A Fierce Kindness--January 20, 2023

A Fierce Kindness--January 20, 2023

"For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian." [Isaiah 9:4]

When it comes right down to it, God chooses to be the One who disarms bullies, frees captives, and stops abusers--not the one who backs the powerful simply because they are powerful.  Knowing the difference not only helps us to see God rightly in the world, but also helps us to know how to navigate the world in the footsteps of God's kindness.

Getting that confused, on the other hand, does a terrible disservice to God's reputation in the world, and makes it harder for people to let themselves open up to the love of that God.  It matters, in other words, how we picture God, how we understand what God is up to in the world, and how we let God break apart the boxes we keep building to try and force God inside.

Let me back up for a moment. In fact, let's shift gears and talk about something entirely separate from God and the Bible for a moment.  Indulge, for a moment, my inner nerd with a bit of Star Wars lore. In my favorite Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, a young promising student named Rey comes to legendary Jedi Master [now with a salt-and-pepper beard] Luke Skywalker, seeking his training so that she, too, can learn to be a Force-wielding Jedi like him.  Skywalker asks her what she thinks she knows about the Force, and she replies, "It's a power that the Jedi have that lets them control people and make things float."  The grizzled old Master answers back, "Impressive--every word in that sentence was wrong."  The Force, he insists, isn't a power you have that you can compel to do your bidding, but an energy beyond anyone's mastery that binds all living things together.  In other words, she came knowing some of the right words she had heard before ["the Force," "the Jedi," the "Dark Side," and such], but not really understanding what those things meant.  And from there, well, Rey can't help but get every word wrong.

Maybe it's easier to see something like that happening when we are watching it on a screen in a sort of blockbuster space-fairy-tale that takes place "long ago in a galaxy far, far away" than to have to face the ways we so easily do the same with God.  But... we do, in fact, get things terribly wrong with God sometimes, and we end up misrepresenting who God is.  This passage from Isaiah is one of those moments we have a chance to hear carefully and to get it right.

Here's what I mean.  Often, our talk of God starts with just picturing the "Biggest" thing we can--we speak of God as "the Higher Power" or "Supreme Authority" or "King of the Universe" or "Architect and Designer of the Cosmos."  And those aren't necessarily wrong, but it's really easy to start with just picturing God as the power or authority that props everything else up, and from there to say, "Whoever has power or authority or might in the world must therefore have it because God has authorized them to have it."  We end up saying things [as happened for a very long time in medieval Europe, for example] like, "Whoever is king is in charge because God has appointed them to be king, and therefore to resist the king is the same as resisting God."  Or we end up saying things [as happened for a very long time in slaveholding America, for example] like, "Slaveholders are backed by God's authority and ordering of things, and so the enslaved should not seek their freedom or question The Way Things Are."  Or we come to conclusions like, "Everybody who is in a prison cell is getting their just punishment, and they should rot in jail behind bars forever for doing whatever bad things they did, because God's authority rubber-stamps whatever punishments or sentences our systems come up with."  We end up just picturing God as the Cosmic Muscle that enforces human authorities.  And we end up with terrible theology that says things like, "The bombs destroyed your village because God willed for that more powerful neighboring nation to invade you," or "God wants you to stay in an abusive relationship because God endorses The Way Things Are," or "It's wrong to work for release and rehabilitation for those who are imprisoned, because God's justice demands they suffer enough."  We start by just picturing God as the "Power Behind the Powers of the Day," and don't realize how far afield that leads us from who God actually is revealed to be in the Scriptures.

Here in these words from Isaiah, for example, God's kindness shows up as God disarms the bullies who have harassed the listeners, as God breaks their weapons and stops the enemy armies who have attacked them.  God's kindness takes a side to stop the abuser, to let the oppressed go free, and to break the weapons used by bullies to intimidate the people.  God takes a stand with those who have been intimidated and hurt, and God chooses to stop the ones who have made them afraid.  That's who God is, to hear Isaiah tell it.

