The God Who Hears--June 1, 2021

The God Who Hears--June 1, 2021

"In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission." [Hebrews 5:7]

We are always heard when we pray.  Ours is the God who hears... always.

Sometimes, the answers to those prayers come through loud and clear--especially when the thing we prayed for happens just as we wanted.

Sometimes, the answer is harder to discern, because things don't go the way we wished them to go: the interviewers don't give you the job, the loved one doesn't respond to the treatment, the relationship goes unrepaired, or the answer on the pregnancy test isn't the one you were hoping for.  In those times, it doesn't mean that you weren't heard.  And it doesn't even necessarily mean that God's answer was a stern, "No," either.  It may well be that God's answer is something more like, "I know this thing you are facing is awful and wrong and difficult.  I hear you.  And I am going to go through it with you.  You will not be alone as you go through it.  I will bear it alongside of you."

I think that's really important to remember, both so that we don't turn praying into baptized wishing, and so that we don't misunderstand what it means when our requests don't turn out the way we had wanted.  And maybe we can learn something from Jesus on this.  The writer of Hebrews, still working through the idea that Jesus is like a high priest who interceded for the needs of the people, notes that Jesus himself prayed--often passionately--during his years walking Palestine.  He prayed for others, too, and not just for himself.  There he is at Lazarus' tomb, praying to his Abba before calling the dead man back to life.  Or there's Jesus in the upper room, asking for God to protect his disciples, both the ones in the room with him at the time, and those who would come to believe through their witness (that includes you and me!).  Again, in the garden before his arrest, he was praying for their strength.  And even as he bled out on the cross, Jesus was praying for the very ones who had been mocking and torturing him, as he prayed, "Father, forgive them..."  In all of those moments, we have every reason to believe that Jesus' prayers were heard with God acting as Jesus had wanted.  Lazarus rises.  The disciples live through Good Friday to become witnesses in all the world.  And, yes, I dare to believe that even Jesus' executioners and the bloodthirsty crowd was forgiven.

And yet, there's also the very real matter of Jesus' prayer in the garden for himself... that seems to go differently.  You know how the story goes: there, in the final hours and moments before the lynch mob and local law enforcement arrived on the scene in Gethsemane, Jesus was praying, "Father, let this cup pass away from me."   In other words, "God, I don't want to have to go through this--and you are in a position that could prevent my death.  Help me!"  And you probably also know the rest of that prayer concludes, "Yet, not my will, but yours, be done."  This is the kind of scene that probably makes devout Christians antsy, because it sure sounds like Jesus' will is at odds with God the Father's will at this point (which is difficult enough for us to deal with).  But knowing that the story does lead Jesus to the very thing he wants to avoid?  Well, that complicates our theology of prayer, doesn't it?

We're used to thinking that prayers are either Yes for good little boys and girls, or No for the badly behaved or wrong requests.  But here's Jesus--who is simply praying that a terrible injustice not be done to him--who is not praying a "bad" thing, and who isn't "wicked" or "immoral" or "bad" himself, and he's praying for something that we know he doesn't get.  He prays for the experience of suffering and death not have to happen... and we know he goes to the cross anyway.  What does that mean?  And what can it possibly mean that, in the words of Hebrews, "he was heard" as he prayed "to the one who was able to save him from death," even though Jesus did still go to death?  What does it mean about prayer if you can be perfectly sinless (as we confess Jesus to be), have all the right theology (as we believe Jesus had), and still not get the thing you were praying for?

I want to suggest that this is one of those times where it's important to remember that not getting the thing we prayed for isn't necessarily a "No!" from God, but sometimes it's, "I hear you.  I know this is hard.  I'll go through it with you."  God, after all, bears deep loss from the cross as well--God not only knows what it is do die in Christ's death, but God also knows what it is to lose a Son in those same terrible hours on a Friday afternoon.  God knows what it is like to bear the accusation of being a sinner and a blaspheme from Jesus' side of the experience, but God also knows what it is like to bear the accusation of having abandoned an innocent sufferer--and those words of accusation come from Jesus himself as he dies quoting Psalm 22, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  God knows what it is to suffer through Good Friday--in fact, God knows the pain inside and out, from both the earthly and heavenly vantage point.

Sometimes I think we don't consider what it is like from God's vantage point when things are not going to go the way we might have prayed--and to know that God is both still committed to going through the difficult stuff with us, AND still willing to bear all of our angry accusations that God must have abandoned us if we don't get what we want in our prayers.  God is willing to bear our heartbroken laments and the questions that so often begin, "If you really loved me, God, you would have done..."  God is willing to take all that misdirected fury, and still to walk through the difficult things with us.

I know that may seem cold comfort if we have our hearts set on getting things the way we want them.  And I know it may make us re-examine our understanding of prayer if even Jesus didn't always get what he prayed for.  But maybe it is worth asking, too, if we really do believe that God's presence with us, in every situation, is enough.  If we really dare to trust that the God who gives us daily bread is going through our deepest struggles with us... if we really have faith in the claim that God bore suffering on the cross... the maybe we can also accept that God's presence with us through our times of suffering will be enough, too.  It doesn't make the suffering we will bear less real, and it doesn't mean that we are being punished or that God demands our suffering for some part of the divine plan.  Instead, it means, simply, that God's answer, is "I hear you.  And I am going through it with you."

If you know what it is like to have been loved through a difficult time by someone who said, "I hear you, and I share your hurt.  I'll face it with you," then you already know that it is enough to know that God chooses to bear our struggles and sorrows with us, too.

God really is enough.

Lord God, hear our prayers.  Attend to our needs.  Go with us into the struggles of this day.  We need you to do nothing less.

No Angles, No Ladders--May 28, 2021

 

No Angles, No Ladders--May 28, 2021

"So also Christ did not glorify himself in becoming a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, 'You are my Son, today I have begotten you'; as he says also in another place, 'You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek'." [Hebrews 5:5-6]

Jesus doesn't have an "angle"--he's just good.

Jesus is not looking to climb up some ladder of achievement to greater status, either, which means that his care for you isn't just a stepping stone for future steps of his messianic career.

In fact, Jesus has never been interested in whipping up a crowd to tell him he is great and stroke his ego--he is secure enough, grounded enough, in who he is, not to be so fragile as to need that kind of self-adulation.

That makes all the difference, honestly, between Jesus and every demagogue, every rising star of a political party, and every public figure of history who uses their position as just a launching pad to something more prestigious or powerful.  Jesus isn't interested in photo ops to get more attention or glory for himself--he does what he does, always, because of his love for us--for you, for me, and for a whole world full of us.  Jesus has never been in this for the glory or for what he can "get" as a result of being our Savior; he has always been in it for the love of us.

Now, that by itself is worth a moment's consideration, because it is so different from the logic we are taught in so many other corners of our society.  We are told in school that we should do well--get the good grades, be on teams and in clubs, get elected class president, rack up awards and accolades, and all the rest--because of what those things will do for us at the next step: acceptance to college, a better starting pay at a job, a leg up for a scholarship, or whatever else we are told to aim for next.   The conversation is rarely, "This is important to know because it will help you to be a wise and informed mature human being who can think critically," or "You should follow this area of interest because it's worthy of your time by itself, regardless of what it gets you later on."  Then at some point we are put on track for work in the same terms:  use the current job you have to angle for something better.  Look for a way to get out of what you are doing now so that you can do something else--with better pay, or a better title, or with more influence, and so on--at the next stage.  Everything seems to be built around the assumption that we should never live in the present moment doing something that is worthwhile, simply because it is worthwhile, but should always be angling for the next big thing, and leveraging our present situation for something "better" at the next turn.

