywood, I thought the world would come to an end. One minute, I was among the rich and famous, pursuing a career in the movie industry. The next, I was rejected and jobless. I was terrified; I was confused. What was I going to do now?

Well, God knew. Once I was fired from that mundane, task-oriented job, I entered seminary and eventually became a minister, the most fulfilling work I’ve ever known. I moved from a land of superficial beauty to a place of depth, where purpose and love awaited me. But letting go and allowing for that change to occur was grueling because I was so resistant and afraid of what was happening.

People who develop illnesses, even life-threatening ones, have told me that what was once the worst news they have ever received, the diagnosis, somehow, eventually became a gift. The illness helped them to appreciate life in a way they never had, and to live and love more fully than ever before.

What we must remember is that God is present in every circumstance of our lives. None of this happens without God being there. And so, instead of resisting what has come to be our life, we must surrender to it. By surrender, I don’t mean something negative, as though to imply “defeat, giving up, failing to rise to the challenges of life, becoming lethargic and so on. True surrender is something entirely different. It does not mean to passively put up with whatever situation you find yourself in and to do nothing about it” (Tolle. Practicing the Power of Now. Pg. ), but to find where God is in that situation, to yield, and to align yourself with the Spirit’s work.

“Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life. The only place where you can experience the flow of life is Now, [in your present circumstance], so to surrender is to accept the present moment…without reservations. [Surrender] is to relinquish inner resistance to what is” (Tolle. Practicing the Power of Now. Pg. ), and to follow the Spirit of God as it moves through your life, helping you to be born again from above.

Listen to what Paul says in Galatians:

“How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up! Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous striving or because you trust him to do them in you?” (Galatians 3: 2-5).

Trust. Trust leads to grace and grace comes in many forms, and many of them we are just beginning to recognize. The alive and present God who raised Jesus from the dead is moving in your lives, doing the same thing in you that he did in Jesus Christ, bringing you fully and freely alive. You don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. And the best way to get on with your new life is to surrender right here and now to where it is you find yourself. Yield. Go with the flow, and trust that God is doing something beautiful in the space he has created.

We are the children of God. The hurt can be healed; the dead-end can become the open road; the bad situation can transform into what you were hoping and praying for. But stop holding on so tight and trying to control things. Let the Spirit take the wheel. As you experience God’s unfathomable, mind blowing, awesome grace, pretty soon you too will be expectantly greeting God with a childlike, “What’s next Papa?” (Romans 8:15)

We Live By Faith

2011-01-30T20:04:00.000-05:00

I’ve heard a lot of sad stories in the past few weeks.

A friend of mine just got news that the bank is looking to foreclose on his house. Meanwhile, another set of friends finally conceded to bankruptcy. The people of the world are in a sea of financial burden at this time, and some of us are swimming while others of us are sinking. What was God thinking when he created money and allowed it to be the means for our survival in the civilized world?

And then, a friend who was living in fear of his girlfriend walking out on their relationship had his nightmare confirmed when she packed up her stuff and left the other night. Across the river, a woman I know caught her husband in a sea of lies and deception because he was having an affair. What was God thinking when he made us one for the other, to live in pairs, when relationships can be the source of so much suffering?

Along work lines, a close friend of mine, who is a college professor out at a small university in Iowa, was finally granted a job interview at a prestigious university in a charming town that she would love to live. The job of her dreams! She prepared 50 hours for this interview, including writing an original lecture, one she’d never given before, to teach the students. She nailed the lecture; the students loved it. But later on, while giving her faith testimony to a panel who was interviewing her, she teared up; she was vulnerable and showed her passion for God. Well, the dean took her tears as weakness, and then criticized her for not having enough publications in her portfolio. She said to me on the phone, “I have never felt so inadequate in my professional life.” But the crazy thing is, she had just finished doing an outstanding job giving an impassioned and inspiring lecture. I told her, “What can they expect? If you’re passionate, you’re passionate. That means both giving great lectures and crying when talking about your faith journey. They can’t expect one without the other.” What was God thinking when he created deans, who are supposed to lift people to new heights, but instead, who make other people feel thoroughly inadequate?

And then, there are the saddest stories of all, the stories about death. On Wednesday, a senior high student was killed at our intersection up here, Cross Rd. and Route 55. What a tragedy, a young life gone forever…And then, only a few weeks before, we lost Roger Grant to an addiction that he struggled with for over 20 years. What was God thinking when he created drugs? When he created death? When he allows children to die?

Maybe, it’s not all God’s fault, but I have a tendency of wanting to blame God. God gets the credit when things go well. Why shouldn’t he get the credit when things go poorly? Afterall, most people feel the need to blame someone when bad things happen. Homes taken, loves lost, dreams demolished, lives stolen…what are we to think?

I guess we could blame ourselves instead. We could attribute our suffering to our own fault. We could beat ourselves up, and then vow to never do that again. Whatever “that” is. We could vow never get in that situation again or to handle things differently the next time. While we are responsible for much of what happens in our lives, there is even more that is beyond our control. Besides, blaming ourselves is as useless as blaming God. It doesn’t help the pain. It doesn’t ease our suffering but only compounds it.

You know what helped me the other day? Taking a break from the blame game and viewing life through a different lens. It wasn’t my intention to develop a different perspective. In fact, I was just trying to escape reality for a little while by watching television, but this show on the creatures of the earth came to me like a gift and opened my eyes to a new way of seeing.

It showed all different life forms upon the earth, how unique they are, how varied the courses of their lives are. We all know how whales swim thousands of miles to give birth to their calves in certain waters, but did you know that there is a tree frog the size of your fingernail, bright blue and red in color, who carries its tiny eggs one at a time thousands of feet upward and deposits them in the cup of a flower filled with water so that there babies will grow to full size. It can’t leave all the babies together in one place because the babies will eat each other if left together. It’s amazing what this tiny animal does in order to sustain the life of its young. It’s even more amazing to see this animal grow to full size and color, and it’s no bigger than a fruit loop.

I think the reason this show altered my perspective and gave me comfort was because it reminded me of God’s power, benevolence and creativity when he formed the creatures that live on this magnificent earth. It reminded me that God created the universe intentionally and with order, and that God gave each creature purpose and survival skills.

Faith is one of the survival skills that God gave to us. We live by faith. When we are being severely challenge, when our hearts are broken, our faith in God, believing that everything will ultimately be okay, believing that God will help us, prevents us from completely giving up and falling apart. Faith keeps us going. It keeps us alive.

We live by faith. Our faith in God, yes, but perhaps even more importantly, we live by God’s faith in us. God believes in us. God knows that we have the strength to endure tremendous hardship. God knows that we have the courage and resilience and love to keep going even when we are overwhelmed and disheartened.

The reason God believes in us, even if we doubt him, is because God gives us the strength, courage, resilience and love to go on. God is faithful to us at all times and in all circumstances. God completely believes in us because he knows that he won’t abandon us. The Lord will help us through.
In Psalm 34, we hear the personal witness of one who has experienced God’s faithfulness for himself. The psalmist says, “I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears… This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles” (Psalm 34:4, 6).

It’s not just the psalmist who is delivered by God’s faithfulness though. The Scripture continues saying, “The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them [as well]; he delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is [also] close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34: 17-18).
“Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” (Psalm 34: 5, 10)

God is faithful to all of us, especially those who seek him and believe in his grace and mercy. But if life hits you so hard that you can’t remain faithful to God, know this: God will always, always remain faithful to you!

I am reminded of the hymn, Great is Thy Faithfulness. O God my father… Great is they faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see; all I have needed thy hand hast provided; great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.

The song is right. We are all still here, aren’t we? Here to greet a new morning. Every person I mentioned earlier in this sermon going through difficult times, except for the ones who passed, they endure as well. Actually, even the ones who passed endure, I believe. And faithfully, I believe that those of us who remain, our lives will get better. We will be healed, and our dreams will be fulfilled.

Jesus of Nazareth has the same faithfulness that God the father has. Never does he doubt us. Always he remains faithful to us and surrounds us with encouragement and love by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

With Jesus as our example, with the Holy Spirit as our guide, may we remain faithful to one another. Our homes ma be taken, our loves may be lost, our dreams may be demolished and our lives may be stolen, but we remain here to support each other and surround each other in love. Heartbreak is too difficult to bear alone. We need to carry each other’s burdens, and we need to let other people carry our burdens for us just as we let the Father, Son and Holy Spirit carry them.

I know there is hardship, suffering and sorrow in this sanctuary, but do not blame God or yourselves and do not doubt God or yourselves. We live by faith. We live by our faith in God. We live by God’s faith in us. We live because God is faithful. No one is alone in his or her suffering and that is because God is with us every step of the way. As Peter tells us in his letter, “Let the Lord have all your worries and cares, for he is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you” (1 Peter 5:7). My faithful friends, be still and know that the Lord is good.

The Spirit of God Descends

2011-01-11T17:41:00.002-05:00

As part of getting my new year off to a good start and incorporating health into my lifestyle, I re-joined the tennis club, Sportplex, in New Winsdor last week. In January of 2009, I signed up at Sportsplex because I wanted to get in better shape and get back to the game that I loved so much throughout my childhood and adulthood, but I had quit playing in 2010 because once I moved to Lagrangeville, the club seemed too far away. I missed it though, and since I couldn’t find a club around here that felt like home, I re-joined Sportsplex.

My first match back, I was playing with my good friend, Sheila. At first, we went back and forth pretty well; I would win on my serve, she on hers. But eventually, she took over and went ahead. I knew that one of the reasons she was beating me was because she’s been playing the last 1 ½ years while I haven’t been, but I immediatley found myself getting mad at myself, getting increasingly intense and agitated, wanting to be better than I was. I started rushing and just made more mistakes. Pretty soon I was yelling at myself via the internal dialogue running through my head.

And then, I stopped. I stopped talking; I stopped running. This was not the attitude I wanted to have while playing tennis. Tennis is supposed to be fun for me, a time to release energy and enjoy myself. But instead, I was engaging in negative self-talk, and taking all the fun out of playing. Just like it sounds, negative self-talk is when we speak to ourselves in harsh and negative ways.

Perhaps you too engage in negative self-talk. We all say things to oursleves like, “I’m not good enough.” Or “ I can’t do anything right.” Or we call oursleves names, like lazy or dummy or stupid. We criticize our bodies that we are too fat, too ugly, too wrinkley… You name it. We all say things meaner to ourselves than we would say to anybody else.

Negative self-talk is the opposite of being gentle and of loving yourself. And it’s crucial that we all love ourselves . First of all because God wants us to love ourselves, and second of all, because the way we treat ourselves is eventually the way we treat others. If you speak to yourself in a negative way, in time, you will hear yourself saying those same things to friends, children, parents, co-workers. Criticizing others because of our own insecurities is a far cry from what Jesus intended when he told us to “love our neighbors as ourselves.”

On the tennis court, when I stopped, the word that immediately came to mind was “gentle.” “Be gentle with yourself, Mandy,” I heard inside my head. “Enjoy this time you have set aside to make yourself a better person.”

I think every one of us could be more gentle with ourselves.

And so, gentleness is on my mind. When I read today’s Scripture from Isaiah,it was obvious to me how God describes his chosen one as gentle. God spoke thorugh the prophet Isaiah, saying about Jesus, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice” (Isaiah 42:1-3).

A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench. To me this means that Jesus will not use violence or hostility to get his point across. Christ is gentle in his pursuit of justice, and yet, he won’t quit. He will faithfully bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, and yet, the world will hear him.

Jesus is transforming the earth by his gentle ways, winning allegaince to his side, hearts to his cause, and bringing wills in conformance with his own. He doesn’t do this by coersion or condemnation, but by gentleness and love.

We can do the same in our own lives. We can transform ourselves through gentleness, acceptance and love. We can guide others through gentleness, acceptance and love.

Today we celebrate the Bapstim of Jesus. Scripture says, “And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:16-17).

And when we think about Jesus baptism, how God’s Spirit descended upon him, not only are we reminded that he is the chsoen one, but how through him, we are also the chosen ones. God’s Spirit descends on us as well as baptizsed Christains, and when that Spirit does descend, we are transformed from the inside out and blessed with the fruits of the Spirit.

Gentleness is one of the fruits of the Spirit, but there are 8 more, and these are qualities that become mainfest in our lives as the Spirit of God comes to dwell in our hearts. The fruits of the Spirit are: Joy, love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control. This means that as we come to know Christ in our lives, as we mature as Christians, we become more joyful, loving, peaceful, patient, kind, gentle, good, faithful and in control of ourselves.

At different phases on our spiritual journeys, I believe God is cultivating at least one particluar fruit in our lives. Right now, in my life, I believe it is gentleness. I feel like I am being called to be more gentle with myself while playing tennis, while doing my work, while I speak to myself within the confines of my own mind. And I need to learn to be more gentle with others, while listening to them, while speaking with them, while thinking about them within the confines of my own mind. For me, being more gentle means being less judgmental, less pushy and rushed. It means yielding to God and that which is in life.

Right now, God is also culitvating at least one particular fruit of the Spirit in your life as well.

With Jesus baptism, we are called to remember and live into our own baptisms as children of God. On this morning, which is just an ordinary morning and yet precious because it is what we have been given for right now, the Spirit of God descends upon you. I leave you with a final question, what fruit is God bringing forth in your life? Joy, love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control. This is the Spirit’s gift to you. Receive it.

The Light Lives in You!

2010-12-23T12:31:00.001-05:00

One of my best friends. Dawn, struggles with depression. For her, this means that she isolates herself and goes from work to home, home to work. She cries over things that aren’t worth crying over, like when her boss yells at her or when her sister tells her how happy she is with her husband and two children, the family Dawn wishes she had. Recently, we went out for a nice dinner with the intentions of painting the town red. But Dawn’s eyes had no fire in them. She wanted to go home. The light had gone out within her.

Sadly, Dawn’s depression is not uncommon. I have spoken with many people, young and old, male and female, single and married, church-goer and non church-goer, who feel disillusioned by the hardships of life, overwhelmed, anxious, depressed. Those who suffer like this face each day with a bit of dread, and their own light is struggling to shine within them

John, a good man that I know through the prison system, was not disillusioned or anxious about life when he was 19. He was actually happy and cavorting about the streets. But one day, unintentionally, he got himself into a whole heap of trouble. John is from a rough neighborhood, and one day some 12 years ago, his best friend’s girlfriend was slashed across the face with a knife by a kid from the neighborhood. John accompanied his best friend to confront the boy, and as one thing lead to another, John found himself with the gun. He shot the kid from the neighborhood. He killed him. John was sentenced to 15 year in prison without parole and all the happiness and goodwill he had in his heart was lost. He became angry and blamed everyone but himself for the crime he had committed. When he came to Fishkill Correctional Facility, a men’s medium security prison which you can see off of Interstate 84, he was bitter and mean. He had a reputation even before arriving at the prison and was feared. In his eyes was darkness. The light had gone out within him.

While most of us will never commit murder, anger and blaming others for our problems runs rampant among us. We feel we deserve more than we have. We are sick and tired of the demands placed upon us. We feel wronged by those who are supposed to love us most. We face each day lost and lonely. Darkness looms large. Our own light is struggling to shine within us.

Where is God in all of this, we wonder. For many of us, believing in God means putting our faith and hope in a divine being outside of ourselves. This means that we put ourselves in a powerless situation waiting for God, who is out there, external to us, to rescue us from ourselves and that which we struggle with. It’s no wonder that so many people end up feeling bitter towards God and helpless. It’s no wonder that many of us stop believing. In trying to be faithful, we give our power away and we lose our accountability and responsibility. In doing this, we miss out on being the children of God we are created to be.

Scripture says that “In [Jesus Christ] was life, and that life was the light of all people” (John 1:4). Jesus brings light to the world. But so many of us feel that our light has been extinghished for one reason or another. Relationsihps, money, work, demands, not having the life we believe we deserve, you name it. Many of us feel lost in darkness as though the light has gone out within our souls.

But tonight, we celebrate and rejoice in the incarnation, that God came to earth to be with us in the person of Jesus Christ. We aren’t just remembering a historical event that took place 2000 years ago halfway around the world though. Tonight, we are rejoicing and celebrating in that light which was in Jesus that has been given to us as the children of God. Tonight, Jesus is being born again in the hearts of all who believe, and he is lighting the fire of life within us once again, dispelling the darkness we have known. On this most sacred of evenings, consider that God has come to dwell in you. Jesus was a human being with the divine inside of him. The miracle of Christmas is that we are human beings with the divine inside of us also, bringing us alive, filled with light.

To have faith in God is to let the Christ child grow inside of you so that as you think, speak and act, it is Christ thinking, speaking and acting in you. You become the light just as he was the light. Jesus remains present in the world through each of us. As Paul proclaims in Galatians, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

Think what this means then. The power of God is no longer something completely external to yourselves, something you are waiting for, something you have no control over. The power of God dwells in you. To believe in God is to believe in yourself. To have faith in God is to have faith in yourself. To have confidence in God is to have confidence in yourself. And to trust in God is to trust in yourself because you and God are one, like Jesus and the Father are one.

The depression that rules you, the anger that strangles your joy, the bad habit or addiction that diminishes your life, with the light of God in you, you will find the power to choose differently, to choose happiness over sorrow, health over destruction. The worry over money that keeps you up at night and on edge during the day, with the light of God in you, you will have a new perspective from which to approach the world. That cycle of blame and regret you have with your loved one, with the light of God in you, you will break that cycle by becoming someone who responds rather than reacts and someone who listens before you speak.

To have faith in God is to have confidence and trust in yourself as a child of light.

By the grace of God, my friend Dawn, now knows that the Living God lives inside of her. She has taken action to overcome her depression, her anxiety and fears. She is currently cultivating a life that encompasses much more than home and work. She is seeking her dream of marriage and family. She is taking care of herself. As someone who cares deeply about her, I am happy to say that the light has been rekindled within her. The light of God now shines in her soul

And John, who is still serving his time in prison, is a changed man. No longer does anger and blame fill his heart. By the grace and power of God, he has spent the last 12 years transforming himself. I saw him on Monday night. He was valedictorian of the Rising Hope class of 2010, a college level program offered in the prison. I saw a light in his eyes, and he could not stop smiling. (He had a huge grin. His smile made me smile). He told me that he had been resurrected from the dead and transformed both inside and out. He no longer felt and thought and acted like he did so many years ago. I am happy to say that the light has been rekindled within him. The light of God now shines in his soul.

Just a few days ago, I saw a full moon and a sky filled with stars. It was glorious and lit up both the sky and the earth. That light comes from God, but that is not the only light that comes from God There is also light inside of each of us. If no one ever told you this before, listen to these words tonight, the light of God shines within you. And with the birth of Jesus on this night, that light is being rekindled in your soul once again.

Just like there are billions of stars up there shining down upon the billions of people on the earth, so too is that light from God shining within us all. From depressed to hopeful. From angry to joyful. From unfulfilled to content. Whatever the situation, whoever you may be, the baby is being born and he is bringing light into your life. On this night, may the light be rekindled within us all. This year, Christmas comes for everyone, everyone alive.

How Do You Respond?

2010-12-15T14:56:00.001-05:00

(Read Matthew 1:18-25)

In October of this year, in the Bible-belt in Georgia, an evangelical minister, Bishop Jim Swilley, decided to do something shocking. Before any scandal erupted, before any serious indiscretion had been committed, Bishop Swilley announced to his rather conservative congregation that he was a homosexual. He was gay. And he came out on his own terms because he felt compelled to do so.

One of the main reasons Bishop Swilley felt compelled to do so was because of the suicide of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers freshman who jumped off a bridge after his roommate streamed footage of him having sex with a man. Swilley said, “There was just one suicide too many. I had this moment of clarity; I am going to tell everyone I am gay. And maybe if it helps, I can save [someone’s life].”

Regardless of one’s beliefs about homosexuality, I think Swilley’s confession was incredibly brave. He didn’t have to, but to him, it was living life in truth or living life as a lie. And it was about trying to help others who had similar struggles.

How do you think the congregation felt to his admission? How would you feel if I stood up here and told you my deepest secret? And how do you think they responded to what they felt? Did they cry? Yell? Condemn? Walk away? Stay? Offer acceptance? Show love, compassion and empathy?

Today, we are talking and thinking about how we respond to the situations in our lives, no matter what the situation may be. No matter how big or how small. No matter if its self-created or if its imposed upon us.

My ex-boyfriend’s sister is 34 years old. Just a year or so older than I am. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer earlier this year. You probably know that pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly kinds. Why? Why did she get it? Why her? She’s so young. She doesn’t deserve this sentence.

How do you think her father feels? How would you feel if your child was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of 34? And how do you think her father has responded to his feelings? Does he cry? Yell? Curse God? Turn his back on God because he feels God has turned his back on him? Put distance between him and his daughter to protect himself emotionally? Or get closer to her? Help her? Care for her? Do anything he can to make the life she has left the best life possible?

In today’s Bible text, Joseph is dealt a difficult hand. He finds out that the woman he is about to marry is pregnant, and he knows it is not his child. He could have played it one of many ways. He could have left Mary. He could have humiliated her in public or done it privately. He could stay with Mary. He could have been angry and bitter for the rest of their lives or he could be accepting and loving towards her.

The Scriptures say that he thought of dismissing her, but because he was a righteous man, he was going to do so quietly, discreetly. Just when he had resolved to do this though, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. The angel said, “Joseph, Son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20-21).

A note about angels: They don’t have to be winged, superhuman creatures. The Bible tells us that we can entertain angels unaware. An angel might be your child, your next door neighbor, a stranger in the supermarket. Listen up and keep your mind and ears open. An angel might be speaking to you at any moment.

How do you think Joseph felt about seeing an angel? About the message the angel delivered? How would you feel if the person you loved was having a child and you were not the biological parent of that child? Dismayed? Angry? Betrayed? Numb? Understanding? Loving, compassionate and full of empathy?

All day, every day, human beings engage in a dance of interacting with each other. We must respond to what each other says and does. When your husband or child walks in the house late, yells at you, and then storms off, how do you respond? Do you yell back? I know its difficult in the moment, but the best thing we can do is respond in love.

To respond in love requires courage and faith. It requires courage because we have to set our egos aside. It requires courage because we have to put our fears aside. And it requires faith because we have to believe that God is present in that situation, Emmanuel, God is with us. (This is what celebrating Christmas is all about- that God comes to be with us in the person of Jesus Christ.) It requires faith because we have to believe that God is using his power to bring about healing, even if it seems to us that God is taking a long, winding road, and maybe even seems to be going in the wrong direction.

How did people respond to Bishop Swilley? Well, the presiding Bishop of the International Communion of Charismatic Churches, David Huskins, criticized Swilley for yielding to a lifestyle that is contradictory to the Word of God. Many of his parishioners left the church. However, many stayed and embraced their pastor in the difficult situation he found himself. Perhaps most importantly was the responses of Bishop Swilley’s family. His wife, Debye, who had already known his secret all along, stood by side, defending their 21 year marriage and her husband’s character. Bishop Swilley’s sons had not known their father was a homosexual, but when asked whether this information would affect their relationship with him, his one son said, “Of course not. It took a lot of guts, and I respect him more now.” That’s responding in love, and it took them all courage and faith to do so.

How did Dayna’s father, George, respond to her situation? It caused him to get angry with God at first. It caused him to feel angry at himself because there was nothing he could do to help her. But rather than let himself get more and more frenzied, he surrendered to the situation and just started doing everything he could to care for Dayna and make her happy. He threw her a party. He went with her to chemo treatments. That’s responding in love, and it took him courage and faith to do so.

How did Joseph respond to Mary’s situation? He protected her against everything that people were saying. He took her as his wife and held nothing against her. He named his son, Jesus, as the angel told him to do, and took care of Jesus all the days of his life. That’s responding in love, and it took him courage and faith to do so.

This holiday season, while its wonderful to get together with relatives and friends, there will be difficult situations of all kinds: someone will drink too much and insist on driving, two people will get in an argument over political or religious views, an in-law or distant cousin will give you a back-handed compliment that has the potential to turn into an ugly situation if you let it. When this happens, I invite you to think of how Bishop Swilley’s sons stuck by his side, how Dayna’s father stuck by her side, and how Joseph stuck by Mary’s side. And how they all acted in love with courage and faith. All of us have the ability to act in love with courage and faith no matter what the situation.

Right now, we are going to say the Magnificat together. The Magnificat is Mary’s loving, courageous and faithful response to God when she found out that she had conceived a son. Now remember, she was a young, young, unmarried woman, and this was her response to a very difficult situation. If she can respond in love, so can we.

Not Your Way But Their Way

2010-11-18T17:42:00.000-05:00

Tom had been married three times. Each time it had felt like true love in the beginning, but eventually the relationship deteriorated. His first marriage lasted ten years, his second marriage three years, and his third marriage six years. In his sadness and disillusionment, Tom couldn’t help but wonder, what happened to the love that was once so real, so powerful and so alive?

As fate would have it, soaring in an airplane at 30,000 feet somewhere between Buffalo and Dallas, Tom found himself seated next to Gary Chapman, who works as a marriage counselor, marriage enrichmnent seminar leader and author on how to make marriages work. Once Tom learned of Gary’s professional identity, he probed the depths of his knowledge. What happens to love after you get married? Tom wanted to know.

Gary knew that the truth of the matter was not that love disappears after a couple weds, but that the problem is that the love that is there is often not communicated effectively in the days, months and years in which a couple lives out their lives together. The problem is that people speak different love languages, and so love gets lost in translation.

In Gary’s book, “The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts,” he compares the problem that couples have in communicating their love to the problem two individuals from different countries who speak different languages might have. If I speak Chinese and you speak English, and I try to give you directions to the grocery store in my native tongue of Chinese, you surely will not understand what I am saying, and so even if I am giving you accurate and clear directions to the grocery store, it will not matter because you won’t understand what I’m saying. The language barrier is the problem, and “if we are to communicate effectively, we must learn the language of those with whom we wish to communicate” (pg. 14).

In his bestselling book, Gary explains, “In the area of love, it is similar. Your emotional love language and the language of your spouse [or child or parent or friend or co-worker or fellow brother or sister in Christ] may be as different as Chinese from English. No matter how hard you try to express love in English, if your spouse understands only Chinese, you will never understand how to love each other” (pg. 14-15).

For example, in Tom’s third marriage, he would tell his wife, Tammy, how beautiful she was, how much he loved her, how proud he was to be her husband. Tom was communicating his love for his wife in the love language known as “words of affirmation.” The problem was that “words of affirmation” was not Tammy’s primary love language, and thus, Tom’s words fell on deaf ears. Tom thought he was communicating his love to his wife, but Tammy could not hear him.

In his years of experience, Gary Chapman discerned five different love languages that people speak and hear. They are: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. Let me offer you a brief description of each.

1. Words of affirmation. “One way to express love emotionally is to use words that build up” (pg. 37). And the best way to affirm the one you love and build them up is by using simple, straightforward statements, such as: You look beautiful. I love that you’re always on time. Thank you for lining up the babysitter for tonight. I feel like I can always count on you. If you are trying to communicate love to someone whose primary love language is words of affirmation, it’s critical that you always remember, my partner/friend needs to hear how I feel. Words mean something and compliments are important!

2. Quality time means giving someone your undivided attention. It means focusing on your loved one, spending time together and doing activities together. Conversation, asking questions, making eye contact, having a shared hobby, going on vacation, these equate to quality time. If you are trying to communicate love to someone whose primary love language is quality time, it’s important to turn the TV off and turn your attention on.

3. Receiving gifts. This love language has nothing to do with being materialistic. It’s about giving and receiving. It’s about showing tangible, visible, physical expressions of love. Candy, flowers, handmade gifts, living gifts like giving a tree or pet…it’s the thought that counts, like bringing someone back a shell from the beach vacation you just went on. If you are trying to communicate love to someone whose primary love language is receiving gifts, heart-felt generosity and creativity are key.

