Keeping the Empty Empty--November 21, 2019

Keeping the Empty Empty--November 21, 2019

"So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong." [2 Corinthians 12:9b-10]

Jesus isn't spinach.  And none of us is Popeye.

I think sometimes we treat Jesus like we expect him to give us superpowers, or some kind of secret spiritual insights.  Or at least that he'll make us, y'know, "strong"... or "tough"... or somehow measurably "better."  We talk about having Christ in our lives like he is simply a performance-enhancing substance, rather than the abiding presence of a living person.  Popular spirituality likes to quote the verse from Philippians (completely forgetting the context) that says, "I can do all things through him who strengthens me," and sometimes you almost get the impression that some folk believe it means he'll improve your bench-press or your average running speed, or that just pronouncing the word "Jesus" will give you the extra stamina to work your three jobs and make it to your kid's parent-teacher conferences on time with a smile.

We treat Jesus, in other words, like we think he is a spiritual vitamin--like the can of spinach Popeye would swallow in a single gulp to power up his muscles so he could save his darling Olive Oyl.  And I think part of what we are assuming there is that Christ can't abide things... or people... that are weak somehow to just remain... you know, weak.  We assume that if Jesus is going to show up, he will get rid of what is weak and change us--as though the weakness itself is unacceptable.  And so, like mild-mannered Clark Kent becoming Superman with a swiping of eyeglasses, or like Prince Adam becoming He-Man (there's a dated 1980s pop culture reference for you!), we imagine that when Jesus' presence shows up in our lives, it will mean that he will get rid of our weaknesses, because we assume they are bad.  Perhaps the "power" he brings will wear off if we haven't prayed hard enough, or it will evaporate after so much time, but we somehow seem to think that Jesus' job is to get rid of weakness rather than to work through it.

But that's not the promise.  And that's not how Paul sees things from his own life.  This whole passage is about Paul having to change his expectations.  He had prayed for Jesus to come and take away the malady, the weakness, the "thorn in the flesh," the empty feeling inside, only to have the Lord respond by saying, basically, "No."  As in, "No, I'm not taking away the weakness or filling the empty space, but I am present in a surprising and powerful way through your weakness."  That means Paul stayed weak, stayed empty, stayed with the thorn in his side... and yet that Christ was with him through the struggle.  There is no spinach-for-Popeye moment where Jesus makes his muscles grow so that Paul can punch Bluto.  Instead the presence of Christ is more powerful and visible when it comes through Paul's weakness, rather than vanquishing or banishing it.

And to be clear, this is how the presence of Christ is for us as well.   Instead of being just some spiritual pick-me-up to pull us out of the dark cloud, Christ is the one who walks with us through the darkness... while it is still dark.  Instead of imagining that our empty fuel tanks need some spiritual product named "Jesus" to show up like spinach for Popeye to fill us back up, perhaps it is more that we are empty like the body of an acoustic guitar, and that the empty space, rather than being a weakness, is actually the conduit for the music.  And in our quest to "be strong" or "have power" or "be filled," we are missing the point of God's greatest, most grace-filled power.  Christ is present with us, not in order to tell us that our weakness or emptiness was unacceptable until he fills it in or juices us up, but to be with us in our weaknesses and empty places as they are, and through them to do what brawn and bulk cannot.

The same Paul who wrote here about discovering Christ's presence in our weakness (rather than getting rid of our weakness as if it is unworthy of him) would say a few sentences later, "I will most gladly spend and be spent for you.  If I love you more, am I to be loved less?"  I think there is something profoundly beautiful about that thought.  Paul has come to a point where he is no longer seeking to have his empty places filled back in, or his weaknesses shored up.  He sees now that the whole point of life in Christ is to give yourself away--and therefore that the emptiness is an asset to be held open, like the sound chamber of a guitar, rather than filled in with something else.  He sees now that the weakness he had been so afraid of is actually a gift of grace.