Seriously, is it any wonder so many people feel like they are permanently dissatisfied with life, when we are all steered from an early age to be thinking about how doing well enough now will get us noticed more at some future stage?  And is it any surprise that so many people think of their jobs, not as vocations by which they can love their neighbors and use their talents and time, but as a means to an end--just to make more bucks, either for themselves, or to kickstart their kids into jumping into the same rat race?  As a way of life that breed discontentment and chokes out the ability to be joyful in the present moment.  And honestly, that way of life sounds like and endless nightmare, even when it's dressed up and called "the American dream."

Jesus' approach to his own calling offers a joy-filled, purposeful, life-giving alternative.  He didn't see his earthly ministry as a stepping stone to a heavenly promotion, but rather it was his mission and vocation at the time to love people in his words, actions, and presence.  It was never about thinking, "If these people notice how I'm doing such a good job, then I'll be in better position for my climb up the ladder of success." Rather, Jesus' perspective was always, "How can I love and serve and embody the Reign of God here, now, with the people who happen to be right here in front of me?"

The writer of Hebrews has latched onto that difference here.  He notes that, just like the ancient high priests of Israel's past didn't lobby or audition for the job of high priest, but had it conferred on them, Jesus was never trying to stroke his own ego or leverage his social capital for a promotion further up on the celestial corporate ladder.  He didn't seek to glorify himself by taking on the role of our intermediary--our "high priest," as the text here says.  Rather, Jesus was always just the Right One for the job.  Jesus is the opposite of Napoleon crowning himself emperor, or of the modern-day demagogue riling up a crowd to goose his own fame, and thereby his future prospects.  He isn't looking to game the system to get or be something other than what he already is--he is simply so committed to your well-being that he is perfectly happy to spend his life and energy seeking your and my good.  No game-playing necessary. No angles.  No treating a person or a position as just a stepping stone until something better comes along.  

I hope we can hear what refreshingly good news that is, because it means that Jesus doesn't save us as a means toward getting some other perk or promotion for himself.  Jesus isn't interceding for us at this very moment in the hopes that he'll get a cushier gig in the future.  And he doesn't pander with photo ops to look good while not really caring about us or our lives.  He really loves you.  He really cares about you.  And he really is completely at peace with spending his energy bringing you more fully into the life and love of God.

That by itself is good.  And yet there is even further good news for us in the realization that we can be as free as Jesus is, too, by not living our lives constantly dissatisfied and posturing for something we image will be better, but by choosing what we do with this day and this opportunity for the sake of others.  You and I don't have to be ruled by the thought process that says, "Is my work today helping me to get ahead for something better?" (which is always a losing game), but rather, we can ask a different question: how can I use the situation I have been given today to love others well, trusting that God has got me covered and will meet my needs in this day?  

Honestly, that's how I want to spend this day in front of us, and every other one I get after that--not calculating what moves I should make so I can have a cushier retirement or a longer list of accolades after my name or amass more money to go somewhere else to find happiness, but rather seeking to discover joy, purpose, and fulfillment right here in front of me, as I let God's love for me also flow through me to others.  That's how Jesus already approaches his calling right now as our forever alive high priest.  And that's how you and I could be living this day, too.

I'm ready to try it today... how about you?

Lord Jesus, show us today how to live this day for its own sake, rather than just as a stepping stone to something else we think we want or need.

Beyond the Baggage--May 27, 2021

Beyond the Baggage--May 27, 2021

"Every high priest chosen from among mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.  He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness; and because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people. And one does presume to take this honor, but takes it only when called by God, just as Aaron was." [Hebrews 5:1-4]

Did you ever have a relationship sour so badly that you needed someone else to be your personal buffer-zone between the two of you?  Let's not even get to us and God yet--but just in ordinary, regular human relationships, did you ever have a time where, for whatever reason, you needed someone else to be like a mediator, a go-between, a peacemaker, who could help you get beyond the baggage that had had come between you?

Sometimes it's needing a supervisor at work to intervene when there's bad blood between you and the co-worker who keeps stealing your lunch from the office fridge.  Or maybe there's a relative you can't bring yourself to look in the eye any longer, and some other member of the family has cast themselves in the role of diplomat trying to smooth things over and get you all to come to Thanksgiving dinner.  Maybe a close friend lost your respect and you can't see yourself being able to trust them any longer, while a mutual friend tries to mend fences for you.  Maybe you were the one who disappointed someone else who was counting on you.  There are a million ways we let each other down in this life, and that often means we end up knowing what it feels like to be estranged from someone you had once held close... and to need someone else to help repair a frayed relationship.

Whatever the details, if you know what it is to grieve a relationship that has come apart, you probably know the feeling of wishing there were someone who could be trusted to help you work through the estrangement and bring you to reconciliation.  This, according to Hebrews, is what we find in Jesus.

Now, before we head off into the realms of theology, let's stay with the image of a mutual friend who helps smooth things over between you and the person you have become estranged from.  Ideally, you need this to be someone that you both can trust, and someone who doesn't have their own personal baggage with either of you.  It's hard to have someone else vouch for you and promise you'll try better next time if they're known for being pathological liars themselves, just like it would be hard for someone to plead for loan-forgiveness on your behalf if they themselves had a habit of writing bad checks and disappearing into the wind.  

And that, it turns out, is where the writer of Hebrews wants to take the conversation next.  His point is to say that between us and God, we need the presence of someone who can help us to get beyond the baggage we have put in the way of reconciling with God.  But that someone can't do a very good job if they have their own baggage to deal with, too.  

In a sense, that was the role of the institutions of the priesthood and temple back in ancient Israel's memory.  The people kept breaking relationship with God--sometimes by literally worshiping golden idols and giving them the credit for providing for them, and sometimes in more subtly insidious ways, like not paying their employees enough to live on, or persecuting the immigrants who came to live in their land, or cheating on their spouses, or envying their neighbor's stuff.  And so it fell to a group of people called priests who would intercede for the people and ask God's forgiveness--not because God refused to talk to them directly, I don't think, but more because we all know what it's like not to want to look someone in the eye when you know the relationship is broken.  The priest's job was to face the brokenness that the people were too chicken-hearted to deal with on their own.  

But, of course, the priests were fallible and flawed, too.  They had their own issues to deal with--maybe a different set of sins, or different ways of breaking relationship with God, but baggage all the same.  The writer of Hebrews points out that this was a problem with the whole system: it was sort of like having the friend who had only let you down five times in the last week plead for you to hug it out with the friend who had let you down ten times in the same seven days.  You don't really have a good reason to put your trust in any of them.

And that's the need--we need someone who really can identify with us and speak for us... but who doesn't have to make excuses about their own baggage first.  We need someone who shares our humanity, but not our harmful ways of breaking relationship.  We need someone who can look God in the eye when we are afraid to--again, not because God hates us, but because our guilt keeps us from facing the ones we have hurt.  We need someone who can plead our case who doesn't have to plead their own first.  

