Bending Over Backwards

This past week I sat in on a great discussion about a Max Lucado book. Courteousness was the central theme, and quickly the conversation turned to public displays of rudeness - in line at the bank, unreasonable customers, bad customer service, and the like. There were several small business owners in attendance, who were quick to share stories of customer service 'challenges' (i.e. horror stories!)that they'd encountered.

The fundamental problem was conflict between the Christian ethic of 'turning the other cheek' and the pragmatic responsibilities of running a viable business. Where is the line? When a customer expects a business to address a problem for which the business is not responsible, how is the Christian businessperson to respond? By extension, it's not just business owners who are caught up in this ethical dilemma. If I have a spare bedroom, or even space on my couch, and I encounter a homeless person, am I obligated by my Christian faith to open up my home to the person with no where else to sleep?

So that frames the question. I'll share some thoughts and perhaps resolutions in a couple of days. In the meantime, what do you think?

A Devotion on Another Level

One of the initiatives I'm involved in is Another Level - an upstart outreach to persons who for the most part have never been to church. This post is written as a meditation for the leaders, based on Jeremiah 1:4-10.



The word of the LORD came to me (Jeremiah), saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
“Ah, Sovereign Lord," I (Jeremiah) said, "I do not know how to speak; I am only a child."
But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the Lord.
Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant"
Jeremiah 1:4-9

This month, we’re going to be focusing as much effort as we can on getting the word out about Another Level. We’re going to be focusing on inviting others to come and see what God is doing, to come and consider what God might be doing in their lives, to come and share with us their wisdom and their struggles, to join with us in seeking out the life God has set before us. This sharing comes with some level of risk. We risk being rejected, we risk putting our proverbial foot in our proverbial mouths, we risk failing and we risk being criticized. We also risk that the people we invite will actually come; and when they come, who and what will they find? They will find ordinary people, whom God has known since before God formed us in the womb, who were set apart for this mission that we are a part of. It’s daunting, really.

Jeremiah was a prophet who God chose to speak to the nation of Israel. When God talked to Jeremiah about tearing down – he was talking about nations and kingdoms. I don’t know about you, but I am not feeling called to tear down or build up nations.
But there are walls that we ARE called to tear down: the walls that insulate the church – Christ’s body on earth – from the people she is called to serve; the walls that divide persons of different color skin or different levels of income; the walls that disconnect the wise from the disillusioned.

Maybe we can find great comfort and purpose in the words God spoke to Jeremiah and the words God speaks to us: “You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the decision to act in spite of the fear. Faith is putting our trust in the One God who calls us to courage, come what may.

Cold Winter's night

Most of our day was filled trying to occupy our little snow angels, who made countless trips in and out of the house to find things to do in the snow. I started to sense that even in the midst of the glorious family time, God was calling me to some time apart to listen. So much of our lives are spent tending to this, watching that, investigating this, trying to plan that, that even on 'family days' we can be out of balance. After a full day of sledding and drying jackets and gloves, after some time in front of the TV, after my wife turned in because she was wiped out herself, I did the dishes, and then took the trash can to the curb (actually in error - I was a day early). But as I stepped out onto the porch, i gazed up at a peaceful, crystal clear sky. It had been so long since I just stopped and sat and gazed at creation, I decided the time was right.
I got out my warmest sleeping bag and put a couple of camping sleeping pads down on my snow-covered deck, and climbed into my goose-down coccoon, pulling the draw cords on the bag to a small circle around my face. The moon was so bright that I almost needed to shield my eyes. The air in my lungs was cold, but the sleeping bag did the trick and kept me warm.

I tried to stop, to pause, to rest, to pray. To bask in God's beautiful creation. I thought about people who had no choice but to sleep outside, and how blessed we are to have a warm house. I thought about how big the universe is, and how small we are. What I was mostly aware of, however, was how little time I spend in quiet stillness. I don't think I made it all the way through a single hymn without having my thoughts drift off on some tangent.

In the end, I got cold. I was continually shifting in the sleeping bag, trying to find a warm position. I finally gave up, when my feet got cold and in the constraints of the sleeping bag I couldn't get my socks back on. I went inside at about 5am, not having slept a wink, and crawled into bed next to my wife. I suppose it was a vigil of sorts, a reminder that prayer is hard - even in utter silence and alone-ness. God used the day without church to call me back to relationship; he used a time without interruption to remind me of how many interruptions I put in our way; he used the middle of a cold night to remind me of how cold the heart can grow without his presence. I'm ready to be warm again.