This is how Christ is present with us day by day--in our weakness, rather than getting rid of it, flowing through our empty places, rather than filling them back in.  So much of our lives is spent believing that we are unacceptable because of our weak places, or that we will only know Jesus' presence once we get rid of the things we see as flaws and foibles.  But Jesus has been saying all along, "I am here right now--with you, just as you are--and that will be enough."

Indeed.  Jesus is enough.  He always has been.

Lord Jesus, we lift up to you the things we thought were not good enough for you to use: our weakness and empty places.  Let us see your presence and surprising power right there in the midst of them.

A Whisper in the Noise--November 20, 2019

A Whisper in the Noise--November 20, 2019

[Jesus said:] "...they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your mind not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to contradict." [Luke 21:12-15]

I am tired of the constant deluge of rottenness around. No, not just tired--I am wearied by it.  I am wearied, some days almost to the point of exhaustion, just of the dissonant chorus of voices that runs, non-stop, like a grating hum in the background all the time, selling a vision of a way of life that runs counter to the way of Jesus.  

It is a constant angry babbling, and it is punctuated by bursts of hatred, of self-centeredness, of endless avarice, and of arrogant bragging.  

It is the noise of the unending news cycle, reminding me how to keep track of the days by where the latest mass shooting was (Monday's was a Walmart in Oklahoma; Sunday's was in a Hmong neighborhood in Fresno).  

It is the din of pundits and politicians on the radio and TV, tying themselves up in knots as they bend over backwards to say the opposite of the thing they said yesterday, and telling us to forget that we ever heard anything different.

It is the dull roar of angry voices demonizing whatever group of people they see as "the other," and casting "those people" as the enemy.

It is the unnerving shouting of TV preachers and Respectable Religious folks posturing for attention and clamoring for positions of prestige and influence, but sounding less and less like the message of Jesus of Nazareth the more they talk.

I don't know about you, but that constant racket of noise in the background of life sometimes feels overwhelming, and I am just about exhausted by it.  I am no longer surprised by it, but it still wearies me.  And sometimes it is just so tempting to turn it all off and look away--to ignore the news reports of body counts, or to just give caring about the shouting-matches between the talking heads with a nihilistic shrug to say, "It doesn't matter who wins this debate anyway."  It is tempting, too, to feel like our only options in response to all that noise are either to shout even more loudly and angrily, or to give into apathy and say nothing.

Sometimes, we can even feel like the question forming on our lips is a defeated, "In the face of all this, what's the point of even trying?"  And maybe we struggle to come up with a solid answer to that unspoken question.

And yet, over against that daily babel sound, there is this whisper of a voice that says to us--to you and to me--"You are my witnesses in the midst of this.  I will give you words.  I am here with you now."  It is the voice of Jesus, who has promised to give us wisdom to share when it feels like the world around us has lost its mind, and an authentic word to speak when it feels like the world around us has sold its soul.

I am reminded by these words of Jesus from late in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus' promise to be among us now is not merely a sentimental thing, or a warm and fuzzy feeling.  Jesus promises to be with us right here and now because he knows we'll need it.  We'll need it to keep our sanity in times that feel deeply troubled, and we'll need it to speak a different message--what the book of Hebrews calls "a better word"--than the angry and anxious and fearful cacophony around us.  Jesus' promises to be with us to give us words, because he has appointed us to be witnesses to another way--his way.

Jesus reminds his followers, even in the late days of his earthly ministry, that he is commissioning us to be a sort of counter-cultural witness.  We will be the minority report that can both tell the emperor when he is wearing no clothes and also can speak of the amazing grace of God that clothes us in the righteousness of Christ.  We will be the voices who say a firm but loving "No!" to the transactional thinking of the world's powerful, in which everything is reducible to "I do X for you, and you do Y for me in return," and who speak instead about God's economy of grace.  We will be ones who risk being rejected, who risk being called "losers," who risk getting lumped in with whatever group is being cast as "the other."  This is what Jesus calls his followers to do and to be--in other words, we are called to be an alternative to the endless noise in the background from all those other sources.