That's a big deal, because like I say, sometimes in history--including very much in Christian history--we have made the colossal mistake of defining God first and foremost as the one who props up all the other powers, armies, generals, tyrants, dictators, and bullies of the day.  When we start there, we are always going to end up confusing God for an idol of "order" that preserves "The Way Things Are," rather than recognizing how often the real and living God shakes things up by releasing the captives, disarming the bully, and breaking the power of the oppressor.  It's God standing up for the enslaved Hebrews against Pharaoh and delivering them through the Sea... and God listening to Hannah's prayer and giving her a son, Samuel... and God preserving Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace against Nebuchadnezzar... and God saving Daniel in the lions' den... and over and over and over again.  If we actually read the Scriptures we get the picture of a God whose heart is turned in kindness toward those who are threatened, rather than God as the Source of Power for the powerful.

And what's more, God doesn't intend for the ones who have been picked on or bullied to just in turn become new bullies or oppressors, either.  God doesn't say, "Your enemy has a rod, so I'll give you all some weapons, too, and you'll just fight it out and we'll see who comes out on top."  God doesn't believe that the way to fight an oppressor with a rod is to give more rods, sticks, swords, and spears to the oppressed ones, so they'll turn around and abuse in return.  Rather, God breaks the weapons of the enemy and disarms the bullies.  God is fierce, to be sure, but it is a fierceness that comes from a place of kindness and love for those who are most easily forgotten or ignored.  That's who God is.

I wonder, where are there places in our own lives where we have been living with illusions or confused mental pictures of God?  Where have we settled for thinking of God as just the Authority Figure who backs up all the other voices who claim to have "power" and "authority," and where have we missed God's actual presence in the world as the One who stops bullies, makes abusers cease, breaks weapons, and disarms the aggressor?  Where might we need an Isaiah [or a Luke Skywalker] to speak with honesty and love, "Every word in that bad theology of yours is wrong," and maybe show us a clearer picture like this one from Isaiah 9?  And if we do come face to face with the realization that we've been getting it so wrong for so long, will we dare to let go of our idols and imaginary pictures of "God" so that we can be drawn closer to the living God whose heart is kind?  Or will we choose to dig our heels in and hold onto our illusions because they are familiar, and don't require us to change?

There's the choice, today and every day.  God is pretty clear here about who God chooses to be--the one who disarms the enemy and breaks the weapons of the oppressor, so that nobody has to live in fear anymore.  Where will we go from here?

Lord God, help us to see you honestly, beyond our illusions and idols, and to be a part of your work of kindness and release in the world for all who live in fear.

Seeing the Overlooked--January 19, 2023

Seeing the Overlooked--January 19, 2023

"There will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time [the Lord] brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest..." [Isaiah 9:1-3a]

When people get overlooked in life, it's not that they're actually invisible--it's usually that others are too busy, too comfortable, too distracted, or too self-absorbed to see them.  And it takes a special skill to walk through life deliberately enough to truly see the ones who are left to fall through the cracks.  That is at the heart of God's kindness, and the same kindness we are led to practice.

These words from the prophet Isaiah are beautiful, to be sure, but beyond that they are compelling because they reveal a God who stops to see others who have been forgotten, overlooked, or pushed aside.  They reveal a God who remembers, and who takes the time to attend to people on the margins.  We might not always recognize that, because we often hear these words on Christmas Eve and we are so quick to jump ahead to the next few lines about the "child born for us" and the "son given to us" in the verses that follow.  We want to get to the part we connect with the child in the manger, but we miss the word of deep divine kindness that sets the table for the arrival of the Messiah.

The promises here in what we call Isaiah 9 are spoken first as a word of hope to people on the margins of Israel--the tribes on the borders of Israel and the realms of outside empires who were constantly threatening.  The regions by the "the way of the sea" [the coasts near the Mediterranean], the land across the Jordan River, and the region called Galilee "of the nations" were all set with one foot in Israel and one foot in the territory of Gentiles. They were often the target of attacks from would-be invaders, and that made them vulnerable, fearful, and discouraged.  Not only that, but if you lived in those outside borderlands, it was easy to feel like the folks in the capital didn't really care about you.  The palace, the Temple, and all the powerful people were off in places like Jerusalem. Everybody knew that kings came from David's family line and tribal lands down in Judah--it was easy to dismiss the lands of Naphtali and Zebulun as unimportant, or negligible.  Surely there were voices in Isaiah's day who talked about Jerusalem and Judah as "real Israel" and dismissed all the other outlying lands as lesser--not as authentic, not as devout, not as genuinely a part of the people of God.  The people in these overlookable places were getting it from all sides--the threats of surrounding nations looking to conquer or plunder them, and the indifference from their own nation's "important" places.  It was easy to believe that you didn't really belong, and that you weren't really worth protecting, if you lived there.  It was easy to believe the pundits and the powerful that "real Israel" didn't include you.