4. Acts of service. This means doing things you know your loved one would like you to do, such as vacuuming or laundry or changing the oil in his or her car. The language of service is love in action. If your loved one is always asking you to do something or has a list of requests for you, then acts of service is probably his or her primary love language. And if you are trying to communicate love to someone whose primary love language is acts of service, then it’s the little things, like stopping at the grocery store for fresh vegetables, and the big things, like taking them to the airport at 6 in the morning that matter.

5. Physical touch. Never underestimate the power of touch. Dogs will be your best friends if you just scratch their ears and belly. “Babies who are held, hugged, and kissed develop a healthier emotional life than those who are left for long periods of time without physical contact” (pg. 109). The love language of physical touch includes both sexual and nonsexual touch, such as holding hands, pats on the back, kissing, hugging, massage, holding someone as they cry, wrestling. If you are trying to communicate love to someone whose primary love language is physical touch, then don’t be shy and don’t be stand off-ish. They literally want to feel you care.

In today’s Scripture reading, Jesus tells us once again how important it is that we love each other. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). How then can we best love each other?

The key is speaking in the love language of the one you love, not trying to give what you want to receive.

This means that we each have to figure out what our primary love language is and tell the important people in our lives so they can speak to us in that language. It also means that you have to be aware of the people in your life and speak to them in their love language. As Gary Chapman says, “If we are to communicate effectively, we must learn the language of those with whom we wish to communicate” (pg. 14).

Our friend, Tom, has just begun dating a woman named, Samantha. With his newfound knowledge of the five love languages, Tom is being more attentive to try to discern what Samantha’s primary love language is. He brought her a rose for their first date, and while she seemed to appreciate it, he sensed that receiving a gift wasn’t the most important thing to her. However, when he offered to pump the gas at the gas station, though it was her car and she was driving, her face lit up. The jury is still out, but Tom has a hunch that he has a lot more acts of service in his future.

Finally, to answer Tom’s original question, what happens to love? Love doesn’t magically disappear. It doesn’t go anywhere. The answer is, we happen to love. And it’s up to us to communicate love in ways our family and friends can receive it. It’s up to us to keep love alive.

Tough Love

2010-11-08T11:15:00.000-05:00

(Read Haggai 1:1-15)

Today, we are given a different glimpse of God than most of us are used to. We see and hear of the God of tough love. What sort of wisdom can we gain from the God presented to us in the Old Testament book, Haggai?

Let me tell you the backstory. In 587 B.C., the Temple in Jerusalem was plundered and burned, and the Jewish people were sent away from Jerusalem into exile in Babylonia. By 520 B.C., some 60 years later, the people had returned from exile and were living in Jerusalem for a number of years, but the Temple still lay in ruins. When they returned to their native land, the first thing the people did was build new homes for themselves. This was understandable to a point, the people did need a place to live afterall, but the time came when God was angered and impatient with the people because God wanted them to put their personal affairs aside and work on rebuilding the Temple, for God’s sake and for the community’s sake.

The Lord spoke to the prophet Haggai saying, “These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.” How is that right? said God, should you go on living in your fine homes while my house lay in ruins?

God continues by telling the people to look at where this has gotten them in their lives. “Consider how you have fared,” God says, or in another translation, “Give careful thought to your ways.” “You have sown much, but harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and workers cannot earn enough to live on.”

God says,“Can’t you see why this has happened? Now go up into the hills, get lumber,. And rebuild the Temple; then I will be pleased and will be worshipped as I should be.” Until then, God says, you want large harvests, but they will be small. And even the harvest you bring home, I will blow away. Why do I do this? Because my Temple lies in ruins while every one of you is busy working on your own house.

You see, here we have the God of tough love. God is punishing the people until they get their priorities straight and do what God wants them to do.

Perhaps you have wondered why things aren’t going the way that you want them to go in your life. From this Scripture, we glean that the possible answer could be: things are not going the w ay you want them to go because your priorities are not in line with God’s priorities. God may be preventing you from having what you want because you go about doing things according to your own ways and according to your desires instead of doing things according to God’s way and according to God’s desires.

To think that God could be preventing us from happiness or even intentionally making us unhappy because we are seeking happiness in ways that contradict the will of God is a tough message to swallow indeed. But I think we should consider it.

What sort of lesson can we learn from this portrayal of God?

That God wants us to get our priorities straight.

Many of the decisions we make on a day to day basis don’t go through a formal decision making process. We make them without much thought, but these decisions, the choices we make, reflect our priorities in life.

It seems to me that many of us want to think our priorities are noble. We care about our families, our health, our work, our relationships to God and one another, but just look at how you spend your time, your money and your energy, and you can discern what your priorities actually are.

If you have a day off, even three hours off, how do you spend that time?

If you have $1000 of disposable income to spend, how do you spend that money?

What do you spend your energy on during each and every day?

Your answers to these questions indicate your priorities in life.

You might say that your family is your priority, but then spend the majority of your time working and then veging out in front of the TV. You might justify this by saying that working is taking care of your family, and that of course you need down time after a long day, but what about the quality time that is required face-to-face and in conversation that really makes family relationships a priority?

You might say that personal growth is a priority to you, but then every time you are challenged by someone or some situation, you get angry and defensive. If this is the case, your priority is not personal growth but protecting yourself.

You might say that helping others is a priority to you, but if you really look at the way you spend your money, you will see that having a diet rich in food and drinks is actually more important to you.

You might say you care about your health, but if you don’t exercise, eat vegetables and relax, then how is health actually one of your priorities?

I don’t say any of this to make us feel guilty. I’m just trying to get us to be honest about the way we live our lives versus what we say is important to us.

Make two lists. What you want your priorities to be and how you actually spend your time, money and energy. This will help you to realize how true to yourself you are being. And if you are being true to yourself and your values, then I think you are being true to God.

I’m sure that the Jewish people who gave God all the credit and praise for returning them to their homeland after the exile thought that they were making God a priority. But God checked them on that and said, hey, if I’m really your priority, then you’ll rebuild my house and not just your own.

The God of tough love wants us to get our priorities straight, and until we do, our lives might be more difficult than we think they should be.

Now where is the grace in all of this? Because God is not only the God of tough love, but of grace as well.

The grace is that God gives us the power to get our priorities straight at any time. It’s as simple as knowing what we truly care about and choosing that thing. No excuses. Just a human being exerting their free will in the direction of good and godliness.

The Israelites were consumed with working on their own houses until the Lord told them it was time to begin working on the temple again, but once they heard the prophetic message that came from Haggai - “Now go up into the hills, get lumber, and rebuild the Temple; then [God] will be pleased – they headed that message. The Scripture says, “…all the people who had returned from the exile in Babylonia did what the Lord their God told them to do.”

And as soon as they turned toward the Lord, God said, “I will be with you-that is my promise.” And then, God inspired everyone to work on the temple. Instead of thwarting their efforts as when they were seeking their own gain, God helped them and made it easier on them to live up to their newfound priority of rebuilding the Temple.

And so God will do that for us as well. When we actively choose what is important to us and set about doing it, God promises to be with us and to inspire us to accomplish what we set out to accomplish.

My brothers and sisters in the faith, sometimes tough love is just what we need in order to get the life that we truly want.

The Spiritual Practice of Surrender

2010-10-31T14:49:00.001-04:00

When it comes to the spiritual practice of surrender, I have more questions than answers.

I wonder if God does have a plan that we are supposed to live by? I wonder if we can just surrender to what happens in life or if it’s up to us as adults to make decisions that create our life? How do we know the difference between surrendering to God and giving in to a bad situation?

I have a good friend who desperately wants to have a baby. She is 37 years old, beautiful, educated, and has a good job. She is in a monogamous relationship with a man who loves her and claims to want the same things that she does. Although he once said that he wants to marry and have children, when faced with the reality, he now says he is not ready. What should she, my good friend, do? How does she surrender to God’s plan for her life?

I know a good man who is in his 50’s. He loves his wife and family very much and works at a job that provides good pay and health benefits. However, he is constantly worried that he will be laid off from his job and that he will not be able to find another one. He is trying to remain faithful, but what should he, my worried friend, do? How does he surrender to God’s plan for his life?

All of us have struggles. We struggle to be happy. To provide for ourselves and our families. To get what we want in life. To have meaning and purpose. But how do we know if we are on the right path? How do we know if we are living according to the will of God?

In the scripture, we hear the psalmist crying out for what he wants! “Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!” (Psalm 130)

Listen to the words of Thomas Kelly, born in 1893 to a devout Quaker family living near Chillicothe, Ohio. Kelly went from his modest beginnings in the farm country of Ohio to pursue a Ph.D at Harvard under the world-renowned British mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. However, he was torn about the contradictions within Quaker teachings, he suffered ill health and he was pained over and again by the repeated refusals of Harvard to allow him to complete his Ph.D. Out of this crucible of failure and pain, Thomas Kelly emerged as a new man, genuinely living by the grace of God and with a simple, childlike obedience.

From this place, he wrote a renowned spiritual work titled, A Testament of Devotion, Kelly writes this about the human drama and God’s place in it all:

Out in front of us is the drama of men and of nations, seething, struggling, laboring, dying. Upon this tragic drama in these days our eyes are all set in anxious watchfulness and in prayer. But within the silences of the souls of men an eternal drama is ever being enacted, in these days as well as in others….It is the drama of the lost sheep wandering in the wilderness, restless and lonely, feebly searching, while over the hills comes the wise Shepherd. For [God has] a shepherd’s heart, and [God] is restless until He holds His sheep in His arms…

[There is one scene in this inner drama,] where the Shepherd has found His sheep, that I would direct you. It is the life of absolute and complete and holy obedience to the voice of the Shepherd. [The whole time, it is] upon God, God the initiator, God the aggressor, God the seeker, God the stirrer into life, God the ground of our obedience, God the giver of the power to become children of God…”

What he is saying is that, yes, we all struggle, while at the same time, we try to be faithful. Our eyes are in anxious watchfulness and in prayer. But as life plays itself out, while we feel restless and lonely and searching, God comes to us in the drama that is life. God comes and initiates interactions and relationships. God comes to us to shake us out of our slumber and wake us up! It is Christ, the Good Shepherd, who seeks us out when we are down in the dumps and hiding away. It is Christ, the Living God, who stirs our souls and makes us passionate about some person or cause. God guides us to obedience as he seeks and calls us by name to become the person, the child of God, that we were born to be.

Sometimes, it can be hard to hear or see the Shepherd as he seeks us out. But the psalmist from today’s scripture has advice for us. His decision is to wait for the Lord with confident trust and hope. He says, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning…Oh, Israel, [Oh, people of God,] hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem.”

So the answer to all the questions that we might pose regarding what is God’s will for our lives and what should we do is…wait. I know that’s not the answer that most of us want to hear, but oftentimes in life, we must wait for God to reveal himself and his will.

It’s more than to wait though. It’s to surrender your expectations, your timeline, your will and to really trust that God, that the Shepherd, is very present and active in your life. To be confident and assured, knowing that God’s hand is really moving in this world, in your world.

My good friend who is in a stuck relationship, and meanwhile, is ready to move forward in her life and start her family, must wait. And she must trust wholly in God’s goodness and will for her life.

My worried friend who is not sure if he will be employed by the same company until retirement must also wait and trust wholly in God’s goodness and will for his life.

Surrender can be one of the most challenging spiritual practices there is, but when we truly surrender to God, it provides us with a freedom and a hope that we can have no other way.

It is the freedom of trusting something greater than ourselves in this world. It is the hope of believing in the redeeming power of God to bless your life.

As we surrender to God and trust in him, we realize that God alone is the actor in our lives, and we are the ones wholly acted upon.

So what we are going to do is sing a song about being still. About waiting for the Shepherd. While you sing, believe this: we can trust in God. We can surrender fully to the divine will.

What Are You Thinking?!

2010-10-31T09:23:00.000-04:00

(Read John 9:1-12)

Whose fault is it? That’s what the disciples want to know. A man is born blind, so the disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Essentially, what they are asking is: whose fault is it? Who is to blame?

The first person many of us blame when things go wrong is ourselves. We get sick, and we ask God, what did I do to deserve this? We get laid off at work, and we think, “I brought this upon myself. I’m not good enough.” We go through a period in our life when nothing seems to be going our way, and we say, “I’m cursed. I can’t win.” We might even go so far as to think, “God hates me.”

This sort of thinking is detrimental to our spiritual and emotional well-being, but very often, we aren’t even aware that we have such negative self-talk. That’s why its important for all of us to examine the unconscious thoughts or beliefs we hold. It’s important for you to ask yourself: “What am I thinking?”

Rather than encourage negative thinking that blames and finds fault, Jesus steers the disciples in another direction. He gets them thinking in a new way. When asked whose fault it is that the man was born blind, Jesus says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.” Instead, he explains, “This happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” Then, Jesus heals the man. Rather than seeing blindness as a punishment, Jesus says it’s an opportunity for the glory of God to be revealed.

The way we perceive ourselves, situations, and relationships in our lives greatly impacts how we feel on a day to day basis. It affects how we experience life. And we have a choice to make. Will we let our minds run wild with negative self-talk, saying, “I’m not good enough. My life is cursed. It’s my fault” or will we develop healthier ways of thinking that are more constructive?

In his book, Happiness is a Serious Matter, Dennis Prager writes about the importance of having helpful, rather than destructive, philosophies on life. To illustrate, Prager tells the story of a man named Joseph:

One freezing winter night, Joseph got a flat tire while driving to deliver a speech. He did not have time to call a tow truck so Joseph tried to change the tire on his own, but to no avail. For hours, he worked on the tire until finally help came to him.

Not only did Joseph miss delivering an important speech, he also disappointed an audience, lost money and had a miserable evening as he failed to put on a spare tire. One would think that this experience would greatly anger Joseph and cause him to blame either himself or God or someone, but he didn’t. Joseph really wasn’t as upset as one might expect him to be.

Why? Because Joseph had a perspective on life that helped him deal with his bad night instead of making it worse. He said, “I am convinced that each of us has a flat-tire quota, and I’ve never had a flat tire before.” (Prager, Dennis. Pg. 114. Happiness is a serious problem). Just that thought, that everyone has a flat-tire quota, saved Joseph from compounding his misery. Many people would have been more unhappy given the circumstance but Joseph had a philosophy of life that provided him with perspective. It made him able to deal with the situation.

If that was you, what would you have been thinking? A negative philosophy, such as, “This sort of thing always happens to me” or “God is trying to ruin my career” would have created more turmoil and exacerbated the situation. But a healthy understanding on life and a philosophy to accompany that understanding prevented the situation from becoming too big a deal.

So what are some more constructive philosophies to live by:

1. Instead of thinking, “I am cursed” or “I can’t win,” realize that even good people have bad things happen to them because life is filled with suffering. Now you might be thinking, how is “life is filled with suffering” a more positive philosophy that’s going to benefit me? The reason is, because it doesn’t make suffering personal. All people suffer and experience trials and tribulations. Life is filled with suffering. In the Gospel of Matthew, it says, “For he makes his sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil (Matthew 5:45). When we make suffering personal, we compound it and increase our misery.

2. Instead of thinking, “I’ll never make it through,” or “I’m sick of waiting” realize that “this too shall pass.” Time is a tricky thing. The good times seem to fly by while the bad times seem to drag on forever. But life is in constant motion and even our worst days pass. We just have to be patient and take a longer view on life. Instead of seeking immediate gratification and help, we just have to take it one day at a time knowing that over a period of time, things will change. This too will pass.

3. Just as much as suffering is a product of the mind, so then can great happiness be a product of the mind. Instead of thinking, “I’m never going to be happy” or “the grass is always greener somewhere else,” realize that happiness is a choice, and it is available to you right now, right here. Always, there are many conditions for happiness that are present, but it’s a matter of recognizing them and focusing on them. Enjoying the autumn leaves and the changing of seasons can be a condition for happiness. Focusing on the love you do have, as opposed to the love you don’t have, or the work you do have, as opposed to the work you don’t have, or the health you do have, as opposed to the health you don’t have, are conditions for happiness. When we limit our happiness with our thinking, we do just that, we limit our happiness.

Our minds are beautiful things, gifts from God, but oftentimes, we don’t even know what we are thinking. And we let our thinking negatively impact our lives. So its time to ask yourself, “What am I thinking?!

Jesus would have us steer clear of the blame game and negative self-talk, and instead, have us focus on how God is working in our lives to reveal his power and glory. For every bad thing that happens to us, good is coming out of it. For every ill that we suffer, healing is occurring. For every moment we feel lost and broken, there come times of hope and well-being.

If anything, what we should be thinking is not how we are at fault or God is to blame, but how God is helping us and preparing us for the goodness about to come.

Four Layers of Love

2010-10-19T14:42:00.000-04:00

There are at least four layers to how we love ourselves and one another, and while each layer is a legitimate and necessary expression of love in and of itself, God is continually calling us to go deeper into the heart of love.

First, we love ourselves for our own sake. This begins as a self-preservation type of love; it’s biological and instinctual. “I need to take care of myself in order to survive and flourish.” This sort of love is easily recognizable in children, but there’s no doubt that it continues into adulthood.

Once upon a time there was a youngest child named Bobby. Bobby had three older brothers and two older sisters, and he always left the dinner table feeling a bit hungry because it seemed like there was never enough food. So what did Bobby do? When his mother wasn’t looking, about an hour before dinner, Bobby would slip into the kitchen and eat the most delicious thing he could find in the refrigerator. By the time he arrived at dinner, he wasn’t so worried if the food ran out. Bobby was loving himself for his own sake.

The truth is, there is a hungry little boy or girl that lives on in all of us, and often, we act from that place of loving ourselves in work, at church, with friends, while no one is looking. This is a legitimate and necessary expression of love, but God is continually calling us to go deeper into the heart of love.

Second, we love others for our own sake. We love the way another makes us feel or for what they can do for us. Again, this sort of love is easily recognizable in children. Children love their parents because they take care of them; they depend on them. This sort of love is also easily recognizable in teenagers, and it continues into adulthood.

Once upon a time there was an 18 year old girl named Cindy. Cindy thought Thomas was the most handsome boy in her whole school. He drove a Mustang; he played basketball and baseball. But Thomas wasn’t just a jock. Cindy liked him even more because he was in her art class and always made her laugh. One day, Thomas finished a drawing he had been working on for weeks, and he gave it to Cindy. Her heart fluttered, and she felt all warm and fuzzy inside. She knew right then she loved him. Cindy was loving Thomas for her own sake.

Whether you’re 5, 15 or 50, we all love others for how they make us feel and what they can do for us. This is a legitimate and fantastical sort of love, but God is continually calling us to go deeper into the heart of love.

Third, we love others for their own sake. Now, we’re really getting somewhere. This sort of love is easily recognizable in adults amidst their most prized relationships. Here, the happiness and the well-being of the beloved is of utmost importance.

Once upon a time there was a couple named Sue and Mike. Sue and Mike’s second child, Taylor, was different than the other kids, although they couldn’t quite put their finger on it. They worked very hard and went to special lengths to make sure Taylor fit in and was doing well in school, but there was often crying and temper tantrums, even when Taylor was eight. It wasn’t until a friend suggested that Taylor might have autism or Asberger’s syndrome that Sue and Mike sought special help. It turned out Taylor did have a certain form of autism and so Sue and Mike decided to enroll him in a school that could best meet his needs. The school was expensive though so Mike took an extra part -time job and Sue tightened the family budget. No matter what they had to give up, it was worth it to see Taylor get the kind of help and attention he needed.

This sort of love is beautiful; it’s sacrificial, and it’s everywhere. It’s from parent to child. It’s from child to parent. It’s from husband to wife. It’s from wife to husband. It’s between siblings. It’s between friends. It’s the kind of love that often exists in the hearts of those in helping and healing professions. Loving another for his or her own sake is a deep expression of love indeed, but God is continually calling us deeper into the heart of love.

The fourth layer of love that I will mention today comes to us from the scripture.

Just as back story, on the night Jesus was arrested, the day before he died, Jesus was denied three times by his good friend, Peter. Sitting near the fire in the courtyard of the high priest’s house, a servant girl looked at Peter and said, “This man was with him.” Meaning that Peter was a follower of Jesus. But Peter denied it. “Woman I don’t know him,” he said.

Then, a little later someone else saw him and said, “You are also one of them.”

“Man, I am not!” Peter replied.

About an hour later another asserted, “Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean.” Just like Jesus was a Galilean.

Peter replied, “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” And at that third denial, the cock crowed (Luke 22: 54-60).

I imagine this to be one of the lowest points in Peter’s life, denying a friend who was in his darkest hour.

But Jesus gives Peter the chance to make up for it. In today’s reading, which takes place after the resurrection, Jesus asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?” And each time Peter replies, “Lord, you know that I love you.” And here comes our fourth layer of love. Each time after Peter says, “I love you,” Jesus comes back and says, then, “Feed my lambs.” Then, “take care of my sheep.” Then, “feed my sheep” (John 21:15-17). In essence, what Jesus is telling us is that if you truly love someone, you will love, nurture and care for the people that they love. This sort of love extends even beyond loving an individual to loving who that individual loves.

Once upon a time, there was a man named Harold, who married a woman named Susan, and he loved her very much and did all that he could for her own sake. When they had only been married 5 years or so, Susan’s father passed away and left her mother as a widow. At this point, Harold cared for his mother-in-law because they had developed a relationship over the years, but it was when Susan said, “I don’t want my mother to have to live alone if she doesn’t want to” that Harold decided to turn the basement into an apartment. His love for his wife was so full that it extended beyond her to those whom she loved. Truly, this is where God is calling all of us-this deep into the heart of love.

This is the sort of love Jesus alludes to when he tells Peter to “Feed his sheep.” If Peter really loves Jesus, he must love those whom Jesus loves. And so if we love God and we love Jesus, and we know that God and Jesus love all people that walk upon the face of the earth, imagine the kind of love we are being called to.

Love must extend everywhere and to everyone. That is as deep as the heart of love goes.

May we all love ourselves. May we all feel good in loving each other. May we all love each other even when it doesn’t feel good. May we love each other to make one another feel happier, safer and truly alive. And may our love extend beyond the beloved to those the beloved loves. In this way, our hearts achieve their deepest depth, and we live into our true purpose as the people of God.

Having the Same Attitude As Jesus

2010-09-29T13:48:00.001-04:00

(Read Philippians 2:5-11)

A narcissist believes that he or she is the alpha and the omega, that life is all about him and the fulfillment of his desires. The narcissist seeks others to follow him, not because he has anything positive and valuable to contribute to society, but simply because he likes to be followed. While he believes that what he has to offer is of great value, it can in fact be of little value or even of great harm since it never contains love or awareness for his fellow man. Narcissists advance themselves at the expense of others.

Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, Bernie Madoff are some names you might recognize because of their narcissistic pursuits. While each had a different area of focus—Hitler was a political leader; Manson a communal leader, and Madoff an economic leader- the commonality between them all is that they served themselves. They were instruments of their own desire. They called others to follow them to achieve their own purposes. The narcissist elevates the one over the many.

Jesus, on the other hand, was far from the narcissistic personality. Yes, he was a leader, but he lead on behalf of other. Jesus lead on behalf of God. He did not seek to accomplish his own purposes. He was not driven by his own will, but he lead others that the Father’s will might be accomplished through him. Certainly, Jesus did not seek to elevate himself over others, but he lowered himself for the benefit of others. Jesus was not an instrument of his own desire. Jesus was an instrument of God.

Today’s passage from Philippians says just that. That though Jesus was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited. He did not elevate himself to godly status, holding power over others (though he could have. I am reminded of the movie Bruce Almighty, in which Jim Carey plays a man who has been given the powers of God, and in a humorous way, he wields those powers as though he were the greatest thing, the coolest person, the Man, as though he were God). Instead, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness and being found in human form, he humbled himself to human status. And instead of being driven by his own desire, instead of pushing his own will and seeking to accomplish his own agenda, he became obedient, even to the point of death, death on a cross. Jesus emptied himself that he might be an instrument of God.

The Scripture says, “Let the same mind, the same attitude be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2: 5). And so, the question we must all ask ourselves is: are we instruments of our own desire or are we instruments of God?

If we are instruments of our own desire, like the narcissist, we will be more concerned for ourselves than others, putting me before you. We will want our own way instead of factoring in what others want. My happiness will be more important than your happiness. We will also find ourselves in a constant battle with life as we try to make things go our way instead of the way that God’s Spirit is moving.

If we are instruments of God however, we will find a balance between seeking our own happiness and seeking to make others happy. We will even find ourselves putting others first. And we will surrender to the Spirit’s lead in our lives. Instead of pushing to make things the way we want them to be, we will open up to the way things are going, trying to discern God’s presence in what is happening in our daily circumstance.

St Francis wrote a very well-known prayer for peace, and in it, he describes what it is like to be an instrument of God:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
Where there is hatred, let me sow love:
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not
So much seek to be consoled
As to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born
to eternal life.

Following St. Francis’ lead, we learn that to be an instrument of God is to give love, to pardon or forgive, to have faith instead of doubting, to hope instead of despairing. To be an instrument of God is to console our family and friends, and even strangers, and to try to understand them no matter what they do to us.

Probably, we are each instruments of our own desire and instruments of God, a combination of both to some extent. We all go in and out of being played by the hand of God and being played by ourselves. The hope is to become more Christ-like by God’s grace.

I picked the story of Jesus’ first miracle when he turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana because of the words that Jesus uttered in that passage. They are at the wedding and Mary says to Jesus, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” (John 2:3-4).

Think of how many times Jesus must have had to refrain from doing something or saying something because it was not the right time according to the plan that God had made for his life. Surely, before this first miracle, Jesus must have had the opportunity to heal someone who was sick or raise someone from the dead, but he didn’t simply because the hour to do so had not yet come.

That’s letting God use your life. That’ letting God rule your life. Not my will, but Thy will be done. Sometimes, when life isn’t going the way you want it to, perhaps you should just remember the words of Jesus and say to yourself, “My hour has not yet come.”

But the hour must have come for Jesus to reveal his glory because he goes ahead and does his first miracle. He has the servants fill the six stone water jars. Then, he has them pour some out and take it to the chief steward, who when he tastes the wine, cannot believe that the bridegroom had waited to serve the best wine until last.

The Holy Spirit must have whispered to Jesus, “Now is the time, my son. Go ahead.”

Remember how at our outdoor service we talked about the seasons of life, how there is a time for every purpose under heaven. Part of being an instrument of God is knowing what season of life you are in and going along with it, being an active participant in what God is doing in your life right now.

But in order to do that, we have to be emptied of ourselves so that we can be filled with God. That is what it means to have the same mind, the same attitude as Jesus.

Think of yourself like a small, wooden flute or any wind instrument really. It awaits the breath of one who can give it song, but it has to be open, willing and clear of any obstructions. When we empty ourselves of our agenda, desire, will, when we clear out space, then Spirit can flow through us and we can create music. Our lives then rest in the hands of God.

I got this idea from a poem, Instruments of God, by Joyce Rupp:

A small, wooden flute,
An empty, hollow reed,
Rests in her silent hand.

It awaits the breath
Of one who creates song
Through its open form.

My often-empty life
Rests in the hand of God;
Like the hollowed flute,
It yearns for the melody
Which only Breath/Spirit can give.

May God’s Spirit blow through your emptied self like breath blows through a flute, and just like the flute produces a melody, may God turn your life into a song.

Are You Open to God's Will For Your Life?

2010-09-19T13:03:00.001-04:00

In 1998, Richard Stearns, a devout Christian, found himself with the dilemma of a lifetime. Would he remain the fat cat CEO of Lenox, the fine tableware company, or would he uproot his wife and five children, move across the country from Philadelphia to Seattle, and become the CEO of World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide? World Vision might best be known for their sponsor a child program in which you pay X amount of dollars monthly so that a child can have food, clothing, medical care and an education.