In other words, we need Jesus.  More to the point, God has given us already the very one we need, because God knows we don't have the courage ourselves to own up to our mess-ups on our own, and we keep needing someone who can help us work through the baggage.  Even the most pious and proper of ancient Israel's high priests had their own sins to sort out with God. But Jesus, well, that's what makes Jesus different.  He doesn't have to try to save his own neck before trying to save ours.  In fact, he has surrendered his own own life precisely to save ours.

So, please, remember this today.  You never needed to hide or avert your eyes from God; God has always been ready and willing for us to sort through the baggage we have been lugging around.  But because in so many ways we are still too fearful to face it yet, God has given us Jesus as the One who breaks the estrangement we were too afraid to even name.

God was never giving us the silent treatment.  But since we convinced ourselves God was and put up our own defenses in retaliation, Jesus has come to get through those walls and to make things right once again.  

Now maybe we can leave behind the baggage we have been hiding behind.

Lord Jesus, help us to trust your presence that makes things right between us and God.  Give us the courage to face our failures so that we can face the already-given gift of forgiveness.

Without Eggshells--May 26, 2021

Without Eggshells--May 26, 2021

"Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." [Hebrews 4:16]

You don't have to walk on eggshells when you're approaching God.  What a relief.

I'm going to guess that you know people with whom you have to be careful when you try and start a conversation.  Maybe there are certain subjects you avoid delving into, for fear they'll launch into a tirade provoked by whatever culture war issue the talking head on the opinion show they watched last night told them to be outraged about. Maybe you're afraid of asking for their help with something and having them scold you or turn you down rather than be the help you need.  Maybe you know not to bring up a touchy subject in their personal lives.  Maybe they just seem crotchety about everything.  Maybe you are just afraid you'll be met with silence.  Maybe you're afraid of putting too much weight on the limb you've just gone out on to try and reach out to them, for fear it will break, and the relationship you were counting on will break once and for all.

Maybe all of us from time to time get in that frame of mind and are difficult to approach.

What amazes me here in this verse from Hebrews is the notion that God isn't like that.  You never have to curl up in timidity or shrink like a violet when coming to God, with whatever the need is, and with whatever concerns are on your heart.  You never have to worry about catching God on a bad day when God might be grouchy or grumpy, and you never have to worry about setting God off on some unhinged rant--don't worry, God doesn't watch the opinion shows on the cable news, and God won't be baited into getting riled up about whatever hot-button issue the pundits are peddling.

So often, we are taught--whether explicitly or implicitly--that we have to treat God like the ominous Wizard of Oz in his throne room in the Emerald City.  We pick up from somewhere the notion that we have to grovel, stroke God's ego, or offer God something in return for the help we are asking for.  Sometimes folks will start praying in what sounds like Shakespearean English, full of "thees" and "thous" and flowery flourishes, to try and sound pious enough to move the hand of the Almighty.  Sometimes we discourage people from bringing their needs to God because we give the impression that little things--from new kittens to nerves before a job interview to the friend you know is struggling--don't matter to God, or that God is too busy  to attend to individual troubles.  Sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking that God is so busy steering the cosmos or ordering world events that God can't be troubled with the tears of a child who is afraid of a thunderstorm, or the worry of a parent seeing their kids move out on their own.  The writer of Hebrews tells us to ditch those fears and to approach God with the confidence of knowing both that God is real and that God really cares about us.

And the reason we can have that confidence, in his train of thought, is Jesus.  Because God knows what it is to live this human life, with all of our anxieties, fears, hopes, and foibles, God knows what it is to be concerned about all those messy details of our days.  In Jesus, God knows, from the perspective of experience, what it is to have your heart broken, or to worry about people you love, or to care for who will take care of someone important to you when you are gone.  So we can have confidence that we won't be smacked down or belittled when we pray, and we can know that we aren't setting ourselves up for rejection, either.  God has chosen to be completely for us in Christ.  And if we know that God was willing to go all the way to death and resurrection for our sakes, then surely, God will be willing to bear hearing the cries of our hearts.

So, for whatever is on your heart today, bring it.  Whatever things you fear are too big to name, or too small to bother to mention, bring them.  Whatever things you still might be nervous to bring to another human being, bring to the God who has promised to listen.  

Picture yourself walking right up to God's kitchen table and pulling up a chair to talk about what's on your mind. And as you walk, let your feet step with assurance--there's not a single eggshell under your feet to worry about.

And if you're not there yet--if it still seems like too much to go bounding into God's space with your list of worries with boldness--then maybe the first thing we can ask for is the courage to be bold as we come to God.  Even that isn't too much to ask.

Lord God, give us the courage to approach you honestly and authentically, and to sit at your table knowing you have saved a place for us and set a mug in front of us for conversation.

Suffering-With--May 25, 2021

Suffering-With--May 25, 2021

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin." [Hebrews 4:15]

It is so much more than a rack of schmaltzy messages in pastel colors in the greeting card aisle of your local Walmart.  Sympathy--at least in the roots of the word--means "to suffer with."  That ain't a pastel-colored sentiment; that is a claim made in the deepest, most vivid colors there are.

And the claim, as amazing as it is to hear it, is quite simply that in Jesus, God has chosen to suffer with us, all the way "down," as it were, to the root of our human experience. 

The writer of Hebrews is going to explore the idea of Jesus as "high priest" more in the coming verses, and we'll give him the space to do that in due time.  But for now, let's just let it sink in that in Jesus, God is able to sympathize--to suffer with us--and to share the burden, the hurt, and the heartache, of life in these finite bodies and minds.  God's "God-ness" doesn't prevent God from caring about the day to day challenges, troubles, sorrows, and pitfalls of ordinary human life.  

That really is a big deal, because, my goodness, even we human beings aren't very good at sharing the sufferings of others without sliding into either callousness or condescension.  Like Humphrey Bogart put it so famously in Casablanca, "The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."  We easily lose sight of the troubles our neighbors are struggling with, or we look for ways to blame them for having those troubles--they should have made better choices, or they shouldn't have gotten sick, or they should have planned for the unforeseeable, or they should have had more money.  We are terribly skilled at wagging our fingers at others whose troubles we have not experienced--and that we therefore assume must not be very troublesome at all.  (How does the old line go?  Privilege is believing something isn't a problem because it doesn't happen to affect you personally.  Yeah--that.)

How much easier would it be for an almighty being, infinitely beyond us, to lose any sense of compassion for us mere specks?  I'm reminded of what happens in Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen, which imagined a real-life superhero, going by the title Dr. Manhattan, having almost omnipotent powers as a result of a science experiment gone awry, and in the storytelling, the human who becomes near god-like loses his grip on caring about humanity.  Because he can see our existence on a cosmic scale, he loses any attachment to the particular details or troubles of individual people.  Dr. Manhattan even notes coldly that a dead body and a living body have the exact same number of molecules in them and are, from a chemical perspective, hardly distinguishable.  And while, of course, the comic book story of a coldly indifferent blue superhuman is fictional, as a thought experiment, it's helpful to consider--if you or I had virtually limitless power and immortality, we might just stop caring about others altogether.  There's no guarantee that power or knowledge will make you more loving.

So it really is a wonder that the actual Creator of the universe really does care about us--that in Jesus, God retains the connection to our humanity that makes compassion and love possible.  God choose to see us, not as expendable little ants whose problems are merely a hill of beans, but as beings worthy of love--even worthy of the kind of love that chooses to suffer with us, in all that we suffer.