And to do that, Jesus has promised to be with us--in order that he can whisper to us a different message than the yelling and posturing on our screens and speakers.  Honestly, we need nothing less than his presence, because without him, we will just fall back into the same fearful and selfish shouting of everybody else. We are good at that by nature.  But Jesus enables us to be an alternative.

Today, we are given a calling--we do not have permission simply to stick our heads in the sand, nor do we have authorization to answer immature and petty yelling with more of the same.  We are called to speak the good news that there is an alternative to the wearying flood of the world's messages, and we are called to listen for Jesus (rather than our own inventions of what we would like Jesus to have said) to know what the alternative is.

Before you give up, just pause. Just hold on for a moment.  Don't throw the radio or tv against a wall when the voices that drive you crazy are at it again.  Listen, but over their noise, listen for the whisper of Jesus who, like the Creator in the beginning, speaks a word that makes new worlds come into existence.  Listen for Jesus, who will give us a wisdom to answer the noise of this moment.

And dare trust that he will speak.

Speak, Lord Jesus, your wisdom to answer the nonsense of the day and times in which we live, and give us the grace to be your witnesses and your counter-cultural option for the world which you yet love.  Touch our ears to hear you whisper.

Doesn't Jesus Care?--November 19, 2019

"Doesn't Jesus Care?"--November 19, 2019

“A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’” [Mark 4:37-38]
You only ask a question that begins, “Do you not care…?” when you expect the answer to be "Yes!"--in other words, when you expect that the person you are asking really does, in fact, care.

You don’t dare ask a question like that of a stranger—you know that the teenager bagging your groceries really doesn’t care about your emotional problems, and that the person behind you in line at Wal-Mart isn’t really interested in your hopes and dreams. You don’t ask “Don’t you care…?” of someone when you don’t have a reasonable expectation that they will answer, “Yes! Of course I care!” It hurts too badly to ask it and have your hopes disappointed. (I think this is why the “Don’t you care…?” questions are so telling when asked between spouses who are going through struggles in their relationship—you would expect the other person to say, “Of course, I care about…” and if they do not, things are very grave.) 

You only ask “Don’t you care…?” when you at least hope that the other person does care. Otherwise, it is a question asked when, as the song puts it poignantly, “we’re only here to witness the remains of love exhumed.” It is not a question to ask lightly, because it is a gamble to ask it. What if—and you almost dread to even thinking about this possibility—the answer comes back, “No, I don’t care… not anymore…”? And yet, it is a question that deeply wants, maybe even longs, for there to be a “yes” in reply. And it is a question that expects and hopes for that yes to come.

We have to hear the question of the disciples with that kind of intensity. “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?” It is a question asked with hope and faith underneath it. The disciples have come to trust in this Jesus, and they have come to believe that he really is looking out for them. Asking Jesus “Don’t you care” carries the assumption with it that Jesus should care, and has cared in the past, and can be expected to care into the future. It seems like a question of doubt, but really it is a question of faith. To ask Jesus, “Do you not care…?” is a way of telling Jesus you have trusted him to care thus far—it is asking Jesus to be who Jesus has always been for you in the past.  And it recognizes that Jesus is there in the boat with you now.  You don't ask a question like, "Don't you care?" to someone who is never around or won't make time for you anymore--their absence already gives you the answer that they don't.  But someone who shows up--who is present with you as you go through the storms and struggles--there is a person already showing you that they care.

That's why it's such a big deal that Jesus is already in the boat with the storm-tossed disciples.  His presence in the boat is already a sign that indeed he does care.  His willingness to bear their angry, hurt, and fearful question is evidence he cares even before he does a thing to still the storm.

In a way, the most faithful prayers of God’s people for millennia have begun with some version of, "Don't you care...?" “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” asks the psalmist, and he asks it because he has expected and trusted that God was there for him. Jesus, too, asked that question from the cross. Whatever suffering or fear he is going through, whatever storms the psalmist is facing, he had trusted that the living God would be there with him and would go through the danger alongside him. In a way, when we feel like God doesn’t care, and that feeling bothers us, it is a sign to us that we are still deeply trusting and expecting God to come through for us.