Richard didn’t want to leave Lenox and the upscale life he had worked so hard to build, but time and again, the opportunity at World Vision presented itself in his life. First, an old, church friend and board member at World Vision called to ask him to consider the position. Comfortable and secure in the life he had at Lenox, Richard said “no.” Then, a co-worker at Lenox told him about the opportunity at World Vision because he thought Richard would be perfect for the job. Richard thought what a coincidence! This World Vision job came up again, but he once again ignored the opportunity. The third time it happened, the main recruiter for the CEO position of World Vision called Richard directly and asked him if he would be interested in the position. At this point, Richard began to wonder if there wasn’t something more to this whole situation. Perhaps this wasn’t just a job offer, but a calling from God. After much consideration, Richard agreed to meet with the recruiter for an informational dinner to learn just what World Vision was looking for in terms of a CEO.

As time went on and Richard’s awareness evolved, he seriously considered changing his and his family’s life, moving from CEO of Lenox to CEO of World Vision. He had heard about receiving callings from God through his life in the church, and so he asked himself: am I open to God’s will for my life? It started as a personal question for him, but in answering that question, it became a decision that would affect millions of people.

As a faithful Christian called by God and compelled by the Holy Spirit, and with the support of his wife and children, Richard said “yes” to World Vision and became its next CEO. Within months, he found himself in Rakai, Uganda, learning about the ministry and mission of World Vision by speaking with a thirteen year old boy whose name also happened to be Richard.

Richard Stearns describes Richard’s situation like this:

“Richard was trying to raise his two younger brothers by himself in this small shack with no running water, electricity or even beds to sleep in. There were no adults in their lives—no one to care for them, feed them, love them or teach them how to become men. There was no one to hug them either, or to tuck them in at night. Other than his siblings, Richard was alone, as no child should be.” (pg. 7).

To say this encounter with one of God’s least fortunate children broke Ricahrd’s heart is an understatement. It changed his heart and made him think about the role of the Christian faith in a deeper way than he ever had before.

You see, Richard is a part of an evangelical church where confessing Jesus as Lord and Savior is one of the main emphases of the religion. But his experience through World Vision led him to ponder confessing was really enough. Did believing in Jesus mean much if one wasn’t also actively seeking to live as Jesus instructed? Richard decided believing was one part of the truth, but without action, there was “a hole in the gospel.” A hole as in “a hollowed place in something solid.” His entire book, The Hole in the Gospel: What Does God Expect of Us? is about the absolute necessity of Christians actively working to heal and save the lost, broken and poor of this world. It is not simply enough to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It is not enough to say that we love God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves. The only way the Gospel will be complete is when we put that love into action and go about helping as Jesus did.

In his book, Richard says that Jesus had a mission statement for his life, and if for his life, then also for ours. When Jesus walked into the synagogue in Nazareth and read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, Jesus was declaring his mission and God’s plan for this world. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” When Jesus said those words, he was proclaiming that he was the one who had come to do those things, and as his disciples, we are to carry on his mission.

When all Christians are giving aid to the poor, when we’re working side by side to make people’s lives better, when we are loving and nurturing people we know and don’t know back to health that is when there will no longer be a hole in the gospel.

Are you open to God’s will for your life? When Richard Stearns asked himself that question, ultimately, it became a question about much more than his life. It was about how his life would affect his wife’s life, his children’s lives, Richard’s life in Uganda and hundreds of thousands of other people’s lives around the world as he committed himself to more than himself.

As each of us faithfully try to answer the question: Are you open to God’s will for your life? We too must realize that our answer doesn’t just affect ourselves, it’s not meant to. We must answer this question thinking of our lives in terms of every other life we encounter.

The call of your life has less to do with you than it does with the many lives you will have an impact on. This can be a difficult concept because we care how life affects us. “Whereas I think about my life in terms of how I am affected, God thinks of my life from the perspective of how much good I can do in other people’s lives.” God expects your one life to benefit many. Like Jesus gave his one life a ransom for many so that all might be saved and receive eternal life through him, so too is your life to be given to heal and love many. This can be very freeing and open you up from a closed, tight existence.

When we talk about God, we often name God, Comforter, Healer, Lover, Compassionate One…but the truth is, God often comes into our lives more like a burglar or a thief. God comes in and steals our ideas about the kind of life we should be living for ourselves and directs us outwards.

Look at what happened to Paul. He had an idea about the sort of life he wanted to live. He was a Pharisee who persecuted this radical new group who followed Jesus, and he thought he was doing God’s will. That is until Jesus came to him and he went blind. God often blindsides us with what we are to do in life and the people we are to serve.

Think of how your life has NOT turned out like you expected it to. That seems to be one of the marks of God calling you to live out a certain path. That the path you finally found yourself on was not one you dreamed of, imagined or first chose for yourself. First, it was chosen for you by God. Then, eventually, possibly after years of resistance and struggle, you said “yes” to God’s plan.

If we are open to God’s will for our lives then we have to answer the call to fill the hole in the gospel. That means finding a way to serve those who are physically thirsty, hungry, lost, sick, imprisoned, no matter where they live, near or far. It also means finding a way to serve those who are spiritually thirsty, hungry, lost, sick, imprisoned, which pertains quite profoundly to us and the people who we live with and love. As the Scripture in Matthew today says, what we do or don’t do for the least among us, we do to Christ himself.

Are you open to God’s will for your life? I hope many of you are saying “yes” even as you think of how scary and challenging this might be. That is what the Church is for. This is where the Church is relevant. Our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. No longer is this primarily about getting people to make some sort of confession; it’s about action and interaction among people. Actions speak louder than words, and together, bonded in Christ, we can accomplish this mission to transform the world.

Get Ready: God’s Spirit is Moving

2010-09-16T10:43:00.000-04:00

(Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-9)

We are in a season of change, on the cusp between summer and fall. Just Wednesday I went to the US Open tennis tournament with my friend, Lisa. When I woke up in the morning, it was sunny and hot so I put on my white sundress, which was the perfect thing to wear all day long. But then, we decided to stay for the night session as well. And oh my goodness, I was freezing! The wind picked up; the temperature dropped twenty degrees. We went from August weather to October weather in just a few hours.

And I was not prepared. Not in my flip flops and white sundress.

The change between summer and fall is one of the most dramatic changes when it comes to our daily affairs because of the school calendar. In summer, we take off, and in September, we start back up again. Even the church calendar runs somewhat parallel to the school calendar.

This means that the way we spend our days is going to be changing. Kids go back to school. Teachers go back to work. Church events start up again. We’re all affected in some way.

Much like the calendar year has seasons, the spiritual life has seasons as well. In Ecclesiastes, we hear about all different sorts of seasons that we will go through, and each season is affirmed in its own right. There is a time when we will be born, and a time when we will die. A time when we are to plant seeds, and a time when we are to uproot dead flowers and vegetable plants.

Of this whole list, the two that really struck me when I was reading them were “a time to search and a time to give up” and “a time to keep and a time to throw away.” Have you every looked for something and looked for something, but you can’t find it so you give up the search? Then, like two weeks later, it just magically appears in front of your eyes. “There is a time to search and a time to give up.” And knowing what time is what is wisdom! Otherwise, we can drive ourselves crazy, bang our heads against the wall, walk in circles all because we are just out of sink with our timing.

Also, there is a time to keep and a time to throw away. Or in other words, a time to collect and a time to purge. I think many of us are good at colleting, but not so good at purging. Yet, you know how good it feels when at the right time, you clean out your stuff and start fresh.

In each of our lives right now, God’s Spirit is moving us from a time of something to a time of something else. What exactly for you, I cannot say, but that’s why I wanted us to take a little time this morning to slow down and be reflective. So that each of us can get a better sense of the rhythm that we are in.

Unlike me at the US Open, we don’t want to be totally unprepared for what is coming our way, and we don’t want to miss what God is doing in our lives. You will feel much more comfortable and at ease no matter what season you are in if you are able to go along with its rhythm.

So, I’m going to throw some possible seasons out there and listen if any catch your ear. If one word even rings true, ponder that. It might be the Spirit whispering to you, telling you something.

Is it a time to be silent or a time to speak?
Is it a time to get out there or a time to draw inward?
Is it a time to lead or a time to follow?
Is it a time to take control or a time to surrender?
Is it a time to be active or a time to rest?
Is it a time to give or a time to receive?

As you get in touch with your rhythm, honor it. Let yourself be where you’re at, and tell others where you are at so that they can honor you as well.

Psalm 46 is all about how God is in control. “God is our refuge and strength, an every-present help in trouble. Therefore,” it says, “we will not fear…” And then it goes into some rich imagery of the world changing and in chaos. “Though the earth gives way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”

Though your life is changing, and it may feel in chaos, do not fear for God is in control of the seasons of your life. And remember, there is a time for every season that we go through. Where you are at is right for you according to God who has planned your days and who is guiding you through this blessed transition and into a more full, rich and deep existence.

From summer to fall
From weeping to laughing
From scattered to gathered.

God’s Spirit is moving in your life. Be still and know that God is in control. Be calm, open and patient as your season changes. Who knows exactly what God is doing, but know this, God is doing something beautiful in your life.

Who Do You Report To?

2010-08-17T22:05:00.000-04:00

(Read Jeremiah 2: 4-13)

I can understand why God is so upset with Israel. Israel has lost its soul.

First of all, Israel is the Lord’s chosen people. They are his baby. God has done everything he could to grow them into a strong and wealthy nation. God helped them to get out of slavery in Egypt; he led them through the wilderness; he supplied them with food and water. Then, the Lord brought them into the Promised Land, a garden land that was plentiful.

And what is the Israelites response to all that God has done for them? Gratitude? No. Trust? No. Steadfast love and faithfulness? No.

God’s heart is breaking. The people of Israel have abandoned their Creator. They are acting as though their Guardian and Guide is nothing to them. Have you ever had someone in your life who just stopped calling you or left you or abandoned you? Remember how badly that hurt. It might still hurt. The Prophet Jeremiah was sent by God to give the people a conscience, to make them realize that what they were doing, how they were treating God was a grave mistake.

In verse 5 we hear that Israel’s ancestors have drifted from the Lord, delving into worthless idols and becoming worthless themselves. In this life, we can search for whatever we choose, and Jesus says he will help us find it. Why go after things that will make us less than who God created us to be? Why not go after the things that will make us more? More loving, more wise, more free, more whole? Israel chose to go after the things that were of no profit to humanity or their own well-being.

They also stopped relying on God. In good times and in bad, they did not think to ask, “Where is the Lord?” They did not call upon God. Instead, they worshipped the false God Baal, and with that came a life of sexual immorality that went against the rules of the Torah.

Let’s learn from Israel’s mistakes. Let’s not turn our backs on God who has put our spirits inside of us and orchestrated our lives for us.

We may not prophesy to Baal per se, but I would like to suggest that we run the risk of abandoning God when we push down or shut off God’s spirit within us. God gave us his Spirit, God made us in his image, and we honor God when our spiritual lives are at the center of our daily living.

But all too often, our lives our divided. We think and feel one way, but we act another. Our spirits have a desire to go forward, but our physical beings stand still. We want to use our voice and say something important, but we just sit silently. To live a divided life means that our inner world, our hearts, our spirits, our souls are ignored, and our outer life does not reflect what is deep inside of us.

Let me give you an example. There was a man named John from Iowa who had been a farmer for 25 years. He loved the land. Then, he went to work for the US Department of Agriculture. He was given a proposal regarding the preservation of Midwestern topsoil, “which is being depleted at a rapid rate by [agricultural business] practices that value short term profits over the well-being of the earth” (18-19). It’s a serious problem, but the proposal leaned toward exploiting the land for financial gain, rather than saving the soil.

In his heart, John wanted to reject the proposal, but politically speaking, he knew it was a bad idea. John’s boss was in support of the proposal, and he made it clear to John that he expected his support as well.

So what should John do? Should he risk being ostrasized at the office or fired in order to express his true feelings on the matter? He thought to himself, it would just easier to go along with what his boss wants and not make any waves.

Ultimately, the question boils down to: who does John report to? Whose expectations of him does he want to live up to? His boss’s? His own? God’s?

We run into dilemmas like this all the time. A divided life is a life where we live by another’s standards or expectations. A divided life is a life where we have to pretend or hide. It is inauthentic. The real problem is that a divided life is a life that denies God’s and the self that God created you to be.

Psalm 139 says, “For it was you [God] who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb…In your book were written all the days that were formed for me” (Psalm 139, 13, 16). God made each of us intentionally and planned our days for us, but all too often worldly pressures, perverted desires and poor coping tactics lead us astray.

Some examples of a divided life: (from pg 6)
• We conceal our true identities for fear of being criticized, shunned or attacked.
• We remain in settings or relationships that steadily kill off our spirits.
• We make our living at jobs that violate our basic values and diminish our happiness, even when survival does not absolutely demand it.

I read about this concept of a divided life in Parker Palmer’s book, A Hidden Wholeness. He describes it like this:

“My knowledge of the divided life comes first from personal experience. I yearn to be whole, but dividedness often seems the easier choice. A “still, small voice” speaks the truth about me, my work or the world. I hear it and yet act as if I did not.”

“Afraid that our inner light will be extinguished or our inner darkness exposed, we hide our true identities from each other. In the process, we become separated from our own souls, [which is God’s imprint in us]. We end up living divided lives, so far removed from the truth we hold within that we cannot know the integrity that comes from being [the person who God created us to be.]”

The word integrity means “The state or quality of being entire, complete and unbroken,” as in the words integer or integral. So what Parker is saying is that living a divided life prevents us from being complete or whole people.

Where does this divided life lead us?

“[We] pay a steep price when [we] live a divided life—feeling fraudulent, anxious about being found out, and depressed by the fact that [we are] denying [our] own selfhood[s]. The people around [us] pay a price as well, for now they walk on ground made unstable by [our] dividedness. How can [we] affirm another’s identity when [we] deny [our] own? How can [we] trust another’s integrity when [we] defy [our] own? A fault line runs down the middle of [our lives,] and whenever it cracks open, divorcing [our] words and actions from the truth[s] [we] hold within—things… get shaky and start to fall apart.” (4-5).

Part of preventing a divided life is knowing what we believe and what is important to us so that we can stay true to ourselves. A great beauty arises when people refuse to live divided lives. Inspiration and enthusiasm spread and joy swirls in the air as we begin to live, think and act from the divine center within us.

The key is to bring our inner and outer worlds into harmony. That requires courage on each of our parts and a supportive community, a community that values each individual unique person and our quests for wholeness. A place where all people are listened to, a place where people are encouraged to live authentically. A place where there is honesty and compassion among the people.

The church is called to be such a community, a place where the divided life can heal and be made whole. I pray that we are such a community, where each of us is free to express his or her own soul, his or her own truth, and to encourage that truth in others.

Remember John, the man who worked for the department of Agriculture. He was struggling with how to deal with the situation at work, and he went to a men’s retreat where he talked about the tensions he was feeling. The others listened to him; they helped him to clarify his thoughts; they prayed with him. Finally, after a sleepless night of trying to decide what to do, John had a realization. He told his newfound brothers, “During this retreat, I’ve remembered something important; I don’t report to my boss. I report to the land.” (19). And with that wisdom, John was able to “stick to his guns”, and the great divide that was within him, causing him anxiety, came together. John felt a great peace because he was following his heart.

So I was thinking: I report to Jesus. Being true to him is what guides my decisions and behavior. Who do you report to?

Faith: One Thing We Cannot Live Without

2010-08-11T09:34:00.000-04:00

(Read Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16)

A friend recently sent me an email where people were asked the five things they couldn’t live without. It was humorous and interesting to see the various responses people answered to the question. One man took a purely material approach. He said he couldn’t live without his ipod, his computer, his car, his golf clubs and his bank account. One woman took a very literal approach to the question. She said she couldn’t live without oxygen, water, food, shelter and yes, red wine. And yet, another woman took a spiritual approach, saying she couldn’t live without family, friends, love, laughter and compassion.

Of all the ways to answer the question, I leaned towards the spiritual approach. Except instead of family, friends, love, laughter and compassion, my answer was family, friends, love, laughter and faith . Faith is something that none of us can happily live without.

The author of Hebrews says, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” In other words, faith is truly believing that you will receive what you hope for. Faith is believing that even if you don’t see what you want at this moment, you will one day. When we say, “I have faith,” we are also saying, “I trust in God to provide for me.” Faith is an inexhaustible confidence in God.

I ask you, how strong is your faith these days? Are you confident in God, how God is working, orchestrating and developing your life?

If yes, wonderful! If no or not really, don’t despair! The life of faith is categorized by three defining stages: confidence, doubt and renewed confidence.

In the beginning of our faith life, it is quite normal to feel blissfully confident in the Lord. We have seen God for the first time, or perhaps we have seen God so vividly that we have recommitted our life to the journey of faith. We feel optimistic and assured. We feel like the Lord has us in the palm of his hand, and we are just basking in the glow of promises to be fulfilled.

However, in time, it is normal for that basking glow to fade like a sinking sunset. We get hit with the realities of life. Just when we think everything is going well, we get the bad news. Just when we think we’ve got what we want, it vanishes before our eyes. Just when we think we’ve made it, the time comes to start over, and we’ve no idea what to do next. This is not a pleasant time in life at all, but it is still part of the faith journey, a very natural part, so if you are in it, do not be dismayed.

Like most people, my brother and sister in law were exuberant when they first married. They were in love and had all the hope and promise of the future lying before them. You could say their faith had yet to be tested in their relationship.

But then, with their love in full bloom, they tried to have a child, and conception did not come easily to them. After a significant period of time trying to conceive on their own, they sought the help of medical professionals, and throughout those months and into years of tests and prescription medicines and procedures, their faith waned. I remember my brother sort of staring off into space, saying in a distant voice, “I’m starting to think it’s never going to happen.” His wife was equally troubled in her own way. Would they ever be able to have a child?

Real doubt, dark and troubling, entered into all of our lives, but their lives in particular.

It was then, just after my brother had mournfully stated, “I’m starting to think it’s never going to happen,” that my mother hugged my brother and said, “Oh yes it will. You are going to have a baby of your own. I just know you will.”

And in that moment, the doubt and darkness lost its foothold in my brother’s mind. You should have seen the way his expression changed, his whole demeanor. He went from looking forlorn and despondent to having a glimmer of hope himself. “Do you really think so?” he said. My mom should her head, yes.

And then and there, my brother’s faith was reborn. His confidence, however small, was restored. And it was because of my mother’s faith for him.

You see, faith is contagious, infectious even, in a good way.

We all go through periods of doubt, confusion and darkness, but the faith of others can help us through, get us back on course. If the faith journey is has three stages –confidence, doubt and renewed confidence, then we all play a part in that renewing of faith. We need each other on this journey, to believe for each other when the light has grown dim.

Faith is what gets us through the tough times. Faith is the virtue by which we endure. Faith is what leads us into our futures. To have a strong faith is truly a blessing that makes life better. Sometimes we have it all by ourselves, and sometimes, we need each other to help us have it. But when it returns in us, it is as authentic and pleasing in the sight of God as when we had it at the first. Maybe even moreso, because now we have truly been tested, and we have returned to God.

Think of your own life story. How has your faith ebbed and flowed over the years? Who has helped to lift you up? This is all a part of the process the way God intends it to be.

When our faith wanes, there is another whose faith can always pull us through. And that is the faith of Jesus Christ. Jesus always has faith in God even if we don’t because he gets the bigger, fuller picture of God’s plan. He sees for us!

In life, often our gratification is delayed for reasons we do not know. Things happen to us, and we can’t understand why. No one has experienced this reality more fully than Jesus. God’s plan for his life flies in the face of reason. Why would the Father ask his own Son, whom he loves absolutely, to sacrifice his life? And how could Jesus being dead be better for the world than him being alive?

As Christians, we know the answer-that Jesus’ sacrifice and his death are what leads to life for all people. But no one who had to go through that sort of life plan could have remained faithful except for Jesus because he was so utterly confident in God.

My prayer for all of us is to have such great faith as never to doubt the lives we are leading and the God who is leading our lives, but when that faith disappears, simply know that Jesus believes for you, and that he is carrying you along.

Today, I invite you to renew your faith in God. Believe that God has your best interests at heart and is designing the world on your behalf. Believe in the assurance of things hoped for and the fulfillment of things not yet seen.

I also invite you to offer hope to one another by having faith for one another. When one of our eyes is filled with tears, we need each other to see God clearly.

My mom was right. My brother and his wife did conceive a child. A beautiful baby girl, whom I was privileged to baptize and am still privileged to babysit. And my brother and sister in law are living witnesses that faith can and will be restored.

The meaning of faith is never giving up on God, believing in God’s power and love for your life and this world, and continuing to hope in the things you have not yet seen. On this average day of days, may our faith in God be renewed. May we be confident and uplifted. I am certain that faith is the one of those things that we cannot live without.

What Makes For A Great Life

2010-08-11T09:32:00.001-04:00

(Read Luke 12:13-21)

Money gets somewhat of a bad reputation in the Bible or religion in general. But let’s face it, money is necessary. We need it to feed, clothe and shelter our families, pay our bills, and enjoy some of the luxuries of life. Money adds to our stress and discomfort if we don’t have it, and it adds to our comfort and enjoyment if we do have it.

But there comes a point when money goes from being a resource that is useful in maintaining a healthy, happy life to when it becomes a burden and a source of unhappiness. Greed is an unhealthy hunger for money and things in excess of what you need.

The Bible warns against greed because it can destroy your life. Greed destroyed Bernie Madoff’s life. He stole from others in order to have more for himself and ended up in prison. Excessive wealth seems to contribute to the downfall of many celebrities including Brittany Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Mel Gibson, all of who have had public breakdowns in the past couple of years.

Yes, money can actually interfere with our happiness and decrease the quality of our lives. For one reason, the acquisition of money requires a great deal of time. The time you spend earning can keep you from taking care of yourself and can keep you from spending quality time with the people that you love. Plus, you might have to work a job you don’t like in order to earn a great income. A second reason money can interfere with our happiness is that money is meant to be a secondary concern in our lives, somewhere behind spiritual awareness and the cultivation of wisdom. No where in the Bible does it say you need money to be a good Christian or a disciple of Jesus. In fact, a preoccupation with money can stunt spiritual maturation, and it is spiritual maturation which actually leads to the peace and joy we seek. A third reason money can decrease the quality of our lives is because it can decrease the quality of other people’s lives, such as was the case with Bernie Madoff. If I need more, then you have to have less, and that is not the way God intends us to live.

A terrible thing just happened amongst a group of friends of mine who were working together on building a house. The contractor paid himself before paying his sub-contractors, which it’s supposed to be the other way around, and then he claimed he ran out of money. Now, there isn’t the money to pay the sub-contractors. Because the contractor was greedy and paid himself a huge upfront fee, those who worked for him are without the money they need to support their families. Not only are friendships dissolving over this situation, but people who were once good friends are suing each other over the matter. That’s the problem with greed.

The idea that tons of money will lead to security and happiness is a fallacy. We all want to win the lottery thinking it will solve all of our problems, but research shows that lottery winners often end up miserable, broke and fighting with their loved ones within a relatively short period of time. With a lot of money comes a lot of demands and a lot of responsibility.

21st Century Americans aren’t the only ones who worship money and think it will solve all of our problems. It’s been going on since the beginning of humanity. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus tells us the parable of the rich fool. The man’s crops produced abundantly, and rather than share his wealth, he builds huge barns to store his grain and goods in. The man says to himself, “Now I can be happy. I can relax, eat, drink and be merry because I don’t have to work hard now, and I have all the food and money I need.”

God says, “You fool. What if you lose your life tonight? Then, what will you have?”

Certainly, he won’t have his life, and without life, he will lose not only his possessions, but the ability to relax, eat, drink and be merry as well.

The real issue is this: we think money will make us happy, but Jesus says, “For one’s life does not consist in the abundance of material possessions” (Luke 12: 13-21). What does one’s life consist of then? Where is a meaningful, happy, worthwhile life found?

I’m going to suggest three ideas. First, one’s life is found in the ability to be able to relax, eat, drink and be merry without having to have it all. I’ll explain further in a moment. Second, one’s life is found in how engaged and invested a person is in life. Curiosity, exploration, getting to know people and places, developing skills…these ways of being lead to a more fulfilling life than acquiring possessions. And third, one’s life is made meaningful in having meaningful relationships. Connecting with others, feelings of belonging, this is where the good life is found.

First, many of us are under the impression that when we get to a certain place in life, then we will be happy, then we’ll have the good life. Perhaps we want to get to that time in life when we own our own home and the mortgage is paid off, or have a $50,000 safety net in our bank account. Perhaps we want to get to that place in life where we have achieved a certain career goal or have gotten married or have started raising children.

The problem here is we can waste many months and years waiting to achieve these goals. A person with a 30 year mortgage might have to wait until he is in his 50’s to be happy. A person who can’t find Mr. or Mrs. Right might spend half of their adult life unfulfilled.

The real key to having abundant life is being able to relax, eat, drink and be merry while we are in the process of achieving our goals. Don’t wait for tomorrow to be happy. Today, even though you don’t have everything you want, is the day to be happy. Keep working towards what you want and enjoy the day.

Second, better than having plenty of things in life is having plenty of interests in life. There’s that bumper sticker, which I disagree with, that says something like: the one with the most toys wins. It’s not the toys that matter, it’s what you do with those toys that makes life good. Having a boat is only worthwhile if you use it. Owning a motorcycle isn’t nearly as fun as riding a motorcycle.

Do you know what made my week this week? It wasn’t any thing. It was getting to know a new person who is very different from myself. On Tuesday, Adam Acard and I went to visit a former student of his named Taryll. Currently, Taryll is living at the Hillcrest House, not in their emergency shelter, which we support, but in their transitional housing. Taryll has lived a life I am blind to: living in the projects surrounded by crack cocaine, growing up on the streets, as a little boy being out until all hours of the night. Eventually going on to use and sell drugs himself. Being involved in the violence that comes with all that. But now he’s trying to straighten out his life, and so he sat down with Adam and I and gave us an education not only about his life, but about what’s happening on the streets of Poughkeepsie, stuff you wouldn’t see if you didn’t know it was happening. And we also talked about what we, Adam and I, might do to help.

Getting to know new people, exploring foreign situations, traveling, cultivating new skills, being curious and invested in life is where one’s life is found.

Third, the good life has everything to do with good relationships. God did not put us here to be alone, to be isolated, to be unknown. God wants us together, in community, and to be known and accepted for who we are as individuals. When you feel supported, it makes all the difference in life. When you feel alone, life is sad and depressing.

Not only do we need one another, we also need to give to and receive from one another. First, I think we need to receive because you can’t give what you don’t have, but once you do have, then you can give.

A perfect example is our food pantry, which was last Thursday night. Because we as a congregation have been so fortunate, we are able to give to those who are less fortunate. It warmed my heart because one little boy, who was only three or four and who attends our nursery school, was so excited when he saw Trix yogurt in his food bag. He was so excited he asked me for a spoon and ate the yogurt right then on the way out to the car. To see someone so happy, and we were able to contribute to making that happiness possible, that is living a good life.

My friends, next time your struggling with what will make your life feel more satisfying, more meaningful, more happy, know that the answer is not found in an abundance of material possessions. The answer is not having more or getting to a certain place.

The answer is that you already have enough, and that your happiness can be found in the present moment on your way to someplace else. The answer is that excitement and joy is found in exploration and getting to know God’s world and God’s people. The answer is that deep, meaningful connections, which make life worth living, are found when we engage one another, when we are real and we share with one another.

We are not rich fools, but wise disciples.

Hanging in my hallway so that I walk past it about 30 times a day is this sign, saying, “You have enough.” May we all be blessed to know that we have enough; we don’t need more and that true happiness is found in the ways of God.