You might even say that what makes the Christian understanding of God different from say, Zeus of the Greeks, Odin of the Norse myths, the Force in the Star Wars saga, and Dr. Manhattan in the Watchmen comics, is that the God we meet in Jesus chooses to share our pain, our limitations, and our suffering, even though God could have avoided all that.  God chooses to hurt with us, as one of us, rather than staring at us coldly without being able to relate.  And God chooses to endure pain rather than to inflict it to save God's own skin.  God chooses a life marked by vulnerability--weeping over the tomb of friend Lazarus, feeling the loneliness of betrayal and abandonment by close friends, enduring the weariness of attending to one need after another, and still regarding each person who came to him as a life worthy of attention and love.  That makes all the difference.

So whatever you are facing today--whatever difficult situation, whatever painful set of circumstances, whatever heartaches are moving you to tears when you think no one else is looking--know that God shares it with you.  And by God's choice, God suffers with us--all of us.  That is the mightiest power and the greatest glory of the God we meet in Jesus: God chooses to suffer with us.

Lord Jesus, help us to know you are going through our struggles along with us, so that we can face whatever comes our way today.

God's Kind of Space--May 24, 2021

God's Kind of Space--May 24, 2021

"Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession." [Hebrews 4:14]

Let's start with this: God isn't "up" somewhere else.  God's kind of existence--God's way of being, you could say--isn't confined to our limited perception of three dimensions.  In our conventional way of thinking, we often talk about God being "up" in heaven, which makes it sound like if you travel a certain distance into the sky (feet?  miles?  light-years? parsecs? who knows?) you will find some place called "Heaven."  It doesn't help that every so often you'll see memes floating around on social media with heavily edited astronomical photos that have a heavenly city superimposed into the frame, as if some telescope had finally located God's Kingdom at "the second star to the right, and straight on until morning" as the line goes, or blurry black and white graphics in low-quality tabloid newspapers doing the same.

None of that is how the biblical writers intend us to think about God's kind of space.  It's another kind of existence altogether.  Maybe it would be helpful to take a quick refresher course in the lessons of Flatland.  In Edwin Abbott's classic thought experiment, "Flatland," a being from a world of only two dimensions (hence the name, Flatland) is visited by beings from a realm like ours with three dimensions, and eventually is plucked up out of his flat plane of a world to see existence in three dimensions.  When he goes back home to his world and tries to explain where he has been, he says he has gone "up," but they only have the categories to think in north, south, east, and west.  So he has to help them to create a whole new way of conceiving of space--upward, not northward.  The idea plays out in the story with beings who exist only as lines and only as points, as well, and you can imagine how frustrating it would be to suggest to a single point (who can only imagine himself existing, and believes he fills his entire "universe") that there is a reality beyond himself, much less suggesting that there are more directions to travel in.  

I wonder if this is a helpful way for us to think of Jesus and "where" he has gone.  To be honest, this is the real challenge we Christians have in making sense of the idea that Jesus "ascended to heaven," especially since the story of Jesus' ascension has him floating on a cloud until he disappears from sight.  At first blush, that sounds like we are being told that God is in fact "up" somewhere at some distance in the sky.  And of course, that creates the additional trouble, once you realize that the world itself is a tiny speck in a vast ocean of space, so that "up" from one point on earth is actually "down" from another spot on the globe, and that all of these points in space are constantly moving in dancing orbits around suns and galactic centers and the like.  The point of Jesus' ascension isn't to say that there's a divinely-appointed "X" to mark the spot in our three-dimensional space where God is, but rather that Jesus' presence is now beyond the limits of our three-dimensional existence, and so he can be both fully in the presence of God and also present to each of us wherever we are in the world, all at once.

Maybe one more bit of science-infused fiction might help.  In Madeleine L'Engle's classic book, A Wrinkle in Time, she has characters travel across vast interstellar distances, not by rocket ship or warp drives, but by folding space itself--creating a sort of "wrinkle," as the title suggests.  The idea is that, much like you can take a flat piece of paper and fold it so that opposite ends meet and then you could take a needle and pass it through the opposite sides of paper at the same time, so you could travel vast distances if you could fold the fabric of space-time itself.  It would allow you to touch multiple points all at the same time.  So, let me suggest that Jesus' existence is something like that--he is beyond the limits of our kind of space now, so that he can touch all the points of our reality all at the same time--rather like there is air surrounding a piece of paper in my hand at all points, and the air is immediately present to all of the paper all at once, without having to travel between points on the page.

So when we hear the writer of Hebrews say that Jesus has "passed through the heavens," it's not with the heavy feeling of having been abandoned. He's not saying, "Well, since Jesus has left us on our own, we'll just have to hold onto our faith even tighter, since he's not here any longer."  Rather, it's just the opposite.  He isn't bound to one point on the map at a time, having to choose moment by moment which one place he should be.  Rather, Jesus can be immediately present to the very face of God and also immediately present to all of us, all of the time.  Jesus is now more accessible to us, not less.  That means it is good news that Jesus has "passed through the heavens," because it actually makes him immediately available to us, rather than having to go to some spot on the map where he is currently holding office hours to get an appointment.  He is accessible to you and to me, right here and now.

So, then, the reason to "hold fast to our confession" isn't because we're on our own now, but rather because we have all the more assurance that the one in whom we confess our faith--Jesus himself--is holding on to us even more tightly, and at every moment.

Now, let's face the day knowing that.

Lord Jesus, keep holding us, wherever on the map we find ourselves.

Good News from the Surgeon--May 21, 2021

Good News from the Surgeon--May 21, 2021

"Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creation is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account." [Hebrews 4:12-13]

Well, that certainly all sounds very intense--all this sword business and the talk of being laid bare before the unblinking eyes of God.  Sounds pretty intimidating, doesn't it?  I'll grant that--and, yes, we'll need to talk about what it means that the word of God is so sharp it can pare away all the defenses and pretenses, all the smoke screens and walls we put up in our lives... and yes, we'll need to talk about what it means that God sees us with terrible clarity that is never clouded by illusions.

But first... let us remember these two truths: for one thing, a surgeon uses a scalpel that is sharper than a sword, for the purpose of healing; and for another thing, nakedness is not inherently bad, wicked, or shameful--the question is whether the person who sees us in our nakedness brings shame on our bodies, or loves us in them, like a parent holding a newborn.

Let's just sit here for a moment and consider that even the sharpness of God's word might just be good news, and the notion of being naked in God's sign might be a beautiful thing, too, rather than something to be afraid of.  Let's start with that image of a blade--how God's word is "sharper than any two-edged sword."  It's worth noting that the writer of Hebrews doesn't say that God's word (by the way, that's the word "Logos," which is also a title for Christ Jesus himself) actually IS a sword, or any other kind of weapon, but rather than it is sharper than one.  God's not holding a weapon to try and cut us open as punishment for our sins, in this picture--rather, just the opposite:  God is like a surgeon whose steady hand holds a well-sharpened scalpel in order to cut out what is killing us from the inside, in order to make us whole and well and more fully alive.  It may not be fun for the moment to bear the pain of an incision, but it might just save your life.