This is a big part of why it’s better to be honestly angry at God, or at least upset at God, when you find your life taking on water, than to pretend the troubles are not there, or to give up hope. As the saying goes, you can’t be mad at someone you don’t believe exists. At least being mad at God is a sign that deep down, you still believe not only that God is there but that God should care about your situation. Even our angriest prayers, uttered with clenched fists at the sky, are still signs we believe God is there and that God should be moved to respond to our hurts. And that’s exactly right—God is there, and God is moved, even aggrieved, over our hurts. The psalmist says that God collects our tears in a bottle, after all. The psalmist says, “Precious in the sight of God is the death of his saints.” We are taught by the writers of the Bible to count on God caring about our sorrows. So when we go through storms like the disciples did, it may be the most faithful question we can ask to call out, “Lord, don’t you care…?” Like I say, asking it is a sign that you really expect the answer to be “Yes!”

The difference between us asking that question of another human being in a strained relationship and us asking that question of God is that God really won’t let us down by saying, “No, I don’t care…” Others might well let us down. Others might not prove worthy of our trust. Others maybe should say, “I care…” but they fail us. Others may say, "Well, I used to care, but now I have new priorities in my life and I just can't make the time for you anymore." The living God does not. Jesus does not. 

The disciples, of course, will see that as the story continues, but so often in our lives, we feel like we are paused right at this instant in the story, and that all we can see is Jesus sleeping in the boat. Sometimes we cannot see to the end of the story, when the storm is calmed and Jesus has been with us all along. And yet even in those moments while the boat is still taking on water, we trust that Jesus is here and should care… and indeed that he will answer us with the “Yes!” we have been longing for. So, if you or I are in one of those moments of doubt and anger, okay, fair enough. Let us at least trust Jesus enough to ask our question, and wait with open ears for his answer. It seems like quite a risk to speak the words, “Don’t you care, Lord?” 

But wait for him to answer. Then we will see.

Lord Jesus, when it seems like you are asleep in the back of the boat, let us bring our questions to you, and let us see you answer them faithfully. Let us know your deep love and care for us always.

A Tangle of Flags--November 18, 2019

"A Tangle of Flags"--November 18, 2019

"...Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  Or do you suppose it is for nothing that the scripture says, 'God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us'? But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, 'God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.' Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded." [James 4:4-8]

I saw something rather telling along my morning drive to work the other day, something up on a flagpole.  Two somethings, actually, but neither was waving despite the brisk November breeze.

The residents at this particular house along the highway had two flags on their flagpole, but they had become entangled with each other. The one on top was clearly an American flag--I could at least make out the stripes. But the second was so close to the first that somehow the two had gotten wrapped up in each such that neither could flap in the dawn's early light. The other, slightly lower, flag was blue with white letters, but you couldn't read any of the text because of the entanglement.  

That meant neither flag was doing what it was meant to do. Neither could fly. The American flag was practically hamstrung by the lower flag which wrapped around it, and the lower flag was illegible because it had gotten itself caught in the top flag.  Whatever its message, it was unreadable, which strikes me as rather self-defeating.

Well, this observation took all of fifteen seconds in real time as I drove past, but the image has been percolating for me ever since.  This is simply what happens when you fly two flags from your pole--whether literally or metaphorically.  The tangle of banners, star-spangled or otherwise, is exactly what James has in mind when he talks about being "double-minded."  Essentially, when we try to live with competing allegiances in our lives, we end up doing neither very well.  When we SAY that God is our first priority, for example, but then fly a second, third, fourth, or fifth flag on the same pole underneath, we should expect the all to get tangled up with each other.  It's not just the lower flags that won't fly well, but they just might get wrapped up in whatever we INTEND to be our top priority, too.  At some point, the different entities in our lives vying for our attention, time, affections, donations, and loyalty will be in competition with one another--all trying to catch the same breeze, but snagging each other as they try to wave.  And instead we end up with a tangle instead of a banner blowing in the breeze.