2010-07-20T12:45:00.001-04:00

(Read Luke 10: 38-42)

The Bible is filled with stories that can be difficult to understand. Who here doesn’t take pause as Abraham leads his son Isaac out into the wilderness to be sacrificed, to be killed? And who doesn’t struggle with the notion that God tested Job by taking away everything from him, his crops, his health, his family, his faith? But the story we heard this morning, the story of Mary and Martha, that’s an easy one for us to relate to. It says, “Martha was distracted by her many tasks” (Luke 10: 40). Distracted by many tasks…Isn’t that something we can all relate to?

Martha has some very important visitors over to her house. Jesus and his followers. They are hungry, thirsty, tired. She welcomes them with doors wide open and provides for their every need. It isn’t easy entertaining a group of guests, but she’s happy to do it. Martha gets her guests food and drinks, and finally everyone is sitting down to relax, enjoying themselves. That is, everyone except Martha. She still has stuff to do. More food, more drinks, wash the dishes.

But to be quite honest, Martha doesn’t really want to keep doing her many tasks. She wants to hang out with Jesus too. You can just hear her over there in the other room, in the kitchen, banging pots, clanging pans, audible signs that she’s bitter and distracted.

Even more than that, Martha is really annoyed by her sister, her lazy sister, who is just hanging out with the guys, listening to their thoughts and the stories of their travels, leaving all the work to Martha. Jesus is in her house, HERS! MARTHAS! And she can’t even sit down and talk to him because she has too much to do while her sister sits at Jesus’ feet.

This is not a difficult scene to imagine, except maybe that Jesus is actually there. But the busyness and the irritation that Martha experiences, this is one of the prominent struggles we all have in 21st century America.

Just listen to people when they talk. We all have so much to do. There are children to tend to, parents to tend to, doctors to see, bills to pay, chores, work, work, some form of work, always to do. The list is endless. Even picnics and parties, weekends and vacations can amount to stress and just another “thing to do.” Of course, we feel distracted.

What I don’t like about all this talk, is that life seems so difficult, like a burden, and everyone is exhausted. Being tired is not the mark of a worthwhile existence, and yet it’s like a badge of honor these days. As long as we’re working our fingers to the bone and don’t have enough time in the day, we feel justified. Certainly, no one can accuse us of being lazy as long as we have a list of things we did today and another that we will do tomorrow. But, my friends, is this the life that God intends for us?

Is working our tails off and running around in circles, the point?
Must we swim upstream, go against the grain, pull a cart with square wheels, even if its making us unhappy?

There is always going to be a list of things for us to do in life, the inbox will always be full as the saying goes, but why couldn’t Martha have just sat down? Why wasn’t spending time with Jesus the most important thing she had to do and the thing she made time to do? And why can’t we just sit down? Are we making time for what’s most important in our lives?

Listen to this “lesson” from the book, the 4 Agreements:

There was a man who wanted to transcend his suffering so he went to a Buddhist temple to find a Master to help him. He went to the Master and asked, “Master, if I meditate four hours a day, how long will it take me to transcend?”
The Master looked at him and said, “If you meditate four hours a day, perhaps you will transcend in ten years.”
Thinking he could do better, the man then said, “Master, what if I meditated eight hours a day, how long will it take me to transcend?”
The Master looked at him and said, “if you meditate eight hours a day, perhaps you will transcend in twenty years.”
“But why will it take me longer if I meditate more?” the man asked.
The Master replied, “You are not here to sacrifice your joy or your life. You are here to live, to be happy, and to love. If you can do your best in two hours of meditation, but you spend eight hours instead, you will only grow tired, miss the point, and you won’t enjoy your life. Do your best, and perhaps you will learn that no matter how long you meditate, you can live, love and be happy.”

Perhaps its not how hard we work in life, but the quality of our work and energy that matters most. Perhaps we should spend more time doing the things we deem of vital importance and less time with the “shoulds” and minutia of daily life.

There is a saying, you are what you eat. Well, it’s also true that you are what you do. You are what you do. If you serve God and neighbor, then you are a servant. If you love adults and children of all creeds and colors, then you are a lover. If you give of your time, talents and gifts, then you are a giver. But if you waste your time on that which doesn’t matter much, than you’re…a waste… someone who doesn’t matter much...That’s a sad thought.

“Activity suggests a life filled with purpose.” That’s what Captain von Trapp said to Frauline Maria anyway. It’s quite a thought provoking statement really. “Activity suggests a life filled with purpose.” The pivotal word being “suggests,” as in: to create an illusion. Activity creates the illusion of a life filled with purpose.

I think for many of us it does, and then we wonder why we aren’t happy; why we aren’t satisfied. We run around from sun up past sun down, fall exhausted into bed, before waking up sometime in the middle of the night with thoughts racing through our heads, and we wonder why we have no peace. Activity keeps us moving, and when we finally get a chance to rest, the bottomless pit in our souls growl and our hearts beat restlessly.

Mary refuses to waste her time, the precious time she has with Jesus. She decides that the most important thing for her to be doing is sitting at his feet, absorbing his peaceful presence, and seeing in him what she desires to be herself. We can call Mary a student of the Rabbi Jesus because she sits down and listens to his teachings. We can call Mary a follower of the Jesus because she goes where he goes. We can call Mary a disciple of the Jesus because she does what he instructs.

What would you like to be called? A student? A follower? A disciple? A friend? A humanitarian? A musician? A business man/woman? What’s important to you?
You must do those things.

I have a friend who wrote one book, and then never wrote again in the four years I knew him. He called himself a writer, but I said, “you aren’t a writer. Writers write. When you write again, then you will be a writer.” And actually, that idea got through to him. He started writing a blog every day.

We must do something to be that thing. We must observe in order to be called observant. We must forgive in order to be called forgiving. We must take on adventure if we want to be called adventurous.

One of the things we might all like to be called is “Christ-like.” I know I would like to be. Jesus said to Martha, “There is need of only one thing.” That one thing is for each of us to sit at Jesus feet and see in him what we desire to be in ourselves.

If you don’t know how you would like to be described or what you would like to be called, maybe you can think of an aspect of Christ that you admire. Sitting at his feet, what do you see in him that you wish you could be for the world?

When I look at Christ I see his peacefulness that surpasses all understanding. I want to know that peace; therefore, I must be peace. I must do peace. But there are so many aspects to choose from. We hear of him listening and helping the needy. We hear of him questioning rules that don’t make sense anymore. We hear of him weeping in compassion for those who suffer. We hear of him instructing, leading, praying, taking time out for himself and God, traveling from town to town, spreading a message, meeting new people and seeing the world.

My friends, Martha should have stopped doing dishes and sat down for a few minutes to be with Jesus, to look at him, and to know him. So should we. May you take the time to know who you truly want to be, what is truly important for your life, and in doing so, become “Christ-like.”

Relax into the Mystery

2010-07-11T12:01:00.001-04:00

Recently, I’ve been struggling with the notion of signs. As in, “I think it’s a sign from God.” It’s not that I’ve completely stopped believing in signs-I do believe that God speaks to us- but I think signs from God are rarer than people claim them to be.

People love to see signs because signs help us to look into the future; they guide one in making decisions. They reassure people. But people can’t see into the future. Somehow, if we feel like we’ve seen a sign though, we feel more hopeful and confident that we are on the way to the life God wants for us and we are more enthusiastic that we are making the right choices in life.

Let me give you an example: I once interviewed at a hospital for a chaplaincy position. Reverend Jim conducted the interview, which went very well, and I ended up getting hired for the position. After working there some time, Rev. Jim told me that he received a sign and that’s why he hired me. He said that on the day I interviewed, he went to McDonalds with his granddaughter and ordered her a happy meal. In the happy meal was a doll, and her name was Mandy! Rev. Jim figured this was God sending him a sign telling him that I was the right person for the position.

What Rev. Jim called a sign; I now call a positive affirmation. Rev Jim met me, liked me, thought I was qualified for the job, and when he saw the Mandy doll, it simply affirmed what he already knew to be true—that I would make a good chaplain. It wasn’t a sign from God per se, more like the doll confirmed what he was already thinking.

Much of what we call signs from God are actually just positive affirmations of what we already know to be true.

Also, what we deem to be signs from God are often just wishful thinking. Take numbers as an example. I was born on January 28th, and thus, I got it in my head that 28 was a special number for me. That when it appeared it meant something, like I was going to be lucky or something good was going to happen. I started looking for the #28 wherever I went. My attachment to the #28 became so great that I started to believe I had a special connection to others born on the 28th day of the month. That is until I met Tom. Tom was handsome, funny and an all around good guy, and when I found out Tom was born on September 28th, I practically fell in love with him. This must be a sign, I thought. Born on the 28th! But alas, after I was deeply hurt by Tom, I realized the #28 didn’t mean we had a special connection or that it was a sign from God that somehow Tom was going to be someone important in my life. I had just wanted it to mean those things. It was wishful thinking.

The problem with signs is: if it had turned out that Tom and I had a special connection, it would have reinforced my magical thinking that the #28 really meant something for me. You’ve known people who are hooked to a lucky number; it’s the same sort of idea. Perhaps you have a number, color, song, animal, that when you hear it or see it, you think it means something, that it’s a sign, like God is giving it to you as a hint, but more often than not, it is you yourself who has given that thing meaning, not God. For some of you, this might be depressing news, while for others of you this might just affirm what you already knew.

Many of us want that assurance that comes from seeing signs, and we want to forecast into the future using signs, but it is the nature of God that much of our life is a mystery- how things happen, why things happen, what will happen - we cannot know. What we do know however is that God is at work in the mystery, the unfolding of our lives, and that is exciting.

Right now, this very second, your life is both unfolding and being created. It’s being created in what you choose to think, say and do. It’s unfolding based on what plans God has for you. And while we all have some control over our lives, the truth is, none of us has absolute control. Who you will meet, what will happen, what you will be called to do, it’s all a mystery. Proverbs says that in the midst of this mystery, we should trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding. We can’t figure our lives out like we can a sodoku puzzle. We have to trust in God, acknowledge God in all our ways and God will make for us straight paths to walk down (Proverbs 3:5-6).

While its sort of scary to acknowledge the great mystery of life, it’s also comforting, exciting, and takes some of the pressure off of ourselves. Life is not totally up to us because God is the one ultimately in charge.

Mark 4 says, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain” (Mark 4: 26-28). What this says to me is that life is certified organic. It unfolds naturally, all by itself, just like the seed grows all by itself. We know not how life unfolds, but surely as the grain grows, so too do our lives

When we resist life’s natural growth, that’s when we are miserable. When we fight to change the plan God has orchestrated, that’s when we drive ourselves insane. The more we try to altar the organic nature of things by adding hormones or antibiotics, the more chance we have of poisoning or corrupting life.

Let’s take a moment and think of ourselves as trees, one of nature’s most symbolic creations of the human life:

You are a tree
God is the wind.
And like a tree who allows the wind to move through her branches
We must allow God, who is the force of life, to move through us.
We cannot be so fixed, so rigid
As not to bend and sway
Or else we will break.
We cannot be so full of ourselves and what we want
As not to be filled with the Spirit who moves.

Day and night, we grow
We sway
We move.
There’s nothing we have to do to make this happen
It happens all by itself.
This is life—that it grows organically all by itself

Life is more pleasant for us when we yield.
When we allow the wind to pass through us.
It’s like a summer breeze on a hot day
Blowing through you
Cooling you off.
Let the wind blow through you
Let your feelings come and go
Let your thoughts come and go
Let people and circumstances come and go.
When you do, your inner world begins to flow.
No longer stuck
You become more than the tree
You are also the wind.

In this way, we become one with the powerful force that is God, and we relax into the mystery of how God works and what God is doing.

What we often call signs are usually either affirmations of what we already know to be true or want to be true or they are wishful, magical thinking. Instead of looking for signs in life, concentrate on growing naturally. Concentrate on absorbing the sun and the water, of sitting in the soil, of letting the wind blow through you. Day and night, you will grow though you do not know how. But trust in the Lord because God is building your life just as it needs to be built. It’s okay not to know the future. Simply relax into the mystery.

Following Jesus Means Leaving Your Comfort Zone

2010-06-27T12:23:00.000-04:00

(Read Luke 9:51-62 and Isaiah 43: 1-3a, 18-19)

Some people don’t have what it takes to follow Jesus. It’s too scary; it requires too much courage and an utter confidence in God to provide fully for your life.

Our Gospel passage from today talks about such people, the would-be followers of Jesus. They don’t have what it takes. First, we hear about the Samaritans. Jesus sent his disciples ahead of him to proclaim to them the Good News, but the Samaritans were afraid. The Scripture says that “they did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem” (Luke 9: 53) which to me says they heard the prediction about Jesus future in Jerusalem, that the “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected but the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Luke 9: 22). For those that didn’t know of Jesus well, this must have sounded like the wrong group to get involved with. After all, the one they would be following was going to get killed!

So the disciples said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9: 54). This wasn’t a fire to kill them because they were non-believers; it was more like a sign, a miracle to show the Samaritans the power that Jesus and the disciples had from God. This way, the Samaritans would be assured that these men were of God, and then their hearts would be consumed with belief to follow Jesus.

But Jesus essentially said, “Don’t do that. If they aren’t ready to follow me, they aren’t ready. We won’t send them signs and wonders.” It reminds me of the Scripture, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet still believe.”

Next, as they were going along the road, Jesus said, “Follow me” to a man who replied, “Lord, first let me go bury my father” (Luke 9: 59). The Samaritans didn’t believe, and while this man believed, he was too attached to what he had going on in his life to leave everything behind and become a follower. Isn’t attachment a trap we can all relate to?

Jesus reply, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but you are alive, and so go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” But the man couldn’t do it. He felt too much responsibility to his family.

Along the same lines, another man said to Jesus, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” This man too was unwilling to leave his attachments behind him. He clung to his past so as not to create a new future.

Jesus reply, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9: 62). This is a very powerful message from Jesus. Imagine yourself plowing a field, but you have to keep looking behind you to see what’s going on back there. You can’t very well plow a field turned around. Many people get stuck in the past, and then they wonder why their present life is so unsatisfying. Jesus says, “If you’re going to follow me, you have to be ready for forward motion. The past has brought you to this place, but now, it’s time to move on.” It’s time to do a new thing.

So here we have some would-be followers of Jesus. The ones who don’t believe and so do not follow, the man overly attached to his present life circumstance and responsibilities that he won’t leave, and the man afraid to leave the past behind and move into an unknown future.

In some way, we share in these same excuses for not following Jesus. Who here at times doubts Christ and God, and thus puts your energies into worldly affairs? Who here is so consumed in your present life circumstance that you ignore or don’t even hear Christ calling you to new heights, new dimensions in life? And who here is too afraid or too unconfident to move forward because of the uncertainty it will bring into your life?

I know I have suffered from all three at various times. I believe God is calling me to write more and try to publish for the sake of expanding his message in this world, but I have all kinds of excuses to rationalize why I haven’t done more yet. They all boil down to fear and lack of confidence in myself, which is to say, lack of confidence in God.

Let’s talk about what it means to follow Christ for a moment. In the simplest sense, to follow Jesus is to live by his teachings, to do what we are taught in the Bible. Sin stops us from that. So does laziness and selfishness. At other times, the teachings are just too hard. A few verses earlier at the beginning of Luke 9, Jesus says, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money-not even an extra tunic” (Luke 9:3). Just live off whatever people give you. Who here is willing to give away everything you have worked so hard to acquire and that makes you feel safe, and go wonder around preaching Christ crucified?

There are easier teachings, like the command to love one another and pray for our enemies, so we can follow Jesus by doing those things. You might even have a favorite teaching of Jesus that you adhere to and in doing so create your own unique way of being faithful.

A more complex understanding of what it means to follow Jesus is living your life in such a way that you take action based on the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit inspires you to move to a new land, would you go? That would be following Jesus. If the Holy Spirit inspires you to move into a new line of service or work, would you leave behind what you are already doing, as scary as that may be, and start in a new field? To follow Jesus means to follow the Living God wherever God is leading you.

That takes courage and trust because it’s scary and unsettling to move into unfamiliar territory. But following Jesus often means heading into unchartered waters or going deeper into the waters you are in. Either way, following Jesus means going outside of your comfort zone.

Let’s talk about comfort zones for a moment. For many people, a cup of coffee in the morning is a source of comfort. And people are very particular about how they take their coffee because it’s only comforting when it’s the kind of coffee you want and are used to. Starbucks has made a billion dollar industry out of giving people their coffee just how they want it. Americana. Latte. Frappuccino. Skinny. Soy. Sugar-free. You name it, you can have it. And the coffee always tastes the same at every Starbucks. Heck, even the stores look the same.

People like their lives like they like their coffee -- consistent!

I know a man named Tim, and he liked to call the shots in life. He was a leader, knowing what he wanted, in charge and good at making decisions. Tim’s company hired another associate, Mark, that was very similar to Tim in the way he thought and acted. Although, of course, to Tim, Mark was overly aggressive and too confrontational. They began working closely together. At first, Tim was very frustrated by Mark. Their ideas clashed and so did their personalities. The office became an unpleasant place, filled with tensions between the two.

But Tim is a follower of Christ, and so while praying one night, he realized what he had to do. Tim decided to yield to Mark, at least for awhile as an experiment to see if it made things better. When Mark would make a declaration, Tim would simply listen instead of arguing the point. It felt foreign to Tim to take this “back seat” approach, and it made him uncomfortable, but he remained committed to acting differently around Mark in the hopes that the dynamic between them would change.

Tim wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing or not because he felt so strange not leading his group at work like he always had. It took time, but one day Tim realized that Mark actually had innovative ideas and effective leadership. Tim became more able to relax and appreciate his work in a new way. He found that he had more time to listen to his co-workers and talk to his clients. One of the things that Tim ultimately realized was that the yielding, as foreign as it felt, wasn’t bad or wrong, it was simply different for him. In fact, this out-of-his-comfort-zone yielding actually had benefits. It was like Tim went from drinking his coffee black to adding whole milk and one raw sugar. Neither way is a right or wrong way to drink coffee, they’re just different, and Tim realized that he could enjoy coffee both ways.

In the end, Tim actually liked yielding to Mark, at least on certain decisions, and the entire work relationship was transformed. Plus Tim found himself enjoying aspects of work he had never really even considered before, like the personal relations aspect. Christ provided the catalyst in Tim’s life, and a prayerful lifestyle helped to transform his inner world. It took courage and fortitude to go into the unknown, but in doing so, Tim reinvented himself. What a willingness on his part to be outside his comfort zone and actually change.

Like Tim, we all have opportunities in our lives that ask us to stretch and grow. This is one of the ways that God asks us to follow Christ. They say that variety is the spice of life, and following Christ demands that we incorporate variety into our old repertoires; it means incorporating the new into the old.

As the prophet Isaiah writes, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old, I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43: 18-19). God is doing a new thing in your life, in all our lives together.

Some people don’t have what it takes to follow Jesus. They’re too scared; don’t have the courage, not confident in God’s grace, but not us. We are the faithful, and today, something new is happening. By God’s grace and our own willingness, we get to be a part of that something new. Let yourself move into foreign territory, even if it feels weird or different. Get outside of your comfort zone. God is going to bless you by this new thing that he is doing.

Just as practice, why don’t you drink your coffee different this week- or have no coffee at all. Go chai. Drink tea. Even better, allow yourself to feel different, think different and act different this week. Because to grow in faith and to follow Jesus into ever higher heights and deeper depths, we have to leave our comfort zones.

Moving Forward in Faith

2010-06-06T12:14:00.001-04:00

(Read Genesis 12:1-9)

There is little mystery in going to the grocery store. First of all, we’ve all been there like 1,000 times. Second, most of us go with a list in mind, and third, we basically buy the same items every time anyway. The grocery store is what you might call a safe bet. Not a lot of mystery, not a lot of the unexpected.

If we work or go to school, the same is usually true of our experience there. We pretty much know what to expect. Even our weekly routine is no mystery. People are creatures of habit and we like the certainty of knowing what’s going to happen.

One thing that is a mystery in our lives is the call we receive from God. We never quite know what God will want from us. It can be a bit unsettling, and yet, it can also be very exciting. Who knows what great plans God has for us?

We are in the midst of a calling from God. We are smack in the middle of an unfolding mystery. What will Miracle Sunday bring us? What exactly we will do from here is yet to be known.

The one thing I do know is that we have already triumphed; we have already succeeded because God called and we answered that call. No matter what today’s total is, we have already succeeded because we have acted in faith.

Abram’s life was pretty comfy and cozy until God called him one day. And then, boy, did he walk into a mystery. Abram was sitting safe and sound in his father’s house when God said, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.”

Now that is an intimidating calling. To leave everything. But Abram responded with great faith, that is why he is so revered in our Judeo-Christian tradition. He packed his things, took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot and moved ahead into the unknown. He moved forward in faith, which is exactly what we are doing today!

Abram left Haran and went by way of the river to Schechem. There he built an altar to the Lord. These altars were points of meeting for God and Abram. When Abram built them, he felt the presence of God and communed with God. Next, Abram walked faithfully forward to Bethel, where he again built an altar to commune with God.

We can all gain confidence from Abram’s faith. Abram left security, trusting in a better future which God promised if only he followed the path laid out for him. The unknown might be scary to us, but when God is the one we are walking towards, like Abram we know God will meet us more than halfway.

We are on a path that God has laid out for us. We don’t know everything that will happen, but we have the assurance that God is walking with us, encouraging us, providing for us, and meeting us along the road.

With all the certainly in our lives, there’s something sacred and special about living in the mystery of God.

Let me provide you with an image of what I think answering the call of God is like:

At the very beginning of being called by God, it’s like walking around in the dark, you walk slowly, hesitantly with your arms out looking for walls and objects, points of reference, trying not to bump into anything, unsure of what’s going on.

But as you keep moving forward, it’s like walking at dawn. It starts out dark so we are walking slowly, tentatively, not quite knowing what to expect. But as the sun begins to rise, a soft light starts to illuminate the land. We start to see shapes and outlines of the things around us. We get a feel for where we’re going.

As the call moves from mystery to a definite plan, it’s like walking around in the light, you walk much more quickly, with confidence using your eyes to see what’s ahead of you so you can avoid any obstacles and move towards what you know is right.

Eventually, the light is bright enough that we can see clearly where we are at, what’s in front of us and where we are going. By the end of a particular faith journey, it’s quite clear where we’re headed and how we are going to get there.

We are in the dawn of our faith walk as a congregation right now. Months ago, before talk of Miracle Sunday even began, it was dark outside. We couldn’t really see where we were going, and we were walking slowly, not sure of what was ahead of us.

But then, the sun began to rise. We realized the church needed some tender loving care, and we decided to rise to the challenge and care for this special place. We committed to a method, the Miracle Sunday method, and moved ahead.

At this point, the light was just bright enough that we started seeing the shape of how things might look one day. We were in the dawn of our calling.

Today is a big day for us, the sun has risen in the sky just high enough that we can see it above the tree line. We know the day is breaking. We are walking more confidently now. We are starting to see what lies up ahead in the road. Yes, today is an exciting today - the day when the sun breaks through and becomes visible.

Up until today, it’s all been talk and planning and hard work. Today, we put our money where our mouth is. Today we are taking steps. We are moving forward in faith.

Like Abram, God has called us and told us its time to move. And like Abram, we are faithful people willing to respond to God’s call, confident that God will meet us on the road as we move ahead.

After today, our future calling remains a bit of a mystery. The next steps involve the actual renovations, and we have an exciting plan but no one can know exactly what God will do with us. We’re doing today will affect what happens 10 years down the line, 50 years down the line, 100 years down the line. That’s part of God’s bigger plan that we don’t ever quite get access to until it finally happens.

My friends, as God’s messenger, I want to thank you all for moving forward in faith these past months and especially today.

And on a personal note, think about your lives and what God is calling you to do now. Are you moving forward in faith? Are you taking chances or playing it safe because God’s blessings are often found when we take that chance and go forward, blind or not, in faith.

Live in the mystery! Enjoy the mystery! And thanks be to god who calls us forward
into new and abundant life.

More than Lemonade

2010-06-01T18:53:00.003-04:00

(Read Genesis 3:1-7 and Romans 5:1-5)

The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is the Judeo-Christian attempt to explain that from very early on, humanity strayed from God. I don’t read this account literally, but as a story that tries to explain the historic relationship between God and people. As far as humans go, I would speculate that our first breath was pure, and our second was tempted.

In an outpouring of love, God created the universe and all things living, and called them good and blessed them. Man and woman God took special care in creating, forming us in God’s image, putting God’s breath in us as our life force and essentially making us a little less than gods ourselves.

At first, God and people were in perfect harmony, but very quickly, evil, temptation, human free-will and sin entered into the picture. God had given Adam and Eve a command, saying they could eat fruit from every tree in the garden of “delight,” except for two. They couldn’t eat from the tree of life or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In affirmation of their purity of heart and free will, Adam and Eve chose not to eat the fruit of these trees. That is until the serpent, who is the personification of the force of evil in this story, tells Eve that God lied to her and that she could eat from the tree of knowledge without dying.

Evil made Eve doubt God, that’s what evil does, and in doubting God, Eve became confused.

The serpent told Eve that she would become like God if she ate the fruit of knowledge from the tree, and in her confusion, this sounded like a good thing to Eve. She looked at the tree, and saw that it was a delight to the eyes, and that it was to be desired because it could make one wise, so she ate from it. Adam also desired the fruit, and so without thinking about the consequence of his choice, he too ate of the tree of knowledge.

This one act of disobedience, known as “The Fall,” lead to a rupture between God and humanity, a violation of trust, a broken relationship. But when I really think about this story, I don’t see Eve or Adam being malicious or greedy, actively rejecting God. What I hear in this story is that our separation from God came through foolishness, being naïve, being confused and unaware of the consequences of one’s actions. Without her guard up, Eve simply believed the serpent, and with innocent eyes, she chose fruit that at first appearance seemed delightful and good.

At the end of the day, what I gain from this portion of the Eden account is that, although God created us good and hoped we would stay obedient to whatever God said, almost immediately after our first breath, this was not the case. The serpent, that is to say evil, and human free-will co-existed with God almost as soon as creation began.

The result of “The Fall” demonstrates the powerful law of cause and effect, and human beings are subject to this law. God put us out of the garden to live our lives freely, and that means that choice is ours, and it means that the consequences of choice are ours as well.

We might ask ourselves, how much of our sin, of our straying from God and God’s ways is wrought by a similar type of foolishness, naiveté, confusion or just not fully considering the consequences, like Adam and Eve? And since choice, the law of cause and effect, and the consequences of choice determine the future of our lives, I think we should pray to God to help us make better choices. Without stealing fruit off of any of God’s trees, we can still pray for God to give us greater wisdom and insight. We might pray that the scales would fall from our eyes so we can see clearly how our choices will impact our lives and the lives of those around us.

Sherry had been a foster child, moved from one home to the next. She developed a drug problem in her teens. By the time she was 16, all she wanted was to settle down with her boyfriend, who also had a drug problem, have a baby and start a family of her own. She just wanted some people in her life that would stay with her and that she could love forever.

One night when Sherry was six months pregnant, her boyfriend hit a row of parked cars while driving them home. The doctors at the hospital said that Sherry and the baby were fine, but two months later, when the baby came a month early, worries surfaced. “At first the doctors just thought my daughter was slow. And had seizures,” Sherry said. But at five years old, her daughter couldn’t feed herself, crawl, sit up or say mama. All she could do was hold her head up.

The accident had separated the placenta, causing seizures and retardation. Sherry wasn’t aware of it that night, but her boyfriend had been on drugs while driving. And though Sherry made all those choices when she was naïve and foolish, she now takes responsibility for what she did. Sherry said, “Getting into that car-and what that did to my daughter and me-is something I’ve had to live with every day of my life.” (Beattie, Melody. Choices. San Francisco: Harpers Collins, 2002. Pg. 9-10).