And we do, indeed, need a God who is willing to be honest enough with us to show us--and then to cut out of us--the things that keep us from loving God and neighbor rightly.  Nobody stuck in the denial of their addiction wants to have someone come and tell them they are trapped in a downward spiral, but sometimes that's what is necessary so that the substances they're abusing can be cut out of their lives.  Nobody whose heart has become infected with the casual racism of our era (that tries to hide itself in innocuous language of "heritage" or "color-blindness") wants to have to see the way their words and actions and even thought patterns are entangled in something sinful, but facing those uncomfortable entanglements is the way we can be freed from them to start over in a new way that connects me to my neighbors as God would have us be.  Nobody wants to own up to the ways we let money and our consumeristic drive for "more" become our gods, and we really don't want to have to acknowledge the ways we try and baptize greed to make it sound like a virtue in our culture--but we need a word from God that can show us that truth about ourselves, too.

All of that is to say that we don't need to fear a warrior god with a battle ax or a broadsword, but that we do need the steady hand of a healing God who bears a scalpel with focus and tenderness to remove the cancerous rot (like hatred, greed, or indifference) inside us that will otherwise metastasize in us.

The same is true, it turns out, with the image of a God who sees us naked.  We have these hang-ups about nakedness, but that's more because of the shame we bring to the idea of being fully seen, not because there is something inherently bad about the human body, in all its infinite varieties.  Babies are naked, and they have no shame about it.  Lovers, too, know what it feels like to be seen completely and fully and to know they are cherished as they are, rather than thinking they need to hide or change or cover themselves.  It's only when nakedness becomes a way of objectifying someone or shaming them that it becomes a problem (of course, we humans are so terribly inventive at coming up with new ways to objectify and shame each other that sometimes we almost forget that).  

But to say that God sees us all laid bare means that nobody can fool God.  There's no need for me to try to hide behind fancy clothes and expensive cars, performative piety and religious ritual, or any other false self we construct to hide our truest, most vulnerable selves.  There's a line in the movie, V for Vendetta, where the one character says, "You wear a mask for so long, you forget what you were like underneath."  And that's exactly why it is good news to hear that God sees past the masks we put on and hide behind, so that we can know, deep in our bones, that we are loved as we really are.  The idea that we're all naked before God is scary news if I've built my life on projecting some false self to hide the real me; but if I know that God looks on me with the delight of a lover, or the adoration of a parent looking at a newborn child, then I do not have to be afraid of that kind of vulnerability.  In fact, it can be become a way of knowing I am safe in God's care.  Even the surgeon whose scalpel cuts out a tumor sees our naked bodies without shame, but with the clarity that allows them to know what to remove and what to preserve.  

It turns out we need the Logos of God to be sharp enough to cut away what is killing us from the inside without causing worse damage from a blunt blade.  An we need the eyesight of God to be utterly clear so that we can know there is no need to try and put on a show or put up a smokescreen with God for fear of being rejected--we are seen completely as we are, and we are loved... enough for God to tell us the truth about ourselves and to be real with us.

Lord God, here we are--see us completely, for you are the God who sees.  Wield your word's sharp edge on us, for you are the God who heals like a surgeon.

The Real Rest--May 20, 2021

The Real Rest--May 20, 2021

"For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later about another day. So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; for those who enter God's rest also cease from their labors as God did from his.  Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs." [Hebrews 4:8-11]

There are times, like yesterday, when I'll come home from the daytime part of my work-day, in that pre-dinner-cooking part of the late afternoon before evening meetings, and I'll sit down in an armchair for a few minutes before gearing up for the next leg of the day's work.  And in that space of, oh, ten minutes or so, before helping with homework or unloading a dishwasher or setting a table or grilling some chicken or boiling spaghetti, I rest.

Well, kind of.

It's not usually a very restful rest, because even if I can actually shut my eyes sitting in the chair for a few minutes, my brain knows that I'm not really done for the day, and there is more work biding its time.  There will be food to cook, supper dishes to clean, often meetings to go to, and then an assortment of other tasks between home and work to-do lists that will need to be checked off before I can call it a day.  And, I've got to tell you, when my internal timer or the alarm on my phone tells me I need to get up out of the chair and get to those, somehow I never quite feel refreshed.  

At the end of the day, however, when my body and brain call it quits for the day, I can go to bed and sleep soundly--because I know this is the real rest I have needed.  At that point, I can unclench my mental grip from the list of worries.  I can let go of all the regrets or mistakes or worries of the day (they'll be there, ready to pick up again in the morning), and I know that it's safe to let myself sleep, because the work of the day is done.  My shift is over for the day, so to speak.  That's the real rest.

And although I don't usually sing the words at that point (usually everyone else in the house is sleeping and don't need to be awakened by the resident church nerd belting out a late-night hymn), I do often find myself thinking the words of one of my favorite evening hymns, whose first verse goes like this:

The day you gave us, Lord, has ended,
the darkness falls at your behest
To you our morning prayers ascended,
your praise shall hallow now our rest.

If you know that feeling of peace at the end of the day as you hand into God's care all the things left undone with a day, along with all the things you were satisfied with doing, then you are in the right frame of mind to understand the good news that these verses from Hebrews are offering us.  It's different from the "I'm just getting a few minutes to myself before another rush of busyness," kind of rest you try and get between meetings or chores.  It's the peace of knowing you can rest and the world is still in good hands--that even if everything isn't all right yet in the world, it is still in the good hands of the living God.  

It's something like the prayer supposedly offered up honestly every night by Pope John XXIII, who would end his days with these few words: "It's your Church, Lord; I'm going to bed."  What utter peace, what utter surrender, to be able to admit that everything isn't in our power or under our control, and instead of being upset about that, to be relieved to be able to let it go into God's hands.  That's the kind of rest that the writer of Hebrews is talking about.  And he says that, for all the times in life where we get a moment's rest here or a few minutes of a catnap there, only to have to get up and face the world again all too soon, there is a real rest promised for us.  

Our lives are not forever doomed to be an endless rat race, always scrambling on to the next task with no sense of completion and no relief or destination to look forward to.  Our lives are lived in God, and that God enable us to have real rest now, and to trust that all of creation is being drawn toward the peace of renewal.  There will come a day when we don't have to keep telling ourselves, "Just one more thing, and then I can take a break--just one more thing."  There will come a time when we will see clearly that all our lives have been held in God's hands, and that it was never all left up to us to get enough done.  And in the mean time, when we get to the end of a day that has been well spent, we can simply give it all back to God in trust that it is all God's world, and we can be at peace knowing God holds it all.  Even when everything in that world isn't OK yet.  

So I'm not going to scramble or fuss or demand more time in this life--I'm going to take the counsel of Hebrews and believe that there is yet a grand sabbath rest for the people of God, and I'm going to do my utmost to fill the days I get well, and to be ready to give them all back into God's hands when the time comes for that.  Maybe in that instant, I'll discover I was always already there. In God's hands.

Lord God, when it is time to give this day back into your hands, let us offer it up with satisfaction that we have used it well, and with peace knowing your hands are the best possible place to be.

Rest Is Not A Reward--May 19, 2021

Rest Is Not A Reward--May 19, 2021

"For we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, 'As in my anger I swore, They shall not enter my rest,' though his works were finished at the foundation of the world.  For in one place it speaks about the seventh day as follows, 'And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.' And again in this place it says, 'They shall not enter my rest.' Since therefore it remains open for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he sets a certain day--'today' saying through David much later, in the words already quote, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts'." [Hebrews 4:3-7]

Rest is not a reward earned for your labor.  Rest is a gift of grace made possible by a God in whom we can place our trust.  When we are clear on that, it changes everything.