But God has never accepted the lines we humans draw to designate folks on the outside of the center as unimportant or unworthy. To the contrary, God makes a point of seeing the ones who have been overlooked and pushed aside.  And that's the promise here.  Specifically speaking to the ones who constantly hear they don't matter or are just targets waiting to be conquered, God says, "I haven't forgotten you, not for a second, and you will be glorious."  God says to these people who have been discouraged by being overlooked and undervalued repeatedly, "I'm going to shine a brilliant light on you, and I will bring joy to you."  The ones who feel like they are invisible in the darkness are seen after all--God has never lost sight of them, and God will shine a light on them so that nobody else will forget or dismiss them, either.  That's how God's kindness works--always seeking the ones who have been dismissed, disregarded, and disrespected, to lift them up and let them be seen in a new and glorious light.

And then, when we do hear the following verses speaking of a "son given to us" and a "child born for us," whom we recognize in Jesus, it becomes clear that Jesus' mission in the world is, just like Isaiah spoke of, the work of seeing the overlooked and raising up the lowly.  Jesus' mission, just as God's mission all along, is rooted in kindness that takes the extra time and makes the extra effort to see those treated as invisible.  And so for us, too, if we are going to follow in the way of Jesus, our work has much to do with seeing the people we have found it too easy to overlook, or those whom we have been too distracted to recognize.  It is, in other words, the work of kindness, and such work isn't just an emotional feeling about people, but the willingness to slow down the breakneck pace of our lives enough to look around.  It will also mean being willing to abandon our own present-day habits of dismissing some people as less important, or pushing their needs or voices out to the margins just because they're different.  It will mean choosing to see people as neighbors to be cared for and fellow children of God who are beloved, rather than as enemies, threats, or stepping stones we can walk on in order to get what we want.  And it will mean we make a practice of looking at people in the eye, face to face, rather than overlooking them even when it's easy.

Today, may God's own kindness that stops to see us as we are give us the capacity to see others with kind eyes as well.

Good Lord, help us to see others the way you do--with kindness.

How to [Not] Defend a Lion--January 18, 2023

How to [Not] Defend a Lion--January 18, 2023

"Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near." [Philippians 4:5]

Did you ever wonder what words come to mind when other people think of you? Did you ever spend a moment considering what traits, what adjectives, what mental pictures, come to mind when the people who know you give you a thought?

And, now that we’re going down that trail anyway, have you ever given thought to what words you would want to come to mind when your friends, your family, and your co-workers hear your name mentioned? I’m not talking about pretending or puffing yourself up to be something you are not, but honestly, what traits about yourself to you think rise to the surface? When other insightful, perceptive people around you read your life like a book, what kind of book is it?

I ask because Paul has an answer for what he would wish to be toward the top of the list for followers of Jesus. And frankly, it is not always (or even often) at the top of ours. Paul wishes that we Christians would be known for our gentleness--for our kindness. And for him, that gentleness is connected with his firm belief that Christ is coming again soon. “The Lord is near,” Paul says, and so therefore, we are to “let your gentleness be known to everyone.” In other words, he is saying, Live your life in such a way that when people think of you, at the top of their description is, “Oh my, what a gentle soul!” Because after all, Jesus’ coming is near.