I think many people blame God for the suffering in their lives. I know I do. When you suffer, don’t you say: God, how could you let this happen to me? God, why did you do this? God, you must not love me… But I think blaming God is really just a way to avoid taking responsibility for our lives.

The story of “The Fall” and the law of cause and effect state that it’s not God’s fault we suffer, it’s evil’s fault and it’s our fault. The serpent was given the choice to stray from God, so was Adam, so was Eve, so are we. That’s the choice we made and that’s the choice we live with.

God doesn’t want us to suffer, but at the same time, God doesn’t stop the things that cause us pain. We wanted independence, free-will, choice, and we have it. But often we get angry at God when really we should be angry at ourselves because we don’t know how to use our free will.

This is why making good choices is so important. Bad choices lead to negative consequences. Good choices lead to positive consequences.

Spiritual maturity means that we do get wiser in our decision making. It means that our hearts are getting purer, so that we are choosing holy and wholesome things more naturally now than before. This is all good news because we are all maturing spiritually. At the same time, I just really want to encourage everyone here to take responsibility for your life and the choices you make. They matter. They affect your lives and other people’s lives.

While God doesn’t stop the law of cause and effect, what God does though, is God comes into situations of brokenness, and out of pure love, works to heal the situation. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, and therefore all of us were expelled, but look at the land of beauty and adventure we were put in to live our lives and work out our destinies. Adam and Eve damaged their relationship with God by being disobedient, but God healed and reconciled that relationship with them and us by sending us Jesus Christ. A little boy failed the fifth grade, but because he did, he met his best friend in class that next year, a best friend he would have for the next 70 years. A woman was left at the altar by her fiancé, but 10 years later that same woman was happier and more fulfilled than if she had said, “I do.”

You might say that God takes a bad situation and makes something good come from it. You might say that God turns lemons into lemonade. I like to say, God doesn’t cause suffering, but once suffering happens, God knows how to use it.

In the book, The Shack, God says this about the issue of suffering:

“Just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn’t mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don’t ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes. That will only lead you to false notions about me. Grace doesn’t depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors” (Young, William Paul. The Shack. Newbury Park, CA: Windblown Media, 2007. pg. 188).

Where we make unwise choices that lead to negative consequences, we will find God working to bring about good. God does more than make lemons into lemonade. God saves us when we find ourselves in trouble. God heals us when we find ourselves sick. God redeems us when we have hit rock bottom.

There’s that saying that when one door closes another door opens. We have to take responsibility for the doors that close in life. Not everything is our fault, but we can’t just blame it on God either. What we can do is see that the doors that are opening are from God. The nature of God is to provide door after door after door. As many as we need.

This is why I love this verse from Romans: “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.” Because no matter what we suffer, God is using it for our good, to save, to heal, to redeem, to provide new opportunity. There is always hope, even in suffering, especially in suffering.

God does more than make lemonade with our lives. God turns pain into joy, brokenness into relationship, suffering into opportunity, so wherever there is pain, brokenness, suffering, there is hope because wherever those things are, God is there.

Love Never Ends

2010-05-09T11:52:00.000-04:00

(Read 1 Corinthians 13:1-8a, 13)

Melody was a mother of two until one day, her 10-year-old was killed in a tragic skiing accident. As you might understand, this is the worst event that has ever happened in Melody’s life. Not that her life had been easy up to that point. To give you a brief summary- Melody had a difficult childhood, married young, had two children, when they were still quite young she divorced her husband because neither of them were happy. She had no money trying to raise the kids and make it as a writer. Then, finally, success! Her book, Codependent No More, hit the New York Times bestseller list in the early ‘90’s. She and the kids bought a nice house and lived three worry-free, happy years together. And then it happened. One cold day in February, while skiing at the local resort, young Shane was knocked down twice by passing skiers, and somehow, the blows to his body were enough to kill him.

Melody plunged into numbness and then despair. For two years, she could barely go on living herself. She believed in God, but that almost made her feel worse because as C.S. Lewis once wrote, “The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like.’” Melody felt very angry with God. Why would God let this happen? Why would God take one of the two people she loved most in the whole world?

No parent wants to see their child suffer, let alone lose their life, and yet, the painful reality for both parties is that parents cannot stop their children from suffering or from death. In terms of suffering, from beginning to end, it’s a part of all our lives that we must accept. Children get teased, and their feelings get hurt. They get lost in malls and cry in fear of not being found. They lay awake in the night terrified of the dark and scary dreams.

As children get older, their suffering tends to grow. Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems. As children they may have been teased by their classmates, but as teenagers, they are teased and put down by those who call themselves their friends. That’s worse. As children they may have gotten lost in the mall, but as teenagers, they are lost period. Not knowing who they are, what they believe, how to act. As children they lie awake in the night afraid of the dark, but as teenagers, they lie awake in the night sobbing over unrequited or lost love. As we grow, so does our pain

By the time children reach adulthood, their problems often surpass their parent’s problems. Financial. Legal. Social. Relational. Career. You name it. No one is immune to the struggles of this life. Not newborn babies, and not your baby who might be in his or her 50’s by now. While you want to protect your children, you cannot prevent them from getting hurt or making mistakes. You cannot do for them what they cannot do for themselves. Even though you want to, you can’t fix it and make it all better.

And that’s ok.

I was reading The Shack for our book study the other day, and I came across a meaningful quote to this effect. In the story, Mack is heart-broken because his daughter was abducted and murdered when the family was on a camping trip. Mack goes into a great sadness, and it happens that one day he comes face to face with God, who is manifest (at least in The Shack) as an African American woman. A rift has developed in Mack and God’s relationship since his daughter’s death, and God says to Mack, “Honey, there’s no easy answer that will take your pain away. Believe me, if I had one, I’d use it now. I have no magic wand to wave over you and make it all better. Life takes a bit of time and a lot of relationship” (Young, William. The Shack. Pg. 91).

There’s no magic wand that God can wave over our lives so that we may escape suffering. There’s no magic wand that any parent can wave to take their child’s pain away. It’s wishful thinking to believe otherwise. But the one thing parents can always do is continue to love their children no matter what. Like God continues to love us and be with us no matter what.

Love is different than fixing. Love is staying with and for someone through it all. We might not be able to make each other’s pain go away, but we can support, encourage, be kind to, listen to those we love when they are struggling.

As 1 Corinthians says, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” It never stops.

About two years after the death of Shane, Melody came to understand what it means to love in a new and profound way.

She writes:

The answer came gently, softly, and as certain as the morning sun, filling me with light. Every experience I have had in my life has been about the same thing. Love. [Think about that a second. Every experience you have had in your life was to teach you about love. Just that thought right there makes me see my past and my present differently.] The struggles to learn I had a soul. The struggles to learn about my strengths. Even my grief. I had been talking to a woman seated near me at dinner one night, wailing about my pain, my anguish over losing my son, about how close the three of us had been, about the hole in my heart. The woman had turned to her husband. Have you ever loved that deeply? She had asked. I don’t think so, he had said. Even these, my blackest and darkest moments, had been a form of love, one of its lessons.

What did I think love would look like? Feel like? Be? A romantic vision of being carried off to Camelot? And then what?
Forgiveness. Compassion. Service. Self-love. Loving myself when I was certain nobody else loved me or ever would. Then opening up, learning to let others in.
Faith.
Acceptance Acceptance of myself, my life, others, their lives.
Friendship. Courage. Perserverance.
Hope.
Joy. Learning to delibertately choose joy. The simple sweet process of learning to be present each moment and find and choose joy, a joy not dependent on outer circumstances, but one that comes from the heart.
How did I think I would learn all these lessons, all these subcategories of love?
Trust. Trusting myself. Learning to trust others, life, God.
Learning to play and laugh. Learning to walk away, sometimes learning to stay put. Honoring my own needs, even when they differed from what others thought my needs should be. Honoring me, even when I was different from what others thought I should be. Trusting my vision for my life, creating another one if that one didn’t work. Chasing my dreams, catching them, then finding more. Learning about this connection , this absolute and divine connection to all that is, and maybe ever way, in the universe.
And finally, facing and accepting death.
Had I though all those lessons would be learned easily?

(Beattie, Melody. The Lessons of Love. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994. Pg. 211-213).

The truth is, our joy as well as our pain, our fulfilled dreams as well as our great disappointments, those we adore as well as those we loathe, everything has the potential to help us love, to grow in love and all of love’s subcategories. Love can feel wonderful, but often, it doesn’t feel good. Not in this life. We want it to, but love is much richer than creating a pleasant emotion.

To love someone so deeply, like a mother or father loves their child, is to put yourself out there to experience everything that life has to offer. So if you truly believe that love is the greatest thing like Paul says, “And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” If you believe that and you want love in your life, then you should consciously understand that to love is to open yourself, to become vulnerable to every sort of experience under the sun.

Look at the struggles you’re facing, and instead of seeing them as wretched curses or despairing about life, realize that you are learning to love deeply and passionately. At the beginning of this sermon I said, “As we grow, so does our pain.” But its more accurate to say, as we grow, so does our love, and our ability to love.

The one who knows love so completely (other than our mothers) is God for God is love.
And God has been there for each of us throughout our lives, through the good and the bad. This is the promise God has made to us. “My precious, precious child, I love you and I will never leave you.” Love never ends.

So on this day, let us celebrate love for what it truly is, and let us rejoice for we are all learning the lessons of love.

A Time is Coming When All Shall Be Well

2010-04-28T17:32:00.001-04:00

(Read Revelation 9:36-43 and Psalm 23)

This week I spent some time with Frank Evert, Doug and Audrey’s son, who runs the non-profit Water Without Borders. Water Without Borders was created from the understanding that lack of safe drinking water is the leading cause of disease, civil strife, hunger and birth defects in the world. WWB is committed to providing safe drinking water to the world’s citizens wherever they may be. They have worked with the Dakota tribe in South Dakota and with an orphanage in Africa. Most recently, Doug went to Haiti to see what they might be able to do down there to help.

Doug said that the need in Haiti is greater than we can imagine. The hungry and thirsty are everywhere. He visited the town of Jacmel, which was devastated in the recent earthquake. Jacmel had drinkable city water before the earthquake, but the system of pipes and filtration was destroyed. Doug doubts if city water will be restored in Jacmel within 10 years. When Doug arrived, the Haitians took him to see the current source of water for the city. It was a water hole of sorts, and not only were there people drinking out of, there was a pig laying in it and some men washing in it. He said it was horrible even to witness, let alone drink from.

Doug also visited a community of Haitians who lived up in the mountains. These people had not been affected by the earthquake, but because they lived up high, where it was difficult to transport resources, they too struggled to get clean drinking water. They too were thirsty and hungry. In order to get water, these people had to walk two hours to the nearest water sources; one was downhill, the other uphill. The problem is, even this water that they retrieve is contaminated. The best solution for the mountain people is to have small filtration systems in their homes so that they can clean the water themselves after they fetch it.

Witnessing such great poverty was very upsetting, but Doug said the most disturbing thing he saw was a baby girl dying of malnutrition. Doug went to a Bible study one morning, and the baby was lying in a woman’s lap. Doug said she didn’t look much bigger than a doll; she was incredibly skinny, her eyes weren’t open, and she wasn’t moving or crying or laughing, but just lying there. The woman explained that they had just rescued the girl the day before, that she was starving and that she was five months old.

Many, many people in Haiti hunger and thirst.

But we know the problem is bigger than Haiti. Many, many people in Ethiopia hunger and thirst. (65 percent of the world's hungry live in only seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia. (Source: The State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2008)

Even in the United States, there are many, many people who hunger and thirst. (The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that in 2008:Of the 49.1 million people living in food insecure households (up from 36.2 million in 2007), 32.4 million are adults (14.4 percent of all adults) and 16.7 million are children (22.5 percent of all children).

To hunger and to thirst is part of the human condition, and it is both a physical and a spiritual matter.

There is a great spiritual hunger in the world right now as well. People are hungry for love and family and community. People are hungry for a sense of wellbeing. With how busy everyone is these days, and all the demands we face each day, just to feel relaxed and not rushed is a luxury. Perhaps the reason we are seeing so many people on anti-depressants is because the current pace of societal life is just too fast and overwhelming to the senses.

Oftentimes those with a spiritual hunger try to fill their voids through physical consumption. We long for peace, but we don’t know how to get it, so we take drugs and drink alcohol. We long for love, but we don’t feel it from anyone around us, so we eat macaroni and cheese and ice cream and potato chips, and let them comfort us—temporarily, of course.

The Christian hope is that a time will come when all this suffering will end. A time when we will hunger no more, thirst no more, cry no more. A time when all will be well.

In Revelation: 7, we are given a prophecy that describes the final consummation of all things. Now there is lack, but then there will be nothing lacking. Now there is suffering and crying, but then there will be no more suffering and no more crying. Jesus’ message is called “Good News” because it offers hope to the oppressed, deprived and downtrodden.

A wise theologian wrote, “In heaven, tears have no future. They only have a past.” He means that in eternity, we will remember the former things, including the pain, the sorrow, the loneliness that we went through. We will remember our trials and tribulations, but that’s all they will be-memories. We will never have to live through them again. “In heaven, tears have no future. They only have a past.”

Revelation says that a great multitude has gathered together at the throne of God and before the Lamb, and they are crying out in loud voices, “Salvation belongs to our God” (Rev 7:10). And they are worshipping God, singing praises, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen” (Rev 7:12). The multitude, which includes people of every nation and tribe and language, is incredibly grateful. They are ecstatic! That is because God has just rescued them from a great ordeal.

I don’t speculate to know exactly what this great ordeal that they have come out of looks like, but I’m sure it was a scary time, filled with great hardship and suffering. And I do believe that it is God who rescues them and brings them safely to a new place. “A place where “they will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat…[the shepherd] will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 7:16-17).

As we go through our own great ordeals in life, as we hunger and thirst in this world, as we cry from lack and want, it will help us not to be short-sighted, but to step out of our present moment suffering for a moment to remember there is a bigger picture. The kind of reality that humanity must endure now will not go on forever. It will come to an end. Some of the healing will come in this life. ALL OF THE HEALING will come in the next.

I finally understand what Paul is saying when he writes, “I understand that the hardships of this present reality are nothing compared to the glory about to be revealed to us.”

What is to come is glorious and safe and loving for all people, and so we can make it through the difficult times, we can endure because we know something better is coming.

The time is coming when all shall be well. The words “All shall be well” should remind you of the saint Julian of Norwich. She was a mystical young woman that I think we all can relate to. She went through rough periods in life when she suffered greatly and doubted the presence of God’s existence and help. Then, she would go through peaceful, and even joyful, periods in life when she was happy and felt God’s love. One might say she went through periods of desolation and consolation. She prayed to God about this, and one day, the Lord answered her in her understanding: “And so our good Lord answered to all the questions and doubts which I could raise, saying most comfortingly in this fashion: I will make all things well, I shall make all things well, I may make all things well and I can make all things well; and you will see that yourself, that all things will be well” (Norwich, Julian. Classics of Western Spirituality. pg. 151).

The vision Julian had was so powerful that it was able to sustain her with some hope and comfort even during periods of desolation. That’s what this vision in Revelation can do for us. It can sustain us more completely during the bad times because we know that the day will come when the tragedies of time will be replaced by the endless joys of eternity.

The Haitians will no longer hunger or thirst.

The Ethiopians will no longer hunger or thirst.

The Americans will no longer hunger or thirst.

Not in a physical sense and not in a spiritual sense either.

Evidence of God’s saving power is already around us. Remember that little 5 month old baby that looked as though she was going to die of hunger? The Haitian woman who rescued her began feeding her this peanut butter mix that contains all the nutrients necessary to sustain life (it’s one of the great developments we’ve had to fight against malnutrition), and within five days the baby was already gaining weight. Frank Evert said that when he saw her again, her eyes were open, her cheeks were getting chubby and she was cooing.

Life is amazing! Life is resilient!

Those people who live in the mountains in Haiti, WWB’s figures that for $100, they could have home water filtration systems, which would save 100s, 1,000s of lives. Life is resilient because it keeps coming back. It keeps finding ways. Even in the devastated town of Jacmel, clean water is available to the people for as little as $175 a week. It is possible that they will not hunger or thirst much longer.

And what about us here? How resilient you are to come back time and again from your struggles, your pain. We see signs of the eternal promise around us, and we can feel the eternal promise within us whenever our hope returns and our hearts open back up.

Now is just a hint of the glory to come. One day we will truly know what it means to say, “The Lord is my shepherd. I do not want. I do not lack. I lie in green pastures. God is leading me beside still waters. My soul is restored. I am walking the right path now. There is no more stumbling. There is no more dark valley. No more evil. No more enemies. There is no more thirst. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life, and I am dwelling in the house of the Lord now and forevermore.

Life Will Surprise You

2010-04-28T17:22:00.000-04:00

(Read John 19:19-31 and Acts 5:27-32)

We’ve come to expect that certain things go certain ways.

When someone spine is e damaged, doctors pronounce that they will never walk again.

When a woman has several miscarriages and the doctors run tests, she is told she will never be able to have a baby.

When kids are labeled as slow or disturbed, their parents are told they will be lucky if their kids ever finish high school, draining parents’ hopes and dreams for their child’s future.

When a prisoner is released, their parole officer expects to hear of another conviction.

And yet, it happens that people with spinal injuries do learn to walk again.

And yet, it happens that woman who are pronounced infertile do conceive and bear a healthy child.

The kids who no one thinks will succeed do. They surpass the expectations of those who doubted them.

And the incarcerated can be set free and contribute as decent members of society.

A long time ago, all that was expected of women was that they bear and raise children and keep house. Then, society (at least some of them) granted that they could be secretaries, nurses and teachers. Now women can do whatever they choose. They have surpassed the limits once placed on them. Woman can now choose between being a nurse or a doctor. Between being a secretary or the CEO. Between being the teacher or the principal.

At one time, the only thing we knew to do with the mentally handicapped or disabled was to put them in institutions. Now many flourish in independent living situations.

Lorina is a woman in her 50’s that I met in church who is emotionally and mentally disabled. She’s funny and sweet. At Bible study, she said, “When I was just a little girl, people told my mom to lock me up and throw away the key, but my mom said, ‘No way am I doing that to my daughter.’ And look what a great life I’ve had because she kept me. I have my own apartment. I have a job. I have a boyfriend. And I have all of you.” Lorina doesn’t speak up often in Bible study, but when she does, she always touched our hearts and spoke words of wisdom.

What we once considered the norm is not the norm at all anymore. Limits have been broken. Expectations surpassed. What we once doubted possible has proven itself to be possible.

It’s natural to doubt that which we rarely or never see happen. Yet, doubt is a spiritual sickness that the Holy Spirit is continually trying to heal in all of us.

No one can blame Thomas for doubting that Jesus had risen from the dead. I’m sure some of you here doubt it as well. That isn’t something people expect to happen. Just like no one would blame a doctor for saying a patient with stage four lymphoma cancer will not live, because usually they don’t, no one blames Thomas for being skeptical of the resurrection. In fact, many of us can relate to his doubt.

Thomas thought, I’m not going to believe it until I see it. Thomas said, “Until I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe” (John 20: 25). He wanted proof!

And what happened?

The Risen Christ, the Living Lord came and showed him what he needed to see in order to believe. Jesus said, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe” (John 20” 27).

And that is what Thomas did. He touched Jesus. He touched his scars so that he was sure it was Jesus Christ raised from the dead. And he believed!

…Do not doubt but believe...

You have heard of the term “doubting Thomas,” someone who doubts until they have proof, and maybe even still remain skeptical with proof.

The Risen Christ has come, is here and will continue to come to heal our doubt of the resurrection and our doubt that life is a blessing and a gift.

Those who doubt see the world differently than those who believe.

Through the eyes of doubt it’s harder to get up in the morning and you have less enthusiasm for the day ahead. You aren’t as curious or friendly or engaged. Blessings are poured upon you and you hardly notice. Miracles happen around you and you take them for granted.

Though the eyes of faith, each new day comes as an opportunity. You get out of bed with hope and optimism, knowing that you will see the Lord among the living in a variety of forms and people, feelings and situations. Through the eyes of faith, you notice the sun and sky, and the sun is brighter, and the sky is bluer. Your heart loves and your spirit laughs.

Our experience of reality comes down to the way we view and interpret situations and people.

What about you? How has doubt obstructed your vision? Has it made you weary that you will never feel better or that you will never find what you are looking for? Has it made you bitter towards your spouse or children or parents? Has it made you angry at God?

When we have never witnessed the unexpected, when we have not seen the outcome we hope for, when it has been a long time since we’ve been surprised in a good way, it becomes easy to doubt.

The resurrection message is for all who have ever doubted. If God raised Jesus from the dead, and he did, then anything is possible. The Book of Acts records the witness of the disciples saying, but Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him” (Acts 5:29-32).

“We are witnesses!” If you have seen the Living God, witness to that because someone out there is doubting that life and love and peace and joy are possible.

I have seen the Living God, more than once actually, many times. But the most indelible on my memory is when Jesus came to me as a ray of light one morning when my faith was hanging in the balance. It was as if he walked right out of the sky and through my window. And he said to me, “I am the way for you. Follow me.”

I have also seen and experienced the Risen God through the eyes of faith in other ways….

I have felt God’s presence in your presence and in the presence of many people, family and strangers alike.
I have seen God because I have seen the lame walk, the broken healed, the addict set free.
I’ve sent the weather person predict snow and instead it was a beautiful day, sunny, blue skies, 65 degrees.
I’ve seen an angry selfish father change and become loving and giving to his family.
I’ve seen a broken, abusive relationship transform into one of mutual love and respect.
I’ve seen anger turn to apology. Loneliness turn to love. Death turn to life.

Yes, in those ways I know that I have seen the risen Lord.

Have you?

My friends, do not doubt but believe. Life can, no, life will surprise you. The unexpected will happen. The Living God will reveal himself.

Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. I prefer the latter.” There are two ways to look at the world. One is through the eyes of doubt. The other is through the eyes of faith. I prefer the latter. How about you?

Anything and Everything. Today and Tomorrow. Oh, The Possibilities!

2010-04-19T11:07:00.003-04:00

We all know what it feels like to be deeply disappointed:

My friend Staci graduated from NYU, and her boyfriend of two years didn't show up for the ceremony or the celebratory dinner afterwards.

As a five year old, my friend Kristen would wait on the steps for her dad (parents were divorced) to pick her up on Friday evenings while her mom was already at work. He often didn't show.

People break our hearts all the time, not intentially even, but because they themselves are broken. Quarrels. Break-ups. Lonliness even in another’s presence. Abandonment.

There are other kinds of disappointments as well:

Not getting accepted into a certain school or program
Not being hired for a certain job or getting the promotion
The house deal falling through
The bills continually mounting too high
Eating right and exercising faithfully but still not reaching your optimal weight or
Lowering your cholesterol

Disappointment leads to disillusionment, which leads to doubt.

First, You didn’t get the one job you really wanted. Then you start thinking, You probably won’t get any of the other jobs you applied for either. Until you finally reach the point where you wonder if you’ll ever find a job that you are qualified for and is meaningful and you enjoy doing/like.

Kristen, the girl who lived across the street when I was a kid. The first couple times her dad didn’t pick her up she was just disappointed. Then, she stopped making plans to go to his house. When he said he was coming to her college graduation, she smiled and said, “Great,” but there was a part of her who seriously doubted if he’d show up.

Disappointment also leads to sceptiscim, which leads to suspicion.

I can easily picture Mary Magdalene at Jesus tomb. Can you? It’s dark still. She’s consumed with sadness. She can’t sleep so she goes to the tomb where her Lord is laid, and when she gets there, the stone has been moved.

The mild disappointment that Mary Magdalene felt a few years back when some of the Jewish leaders rejected Jesus has escalated and grown into full blown suspicion and fear of what they’re capable of doing. She runs back to Peter and John and proclaims, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have [put] him.” Suspicious. She thinks someone stole the body.

Peter and John fear the worst as well. They run together to the tomb and find it empty as Mary said.

That moment. The moment of fear. Of seeing through weary and doubtful eyes…What does it take to restore hope? For the disciples. For you and I. For the parents in Haiti and the children in Africa. What does it take to give hope to the poor and the sick?

To restore hope people have to experience an outcome that is good for us. They have to see their needs being met and their God-given dreams coming true.

If all you’ve ever known or predominantely known is losing, then you think of yourself as a loser. That is, until you win. Then, the possibility that you’re a winner comes into your mind.

Perhaps you’ve always wanted to write or paint or sing, but the blocks have been greater than the inspirations. And then one day, beautiful work just flows out of you. And maybe its not just one day, but becomes the new you.

Or perhaps your child or grandchild has made a mess of his life up until now. But then, he acts in a new way or accomplishes something you never thought he could do. It’s then the possibility of a new future is reborn.

Yes...Hope is reborn when we start to see happening what we know is possible. Where as perfectly as you can dream it, it appears. Maybe even better.

Restoring hope is one of the prime messages of resurrection.

Jesus was murdered. We know from watching many others die that he’s gone forever. But maybe that night after the crusifiction, Mary or John or Peter laid in bed dreaming, praying, hoping, what if he comes back?! God bring him back! Didn’t he say he was going to come back?!

And then, he comes back. He’s alive! God, an amazing, loving, awesome God, has risen him from the dead!

The Gospel of John says that John and Peter believed first. They looked in the tomb and the linen wrappings that had been on Jesus were in one spot, and a different cloth which had been on Jesus’ head was in another spot. And it was rolled up carefully, like someone had done this purposefully. Thieves are hardly likely to roll up the cloths and linens. They probably would have stolen them. Between the cloths and the missing body, and even moreso, all the things that Jesus told them were going to happen, Peter and John figure it out. It’s just what they had been dreaming about, hoping for last night. Jesus is not dead and gone forever.

He is not in the tomb.
He has risen!
Hope is reborn!

Mary takes a few moments longer than they do to start believing in something so unfathomable, so monumentous that it will change the history of humanity forever (Can you imagine if there was no Christian message?)

Mary is in the garden crying. Even when she sees two angels, her disappointment, her disillusionment, her doubt blind her to the message the angels bring. She says to the angels as well, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

Doubt has the power to do that. Doubt has the power to blind you to all the good things that are going on around you. It has the power to make you blind to God’s encouragement and signs and wonders that blessings and abundance are all around you.

Mary is so dismayed she doesn’t even recognize Jesus when he’s standing there before her. This happens to us all as well. We are in that negative, doubting place and we don’t see God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit guiding us along, walking and talking to us.

When Jesus calls her by name though, then Mary finally sees. (Jesus calls all of us by name.) Her hope is reborn. In that moment, she knows in her heart that God has done something miraculous. God has defeated death. Mary thinks, Just because everyone else who has died has remained dead doesn’t mean that Jesus can’t be raised from the dead. But wait a minute, even as she’s thinking that last though, she remembers Jairus’ daughter and Lazarus who were both raised from the dead by Jesus himself. Now she’s getting excited. Now she’s starting to believe. Maybe this means other people will be raised from the dead! Maybe it means death will be no more.

Brothers and sisters, today I proclaim to you that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ there is hope for you, for me, for all of creation. Anything and everything is possible. It could happen today or tomorrow or the day after that. Just do not doubt. Believe.

The implications of resurrection affect every aspect of our life together. Anticipation and excitement replace dread. Regret gives way to peace. Cynicism vanishes before joy. Self-control conquers addiction. Purpose usurps futility. Reconciliation overtakes estrangement. Well-being calms anxiety. Creativity flows freely. Death gives way to life, darkness to light, fear to confidence, and despair to hope.

On this day, Jesus wins. God wins. Life wins. We win.

Now you know why we say, Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen,

Give It to Jesus to Take to the Grave

2010-04-03T14:32:00.001-04:00

(Written for Good Friday)

Why would one person give their life up for another? I suppose there could be many answers to that question, but think of a parent giving up his or her life for their child. The parent must love the child so much that he or she wants their child to live more than they want him or herself to live.