James pulls no punches about just how stark the contrast is: ultimately the question for him is whether God's flag--and God's alone--will be flying from our flagpoles.  Trying to have both God and anything else as our top allegiance is a recipe for disaster, and honestly, anything that gets a second spot on the pole is just inviting a mess with the first.  James simplifies all the many voices around us into one catch-all, "the world."  And he doesn't mean that Christians should retreat into the desert or shun all their non-church-going friends and acquaintances, so much as he means that ultimately we have to be prepared to choose what--and who--matters most to us in life.  Much like Jesus himself notes that you can't serve two masters, but will eventually give way to serving one over the other, James says that in the end you can't fly two flags in life.  

What's especially tricky in all of that is that most of the things we think we can run up the flagpole don't look wicked or evil on face value.  And maybe on their own they're not--but when they compete for the spot at the top of the flagpole, they become problems.  So your job is a lovely and fine thing--it is indeed good to do something useful and productive with your labor and skills.  But when "my job" becomes the driving force in life, it has really become "my god."  When my want list gets top billing, it has become my idol.  When my bank account or my car or that vacation I'm saving up for becomes most important in my life, it has a way of getting my allegiance even if I say I want God to be first in my life.  Same thing with how I spend my free time, what I do in my social life, who gets my minutes, and what I spend my energy on.  Even if I tell myself all those other things are secondary to God, if I put them way up close to the top of the flagpole, they'll crowd out God's flag on top, and they'll all get tangled up with each other.  And then, nothing will wave in the wind.

This, I think, is really the problem for so many of us churchgoing folks.  We know the Sunday School answer is to put God first in our lives, but we have been fooled into thinking that that's just a matter of saying we are putting God first, while we then go about business as usual with everything else. We assume that as long as we SAY God is our first priority, then there must be room on the flagpole for the American Dream right below that, and maybe the Cookie Cutter Family Life with a spouse, and 2.5 kids right after that, and then allegiances to political leaders, our 401(k), and that promotion at work along down the line, too.  

We were told we could chase after all of it--and we could have it all!--as long as we said that we were putting God as the top flag on the pole first.  We were lied to.

What James challenges us to see, instead, is that every day, and every moment, is a choice about whether we recognize the presence of God, or we push God aside in the pursuit of some grand "Something Else."  When James says, "Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you," he's not suggesting that there's any place in the universe that is "distant" from God.  But rather, like the sound of a person speaking to you on the other side of the room, you can choose whether you will grant them your undivided attention, or whether you will drown them out with the buzzing on your phone, the noises from your laptop, and the sound the talking heads yelling at each other on television.  When you give someone half-hearted attention, they will eventually take your cue and stop trying to get your attention at all, and the conversation will just fall silent--not as punishment or passive-aggressiveness, but simply as the natural consequence of your divided attention.  On the other hand, when you give someone else your undivided attention, you find that they engage you more and more and more in the conversation.  James says that God is much the same: always in the room with us, but willing to risk being rejected by folks who won't muster enough focus to give God their undivided attention.  James simply dares us to see the One who is already in the room trying to have a conversation with us... and to let God have our whole selves, whole hearts, and whole minds.

The question to ask today is simply this: what am I flying on the flagpole of my life?  If my answer is plural, I should be prepared that all of them will get tangled, and none of them will catch the wind.  

Oh, say, in your heart, does God's banner still wave?  That really depends on what we have tried to run up the pole at the same time, too.

Lord God, give us whole hearts, rather than divided selves. Let us love you with uncontested allegiance.

Who Connects Us--November 15, 2019

Who Connects Us—November 15, 2019

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” [Ephesians 1:1-2]
Go to a family reunion or a wedding—or, I suppose if you have a dark streak, a funeral—and you will see a strange ritual re-enacted time and again. It’s the well-intentioned but often clumsy attempts people make trying to find out how they are each connected to the rest of the people in the room.