Ed

That Guy

Well, the presents are under the tree. Evidently Santa has arrived. Many of our family members and church family members have helped to make this another wonderful christmas. There are, thankfully, presents under the tree. Can't wait to see the kids faces.

That said, there's a new sense of hope in the air. This was the first christmas in many many years where we didn't add to the red side of the balance sheet. More notably, I've been blessed to see several mini-miracles; like the one at church tonight.

During the Children and Family Christmas Eve service, a collection of coats was taken up to benefit the people served by the Salvation Army. Most of the children had been invited last week to bring a new or gently used coat to donate for a child in need. This little girl's family didn't know about the collection, though. Probably their first time attending anything at our church. The little girl had a coat, though: the one she wore to the service. She looked at her mom, and in a whisper asked if it was OK. Her mom nodded that it was. Indeed it was. She left her own coat for another child to benefit from.

It was a chilly night tonight. Not freezing, but not warm either. The little girl probably had goose bumps on her way to her car. But she warmed the hearts of a blessed few who had the eyes to watch a Christmas miracle unfold, and her gift will warm the body of a blessed girl somewhere. That little girl won't know the story, but it will warm her just the same.

Then there's the call from an old friend - haven't spoken with him in more than a year; there's the offer from someone at church to help us do some last minute preparing; there's the divinely-infused conversation earlier this evening; there's the gift card that I re-gifted that bought a badly needed pair of shoes; the 'here's a little something' presents from Benson memorial folks;

I know in the last post, I said I was 'that guy'. I think I still am. We are still that family. Nothing much has changed. Even when I was seeing the role with tears in my eyes, God invited our family to be faithful. All we decided to do, together, was to wait and see what happened. It was worth the wait.

Merry Christmas

Just which Christmas is it beginning to look like?

We live in a world of contrasts. Just this past Sunday, within the span of a few brief moments, one of those contrasts drove me to tears.

Our senior pastor, Skip Williams, was delivering a fine example of an Advent sermon. During the sermon, he told the obligatory story of Christmas morning - children, gathered around the tree, looking at the piles of presents, drooling and squealing with the anticipation of tearing through them. His encouragement was to pause, and to read the Christmas story in Luke's gospel, and to pray. Wise advice, indeed.

A few minutes later in the service, as is the custom at our church, some of our members performed a "modern nativity", replacing the angel in the Christmas story with a Wake Med Life-flight nurse, shepherds with a wounded vet and a fireman, wise men with a business man and a doctor. And Mary and Joseph were recently homeless from the foreclosure crisis, living out of a suitcase with their very much alive (and very cute) baby "Jesus".

This year, Christmas won't be easy for my family. We really haven't been able to put away much for presents or Christmas travel, and in all seriousness, for the first time in my life, I'm not sure where the money for Christmas presents is going to come from.

That meant that I was a blubbering mess in church last Sunday; I was moved to tears. I'm a paycheck away from being 'that family'. I stand at a distance, almost from outside the windows, gazing at families with mountains of perfect gifts piled under the tree. I tremble at the thought that somehow I won't be able to provide the best Christmas ever. When the overwhelming voice of our culture screams "Make your kids happy by having lots of gifts under the tree", while the overwhelming Christian culture overwhelmingly screams, "In your perfectly decorated house, make sure you have a beautiful austere manger scene displayed", in the midst of the din the silent night, the lonely cold cave, the unwed mother, the uncomfortable newborn, the temporarily homeless parents, the poor shepherds, are so easily drowned out. It becomes, for those who find themselves outside the reach of the cozy hearths, a question of faith: just who is God with, anyway? With the 'us' that devours it's presents, or with the 'us' that stares longlingly from the outside in, taking only warm comfort in the assurance that God might have come to be even with us? A study in contrasts, indeed.

Complete Joy - 4/19/09 Sermon - Part 3

This morning, I was tempted to share with you a long litany of the lives that have been changed as a result of God’s working through this church, through the church. Make no mistake, that litany was a long one. There are many wonderful stories of testimony, of courageous action in the name of Christ, of the life-giving power of God manifest in our midst. Praising our WIHN efforts, our children’s ministry, our scouting program, our Sunday School. All of those beacons of light, reflections of the divine in our midst. I was trying my best to follow the form of this letter of 1 John:
"Concerning that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen and with our hands we have touched, which we have looked at an now proclaim"
But I think If that was the sermon I would have preached, we would have missed the point. 1 John talks about God’s light, and an awareness of our own sin as being necessary for true fellowship and complete joy.
So, it seems to me that a better, more glorious sermon, a sermon that is true to the spirit of 1 John, would be to discuss our shortcomings. The things that set the alarms off from within. An acknowledgement that we’re not there yet – we’re not even close.