When Jesus willingly gives up his life for us, he is saying, “I want you to live. Your lives, all of your lives, are more important than my one life.”

Since he died that we might live, it’s part of our responsibility to make sure we live as fully as possible. But really it’s more than a responsibility; it’s a privilege; it’s the desire of my heart. I want to live because God wants me to live.

So doesn’t it make sense for us to figure out the ways that we are contributing to our own death and stop doing them? Good Friday is the perfect night to let stuff go. Pastor memories of pain and suffering. Old grievances or people you haven’t forgiven. Whatever is holding you back, weighing you down, killing you off in body or spirit. Tonight is the perfect night to let it go.

The paths we walk to death can be obvious or subtle, quick or slow. One of the greatest problems for disciples walking the spiritual walk is that we often don’t realize the ways that we are hurting ourselves, killing ourselves. And not only ourselves but others as well. Jesus died for us all so anything that I do that destroys myself or someone else is contradictory to his sacrifice.

Ask yourself, look deep inside yourself one more time, what things are you thinking, doing and saying that are killing yourself and others?

Some ways that lead to death are obvious- jumping in front of a moving vehicle, getting shot in the head, being hung on a cross.

Many paths to death were not so obvious at one point but now, because of all the talk about them, are becoming more obvious – smoking cigarettes for many years, enduring long periods of stress and fatigue, eating large quantities of trans fats. When it comes to things like this, how much is too much? I don’t know. You have to ask yourself and be honest with yourself because your body is speaking to you.

Even less obvious are attitudes, thought patterns, ways of being that kill us. Resentment. Jealousy. Worry. Doubt. Fear. Too much pressure. Too much control. Too much analyzing. Not enough laughter. Not enough love. Not enough carefree living.

Not once, not twice, but three times Jesus prayed to God that he wouldn’t have to die. The traditional record of Jesus prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want” (Mt 26: 39). The modernized Message translation says, Jesus “fell on his face, praying, ‘My Father, if there is any way, get me out of this. But please, not what I want. You, what do you want?’”

But he went through with it, he died so that we might live. Out of respect, in gratitude, let’s symbolically give Jesus all the things that we’re doing that are diminishing his sacrifice. Take a black stone or several stones, and pray into them everything you want to let go of, release, move past. Then, place them at the foot of the cross (or somewhere else that is meaningful to you).

I’m not suggesting this so you will feel guilty; I’m suggesting this so that you will be free to live. In hope, perhaps this symbolic gesture will translate into these things really leaving our lives.

Scripture says that Jesus dies for our sins, that he takes our sins and the sins of the whole world upon himself. And the way I understand it is that when he dies, our sins die with him. So at the appointed time, bring your sins, your death seeking behaviors, your life-taking attitudes to the cross.

Let them go to the grave with Jesus so that on Easter morning, the morning of new life, none of that stuff will be a part of you anymore. Death will no longer be a part of you.

Love One Another

2010-04-03T14:28:00.001-04:00

(Written for Maundy Thursday)

A few years ago, a best friend of mine named Brittany finally found a job at a university in Texas. I say finally because she had been looking for over two years. We were both sad she was moving far away, but we were very close so we promised to keep in touch with each other. Not long after she left I started going through a difficult time, so of course I called on my best friend Brittany. I wanted to see how she was doing and I also wanted to tell her what was going on with me. But Brittany didn’t call me back. I left like six messages! Eventually, I left her a nasty voicemail telling her she wasn’t being a very good friend at all. I had no idea why she wasn’t calling me back. I started to think she didn’t care about me. I wondered if I had done something wrong.

One of the hardest things about fulfilling Jesus’ command to love one another is that its difficult to love others when our feelings get hurt. When we feel like we’ve been mistreated, misunderstood, neglected, ignored, it’s hard to open ourselves up and be vulnerable, giving, and loving. When our feelings get hurt, that’s when we either want to retreat and hide or when we lash out in anger, attacking.

The nasty voicemail I sent Brittany was me lashing out in hurt and anger. Then, I retreated. I stopped calling her.

The problem is, Jesus command to love is not a conditional statement. He does not say, only love others when they are being good to you. He does not say, only love others when you are in the mood to be loving. Jesus says, “love one another. As I have loved you, love one another.”

We know from the stories in the Bible that Jesus offered love to strangers on the street and to those rejected and despised by society. He offered love to his friends, even when they betrayed him, even when they denounced him. (Our church just put on a production called , In the Shadow of the Cross, and in the last scene, which takes place after the crusifxtion, Peter feels so guilty and horrible about denying Jesus in Pilates’ courtyard. He tells this to Mary Magdalene nad Mary, Jesus’ mother. Both of them assure Peter that Jesus would not hold this failure on Peter’s part against him. The woman assure Peter that Jesus would forgive and love Peter even though he wasn’t perfect, and even though he had abandoned Jesus in his hour of need. God loves us no matter what, whether we fail him or sin or whatever.

On this night as we receive the mandatum novum, the new command to love one another, I am asking you to reflect on how well you are able to remain loving, especially to those closest to you, when your feelings have been hurt, when you are feeling defensive.

I’d like to tell you a story:

A young man went off to war, leaving his pregnant wife behind. Two years later, he was able to return home, and the young woman went with their young son to meet her husband. They cried together out of joy. They decided to celebrate by having a fancy, family dinner together. The wife went to the store to buy what was needed for dinner while the husband remained at home with his son.

During this time, the young father was trying to convince his child to call him Daddy. The little boy refused: “Mister, you’re not my daddy. My daddy is somebody else. He visits us every night and my mommy talks to him every night, and very often she cries with him. And every time my mommy sits down, he sits down too. Every time she lies down, he lies down too.” After he heard these words, the young father’s happiness entirely evaporated. His heart turned into a block of ice. He felt hurt, deeply humiliated, and that is why, when his wife came home, he would no longer look at her or speak a word to her. Anger flared within him, and a profound sadness as well. He didn’t know what to do, so he ignored her. The woman herself began to suffer; she felt humiliated, hurt. Why was her husband doing this? What had changed? But neither said a word to each other.

She made the dinner in silence while he sat in the living room. When the family sat down to dinner, again no one spoke. After dinner, the husband went to the local bar. He tried to forget his suffering by getting drunk, and he did not come back to the house until very late at night. The following day, it was the same thing, and this went on for several days in a row. The young woman could not take it anymore. Her suffering was so great that she took her own life.

When the young father heard this news, he was very upset. He went and lit a large oil candle that he and his wife often lit when they would sit together in the living room. It was one of their favorite ways to spend a quiet evening together. Upon lighting the lantern, Suddenly the child cried out: “Mister, Mister, it’s my daddy, he’s come back!” And he pointed to the shadow of his father on the wall. “You know, Mister, my father comes every night. Mommy talks to him and sometimes she cries; and every time she sits down my daddy sits down too.” In reality, this woman had been alone in the house too much and so she would sit in this special spot, light a candle and “talk” to her husband, by talking to her shadow. She would day, “My dear one, you are so far away from me. How can I raise my child all by myself? ….You must come back home soon.” She would cry, and of course every time she sat down, the shadow would also sit down. When she would lie down, the shadow would also lie down.

When the husband realized the he had misunderstood the whole situation, his heart broke in two. All along she had been faithful to him, but in his own pain, in his own pride and defensiveness, he had not been able to talk to his wife about what was really going on. Now she was dead. It was too late. (adopted from Thich Nhat Hanh. True Love. Pg. 25-29).

This story is very dramatic, but miscommunications and misunderstandings of all sorts happen all the time, whether between husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, parent and child, friends, co-workers…

As a child I thought, as do most children, that when one of my parents yelled at me, that they didn’t love me, that I was bad or had done something wrong. Then I would go and hide or yell at my brother or sister or hit the cat. Children don’t understand that the parent could just be having a bad day.

The point I am trying to make is that we have to be very careful about shutting down and blaming others when we feel hurt. Oftentimes, our pain will lead to greater ruptures and more fighting within a relationship or family. But if we could just stop, and talk to each other. If we could tell each other that our feelings have been hurt and sit down with one another instead of withdrawing from each other or yelling at each other, we will save ourselves from so much pain and suffering.

If we could just tell each other what we need, we really will help love grow and fulfill the new commandment to love one another.

When Jesus was alive many people came to him asking for his help. If they needed something, they asked for it.

The leper came up to Jesus and say, “Lord, if you choose you can make me clean.” (Mat 8: 2). He was asking for help.

When the centurion’s servant was sick, the centurion appealed to Jesus, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress.” (Mt 8: 6-7). He was asking for help.

A leader of the synagogue came to Jesus and said, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” (Mt 9: 18). He too was asking for help.

The list of people who asked Jesus for help goes on and on to this very moment. Whoever asks for help, he helps them.

Why don’t we do the same thing. If someone asks for help, let us help them. Also, when we need something, when we need help, why not ask for it from the people we love. There’s a line in a popular song now that says, “If you want more love, why don’t you say so.”

How can we love each better, more, like Jesus loved us? Let each other know when we need love and give that love to one another.

When my friend Brittany finally did call me back, I certainly didn’t feel like opening up to her about everything that was going on in my life nor did I want to hear what was going on in her life.

But then, she opened up to me and told me that the reason she hadn’t called back was because she was depressed. She felt very alone in Texas, far away from family and friends. Work was stressful; some of her colleauges were being mean and competitive. She told me that she hadn’t called me back because she had barely been able to get out of bed and do her job. She didn’t have the extra energy to reach out, even to her best friend.

Of course, as soon as I heard that, all the pain and anger and hard feelings towards her I had went out the window. What she essentially told me was that she needed love and understanding even more than I did.

Brothers and sisters, on this Maundy Thursday, I say to you what Jesus has said to us all: Love one another. One of the ways that we fulfill this most noble and high command is by telling each other when we need love. May we all learn how to ask for the love we need. May those in our lives be willing and able to give us the love that we need. And when someone asks you for love, may you have it to give.

Matters of the Heart

2010-03-31T10:25:00.003-04:00

In the cold of winter, I decided to get a puppy. Some of you have met her. Her name is Annabell. Annie for short. I also call her bunny because she hops and pounces. And Annie Bananie, which has somehow free associated into the nickname, Banana Head. Annie’s very sweet and I love her.

But she wasn’t cheap. When I started doing the research on puppies, I kind of fell in love with the idea of getting a Moarkie. Now, a Moarkie is a cross-breed between a Maltese and a Yorkshire Terrier. My parents are the proud owners of our family dog, Coco Bongo, who is a Yorkshire Terrier. So in deciding what kind of dog to get, I knew I wanted someone like Coco, but not exactly.

On the internet, you can find everything. I found tons of people selling Moarkies. There is a trend in cross-breeding the little dogs now. Maltapoos. Shitzapoo’s. Yorkapoos. Mitzus. The thing was, I didn’t want to send some person from the internet several hundred dollars and then wait for my Moarkie to arrive in the mail. I wanted to see him or her first. The breeders offered to show me pictures, but somehow that didn’t sit right with me. I wasn’t about to drive down to North Carolina in February so I when I found a pet store in NYC, called Raising Rover and Baby, that sold Moarkie’s, I made plans to head to NY, have dinner with my best friends on Valentine’s Day, and go to Raising Rover with the possibility that if I fell in love, I would come home with a puppy.

It was there I found my Annie. I’ll be honest. She was expensive, but I was able to see her in person. I even met her brother. The man at Raising Rover talked to me for over two hours about having a puppy. And, it was immediate gratification. I went to the City looking for a Moarkie puppy, and I came home with a Moarkie puppy. Even though Annie came at a high price, she was worth it to me.

I’ll tell you what wasn’t worth it to me. The several hundreds of dollars of food, vitamins, supplements, and accessories – combs, leash, collar, sweater, puppy playpen- that Raising Rover tried to sell me. Some of it, like the food, I purchased because its not good to change a puppy’s diet suddenly, but the $8 leash I bought at the small pet shop in New Paltz is just as functional and cute as the $30 leash at Raising Rover. And thel puppy gate they tried to sell me there is no better than the baby gate my sister gave me now that her kids are older.

Some things in life are worth the price you pay. Others aren’t. When it comes to financial matters, being an educated consumer is paramount. After that, it often comes down to matters of the heart. Annie is a matter of the heart. She is worth her weight in gold.

It’s not just things that cost money that have a price though. Our daily work has a price too. It affects are energy, our bottom line, our feelings of self-worth and well-being. So do choices we make and situations we find ourselves in. Our relationships cost something to us emotionally, psychologically, physically and spiritually.

Several Thanksgivings ago, when my family still lived in Ohio, one of my cousins drank too much at dinner. He drank too much, and then he wanted to drive home. His brother, my other cousin, wouldn’t let him. He took his keys. Perhaps something like this has happened in your family. Drunk people do not like it when you take away their keys.

So there we all are at like midnight, our bellies hyper-extended from turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cake, coffee, you name it. There we are after having gone around the table each saying what we’re grateful for, some of us seeing each other for the first time that year. And now, there we are arguing over whether or not my one cousin could drive home.

It really put a damper on the evening to be honest. But my one cousin, the sober one, was training to be a lawyer, so after over an hour of back and forth, back and forth, my intoxicated cousin finally gave up and took a nap. The 1 ½ fight that Thanksgiving which possibly saved some lives was worth it. It was worth the price we all paid. Drinking too much at a family function and then fighting with your family because your proud and stubborn, that was not worth it.

Everything we want or have or do in live costs something. The question is: is it worth the price you pay? We can rationally analyze the situation. Make pros and cons lists. Weigh our options. But often times, when it comes down to it, the only way to truly know if something is worth it is comes down to a matter of the heart.

Do you stay in a relationship that makes you feel safe and comfortable in some ways, but is unfulfilling and shutting you down in others ways? Not if your heart tells you you have to go.

Do you take that other job even though it pays less and you’ll have to move? I don’t know. What does your heart tell you?

Do you put your mother with advanced Alzheimer’s in a nursing home? I can’t answer that for you either. What it comes down to is a matter of the heart.

I know that the heart can be perverted. The Bible says that. But I also know that the heart is the center of everything dear to us, of everything that means something to us, everything we’re convicted in, everything we’re passionate about. The heart is the center of everything we love. So it is here that we must decide if it’s worth the price we will pay.

Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem today. As he did, many, many people fell on their knees in admiration and praise. They waved palm braches and lay them before him as he rode a donkey (which was a sign that he was the Messiah the Jewish people were waiting for) into their midst, and they shouted, “Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

Many of the people that Jesus has healed throughout his ministry are there. There are also many there who hardly know of the traveling preacher from Nazareth.
Many whom he has instructed in God’s way are there. His best friends are there. They get to have a sacred Passover meal together.

But after the fancy parade, we know what happens. How one of those friends betrays him. We know Jesus gets arrested on trumped up charges, and then one of his friends denies knowing him in public. We know he gets beaten, and mocked, and humiliated, and that he’s killed.

Do you think it was worth it? Giving his life in loyalty to what he believed? Giving his life to save sinners like you and me? Maybe, Jesus should have stayed home that year? Maybe there was some other way, some less costly way to accomplish these things?

When I was finishing up at Princeton Theological Seminary, the Rev. Dr. Brian Blount preached a sermon the weekend of my graduation called, “Pick a Fight!” In a nutshell, he said: “Wow, graduating class. You sure are accomplished, faithful, good-hearted and well-intentioned people. I’m proud of you. But now what are you going to do? Are you going to go into the world and get a good job, find a suitable mate, settle down and try to make sure that everybody likes you?

Or, he said, are you going to go out there and do what Jesus did? Are you going to go and stand up for what you believe God wants – things like justice and mercy and faithfulness – even if it makes you unpopular and uncomfortable? Are you going to spend time in study and prayer, searching for the will of God in the midst of your particular situation, and proclaim that will even if no one wants to hear it and people hold it against you once you’ve said it?” Or he said, “are you going to go make for yourself a nice bed and lie in it while people suffer around you? While wars rage and babies starve? While the earth cries out for help and the poor stay poor because they can’t get a decent education or a role model to show them what to do? The Rev. Dr. Brian Blount, who now is the President of Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, encouraged the graduating class of 2005 to go out in the world and pick a fight – and you could have heard a pin drop in that upper middle class, white Presbyterian church in Princeton, NJ as he said so.

If I’m going to pick a fight and risk all that, it better be worth it. You too.

In the film, A Time to Kill, Matthew McConaughey plays young lawyer, Jake Brigance, and he doesn’t decide to pick a fight so much as he agrees to enter into a battle. The story is set in Mississippi, the deep South, in the 1990’s, where yes, believe it, racial tensions, prejudices and injustices are still alive and well. (They’re still alive and well here today in NY. At Fishkill Correctional Facility, of the 25 students in the class I am teaching, all but maybe three are African American men. How can that not be injustice?)

Anyway, Samuel L Jackson plays the role of Carl Lee Hailey. Carl Lee is African American and so is his 10 year old daughter, Tonya. Walking home from the grocery store one afternoon, poor little Tonya is raped, beaten and hung from a tree to die by two drunk, white men (if you can call them men). Thankfully, the tree branch breaks and Tonya lives. The men are caught and are going to go to trial for what they have done, but just the year before, four similar men had raped a black girl and got off. So Carl Lee decides to take justice into his own hands, and he kills the two men who raped his daughter right there in the courthouse.

Now, Carl Lee’s the one on trial. Jake Brigance agrees to be his attorney, a white man defending a black man in Mississippi. In using this film as an example, I am not condoning murder or taking justice into one’s own hands, but I do want to lift up Jake Brigance, a man who wants to save the world one case at a time, and a man who wants to prove that “in the new South, justice can be and will be colorblind.”

No sooner does Jake take the case that the threats start. First, against his life. Then, against the lives of his wife and daughter. One dark night, the Klu Klux Klan burn a cross on the family’s front lawn. Right about then is where most of us would have walked away from the case, the fight. Jake’s wife and friends certainly tell him to.

But as a matter of the heart, Jake can’t quit this case any more than Jesus could have avoided going to Jerusalem for the Passover. They both had the option, and yet, for them and what they believed, there really was no option. Their hearts told them that whatever the cost, whatever happened, it was worth it.

The Klan continues. They attempt to throw a bomb in Jake’s house, and eventually succeed in burning it down. Thank God no one is in it. Jake’s secretary and her husband are also threatened, and the secretary’s husband dies of a heart attack or a stroke when the Klan surprises him. And Jake’s legal assistant, played by Sandra Bullock, is abducted, beaten, hung on a pole and left to die until someone comes back to cut her lose and take her to the hospital. It comes to the point where the only way all the pain and suffering is going to be worth it is if Carl Lee Hailey gets a fair trial and is released from prison like a white man would be, and as the movie says, like white men have been who were in similar situations as Carl Lee.

In the final summation, Jake Brigance powerfully describes the crime against Tonya. He has the jury shut their eyes and imagine it. When he’s laid out the whole brutal scenario, he says, “Can you see that little girl, bruised, beaten, her little womb dead from what happened to her. Can you see her? Now imagine she’s white.”

When the jury returns, Carl Lee is found not guilty. Justice has prevailed as colorblind in the South, and Jack Brigance has made a difference in the world, which makes the battle he entered into and the price he and everyone around him had to pay, worth it.

And Jesus, was his sacrifice worth it? Do not doubt, but believe. Believe in him and believe that it was worth it. It cost his life, but it was worth it because to God, we are worth it. When it comes to matters of the heart, Jesus is all heart. We are his heart. And the love that God and Jesus have for us is so great that there is no cost, no price they would not pay to ensure that we will live our lives close to them.

What about you? Is what you’re living for worth it? Are you spending your time and energy and money and spirit on what you love? Because that’s what God wants. Are you fighting the good fight? It all comes down to what your heart is telling you.

Jesus showed us that what really matters are matters of the heart! Live by your heart and you will truly live.

What You Think Matters

2010-03-11T16:03:00.000-05:00

At Bible study on Wed, we read this parable:

“The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’” (Luke 12:16-20).

God called the rich man a fool because his thinking about the situation was all wrong. Seeing that the man died that very night and would no longer have use for his excess crops, it would have been wiser of him to share his abundance of crops with those who were going hungry. I believe that was Jesus’ point.

When I read this parable, I too thought the rich man was a fool, that his thinking was all wrong, but for a different reason. I imagined him the season before working hard in the fields from dawn until dusk, and all his workers as well, trying to get ahead, not being able to enjoy the day for fear that there wouldn’t be enough the next day. And not until this great crop came in was the man finally able to say, “Ahhh. At last. Now I can relax. Now I can eat, drink, and be merry. I can enjoy my life.”

This is a distorted way of thinking that many people struggle with. The idea that “I can’t relax, I can’t enjoy my life until XXX amount of dollars are in the bank, stored up, safe and secure, ensuring my family’s future.” [And as many of us have learned, even if you’ve made the money and invested it wisely, there is no guarantee for the future]. Or maybe its not money that the issue, maybe it’s “I can’t relax, I can’t enjoy my life until I get to this place in my career.” Or “I can’t be happy until I’m married, or have children or until the mortgage is paid off.”

The “I’ll be happy when…” thinking is flawed thinking.

We don’t have to wait until we reach a certain point to enjoy life, to relax some, to be happy. We can be happy today even as we work hard, and everything isn’t perfectly how we want it to be. We can be happy while we are working to achieve our goals, not only once we’ve achieved them.

In today’s Luke passage, Jesus says that we all need to repent or we will perish. Repent means to turn around or change, to do it differently than we’ve been doing it because the way we’ve been doing it is the road to death. Normally, sermons on repentance focus on altering sinful behaviors, which is valuable, but today, I’d like to suggest that it is also very important that we repent from our negative, destructive, life-taking, soul-sucking thinking because thinking really does have the power to diminish the quality of our lives or to make them better.

Jesus told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil!’” (Luke 13: 6-7).

Our minds are what set us apart from all other animals. Our thinking should help us to bear fruit in our lives, and any thinking that does not help us bear fruit or any thinking that bears rotten fruit needs to go. Like a tree that bears no fruit wastes the soil, thoughts that bear no fruit or bear bad fruit, waste our minds. In place of such thinking, we need God’s truth, wisdom, and understanding to permeate our minds.

The Lord says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

The first thought I would like to suggest God/Jesus would have us cut out of our lives is the “I’ll be happy when…” syndrome. Nothing needs to change in order for you to be happy and satisfied. I know everything might not be as you want it to be right now, but you have all the conditions necessary for happiness. Look around you. Think about all you’ve been given. You have all the conditions necessary for happiness. Be grateful. Rejoice. Don’t get stuck thinking that life will be better in the future.

The key to repentance is awareness. You now have to catch yourself. The next time you say, “I’ll relax once Christmas is over (or this project is over, etc)” stop right then and there and take a break. The only guarantee we have is today.

Enjoy the present moment. It’s called the present because it’s a gift.

The thoughts that we have, the beliefs that we hold, and the perspectives that we come from are the root of our feelings. For example, if I look in a mirror and think, “I’m fat,” I will most likely feel bad about myself. If I look in a mirror and think, “I look pretty,” I will most likely feel good about myself. The negative thought, “I’m fat,” leads to the negative feeling. The positive thought, “I look pretty,” leads to the positive feeling.

We think X, and therefore, we feel Y.

So, our thoughts, beliefs, perspectives affect what we feel, and in turn, our feelings affect our experience of reality. The actual truth of whether I’m fat or not or pretty or not doesn’t even really matter as much as my thinking does, and how that thinking makes me feel. If I feel good, my experience of life is positive. If I feel bad, my experience of life is negative, no matter how much I weigh.

When a person feels angry or frustrated, his/her experience of reality is hardly as pleasant as when one feels happy and satisfied. The point is: its what we think, believe, how we interpret reality that determines whether we suffer or not.

Caveat- I know its not all mental. There is genuine suffering that no good attitude can fix. I recognize this. But I’m talking about the day in and day out, regular experiences of life, in which attitude really is everything, as they say.

The second thought that rarely if ever produces fruit and needs to be cut out of our lives is the: “it must be my fault” or “ I did something wrong” reaction/belief.

Many people suffer for no good reason because they insist on making everything that happens about them. If your new neighbors don’t come to your Christmas party, you wonder what you did wrong. If your boss or co-worker criticizes you, you take everything they say to heart as though you truly are incompetent or lazy or whatever. If no one comes up to you at coffee hour at church, you feel insecure and awkward.

The vast majority of the time, how someone treats you or doesn’t treat you is a reflection of that person and what they are going through, not of you. The neighbors didn’t come to your Christmas party because they’re going through a divorce and they don’t want anyone to know yet. Your co-worker yelled at you because he just found out his mother is dying. And no one came up to talk to you at coffee hour because…well…take as many people as there are at coffee hour and there are that many reasons.

We often blame ourselves when we don’t deserve the blame. We think it has to do with me, when actually, it has to do with the other person. People do what they do because of themselves so don’t take it personally. (To learn more about this one, read The Four Agreements.)

For today, the last dead tree branch of thinking I would like to suggest we cut out is the negative self-talk. Self talk is the internal dialogue that goes on inside of all of us. Self talk is how we explain situations to ourselves, and for many of us, if we would just become aware of how negatively we talk to ourselves, and stop doing it, our experience of life would immediately improve.

If you set a goal for yourself and don’t achieve it, do you think: “ I’m a failure. I’ll never be able to do this or achieve that.” ? Or when you set a goal for yourself, and when you don’t achieve it, do you think: I can do this. I will do this. I just have to persevere and my dream will come true.

Some people like to call themselves names. “I’m such an idiot. Stupid. Jerk.” It’s not okay for other people to say these things to us. Why should we be allowed to talk to ourselves this way?

Another example of negative self talk is when someone you love disappoints you, do you think: So and so doesn’t love me, and then get sad and feel sorry for yourself. Or someone you love might disappoint you and you might even make a more sweeping negative assumption, such as, “no one loves me.” This might lead to further disasterous thinking: “No one loves me. No one understands me. I’m all alone in this world.”

This is reinforcing “I am not worthy of love” kind of thinking.

The flip side of the previous situation could be that someone you love disappoints you, and instead of spiraling into existential despair, you could think: “I deserve to be treated well.” If Johnny’s not going to do what he said he would do for the 1000th time, than I’ll do it myself or hire someone else to do it. Or, if Betsy doesn’t come through this time, I’
m not asking her again.” Whatever it is, the “no one loves me” thought sends you down. The “I deserve to be treated well” thought empowers you to take action in a way that will benefit yourself.

“Many [people] want to get rid of their painful feelings, but they do not want to get rid of their beliefs, the viewpoints that are the very roots of their feelings” (Thich Nhat Hanh. Peace is Every Step. Pg. 56.) Our suffering really starts in our heads, by the way we interpret situations, by the way that we think. So I encourage you all to become aware of your negative thinking and negative self-talk, and then to cut it out of your life. If you create the space, God can plant wisdom and understanding in that space, and your experience of life will be far more loving, happy and peaceful.

Let me end with some positive talk:

Your Life Hold Unlimited Potential

You have the ability
To attain whatever you seek;
Within you is every potential
You can imagine.
Always aim higher than
You believe you can reach.
So often you’ll discover
That when your talents
Are set free
By your imagination,
You can achieve any goal.
If people offer
Their help or wisdom
As you go through life,
Accept it gratefully.
You can learn much from those
Who have gone before you.
Never be afraid or hesitant
To step off the accepted path
And head in your own direction
If your heart tells you that it’s the right way for you.
Always believe that you will
Ultimately succeed
At whatever you do,
And never forget the value
Of persistence, discipline,
And determination.
You are meant to be
Whatever you dream of becoming.
-Edmund O’ Neill

May we all speak to ourselves and one another is such a loving and hopeful way.