That is not often how Christians act, to be honest. All too often, our reputation is not for being gentle, but for being, among other things, hypocritical, angry, critical, dour, sour-faced, or whiny. “Gentle” does not often crack the top ten, and "kind" isn't always the impression church folk leave from their social media posts, if we are going to be truthful about things. And especially when “religious” people get to talking about Christ coming again, we often sound especially vitriolic and angry. Listen for very long to the religious voices on TV and radio as they talk about the world going to hell in a handbasket and how “true believers” (meaning people who believe exactly like them) won’t have to worry about the disasters happening on earth because they’ll be watching the carnage from the safety of their seats in some heavenly loge while others get “left behind.” (Never mind for a moment that the whole notion of a secret whisking away of believers is a misreading of the New Testament—that whole “rapture” business is a conversation for another day.)

At any rate, when the watching world thinks about the supposedly Christian voices they know, and especially when those voices are talking about Jesus’ coming again, they don’t usually think of us being “gentle” or "kind," but often rather bloodthirsty-sounding, and using the talk of Jesus’ coming as something frighten people into faith with—as if it were possible to scare someone into salvation.

And yet, there’s Paul, who has the return of Jesus at the forefront of his mind, and he pictures Christians being known for their gentleness in light of how “near” the Lord is. It’s funny, almost, that Paul doesn’t feel any need at all for himself, or for any of the rest of us Christians, to get defensive or bitter or ornery or to play the victim-card, as he thinks about Jesus’ coming. He really seems to think that—in light of Jesus’ imminent return—the best thing for Christians to be known for is not our end-times diagrams or our religious scare-tactics, but our way of being gentle with others.

It sort of reminds me of the old saying: How do you defend a lion? You just get out of its way. If there is a lion threatened by poachers, let’s say, you don’t need to stick yourself in the situation and put up your fists trying to make yourself look tough for the lion’s sake. The lion is going to be just fine all by itself. The lion has the power to take defend itself—you can just let it make the call about how or when to use it. And you, in the meantime, can be calm and at ease and relaxed. Or to use Paul’s word for it, gentle.

For us, the followers of Jesus, our hope in Jesus’ coming again means that we don’t have to get ourselves bent out of shape in angry tirades trying to come to Jesus’ defense. He’s the lion—he doesn’t need our fists. And frankly, our attempts to “defend” him probably get in his way more often than not.

Instead, we are called to be witnesses of Christ—yes, the Christ for whom we are waiting to come in glory and triumph—through our gentleness. We are called to point to Christ in the ways our kindness can lessen the anxiety in the room—or at least, not add to it! We are called to be examples of Christ in the ways we can sit in quiet with others in those holy, vulnerable moments of life. We are called to be living pointers to Christ in the way we just “show up” for others when they need us, without making a fanfare or a fuss over ourselves.

And there is a reason for all of this, a reason that we do not need to get ourselves all worked up and tense and harsh for Christ, even besides the fact that the only way to defend a lion is to get out of its way. And the reason is this: even though Jesus is the Lion (indeed, even “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” as the book of Revelation calls him), he is also ultimately “the Lamb who was slain.” And in the scene from Revelation where the voice calls out, “Hey everybody, look, it’s the Lion!” everybody turns their heads, and there is no one there but a Lamb, having been slain, but alive again (see Revelation 5 on this subject). The Lion is announced, but it is a gentle Lamb who shows up, because Jesus’ way of being victorious is through his gentle self-sacrifice and suffering love. We are supposed to be gentle, because the One we are waiting for saves and reigns and rules through gentleness, too.  We are called to practice kindness, because the One for whom we hope has shown kindness to us.

So… what will people remember about you today, do you suppose? When they think about the fact that you are associated with this Jesus person, what words will come to mind to describe you? And can we dare today to represent--not defend--the living Christ, in our own peaceable love? Can we dare to be so bold as to be known for our gentleness?

Lord Jesus, let our lives today be reflections of your own peaceable, suffering love and your gentle reign.

The Opening Question--January 17, 2023

The Opening Question--January 17, 2023

"The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, 'Look, here is the Lamb of God!' The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, 'What are you looking for? They said to him, 'Rabbi' [which translated means Teacher], 'where are you staying?' He said to them, 'Come and see'." [John 1:35-39a]

The first words on Jesus' lips in John's Gospel... are a question.  They are an invitation to conversation, and they become an open invitation to share Jesus' journey. And for the ones who answer that opening question, life is never the same.