“How do you know the bride and the groom?” is one of those inelegant questions that gets lobbed across the awkward round tables at the reception, asked between people who don’t know each other from Adam but who have been thrown together to eat their stuffed chicken breasts over small talk. Or it’s, “Whose side of the family are you on?” Or even just, “Help me out—who are you?” You might get a perplexed look from the other person, as you each try naming people to whom you have some connection, like you are fishing for a coincidence: “Do you know Mary Louise? No? How about Uncle Frank? Oh, you know him from work—well, I’m a second-cousin, twice-removed.” Sometimes you end up with a look of delighted surprise to discover you have other overlapping social circles, too: “Honey, did you hear this? Bob and Cynthia used to live on Oak Street, too—they must have moved there just a few years after we moved away! What a small world!” Something like that.

It really is rather lovely to think that you could draw lines between each person in the banquet hall and some central figures who make them all connected somehow. Sort of a living human spider-web, with all the guests connected in some way to some distant matriarch and patriarch of a family, or to a bride and a groom, or to the deceased. If you really would try and sit each one down to ask why they are there, they will eventually identify themselves in terms of how they are related to those central people. “I’m the oldest great-granddaughter of Millicent and Henry,” or “I used to be the college roommate of the bride,” or “Matilda was my favorite aunt.” We define ourselves in those moments, not by our jobs or our bank accounts or our sports teams, but by relationship to a common central person. And no matter how different everybody in the party is from one another, they all are there because they are connected to someone at the center.

That’s how it is for us, the motley crew that is the church. We are a pretty strange collection of people from all walks of life, all nationalities, all tax-brackets, and all sorts of histories. And it’s like we have all found ourselves at this party and start to look around the room wondering what could possibly have brought this peculiar collection of people together. So we start to ask around: “What’s your connection to this shindig?” “Help me out—who are you?” And the answers start to come back with a common theme.

“I’m Paul, an apostle of Christ.”

“I’m from Ephesus—I’m one of the saints of Christ Jesus.”

“I’m a follower of Christ, too!”

“Say, I belong to Christ, too!”

And what do you know?—we have found our common connection. It is Christ who brings us together. It is Christ--here among us now, still, who connects us. It is Christ who defines us. When you are at a reunion or a reception, you let yourself be defined, even if just for an afternoon or an evening, by your relationship to the people or person at the center of the party. But for the followers of Jesus, this becomes a lifetime thing. Who we are is answered by whose we are. And we belong to Christ.

That’s where we start. That’s how we answer, “Who are you, really?” Not first and foremost by our jobs, our significant others, our houses, our political party, our demographics, our body-mass-index, or our income level, but in terms of Christ. We belong to him. And together with the rest of the strange bunch Jesus has drawn to himself, we are here at the party caught up in delighted surprise to see how far and wide his reach extends.

Lord Jesus, allow us today to define ourselves by our relationship to you before all else.

Jesus on the Sofa--November 14, 2019

Jesus on the Sofa--November 14, 2019

[Jesus said:] "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them." [John 14:23]

Jesus makes a surprising promise we don't often think about: he says he's coming to crash on our couches and sleep on our sofas.  

That sounds a little bit backwards--and maybe a little undignified--for the eternal Son of God, doesn't it?  We are used to hearing the promise of Christianity phrased in the other direction, aren't we?  You know, the bit about us going to be where Jesus is?  The promise of a heavenly dwelling, because "in my Father's house are many mansions" and all that?  Isn't that in the Bible, too?

Well, yes, of course.  In fact, it's just a few short paragraphs before this sentence on Jesus' lips about him coming over to dwell where we are.  And while some translations may go for the more accurate (but less-glamorous-sounding) "many dwelling places" or "many rooms" instead of "mansions," either way, we are probably pretty used to the idea of "going to heaven" in order to be with God, not that God would come and stay with us.  And yet, here it is, right out of Jesus' mouth: he's coming to stay at your place... and he's bringing his Dad, too.