Looking Back, Faith Grows

2010-02-22T11:45:00.003-05:00

(Read Deut 26:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13)

Let me begin with a snapshot of a woman’s life:

Staci was blessed to have been born to loving parents who lived in a nice home in suburban Ohio. Sadly, she inherited diabetes from her mother, and the life-threatening disease affected her entire life. Over the years, she had three kidney transplants and a pancreas transplant. Going to dialysis and being in the hospital were as common to Staci as after-school activities and visits to the grandparent’s house were to “normal” kids. But Staci was really just grateful to be alive. She loved playing in her yard with the neighbor kids, painting and participating in the life of her church. Staci’s mom died from complications due to her diabetes when Staci was just a young girl, and this made her, her brother and father very sad. Her father remarried some years later, and while her step-mother was no replacement for her mother, it was comforting to have a woman in the house again. One morning before high school, while walking her dog, Staci was raped near the woods in her backyard. Obviously, this was a traumatic event and time in Staci’s life. She persevered and attended a small, private college, majoring in English.

Staci’s doctors didn’t know how much longer she would live, and so Staci chose to see every day as a gift from God. When Staci turned 30, outliving doctors’ predictions by several years, she decided to have a child. The doctors told her not to, that it was life-threatening, but that did not deter her. After all that she had been through, Staci had become both a brave and daring woman. Her son, Brian, was born with minor complications, and he is to this day, the joy of Staci’s life. When Brian was three, a young man moved two houses down form Staci’s childhood home. They quickly fell in love and married. Her life was now a dream come true, and a miraculous success story. After a few years though, her husband lost his job, became severely depressed and attempted suicide. His failed attempt lead to treatment, and when I last saw them this past summer, Staci, Tom and Brian were doing well. Staci put it like this, “I’ve been through hell and back, but I’m still here, and they are here with me. Life is good.”

Staci is amazing to me, the way she stays positive, her laughter, her endurance in the face of multiple challenges. When I asked her if she believes in God after everything she has went through, her reply is, “Definitely. Without God, I wouldn’t even be here. Although,” she says, “I say that now. There were times in the past when I cursed God or doubted God’s existance. Things look different once you have gotten through them.”

I thought about Staci when I read the Scripture from Deuteronomy. In this passage, Israel is remembering their life story and what God has done for them. They say, “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous” (Deut. 26:5) Biblical commentary says that the word “wandering” can also mean “lost” or “dying,” and that the Aramean referred to is Jacob and his ancestors. So, Israel became a great nation in Egypt, but then, “the Egyptians mistreated [them] and made [them] suffer, putting [them] to hard labor” (Deut. 26:6). Now, I’m sure you can imagine that the many years that Israel toiled in Egypt as slaves (400 years?) were terrible, and that during that time, their trust in God’s goodness and power waned. There had to have been many people on many occasions who cursed God’s name because of their life situation, many people who cried for help and felt as though God did not answer them. But this Scripture was written long after Israel had left Egypt so they are remembering their story from a larger perspective. Thus, the Scripture continues on a positive note, not mentioning the times of doubt and despair

“Then we cried out to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders” (Deut 26: 8). Aka. the ten plagues and the parting of the Red Sea. “He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with mild and honey” (Deut 26:9).

Now, that is what happened, but in between God freeing Israel from slavery and bringing them into Canaan, there was that awful time of 40 years spent wandering in the wilderness when they had no food, no water. They were fighting amongst themselves. They wanted to kill Moses for leading them out of Egypt and into unknown territory.

The point I am getting at here is that while we are going through something, it feels incredibly intense and we are absorbed in the play-by-play action. Especially during the tough times, we cry, and we don’t think we can take anymore affliction. We say that God has forsaken us, abandoned us, turned his back on us. I can recall many times in my life when I prayed and prayed for God to do this or that, for God to change my situation and help me to feel better. Then, after a while and nothing seeming to change, still feeling confused or angry or sad, just giving up on God. I’d start to pray and then think, “Oh, forget it. What’s the point?”

But the point is, once we are out of dire straights, out of the terrible time, and we are reflecting back on it, we tend to see things differently. We start to see how God was there in that time. How God did help us through. While in the situation, you can’t see the forest for the trees as it were because we are so consumed, absorbed, unable to see clearly. But things become clearer as we get further and further from the situation. As they say, hindsight is 20/20. We recognize that God was present, and God’s hand was working in that time and place. That Jesus was walking by our side, and the Holy Spirit was comforting us.

And as we realize that, we start to think, or at least I know I start to think, “If God was there then, God is here now. Whether I feel him or see him or not, the Lord is with me. A very present help in trouble. My rock and my salvation. The ground of my hope.”

An analogy that can help us to understand this idea is recognizing that God’s presence in your life is like watching a movie for the second time. The second time, you already know the ending, so as you are watching it, you can see how each scene that happens is moving you towards the final conclusion or how all the parts of the film contribute to the development of the whole film. The first time you watch a movie, you experience each scene and are ingrossed in the action, not knowing how it all fits together. But in watching the film the second time, it becomes clear how certain events are meaningful and propel the story forward. You can see a character crying and think, “It’s okay. No need to cry. You need this to happen so the real blessings can come into your life.”

In the times when life is challenging, when we are really being tested, the devil comes to tempt us to give up our faith, to question God’s existence. We feel like it is all up to us, and we have to rely on ourselves, on our will and effort alone. We fight to control our lives, trying to make them the way we want them to be, only to feel more frustrated and exhausted as hardships continue to come our way.

In the first temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, the devil says to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3). When Jesus says, “Man does not live on bread alone (Luke 4:4)” he is resisting the temptation to provide for himself, to depend on himself to get what he needs. This is a lesson for us to learn. That it is God who provides for us. We can trust that whatever we need to live, God will give to us.

Today, I invite you to think back on your life. Think of all the hard times, all the strange things that have happened, and see how ultimately, they lead to some sort of blessing in your life. They made you who you are. The divorce was horrible to go through, but you are much happier on your own or with your new partner than fighting all the time and feeling misunderstood by your partner. Or the illness was/is painful to endure, but it has helped you realize who your real friends are, and you have seen the generosity and kindness of all sorts of people in your life. Or getting fired or laid off seemed like the end of the world. What are you going to do now? How will you make ends meet? But slowly you realized that you can trust God to provide, that there are more opportunities than you imagined. Hopefully, you get into a new vocation which is more rewarding and meaningful to you and for the world.

As we recognize that God was there for us in the past, our confidence grows that God is here for us now and will be there for us in the future. Like Staci and the Israelites, we become living witnesses to the steadfast love and faithfulness of our Creator. Weeping may tarry for the night, but with assurance, we know that joy comes in the morning.

Brothers and sisters, keep the faith. I know life is hard. I know the trials and tribulations keep coming. The same problems occur over and over again. But God is with us, and we will triumph. While part of what happens in life is out of our control, our response to what happens in life is within our control. Train your mind to be hopeful instead of skeptical and doubting. You never know. Be creative and respond to that same old problem in a new and different way. By acting differently, you just might get different results. And reach out to people you know, asking them for help. It’s somewhat counter-intuitive, but when we are struggling, that’s when we most need family and friends surrounding us, cheering us on, lifting us up. We are all on this journey together friends. May it be the best journey possible, and may we trust in God every step of the way, because the way of trust is the way that leads to peace and joy.

Where is the Justice?

2010-02-20T13:53:00.002-05:00

On Jan. 12, a massive earthquake, registering 7.0 on the Richter scale, struck Haiti, reducing much of its capital, Port au Prince, to rubble. It was the worst earthquake in the region in more than 200 years, with as many as 50,000 feared dead. United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told NBC's "Today" program that 3 million people - about a third of Haiti's population - had been affected by the quake. Major buildings including the Presidential Palace, the UN headquarters, hospitals, schools and prisons have collapsed. Whole neighborhoods have been wiped out.

Haiti is, by a significant margin, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with four out of five people living in poverty. What this means is that there will be even more victims over the next several weeks, maybe even months, because of the lack of medical care and housing, poor sanitation, and shortage of food and safe water.

When a natural disaster like this earthquake hits an impoverished area, it shines a bright light on the inequality and injustice still very much present in our world. Do you know why so many buildings collapsed in this earthquake? Because they were poorly constructed and made of inferior materials. Do you know why the death toll will continue to rise for weeks to come? Because Haiti doesn’t have the infrastructure in place or the resources to save people who might still be alive right now.

On October 17, 1989, a massive earthquake, registering 6.9 on the Richter scale, struck the San Francisco Bay Area of California, which all things considered is a wealthy area. While it’s not completely accurate to compare the earthquake in Haiti to the earthquake in California, it is noteworthy that only 63 people were killed in California compared to an estimated 50,000 in Haiti. Only 3,757 were injured and only between 3,000-12,000 people were left homeless in California compared to much, much larger numbers in Haiti. Why did Californians fair so well? It wasn’t because they were lucky, and it wasn’t because God is on their side. It’s because they have more money. They have more resources. They have more hosptilas. Their buildings and homes are built of the finest materials available.

The injustice of it all is striking. Here we have similar earthquakes in terms of how strong they are, both in densely populated areas, but the end result is so much worse for the Haitians than for the Californians. The unfairness of it all makes me think about Hurricane Katrina. There are still people homeless in New Orleans and that happened in August 2005. Four and one-half years ago! I think that if a tragedy like that would have happened on the East Coast, basically everything would be restored by now.

It takes people of conviction to end injustice and inequality in this world. Conviction provides the motivating force that leads to action, and action is what is needed for change to happen.

The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of conviction.
On August 28, 1963, King spoke at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. at the largest civil rights rally in the history of the US (which he helped to organize) with more than 200,000 people gathered together for a nonviolent protest aimed at securing justice for black Americans.
In the beginning of King’s famous, “I Have a Dream” speech, he said these words:
“But one hundred years [after the Civil War and the emancipation of the slaves], the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.”

King was 100% positive, he was convinced that his people deserved more, that they deserved better. King described the problems of segregation like this:
“There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: "For Whites Only."* We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
That last line is Scripture. King’s conviction was based in what he knew to be true about God. He knew from reading the prophets that Almighty God deplores economic injustice and oppression. The Prophet Isaiah says, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people” (Isaiah 10: 1-2). While those words were written thousands of years ago, they were completely relevant to our government in 1968, and probably even still today in some capacity.
It was King’s leadership that inspired the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, on behalf of whom he spoke, to have a nonviolent policy when they protested. King based his philosophy on the teaching of Jesus and those of the Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi. It was Jesus who taught King to turn the other cheek. It was Jesus who said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6: 27-28). King shows that he is a disciple when he said:

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King is an inspiration for all of God’s people. As we celebrate him and the victories of the civil rights movement this weekend, let us also contemplate what our convictions are. What do you care about?

Children are being abused and sent to work in sweatshops.
Girls are being sold into sex slavery.
Woman and people of color still make less money and have less opportunity than white men.
Our country is engaged in war and prisoners of war are being tortured.
The continent of Africa is dying of AIDS.
The environment is being polluted. The land fills are filling up with water bottles, the air and oceans are being polluted, trees are being cut down at alarming rates.
Animals are being raised in inhumane conditions, such as factory farms.
Americans are dying from diseases related to obesity while large potions of the world are dying from hunger.

We know the commandments of God. We know the teachings of Jesus Christ. Let’s get educated and figure out what is going on that is wrong, no if, ands, or but about it, and let’s get convicted as a church.
One of the saddest, yet happiest stories that I read online, was that on Friday, an Australian television news crew helped to rescue a 16-month-old girl from the ruins of a destroyed house in Haiti. It’s a happy story because they rescued her, but it’s a sad story because the girl had been buried in her house next to her dead father and mother for three days without food and water. Local residents could hear her crying and were trying to dig her out from under the rubble, but for some reason, it took a man who came from half way around the world to actually pull her out.

Let me close with the Starfish story of Loren Eiseley:

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"

The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one."

During Lent: Create Space

2010-02-20T13:36:00.003-05:00

(Sermon for Ash Wednesday)

The season of Lent is a little bit like if we were going to clean out a house that is filled with magazines, newspapers, bills, boxes, garbage, dust, etc. Lent is a time to clean ourselves out, clean ourselves up, and make space for something new to come into our life.

The main tradition associated with the Lenton season is to give something up. The traditional idea (as I learned it) being that we will be in solidarity with Christ if we sacrifice something since he is sacrificing his life. Romans 8 expresses this sentiment when it says, “We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!”

This year, I would like to suggest that you give something up that is taking up too much space in your life (your spiritual house). Many of us hold onto things long after they are serving a healthy purpose in our lives, and if we get rid of them, we create space for God to do something new in our lives.

To give up:
A grudge, past hurt that continues to create conflict between you and someone, or that just keep you being sad.
An attitude that perpetuates unhappiness or is defeating.
A way that you spend your time that is wasteful.
Spending too much time alone or at work.

The Scripture says that we are to give our old life a decent burial and “get on with our new life” (Romans 8:13, so let's do it. Once we empty ourselves of whatever is taking up room and wasting space in our lives, then we can open ourselves to receiving whatever God wants to give us.

Instead of being depressed, you might learn acceptance and compassion.
Instead of getting frustrated, you might laugh and lighten up.
Instead of spending hours surfing the net, you might read or write or paint or clean or ...
Instead of hanging out with the same old crowd, you might challenge yourself to spend time with new people, or spend time with people you don’t give enough attention to now.

Just pick something to give up that, in giving it up, there will be a hole in you, a void, space. Then, open your heart and surrender yourself over to God. You don’t have to know what will come in its place, let God reveal that to you! You don’t know how God might bless you, but it will be something beneficial to you.

As it is written: “This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?"(Romans 8:15). By the time we get to April, you will be seeing some sort of change in yourself, some form of new, resurrected life, but you have to take the Lenton challenge and give something up.

The difference between a stale, dirty, sad house and a lively, rich and happy house is cleaning the house out, opening the windows and letting the fresh air in.

May this Lent be a time of spring cleaning in your life/spiritual house.

Confession Leads to Healing and Reconciliation

2010-02-20T13:33:00.000-05:00

(Read 1 John 1:5-2:2)

In late November, the news broke. Tiger Woods, the world’s favorite golfer and positive role model for people of all ages and races, was having an affair on his wife of more than 5 years, Elin. Over the next few weeks, Woods disgrace grew as he was linked to having affairs with more than a dozen women. Since that time, Woods has taken a leave from professional golfing; he has lost many endorsements, and his marital future is uncertain. Just this morning, I read headlines that Tiger was leaving the treatment center he was at for the past several weeks in Mississippi, where he was being treated for sex addiction.

One of the craziest things about this whole scandal to me is how long it was going on. Tiger kept up his charade, he hid his affairs for years. During that time, no matter what success he had in golf, no matter that his wife gave birth to their two children, everything Tiger experienced was tainted by his secret life. When people live their lives in lies and in hiding, they destroy their relationships, their families, their careers, and any hope they had to live a happy, healthy and peaceful existence. The same is true for those who live in denial of their problems, for those who pretend that everything is fine when, in reality, it is not. When people live in denial, what they are really doing is lying to themselves, to the people in their life, and to God. They also forfeit any chance of enduring happiness, health and peace for themselves and their family.

The opposite of lying, hiding and denial is to admit the truth. Admitting the truth can be very difficult and painful for us when we have to admit that we have done wrong, that we are not perfect, that we have failed, that we have sinned. For one, we have to be willing to give up what we are doing; we have to be willing to change. We also fear being judged and rejected by the people in our lives. But without truth and honesty, real love and belonging and acceptance cannot exist.

In Christianity, there are 12 traditional spiritual disciplines that are practices we can do to get closer to God and to one another. These disciplines or practices help us to become children of light. They help to make us holy and perfect us in love. The inward disciplines are meditation, prayer, fasting and study. The outward disciplines are simplicity, solitude, submission and service. The corporate disciplines are confession, worship, guidance and celebration. Today, we will look at the practice of confession.

To hide, lie and deny is to walk in the darkness, and walking in the darkness leads to death. As children of God, we are not meant to walk in darkness, but we are called to walk in the light, to live in the light. This is where confession can help us. Confession brings us into the light. It heals us. There is a saying: The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. Confession is one of those things the church does to help us heal.

So, what is confession? Very simply put, confession is being honest about who you are, about what you think, say and do in relation to your sin and brokeness. The most basic prayer of confession says, “Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.”

St. Alphonsus Liguori said that for a confession to be a good confession, three things are necessary: an examination of conscience, sorrow and a determination to avoid sin (Foster, Richard. Celebration of Disciplines. Pg. 151.)

By an examination of conscience, Saint Alphonsus means that we should search ourselves to determine those thoughts and behaviors that are out of line with the ways of God, that disobey God’s commands to promote love, peace and happiness for all people.
(7 deadly sins: . wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony_)

By sorrow, Saint Alphonsus means that we should feel some regret, some sadness for the trespasses that we have committed.

By determination to avoid sin, Saint Alphonsus means that we have to want to stop. To be determined, we have to really know that what we are doing, thinking or saying is destructive and unhealthy for us and others; we have to be convinced it’s the path that leads to death, and we have to choose life instead.

One of the reasons I’m preaching this sermon today is because Lent begins in less than two weeks, and a big part of Lent is self-examination and confession. If we really want to enter into the new life, the resurrected life that comes on Easter morning, we have to be willing to look at the paths that we are on which lead to death. Confession helps us to move from death to life.

Confession can happen in at least 3 different ways:

First, there is the corporate act of confessing in Christian community. This is what we do most Sunday mornings when we say a somewhat general prayer of confession together. The prayer is intentionally general so that we can all relate to it in some way, but the important thing is that we come together as the one body of Christ, admitting that collectively we have all gone astray. Our sin is not just an individual problem, it is a collective problem that penetrates all of creation.

Second, there is the private act of confessing to God alone. This happens in our moment of silence after the corporate prayer of confession, and also, this is probably what you most often do in your personal prayer time. You come before God in all honesty, and specifically admit your sins and weaknesses.

A third type of confession is an inter-relational act of confessing to another person. Of all the types of confession, I believe this is the most powerful, but it is also the most scary and difficult. Often, we feel so ashamed of ourselves, and we fear others will judge us. But this is also why it is so freeing. Once you confess, and the person you confess to does not reject you, but forgives and embraces you in the name of God, it is like a great weight being lifted off of your shoulders.

Listen to this testimony by Richard Foster, one of the great spiritual leaders of our time. He writes about an experience he had when pastoring his first church:

“I longed for more power to do the work of God. I felt inadequate to deal with many of the desperate needs that confronted me. There had to be more spiritual resources than I was experiencing. ‘Lord,’ I prayed, ‘is there more you want to bring into my life? I want to be conquered and ruled by you. If there is anything blocking the flow of your power, reveal it to me.’ He did. Not by an audible voice or even through any human voice, but simply by a growing impression that perhaps something in my past was impeding the flow of his life. So I devised a plan. I divided my life into three periods: childhood, adolescence, adulthood. On the first day I came before God in payer and meditation, pencil and paper in hand. Inviting him to reveal to me anything during my childhood that needed either forgiveness or healing or both, I waiting in absolute silence for some ten minutes. Anything about my childhood that surfaced to my conscious mind, I wrote down. I made no attempt to analyze the items or put any value judgment on them. My assurance was that God would reveal anything that needed his healing touch. Having finished, I put the pencil and paper down for the day. The next day I went through the same exercise for my adolescent years, and the third day for my adult years.

Paper in hand, I then went to a dear brother in Christ. I had made arrangements with him a week ahead so he understood the purpose of our meeting. Slowly, sometimes painfully, I read my sheet, adding only those comments necessary to make my sin clear. When I had finished, I began to return the paper to my briefcase. Wisely, my counselor/confessor gently stopped my hand and took the sheet of paper. Without a word he took a wastebasket, and, as I watched, he tore the paper into hundreds of tiny pieces and dropped them into it. That powerful, nonverbal expression of forgiveness was followed by a simple absolution. [In the name of Jesus Christ, your sins have been forgiven.] Next, my friend, with the laying on of hands, prayed a prayer of healing for all he sorrows and hurts of the past. The power of that prayer lives with me today” (Foster, Richard. Celebration of Discipline. Pg. 149-50).

This testimony confirms several ideas about the power of confession:

One is how life affirming it is to admit our sins and weakness, to admit our shame and guilt, and then, to receive acceptance and love from another person. To experience that type of unconditional, merciful love is one of the deepest, most profound feelings you can have.

Second, confession is the first act of a larger process. Confession is meant to be responded to with forgiveness. We confess, and then, we receive forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Scripture says: If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Forgiveness is followed by transformation. For the individual life, forgiveness is a second chance that leads to us changing our ways. In the example of Tiger Woods, hopefully he will stop having affairs.

For the communal life, forgiveness is the beginning of reconciling and healing relationships. Maybe Elin will forgive Tiger and they can rebuild their life together.

As those in the recovery community know, you cannot begin the process of healing until you have admitted there is a problem. So “Confession might begin in sorrow, but it ends in joy. There is celebration in the forgiveness of sins because it results in a genuinely changed life” (Foster, Richard. Celebration of Discipline. Pg. 153).

Jesus Christ: The Revelation of God

2010-01-30T15:06:00.002-05:00

(Read Colossians 1:15-20 and Luke 23:33-43)

There are those atheists and religious nay-sayers that say to we who believe, “You are not created in the image of God. It is God who is created in your image.” They claim that humanity made God up. To declare such a statement suggests that these people have never had an experience of the divine or the sacred. Or that they lack religious education and understanding. They tend to want proof of God’s existence like a scientist might prove the sun exists. All a scientist has to do is point to the bright light coming from the sun or tell the person to close their eyes and feel the sun’s warmth to prove it exists. But if you or I point to a bird or a mountain or a baby or if we ask the person to close their eyes and dwell in the present moment feeling life itself coursing through their veins, they still may not be convinced that God exists. You need spiritual eyes to see the spiritual world, and some people do not have or do not use their spiritual eyes.

I love people, and I believe in our goodness and potential, but if I came up with the concept of who God is based on who we are, God would be very limited indeed. Instead of making bold proclamations such as, “God is steadfast and faithful,” I would have to bashfully say, “God can be faithful, but God can also be fickle and unpredictable.” Instead of gratefully announcing to all, “God is one who accepts, forgives and redeems,” I would have to shamefully say, “God forgives sometimes, but at other times, God is judgmental and holds grudges.” Instead of affectionately declaring, “God is my companion and closest friend,” I would have to disappointedly say, “God can be really nice and comforting, but then God can get caught up in his own affairs and just sort of disappear for awhile.” If we really created God after our own imperfect image, we would have a very different understanding of who God is and what God is like.

The truth is, as Christians, we know who God is and what God is like primarily through Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the Son of God because “he points beyond himself to God- [revealing] God’s character and passion.” As Colossians says, “Jesus is the image of the invisible God. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1: 15, 19).

It is true that we can learn about God’s nature through the changing of seasons, the flow of a river, the honorable qualities in human beings, the unfolding of events in the world, but nothing accurately reveals God to us as does his beloved Son.

Today, I’d like to suggest three characteristics that we know about the Almighty, the Holy of Holies, the Creator of heaven and earth, because of Jesus Christ, (although Jesus reveals much more than three characteristics). First, Jesus reveals that God is faithful and steadfast. Second, Jesus reveals that God is one who accepts, forgives and redeems. And third, Jesus reveals that God is personal and intimate in relationship with us.

First, God is faithful and steadfast. Or in other words, God is consistent, devoted and trustworthy. Jesus himself was faithful to God. Throughout his life, he always believed in Abba, his Father, and he always sought to be in accordance with God’s will. Jesus was also faithful to his disciples. He never abandoned them, not when they were in the boat afraid they were going to drowned, not even on his last night when they betrayed and denied him. And Jesus was also faithful in his ministry of healing and teaching. He never denied anyone who came to him for help. It didn’t matter if you were a sinner or a centurion, if you were an ancestor of Israel or an adulterer. If you were in need, Jesus helped you.

The same is true today. God doesn’t disappear on us. God doesn’t change the rules on us. It’s not as if one day God loves us and the next day God abandons us. Our God loves us all the time and is always here for us no matter what. This fact should give you great comfort. Especially when you are doubting yourself, know that God does not doubt you and that God will not leave you.

We know this because of Christ Jesus.

Second, God is one who accepts us, forgives us, and redeems us. I love the stories in the Bible of Jesus being merciful, accepting and compassionate to those most people would judge and reject, such as the Samaritan woman at the well who has had several husbands or the woman caught in the very act of committing adultery. All the drunkards, thieves, lepers and various other kinds of sinners found in Jesus someone who believed in their innate goodness. Even though their speech and behavior were not always respectable, even though they acted immorally and made mistakes, Jesus knew it was because they were weak and broken that they made poor choices. He understood them and wanted to help them live a redeemed life.

While Jesus was being crucified, a thief on a tree next to him, whose cohort was mocking him, said to Jesus, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus didn’t scold the thief because he had been a bad person. He didn’t tell him he was unworthy of being remembered. What Jesus said to his request was, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Our God is the God of second chances. Think about your own life recently. Do you feel guilty or ashamed about something you have said or done, or something you should have said or done but have not? God still loves you. God isn’t giving up on you. God wants you to come clean, to confess, repent and be changed. In fact, God is reaching out to you to help you, to empower you so that you might be transformed, so that you might be made new.

And we know this because of Jesus Christ. As it is written: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Jesus], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:19-20).

Third, and last for today, God is a personal God, your Father, your Mother, your Friend. God is not out there, far off in the clouds, in space, who checks in with us on occasion. God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ, and became one of us, a human being, so that God could understand us, and we would have a shared common existence. God remains here with us now and is in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our God listens to our cries and carries us through this awesome, but daunting experience that we call life.

And we know this because of Jesus.

Perhaps you are going through a difficult time these days. Listen to this popular 20th century poem, which in a heart-felt way describes just who our God is.

Footprints

One night I had a dream--
I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord
and across the sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene I noticed two sets of footprints,
one belonged to me and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that many times along the path of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I also noticed that it happened at the very lowest
and saddest times in my life.
This really bothered me and I questioned the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you,
you would walk with me all the way,
but I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life
there is only one set of footprints.
"I don't understand why in times when I needed you most,
you should leave me."
The Lord replied, "My precious, precious child,
I love you and I would never leave you
during your times of trial and suffering.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
it was then that I carried you."

There would be no devotional poem of this sort without Jesus. Nor would there be all the beautiful hymns that express how faithful God is, how forgiving God is, and what a good friend God is without Jesus.

“What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge; take it to the Lord in prayer.”

Or “When the storms of life are raging, stand by me. When the world is tossing me, like a ship upon the sea, thou who rulest wind and water, stand by me. In the midst of faults and failures, stand by me. When I’ve done the best I can, and my friends misunderstand, though who knowest all about me, stand by me.”

Or “Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father, there is no shadow of turning with thee. Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide; strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside.”

There is no end to the hymns that proclaim God’s faithfulness, forgiveness and friendship. But since we can’t be here all day, let us conclude this sermon by proclaiming together just how good and loving God is by singing in one voice the great classic, In the Garden.

By the Grace of God Go I

2010-01-29T22:17:00.003-05:00

(Read Luke 6: 17-26 and Jeremiah 17: 5-10)

Today’s Gospel reading, sometimes referred to as the Sermon on the Plain, is a passage that I wrestle with. I am not as comfortable with a Jesus who is warning and condemning people. We expect to hear Jesus say, “Blessed are you…” but it seems contrary to his nature to hear, “Woe to you…” (Plus, I worry that I'm in the "Woe to you" faction.) In fact, I know people who ignore this passage in Luke, and instead, use a similar passage in Matthew called the Sermon on the Mount because Matthew’s version is filled only with blessings, and no curses.

In an honest attempt to understand Jesus’ warnings, I studied the passage more carefully. Woe to the rich; woe to those who are full; woe to those who are laughing; woe to those when people speak well of them. The more I thought about it, I still could not understand why Jesus would curse the people who have what we all want and what he intends to give. For example, Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.” And then a few lines later, Jesus says, “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.” Does he want us full or does he want us hungry?