I don't know that I had ever thought about this before, but really it's amazing that after all the build-up and drama and foreshadowing [and John's Gospel can really lay it on thick some times], the first time we actually get words out of Jesus' mouth, he is unpretentiously asking a question of would-be followers and inviting them to come along with him.  Of course, each of the Gospel writers is something like a movie director telling their own versions of the same basic plot.  So I don't get fussy that John's version of the movie gives us this conversation, while, say, Matthew gives us a different conversation between Jesus and John the Baptizer as the first words he speaks, or Mark just unloads with a fierce message, "Turn around and believe--the Reign of God has come near!"  Each of these writers is choosing a different moment to give us our introduction to the adult Jesus, and that's fine.  But just let it sink in that, of all the things John the Gospel-writer could have chosen, he gives us this ordinary seeming moment, where Jesus is open and inviting.  "Come and see," he says, looking eye to eye at two strangers, and inviting them to be where he is, to stay where he stays, and to follow his way.  Beyond the words themselves, the way he speaks them reveals a kindness and even a humility that draws others in.

After all, when John started writing this Gospel, he opened up with a glorious and majestic poem about creation.  John's Gospel is the one that begins, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... and the Word became flesh and lived among us...full of grace and truth."  And not only that, he's now given us two dramatic introductions to Jesus as his forerunner, John the Baptizer, has called our attention to him and pointed him out as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"  It has the feel of the big moment on stage when the curtain pulls back, the timpani player hammers out a drum roll, and the limelights all focus front and center on the star coming forward to belt out a show-stopping number, and then--Jesus comes forward, not shouting a slogan, preaching a sermon, or singing a bold anthem, but striking up a converastion.  

"What are you looking for?" he asks.  It carries the feel of asking, "Just so we're clear, what is it you think you are in search of?  What is it that has led you to me?"  Jesus gives the impression he wants to dispel any mistaken impressions or false advertising about himself.  He is being utterly real, utterly honest, and utterly unpretentious.  Jesus doesn't need to puff himself or make himself look more impressive.  He doesn't hype the spectacle of what people will see when they follow him like P.T. Barnum or some carnival barker, drumming up ticket-buyers for the afternoon show.  If anything, Jesus seems to slow down these would-be disciples who have come to him, cautiously asking what they think they are expecting from him.  He is not a salesman, and he is not in advertising.  He is just real.

In fact, that's one of the things about Jesus [as John the Gospel-writer shows him to us in his telling] that remains constant, all the way through. You might recall that on Easter morning, when Jesus has risen from the dead but it's not quite clear to all the other characters at the tomb what's going on, that Jesus calls to Mary with a question, "Whom are you looking for?"  It's not that different from this opening question to the would-be disciples, and in the end, the thing that tips Mary off that he's not just the gardener is in the unpretentious way he calls her name, "Mary," [to which, she responds, "Rabbi"--in another beautiful bookending echo of this story].  From beginning to end, the story of Jesus is the story of his kindness that invited people in.  Jesus had this disarming way of putting people at ease, helping them to let down their guard [and their pretenses], and to feel truly included in whatever was going on.  And, as happens here in the opening chapter of John's Gospel, it changes the lives of these would-be disciples who end up following Jesus and carrying his message and way of life to all creation.

I wonder--could we see this day as a similar opportunity?  In a time when it's easy for the church to be regarded as a product to be sold, and for the gospel to sound like a sales-pitch, could we see this day simply as the chance to engage people with kindness and disarming openness, and to let that lead where it will?  I'll be honest, even as a pastor, every time I overhear a respectable religious person [no doubt with the best of intentions] start in talking to a stranger with a clearly rehearsed canned spiel trying to get someone to make a decision for Jesus on the spot, it makes my insides queasy.  It's not that I'm against sharing our faith--not at all.  It's that the rehearsed sales-pitch speech sounds so strikingly unlike Jesus, who doesn't use a pamphlet or a program or any other promotional literature, but just meets people where they are and makes the invitation, "Come and see."  Could we invite people that way?  Could we speak with honesty to friends and neighbors, or even strangers and enemies, and say, "There's something compelling about this Jesus, and his way of loving people--I won't promise anything more or anything less than Jesus, but come and see"?  Could we hold off on seeing the Christian faith as a deal to be accepted [Jesus certainly doesn't act that way], but more of a shared journey with Jesus?  And could we then keep making ourselves available to people around us, simply making the authentic invitation to join the walk and share the road?  Could we dare to engage people with the kindness we see in Jesus, which opens up to their questions, thoughts, ideas, and needs?  I don't know about you, but that sounds downright compelling to me.