So much of the way Christianity has been packaged and marketed (I'm sorry to use those words, but that's how we've treated it) is to sell the gospel as a "ticket to heaven," as though the primary promise of Jesus is that after we die he will take us Somewhere Else to be with God.  But Jesus himself in John's Gospel doesn't seem satisfied with only a post-mortem relocation project for us.  He is insistent that even here and now, he is here among us, and that both he and the Father are making their home where we are.  Yeah--right in the messy kitchens, cluttered floors, disheveled bedrooms, and blanket-strewn sofas of your house and mine.  And God doesn't seem to blush at the idea of crashing at your place or mine.  Jesus seems to think this is the most natural thing in the world to expect from a God who loves us with reckless abandon.

To be honest, I think a lot of folks who seem uninterested in Christianity have been soured on the Gospel because somewhere along the way, someone framed it for them only in terms of what happens after death.  I remember years ago, there was a billboard on the road I took to our church body's synod office, proudly declaring that "Jesus is your ticket to heaven" and that you didn't want to die without him, or else you wouldn't get into the club.  And again, while it's true that Jesus does promise his followers that we'll be welcome to move into his "Father's house" where there are many rooms, Jesus has also been clear that he has more in mind than just waiting for us to die so he can scoop us up.  

I think we are so used to the idea that the gospel is only about us going "up to heaven" because we imagine that God is too holy to reside among us here in the nastiness, sinfulness, and crookedness of where we live.  We assume God can't--or won't--come and crash on our sofas because it is not a respectable place for a deity to be. We figure that God should be, you know, somewhere full of golden light and angelic choirs, rather than the dismal greys of our November skies and the loud sound of talking heads on TV shouting at each other in shirts and ties.  

Or maybe we squirm over the idea of Jesus crashing at our place because it seems to make him so... helpless... so needy.  And we don't like the idea of a God who chooses to come as the vulnerable one seeking shelter, or the one asking for a room for the night.  We have a hard time admitting that God often chooses to appear as the one at the door dependent, as the old movie line goes, "on the kindness of strangers."  But that is exactly how Jesus talks here, isn't it?  God isn't just the dignified host, opening the doors of heaven to us... but God is the guest who shows up at your door asking to sleep on the couch.  God is the friend who comes over to stay with you in order to be with you for whatever challenge you are dealing with.  God is the one who comes over to your house in order to drive you to the hospital for your surgery, or who sits at your side to wait with you for the terrible phone call you are expecting.  

We have a way of picturing God as the gatekeeper, stopping us at some heavenly checkpoint to see if we have merited a spot inside the Heavenly Country by carrying our Jesus paperwork.  But here Jesus turns it all around and says that he and the Father are crashing at your place tonight.  

What will that do to your way of seeing the world today? What will that do to the way you see your life, your house, and the path you take today?  These are the places where God chooses to be found.  Jesus says he's coming to make his home with you today, to face the struggles of this life with you and me here and now. 

We better get our futons ready, I guess.

Lord Jesus, come and dwell with us.  Make your home among us, and make us no longer afraid to let you into this mess of our daily lives.

Believing and Knowing--November 13, 2019

Believing and Knowing--November 13, 2019

"God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them." [1 John 4:15-16]

Being loved is a funny thing, isn't it? Sometimes it is the surest thing in the world, the kind of thing you know with utter and unflinching certainty deep in your bones, that you are loved by someone else (or Someone else, as the case may be). And sometimes it is an act of faith to trust that you really are beloved. It may not feel like it for a time--or at least the reminders and signs may not feel as clear--and yet you trust, whether you've got butterflies in your stomach over it or not, or have that giddy high of knowing you matter to someone else, that you are indeed loved. So if someone asked us, "Do you know you are loved, or do you believe you are loved, which is it?" we would probably have to say, if were seeking to be honest, "It's both."

There's a well-worn old story/joke about a long-married couple in which the wife asks her husband of many years, "How come you never tell me you love me anymore?" And the husband says back to her, "Honey, I told you back on our wedding day that I loved you. I'll let you know if there are any changes." It's a caricature of what happens in marriages, of course, so it's a bit of an exaggeration, but there it is pretty clear that it can be very much an act of faith to trust that you are still loved if the other person hasn't made it clear to you for a while.