This fellowship – it’s made up of people with rough edges. The people who have been here for awhile know the rough spots we’ve been through. While most folks come here dressed up, all the folks here are up to their eyeballs in sin. Not all of us cheat on our taxes, very few of us (I hope) are murderers or serial killers, the great majority of us really do try to honor our fathers and mothers, but when you shine God’s light into the deep recesses of our hearts, it’s not very pretty. We’re all the same in that regard. Different sins, same sinful nature. We all stand in need of mercy before God. And yet, some here are the recipients of complete joy. Honest fellowship. The ones who experience this peace, this joy, this unity, they get what brother 1 John is telling us – we’re not perfect. We need Jesus. Now get out there and find some other folks who need to hear that or who already live it.

I close with this illustration. I’ve got two kinds of materials here. I want to make something strong. Something that will hold up under pressure. Something that will weather the storms of life. Here’s one material – a plastic Easter Egg. It’s shiny – smooth – put together. Quite nicely. It’s very pretty to look at. But if you want to make something out of it that will last, well, good luck.

Here’s another material – a rough jagged stone. Dirty. Rough edges. Who knows where it’s been. But look at how well it fits together. Imagine 3 or 4 hundred of these stacked together – and you’ve got yourself by the grace of God – something that lasts.

On Christ the solid rock we stand – all other ground is sinking sand. Brothers and sisters, I share with you what I have seen and heard and touched – concerning the word of life – that we may have true fellowship with the one who is before all things and with one another, and that our joy may be complete. Amen.

(Stone Wall picture from North Wales Picture Library, Paul Mattock)http://www.northwalespicturelibrary.co.uk/Landscape%20folder/pages/stone%20wall(toned)%20copy.html

Complete Joy - 4-19-09 Sermon - Part 2

(This sermon is based on 1 John 1:1 - 2:2)

Concerning that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen and with our hands we have touched, which we have looked at an now proclaim
Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance, where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor disturbance. Where there is poverty with joy, there is neither covetousness nor avarice, Where there is inner peace and meditation, there is neither anxiousness nor dissipation . . . Where there is mercy and discernment, there is neither excess nor hardness of heart. (St Francis of Assisi, Francis and Clare, p. 35, as printed in the People’s Companion to the Breviary, p. 431)
I know a man whose life became one of fear and trepidation when he received news from the IRS that his tax records didn’t add up, and he was being audited. It caused fear in the depths of his heart because he really did have something to hide – evidently the numbers looked suspicious because he was not being honest. He was not being honest because he believed he needed the money more than the government did. But, to be honest, he didn’t want to tell the government that. He chose to hide it from them. Truth be told, that kind of cowardly self-confidence was pervasive in his life, and it keeps him bound in some measure of fear.
I know of another man who suspected his elementary school daughter stole something. He came down very hard on her. Thing about it is, I also know because of his boasting that he didn’t report all of his income this year. I find the two positions grossly inconsistent.

1 John 1:8-10
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Contrast that with a movie I watched this week – I finally got around to watching Ben Kingsley’s marvelous portrayal of Mahatma Ghandi. As an Indian native in South Africa during the time of apartheid, there is a scene in which Ghandi speaks out against the pass system. The South African government was requiring that all Indian folks carry a pass and be fingerprinted like criminals. Ghandi organized a small rally to protest the system, and proceeded to burn his pass in public, the police standing by to discourage such insurrection. Perhaps if you’ve seen the movie, you remember the scene, Ghandi loudly proclaiming the reason for his defiant action, then placing his pass in the fire. The police responding with a sharp blow to his arm. When Ghandi reaches with the other arm to burn the pass, he is struck again. He reaches to burn another pass. He is struck again. There is great courage in his actions – fully transparent – not fearing any punishment his captors could inflict. Not lashing out or attempting to retaliate against the authorities, trusting that the ultimate good for which he stands will win out over the violent system of oppression.

1 John 1:5-7
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

What really impressed me about Ghandi in the movie, though, was what happened when the nonviolent movement that he started became violent. I had learned somewhere that Ghandi had used a hunger strike as part of his protest against British rule. What the movie portrayed was that Ghandi decided to fast – to go without food – because his own movement had lost its way – the people that were fighting for his own ends had gotten caught up in sinning. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, he said. The sin was not out there, it was also inside.