And it makes me grateful that I have been drawn to a Savior whose first move is to ask questions and invite conversation, even from me.  Even from you.

Lord Jesus, draw us in by your kindness, and let us meet others with that same genuine care we have first met in you.

An Absence of Fire and Fury--January 16, 2023

An Absence of Fire and Fury--January 16, 2023

[John the Baptizer] saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! [John 1:29]

After all the talk of fire and wrath, the One John had been waiting for turns out to be best described as a Lamb.  How about that?

We get reintroduced to John every year it seems in the weeks of Advent, and he's generally a pretty fiery figure.  He's the one dressed like a wilderness survivalist and who talks like a prophet, who calls even his devoted listeners "brood of vipers." This is the guy who was utterly certain that when God's Messiah came, he would bring down judgment, burn the unworthy and unrepentant with fire, and cut down the wicked like a lumberjack with an ax.

And now here, the next thing you know, John comes face to face with Jesus--who, mind you, apparently doesn't look impressive or noteworthy at all--and now somehow John knows... this is the one you were waiting for.  And yet, the first thing John blurts out about Jesus is:  "He's a Lamb."

No conquering king imagery.  No mighty emperor who will overthrow the Romans.  No burning words of judgment.  Not a lion; not even an intimidating ram with fierce horns to charge at his enemies with.  Jesus--the One John had been waiting for--turns out to be a Lamb... the kind that would bear the sins of the people in a sacrifice.  It is without a doubt one of the great reversals of the Bible, and it reveals that when God truly chooses to be revealed most clearly, God chooses to be known in kindness and gentleness, rather than fire and fury.

And, to gauge it from John's response to finally getting it, John is apparently discovering the joy of being wrong.  Rather than being bitter and upset that Jesus isn't what he wanted, rather than being angry or disappointed that the Messiah didn't turn out to be a warrior-king but a Suffering Servant, John just seems to take it all in with awe and humility.  "Here he is, after all," John seems to say with a grin, "I should have known--he's the Lamb of God, while I had been looking for a general commanding angel armies.  Well, how do you like that?"  Maybe that's the difference between John's response to Jesus and the Respectable Religious Leaders' reaction to him.  Both John the Baptizer and the so-and-sos among the Pharisees and Sadducees had been surprised by what Jesus turned to be, but John apparently learned how not to dig his heels in and double-down on his wrong-ness.  John was willing to let God's unexpected gentleness in Jesus lead him to a new way of thinking, rather than ignoring what didn't fit with his assumptions.  I wonder whether we could dare to be that brave, too, and to let ourselves be surprised by the kindness of Christ, rather than trying to force him into our boxes of vindictiveness and triumphalism.

Maybe that's enough for us to chew on for this day--to ask ourselves how we will respond when we come face to face with the grace of God, and whether we will let God be bigger than our expectations, or whether we'll try and coerce Jesus into our own coercive preconceptions.  Because Jesus is going to keep on being his Lamb-like self, even if we sometimes tell ourselves we want a Caesar.  Jesus is going to keep on being the One who lays down his life for us rather than the one who destroys his enemies in rage.  Will we be open to letting his kindness stretch our understanding of God?  And will we be willing to let God's kindness shape the ways we love the neighbors around us as well?

Lord Jesus, surprise us as you will with your unexpected gentleness--and reshape us as you do.