Another example, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” But then he says, “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.” Does he want us to laugh or to weep? It would seem that Jesus wants us to laugh, but then he goes on to condemn people already laughing. What are we to make of this?

A surface reading of this passage will not do. This is not a direct condemnation of people who are wealthy or have full stomachs or are in a good mood or are liked by others. It’s not wrong to be likable, happy, satisfied, even overflowing. So let’s go deeper.

In Luke, chapter 6, a great multitude has come to hear Jesus preach, to have their diseases healed, and their spirits cleansed. They are coming in need to him. This is often how we come to God, when we are in need. It’s when we need something that we come knocking. It’s when something is wrong or we’re desperate that we do our best crying out for help. It’s when we’ve been drive to our knees that we pray.

Jesus is overjoyed when we come to him in our need. More than happy to open the door when we come knocking and answer our cries for help and our prayers. What distresses Jesus is when we don’t need him at all. Or at least we think we don’t. When we don’t rely on him. When we go elsewhere to get our needs met.

Imagine the scene of Luke 6: Jesus standing amongst the crowd on a level place, not a mountain as in the Gospel of Matthew. People everywhere are trying to touch him because they knew that he can help them. And he does help them. It says, “All in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.” He healed everyone who came!

And so Jesus looks around at the scene, and he notices who is among the people following him and who is not there. The only ones who have come to find him are the ones who need something that they can’t find anywhere else. So he says, Blessed are you who are poor because you came to me, and I can help you enter into the kingdom of God. He says, Blessed are you who are hungry now because you came to me, and I can help you. I can fill you up so that you will never be hungry again for I am the bread of life. Blessed are you who weep now because you came to me, and I will make you laugh. When you follow my path and my way, you will receive the promise of abundant and eternal life here and now. Here we have Jesus crying out in a prophetic voice telling all who will listen that God is on the side of the poor, the needy, the sorrow-filled and the rejected. God will come to their rescue.

But you see, those unfortunate people who are already rich, already filled, already laughing, already respected, they didn’t come to see Jesus because they didn’t need him. They were self-reliant. They were going off on their own path, and if they were thinking anything spiritual at all, it certainly wasn’t that they needed a Savior.

And so Jesus warns those people and so does the Prophet Jeremiah, who says, “Thus says the Lord, Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord” (Jeremiah 17: 5).

I have a friend named Leigh, and she is one of those people whose house is always clean, whose car is always washed, whose nails are always polished, and who finishes in the top 5% of her company in sales every quarter. In addition to that, she works out five times a week, seems to have a great relationship with her husband, and spends time with her son every day. I get exhausted just being around Leigh. I don’t know how she does it. And when I talk to her, she always says she’s doing good and is happy. No real problems to speak of.

But every once in awhile, Leigh’s veneer gets a crack in it, and underneath, closer to her heart, I see a lonely and scared person who doesn’t really trust other people to be there for her. That’s why she has to work so hard. She feels like its all up to her. Her life looks pretty perfect from the outside, but inside, she feels a ton of pressure to make her life what it is, and she’s tired. It is in these times, when the crack in her façade gives me a glimpse of the real person underneath that I feel closest to Leigh. And it’s at these times when she and I are able to have meaningful conversations about faith and friendship and love.

We are not meant to rely solely on our own strength and our own efforts to make it in this world. We are meant to rely on God and on one another. We are fragile beings and this life can be incredibley demanding. If we only rely on our own strength, we will end up feeling scared and overwhelmed. But when we rely on God’s Spirit to work in us and through us, we tap into a power that is much greater than any one of us, and God’s Spirit empowers us to live boldly and to accomplish great things. We also need to rely on one another. We need each other’s encouragement. We need someone to stand beside us or shovel with us when the load is too great.

St. Augustine said, “You must be empty of that which fills you that you may be filled with that of which you are empty.” And what that means in this circumstance is that we have to get rid of the idea that its only up to us; we have to let go of our prideful attempts to control our lives when things don’t seem to be working out; we have to stop going against the grain when all we’re accomplishing is getting splinters.

Let’s take a moment and all breathe out that which fills us. Take a deep breath and exhale. Give up control. Give up expectations and agendas. Let go. And then, inhale. Let the Spirit of Life fill you with whatever the Spirit of Life wants to fill you with. Inhale hope. Inhale help. Inhale the peace of God which surpasses all understanding. We have to risk being emptied of all that we have been relying on so that God can fill us with all that we really need.

Let us not turn away from the Lord for those who turn away dry up. “They shall be like a shrub in the desert.” Without God’s help, we don’t have what we need to sustain us.

But, “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is in the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots to the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green. In the year of draught it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.” Those who trust in the Lord are not anxious or afraid. They know that whatever needs to happen will happen if only they remain faithful and they come to Jesus in their time of need.

I’d like to invite you now to pray with me: “God, we are in need, and we are coming to you for help. Fill our souls. Make your Spirit our power that we might thrive like a tree planted by water. Amen."

Keep Awake! The Master Has Left Us in Charge

2010-01-10T23:16:00.001-05:00

(Read Mark 13:32-37 and Isaiah 40: 28-31)

One of the saddest moments in Jesus’ life, for me anyway, is in the Garden of Gethsemane, especially how the story is related by Matthew. After dinner in the upper room, which is when Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper as something his followers should do to remember him, Jesus and his disciples go to the Mount of Olives on the east side of Jerusalem so that he can pray. Jesus says to the disciples, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me” (Matthew 26:38). In this moment, we know that Jesus is afraid about what’s going to happen to him, and he’s saying to his best friends, “Be here with me.” He doesn’t want to be alone.

Then, he moves a stone’s throw away and prays to God, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want” (Matthew 26:39).

And then this is what I find so sad, heart-breaking really, is that after praying that prayer, basically asking God to make it so that he won’t die, so that he won’t be persecuted and executed, Jesus goes back to be with his friends, and he finds them all sleeping. He says to Peter, “Could you not stay awake with me one hour? Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial [and I think what he means by time of trial, which can also be translated as ‘temptation,’ is a time when you want the opposite of what is happening. Jesus wants things to be different than they are]; [Jesus says,] the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26: 40).

I don’t know if the disciples were really sleeping. They might just have been out of it, not there, not with him, not present. It was probably more than they could handle so they checked out.

Do you know what I am talking about? When a situation is so intense that your mind disassociates? When life feels so overwhelming that you feel the need to escape or to run away?

I don’t blame the disciples for “sleeping,” but I do feel bad for Jesus.

Life can be very difficult. Life can be very challenging. And when that’s the case, it is important that we rest. We need to give ourselves the time and space that we need so that we can heal, recover, and rejuvenate. It is important for us to rest when our bodies tell us we need to rest.

But once we are rested, it’s time to wake up. “Stay awake,” Jesus says to the disciples, and so he says it to us. “Stay Awake.” We have to stay awake because God needs us fully present, here and now, to take care of the kingdom and to take care of each other. God needs us fully awake so that we can appreciate this gift, which we call ‘life.’ God needs us to wake-up, to awaken, so that we can fully participate in our calling, in our destinies, in the wonderful plan that God has for us.

We need to be awake.

Today’s Gospel lesson is a parable found in Mark and Luke, although the two versions are slightly different. It’s a somewhat obscure parable, but I remembered it through the Bible study that’s going on Wednesday mornings. In this parable, the master of the house goes on a journey, and while he is away, he leaves his slaves in charge of the house. Scholars say that this is actually a metaphor for Jesus (the master) leaving the earth. The “journey” that the master is on is a common way to refer to the time from the resurrection until the second coming of Christ. So, in this period of time that the community that Mark was writing to was living, and now, in this same period of time that we are living, Jesus has left us in charge of the house, or the kingdom. And the message that comes to us through this parable is God saying to us, “I need you to be awake so that you can take care of things in the world that I have created for you and for all people.”

What I don’t like about the way that this parable is written is that it seems like a threat. “Beware!” it says (Mark 13:33). Like if the second coming were to happen, and we were found “asleep,” we would all be in big trouble. I’m not interested in the sort of interpretation that makes you worry about the end of time and whether or not you are going to be left behind.

But what I can take out of the warning, “Beware; keep alert,” is a sense of urgency. Right now, this minute, every day, God needs us to be awake and working for the healing and transformation of the world. Your lifetime matters. My lifetime matters. We have a charge to keep.

What your charge is exactly, I don’t know. I don’t think you have to know. As long as you are engaging in life, as long as you are paying attention to what is going on around you and responding in the appropriate ways that that situation requires, you are keeping your charge. As long as you are paying attention to the people around you, interacting with them, listening to them, responding in the loving ways that that people require, you are the slave or servant that is taking care of the house.

We don’t have to know our charge or our calling or our destiny. In fact, sometimes, we can’t know. It hasn’t been revealed to us yet. And in those cases, it’s just very important that you be awake, that you be present to life. Inspirational writer, Melody Beattie says, “Relax. You’re on a journey of discovery. Let life reveal itself to you.” I like that. A journey of discover. Enjoy the journey of discovery you are on.

However, I do think it’s helpful to know what God requires of us. It’s easier to do what’s expected when you know what’s expected. Micah 6:8 says, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”

So we can be just and seek out justice. We can be kind and receive kindness. We can walk humbly and faithfully on the path that is unrolling before us. These are all ways to serve the Master.

I also think that what God expects of us has to do with what we love and what we are good at. It wouldn’t be consistent with our idea of who God is if God demanded we do what kills our spirits and is a constant struggle.

So, what do you love and what are you good at? That’s what God wants you to do. That’s how you can “keep awake,” that’s how you can take care of the kingdom, by pursuing the path of what you love and what you are good at.

At the children’s Christmas pageant, we learned that the 9th day of Christmas is really about the 9 gifts of the Spirit. Each one of us has at least one if not more of these gifts. Listen and see if you hear a gift that resonates with you: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge…to another faith…to another gifts of healing…to another the working of miracles…to another prophecy…to another discernment…to another various kinds of tongues…to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses” (1 Cor. 12: 7-11).

You have one of these gifts. Believe in yourself. Be creative and use your gift!

It takes real courage and faithfulness to do what you are good at and what you love because the world does not encourage us to follow our bliss or to live our dreams. The world encourages us to think about money first, and to worry, and to be afraid. Money is important, and there are things to worry about and be afraid of, but these things shouldn’t rule our lives. Love and fulfillment, and the prospect of peace should rule our lives.

The prophet Isaiah says, “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40: 28-31).

My friends, if you are tired, get some rest. Wait for the Lord to come into your life and renew your strength. When you are ready, and to the rest of you, I say, “keep awake!” The kingdom has been entrusted to you. God is counting on you. And you can do it. “What I say to you I say to all: 'Keep Awake'” (Mark 13: 37).

What Gift Can I Bring?

2010-01-03T12:42:00.002-05:00

(Read Matthew 2:1-12)

We are at the start of a new year, a new decade for that matter, and I hope that everyone here has made some New Year’s resolutions, some goals that you want to accomplish, some dreams that you want to come true.

Benjamin Mays, who was a minister, scholar, social activist and the president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, said, “The tragedy in life does not lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream” (Zadra, Dan and Kobi Yamada. 1, How Many People Does It Take to Make a Difference? Seattle: Compendium, 2009.)

I think he’s right. However, that being said, I do hope you succeed in reaching your goals and fulfilling your dreams this year.

What are some of the reasons why people fail to accomplish their New Year’s resolutions, their goals, their dreams in life? Fear of failure; some might even say fear of success. Laziness. Lack of perseverance or lack of diligence. Not having confidence or faith in one’s self. Another possible option is that we make unrealistic resolutions or we bite off more than we can chew.

I would like to say a word about fear of failure and about procrastination.

First, fear of failure. Do you know that Michael Jordan, arguably the best basketball player of all time, was cut from his high school basketball team? Imagine the great loss if he never would have tried again or would have just played baseball. But getting cut in high school didn’t stop him; he didn’t quit.

Do you know that Thomas Edison failed a reported twenty-five thousand times in his efforts to invent the battery?

When a reporter asked Edison how he felt about failing 25, 000 times, Edison said, “Failed. I haven’t failed. Today I know twenty-five thousand ways not to make a battery!” (Dyer, Wayne. Wisdom of the Ages. New York: Quill, 2002. pg. 156.)

I am someone who has not pursued certain goals and dreams because I am afraid of failure (in college I was afraid of getting a B!), so I really appreciate how Edison re-frames the way we commonly think of failure and success. Best-selling author, Wayne Dyer, writes in his book, Wisdom of the Ages, “There is no such thing as failure! You cannot fail, you can only produce results!” (Ibid, pg. 154.) That’s what Edison is saying. He produced 25, 001 results; one of which lead to the invention of the battery. If we could all start thinking like Edison and Dyer, then fear of failure would cease to be a reason we don’t achieve our goals. We would just keep trying until we achieved a result with which we were satisfied.

Dyer, who has written over 30 books by the way, also writes, “It is better to jump in and experience life than to stand on the sidelines fearing that something might go wrong” (Ibid, pg. 155.)

If we want to succeed, we cannot let fear of failure get in our way.

We also can’t let procrastination or laziness or lack of diligence get in our way. Excuses are just that, excuses.

Here these words from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s (1749-1832) classic book, Faust (considered one of the greatest works in German literature, early 1800s):

“Lose This Day Loitering”

Lose this day loitering—‘twill be the same story
To-morrow—and the next more dilatory [delay it even more];
Each indecision bring its own delays,
And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days.
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute—
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Only engage and then the mind grows heated—
Begin it, and then the work will be completed!
(From Dyer. Pg. 95.)

Dyer writes in Wisdom of the Ages, “The reluctance to engage is what keeps you stuck… The tendency to put it off, to procrastinate, causes you to lose this day. [It is] the valuable technique of beginning” (Ibid, pg. 97.) that enables us to accomplish our goals and achieve our dreams. “Do not think about finishing a project, or about how overwhelming the task may seem. Do nothing more than begin…” (Ibid, pg. 96.). Anything we are to finish, we must begin.

I’m sure you have heard the saying, “The journey of 1000 miles starts with one step.” The message here is: talk about what you want to do, and then do it! Start!

Today, we celebrate Epiphany, one of the more important days in the Christian liturgical year, but a day that many don’t know the significance of. In the general sense of the word, an epiphany is a “sudden manifestation of the meaning or essence of something.”

Like when I arrived at Princeton. I understood the meaning of the last year of my life. I knew I was meant to go there.

In the Christian liturgical year, epiphany is a feast celebrating the manifestation of the divine nature of Jesus to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi. The gift of epiphany is that now everyone in the world can know, can recognize Jesus as one sent by God, as a king.

When the Magi, as the wise men are often called, journeyed to find Jesus, they brought with them gifts to pay honor to the newborn king. That got me thinking. We are also on a journey in this life to find Jesus, to know him, to honor him. Isn’t it fitting that we also bring gifts to Jesus like they did?

The gifts the Magi brought were gifts fit for a king. The Scripture says, "On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered [the baby Jesus] gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh" (Matthew 2:11). The gifts they gave Jesus were very valuable monetary and material gifts. We are accustomed to giving monetary gifts to Jesus as well, and while these gifts are greatly appreciated and necessary for Christ's Church to continue, they are not the only kind of gifts we can bring.

In the song, "The Little Drummer Boy" the young boy comes to Jesus and says, “Baby Jesus, I am a poor boy too, I have no gift to bring, thats fit to bring our king, shall I play for you, on my drum?” Mary nods yes to the little drummer boy, and so he gives the gift of his music to the baby Jesus. The last words of the song are: “Then, he smiled at me, me and my drum.”

Jesus smiled at the little boy who offered something of himself as a gift.

And so I thought, why not combine this idea of what gift can we bring to Jesus with our New Year’s resolutions? What can we commit to doing this year that is an offering to Christ?

Give something to Jesus that requires you to use something God gave to you. For example:

According to the newspaper, the number one New Year’s resolution is to get in shape. God gave us our bodies. Commit to taking care of yours in the new year.

God gave us our talents. Use your talent this year. I am writing a book. Even though I am afraid of failing, even though I want to procrastinate, the only real failure will be if I don’t try, don’t start. All of the people that I admire and that have impacted my life: Jesus, Buddha, Vincent Van Gogh, Elvis Presley singing gospel, St. Augustine, St. Francis, St. Bernard of Clairvioux, Julian of Norwich, Richard Foster, Marcus Borg, Brother Lawrence, John Wesley, Marianne Williamson, Eckart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dave Matthews, Eddie Vedder, none of these people that have inspired me died or will die with their music inside of them. They sang in their lifetime. They made music. I don’t want to die with my music inside of me!

If you are artistic, paint or frame a photo you took. If you are a good writer, write your memoir. If you are interested in preserving family history, draw up your family tree.

If you have been given a curious nature, go back to school, take a class of some kind, take up a musical instrument., learn how to cook new foods.

If you have been blessed with a home, take care of it. Make it nice. Open your doors and invite people in.

You have been given many gifts so there is no end to what you have to give. Just don’t be afraid and don’t wait. What gift will you give God in 2010?

Erma Bombeck wrote books and over 4,000 hilarious newspaper columns, which described the everyday life of a suburban housewife and her kids. She said, “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’” (Zadra, Dan and Kobi Yamada. 1, How Many People Does It Take to Make a Difference? Seattle: Compendium, 2009.)

May we all be able to say to God, “I used everything you gave me.”

For Those Who Believed, He Gave Power

2010-01-02T13:16:00.000-05:00

(Read John 1:1-14)

For many of us, the concept of power is a troublesome thing. Afterall, Christians are supposed to be meek, humble and loving. Is it possible to be those things and powerful all at the same time?

Part of the problem is the way that power has been misused in the world throughout time. Whites misused their power to enslave those with darker skin than them for thousands of years (to this day). Hitler misused his power to annihilate 6 million Jews. Governments misuse their power to steal from their people and serve special interest groups. Companies misuse their power to make their executive officers rich at the expense of their employees and stock holders. Husbands misuse their power to dominate their wives. Parents misuse their power to subjugate their children. The misuse of power to control and deny others of their basic human rights is one of the great sins of this world.

The other part of the problem is our understanding of what it means to be powerful or who can be powerful. The popular understanding of power is that it is reserved for those who are wealthy, beautiful, famous, healthy, educated, in higher positions, physically dominating (the bully, the mafia, the military), etc.

I don’t believe we have been taught what healthy power is, nor have we been taught how to cultivate that healthy power. Power, when used for the good, is a God-given blessing. The Gospel of John says, “To all who receive him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).

Belief somehow unlocks our power. When we believe in God, when we believe that God resides in us, then we have the power to be the children of God. Who are God’s children? People who are loved, loving and happy. People who are capable, strong, and empowered to make a difference in this world. People who live out their callings, who live into their destinies, who realize their dreams.

Each of us has inherent power. Our energy is our power. Our spirits are our power. We all have energy and we all have spirits, and we all have power that can be used for the good.

False power is fueled by the ego. It seeks to make the self better than others. More attractive. More wealthy. More successful. More well-known. More desirable. False power can be easily taken away because we need those outside of ourselves to give it to us. We need their affirmation. We need their approval. We need something that they have to give us.

Spiritual power is different. It cannot be taken away because it comes from within. Spiritual power is the power that comes to those who believe and those who walk the spiritual path.

Spiritual power requires hard work because it requires you to face your suffering. Suffering is our greatest teacher in this life. If you resist suffering, it persists. (What you resist persists). You have to face your demons; admit your weaknesses; show your vulnerabilities. When you enter into your suffering, you can see through it and this leads to rewards beyond measure: to understanding, to compassion for yourself and others, to strength, to inner peace, to harmony amongst those with whom you relate. Spiritual power leads you out of suffering and into happiness. It leads you into eternal life here and now.

Thich Nhat Hanh describes five kinds of spiritual power in his book, The Art of Power. They are:

Faith. Which is actually more accurately translated as confidence or trust in yourself. If we don’t believe in ourselves, if we don’t have confidence and trust in ourselves, we have litter or no power. It is very difficult to accomplish something that you don’t think you can accomplish.

Diligence. Which is to stay committed to something. To keep at it. To fall down and get up over and over again. To go astray and to come back. Think in terms of progress and not finality. You will accomplish your goal if you don’t quit. That’s power.

Mindfulness. Which is to pay attention. To be here, now. To be present. To be aware. When we pay attention to what is really happening in the present moment, we are able to respond in the way that is most appropriate, in the way that situation requires. Most of the time, we just act out of habit. We sleep walk through life and drive on auto pilot.

Concentration. Which is to go deeper. Once you become aware of what is actually going on, you can really begin to engage life and people. Who is this person that you are talking to? What are they trying to say? What does this job that you are doing require of you? How can you meet the needs that are present?

Insight. Which is to see clearly. To see reality as it is. To see the true nature of things, the essence of things. It is what Buddhists call right view. Insight occurs once we have concentrated and come to see deeply. We come to a greater understanding and are now able to act in accordance with what the person or situation actually requires. We no longer come from distorted perceptions or wrong view. We see the bigger picture. We see as God sees.

Cultivate these five spiritual powers through the practice of meditation and mindful living. The children of God are called to be a powerful people working for good in the world.

A Letter of Encouragement from Pastor Mandy

2009-12-27T19:23:00.000-05:00

Dear Friends,

Happy 2010! The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to reflect on your past and dream about your future. It is a time to recommit yourself to the spiritual path you are walking and reinvent yourself according to God’s call in your life. Too often, Christians are sabotaged by a false sense of humility that makes us believe we don’t deserve more success and happiness, that we shouldn’t want more out of life—but that is not true. God has instilled passion and creativity inside of each of us and created a world with abundant possibilities. We are living faithfully when we use our gifts and take advantage of all that life has to offer.

Benjamin Mays, who was a minister, scholar, social activist and the president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, said, “The tragedy in life does not lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream.”

Take some time this month to dream, and then set goals for yourself that will help to make those dreams come true. What do you care about? Who do you want to help? What have you always wanted to do that you have not yet? There are only so many tomorrows, so stop putting your heart on hold. Invest yourself in each day as you live it. This year, may you achieve a dream or accomplish a goal that you can feel proud of and that brings excitement to you and your loved ones.

The Spirit will guide you and help you!
Pastor Mandy

Jesus, Be Born in Us Today

2009-12-24T13:43:00.002-05:00

I met Sara several years ago at a mutual friend’s birthday party, and we began talking about spiritual matters almost immediately. As soon as Sara found out I was a minister, she said, “I am so angry with God that I’ve stopped praying.” I asked her what happened to make her feel this way. “Well,” she said, “God never seems to give me what I want.” Sara explained to me that she had been in a turbulent marriage which ended because she wanted to have children and her husband didn’t. She had been divorced for 5 years now, and since then she had been praying for God to bless her with a loving relationship and a family of her own. She had dated a few men, one who broke her heart and the others didn’t amount to much. “I’m so lonely,” she told me, “and I don’t even feel like God cares about my happiness.”

Sadly, Sara’s anger towards God is not uncommon. I have spoken with many people, young and old, male and female, single and married, church-goer and non church-goer, who feel like God doesn’t answer their prayers. Seth is a colleague of mine in his 50’s who is struggling in his relationship with his teenage son. Seth explained to me that he and his son argue all the time and not for any good reason. Seth feels like his son fights with him just to fight. Seth is a faithful man, and so he took his concerns to God, praying that there would be less hostility between him and his son, praying that they might actually get along and enjoy being together.

“This has been going on for three years,” Seth told me, “and nothing has changed.” “Maybe God is powerless to help in this situation because my son doesn’t believe in God,” he said. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

Sara’s anger and Seth’s disillusionment are feelings I think most of us can relate to in some way. Anyone who has ever had a problem that persists, whether it be health concerns, money issues, relationship difficulties, destructive habits or addictions usually wrestles with their faith in God at some point. We ask questions like: Does God even care? Does prayer really work? We might even start to doubt ourselves, wondering if we are asking for the wrong things and that’s why our prayers are going unanswered. (Isn’t there a scripture that says your prayers aren’t answered because you ask wrongly?)
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For many of us, having faith in God means putting our trust and hope in a divine being outside of ourselves. This means that we put ourselves in a powerless situation waiting for God, who is out there, external to us, to enter into our lives and make something happen. It’s no wonder that so many people end up feeling bitter towards God and helpless. In trying to be faithful, we give our power away.

Tonight, we celebrate and rejoice in the incarnation, that God came to earth to be with us in the person of Jesus Christ. But we aren’t just remembering a historical event that took place 2000 years ago halfway around the world. We are celebrating and rejoicing because Jesus is being born again tonight in the hearts of all who believe. On this most sacred of evenings, consider that God has come to dwell in you. Jesus was a human being with the divine inside of him. The miracle of Christmas is that we are human beings with the divine inside of us also.

To have faith in God is to let the Christ child grow inside of you so that as you think, speak and act, it is Christ thinking, speaking and acting in you. Jesus remains present in the world through each of us. As Paul proclaims in Galatians, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

Think what this means then. The power of God is no longer something completely external to yourself, something you are waiting for, something you have no control over. The power of God dwells in you. To believe in God is to believe in yourself. To have faith in God is to have faith in yourself. To have confidence in God is to have confidence in yourself. And to trust in God is to trust in yourself because you and God are one, like Jesus and the Father are one.

Imagine how this understanding will change your relationship with God, the way you feel about yourself and the way you live your life. Instead of being angry and feeling helpless when prayers aren’t answered, instead of crying to the heavens who don’t respond or abandoning faith all together, you can now turn inward and find the strength, the wisdom and the love to be the change that you want. When you have confidence in yourself, you realize that you are capable of accomplishing great things. (And maybe not even such great things, but more than you ever did before.) Fear and doubt and worry no longer rule your life. You are empowered instead of being a victim. You can take chances. You realize that you can be transformed and you help to transform others. You realize that you have the gifts to inspire love in the hearts of others, beauty in the eyes of others and change in the world.

As Christ’s Spirit is born in your heart and as it grows, you become the one who can answer your prayers. This is the same thing as God answering your prayers. God is in you, and he wants you to know it.

The bad habit or addiction you can’t break, with God in you, you will find the power to choose differently, to choose health over destruction. The worry over money that keeps you up at night and on edge during the day, with God in you, you will have a new perspective from which to approach the world. That cycle of blame and regret you have with your loved one, with God in you, you will break that cycle by becoming someone who responds rather than reacts and someone who listens before you speak.

Jesus said, “Abide in me as I abide in you. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15: 4, 5). But when we abide in him and he abides in us, we can do anything.

To have faith in God is to have confidence and trust in yourself.

My friend, Sara, she will have a loving relationship and a family of her own, but she needs to take ownership of her life and her decisions first. She needs to learn how to love herself and take care of herself instead of wanting someone else to do it for her. My colleague, Seth, he can stop arguing with his son as soon as he chooses to. But he has to stop reacting to his son’s negativity. He needs to look at the power struggle that is going on between them and acknowledge his son for the person he is without trying to change him.

In saying all of this, I am not trying to take away God’s omnipotence, or the fact that God is wholly other, beyond any single one of us, beyond all of us put together. I just want to emphasize what I don’t believe was ever emphasized to me. I was taught my salvation had to come from a source external to myself. (That put me in a needy position). I thought that God was outside of me, but now I know that God is in me and God is in you. (That empowers us as children of light.)

Inside a pregnant woman’s stomach is a baby, a living human being, a miracle. My friend, Lara, is 8 months pregnant, and I saw her on Sunday. She said that she and her husband, Justin, just keep looking at her stomach and touching her stomach, and they are in awe and wonder. There’s a miracle inside of her. and its ready to be born.

There is a miracle inside of each of us, many miracles in fact, and they want to be born. So if no one ever told you this before, the miracle tonight, the night of Christ’s birth, is you.

Our next hymn is “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and verse four says, “O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell; O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.”