I want to be clear about that, both because this particular passage from Hebrews can get rather dense and hard to follow, and because our culture has turned rest into a thing you much achieve, rather than an essential part of the rhythm of life.  The symptoms of that misunderstanding are everywhere--and I hope they are obvious.  We treat time off of work as something you have to earn with enough time worked at your job, rather than as something we are made for as human beings.   We worry about whether we'll have the ability to have medical leave when you have a major health concern, because we have built a system around making the company money rather than making sure people can get good care for their illnesses.  We feel guilty when we don't do enough.  We push our kids to max out their free time with extra-curriculars, sports, clubs, and volunteer hours, so that they can stand out from their peers when they apply to colleges--and then so they can set themselves up for more non-stop productivity when they are out of college.  All of this is just part of "the way things are" to a lot of folks. And because we have gotten used to that kind of thinking about work and rest, we have a hard time conceiving of the notion that it could be any different.  We end up thinking it is good and moral and righteous to treat rest as a commodity you earn as payment for productivity, rather than seeing it as part of how we are made, like inhaling and exhaling.  Sometimes we forget, it seems--you don't earn your breath in this life. It is a gift you are given, moment by moment.

If we can hold onto that clarity for a moment, then we can take the deeper dive into what these verses from Hebrews are trying to say about "God's rest."  Again, our author is using the stories of the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites to speak to his own audience/congregation.  And again, he notes that the liberated Israelites who wouldn't trust God in the wilderness never got to experience the peace of resting in God.  But that's not because they didn't "earn" it.  It's because you can't enjoy something you don't believe is really there.  If you don't dare to believe that the world really won't fall apart if you take a minute, an hour, a day, or a week, to rest, you'll never get to experience the renewal of having that down time.  If you don't believe that God really will keep the world running while you are keeping sabbath, you'll never have the peace of knowing the world is in God's good hands.  If you keep turning back to cruel and relentless taskmasters of productivity like Pharaoh for your worth, you'll never be able to trust the word of a God who says, "You are worthy, just as you are, for renewal and rest--it doesn't depend on your accomplishments or your achievements."  So the Israelites who never made it to the promised rest of their destination at the end of the journey weren't kept out because they hadn't done enough--their refusal to trust the God who gives rest meant that they couldn't experience the peace that comes from trusting!

Zooming out even further, the writer of Hebrews notes that God has been offering rest to us human beings from the beginning--we are invited to participate in God's own rest, God's own peace, that comes all the way from the beginning of creation, when God created the world and then rested. That's not because God had to "earn" rest, or because God was "tired out."  God's own being is perfect peace, and so God invites us to participate in that peace in our lives as we trust in God.  It has never been about us needing to do enough to earn some vacation time from the Almighty.  It has always been about God's gift of peace that fills and renews us moment by moment like breath filling your lungs and then being let go into the ocean of air around us.

And so, the writer of Hebrews says, right now--yes, even right now!--we are invited to let our trust in God bring us peace.   When I trust in the love of God, I don't need to worry about impressing anybody else with my job, my income, my accolades, or my status markers.  When I trust that I am accepted by God, I don't have to worry about fitting anybody else's cookie cutter expectations, and I don't have to find some other group to look down on in order to puff myself up.  When I trust that God provides for all, beyond some imaginary category of "deserving" and into the deeper reality of "simply because I am beloved," then I don't have to be envious of what my neighbor has, or use my abundance as a way of setting myself above others, or judge others for needing help from time to time.  All of that brings me peace--it allows my soul to rest.  And not just after I die (that's back to "rest is a reward for productivity" thinking), but right now.  The peace is mine right now, even in the midst of the busyness of this life and the work that is still being done, because God is here in this moment right now, allowing me to participate in the peace that flows just from God's own existence.

If that sounds good to you, I've got great news for you:  it's available to you, for free, for real, right here and now.  No strings.  No catches.  Dare we trust in a God who makes us possible for us to have peace in this moment?  I think it's worth it.

Lord God, let us rest in you today.  Let us rest in you.

Please Don't Miss Out--May 18, 2021

Please Don't Miss Out--May 18, 2021

"Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it.  For indeed the good news came to us just as to them; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened." [Hebrews 4:1-2]

I should probably admit here that almost any time I hear an announcer's voice saying, "Act now--supplies are limited!" I stop listening.  Life experience has brought out the cynic in me that way.  When I hear "Act now--supplies are limited!" I know I am being sold something, and all too often, the ones pleading with me to buy aren't interested so much in giving me something good as they are in making a buck.  And if all they're after is my money, I can take my sweet ol' time to decide if and when I'll give it to them, as well as whether I really want or need what they're hawking.

But there's something different about the urgency of this message from the writer of Hebrews.  True enough, it still has the feel of "Act now!  This is your chance!" but it doesn't have the slightly slimy residue of self-interest as the motivation here.  The writer of Hebrews doesn't get any kickback or finder's fee or sales commission from getting us to trust in the God of whom he is speaking.  And here's the real wonder: neither does God.

This is neither the writer of Hebrews, nor God's, sales pitch to get us to do something or buy something for their sake.  It is about an offer of a gift too good to be missed out on, an opportunity too blessed to be wasted, and too precious to be ignored.  That's how grace works.  God offers us a gift, and then rather than leaving it up to us to be smart enough or fast enough to sniff out a good deal, God bends over backwards and shouts to get our attention so that we'll recognize what a windfall has been placed in our hands.  The offer is free.  The gift is free.  The persistent pleading, "Here's a free gift--it's yours for the having.  Trust me on this." is God's way of getting through to us.

It's honestly got to be frustrating--if not outright heartbreaking--from God's vantage point here. Just like God had offered freedom from enslavement, a promised future, and sustenance along the way for the wandering Israelites, only to have them repeatedly say, "Nah, I don't need your help, and I don't trust you to take care of me," God keeps offering us both freedom and life in Christ.  And so often, our response is a shrug of, "I don't think I really want God's help," or "I'll do it MY WAY," or "This sounds too good to be true, so I won't believe," or "It's not worth it if it's free--if I have to DO something to earn it, then maybe..." Sometimes I think we don't give much consideration to the way God chooses to be vulnerable--rejectable, even--as much as God is powerful and mighty.  That's going to change our picture of who and what God really is like.

Not to put too fine a point on it here, but all of this makes me think of the way we are handling COVID vaccinations these days.  We live--amazingly!--in a time and a place in which a solidly researched, safe, and effective vaccine has been developed, tested, and produced, and now has been made available so easily that you can just walk up without even having made an appointment, with no cost to individuals, so that each of us and our loved ones (as well as strangers and neighbors) will be protected from the risk of a virus that's killed half a million people in a year in our country alone and is devastating other countries, too.  And yet... sometimes that free gift is met with a shrug of, "Nah, I don't want the help," or "I don't think I need this," or "Well, I probably wouldn't get very sick if I got it," rather than jumping at the chance to show love to neighbors by getting vaccinated.  It's heartbreaking to have a good thing being offered as a free gift to you, and to just walk away without any awareness of the lengths others have gone to in order to try to give you this good thing.