Beyond Boundaries and Bare Minimums--January 12, 2023

Beyond Boundaries and Bare Minimums--January 12, 2023

[God says to the Servant:] "I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeons, from the prison those who sit in darkness." [Isaiah 42:6b-7]

The thing about kindness is that it goes beyond: it does more than some "minimum requirement," it sees past the boundaries of "my group," and it asks, "what would be helpful for the person who I now can see before my eyes?"  Kindness--both God's and our own... and the place where they meet in Jesus--doesn't keep its head down or bury its face in a screen.  And it doesn't look the other way in the name of "minding its own business," either.  Kindness asks, "What might someone else, other than myself, be going through--and how might I bring goodness into their situation?"

The more time I spend looking more closely at passages like this one from further on in Isaiah 42, the more I see just how much kindness is at the very heart [no pun intended] of Jesus' mission, as the embodiment of God's Servant.  We get a glimpse here that God's own purpose in the world is healing, restoring, freeing, and consoling, and that the Servant of God--again, whom we Christians recognize as Jesus Christ--has been sent precisely for the work of kindness that sees beyond boundaries and goes beyond bare minimums.

In particular, I would note how the Servant is called to be "a light to the nations"--that is to say, beyond the borders of just the one nation of Israel.  There would have been plenty of people in Isaiah's day who said that God's work was limited to "their people," "their group," "their nation," and "their kin." Sure you help out your own, they'd say--that's all well and good.  But going beyond the boundaries to be a light for "THOSE people"?  That would start to upset some folks.  Taking care of "your own" can sound like meeting the minimum requirements; but helping those beyond the lines, people who might not help you back, people who are different, maybe strange, and possibly frightening, can seem "too much."  "You'll spread our limited light too thin if you go out illuminating the nations," you can hear the protest go.  "It's fine to help open the eyes of our blind people, but don't go helping them foreigners--they might not be our kind of people, you know?"  That sort of thing.  To be a light "to the nations" calls for the kindness that sees beyond in-group and outsider status.  To care for those who are imprisoned in a dark dungeon somewhere means going out of your way to recognize that there are indeed those shadowy places that many don't want to have to think about.  It requires, in other words, the energy and attentiveness to see and act beyond our own little narrow field of vision.

And when you think about it, that is exactly what we see in Jesus, as the gospels tell the story.  Jesus doesn't just keep his head down and live a quiet little life helping out just his mom, adoptive father, brothers, sisters, and fellow residents of Nazareth.  He is always moving outward, in ever wider circles.  He goes from town to town healing and casting out the spirits that oppress people.  He expands his social circles from only upstanding, respectable religious types to all the "wrong" people, from tax collectors to prostitutes to notoriously generic "sinners."  He crosses cultural and national boundaries by befriending Samaritans and helping Gentiles.  And he tells people from the beginning that he has come to do all this as his purpose from the start--this is not an accident or an unwitting case of mission-creep.  Jesus, as God's Servant, has come to embody the very kindness of God, which always goes beyond expectations and seeks to see what--and whom--others overlook.

Now if all of that is true, or even just in close to the right ballpark, then it's also true that we are called to practice that same kind of boundary-crossing, extra-mile-going kindness, too.  After all, even though we Christians recognize Jesus as "The Servant" figure the prophets talked about, in a sense "The Servant" is really a description of what God's people were supposed to be all along.  At their best, the people of Israel and Judah were meant to be collectively the Servant of God and a "light to the nations," whose way of practicing justice and mercy drew others into the radiant presence of God.  So this whole way of life built on kindness that goes beyond minimums isn't just reserved for Jesus; it's not something possible only for a superhuman Son of God.  It is a way of seeing that our eyes are capable of beholding, too; it is a kind of action that our hands and feet are capable of moving in.  

And maybe it really is simply a matter of starting to see as Jesus has been teaching us to see all along.  His stories are so often about the way kindness grows--or doesn't grow--depending on how we see the neighbors around us.  The Samaritan on the road between Jericho and Jerusalem [see Luke 10] sees the man lying in ditch by the side of road as a neighbor in need, and as Dr. King pointed out, he asks the pivotal question, "What will happen to this person if I don't help?" rather than merely wondering, "What could happen to me if I do help?"  His deep kindness starts with a willingness to see more than the priest and the Levite can see, as pre-occupied as they are with their lists of religious things to do.  And on the flip-side, the pitiable rich man finds himself alone in the underworld having been unable to even see--to truly recognize--the face of a fellow child of God in Lazarus who laid at his gate hungry and sick [see Luke 16].  He is unable to offer kindness to Lazarus because he cannot see rightly that this is a neighbor whose sheer existence should pull the rich man beyond the boundaries of his property to welcome the poor beggar in.  Perhaps, then, the key for us to grow in Christ-like kindness is to let Jesus heal our eyes first, so that we will see beyond the narrow confines of our usual routines and in-groups.  Perhaps we are in need of having our sight healed, so that we can then see as fully and widely as Jesus does... and then we can move like he does, beyond the boundaries of bare minimums.