Or, it might not be that the one who loves is at fault, or not doing "enough." Sometimes you just go through a grey period where the routines and frustrations of life just cloud out the feeling of being loved, and you just still rely on trust that you really are loved, even if the other things in the day stifle the warm and fuzzy emotion of it. But whatever the reasons and whatever the complicating factors, it really can be an act of faith to be loved--it is an act of trusting that, even if you don't particularly feel loved or lovely or worthy of it, you really are loved. On the days when the fleeting feeling of it isn't there, we trust the promises made to us. We trust that people mean it when they say it to us that we are loved. We trust that their past actions of care and concern still have force and still carry their weight. Maybe not with quite the extreme of the married couple in the joke, but we really do lean on the words of the past and the track record others have established with us and we trust that it stays the same, even if we haven't heard it or don't feel it on a particular day. Those are just part of the slings and arrows of human connections--with dear friends, with spouses, with children and parents, it is just the way it is that sometimes we know with a certainty reinforced by our emotions that we are loved, and sometimes we take it on faith.

John says the same about us and God as well. We "know" and we "believe" that God loves us. And maybe it is very similar to how we deal with being loved by other people in our lives, too. There are some days when we cannot help but know that we are awash in the deep love of God, days when we find ourselves brimming with a confidence that God is good and God is being faithful to us. They may or may not be the days when things are going well or easily, too. We might be certain of God's love on the day when the kids are well behaved and the sun is shining, but we might also have an overriding peace that assures us of God's love in the midst of crisis, and our ability to keep an even keel when it feels like everything is shifting underneath us can be a way of knowing we are loved by God. So yes, there are some times when we know we are loved, and we can point to a long list of blessings received and hope in our spirits that confirms it. There are times, in other words, where our experience, our feelings, and our situation would all reinforce for us the assurance that we are loved by God.

And then there are days when we take it on faith. There are days when it feels like we pray against a closed sky, like we are uncertain whether we are being heard, like the news of God's love for us even with all our failures, sins, and disappointments sounds too good to be true. There are days when the whole promise of Christianity--of a God who dies on a cross for us and with us and rises from the dead to give us life, all out of divine love--sounds like maybe it is too far-fetched to be anything more than a fable or wishful thinking. There are days, and maybe they often coincide with the days we have trouble knowing we are loved by others, too, when a lot of things seem to cloud out the light we were basking in the day before, and we don't feel very loved by God. People can argue with us until we are blue in the face and insist that we are, but on some of those days, we just don't feel it. And so it is hard to say we know it.

John, however, reminds us that on those days, we trust in and have come to believe it anyway. We dare to trust the promise that God abides with us--that Christ is here among us now--even when can't sense it like a warm and fuzzy feeling. We lean on the witness of other people around us who will tell us that the love of God is real and not too good to be true. We lean on the faith of others and trust that God's promises hold water even if our emotions at the moment don't line up with that truth. We trust that we are loved even when we don't feel it, because we have come to know that love and being loved are much more than flighty, fleeting emotions--love is the commitment to give oneself away regardless of how you feel about it at the moment, and indeed precisely when it doesn't feel very good or even downright hurts, to do that kind of giving. And so we trust that even when we don't feel it or want to see the evidence around us, we really are loved by God after all. We believe it and can know it on those days because we look to Jesus, John says. We look to the lengths God has gone through to be with us and to rescue us, and we lean on that story. We let others tell us, "Someone who dies on a cross for you doesn't hate you--you are beloved!" And we dare to believe it, leaning on God's past faithfulness and trusting that it carries us through this day, too.

Lord God, let us know you love us. And with such assurance, send us out to be bearers of your love for everyone else who crosses our path today. We pray it in the name of Jesus, who is our living reminder of your love, and whose story anchors us when we cannot trust our own emotions.