If you know that feeling--if you know what it's like to care about someone enough to have told them, "Please, go get vaccinated, because I care about you and the people you love, and great labor has been expended to make this possible for you as a free gift," only to have them shrug it off with arrogant indifference, then maybe we can get why the writer of Hebrews is so passionate about holding out the offer of God's grace to us,  too.  It's not a product for sale that God needs to make a profit on.  It's a gift that is free to us but costly for God that can mean life and freedom and peace for us.

So today, let's not miss out on ANY of the good things others have labored and gone to great trouble to make possible for us, so that we can be more fully alive.  This is a moment, right now, to trust what God gives, not just for today, but for a lifetime.  This is a moment to put away all the things that keep us from trusting the God who went to a cross for us.  This is a moment to find peace in the assurance that we are held by a love that will not give up on us, but rather keeps on bending over backwards and shouting to say, "Here is something good.  I give it to you for free.  Receive it and live."

And yeah, if you haven't yet and don't have a medical reason why you can't, go get vaccinated.  God loves you too much to see you waste a gift of life like that, too.

Lord God, give us the faith enough to receive the good gifts you have placed in our lives by grace, 

Learning to Trust--May 17, 2021

Learning to Trust--May 17, 2021

"Now who were they who heard and yet were rebellious? Was it not all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses? But with whom was he angry forty years?  Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, if not to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief." [Hebrews 3:16-18]

The other way to say all of that is that it's all about trust.

It was true for our ancient older sisters and brothers in the wilderness wanderings after the Exodus, it was true in the first century when the letter to the Hebrews was written, and it's true now.  The life of being God's people is a life that hangs on trust--and in particular, on putting our trust in Someone who is reliable and worthy of that trust.

Just as a reminder, the "rebellious" ones that our author is talking about here was the majority opinion of the people who had seen God deliver them from slavery in Egypt and bring them through the Sea, but still didn't dare to trust their lives with God going forward.  Sure, they'd seen the God of their ancestors liberate them from enslavement, and they'd seen miracle after miracle to bring them out of Pharaoh's clutches, but there were too many uncertainties in their future to trust that same God any further. And so, at least for a good many of those who had come out of Egypt, they complained at every turn, and they fussed that they didn't have enough food, and they from time to time starting making gods of their own out of gold, and they basically kept saying to God, "We don't trust you to bring us all the way to our destination.  We think we can do better than you."

So, instead of trusting the One who had faithfully kept the promise made to their ancestor Abraham, the same One who had shown over and over again a faithfulness and a capacity to work wonders for them, the people kept selectively remembering their old lives in Egypt as if their enslavement was great and things were good under Pharaoh, and they kept deciding that they couldn't really depend on God to come through for them.

And in a sense, the story of the wilderness wanderings is the story of God helping a whole people--a community of untold thousands--to unlearn the ways of Pharaoh's Egypt, and to raise up a new generation learning to trust the goodness and reliability of the God who set them free. It takes a long time to unlearn old idolatries, well-worn destructive thought patterns, and long-ingrained bad or false assumptions, especially when we've built our lives around them.  (Sometimes they become so familiar that we forget they are even there, which makes them almost impossible to root out, too!) I'm reminded of a hymn text by Richard Leach, which has a verse that concludes, "We know the yoke of sin and death--our necks have worn it smooth; go tell the world of weight and woe that we are free to move!"  I think that's it--for the wilderness generation, there was such familiarity with the old systems of Pharaoh's Egypt that it required an older generation to fade away and a new generation to grow up learning, even day by day as God rained manna from heaven for them, that God was trustworthy.

And from there, everything else changed.  Once you could trust God to provide for your needs, you didn't have to hoard.  Once you knew that God was reliable, you didn't have to steal from your neighbor to get what you wanted.  Once you realize you can depend on God to be your defender, you don't have to be constantly afraid or suspicious of others or see them as a threat. All of that is a matter of unlearning the cruelty, violence, and greed of Pharaoh's Egypt, and of learning a new way of living--one grounded in the trustworthiness of God.

I suspect we aren't so different from the wilderness generation, as much as we may want to insist we "know better."  We are still captive to a whole host of thought-patterns, assumptions, prejudices, and systems of thinking that are really hard to disentangle ourselves from, and that compete for our allegiance--an allegiance that should rightly go to the God who is trustworthy, over against those other counterfeits and pretenders.  We are constantly tempted to put our trust in things that are not reliable--our piles of money and the stock market, our status, our cultural sacred cows, our national myths (and the prejudices they often bring along with them), and certainly political parties, slogans, and candidates. They all so easily become golden calves that poise themselves to elbow out the living God who really is faithful and reliable.  So our daily challenge, just like the generation on the wilderness journey, is to unlearn our old patterns of trust in those things, so that we can learn a newer, deeper trust in God.

How could we begin that kind of trust-learning today, here and now?

Let's begin.

Lord God help us to trust you, more fully, more deeply, and more truly.

We're Not Customers--May 13, 2021

We're Not Customers--May 13, 2021

"For we have become partners of Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end.  As it is said, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion'." [Hebrews 3:14-15]

We aren't merely paying customers or subscribers to a spiritual service that Jesus offers--we are stakeholders who share in a common purpose of God's Reign.

That difference is huge, because it means that Christ has taken us by the hand to join in what he is doing in the world, rather than merely trying to sell us on his religious products like we are passive consumers.

Other relationships in our lives are purely transactional--you order a pizza and expect them to remember the extra cheese and pepperoni because you're paying for it, but you don't join in the work of baking.  You pay for a streaming service or cable provider to bring you tv, movies, and other entertainment to your rectangles of technology, but you aren't invited to help create movies, nor do you get a say on what programs they run or which movies are available.  If you don't like what they're offering, you can either stop paying or quit complaining.  But you aren't a partner--you're a customer.  You're a consumer.

To be a part of the movement we call the church is different--we aren't here to be spectators, consumers, or customers.  We have become "partners of Christ," as one translation puts it--people who share in Christ and his work, people who hold something in common because we have a stake in our way of life, lived in God's love.  Being a Christian, then, is more than watching something on a screen, or buying a bunch of cross-emblazoned accessories, or even reading "inspirational" books bought from a "Christian" bookstore while "contemporary Christian music" plays in the background.  It is about a way of life that is lived shoulder to shoulder with the living Christ himself in the work he is still doing all around.

That feels like a particularly important message for us all in this moment in history, because the temptation as we have navigated a pandemic is to reduce our faith into a consumer product, watchable on screens and shared only as "likes" on social media, rather than a way of life we participate in.  We've been wrestling for a very long time with this temptation, to be sure, but the last fifteen months have certainly underscored it all the more.  When my faith is simply one more consumer product I buy, we have lost something essential.  When my approach to following Jesus is, "I'll watch this church video, or attend this service, as long as I like the product they're offering, or as long as they don't say something that challenges or calls me out, or as long as it's convenient and doesn't require anything else of me," we have turned the Christian life into a commodity, rather than a community.