Let's start there today, then--let us dare to ask Jesus to open our eyes to see more widely and deeply, so that we can take the next step and the next and the one after that, as we grow in Jesus' compassionate love.

Lord Jesus, heal our eyes to see like you do--beyond the lines of "our group" or "our interests" or "our limited experience"--so that we may love with the kindness you have shown us.

A Chosen Reputation--January 11, 2023

A Chosen Reputation--January 11, 2023

"Thus says the God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you..." [Isaiah 42:5-6a]

I don't think I am as amazed as I should be at the way God uses power--because it really is breathtaking.

More to the point, it is kind.  To hear the Scriptures tell it, the way God uses the infinite, omnipotent, universal power of being "God" is remarkably tender.

As we continue through the poem we call Isaiah 42, we get this reminder here of the tension between God's sheer creative power and God's choice to channel that power in gentle love.  The prophet reminds us that God has created everything from the vast distances of outer spaces and the luminous swirling strands of galaxies and stars to the abundance of life on earth... and that this same God calls people by name and leads us by the hand.  

This is so different, so refreshingly different, from the ways we often measure power and calculate its magnitude.  As a child of the Cold War, I can remember learning words like "kiloton" and "megaton"--words to describe how many thousands or millions of tons of TNT it would take to equal the explosive force of this nuclear bomb or that ballistic missile, and how much more terrifyingly destructive they were than the bombs [tiny, by comparison] dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hanging in the air was the constant awareness that the superpowers had enough of those weapons in their arsenals to destroy all life on Earth many times over.  And of course, decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, those weapons are all still there, holding onto their cataclysmic potential the same as always, but now with thirty years' more of additions and advances. We are used to quantifying power in terms of what we can blow up with it.

But here the prophet teaches us to think of God's power in terms of the worlds God has made--that is, in terms of creation, rather than destruction.  To be sure, Isaiah and the rest of the biblical chorus of voices would all affirm that God can destroy as well as to create, to tear down as well as to build up, and to vanquish as well as to vivify.  But knowing that God is hypothetically able to annihilate the universe, here the prophet describes God solely in terms of creation: God is the one who stretched out the skies, spread out the earth, and breathed life into every living thing.  

And, my goodness, even that image of giving life is remarkably tender, isn't it?  Instead of picturing God as shocking us to life with a lightning bolt, or forging the universe like a blacksmith hammering on a cosmic anvil, the prophet pictures God breathing into us.  That can't be a gale-force hurricane wind, or else we would be destroyed in the act of being created; it is a soft and gentle breath that wakens us to life.  And from there, the prophet says, God has called the people [in this case, a band of despairing exiles, languishing under the boot of Babylon] by name and takes them by the hand. You don't do that for strangers, and you certainly don't do it for someone you regard as an enemy.  The Almighty One who made the universe is revealed here to be the Gentle One who takes us by the hand with kindness, like a parent standing at the intersection ready to lead a frightened child across the street.

That's worth holding onto in a world that still has a death-wish and so often only thinks in terms of destruction.  The God who has limitless power both to establish and to eliminate chooses to be revealed in terms of tenderness.  The God who could choose anything to be known for--tornados, volcanoes, black holes, or tsunamis--chooses to be known as the One who calls us by name and takes us by the hand.  In a time when so many seek to build their reputations on bluster and bullying, it is gospel good news that the Almighty is revealed in tenderness.

Today, let us lean on the assurance of God's kindness, and let it shape the way we choose to relate to people around us, as well.

God of mercy and of might, take us by the hand again today, and let us hear you call our name.