Being a consumer makes me like a TV critic--just here to passively watch something and make judgments about whether I like it or not.  But being a partner with Christ means we aren't just watching things on a screen, and we aren't the "customer" who is proverbially "always right."  Rather, we're here to let Jesus shape us, strengthen us, and stretch us to be more like him, so that we can join in his work. A passive consumer picture of discipleship means if I've watched a video or listened to a song, I've done my "religious thing" for the day, while a partner-with-Christ picture means that every day brings the chance to make my world a little more just, a little more loving, a little more truthful, a little more merciful, a little more courageous, and a little more like the Reign of God.

In a day and age where we can binge-watch the day away on your favorite TV streaming service, it's worth remembering that Jesus hasn't called us to simply watch "religious content" on a rectangle of technology.  He's called us to share in what he does: to bless the ones who feel forgotten, to welcome the ones on the margins, to feed the ones who are hungry, to comfort those who grieve, to heal those who suffer, to wipe away tears, and to bring life to the fullest all around.  If I've been settling for being a passive audience member, now is the moment to be awakened, to stretch my legs, and to put one foot after the other, following where Jesus leads.

Lord Jesus, move us beyond being passive consumers to committed partners with you in your work to bring the world more fully to life in you.

The Day We're Given--May 12, 2021

The Day We're Given--May 12, 2021

"Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.  But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today,' so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." [Hebrews 3:12-13]

Tomorrow is always a moving target.  Today is right in front of us and won't let us off the hook.

You know the song that Little Orphan Annie sang:  "Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow, you're always a day away."  It's easy to fantasize about tomorrow--we can imagine all the problems or troubles we're facing right now will have vanished by then.  We can pretend that the temptations I'm wrestling with will evaporate with tomorrow's morning dew.  We can put off whatever important work needs to be done by telling ourselves it will all be taken care of... tomorrow.  We humans are great at dreaming about tomorrow as a way of conveniently ignoring the needs of today.  

The thing is, today is the day we have been given.  Today is where we live.  And when we get to tomorrow, guess what--it will have transformed into "today."  The tantalizingly close-but-impossible-to-reach thing called "tomorrow" is a slippery little critter that way--always a day away, and always turning our focus from the day in front of us to some imagined scenario just over the horizon.  Like the Beach Boys sang, "Wouldn't it be nice if we were older..." as Brian Wilson painted a picture of some perfect future to his love interest, we can lose ourselves in dreaming about a million possible tomorrows.  The only cost is that it can lead us away from doing what we can with today, the actual day we are living.

I don't mean to bad-mouth long-range planning, and I'm not going to say that all wishful thinking is harmful.  I don't silence my kids or shame them when they start dreaming of being professional basketball players or dancers or doctors or civil engineers, nor do I actively try to stop them from dreaming of whatever thing they want to save their birthday money up for, or ask for as a Christmas present.  But I do think the writer of Hebrews is concerned that we not lose focus on being faithful and making the most of the Kingdom opportunities we are given right here and now, because there are real people with real needs to whom we are being sent in this place and time.  If I spend my free moments wishfully thinking of some future "someday" when I can go and see Paris or take up fly-fishing or finally have the perfect life, I will miss out on the opportunities I am being given here and now to participate in God's work of loving and blessing and restoring all things an all people.  If I'm always picturing some hypothetical ideal "tomorrow" I will miss the chances for seeing grace today, even if it is going to be found in broken things and fractured situations.

And it's that concern that drives the writer of Hebrews here to call us to hold each other accountable every day, "as long as it is called today," to use the time and opportunities we actually have, rather than imagining some dreamy problem-free future day.  It is so easy to make an idol out of our imagined futures that we miss out on seeing the presence of the real and living God who is right here in our actual present situations--yes, even the struggles, the hurts, and the broken places of this day we have been given.  Don't miss today--it's what we've actually got to work with.  Don't keep chasing after some comfortable but imaginary future as a way of not dealing with what Dr. King called "the fierce urgency of now."

Maybe then the question to pose on this day is simply this:  how can I use the day in front of me, this day called "today," in such a way that when it is over and I lay down and give it all up to God, I will not have any regrets about the ways I have loved?  How can I use this day, not just for the ideal smiling people in my dreams of a picture-perfect future, but the actual people and the actual situations put in my path today?  That seems like a day well spent.  Let's get at it.

Lord Jesus, help us to use this day well, and to encourage each other to use the day you have given us for good, for love, for justice, for kindness, for your Reign.

With Arms Held Out Wide--May 11, 2021

With Arms Held Out Wide--May 11, 2021

"Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, as on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors put me to the test, though they had seen my works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and I said, They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways. As in my anger I swore, They will not enter my rest'." [Hebrews 3:7-11]

It is a damn shame to take someone who loves you for granted--especially if the someone is God.

And yet, it really is breathtaking how much of the story of God and human beings is the Mobius strip looping of God being good, gracious, and generous to us, and us being selfish jerks in response.  We have a way of seeing the goodness of God, shrugging our shoulders with an unimpressed "Meh" kind of response, and thinking we can do better on our own... only to end up in terrible trouble and to need God to bail us out again.... and then we start it all over again.

The writer of Hebrews knows that repeating story all too well, and rehearses it here by quoting from the Psalms.  In fact, it's interesting just how often the Bible calls us out on this habit of ours and names it.  The original stories of the wilderness wanderings are found in the Torah--in the saga that runs from Exodus through Deuteronomy, and in those stories, God is faithful and the people are basically stinkers.  "We don't want the food you're giving us!"  "We don't like the way you're taking us!" "We don't like a God who is invisible and beyond our control--we we want one we can make out of shiny metal!"  "We want to go back to slavery in Pharaoh's Egypt where we selectively remember that it was better!"  "We don't want you being our God anymore!"  Over and over these kinds of complaints and doubts and criticisms of God's goodness get lobbed at God, and over and over the people get themselves in trouble when they try to make a way on their own without God.  And so, over and over, God shows up to heal, to deliver, and to start over with them.  And then, hundreds of years later, the poets who crafted the Psalms would retell those stories that way, and remind the people of their perpetual fickleness.  And it's those psalms that the writer of Hebrews picks up on here, as a way of saying, "We've been down that road before--let's not go down it again!"

That's what this is all about: a wise voice of faith looking at the wreckage in our past and saying, "Yes, God forgave us and started over with us in the past when we turned away from God, but that doesn't mean we should turn away again now!  Let's just stick close to God this time, and skip the part where we take God for granted!"

And honestly, that's a brilliant idea.  If someone forgives you for having taken them for granted and being a jerk toward them, the right thing to do is to stop taking them for granted ever again, and instead to appreciate the love that didn't walk away even when you bailed out on it.  What if we took that seriously when it comes to us and God?

Because here's the thing: God has never bailed out on us, and God never will.  God sure does put up with our flaking out, and God certainly  has to bear the heartache of our taking God for granted.  But when we do, God remains faithful, and it would be an utter shame to shrug that love away with our indifference.  Maybe today's a day both to look back at the places where God carried each of us all our lives long, even despite our own ornery selfishness, and also to look around right now at God's presence with in this day and this place.  Maybe, just maybe, God is in this moment right now with a good direction to lead us in, with a strong love to give, and with arms held out wide open for you.  And maybe this is the moment not to walk away from it (to chase some other lesser love that won't be faithful to us), but instead to stick close to the love of God.

Today, let's be intentionally aware, deliberately mindful, of the goodness of God, right here and now, so that we will not walk away from the love that doesn't bail out on us.

O God, keep being your faithful self with us--and make us to see your goodness and stay close.